tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70692408013051899132024-03-10T04:30:46.027-07:00Dave's Movie SiteThis website is dedicated to my random thoughts on movies. It will contain movie reviews and random musings.Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.comBlogger4324125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-71607876255389864372020-09-25T08:27:00.004-07:002020-09-25T08:27:35.148-07:00Movie Review: The Devil All the Time<h1 style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Devil All the Time ** ½ / *****<br /></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by:<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Antonio Campos.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Antonio Campos and Paulo Campos
based on the novel by Donald Ray Pollock.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Tom Holland (Arvin Russell), Robert
Pattinson (Preston Teagardin), Riley Keough (Sandy Henderson), Harry Melling (Roy
Laferty), Haley Bennett (Charlotte Russell), Bill Skarsgård (Willard Russell), Mia
Wasikowska (Helen Hatton), Sebastian Stan (Lee Bodecker), Eliza Scanlen (Lenora
Laferty), Jason Clarke (Carl Henderson), Douglas Hodge (Tater Brown), Given
Sharp (Susie Cox), Drew Starkey (Tommy Matson), Lucy Faust (Cynthia Teagardin),
Abby Glover (Pamela Sue Reaster), Cory Scott Allen (Sheriff Thompson), Eric
Mendenhall (Deputy Howser), David Maldonado (Henry Dunlop), Kristin Griffith (Emma),
Adam Fristoe (Priest), Michael Banks Repeta (Arvin Russell - 9 Years Old).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSF5jrdydp0oc8XgbbSRxkJPeKorrWN82qJIRmmhA6fbgX7-UTaWRwYZM3vpvEe6oiKSBze2WypkYnSLoPEsa-wen0qSya-yZJFFM1ZZPoq4IZcygBsy8hf5A4kEZJzlJaPkXBOnfpciWO/s755/devil_all_the_time_ver2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSF5jrdydp0oc8XgbbSRxkJPeKorrWN82qJIRmmhA6fbgX7-UTaWRwYZM3vpvEe6oiKSBze2WypkYnSLoPEsa-wen0qSya-yZJFFM1ZZPoq4IZcygBsy8hf5A4kEZJzlJaPkXBOnfpciWO/s320/devil_all_the_time_ver2.jpg" /></a></div><br />Antonio Campos has an
impressive roster of films behind him so far in his career – his chilly, remote
films Afterschool (2008), Simon Killer (2012) and Christine (2016) suggest a
heavy Michael Haneke influence, and yet unlike most who try and do the Austrian
auteur’s style, he is able to bring something new to the proceedings. His films
have always been violent, yet cold – but they do get under the skin of their protagonists,
seeing what makes them tick, even as they do awful things. He’s also been bold
stylistically – probably more so in Afterschool than the others, where he
switched between his own chilly cinematography, and the YouTube videos his high
school characters watch, or make themselves. He also has a flair with endings –
they aren’t twists in the M. Night Shyamalan sense, but the final moments in
Afterschool and Christine, certainly recontextualize everything we have seen
before it. The Devil All the Time is his latest, most ambitious, most sprawling
film – and sadly, it doesn’t really work at all.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film tells a number of
different stories – mostly set in the 1960s, a revolving around Arvin Russell
(Tom Holland), local resident of Knockemstiff, Ohio. Before we get to him
however, we have to flash back to his father Willard (Bill Skarsgard) – who
remembers the horrors he saw in WWII, and who deals with more tragedy when he
returns with his wife (Haley Bennett). You feel for Willard, yet you also
realize that the only thing he really taught his son was toxic masculinity. And
Arvin is the only male in the movie you feel for.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The rest of the motley
crew of a cast are all doing horrible things. There is Robert Pattinson as
Preston Teagardin, the new preacher in town with an eye for the young women in
town, but is, of course, a massive moral hypocrite. His most prominent conquest
in the film is Lenora (Eliza Scanlen) – and you’ll get no points for guessing
what happens there. There is photographer Carl (Jason Clarke) and his wife
Sandy (Riley Keough) – who convince various strangers to pose for pictures,
that slowly turn pornographic – before they end up killing them. There are more
– many more really – all circling these characters. A corrupt sheriff
(Sebastian Stan), more morally compromised men of go (Roy Laferty) and his wife
(Mia Wasikowska).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film is based on a
novel by Donald Ray Pollock – who also provides the copious amounts of
voiceover narration in the film, that is both tedious, and yet somehow
necessary – not only to keep the various plot threads clear, but also for
character motivation and feeling, because the screenplay doesn’t do a good job
aside from that in making it clear. It doesn’t help any that most of the actors
seem to be in different movies. Jason Clarke and Riley Keough probably fit the milieu
best, and are doing genre performances, with a little modern psychology in them
– but they’re too thin to be that interesting. Robert Pattison is nothing if
not interesting – I have no idea what accent Pattinson was attempting here –
but I love it just the same. It is a choice as they say. And it’s certainly
better than Tom Holland, who goes all mumble mouthed trying for some sort of
American accent (I’m sorry, but there are many American actors from the South
or Midwest, who wouldn’t struggle with accents – so I’m not sure why Campos
