The Revenant [2015]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

The Revenant [2015] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Alejandro González Iñárritu [wikip] [IMDb] along with Mark L. Smith [IMDb] based on the novel The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge (2002) [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Michael Punke [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is a stark (and IMHO needlessly long) if often beautifully shot film that tells the story of American mountain man Hugh Glass [wikip] [WCat] [IMDb] (played in the film by Leonardo Di Caprio) who in 1823, while leading a band of fur trappers working for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company "back to civilization" at the end of an already ill fated hunting expedition, was mauled by a grizzly bear near the Yellowstone River that he happened-upon and then was left for dead by his colleagues.

'Cept he did not die ...

... instead, despite terrible wounds -- including deep gashes in his back and then others across his ribs and throat -- he used his wilderness skills to progressively patch himself together and travel, often by foot, often BY CRAWLING, HUNDREDS OF MILES back to Ft. Kiowa, then the nearest American settlement located in present day South Dakota on the Missouri River TO FIND THE MEN -- Bridger (played by Will Poulter), John Fitzgerald (played by Tom Hardy) and Capt. Andrew Henry (played by Domhnahl Gleeson) -- who had abandoned him and (at least in the movie) killed his son (played in the film by Forrest Goodluck).

The story becomes a meditation on justice / revenge.  While struggling back to camp / back to civilization, Glass must figure out -- Readers remember that he was unconscious or at best semi-conscious at the time of his abandonment / apparent murder of his son -- WHO was guilty, TO WHAT EXTENT guilty, and then WHAT WOULD CONSTITUTE JUSTICE, for him, in his circumstances.  And at least in the film, he is warned by a Native American who he encounters on his way back to civilization that "Justice belongs to the Creator" (not unlike St. Paul's admonition that vengeance belongs not to us but to God [cf. Rm 12:19]).

What does Glass in the film do?  What did he actually do (look it up, you have the tools, above)?  What would you do?

Not a bad film, but honestly, probably a bit longer than it needed to be, though the scenery in the film was often spectacular, if also very, very cold.


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The Forest [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C-)  Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Dujsik) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review  

The Forest [2016] (directed by Jason Zada, screenplay by Nick Antosca, Sara Cornwell and Ben Ketai) is rather straight-forward "scary movie" if set largely in a somewhat exotic (for a North American) locale - the Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan. 

The denseness of the often misty Pacific Northwest (think "Twilight")-like rain-forest has made it the locale for "scary story" (tormented / evil spirit ...) type folklore, for ages, in Japan.  More recently, it has gained the reputation in Japan as a common place for suicides.

SOOO ... 20-something, with a fiancé / a good job, super-responsible Sara (played by Natalie Dormer) gets word that her mirror-opposite, far more adventurous / far less responsible twin sister Jess (ALSO played by Natalie Dormer) studying in Japan has become very depressed.  Sensing that "she needs to go ..." ("It's a twins thing ...", she tells her fiancé), Sara drops everything and flies out to Japan to save her sister "before it's too late."

When Sara arrives, she's told that Jess had packed-up her bags in Tokyo a few days earlier and headed over to said Aokigahara Forest which, "could not be good..." So she heads out there as well to "try to find her," again "before it's too ..."

Arriving at the edge of said forest at nightfall, Sara spends the night in a somewhat dour-looking hostel just outside its perimeter (I suppose, the hostel _can't_ look "too cheerful," as most of its clientele would presumably spend the night there before "going out to the forest to ..."  There Sara meets a strapping / smiling 20-something American "adventurous type" named Aiden (played by Taylor Kinney) who tells her he's there "to write a story" about said dour "Forest of Dreadful Things."  He offers to help her find her sister.  He also enlists a local, similarly good looking / smartly dressed, 20-something Japanese guide named Michi (played quite well by Yukuyoshi Ozawa) who IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS _warns them_ "When you go into the forest STAY ON THE PATH or else YOU'LL GET LOST" ...

