Blu-ray Review: Fruitvale Station (2013)

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The pop culture mantra to take life one day at a time provides both the framework and the thesis of filmmaker Ryan Coogler’s deeply felt feature debut Fruitvale Station, which nonetheless winds up getting smashed to pieces in its arresting eighty-five minute running time.

In Fruitvale, Coogler takes a docudrama/neorealist approach to tell the fact-based tale of twenty-two year old California father who was gunned down in a gross miscarriage of justice under heightened circumstances in the wee small hours of New Year’s Eve 2009 morning by a flustered BART officer running on adrenaline and fear.

And although it opens with the horrific cell phone video documented footage of the actual shooting, Coogler has much more on his mind than that one awful snapshot that ushered in the end of a man’s life.

Instead of dwelling on the senseless nature of Oscar Grant’s death and the questionable handling of events that would follow in the upsetting judicial aftermath of an obvious case of racial profiling (made that much timelier in its theatrical release which coincided with the Trayvon Martin verdict), Coogler sets the clock back twenty-four hours to show what a difference a day makes.

A beautiful thought-provoking work of cinematic portraiture that focuses on the most otherwise mundane, monotonous aspects of life from driving to shopping to haunting effect, Frutivale makes us feel the weight of Grant’s future loss as more than just an anonymous name on the evening news by showing us the amount of love that exists in his large circle of friends and family.

And the multitude of interactions Grant has over the course of a day reveal a number of different sides of the exact same man in a way that’s relatable and authentically true to life as everybody experiences and relates to a person in a slightly different way than anyone else. And this phenomenon (along with many other ones with which we can instinctively identify) are all chronicled in this modern work that recalls Agnes Varda’s French New Wave classic Cleo From 5 to 7.

Managing to transcend what in someone else’s hands could’ve been a far too melancholic and heavy-handed film, Coogler (who also wrote Fruitvale) has achieved an impressive feat by producing a deceptively simplistic yet overwhelmingly powerful film that leaves an even greater impression on viewers after we press eject and have time to reflect on its significance for our lives.

Unwilling to emphasize the tragedy, Frutivale Station’s celebration of life serves as a lesson to all of us to cherish the here and now that’s so naturalistic that we’re not even aware of its power in a way that flies in the face of The Butler style pomp and circumstance filmmaking.

Challenging the idea that we must wait a full day or even – as the film would ironically hinge the most fateful changes on – a New Year to change our life, over the course of a long day, Oscar proves that we can always venture down a new path to start a new journey by any number of choices we make.

Whether it’s opting to help a complete stranger embark on a culinary adventure by phoning his grandmother to offer them advice to letting the lessons of past mistakes finally sink in to keep from selling a bag of weed despite financial obligations, Oscar finds himself tested on a number of levels during the course of a very important day.

Not content to only frame the events via a Cassavetes style depiction of American Neorealism –some artistic liberties are taken to uplift the film from its docudrama approach and lend a sense of poetry to the proceedings. This stylistic balance is best epitomized by a moving scene where Oscar comforts a stray dog before and after he’s hit by a car, which helps add an even greater existential weight to Oscar’s eventual fate.

And while admittedly it’s slightly on-the-nose in its narrative convenience, Coogler doesn’t allow himself to punctuate that moment longer than he needs to in order to drive the messy, beautiful irony of it home before quickly moving back (along with Oscar) to the tasks that remain in his busy day.

To his great credit, every moment of onscreen peace feels earned as – true to life – Grant is a man juggling many responsibilities and relationships at any given moment including his undeniably loving yet slightly strained relationship with the mother of his bright, four year old daughter.

And matching actor Michael B. Jordan’s charismatic chameleon-like turn in the lead role as a man who goes from charming to conflicted at a moment’s notice is the always wondrous indie film MVP Melonie Diaz as his true love Sophina.

Though the chemistry of the two leads sizzles from their first shared screen, in reality we’re quick to discover that the couple they’re portraying have hit a slight rough patch that comes to a head over the course of the film.

Understandably enchanted by his magnetism, Sophina finds her heart pulled in several directions during the exact same day – having a hard time fully trusting Oscar not only because he has a habit of only telling her what he needs to when he needs to do so but also because he’d cheated on her offscreen before the film’s events took place.

Moving a year back in time when Grant was in jail to show us how much has changed (and how some of the repercussions of his old life have yet to go away), we witness a heartbreaking visit from his beloved mom (Octavia Spencer) that have challenged him to go straight and set him on the path we find him on today.

Masterful in his presentation of the two separate days and the way that the concept of time becomes in Coogler’s hands as fluid as the ocean Grant parks by in an important scene, one of Fruitvale’s most impressive achievements is in the way that lines and moments in that particular flashback echo and reverberate in a multitude of ways the closer we get to its stunning final scenes.

Produced by Forest Whitaker (whose own loosely biographical starring role in Lee Daniels’ The Butler shares a street date with this superlative release), although Fruitvale is succinct, not a single frame is wasted in Coogler’s auspicious feature filmmaking debut.

