Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2018)

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mfunk9786
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Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2018)

#1 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Mar 19, 2018 4:25 pm

Since it's getting what's sure to be a very small theatrical release this month, I wanted to throw out a recommendation for the film Gemini, which is an amusingly twisty little indie neo-noir anchored by a great performance by Lola Kirke, who lends a great deal of humanity to material that would have been D.O.A. without it. It's also impeccably lensed by a relative upstart cinematographer, Andrew Reed, and if this film gets any kind of an audience it'll likely be the kickoff to a long and fruitful career for him. You MoviePass mongrels should absolutely leave the house and see it if it's going to be showing in your city.

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DarkImbecile
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Re: The Films of 2018

#2 Post by DarkImbecile » Tue Apr 17, 2018 12:43 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:Since it's getting what's sure to be a very small theatrical release this month, I wanted to throw out a recommendation for the film Gemini, which is an amusingly twisty little indie neo-noir anchored by a great performance by Lola Kirke, who lends a great deal of humanity to material that would have been D.O.A. without it. It's also impeccably lensed by a relative upstart cinematographer, Andrew Reed, and if this film gets any kind of an audience it'll likely be the kickoff to a long and fruitful career for him. You MoviePass mongrels should absolutely leave the house and see it if it's going to be showing in your city.
Thanks for the recommendation; I'll second your praise of Reed and the film's production design in general for making this a great film to look at, and I also quite enjoyed regular indie film composer Keegan DeWitt's contributions. Kirke and Kravitz give solid performances as well, though I can't be as unequivocal about Kirke as you were; she carries the film capably enough for the majority of its runtime, but doesn't quite add enough to a character whose stoicism and aloofness is intriguing but ultimately less substantial than I would have liked. My main issue was that the script fell into the trap of relying too heavily on otherwise smart characters making bad decisions that conveniently complicate the plot and add drama where situations don't inherently demand them, and the proceedings are ultimately inconsequential enough (except for one character, I guess) that the film ultimately feels like an exercise in tone and mood and not much else.
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The eventual realization that Jill's lack of cooperation with the police is entirely unnecessary given that the whole thing would have been sorted out eventually anyway is deflating right when the audience should be most engaged, and the lack of exploration of Heather's reasons for inexplicably letting her friend believe she had been killed - and potentially take the blame for it - makes her and her girlfriend just seem irredeemably selfish. To have all of the portent and atmosphere of the first half-hour and the tension of the middle 45 minutes to be retroactively diminished by the last 10 was quite disappointing.

Outside of a handful of supporting actors who seem to be in over their heads, my disappointments with the film are almost all rooted in director Aaron Katz's script, but even that element shows off enough talent that I'm certainly interested in what he does next, and hopeful that the promise displayed in this ultimately minor film will be realized.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2018)

#3 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Apr 17, 2018 12:57 pm

These are all reasonable criticisms. It strikes me as more of a "we're going to do this because we can do it" type of plot, the sort of thing that is less concerned with realism or the motivations of the characters than it is with coming up with a neat series of events, which feels to me to be fair game when doing this sort of noir pastiche. When you start digging around within the film's logic its intellectual dishonestly comes to the forefront, which makes it a minor work rather than a great one, but I think it's about as good as a movie like this can be - sort of reminded me of Rian Johnson's Brick in that respect, another noirish film limited by it's rather absurd conceit and small budget but that did more with those attributes than anyone could have expected it to.

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Re: Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2018)

#4 Post by Grand Wazoo » Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:25 pm

I enjoyed this quite a bit though agree with DarkImbecile re: Jills's actions needlessly complicating her own situation that clearly would have been tied up had she waited it out. However I feel it's partially justified in that she's acting like a character in a detective film in a movie-obsessed LA where no one knows anything else. Nelson Franklin's character discusses who the killer would be had he written the scenario, and I'm pretty certain someone mentions Scream early in the film, really emphasizing the meta-universe of movie-logic. It's as if no one hows how to handle this situation in a way other than what they've seen in entertainment. While I like this as a comment on LA film/celebrity culture and find taking the self-aware Scream concept and transferring it to a noir-ish murder-mystery a novel idea, I don't think it's used well enough to to fully justify Jill's instant (and stupid given her circumstances) transformation into a private eye.

Even so, I still hope more people check this out in the theater as I continue to find Aaron Katz to be the most interesting director to emerge from the Mumblecore movement.