The three enter the forest.  Sara DOESN'T "stay on the path."  THEY "GET LOST" ... much dour, misty, mystical, and at times "jumpy / scary" ensues ...

ASIDE from the _obvious_ "suicide theme" ... it makes for a "not particularly terrible" teenage angst / "I just want to be there for my friends" jumpy / scary film.  Arguably it's a (small) step up from the typical teenage "troubled mad slasher" fare.

But there is that suicide theme that will trouble quite a few ...


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Taxi Tehran [2014]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Chicago Tribune (4 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub  (B+)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
Cinando.com listing
Sourehcinema.com listing*

Iranian Film Daily (A. Naderzad) review

AVClub.com (A.A. Dowd) review
Chicago Tribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review 

APUM.com (J.J. Ontiveros) review*
FilmPress.sk (V. Langerová) review*
KunstUndFilm.de (R. De Righi) review*
Sight & Sound (T. Johnson) review

Slant Magazine (J. Cole) review
Variety (S. Foundas) review


Taxi Tehran [2015] [IMDb] [Cin] [SC]* (written and directed by Jafar Panahi [wikip] [IMDb] [Cin] [SC]* [Amzn]) is a _necessarily_ very simple, _necessarily_ "indie" [TM] film that won critical acclaim (and awards) the world-over.  [In Chicago, the film played recently at the Gene Siskel Film Center]. This is because the director, officially banned from making films in Iran for 20 years (talk about "a blacklist" ... ;-) has had to "improvise."

Since being "banned" from film-making, he's made three ;-) -- one made, in part, using an iPhone, entitled This is Not a Film (orig. In Film Nist) [2011] [wikip] [IMDb] [Amzn] at his home in Tehran, another entitled Closed Curtain (orig. Pardé) [2013] [wikip] [IMDb] [Amzn-IV] at his vacation home by the Caspian Sea, and this one, made with a couple of strategically placed dashcams and a pretty good microphone, while driving around a taxicab in Tehran ;-).

The film involves basically video-taping a number of (generally staged) "conversations" that the ever smiling driver / director "has" while driving around his taxi on a random day.  None of the other participants / actors in the film are credited (for more-or-less obvious reasons...).

Can one create a compelling story in this way??  SURE ... The first passenger Panahi picks-up is a generally good-natured Tehrani 30-something "good old boy" who just complains that there's "too much crime in Tehran" these days (and one gets the sense would actually_like_ "someone like Panahi" being banned from making films these days ;-).

Then Panahi picks-up a couple of 40-50 year old women in orange if Islamic garb who are "on a mision":  They're trying to rapidly bring a couple of gold fish -- they have them "packaged" in nice water-laden plastic bags -- over to "Ali's Spring" at the edge of Tehran because it will "bring them good luck" if they do so on that particular day.

He's called then by his sister to pick-up his precocious 10-y/o niece at the end of the school day.  Of course, he's late ... She then, with her $100-little "Fuji style" digital camera in hand, is busily trying to "make her own film" and peppers her uncle with all sorts of questions about Iran's current regulations regarding what would make a "screenable film."  For instance, would filming a boy, basically her age, stealing something (small) at a market or from an unsuspecting passerby be considered "too sordid realism" for a "screen-able movie"?  (Basically, she had caught someone with her camera stealing something ;-). 

He also picks up a somewhat physically challenged person who makes a living selling "bootleg films" including _some of his own_ ;-).  That person is the only non-family/non-friend who actually recognizes him during the whole film ;-).  On one hand, this physically challenged person congratulates Panahi on his work.  On the other hand, he's making a living selling, illegally, said work ;-).  A little awkward, but they part "as friends" ;-).

Soooo ... What a cute little movie, huh? ;-) ... The true sadness, of course, is that Panahi is certainly capable of making _much greater things_.

Still, a story NEED NOT BE "GRAND" to MAKE A POINT.  And certainly in the "making a point" department THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST FASCINATING MOVIE OF THE YEAR ;-).

A very, very good AND VERY FUNNY JOB ;-)


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

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Anomalisa [2015]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (4 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (1 Star)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review  

I found Anomalisa [2015] (written and co-directed by Charlie Kaufman [wikip] [IMDb] along with Duke Johnson [IMDb] based on Charlie Kaufman's [wikip] [IMDb] own stage play by the same name) to be very, very, indeed relentlessly, flat / boring.  'Course that was a good part of the point ;-) or :-/.

This (I kid Readers not) appropriately R-rated movie that uses _clay puppets_ to tell its tale, presents then the story of a short (less than 24 hour) "business trip" of Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) to Cincinnati, Ohio.  Now why was he going to this moderately sized if quite random American city?  Well, Stone was something of a "guru" in the field of "customer service."  He's hailed in the story as the author of a seminal book on the matter entitled: "How may I help you help them?" ;-).  And he was scheduled to give a talk at a trade conference assembling there.

The film begins with Stone arriving the evening before said conference at Cincinnati's airport after a thoroughly uneventful commercial flight.  He hails down a taxi to take him to an upscale hotel -- "The Fregoli" -- in the center of town.

The "chit-chat" of the conversation that takes place between the taxi driver and Stone as they travel between the airport and hotel is one that most American adults would have heard before: Here are two people who've never seen each other before and 10-15-20 minutes from now will never see each other again.  Stone has arrived in this random American city (the "third largest in the state of Ohio") that he's apparently "visited once before" (a fair number of years ago) and will probably not visit again for quite some time afterwards.  On the other hand, it's the taxi driver's city, a city that he's proud of.  So in those 10-15-20 minutes he tries to tell Stone "what to see / do" while in this "Great City of Cincinnati" -- "You must go to the Zoo" / "You must try our Chili" ;-).  And indeed through-out the rest of the film, there are references to Cincinnati's "great zoo" / "delicious chili" ;-)

Stone arrives at the hotel, pays the driver, goes over to  the guy the front desk, gets a room, is assigned a bell-hop (to help him with his one small carry-on bag ;-) to get to his room, arrives at said room, orders room service (and is reminded to "try our great chili" ;-).

EVERYTHING / EVERYBODY seems to be so much _the same_ and quite surprisingly / quite unsettlingly IT ALL IS / THEY ALL ARE ...  very much "THE SAME":  (1) All the people (including Stone) are CLAY PUPPETS who are _given the appearance of movement_ through stop motion animation (where between each frame, the clay puppets -- their appendages, eyes, facial expressions -- are moved / changed _ever so slightly_ so as to GIVE THE APPEARANCE of motion when viewed afterwards at a fairly rapid rate - 10 frames, 20 frames / second ;-).  Then (2) EVERYBODY who Stone meets even seems to SOUND THE SAME.  And they do, because _except for Stone himself_, THEY ARE ALL (male / female, young / old) VOICED BY THE SAME PERSON (Tom Noonan ;-).

What's going on here? ;-)

Well Chicago Tribune movie critic Michael Phillips notes in his review (above) that the name of the Hotel "The Fregoli" gives Viewers a big clue.  This is because there is a psychological condition called the Fregoli Delusion [wikip] in which a person comes to hold the "delusional belief that different people are in fact a single person who changes appearance or is in disguise."   So the (fictionalized) "customer service guru" Michael Stone finds himself in a world where EVERYBODY seems to be basically the same person.

What does he do?  Well this is IMHO the problematic aspect of the film: He chooses to "act out."

That is, Stone spends much of the film trying "desperately" to find SOME WOMAN who is "different" from everybody else TO SLEEP WITH HER.  Now, we're shown that he's married and even with a kid.  And he talks to them both on the phone after he arrives at the hotel (with both his wife and kid voiced again by the same Tom Noonan ;-) or ;-/ ).  He even looks up an old flame, who apparently lives in Cincinnati (and who he had probably bedded the last time (the only time...) that he had passed through the city).  She's again voiced by Tom Noonan.  And this time, she doesn't want to go to bed with him. 

Finally, by sheer accident, he finds ONE PERSON, a soft spoken Lisa Hesselmann (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh), a customer service rep from Akron, OH (basically just like Cincinnati only smaller, and _perhaps_ "sadder") who's come to Cincinnati with a coworker (voiced again by Tom Noonan) to hear Stone speak at the convention.  And LISA's "somewhat different" ... Indeed, she confesses to Stone that she's always thought of herself as "an anomaly" -- from which the name of the story derives: Anoma(Li)sa ;-)

BUT, (1) how "different" is Lisa really?  After all, she's a well-trained, professional(ized) "customer service rep" from anywhere-ville (Akron, OH) ...  and (2) even if Lisa really is "at least a little different (from the others)" IS "DIFFERENCE" ACTUALLY WHAT STONE "IS LOOKING FOR" ANYWAY?  After all, "difference" can be charming, but it can also be(come) annoying.

In any case, the two -- Stone and Anoma(Li)sa -- share probably the _saddest_ / most pathetic (adulterous) "sex scene" (after all, they are two "clay puppets" ...) in the history of movies.

Honestly, it was awful.  And it makes for a very interesting if very, very sad perspective on adultery.  One at least expects (hopes (!)) adultery to be "Exciting" [TM] ... Here it's presented as a really really sad, even desperate act between _two clay puppets_ filmed in stop-motion-animation _quite literally_ "just going through the motions" ;-) or :-(.

And this feeling of sad emptiness pervades the whole film: Stone seemed to believe that the whole world was filled with people who were pretty much all the same, YET (1) he worked in a field, INDEED WAS AN EXPERT IN A FIELD that HELPS MAKE THEM THAT WAY and (2) he wasn't really sure if he liked "difference" much anyway when he finally seemed to find it.

It becomes rather pathetic / sad ... Yet the film clearly seemed "to speak to" a good part of the rather young, (one guesses) probably "quite liberal" / "hipsterish" audience viewing the film when I saw it recently.  Sigh, again HOW SAD ...

I honestly left QUITE HAPPY that _my world_ "at the Parish" has _never_ been so flat ... If anything, we have "more characters" -- from young to old, from athletic, to "smart", to artistic (and everything in between) of truly a multitude of ethnicities / backgrounds -- than we can handle ;-).   But at least it's NEVER, EVER "BORING."

Sigh, the tragedy of being "too smart" / too jaded for one's own good ...


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Queen [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
Bollywood.com listing
FilmBeat.com listing

Hindustan Times (S. Kaushal) review
India Today (S. Dwivedi) review
Indian Express (K. Gupta) review
Times of India () review

Variety (D. Chute) review

Queen [2014] [IMDb] [BW] [FBt] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Vikas Bahl [IMDb] [BW] [FBt] along with Chaitally Parmar [IMDb] and Parveez Sheikh [IMDb] dialogue by Anvita Dutt [IMDb] [BW] [FBt] and Kangana Ranaut [IMDb]) is a highly acclaimed six 2015 Indian Filmfare Award winning film (the Filmfare Awards being widely regarded as India's version of the Oscars) which playfully turns a common Bollywood story-line on it head ;-).

The film (English subtitled) is available for streaming for a very reasonable price at Amazon Instant Video.

The story begins with 20-something Dehli girl, Rani (in Hindi meaning "Queen", played wonderfully in the film by Kangana Ranuat [IMDb] [BW] [FBt]) about to get married.  The whole extended family is coming into town for the big day.  All the dancing that one would expect to come _at the end_ of a Bollywood movie is taking place at the beginning, AND ... (really not much of a spoiler here, because there wouldn't be much of a film otherwise ;-) ... JUST AT THE LAST MOMENT, her fiance Vijay (played again impressively with appropriate "nose up, still young / doesn't really know yet what he's doing, arrogance" by Rajkummar Rao [IMDb] [FBt]) BREAKS OFF THE ENGAGEMENT.  Why??  Well, it's unclear, but mostly, apparently, because he's young / stupid / arrogant / spoiled ... basically because "he can" and still _honestly_ "doesn't understand" what this kind of a decision, this late in the preparations was going to do to his fiancee / her family. 

