The Arctic Circle Review

Desire is a fundamental part of any filmmakers’ journey. Many would say that if you do not have a burning desire to be creative and make interesting film entertainment content then you probably do not have what it takes to compete with filmmakers today and should probably do something else. As with most business, the cream rises to the top and it is usually the ones who fight for it that end up getting what they want and achieving their goals. As a writer and a filmmaker myself, I understand that desire. Most people who know me would call me ambitious. But there is a downside to the desire to be a filmmaker and it may not be what you assume. Newer filmmakers today have a tendency to spell things out for the audience or hold things back. It really does not matter what types of genre you look at, they generally do one or the other. Spelling things out is bad because it makes the audience think that the film makers did not think they were smart enough to understand what was going on without every detail told to them.

Holding too much back can also be bad because it will make the audience think there should have been more to the story and the filmmaker just is not very good at telling a story. Neither could be entirely accurate, however in the world of film entertainment perception is reality. What people think you are doing is what people will assume you are doing and that can be bad if what you are doing makes the audience feel one of those two things. The Arctic Circle in a lot of ways suffers from both of these things at various points in the film, partly because it does one and then the other.

At the beginning of this film there is a clear attempt to explain the story as it goes along despite it being a film without dialogue. As a result when the film stops doing that later in the short it becomes somewhat disconcerting and you are left wondering why it did not continue. Still, one of the benefits of doing a film that is entirely silent, animated or not, is that most of the action and story happens visually. Even though it switches gears halfway through it still manages to tell a very simple and honest story about the reality of the world.

It is still worth watching. Check it out below or at Film Annex.

Chemerical Review

A lot of debate goes into what we do these days as a society. What we want to do and what's good for us. One of the biggest debates that goes on is the question of natural products versus chemical based products. Whether it's the food we eat or the cleaning and beauty products we use, there's a big question out there with regards to what the right way to do it is. Testing on animals has been a common practice over the years but a serious move has been made towards trying to reduce or eliminate this type of testing wherever possible. But that doesn't make the products themselves any safer for us. There's always the chance that what we put on our bodies or what we use to clean our homes can be harmful to us and the people around us. Which has triggered the rise of all natural products in the market place and a desire to eliminate products with harmful chemicals from our lives. Some contend that the all natural route is just another market for people push and make money off of, while others have fully embraced this type of product and swear by it to everyone they meet.

So what is it? Is it a cash grab or does it actually have beneficial effects on individuals who use them? Andrew Nisker attempts to answer that question in his documentary film Chemerical, and the results may surprise you. In a documentary tradition similar to Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me and 30 Days, Nisker challenges a family to try and live chemical free for 90 days. Can they live without the products they use to keep their house clean and use more healthy products instead on an average family's budget? Or will the family implode from internal drama caused by the change? One of the most interesting aspects of the film is its ability to switch between the real life situation the family is living through and the quirky, cute and sometimes funny animated commercials that are intercut between them to inform people about the potential benefits of making the type of change the Goode family goes through. Whether or not that's a truly positive change is something that individuals will have to decide for themselves if they want to take up the challenge.

But I think that the film does a good job of both entertaining and informing any audience who might see it about what is increasingly becoming a serious problem in society. It's definitely a film that the average movie goer might enjoy and be amazed by, but I would say that on some level it is definitely aimed at the people who are environmentally conscious and concerned about the footprint they are leaving but aren't quite sure how to go about changing it. Good choices are often hard to make, but one good choice would be to see this film.


You can check it out on Amazon, Vudu, and Youtube which you can also see below:

The Beast Within Review

People have a strange relationship with animals. From the time we learned to tell ourselves apart from them we have held the idea that we live to control them. Our intelligence gives us the right to view them as lesser beings put here for our use. Yet at the same time we view them as our friends, as a companion through life that can bring comfort to us in our lonely journey through life. It's a strange contradiction in viewpoints that for many people seems perfectly logical and rational. You can argue the logic and rationality of looking at the world this way but in a lot of cases you can't argue with the results. One such result is the idea that we view them in human terms. We attach thoughts and emotions to them which they may or may not have depending on which animal you talk about and how much we know about them from a scientific perspective. This can lead to great compassion for animals, but it can also lead down some unfortunate paths. At the heart of The Beast Within, is an examination of some of those unfortunate paths. Trying to come to terms with the tragic circumstances it creates.