went for Brits here).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Basically, the film is one
long meander to nowhere. You keep expecting it to pick up the pace or dig
deeper, or something. Instead, there are a lot of short stories of sin and
punishment that sort of end, and then the next one kicks off. I remember
reading Pollock’s book a few years ago – and liking it. But whatever there in
his prose, whatever larger themes he had, get lost in translation here. The
film is a slow ramble, and when it ends, you wonder why you took the trip.</span> </p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-7579610782458237822020-09-21T13:01:00.010-07:002020-09-21T13:01:53.950-07:00My Mini TIFF Recap<p><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">This was
to be my 16</span><sup style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"> attending TIFF. Unfortunately, COVID-19 put a damper
on the proceedings. Yes, there were in-person screenings at the Lightbox, and
Drive-In showings – no I didn’t attend those. If I haven’t gone to my Toronto office
since March, I wasn’t going to Toronto to see a movie. The good news is I was
able to attend a total of 9 digital screenings. It isn’t the same of course –
even if the commercials that I see every year played before them brought a
comfortable familiarity to the proceedings. But ultimately, it’s watching films
from home – which I’ve done a lot since COVID. Still, I was happy to support
TIFF – and overall I had a pretty good festival. As always, my recap doesn’t
really go in any real order – just a loose collection of thoughts on the films
I saw – I always start with the weakest, and end with the strongest, but other
than that, it’s just kind of go-with-the-flow.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">With that
in mind, the weakest film I did see was still not horrible. </span><b style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Shadow in the Clouds (Roseanne Liang) </b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">was
part of Midnight Madness, and it is a kind of bonkers horror/action/WWII film,
and it may well have played differently for me at Ryerson at Midnight. It stars
Chloe Grace Mortez, as a flight officer in WWII, boarding a plane at the last
minute, with a mysterious package, and orders from on high. That certainly
doesn’t stop the all-male crew from making misogynistic remarks throughout her
flight – and like women everywhere, she just kind of has to grin and bear it.
They place her in the under plane turret for take-off – and she’s stuck there
for roughly the first half of the very short (83 minutes – with credits) film.
They don’t believe her when she says she sees Japanese fighter planes – and
they certainly don’t believe when they see something else – something tearing
at the wing of the plane. But, of course, she’s right. The direction by Liang
is actually pretty good – the film moves at a breakneck pace, so you don’t
really have time to think of how absurd it all it, or how really every
character in the film is an insufferable prick (Mortez less so then the
others). No, I didn’t know that the movie started with a screenplay Max Landis
– which they have apparently reworked as everyone involved has distanced
themselves from Landis (with good reason). But you can see those roots here
still. Basically, the film is silly and goofy, and gets violent, but also rings
a little hollow.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The only
other Midnight Madness I saw (there were only three) was significantly better. </span><b style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Violation (Madeline Sims-Fewer & Dusty
Mancinelli) </b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">does have some hallmarks of being a debut film – the symbolism
with the animals and bugs is a little thick, the mixed up timeline structure is
probably too complicated for its own good. Yet, the heart of the story - a
different take on the rape/revenge film, this time told from the female gaze,
is quite disturbing, and the emotions quite raw. Sims-Fewer herself plays a
woman, who is spending the weekend away with her husband – who she’s on the
brink of divorce with – and her sister and her husband, who was childhood
friends with them. Since you know this is a rape/revenge film – you know where
it’s going. What I will say is that the rape is in no way eroticized – it’s
seen in extreme closeups, so you don’t really see what’s going on, while the
revenge gets brutal and graphic – and there is far more male nudity here then
female nudity. It’s a challenging, promising debut feature for Sims-Fewer and
Mancinelli – a disturbing film that will haunt you. I don’t think it’s quite as
good a subversion of the genre as Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge, which I saw at
TIFF 2017 (coincidentally, on the digital Q&A, they bring in Fargeat to ask
a couple of questions – and it just made me angrier we have yet to see a
follow-up from her yet) – but it’s another interesting, female led version of
the controversial sub-genre.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">I saw
more docs than usual this TIFF – they were more on offer on the digital
screenings. Undeniably the most visually stunning of these was </span><b style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Notturno (Gianfranco Rosi) – </b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">which
admirers of his last film, the Oscar nominated Fire at Sea will likely admire
as well. That film was about the Italian island of Lampedusa, the first place
in Europe that migrants coming via boat land – the tragedy that unfolds there,
and how the residents are basically just going about their lives. Notturno is
visually similar – this time, it takes place on the border cities on the war
torn Middle East. It isnt really about living during wartime, but rather the
long tail of living through war – the trauma suffered, etc. The film is
gorgeous – but you really do feel Rosi is staging these shots for maximum
impact. You also feel uncomfortable at times – sometimes Rosi intends you to,
and sometimes it’s just because you feel you shouldn’t be watching this, and
Rosi shouldn’t be there (in particular, the scenes involving children reliving
their trauma, that perhaps shouldn’t be fodder for a movie). Still, it’s
undeniably beautiful, and stirring emotionally – but it’s not quite Fire at
Sea.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The most
traditional of the doc offerings I saw was </span><b style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">MLK/FBI
(Sam Pollard) </b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">is a fascinating documentary that basically tracks all the
work the FBI did to track Martin Luther King during his years as a Civil Rights
Activist. The film lets you know up front that more documents and especially
recordings related to this surveillance will be released in 2027 – and although
you kind of think that perhaps this film should have waited until then, rather
than to have as much speculation as it does, the film is still a valuable
historical document. In 2020, we have pretty much granted King sainthood, and
his adversary here – J. Edgar Hoover – is looked upon far less charitably, so
it’s important to remember that King was far from beloved during his lifetime –
and not just among racist Southerners, but by nervous white Americans
everywhere – in one appearance they literally ask King if he worries that by
pushing for “too much, too soon” he will alienate white Americans. He does not.
The film is made up of valuable historical footage – and features voiceovers by
historians who have studied the record. The film doesn’t shy away from the most
explosive aspects of what was apparently on those tapes – King’s extra-martial
affairs – but does ask us to remember King, like us all, was human.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">In the so
strange it has to be seen to be believes category is </span><b style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Enemies of the State (Sonia Kennebeck) – </b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">who tells the story Matt
Dehart – who was targeted by the FBI and local law enforcement, spent 21 months
in prison awaiting trial, where he claimed he was tortured, and then tried to
claim asylum in Canada – all because he says he was running servers for
Anonymous, and had ties to WikiLeaks. Yet, Dehart’s case that he’s another
Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning or Reality Winner isn’t quite so clear cut – he
never actually released any information – he claims when he shut down the server,
he made a copy of yet, and sent it to someone in the U.K. – but we don’t
actually have physical proof of that. Still, he became a cause célèbre for many
– but he was never actually charged with anything related to Wikileaks – he was
charged with luring online, and then sexually abusing, minors – and by the end,
you’d be hard pressed to claim he’s innocent of those charges – despite the
pleas from his parents, who we see throughout the film, and give lots of
interviews (Dehart himself was supposed to sit for an interview after his
release from prison – but he didn’t show). Kennebeck is obviously inspired by
Errol Morris – a producer of this film – and perhaps wears that influence a
little too much on her sleeve. Still, it’s a fascinating film, that takes turns
you won’t see coming – and generally, looks great.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">By far
the longest film I watched was </span><b style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">City Hall
(Frederick Wiseman) – </b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">at four hours and thirty-five minutes. The
documentary giant – now 91 – has returned with one of his longest films ever –
documenting what happens at Boston City Hall – concentrating on Mayor Marty
Walsh. Basically, for the entire runtime, we sit through meeting after meeting
after meeting – budget meetings, school board meetings, housing meetings,
zoning meetings, etc. Does that sound dull? Perhaps, and honestly, the film
probably could have been a little shorter. Yet, Wiseman’s point does undeniably
become clear here – that government can, and should, work – and it requires a
lot of people to make get involved and make it work. Perhaps if we weren’t
living in the Trump era, the film could be more easily dismissed as dull. But
we don’t have that luxury – and Wiseman’s point is invaluable right now. I
don’t know if the film will go down as one of Wiseman’s best – but it is as
fascinating as any four and a half hour movie about a major City Hall could
possibly be.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">It’s easy
to see why Venice’s Best Actress prize went to Vanessa Kirby in </span><b style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Pieces of a Woman (Kornel Mundruczo)</b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">.
