Brutally Good Movie

The Revenant brutalizes Leonardo DiCaprio for insanely sensational moviegoing

Writer/director Alejandro González Iñárritu walked the high wire with last year’s Oscar-winning Birdman, wowing with a movie that was made to seem as if it were done all in one take. For his follow-up, The Revenant, he takes all the tricks he learned with Birdman and explodes them into an epic, raw, insane, and sensational experience.

Set in the early 1800s, the film follows a group of fur traders, led by guide Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), as they collect animal pelts in the wilderness. The group is beset by a number of challenges, not the least of which is attacks by Native Americans, who are trying to protect their land and their people.

The group — which includes Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), the ill-tempered John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), and the green Jim Bridger (Will Poulter) — finds itself slowly but surely decimated by a nearly nonstop series of dangers. And as the group falls apart, it becomes more and more difficult for some individuals to think of anything but themselves.

Forgive the vagueness, but the twists and turns of The Revenant are best experienced without any kind of foreknowledge. What can be said is that the making of the movie appears to have been brutal, resulting in a film that’s unlike anything you’ve seen before.

Iñárritu and his team utilized a variety of remote locations to capture something that would be impossible in a studio. Not only is the cast plunked down amid snow, dirt, and icy rivers, they’re also required to act out a series of highly charged, gut-wrenching scenarios, each one seemingly more intense than the next.

The locations are key to the verisimilitude of the movie, as is Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography. Lubezki captures the landscapes in great, breathtaking detail, but he also puts the camera in tight, you-are-there positions that make the audience almost feel the ruthless nature of the fights and the environment.

DiCaprio puts on the performance of a lifetime, going above and beyond the call of duty to demonstrate the pain and suffering that Glass endures. An incident early on leaves his character unable to speak for a long period of time, and yet that somehow only enhances DiCaprio’s ability.

Also great are Gleeson, who is seemingly everywhere in 2015 with Ex Machina, Brooklyn, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Hardy, whose intensity in Mad Max: Fury Road is nearly matched here.

After his last two films, Iñárritu is obviously one of the most exciting filmmakers making movies today. He appears able to do anything he wants, taking moviegoers to places they’ve never been.

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant.

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant.

Vinyl Record News

Dallas record store chain Josey Records spins new location in Garland

Josey Records

Josey Records

Vinyl at Josey Records

Dallas music maker Josey Records has extended its reach east: The record store chain, whose empire includes one of the largest single independent record stores in the U.S., has opened a location in Garland, at 1005 Northwest Hwy., at the intersection of Centerville Road, where it's selling its trademark assortment of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, turntables, music posters, new releases, and music accessories.

This is the sixth location and the third in the Dallas area, joining the original in Farmers Branch which owners Waric Cameron and Luke Sardello opened in November 2014. They've since opened locations in Plano, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Vidalia, Missouri.

The original location is a giant place with 16,000 square feet devoted to vinyl, 45s, CDs, turntables, and T-shirts. They do a good job showcasing new releases and collector vinyl — they made CultureMap's list of 5 best places in Dallas to buy vinyl records — and are known to host album release and listening parties such as a recent blockbuster celebrating Linkin Park.

They made headlines in June 2020 when they acquired the vast musical inventory of Bill’s Records following the death of owner Bill Wisener; Cameron and Sardello both worked at Bill’s, and knew the sprawling collection first-hand.

"It has taken us years to even start going through it, but in last two years, we've made some headway," Cameron says. "Bill's has its own audience, so we created a specific Instagram account, just for Bill's Records merchandise called @billsrecordsvault."

They chose Garland because they saw it as an area that was under-served.

"There are very few record stores in that area of northeast Dallas, Casa View, Garland, Rockwall, Mesquite," Cameron says. "We have customers who live over there, so it seemed like a good place for a store."

The storefront they're in was most recently The Music Store, which sold and rented musical instruments and accessories; but coincidentally, it's next to an address that was once RPM Records, a hip record store from the '90s.

The Garland store follows the same model as their others: selling new and used records and merchandise, and buying used goods, as well.

"One thing that's cool is that each location takes on its own identity," he says. "We buy used CDs, vinyl records, cassettes — we're a used resale business — and what we buy from our customers dictates what that store becomes. For example, our Plano store has a lot of classic rock. So we're looking forward to seeing what Garland gravitates to."

Garland does have one thing that the other locations do not.

"Right now, Garland has this incredible collection of jazz," Cameron says. "We bought a great collection of jazz records — someone called and wanted to sell it. We get that a lot, we buy major collections from all over the U.S., we even make house calls. So we saved it for the Garland store."

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