As much as we attach our own emotions and thoughts to animals, we also attach some basic principals of the animal world to ourselves. Chief among them is the survival of the fittest mentality. The idea that all animals fight for their survival and it's a natural process of nature to let the strong win and the weak die. When applied to other humans we often see disastrous results, but when applied to animals along with our own emotions and thoughts something even more tragic occurs. We get things like dog fights and cock fights and those who participate often see it as just as natural as anything else. Despite a drive and a focused effort by many to dispel these ideas through laws and other means it persists, people just figure out smarter ways to have them without getting in trouble with the law. So we continue to fight against it. Like many of our ancestors fought wooly mammoths and other predators to protect their families and the communities they were building, we fight against that dark part of ourselves which needs to be vanquished.

We fight against The Beast Within. If you've ever had a problem in your life, something or someone that you needed to fight against to prove yourself and your worth, this is the film to see. It's at times both a condemnation and a celebration of that struggle, and despite being at times a hard thing to watch if you've ever had a pet, but you will come away feeling better for having taken the journey. This isn't a film I would recommend for parents to show their young kids, but I definitely think it's one worth showing to a teenager or young adult who needs a good perspective on the issues they will face in their lives. It's definitely worth the watch.

It is available on iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, and Youtube. You can also stream or download it here:

Accordion Tribe Review

What do you think of when I say the word orchestra? I'm guessing that most people think of the instruments like the violin, the flute or the piano. Either that or the music of Beethoven, Bach and the endless array of beautiful classical tunes that are out there for everyone to enjoy. What do you think of when I say the word band? More than likely you think of your favourite band of the moment or all time. Groups like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones or modern bands like The Killers or Maroon 5. I would be willing to bet that most people when they hear either of these words never go directly to the word accordion. It's not generally thought of in either context. When you hear it generally you think of gypsies or a strange guy on the street doing a one man band with a monkey on his shoulder. You don't generally think of them in the sense of a group that tours around Europe playing in music halls and other venues to large audiences.

And yet there's The Accordion Tribe, an unusual group of musicians playing an unusual instrument. Each of these members, whether they are from Eastern Europe or New York or some place in between, have found a common truth in the accordion. They all love to play it and they all believe in the music they are playing. An instrument which is not quite classical but not quite modern. It occupies this weird in between place that no one really talks about but everyone knows exists. Bring five of them together and you have a group that's making beautiful music. You wouldn't think that there would be much range in an instrument which compared to a full orchestra or a computerized synthesizer doesn't seem to have what it takes. But listen to this group play together and you can't help but marvel at the melodies and compositions that come out of the group. From the style and the range of music they can play, their relationships with each other, much like their music, flows along and works in concert with each other to the point where you're never entirely bored.

The film, thankfully, is very much the same way. Each member of the group is given equal time and equal consideration to tell the story they want to tell about where and how they came to play the accordion and the group that is featured within it but you never get too much of either one to feel like it drags on in any serious way. Weaving back and forth between them you get a sense of what it is that drives them and how they make it work with each other. Music is a beautiful thing, and so is this film which at times plays like a song itself. Anyone who wants to see a fresh take on a new instrument, and a fresh look at a documentary about a music group should check this film out.

You can do that through Amazon, Vudu, Fandor, Youtube, and iTunes.

Moon Review: There are many sides to the Moon, which side are you on?

I love actors, no really I do. They have this quality about them that I like. Some might call it an intangible quality, but it’s very easily explainable. As a writer, it’s my job to create a character’s motivations. To know them inside and out so that I know how they would react in just about every possible situation imaginable. An actor has to find a way to understand those motivations and bring out the emotions they cause. The way I see it, writers and actors go hand in hand. When I see an actor take on a difficult role, it gets very exciting.

This was the case with Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl, Ryan Reynolds in Buried, and most recently Sam Rockwell in Moon. Another film in my long list of movies that I always meant to see but never got around to until now and again things are interesting. Where Moon is different from the previously mentioned films is that it used a visual effect to tell a major part of the story. Mainly that Sam Rockwell played several (two specifically) distinct versions of his character to play off of. This technique is one that is used often these days when dealing with characters who are twins or multiple characters.