Through its devotion to honoring the last day in the life of Oscar Grant, Fruitvale Station acts as a mirror for the audience, forcing us to check any stereotypes or preconceptions at the door. Likewise, in its summation that no one is one thing to all people, Fruitvale also makes it clear that we could just as easily be any person in the film if we’d been born at a different time or a different place.

Arguing that we have a far greater capacity for goodness than evil and the gift of humanity lies in our ability to choose good over evil countless times in any given day (as opposed to one day at a time), Coogler takes what could’ve been a straightforward moral lesson movie and presents these ideas with a fresh urgency that makes us feel like we’ve never heard them before.

Instead of watching this as a film that asks us to hold events therein at arm’s length, Fruitvale Station brings you aboard and includes you in each life-like frame for the good times and the bad.

Transferred with breathtaking clarity in this 1080p high definition Blu-ray, Fruitvale Station’s award-season timed release boasts behind-the-scenes featurettes, interviews and two additional formats (including DVD and Ultraviolet HD) that fittingly make Coogler’s Sundance and Cannes Film Festival award-winner viewable on the same handheld devices that captured the beginning of Oscar Grant’s untimely end.

A vital work that celebrates not only his life but the existence of life in general that’s sure to inspire you to put your arms around those you love, Fruitvale Station is the definition of must-see movie-making and one of the very finest films of 2013.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: American Son (2008)

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One came home hungry and one came home wanting to go to the movies. The first time I saw two cousins separately on leave from the Marines before each one would later be deployed for Iraq, they smiled the same and looked more or less the same but there was an immediacy about their actions and an unmistakable tension that seemed to permeate whenever they entered a room. It was if they felt that the joking over delivered pizza or trying to get the ideal spot at the multiplex would suddenly be interrupted by a superior officer who would arrive ready to pull them back to Camp Pendleton at any moment.

Yet there was also that distinct Marine Corp pride-- the way they carried themselves with the perfect posture whether sitting or standing, the southern/military accent they'd acquired, as well as a sense that they had changed into a soldier. And as a soldier, they could no longer fathom the way civilians went about their lives and understood that civilians couldn't fathom the level of commitment and training that had turned them into "the few" and "the proud" in their daily lives as part of the Corp.

As filmmaker Neil Abramson's Sundance nominated American Son begins, nineteen-year-old Mike Holland was all set to exit the basic training at Pendleton to return to his Bakersfield, CA hometown for a nice four day leave. But when a superior walks in and informs the new young Marines that their deployment date has been moved up and after the 96 hour Thanksgiving break, they'll be shipping out to Iraq by way of Kuwait, Mike struggles to process the orders over an emotionally charged long weekend.

Unable to admit out loud where his post-leave destination will be, Nick Cannon's Mike seems to try and ignore the reality first by flirting with Cristina, a beautiful college student (Be Kind Rewind's Melonie Diaz) who by chance is journeying to the same location by bus. When she guesses that he's a Marine and their awkward but excited banter grows momentarily serious when she discusses a guy from her neighborhood who came back disabled, she senses his unease and says, "but you're not going there" which he never corrects until the 96 hours begin to run out.

For by admitting it out loud, he knows he'll have to admit it to himself and his moment of truth happens differently with various family and friends but most poignantly all alone when he breaks down in his car. Although he tries to fall back into the rhythm of his previous dead end lifestyle with his best friend Jake (Matt O'Leary) who gets his kicks dealing, doping, shooting guns, and picking fights as well as trying briefly to reconnect with his hardworking mother (April Grace), estranged father (Chi McBride), younger sister (Erica Gluck), and stepfather (Tom Sizemore), it doesn't take too long to realize that he'd rather escape into a different life with Cristina.

Spending most of his time with the young woman who becomes his new girlfriend rather than acknowledge that he just doesn't blend into Bakersfield anymore nor wanting to lie to those nearest to him-- Cannon's sensitive yet alternately playful, stern, and believable turn rings of authenticity even when a few plot points fail to do the same.

While a number of critics who screened the work at Sundance called it apolitical-- the subtext is there from the beginning-- and it works most effectively when friends make realistic remarks like joking about smuggling him into Canada if he had to go to Iraq or that they'd that freak out, wondering simply if he can just tell them he doesn't want to go.

On the other hand, addressing the issue bombs when we're hit over the head with it in a scene that wastes the immense talent of actor Jay Hernandez portraying Cristina's neighbor who came back from Iraq minus most of his leg and obviously psychologically damaged. In a scene that would've been perfect with just one shot of his choice t-shirt of "I Went to Iraq and All I Got Was Crippled" and another one when his mother asks Mike if there's another job he could get regardless of his disability, unfortunately it fails when it's dragged out to movie-of-the-week melodramatic effect. However, it's a forgivable misstep since its heart was in the right place in calling attention to the lack of support and help offered to our wounded combat veterans when they return home and there are some other issues of greater concern for the movie's structure.

Since it was filmed in a breakneck 20 day schedule its overall achievement must be commended. Nonetheless, it tries to tell too many stories in its 85 minute running time and thus, American Son is bogged down by some of the antics of the larger-than-life Jake mixed together with a serious lack of information about Mike's elusive junkie brother he tries to track down with his father that maybe would've strengthened it more if the two thematically similar plots were combined into one character or situation.

