Wind River (2017)

Desolate and secluded is what “Wind River” is as a crime thriller for the modern-western push. Taylor Sheridan directed this film with Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen as the two leads. It took forever for me to see this film. First it premiered at Sundance back in January, then had a limited release at the beginning of this month, and only this past weekend did it get its wide release. I was both excited and relieved when it showed up as available on Fandango. I must say the wait was worth it.

Renner plays Cory Lambert, a hunter and tracker on the Wind River reservation in the middle of Wyoming who needs to help rookie FBI agent Jane Banner (Olsen) solve the mystery behind the death of an Indian teenager. From the start I was hooked by the premise and depth of character development from Renner who gave this manly outdoorsman a broken heart. A hunter who wants to do the right thing. It’s surely one of his best performances that shows the type of range he has as an actor.

Olsen too showed me and the audience the strong and vulnerable side of female strength. She is basically a fish out of water who’s taken out of her normal routine and put into a situation that required her to put all of her training to good use. That and having to wear winter boots for the first time in her life. Both Renner and Olsen gave stellar performances that drew them both together in order to survive in the wilderness and to convince us that they can surely act.

My biggest take from this film is that it shows small films can be powerful still in this modern age of grand sci-fi epics. Once in a while, a small budgeted film like this comes around and brings a big gulp of fresh air to my cinema loving lungs. I had that same feeling with “Hell or High Water” (2016), another modern-western written by Sheridan. “Wind River” followed super hero movies such as “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. II”, “Wonder Woman”, and “Spider-Man: Homecoming”. It’s not going to make as much money or become as popular as these. Its storytelling, simple sets, good acting, and use of the terrain and weather brought out the human side of film-making.

Elizabeth Olsen (L) and Jeremy Renner (R) in “Wind River”

Dunkirk (2017)

Christopher Nolan slaps us in the face to wake up at the very first scene of his first war epic with. “Dunkirk” (2017). This film is about 400,000 Allied soldiers who are trapped on the beaches at Dunkirk, France, and need to get off before the Germans annihilate them. It stars Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, and Kenneth Branagh who all play British servicemen who need to defy the odds to survive and get home. They all have different stories to tell and Nolan does it with precision and great attention to detail. He definitely did his research to get all of the details right with this film to get us hooked and involved.

Any director that can successfully mix movie genres and be successful with it deserves the upmost respect in my opinion. Quinten Tarantino did it with “Inglourious Basterds” (2009) by mixing a World War Two movie with a western, and now Nolan mixed a WWII movie with a thriller. He does this by never showing the Germans. We never see their faces, and the only evidence of Germans involved in this battle are the Luftwaffe bombing and mowing them down, and bullets zipping past the protagonists’ heads from the German infantry. Not having any visual of the enemy, but yet they’re still killing you is terrifying!

Some of the most horrifying scenes in this movie doesn’t involve any devilish villains, intense action, or gory images, just some bullet holes and scared faces of British soldiers. That kind of film making and storytelling takes a lot of patience and direction to have it pulled off effectively. It’s a smaller movie with very little dialogue. To be honest, it doesn’t need to be big like other war epics I’ve seen. Nolan did it just right with the cast he had, the budget he had, and the production that he had. He did a lot more with less.

One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard from others who’ve seen this film (my wife included) didn’t like this movie because of lack of character development. You never remember nor do I think hear any of the soldiers names. For me, I never got annoyed with that concept. I argue that you don’t need to know their names. What you do need to know are their faces. It’s their faces you care about throughout this whole event. It’s their eyes that tell their history and their situation. Every time these characters were trapped or struggling to survive, I gripped my chair praying they get out alive. No matter what they did Germans were trying to kill them. Whether it be with rifles, planes, or submarines, the Germans were determined to destroy them.

This isn’t much of a spoiler, but I went into this movie blind, and was surprised that this movie took a non-linear approach to the story. I was confused at first with night and day scenes crossing over with different smaller events going on inside the bigger plot of the evacuation. I finally put two-and-two together when I saw one character in one scene, then at a completely different scene that took place in the past. I loved it! I as the audience was putting all of the pieces of this movie together without the help of subtitles spoon feeding it to me. That’s why I love Nolan films because he knows that the audience is smart enough to get it, and arguably he has the smartest movie fans (me included).

Kenneth Branagh in “Dunkirk”

Spider-Man Homecoming (2017)

This is the third series of movies to focus on Spider-Man directed by Jon Watts. First was Toby Maguire in “Spider-Man” (2002), Andrew Garfield in “The Amazing Spider-Man” (2012), and now we have Tom Holland in “Spider-Man: Homecoming” (2017). I’m happy to say that this film satisfied me tremendously. First with the fresh take on the character by casting a much younger actor who can pull off a teenager very well, and by incorporating him seamlessly into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which started with “Captain America: Civil War” (2016).

He is both innocent and immature, and has superpowers at the same time that makes him a very inexperienced and lovable character to follow. He sees a crime happening, gets involved, and causes more trouble for everyone in the process. If you know Batman, and what he does to criminals in a usual night out in the city, imagine a fifteen-year-old trying to do the same thing just weeks after becoming a superhero with no training. You will laugh until you keel over.

Michael Keaton’s character Vulture is an understandable one and I think to be the best villain in the MCU so far. He’s a guy who was cheated out of his business by Stark Industries and feels justified to turn to a life of crime. He’s not an evil villain. Most villains in superhero movies have been branded as all out evil and psychopathic monsters who don’t care about anything or anyone. That’s not the case with Vulture. He’s not motivated to wipe out an entire race, destroying the planet, or conquering the universe. All he’s accomplishing is earning a living for himself and his family. Keaton is the kind of actor who can show that he’s a down to earth kind of guy that we can all relate to in one way or another.

A new Spider-Man, a new director, a new villain, and a new universe is what this franchise needed to successfully put him back into the highlight of superhero movies. He’s been set into future movies, and doesn’t overpower anybody or anything that would contradict his stay in the MCU. Marvel proved that in Civil War, and Sony and Marvel’s shared Spider-Man has been a benefit for everybody who loves the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Tom Holland in “Spider-Man Homecoming”