The first time I remember this occurring is in The Nutty Professor with Eddie Murphy playing his character’s entire family with various prosthetics, but since then it has been used in movies like The Matrix, The Social Network, as well as TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville and the recently cancelled Ringer. This can be a really effective technique if used in the right way. It can also go horribly wrong if not done properly. Unfortunately I have seen both in the multitude of films and television that I watch.  When it comes to Moon, I think that it is used properly. Through most of the film I had my concerns, but as things progressed I was able to understand why they did it.

And that’s true of things not limited to the use of the doubling visual effect when it comes to this movie. The story centers around the character of Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell), a man on a three year contract to harvest the moon’s resources for clean energy that can be used on Earth. One of the main things that bugged me about the film is the idea of a single person on a moon base. If you’re going to put a mining camp on the moon why have only one person running it? This, along with most of my questions about the film, gets answered by the end and I am left generally satisfied with the story as a whole.

What really hits home for me more than anything though is the performance of Rockwell. He manages to make two versions of himself very much distinct in their mannerisms and approaches to the situations they face that you might almost believe they were entirely different people despite their obvious similarities. The only other character to play off is the full on robotic helper droid GERTY, played through voice work by the great Kevin Spacey. And even there Mr. Spacey is able to bring a certain amount of nuance to an inanimate object that has you questioning the robot’s motives much in the way that you did in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

This movie is a perfect example of how acting can make or break a film. And in the case of Moon, I definitely think it makes the film.

There are many sides to the Moon, which side are you on? I honestly could tell you because they all make such a great case.

Switched at Birth Review: Could you live with being “Switched at Birth”? - TV Reviews, Television, TV, Television Reviews, Movie Reviews, Movies, Film, Film Reviews, Entertainment, Film Entertainment

Quite a few TV shows recently have taken something of a soap opera approach to storytelling when it comes to creating their basis for their ideas. Most notably there are shows like Pretty Little Liars which focuses on the problems you run into while lying coupled with a murder mystery plot, Ringer which was about a twin who took over her sister’s life to escape her own problems, and Switched at Birth, the story of two families who took home each other’s daughters, only to discover the truth almost 16 years later.

This sets up an interesting twist on the concept of family and how it is defined in the modern world that you don’t generally see in a lot of places outside the soap opera genre. How does one define family? Where does the connection between you and the family you were born into begin and where does it end? This idea is taken on in many different genres and stories but it often takes a backseat to the other themes within the shows. It seems to be a foregone conclusion by most storytellers these days that family is what you make it, not what you were born into.

And that’s where this show is different. Switched at Birth takes the concept of how to define family and puts it front and center. From the very beginning, the show focuses on the two young girls who were switched, Bay and Daphne, whose life has been turned upside down by the chance decision of Bay who questioned her place in her own family. After a DNA test reveals the truth about their birth, two families attempt to deal with how their lives are changed.

Everything stems from that one moment and the way in which they deal with the fallout. The families develop all sorts of insecurities and fears because of the new dynamic between all of them. Bay and Daphne start to question who they are and who they want to be and the friends they spend time with, but also who they would be if they hadn’t been switched the way they were. Their parents, Katherine and John Kennish, and Regina Vasquez have to deal with each other and figure out a way to parent their respective children together without crossing any boundaries.

As things progress for the Kennish and Vasquez families, we are introduced to other friends and family members who have their own problems with members of the two families and this helps to broaden the characters and the way they deal with each other. That in and of itself would be enough for most television shows to sustain itself for several years, but Switched at Birth adds another dynamic to the mix which makes it fascinating for me and fans of the show. About half of the characters and some of the cast themselves are hearing impaired or deaf.

Watching the show then becomes even more interesting for someone like me as a writer, because so many of the scenes are told without any audio dialogue. It relies heavily on the actors to show the story and the character’s stress in the moment rather than tell it. They do have subtitles for those of us without a working knowledge of sign language but rarely do they tone things down for people who can’t read them as they go by. I’d also say that I have picked up a sign or two from watching it and I love that they have managed to do that for the hearing and hearing impaired alike. Ultimately they never lose sight of the truth of the show, which is the characters and the question they often ask themselves either figuratively or metaphorically.

Could you live with being Switched at Birth? I probably couldn’t, but I love watching it play out on TV.

Dexter: The ultimate Nature vs. Nurture? - TV Review, Television, Television Review, Movie Reviews, Film Reviews, Dexter, TV Shows, Television Shows, Entertainment

There are some things that are just disturbing to watch. Whether it’s a disturbing image like from news of a tragic event like a shooting or a video set up on YouTube like a recent serial killer did or a more fictional depiction of tragedy like the Saw films, Scream or a television depiction like Law & Order, Bones, or Jersey Shore. However there are some things which are hard to understand why exactly you’re disturbed by them. For me that show is Dexter. You can always look at a show like this and say that what is disturbing about it is the graphic depictions of sex, language and death that are disturbing, and yes it can be tough to watch the way in which people are both killed by the main character and kill other people but often that’s the least of what disturbs me.

What usually bothers me about the show is the way in which the characters evolve over time. Most disturbing of all is Dexter who struggles to deal with who he is versus how he was raised. Each season deals with the reality of his life as both a forensic blood spatter analyst and a serial killer. Living with such a contradiction alone would be difficult enough, but trying to relate to people without revealing this contradiction is even harder for him. He does manage to make some connections to people, though they are pretty basic at first over time they evolve and grow much like Dexter himself. The thing that disturbs me most about Dexter is how much people connect with the character. And not just in the sense of the insane ones who try to reenact or mirror his crimes.

My own connection is quite a strange one. I know what it’s like to feel disconnected from the world and other people, trying to find a way to connect to people when you don’t feel connected to anyone or anything. It’s hard to care about others or have a conversation that you find meaningful when you don’t care about what other people are saying. But you keep trying because you see the people around you talking and caring about each other and you want to understand what they feel like. You want to know so bad that you start to feel something just from that itself.

Ultimately, I think that’s what Dexter is all about, a man trying to connect to others without really knowing how. He tries to connect with his girlfriend, his co-workers as well as his family and friends. Yet no matter how many times he fails he keeps trying, despite the fact that doing so is against his nature. The main reason he fails is because his natural instinct is to shy away from people and do his own thing. But he was taught to spend time with people and to at least appear like everyone else so that he can try to fit in. This creates a tragic battle within the main character that is often played out within the inner monologue/voice over of the episodes and seasons as a whole.

As the seasons progress, he learns how to manage between his nature and the way he was nurtured to embrace in life. Watching him try to live up to both perceptions of himself that he has while dealing with the people around him and keeping them from learning the truth can be both tragic and disturbing at the same time.

So is Dexter the ultimate nature versus nurture? I think it is.

Why did TIFF go younger this year?

Anyone who takes even a basic look at the schedule for TIFF this year will notice a bit of a difference in the type of films which were scheduled to play. In the past you would have seen a focus on independent films and Hollywood films which would focus on a more experienced, filmmaker focused audience. You had films like “The Ides of March”, “The Informant” and “Shame”. This year however you can see more of a skew towards a younger audience with films like “Spring Breakers”, “Dredd 3D”, “On The Road” and even “Much Ado About Nothing”. What’s the significance of such a move? Is there a reason for it? What can be done about it?

The answer to most of those questions is yes, all with the exception the last one. Mainly because I’m not sure they need to do anything about it. Long time patrons of the festival might look at the people involved in this year’s films and say why do we need to appeal to a younger audience? Why do we need films starring Kristen Stewart, Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens? Aren’t they all just attention grabbing Disney stars with no real talent? First and foremost I would say that anyone who insists upon saying such things probably hasn’t taken the time to actually watch any of the work of any such stars and I am a big believer in the idea that you can’t judge a person’s talent if you haven’t taken the time to give it a shot.

I’ve actually seen some of their work, including some of the films I mentioned earlier, and I would say that they have real talent. It’s a little on the rough side in some areas but they aren’t supposed to be seasoned veterans of the craft because they aren’t yet old enough to have put in the kind of time a seasoned veteran would need to appear as such. Plus in looking at some of these films, they may have actually done so. They’ve been given the opportunity in many of these films to stretch their acting muscles and turned in pretty good performances.