So there's young 20-something Rani, sitting in lovely, red hued, gold embroidered wedding sari amidst all those flower petals ... quietly weeping ... her own family not really knowing what to say or do ... And after several days of this, she decides ... TO GET UP, AND GO ON HER ALREADY PAID FOR HONEYMOON (to Paris / Europe) ON HER OWN ... (and of course, we cheer) and of course the rest of the movie follows ;-)

Of course many adventures await her, out there, "all on her own" for the first time:

Among the people she meets is Vijayalakshmi (played by Lisa Haydon [IMDb] [BW] [FBt]) a 1/2 Indian single mom, never married, her age in Paris, who Rani initially doesn't know how to understand.  And she is, of course, somewhat challenging, even to the film's Viewers, as Vijayalakshmi, even from her very conception (1/2 Indian / 1/2 European after all) seemed to violate "all the rules" that Rani had grown-up with.  And yet, Vijayalakshmi, despite pushing Rani (and the film's Viewers) at times a bit too much (there are a couple of scenes, not involving nudity -- there is none as this is an Indian film -- that are still needlessly, even stupidly, trashy) proves to be a pretty good guide for someone like Rany who's found herself "thrown 'by events' into the world."

And among the others that Rany meets is an Italian cook / restauranteur named Marcello (played by Marco Canadea [IMDb]) a few years older than she, so perhaps in his late 20s-early 30s, with whom she has comes to have some fairly lively discussions about ... food ;-) ... as both Indians and Italians are, how shall one say this, "quite proud" of their cuisines ;-).

All in all, it's a very nice story, about a young Rani / Queen, who perhaps initially had "different plans" for life, but like the "Mary" of the American Mary Tyler Moore Show [1970-77] [wikip] [IMDb], finds that she _can_ "make it on her own."

Very good job! ;-)


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The Assassin (orig. Nie yin niang) [2015]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
AsianWiki listing*

Film Comment (R. Liang) interview director / the film's two key stars 

APUM.com (A. Saéz) review*
aVoir-aLire.com (G. Crespo) review*
RogerEbert.com (J. Monji) review
Sight & Sound (G. Andrew) review
Slant Magazine (J. Catalgo) review
South China Morning Post (E. Lee) review

The Assassin (orig. Nie yin niang) [2015] [IMDb] [AW] (directed and cowritten by Hsiao-Hsien Hou [IMDb] [AW] along with Cheng Ah [IMDb] and Hai-Meng Hsieh [IMDb] based on the short story by Yuan Xingpei [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is a top-quality Chinese / Taiwanese "period piece" / "martial arts film" if perhaps with (at least in English) a needlessly / quite unfortunately reductive title.  The film played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival and has subsequently returned to Chicago to play week-long runs at the Music Box Theater and the Gene Siskel Film Center.

Set in the closing stages of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 C.E.) in/around the rebellious / already (then) de facto independent Weibo Province [en.wikip] [zh.wikip]* (_perhaps_ "kinda like Taiwan" today ...) the story centers on a 20-something woman named Nie Yianning (played quite excellently by Shu Qi [IMDb] [AW]) -- after whom the film, in Chinese, was named.  As per RogerEbert.com's reviewer Jana Monji (link above), Nie Yianning's name is indeed quite evocative - Yianning means "Secret Daughter" and Nie the surname means "Said in Whispers."

So... Nie Yianning was born and spent much of her early childhood in a tiny, thoroughly inconsequential village in rural Weibo Province and yet had been betrothed (as a child) to a distant (and richer) cousin of a similar age named Tian Ji'an (played by Chang Chen [IMDb] [AW]) back when the Tian family was _merely_ "quite rich."

However, when the Weibo Province made its play to break away from the rest of China, the Tian family became the breakaway Province's  de facto rulers and it became important for young Ji'an to marry someone "appropriate to [his family's] _new_ station."  So poor Yianning was left in the village while Ji'an married and had children with a "better-born" Lady (played by Zhou Yun [IMDb] [AW]) and began to live as "a little Emperor" (of the breakaway Province).

So what happens to girl like Nie Yianning, who was betrothed by her family to someone in childhood, who when the time came, chose to marry someone "richer"?  Well her family handed her over to a strange "princess turned wandering warrior nun" (IMHO played magnificently by Sheu Fang-yi [IMDb]) whose backstory would certainly justify its own film.  Well this "princess turned wandering warrior nun" trains Nie Yianning to be an exceptionally lethal assassin, wreaking "black clothed" (of course...) "dropping in out of the blue" vengeance on all sort of powerful (usually male) potentates in the region.   Nie Yianning silently "drops in" ("like the wind..."), slits the powerful evil man's throat, slips out ... and is done.  Another powerful "Evil Doer" meets his (one hopes ...) "just deserts."

And Nie Yianning is certainly "good" at what she does.  We watch her deflecting swords and arrows launched at her by terrified / awestruck guards of said powerful "Evil doers" as if they were mosquitoes or butterflies.

Well, after a short 5 min, b&w introduction introducing us to the awesomely well-trained / supremely "good at what she does" Nie Yianning, she's given by her "former princess turned wandering warrior nun" mentor her next mission.  Guess who she's asked to kill? ;-) ...

Can she do it?  From a purely "skills" POV, certainly _yes_.  There's NO place that the 20-something, "hurt as a little girl," "secret daughter, spoken of in whispers..." Nie Yianning can not penetrate.  BUT _can_ she do _this_ "job" (even if her assigned target _certainly_ "kinda deserved it")?

The rest of the story follows ... ;-)

 It makes for a quite compelling story, and the cinematography, both indoors and out, is once again simply exquisite.  Anyone who's ever enjoyed traditional chinese paintings with their impossibly steep fog strewn cliffs or beautiful silky interiors will certainly appreciate this film.

So good job folks, very good job.  I just wish that the film's English title didn't simply reduce Nie Yianning to "The Assassin."  Her name was far more evocative than that ...


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

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The Hateful Eight [2015]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  

The Hateful Eight [2015] (written and directed by Quentin Tarantino) is, for better / worse, "a Quentin Tarantino movie" ;-).

Hence it is _needlessly long_ and is punctuated with brief moments of QT's signature (but still needlessly) extreme violence.  Seriously, it's obvious that Tarrentino thinks very highly of himself in forcing his viewers here to sit through this 2hr 45min movie that could have easily been an hour shorter and better for it.  As it is, the only humane way to watch this movie is on a widescreen TV at home.

YET, the characters, dialogues and even outdoor cinematography in this "Agatha Christie meets The Western" mash-up are often exceptional, outstanding even spectacular.  Again, seriously, by the end of the film Jennifer Jason Leigh's Daisy Domerge is _utterly unforgettable_, and Samuel Jackson's former Union soldier turned black bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren, Kurt Russell's more conventional "John Wayne-like" white bounty hunter named "John Ruth" and Walton Goggin's Chris Mannix a former "Confederate Marauder" turned future Sheriff of a "hole in the wall" Wyoming hamlet called "Red Rock", together comprising the first four characters introduced to us in the film, are all extremely well (and with very broad strokes quite amusingly) drawn. 

And the story, which by the end (not much of a spoiler alert here ...) doesn't exactly "leave a lot of people still standing" takes place in the context of a spectacular "Big Sky Wyoming winter blizzard" and then largely at a circa-1880s "Stage Coach Inn" in the middle of nowhere.

To say more would start to spoil the film.  My only advice is wait for it to come out on DVD / Blue Ray, because it's really too long to watch in a theater.


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