Movies

The Revenant

Extremely bleak, exceedingly brutal & exceptionally cold-blooded, The Revenant is that savage beast that charges at you with relentless aggression, mauls you from head to toe without mercy, and leaves you utterly bruised, broken & helpless in the freezing cold of a harsh surrounding. Absolutely uncompromising with its content, unflinchingly raw in its depiction, and pushing its cast & crew to their limit, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s latest is one of the most harrowing films ever made.

While traveling back to their village after an attack on their camp — the attack being of course filmed in grand, sweeping takes by Emmanuel Lubezki who will most likely make history at this year’s Academy Awards — Hugh Glass, an American fur-trapper and frontiersman in the early 1800s, wanders off from the rest of his men and finds himself alone in the woods when he’s brutally ripped to literal-shreds-of-flesh by a grizzly bear in one of the most abrasively horrifying man vs. nature scenes I’ve ever seen in film (best CGI ever?).

His fellow clansmen (including a surprisingly good Will Poulter, a decent Domhnall Gleeson, and a once again brilliant Tom Hardy) quickly find Glass and consider him dead, or if not completely dead then close enough. Their journey continues, but Glass’ ends right there.…Or that’s what was supposed to happen.

What follows is the several-week-long journey of revenge that this broken man takes to hopefully, one day, find his vengeance. And boy does he gets put through it all, let me tell you. (“The Revenant or: And You Thought YOU Had a Bad Week”)

The amount of filmmaking craft that’s present at every second of the film is enough for you to have a sensory overload. Visually you will be stunned at every second. There simply is no weak or lesser shot in the film. In the attack on their land towards the beginning of the film, the camera spins, soars, and creeps across the land in one glorious take as arrows smash into the trunks of trees and tear through the faces of men, all made that much more immersive by the incredible sound design. And as far as production design, it might as well have been filmed in the early 1800s. Stunning doesn’t even begin to describe it.

The development of these multi-faceted characters comes across as factually grounded and believable in the context of the story. Without fail or falter, “The Revenant” beautifully presents to us the complex world we live in today. Every being has a story, everyone has a good side and a bad side. There’s no plain evil just like there’s no plain good (this isn’t Marvel), and subconsciously as an audience, you root for everyone, which makes each bone that’s snapped, arrow shot and bullet fired, that much more painful to endure.

It’s a tough, draining, long ride. It’s a draining, long ride. It’s a long ride. It’s long. But never outdone by its length. I never felt a sense of wandering in the film. besides the brief flashbacks (which didn’t add much to me) everything felt it needed to be in the movie.

On an overall scale, The Revenant is another gritty, unrelenting & audacious piece of filmmaking from Alejandro G. Iñárritu that finds the director in sublime form and also happens to be his most direct & accessible film to date. Definitely not for the easily distressed, this thrilling story of survival & retribution is destined to upset many viewers with its graphic nature of storytelling but for those who can manage to stay on board, it will be rewarding on more levels than one. Marking another artistic high for both Iñárritu & Lubezki and catapulted to a greater level by DiCaprio’s extraordinary performance, The Revenant is the best film of 2015 i’ve seen and certainly one of the proudest in the careers of its cast & crew. Strongly recommended.

Life

Refocusing

I am have been thinking hard about the site lately and some issues started to arise, this blog started to feel like work. That made me sad.

Looking back, I think this came with page views. The minute the numbers started to increase much higher then I ever imagined, I started feeling an odd sense of pressure to keep the views up. The more I dug into the metadata, it was clear that the posts driving the traffic here were the ones that originally I didn’t care to do.

You may think it’s easy to just ignore such a situation. For a writer who’s never been published, I assure you, it’s not. This site’s original intention was geared for me. To reflect mostly, on the past. And I enjoyed it immensely. There are some posts hidden deep down here that truly mean the world to me. I’m not saying their good or grammatically correct, but they’re personally priceless. Also in the earlier days, there weren’t many posts, all long form, all heartfelt (in my opinion). I’m not saying I got away from this, but let me put it another way: My long form writing wasn’t striving in page views.

Nonni’s at 7 as it stood, morphed into a very “formal” site. I didn’t like that feeling. It felt like I was writing in a straight jacket sometimes. Then if I wanted to post a tiny news story about something I felt was cool, that ended up feeling too informal.

Moving forward, that needs to change.

It’s an odd feeling, to have your own site, but feel like the content is controlled by someone else.

So something has to change…

What’s changing:
So today marks a new chapter. A big one! As you may or may not have seen, the site has a new name. (WWW.DDILEO.COM) My name actually. You see, the more I started thinking what I wanted this blog to be. I want this site to be much more personal and to feel like “my” page. And the more I kept thinking about my lack of presence on Facebook. (My feelings on FB are well documented on the site), but somethings are done extremely well over there. For example, keeping loved ones in touch with your life, or just posting tidbits about your life. As it stood, Nonni’s at 7 wouldn’t allow this.

This idea was very appealing to me. Not Facebook, just the idea of small, little updates. In a sense I would love if this site turned into my personal FB-like page. If for no one else, only me. To look back and document times in my families life. Currently this site feels too “important” for such little posts.”

I don’t like that one bit.

You see, I really, really liked the idea of small updates, monthly entries of recapping the previous 30 days, or even little posts throughout the day, like maybe just a picture, etc. It was clear by some of your emails, this wasn’t desirable content. And while I appreciate your input (and there was and is much of it) I feel the need to move in another direction.