Some might say that TIFF has to be careful not to alienate its core audience of filmmakers. But who’s to say they did? “On The Road”, while starring Kristen Stewart, is based on a Jack Kerouac novel. Hardly the tween fluff she is often accused of doing. As I said in my review, Spring Breakers was a film by Harmony Korine maker of such films as “Kids”, not exactly someone known for creating films that teenagers are encouraged to see. In fact Selena Gomez actually encouraged her younger fans not to see it given its more adult content, even as hundreds of younger girls sat in the audience after the screening while she said it. These are not exactly films which betray many of the ideas that TIFF built its reputation on.

Even if it were, why is that so wrong? I’ve said it before and I will say it again, film is not a uniform media. It’s not required to conform to a particular idea of what a good film is or who should be in such films. Some filmmakers and their films may present themselves that way, but that’s only one of many narratives available to creators in the visual arts. The most prominent narrative is that film is a reflection of society, and if TIFF wishes to stay true to that above anything else, then it has to be willing to broaden its appeal to more than just its core audience.

TIFF has to stay relevant to the audiences of today and not all of them are 30+ filmmakers who remember Sylvester Stallone as Rocky instead of The Expendables. At a certain point you have to recognize the bigger audience and figure out if you can appeal to them as much as those you admire.

Why did TIFF go younger this year? I think that much is obvious.

Can "Writers" write from anywhere but the heart?

I have been a long time believer in the idea that a writer that is worth the words they write does so from a place of passion. A place where they care about the material they are creating and the ideas they are talking about through it. But is that actually true? Do you actually have to write with your heart and soul or do you simply get better at it if you do it often enough? Not long ago I watched a speech given by acclaimed TV writer Matt Nix, creator of such TV shows as Burn Notice. In it he looked at the idea of art and how he went about it. He spoke of some of the most common advice that any writer gets when he or she starts out. Primarily, that you should write what you know. Some of the most fundamental things about ourselves that we know is how we feel, how we think and how we act, even if we can’t quite articulate all those things in the moment itself. But is that the same as writing what you know?

Are writing what you know and writing from the heart the same thing? Is it possible to do one or the other, or do we do both at the same time? Watching the new film Writers from Josh Boone, I had to ask myself that question. The film is based on the personal experience of the writer/director himself and I think it really shows in the story being told. Starring Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Connelly as well as younger actors like Lily Collins and Nat Wolff, it’s the story of a family of writers struggling to express themselves to each other after the parents of the family get divorced and the mother has remarried. Thankfully, each of them has writing as a way of coping with their lives. Three of them have taken to writing to express themselves in some way, perhaps not to each other or about each other directly, but to someone.

Each of them writes about the experience of their lives and the way in which it has shaped them and their ideas about the world. To quote from the film, “Writers are the sum of their experiences, go have some”. When a person writes however, they often aren’t talking about the situations themselves. Personal experiences can be used in and modified to fit for a story, but there is usually a deeper truth in the experiences that is at the core of the story being told. Sometimes the meaning is that there is no meaning, but by and large a combination of such experiences overall is about life or love or culture. Rarely is it the case that these ideas aren’t somewhere in the script or book or film.

This film is very much about coming to terms with those experiences, which is what most writers do through their work. A lot of films focus on the ultra dramatic moments in life. The moments in which someone finds out their spouse has been cheating on them, or the moment two people meet and fall in love. “Writers” is very much about the moments in between such events. It’s about that second when you realize “Oh wait, that’s what I learned from that mistake” or “Now I realize that this is how I dealt with it and moved on”. And aren’t those the moments in which you truly understand what was going on with that experience? Those are the times when you feel comfortable enough to write down what it is that happened and how you feel about it now. That’s the point where what you know and what you feel meet, and I think that’s what “Writers” is in fact about.

Can writers write from anywhere but the heart? I think they can, but the heart always has to enter into it somewhere, and watching a film like “Writers” is one of the best ways to explore that about yourself.

Much Ado About Nothing Review: Much Ado, Much Ado, Where For Art Thou Much Ado?

I have to admit, part of me considered doing this entire review in Shakespearean English for added effect. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but there’s a reason why Shakespeare is considered by many to be the greatest wordsmith of all time. He is the most human, human that there is and perhaps that there ever will be and quite frankly as a writer I will never measure up. So I figured I would save myself the incredible embarrassment and do a more traditional review, and I suspect by the end of this review I will be glad that I did.

Anyone who has read my review of The Avengers knows that I am not a diehard Joss Whedon fan. He’s not always perfect and what he does may not always work. However when he does get a chance to do things well there are very few who can measure up in today’s world of film. Shakespeare on the other hand has no equal when it comes to the written word (or spoken word, as his plays would most often be performed live in front of an audience). There’s a reason why some of the biggest actors of note have a Shakespearean theatre background. If you can master Shakespeare, assuming such a thing is even possible in the first place, you can master just about anything that the world of art can throw at you. That doesn’t always mean that you’ll make the best films or you’ll choose the best parts but at the very least you know what it is that you’re doing when you get one.

To put the words of Shakespeare into the hands of a filmmaker like Joss Whedon, a man who regularly invites his actor friends over to his house to act out scenes from The Bard’s work, makes the possibilities endless. Speaking of his house, for those that aren’t aware the film was entirely shot in and around his own house over a 12 day period during a break from his filming of The Avengers. That more than anything very much concerned me, how good could a film like that be given those extreme constraints? It doesn’t matter how good you are as a filmmaker, rushed is rushed and unless you are extremely careful it can come off that way. In all honesty I was very nervous going into that theatre, wondering if I was in for another heap of disappointment.

I could NOT have been more wrong. With Joss Whedon at the helm and a host of actors any semi-fan of his previous work would recognize in a heartbeat, Shakespeare comes alive in a way that simply has not been seen since The Bard himself was walking around. There have been many adaptations of Shakespeare’s work in the last 300 years since then, and even more since the advent of film and television. Few can hold a candle to the film I just witnessed.

Shakespeare had a subtlety of purpose in his words and a thoughtfulness with which he moved from comedy to drama to intrigue and deception. Using The Bard’s original words but setting it in a somewhat modern time with cell phones and the internet, Joss Whedon puts it all right there on the screen for you to watch, and laugh, and cry at with equal measure.

Each of the actors involved in this film are so perfectly suited for the roles which they play that they jump right off the screen at you. He plays the actors off the long time fans like nobody’s business. Anyone who has seen all or part of his other works will love the fact that he put the characters in the roles they have in the film and I suspect the diehard fans will feel incredibly vindicated in a number of ways, although because it’s Shakespeare you don’t have to be a fan of Joss’ work to understand the chemistry between them.

And then, Nathan Fillion happened.

None of these actors are better suited for their roles then Nathan Fillion as Dogberry. Every moment that man is on screen you can’t help but smile. Every time his character opens his mouth and speaks you’re forced to laugh. No matter how many times Tom Lenk as his partner Verges threatens to steal the scene from Nathan, and he very nearly does throughout the film, Nathan slaps him down with another fantastic moment... metaphorically speaking of course.

The title I used for this review is a reference to a sense of longing which I feel after having seen this film, much like the character I am paraphrasing, a longing for the fact that I can’t go somewhere and watch this film right away again. It’s been a long time since I have had that feeling about a Joss Whedon film, or any film for that matter, and it’s great to know what that’s like again.

Thank you Joss for a masterpiece of film that as far as I am concerned should be taught in schools as an introduction to Shakespeare. Once a year Joss should take some time out of his schedule to adapt one of Shakespeare's plays and premiere it somewhere (hopefully at TIFF again for everyone to see).

It seems only fitting that I leave you with...

Much Ado, Much Ado, Wherefore Art Thou Much Ado? Everywhere and nowhere... a pox on those who do not see it, a curse on he who speaks ill of it, may the wrath of Joss Whedon and William Shakespeare be visited on those that do both.

Can a family survive the story of Ginger and Rosa?

Family, it can be a bit of a strange thing to deal with. On the one hand they can be the best people to turn to when life gets you down sometimes. That blood relationship is a powerful one and it can be a great comfort in times of horrible stress. However I don’t think anyone would disagree with me if I said that they can also be the source of that stress at times as well. For Ginger and Rosa, family is something of a combination of both in their lives. Against the backdrop of 1960s London England, they don’t have the most traditional kind of family, or at least not by any standards that would have come before such a time in society. Nowadays this type of family dynamic is somewhat common place and as a result there are quite a number of parallels and metaphors to be drawn about today’s world through this look into the past of any uncertain family.