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Re: Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2018)

#5 Post by DarkImbecile » Wed Apr 18, 2018 10:24 am

I think viewing it through the lens of pastiche or meta-commentary throughout on a second viewing would definitely improve my overall reaction to it. As I said, the table setting the film does in the opening act seems to promise both an exploration of these genre conventions and something more substantial from a plot/character development perspective, and I'd probably appreciate what we get of the former more without raised expectations for the latter.

Can anybody recommend any of Katz's earlier films, particularly Cold Weather, which seems from a thumbnail summary to be thematically closest to Gemini?

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Re: Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2018)

#6 Post by DarkImbecile » Fri Apr 20, 2018 11:44 am

Recent Kris Tapley podcast with Katz that covers some influences and intent relevant to the discussion above. Most surprisingly to me, he asserts that while he wanted to evoke the style of LA noirs and thrillers while keeping the characters and relationships as grounded as possible, the latter is what I think the film fundamentally fails to do, which undermines the much more skillfully done stylized elements and conflicts with Grand Wazoo's read on Kirke's actions in particular (which I much prefer as an interpretation to Katz' contrary assertion). No argument from me that the opening shot, which Katz and Tapley discuss a little, is pretty great.

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Re: Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2018)

#7 Post by chiendent » Fri Apr 20, 2018 1:13 pm

Saw this last night since it was about to leave the only theater nearby that was showing it. Like a lot of people I'm a sucker for neo-noirs set in LA and this did pretty much what I was hoping it would do, plus John Cho's Columbo-like detective was a treat. I'm late to the MoviePass game but this was a good way to ring it in.

Was I imagining it or did anyone else notice a 35 Shots of Rum poster in Nelson Franklin's character's apartment?

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Re: Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2018)

#8 Post by davoarid » Fri Oct 19, 2018 11:59 pm

I feel dumb for not knowing it, but what movie was playing in Tracy's home while Jill was climbing out the window? I took a few screenshots on my laptop:

https://imgur.com/a/Txc4wbN

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Re: Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2018)

#9 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jan 15, 2019 11:26 pm

It's Behind Green Lights

I thought this was okay. The first third's "Yes, and" acting exercises between Kravitz and Kirke didn't leave me too optimistic (a carryover from Katz' Dance Party USA days), but once it turns into full-blown noir and isolates Kirke in LA, the movie got better. The film's best moments are ones of pure style in playing with tone-- I especially liked the shot of the police tail where we see the motorcycle and cop car clear an unseen ridge and the camera stays static for fifteen seconds til the vehicles reappear on the other side of the curve. In the end this all ends up being quite empty, though. While I don't have a problem with Kirke's genre-appropriate character choices, I also think this film squanders a great locale and premise on its slim and pat execution. Additionally, I'm reminded of Mamet's screenwriting advice to just throw out the first act of most movies, and boy Katz could have used such impulses here. The first thirty minute should have occupied five so we can get more uses of LA and Kirke's plight tied to the narrative situation, not the set-up. Also, in retrospect, Cho's character has no apparent motivation for some of his stranger choices other than perhaps harboring a crush on Kirke-- so he's the audience surrogate?

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Re: Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2018)

#10 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jan 16, 2019 6:30 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Tue Jan 15, 2019 11:26 pm
Also, in retrospect, Cho's character has no apparent motivation for some of his stranger choices other than perhaps harboring a crush on Kirke-- so he's the audience surrogate?
It's been over a year since I saw this one, but isn't his character pretty suspicious of Kirke, and for good reason? I thought he was following her around to get an idea of what she was up to/what her demeanor was when he wasn't around, not in any particularly stalkery way. But I could be forgetting something.
domino harvey wrote:
Tue Jan 15, 2019 11:26 pm
I especially liked the shot of the police tail where we see the motorcycle and cop car clear an unseen ridge and the camera stays static for fifteen seconds til the vehicles reappear on the other side of the curve.
Yes! This is exactly the shot I had in mind when calling out the cinematography above. It isn't just the script that starts out a little amateurish, the film really settles into having a lovely visual texture as it goes on.

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Re: Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2018)

#11 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jan 16, 2019 9:55 pm

Cho gives Kirke some extreme latitude for a
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homicide
suspect, including flattering her verbally, insisting on her having a drink with him during an interrogation twice, and telling her in advance that a warrant's coming, followed by a polite-sounding voicemail when she goes on the lam. Sure, some of these could just be typical Clever Detective tricks, but it was a little weird, and
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Cho asking to stay during the interview at the end and shooting Kirke furtive glances did little to dissuade my interpretation

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