Movies: Buzz Worthy or Buzzer?
- - - - - - - - - - -
ENID, OK - We will review many of the top movies being released today. Our goal is to let you know whether a new release is worth the "Buzz" or needs to get hit with the "Buzzer." We will rate each film on a scale of 1-5 Buzz's. If a film only gets 1 Buzz, it's a "Buzzer" and you should avoid it like a zombie neck licking contest. Enjoy the show!
-
You can search for other movie reviews by just typing movie review in the search feature in the right sidebar.
- - - - - - - - - - -
-
Movie Reviews: The Lighthouse
by Jeff Owens
-
Film critics will study The Lighthouse to glean different meanings from it. Casual moviegoers will scratch their heads to understand it. I’m going to take a different approach. It might be lazy, but it makes sense to me… simply accept it at face value. Maybe there is no deeper meaning. Maybe there is nothing to understand. Maybe it’s just a movie about two men going crazy when faced with isolation.
-
From that lens, The Lighthouse is pretty spectacular. The black and white photography is gorgeous. The unique 1.19:1 aspect ratio (square) is suitably claustrophobic. The acting by Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe is terrific. The pace is that of a slow burn that escalates into pure insanity. The sound design is brilliant. I can find no flaws in the presentation.
-
The script accommodates the mood. Through my lens, though, that’s an irrelevant point. There’s sound logic in bringing Ephraim Winslow (Pattinson) and Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) to a remote New England island in what IMDb tells me is the 1890s. Wake operates the light during the night; Winslow does all the dirty work necessary to maintain it during the day. With the basic setup, anything can happen.
-
Logic need not apply. When you’re losing your sanity, who’s to say what doesn’t make sense? If you have visions of mermaids and monsters, speak with different accents, and change names throughout the movie, there are no rules to say what’s right or wrong. In other words, you can lose control of the story and don’t have to justify your creative decisions.
-
I don’t think writers Max Eggers and Robert Eggers and director Robert Eggers (The Witch) do lose control, though. I think they know exactly what they’re doing. The movie itself goes a little crazy as it progresses, but feels expertly calculated. Although I’m taking a potentially lazy way of evaluating it, I’m not suggesting that they were in any way lazy when making it.
-
Because of the huge splash The Witch made four years ago (wow, it’s been four years already), everyone is going to want to know how The Lighthouse compares. I’ll say that it’s probably what you’d expect as far as technical brilliance, but not what you’d expect as far as the story. The Witch was linear storytelling; The Lighthouse isn’t exactly linear… or is it? It’s more ambiguous than that.
-
The big difference, though, is the punch. Love it or hate it, The Witch had a definitive ending. The Lighthouse does not. It doesn’t tell you exactly what happened. That’s my only disappointment with the experience I had when watching it… I waited the entire movie for a twist. I couldn’t wait to see what story development was going to throw everything I’d seen on its head. It never came.
-
My ultimate responsibility is to tell you whether or not I recommend you see The Lighthouse. In a way, it’s a movie for all kinds of people. If you want to dissect it and find meaning, have at it. Or, if you want to sit back and let the mood and atmosphere wash over you, do like I did. What I cannot say is that you’ll enjoy it, which ever way you go. That doesn’t mean you won't appreciate it.
-
Buzz Score:
The Lighthouse = 4 out of 5
- - - - - - - - - - -
[styled_box title="Movie Buzz Guy" color="black"]
Jeff Owens
Jeff, a graduate of Enid High School. He is also the Movie Buzz Guy for Enid Buzz and a member of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle. Email Jeff Here or follow his Twitter Page.
[/styled_box]
-
See The Latest Movie Releases and Top Movies Here.
-
-
