That Day review

Okay, let's get something straight before diving in!  Normally, I am a science fiction horror, comedy, and action style moviegoer, and do not watch family dramas with pretty piano and lots of crying from tragedies.  These are generally classified as "chick flicks" and already got my dose of "He's Just Not That Into You", recently.  My type of tragedy is an alien biting off the heads of heros and Darth Vader choking his wife from across the galaxy!  However, when the chance to review an independent production that was family drama, especially of the Puerto Rican American culture (Assuming to be correct), I thought yeah.... gotta give this a try.  Again in trying new things, I was pleasantly surprised and now experienced another side of local Cleveland/ Lorain filmmaking!  This movie is a film by J. Carlos Gonzalez entitled "That Day"!

Before I get into the movie itself, something should be mentioned about J. Carlos Gonzalez.  The following should be accurate.  This is a man who went and did his time in school towards becoming a Director and went the route of testing towards Hollywood's own Director's Guild, noting I am still learning about such things, as I didn't go the proper route.  He did far more than many filmmakers do towards "the traditional and hardworking right way of breaking in".  He first passed the final test, but then they sent a correction saying that he didn't, due to an oversight.  So, persistently, he did it again and made sure he passed, which he did.  Mind you, this is a process of several levels of elimination and he spent lots of resources towards his dream.  Unfortunately, just like any large moneymaking entity, they had their own internal reasons to lock out one of our talented own.  Who knows what the politics are on that situation, but the very upset, yet determined filmmaker put everything on the line to write, film, complete, and project That Day to a premiere audience of over 1,500 attendies at the Lorain Palace Theatre.  Wow, that was a packed house, from what I could see on the DVD.  J. Carlos Gonzalez, I salute you and believe your struggle would make for a great movie if times were different and we all didn't have to face the enemy head on. 

Filmmaking is a war when trying to make a living doing it, and it shouldn't have to be, but people will believe what they want to in the industry instead of finding ways to make things work for everybody.  Making feature films is one of the hardest things even a group of people can do, let alone when majority rests upon the filmmaker's shoulders due to lack of proper budgets.  Shame on Hollywood, who successfully exploits an artistic medium, while dangling the dream in front of artists!

Okay, now about That Day!  Under the Line 10 Entertainment banner, this family drama stars Sara Garcia as the lead Blanca character, who is sort of in charge of a family that is broken apart.  Isabel Villanueva plays her sister Sandra.  Then Kenneth S. Marrera plays Vince, who is the brother, if I'm correct.  I won't mention other names, except for one (Donna Williams), because there are many fine cast to mention here, as usual, and I have seen the one in other productions.  Donna Williams pleased my senses by having a slight accent and I always like her hair in Johnny Wu's films.  Also, she ruled with an iron fist in The Rapture, pun intended.

The film is basically about a tragedy happening in a family from years ago and how everybody blames each other for it happening.  When the mother, who was the last bit of glue for the family, dies, she has her lawyer gather everybody in the family together, with Blanca being the new center, in a way.  I won't spoil the meaning of That Day, but will say that it has to do with Tea Cups and is the mother's wish that everybody stay together for the weekend to resolve issues and find out the final element of it all.  I felt bad for the lawyer, Jeff character.  He had to be stuck in the middle of a rage filled family feud for the whole time and hid everybody's keys so they couldn't leave.  I thought that was a cool idea to force the situation, but it could have been his head.

There are plenty of interesting moments throughout the film, with lots of "one liners" aimed at striking emotion towards one another.  I'd be very upset about some of the things said if I didn't realize that families and people DO act this way!  Plus, it's just a movie, but wow factor does come at ya in this flick, mostly because some of what's said is representative of real life situations, as well.

My favorite character is actually Sandra, played by Isabel Villanueva.  The Blanca character was fine, but the lines written and the delivery that Sandra has is quite entertaining and seem quite sincere, yet you see she's a softy.  These two gals are quite different sisters,  but good lookers, with plenty of outspoken attitude.  Perhaps it's a sassiness that women growing up in a romantic languaged culture tend to posess.  Blanca tries her best to keep a head on her shoulders, while Sandra flies off the handle at first.  However, one reason I like the Sandra character even more is when she confronts her baby's daddy who hasn't paid child support in months, yet is going to Disneyland with his new woman's family without his own child, whom he neglects visiting most of the time.  Isabel delivers that dead on!  

The rest of the cast, including mother, dad, brother, cousins, and everybody related or married in do fine in portraying their characters.  Again, this is a family drama, so going off the deep end in acting isn't necessary.  I must say that the children actually did a wonderful job, especially considering that could have been a hit or miss situation!

The music is mostly Piano by Beth Bramhall, who plays quite beautifully and matches the feel needed for the film.  To do the amount of scoring, based on mostly piano, is a feat unto itself, depending on composition method and songs in mind.  I do have to say, however, some music could have been cut down during a couple scenes, simply because most of the music was piano throughout.  The band G3, I believe, did some cool songs for the movie, as well.  So, kudos on the music choices!

Visual effects are my thing.  I put them in all my films.  It's a must!  The visuals, namely a burning barn and tornado are pretty well done in this flick, especially considering it's a family drama.  You have to have the cliche kids running off worry scene that brings the family closer and realizing their arguing is petty.  The tornado does this, considering the barn burning was the tragedy from the past that cost a family member's life.  So, there is a 4 wheeler run from a tornado.  Now, some would say there were issues like how weather forms in the sky to make a tornado, but it technically is debateable in this film, the way the cuts are.  I kept getting absorbed into the less is more approach with cool twisting visuals when you did actually see the effect.  So, for me, it worked, especially considering the genre and what it was all about.  The burning barn caught my attention and simply was cool to find out how they did it in the behind the scenes footage.  I use digital or typical compositing, but they did optical illusions in camera, from what I could tell!  If wrong, I apologize.

The director told me he wanted to do more with the sound.  While the sound had one or two issues, like a missing punch sound fx, which all can be fixed, it was overall quite good compared to most indie films out there.   Again, being a family drama means that you can't get fancy with adding reverb, like they do to enhance Star Trek movies that spin off from the TV shows, so you have to deal with just getting into dialogue for dialogue sake, which is the purpose, right?  So, as long as things don't over distort, just do some fine tuning for your target audience and everyone should be happy!

The movie is about family and delivers what it intends to do.  Even having appearances like Andre' Bernier from Fox 8 is cool, but this isn't a movie spouting off celebrities or other name talent.  This is strictly about characters and personal character!  Yes, there are a couple indie moments and production tech issues most wouldn't even catch, but it doesn't really matter due to this being the genre it is, which is all about story and characters.  Also, this is probably one of the first HD indie movies considering the start of the project and being shot on an early Sony HD cam.  This was a tough move for most filmmakers at the time, so kudos to J.C. Gonzalez on HD workflow.  This doesn't mean I'll be watching 20 family dramas instead of my alien slasher flicks or vulgar comedies, but I must say that this was pleasant and I think the viewers of this genre will be quite taken.

Best, Kenny