But make no mistake about it, I loved writing about my Nonni and there is plenty more where that came from. So if you are on the site, you can look at my menu tabs. One of them is entitled “Nonni’s at 7”. That is where all of Nonni entries will live. Including little pictures and snippets. It is still a huge part of my site and mindset, just not the main part anymore. The main part is focused on Me and my family now.

Things change, people change. Sometimes change is good and sometimes bad. But change shouldn’t be avoided if it fits. To me, all this change is a natural progression for myself, family and the site. I am no longer worried if I lose page views, because the people who matter will be watching for entries.

I really hope you enjoy the new direction of this site, if not, thats ok too. The internet is very big place filled with intellectual writers/thinkers much more capable then me. But as for this site and my time, refocusing was a much needed action.

Personally I am excited for the future, Im excited for life to happen and blog about it. Not to impress people and strive for a new high in page views, but to document all these great moments.

Great moments, that’s what makes life worth writing about.

 

For RSS Subscribers: Simply change your fetch address from http://www.nonnisat7.com to http://www.ddileo.com to continue subscribing.

 

 

Links

Lore

One of my favorite podcasts was featured in The Guardian, an excellent piece on “Lore” from creator Aaron Mahnke. What i’ve come to love about Lore is the fine line Aaron walks between actual history and folklore. All twenty something episodes thus far are equally amazing. If your already into podcasts or are just starting, this is an excellent look into Lore, a fantastic history podcast.

“What I tell people is that Lore isn’t a ‘scary story podcast’, it’s a history podcast, with the material delivered in the oral storytelling tradition,” Mahnke explained. “It’s narrative, but I can’t go beyond the historical details.

Read the whole article.

Movies

The Hateful Eight

I’ve been absent from the film review world as of late. So I figured after seeing QT’s latest this would be as good of a time as any to jump back in. I’m writing this less than 24 hours after viewing The Hateful Eight, so I’m sure my take will change somewhat..

The Hateful Eight is Tarantino’s love letter to himself as much as it is to the western genre. Rather than take a step back to exercise any restraint or nuance, he has blazed forward, continuing on a path escalating the seemingly impossible-to-match absurdities of his prior films. Filled with the usual colorful characters, tight dialogue, and  energetic pacing, the film also exhibits an uncanny self awareness.

Only by the time the film’s mystery unravels itself, is it possible to witness the full extent of this aforementioned self awareness. Tim Roth in a hilarious turn essentially plays Christoph Waltz; The various characters’ colorful dialogue, despite being super entertaining, equates to nothing ultimately, which left me somewhat wanting more out of these colorful fellows.

The film itself, which plays like a re-imagining of John Carpenter’s The Thing set in the dusty Minnie’s Haberdashery in the midst of a blizzard, features a simple premise turned complex by various twists, turns, and subversions. With masterful control of the camera  (as usual) and a brilliant manipulation of the audience’s focus, Tarantino fills the cabin with a tangible sense of paranoia. The characters are sketchy, hiding mixed intentions, secrets, and all a sense of individuality that define them as characters. From this spawns an insatiable tension, one that derives itself heavily on the spontaneity and the aliveness that each character possesses. Each actor gives a convincing performance, bringing their character to life. Walton Goggins as the new sheriff with a dubious past and Jennifer Jason Leigh as the repulsive Daisy Domergue both stand out.

Despite being almost entirely dialogue-driven, it is hard not to be completely enthralled. Occasionally, scenes are filled with raw tension, only to immediately be defused by the film’s great sense of humor. It really is amazing entertainment, enough so for its 3 hour run time and its execution to not feel as indulgent or drawn out as it really is.

An overture immediately captivates, effectively creating an atmosphere well before the producer’s slides get their chance to grace the screen. Initially, the 70mm felt like another unnecessary flourish – even now, it does not resonate as fundamental to the film’s beauty – but it certainly did help. Heavily stylized and, when paired with Enrico Morricone’s orchestral score, The Hateful Eight is a veritable epic, imbued with a sense of grandeur.

Watching the The Hateful Eight something hit me, this wasn’t so much a Tarantino film as much as it was heading in Alfred Hitchcock direction. Of course I say that with only the two thirds finished, but it felt true. Unfortunately (for me) anyone who has seen this can testify on the final third and Tarantino making it his own.

The violence is fairly brutal, even comically outrageous especially when contrasted with the film’s white, snowy backdrop, but still it remains fairly intimate. It’s themes, of trust, of unity, and of dealing with an era’s mixed up political ideals, resonate maybe more now then back when.

Life

Small achievements count too

Today I received notice I passed my Firefighter 2 exam. It dawned on me that this is something I should be proud of. I failed at my first attempt mainly because I have so much going on with Florida and obtaining my certifications there, that I sort of swept this test under the rug and hoped for the best. Well, that didn’t work out too well.

When I found out I failed, I was devastated.  Unfortunately, I put the potential (Jacksonville) in front of the here and now (Waycross). That didn’t sit well with me and sort of acting as a well needed wake up call.

I set out to drive all the way up to the GA Fire Academy and retake the test on my own dime. I studied and the result showed. Nothing magic, just studied hard and trying my best.

I guess I’m writing this as a reminder to myself, while I plan to work hard for my future in firefighting (no matter where I end up), I ought not to lose sight of the present and little achievements. They matter also.

Future advice for my future self: I need growing in the area of taking a step back and enjoy little accomplishments in life. Far too often I lose sight of the little for the big. I would like to work on that in all areas in my life.