Ultimately, the film is focused on the story of our main characters, Ginger and Rosa. Two young girls who grow up almost like sisters. After all, the film begins with the birth of these girls. Their mothers (played brilliantly by Christina Hendricks and Jodhi May respectively) lying together in the same room as they seem to be in labor at the same time, friends seemingly united against all the odds in a world that is rapidly changing after the devastation and pain of the Second World War. It seems only natural then, that their daughters (played by the young and incredibly talented Elle Fanning and Alice Englert) would grow up united by a common truth and a common pain that through the 1960s, a time of turbulence and upheaval, at least they have each other

Or do they? Sisterhood is not without its difficulties. Particularly as you grow up and you experience new things, the bonds which held you through your childhood become harder to hold onto. These are the types of things that Ginger and Rosa struggle to figure out as time goes by in the film, and this of course is set against the struggles of a world in which the very real truth of ultimate annihilation by nuclear destruction becomes a true possibility. It’s a difficult thing to watch, not because there’s anything in the film that’s particularly gruesome or violent, but because you can see the cracks start to form in these relationships as the story moves along and part of you wishes that you could do something to stop it.

In today’s modern world, these cracks in our family are something that all of us have had to deal with at some point or another. What’s interesting is that, much like Ginger and Rosa and their families, it’s often much easier to see the cracks in someone else when you’re not involved then it is to see your own. As the audience we understand what it is that they are facing and how they could stop it if they only tried to deal with their problems, but in the 1960s it was harder to do that. For all the talk of that time and the repeated insistence of freedom and personal conviction, these guiding principles can also be the thing that tears Ginger and Rosa’s families apart.

Can a family survive the story of Ginger and Rosa? You’ll have to buy a ticket and see, but I have no doubt it will be worth it.

Should Kevin Bacon’s new show find a Following?

“The FBI estimates that there are up to 300 serial killers operating on any given day in the United States alone.”

A phrase that has often been uttered in TV shows of a crime drama nature when faced with the more disturbing cases of that show, most often involving serial killers. By any means a staggering and disturbing statistic that highlights many other aspects of the world we live in today. One such aspect is the way in which many people develop an affinity for serial killers and the work they do, whether it’s copycat killers who try to emulate them, or the serial killer groupies who flock to such men (because by and large serial murder is committed by men), or just those who collect details about them out of some twisted affinity for the morbid or obscene. The Following, a new show that I had the fortune to see at a recent screening held at FanExpo, attempts to bring many of these tragic elements together to form a story worth telling.

There are a lot of things about this story that are interesting because of it. You have the tragic hero with the checkered past, the young upstart who wants to believe they know everything, and the driven professional who wants to believe that having a plan will result in everything working out. Where the story differs from a lot of what has been seen before is that at the center of what will most likely be driving the force behind the story is a serial killer who has managed to develop quite a fan base.

In a world that has become increasingly fan focused, it’s a worthy question to ask what if the person you’re a fan of isn’t so nice? What if what you’re doing to impress them isn’t a good thing? Are you still a fan or are you something worse? Are you just obsessive? To some extent I think that The Following is attempting to answer that question. The question of how far it is okay to go for what you love. However I think it also has another interesting element to it that at the very least as a writer I am very interested to see. One of the major hooks of the show seems to be that both main characters are writers, and part of the shorthand that is established in the beginning is the idea of storytelling as a metaphor for life.

The struggle, the heartbreak, the moral of the story, these appear to be one of the backdrops on which many of the future episodes will be based and it has certainly peaked my interest. Anyone who knows me is aware of how much I believe in the way that art imitates life and the importance of understanding and learning about the ideas and principals behind those stories. The Following appears to try to blend all of these elements together and at the very least I think it’s clear that the creator, Kevin Williamson, has a very clear understanding of that that is trying to be blended, which is interesting because I haven’t always felt that way about his work.

He can be somewhat hit and miss with the stories he is trying to tell, from his hits like Scream and Dawson’s Creek, to his stumbles like The Vampire Diaries which stumbled out of the gate before finding sure footing and The Secret Circle which never did. Taking a look at what he has done with The Following so far, I feel pretty confident in saying that he has the potential to make this one for the hit column.  And so...

Should Kevin Bacon’s new show find a Following? I think it should, but only time will tell if it will be a good following or a bad following.