Obviously the film has the misfortune of bypassing theatres altogether and arriving straight to DVD after the summer has found so many critics and audience members deeply compelled by 2009's pitch perfect on-the-ground Iraq war film The Hurt Locker. Yet to see Nick Cannon's most believable performance so far and for audiences willing to venture past their hesitance to explore movies about wars that are still going on, it's nonetheless a personal and intriguing approach to the subject matter.

And aside from an instantly forgettable title that even found Variety calling it "American Soldier" in the middle of their review, American Son is friendly to all sides as it deals with the war here in the states in a way that greatly differs from other recent and impressive works such as Stop-Loss, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah and Grace is Gone.

Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.

Nothing Like the Holidays (2008)

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Let's face it-- to quote Luis Guzman in Nothing Like the Holidays, classically speaking, holiday movies (most notably Christmas ones) are usually considered "white people s***."

Despite the flood of individuals from around the globe who ventured to the new world either when the Pilgrims crossed via the Mayflower or those whose ancestors braved the crowds of Ellis Island, our diversity as a country is seldom celebrated on film. Although Gurinder Chadha proved that dysfunction can be translated into any language with her underrated Thanksgiving film What's Cooking?, more often than not our holiday movies concern the plights of yuppie WASPS or granola hippies clashing over years of resentment or unrequited love such as evidenced in The Family Stone.

While on the surface, the obvious affection that director Alfredo De Villa (Washington Heights, Adrift in Manhattan) has for his Chicago based tale of a largely Puerto Rican family seems incredibly unique and fresh-- after a good fifteen minutes, it moves directly into Family Stone territory. And the similarity between the films is reaffirmed complete with echoing plot points. Yet Holidays is far more watchable as it provides much more warmth and humor to chill the icier edges of the former mean-spirited comedy.



However, along with the humor and obligatory "let's drink and talk" siblings hang out moments, dance parties, pillow fights, punches, cooking, and major revelations, it adds enough tension and subplots that I'm sure the screenwriters ran out of index cards within minutes... although hopefully they went green and used Final Draft in this process to avoid killing enough trees to fill Wrigley Field.

True to the paradigm, the grown offspring of Anna (Elizabeth Pena) and Edy (Alfred Molina) Rodriguez return home from the holidays one by one. The major and most compelling plot-line that ultimately separates Holidays from other films of its genres concerns the timely addition of a battle scarred Iraqi war veteran Jesse (the terrific Freddy Rodriguez) as he bids farewell to his friends and returns to his boisterous uncle Louis Guzman and best friend Ozzy (Jay Hernandez) to play baseball in the snow before venturing home. It's a unique moment that makes the film feel much more immediate however the crowded plot follows the two other adult siblings as well.

Although she feigns a life of glamor as a Hollywood movie star, with just one look at the beautiful, Tinsletown battle-scarred Roxanna (Vanessa Ferlito) getting out of an airport shuttle van we realize that she's going to be doing her fair share of pretending everything is all right as well. In the obligatory sitcom-like (and extremely Family Stone inspired) drama of the third adult returning to the nest, John Leguizamo dons a posh Wall Street styled wardrobe. As the much-needed yuppie, he journeys to Chicago with his uptight, humorless, white Jewish wife Sarah (Debra Messing) where they barely set three feet inside the door before his mother is demanding to know why they haven't given her any grandchildren.



As soon as we see Sarah struggling to adapt to forced hugs with her tight hair pulled back clothing all buttoned and zipped up to her chin and her Bluetooth earpiece and microphone attached to her ear, we realize that she's going to be the odd one out. But instead of giving Messing the misfortune of putting her through the motions of a really bad Meet the Parents gauntlet of stress, Anna takes the pressure of by announcing around the dinner table in the form of a blunt toast that she wants to divorce her husband of more than thirty years.

Convinced that her husband Edy-- the local bodega owning Don Juan-- and his legendary eye have done more than simply wandered recently, the siblings all adapt to the news in various ways, choosing sides, until they realize that their reaction to the news echoes some of the own attitudes they have about their current situations.



Bolstered by a terrific ensemble cast-- especially as far as Rodriguez and Hernandez are concerned, although the latter actor's storyline was never fully fleshed out enough to really justify the drama involved-- Nothing Like the Holidays begins to feel a bit like an old Christmas fruit cake as it wears on. However, despite its recycled plotlines and easy to predict confrontations, the film's heart is true and it's a refreshingly sincere and earnest addition to the genre.



This is especially obvious when the movie is contrasted with the cynical yet entertaining comedy Four Christmases, which had fun going for laughs by adding the actors to Santa's naughty list via UFC smackdowns with Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon hurling children around as though she were auditioning for Mickey Rourke's part in The Wrestler. Instead of broad humor, De Villa's Holidays aims for the heart. And while it may not provide as many genuine chuckles, Holidays promises that the nourishment value is up by ensuring you'll be served a balanced diet of holiday movies to help make your own family dysfunction much easier to bear by comparison.