Documentarian Bill Morrison delivers a worthy followup to his classic 2002 film Decasia with another cinematic tone poem dedicated to the glories of silent cinema. Wind River Review Taut Thriller on Native Reservation Will Knock You for a Loop. Directorial debut of Sicario screenwriter turns story of a tracker, a Fed and a. Frozen is Disneys 53rd entry in its animated canon lineup, an original story thats inspired by Hans Christian Andersens longest Fairy Tale, The Snow Queen, using. Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen in Wind River movie review. Following his Oscar nomination for Hell or High Water, actor turned screenwriter Taylor Sheridan takes on directing as well with Wind River technically his sophomore directorial effort, following a 2. Watch The Defiled IMDB. Vile. Between Sicario and High Water, Sheridan has a proven knack for setting and dialogue, and creating tense stand off scenarios and morally compromising situations. Wind River is more of the same, with Sheridans flawless sense of place, though the morals here are much less dubiousthere are very clear good guys and bad guys. Set on the Wind River reservation in Wyoming, Wind River is a little bit culture shock, a little bit culture clash, and a heaping serving of wilderness and cruel men. Cory Lambert Jeremy Renner is a Fish Wildlife officer responsible for hunting predators that prey on livestock. While tracking a blatantly allegorical mountain lion, Cory finds the body of a young woman, frozen and obviously brutalized, on the Wind River reservation. Renner first came to notice for his combination of tough guy posturing and latent sensitivity, and Wind River is the first movie in a long time to bring back that sensitive quality of his, and the result is his best performance since The Hurt Locker. He has lots to dobesides seeking revenge for his best friends daughter, his own daughter died a few years earlier, and Renner makes the most of Corys grief by doing very little. It is truly an excellent performance. Theres just one problem Cory Lambert shouldnt be the protagonist. Sheridan handles the cultural stew of life on the boundaries of a reservation with aplomb. The ultimate news source for music, celebrity, entertainment, movies, and current events on the web. It039s pop culture on steroids. Frozen River is the story of Ray Eddy, an upstate New York trailer mom who is lured into the world of illegal immigrant smuggling when she meets a Mohawk girl who. LaineyGossipTaylor Sheridans Wind River is above average but has slightly aimless quality. It would be easy to turn scenes from the reservation into straight misery porn, but Sheridan doesnt linger and so he doesnt exploit. Poverty, drug abuse, endemic hopelessnessits all grounded in character driven interaction, so that the people emerge over the circumstance. He has the right instinct on how to portray rez life as an outsider. Unfortunately, his instincts fail him when it comes to whose story hes really telling. Cory is the protagonist, with green FBI Agent Jane Banner Elizabeth Olsen, rising above thin material, and tribal police chief Ben Graham Greene, always excellent along for the ride. But a title card at the end of the film would have you believe that Wind River is really about the murder victim, Natalie Kelsey Asbille. Wind River is not about Natalie. Wind River is about Cory, kinda sorta about Martin Gil Birmingham, Natalies dad, and maybe a little about Agent Banner, serving as the audience surrogate entering this little seen world of reservations. Wind River SHOULD have been about Natalie. Or maybe Martin. But definitely not Cory. Its partly a problem of optics, that it is weird to have a white guy at the center of a story that revolves around the reservation and what happened to a young woman from the reservation. But its mostly a problem of story, that Natalies story raises far more questions than Corys. Corys story is a straightforward revenge fantasy with a side of repressed masculine grief. Natalies story, as it stands, is reduced to a murder mystery, but on the edges of that mystery is a bigger and more intriguing drama about a woman trying to escape an environment that is actively hostile to her, and what choices she makes and what few opportunities she has to make them. And if the story is Natalies, that coda about Native women is fully justified and an even sharper audience gut punch. For what it isa procedural thrillerWind River is above average. Sheridan has a knack for noir and Western, and a flare for staging nail biting stand offs. As a director, his eye isnt bad but its not wholly formed yet, so Wind River is overall pleasing to look at but not quite as grand as it could have been, taking place largely among the remote fastness of the surviving American West. And he is interested in looking into corners of the American experience few bother exploring. But Sheridan misjudged the protagonist of this story, and so Wind River has a slightly aimless quality to it, with an extended Natalie flashback interrupting Corys relatively spare narrative. It doesnt hurt the film that is too much, but it does tease us with the better film that could have been. Attached Elizabeth Olsen making the promotional rounds in New York last week. Dawson City Frozen Time By. Towne Cinema. Documentarian Bill Morrison delivers a worthy follow up to his classic 2. Decasia with another cinematic tone poem dedicated to the glories of silent cinema. G/01/dvd/sony/FrozenRiver/FrozenRiver_2.jpg' alt='Frozen River Full Movie' title='Frozen River Full Movie' />Inspired by the discovery of a long buried stash of hundreds of silent films in the titular Yukon Territory town, Dawson City Frozen Time intrigues and delights with its copious footage from films previously thought lost forever. Dawson City, formerly populated by First Nations people, was established in 1. Klondike Gold Rush. The town became the end of the road for silent film prints during the 1. Its remote location made shipping them back to the United States prohibitively expensive, and thousands of films made from highly flammable nitrate stock were either burned deliberately or accidentally or dumped into the Yukon River. Fortunately for future generations, hundreds of 3. In 1. 97. 8, work crews discovered the films, many of which were remarkably well preserved having essentially been sealed in permafrost. Morrison uses much of that footage as the basis for a film that encompasses many themes. He tells the story of the films discovery and preservation, which were largely due to the efforts of Yukon historians Michael Gates and Kathy Jones Gates. He also addresses the history of film itself and the story of the town that fell on hard times once the Gold Rush petered out. But its the flickering silent footage that gives Dawson City Frozen Time its haunting qualities. Some of it is in pristine condition and some is in various states of decay. Whether it features long forgotten performers, or silent screen stars like Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, and William Desmond Taylor, or fascinating historical figures and events such as the infamously fixed 1. World Series, the rescued footage proves consistently fascinating. Dawson City Frozen Time represents a captivating time capsule that delivers a poignant paean to a long gone cinematic era. Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter.