junior-bonner

Yet another so-called prestige documentary that buries its mission of serious intent under tedious, repetitive scenes of mood-setting and music cues that are designed to convey mystery and portent, but are really a signal that the filmmakers are stretching their 20 minutes of subject matter into a feature-length running time. This film is made almost exclusively with filler, but don't point this out to the documentary intelligentsia. They will merely accuse you of being too stupid to get it. As a documentary filmmaker myself, scratching out an existence on the fringes of the industry, I am so tired of these types of docs, made by a committee top heavy with executive producers (look at the IMDB credit list!).

A strange and engrossing mindbender of a film. Beautifully shot in the Pacific Northwest, and edited with the kind of weird touches you'd expect in a David Lynch film, Skagit is a unique indie from a writer-director with a strong visual sense and something to say. You have to be willing to give yourself over to the trippy, unexplained narrative, and not expect all of your questions to be answered. Wonderful audio design and a great soundtrack of under-the-radar music cues. Think of Tarkovsky's "Stalker" meets "Twin Peaks". If you fancy yourself an independent film director, why not make a film that doesn't feel like every other film out there?

I'd never heard of Glenn Powell before this film and I must say he was charming, handsome, likeable, confident, funny, and a true star. There are maybe three other male actors right now in this category: George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt. Powell makes this movie work, his easygoing affability papers over the movie's contrivances and wobbly morality, and distracts from Linklater's bland, almost TV-movie like set-ups and blocking. Linklater's best films-Slacker, the Before Trilogy, Boyhood-present a consistent visual style, but most of his work is interchangeable with any number of directors-for-hire.