It’s an impressive performance by Kirby, as a woman whose baby dies just
moments after birth, and then struggles to deal with it for the rest of the
movie – as her marriage (to Shia LaBeouf – another impressive performance)
falls apart, her relationship with her mother (Ellen Burstyn) becomes strained
because she doesn’t act the way her mother thinks is right. All the
performances in the movie are actually quite good – and the birth sequence,
which runs about 20 minutes in an unbroken shot, is formally impressive. I do
wish that director Kornel Mundruczo would calm down a little bit behind the
camera – this is a movie requiring subtlety and sensitivity – and if there’s
one thing the director of White God is not, it’s subtle. This one has proven to
be divisive – and I’m right in the middle on it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">I was
originally going to skip </span><b style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">New Order
(Michel Franco) </b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">– because I saw, and hated, April’s Daughter at TIFF 2017.
But this won one of the top prizes at Venice, so I figured I would give it a
shot. It’s far better than April’s Daughter – the first half of the movie is
actually quite excellent. An upper class wedding in Mexico is interrupted by
protests that have been sweeping the city. At the same time, an old family
employee shows up unannounced asking for 200,000 pesos so his wife – also an
old employee – can have lifesaving surgery. Only the young bride seems to care
about this – something will cost her dearly. The setup of the movie is better
than the payoff though – the second half sees everything descend into chaos,
and will has numerous scenes that are tough to take – and while it’s all
impressively staged, and shocking, but it comes at the expense of the
characters. Its politics are also a little hard to parse – especially since
Franco makes a young, rich woman the most sympathetic character – but I think
it’s more about showing how the privileged will also suffer if wealth disparity
isn’t solved, and protests turn violent – and totalitarianism takes over – but
you got to work to get there.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The best
film I saw at TIFF was undoubtedly </span><b style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Nomadland
(Chloe Zhao) </b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">– which not only confirms the immense talent we saw in The
Rider, but sours past it. In the film, Frances McDormand plays a 60-year woman,
who basically sees her entire small town decimated when the local factory
closes down. A widow, with no kids, now no home, or real job, she lives out of
her van – which she has tricked out nicely. She drifts from place to place –
working at a Amazon warehouse over Christmas, meeting up with other Nomads in
the desert, working at a RV park for a while, or in a restaurant, or picking
vegetables, etc. – and then starting the repeat the process over again. Other
than McDormand – and fellow nomad, who drops back in as it were played by David
Straithairn – the rest of the cast are essentially playing themselves. Zhao
picked perfectly when casting McDormand, the type of actress capable of great
depths of humanity – this is another one of her very best performances – but
also someone who blends right in with the swath of humanity she is in (ditto
Straithairn). It is also the TIFF film I most regretted not being able to see
on the big screen – the beautiful vistas captured by Zhao and cinematographer
Joshua James Richards, makes this one of the beautiful portraits of the
American West I have ever seen. It’s also a painfully relevant movie – a
portrait of older Americans with few choices in life but to live this way. What
it isn’t, in anyway, is poverty porn though. In a COVID-19 world, you cannot
help but wonder about them now. It is a subtle, stirring film – clearly one of
the year’s best.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">And so,
that closes the door on another TIFF for me. It wasn’t the same – wasn’t close
to the same – to what the experience normally is. But it was probably the best
we could expect under the circumstances. I hope to be back to normal screenings
in 2021 – but who knows?</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-70077829065188005052020-09-11T10:29:00.001-07:002020-09-11T10:29:01.560-07:00Classic Movie Review: Satantango (1994)<h1 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Satantango (1994) <br /></span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Béla
Tarr.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">László
Krasznahorkai & Béla Tarr and Mihály Vig & Péter Dobai & Barna
Mihók based on by the novel by László Krasznahorkai.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 107%;">Mihály Vig (Irimiás), Putyi
Horváth (Petrina), László feLugossy (Schmidt), Éva Almássy Albert (Schmidtné), János
Dergrazsi (Kráner), Irén Szajki (Kránerné), Alfréd Járai (Halics), Miklós
Székely B. (Futaki), Erzsébet Gaál (Halicsné), György Barkó (Iskolaigazgató), Zoltán
Kamondi (Kocsmáros), Barna Mihók (Kerekes), Péter Dobai (Százados), András
Bodnár (Horgos Sanyi), Erika Bók (Estike), Peter Berling (Orvos), Ica Bojár (Horgosné),
István Juhász (Kelemen), Mihály Ráday (Narrator - voice).<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOHpY_URf3bowOEJcjrrFaYCgIWqkES15OiKqs7ncFVJ5s1aSUDMrDWAdACPMwdU_rT2pwapPb5603Up6rTtkDVlzAMU_YuDypAvjVSugAC2vT3N_u9xkry7hk89vazomNMWd-XqszcBcw/s504/Satantango.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="504" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOHpY_URf3bowOEJcjrrFaYCgIWqkES15OiKqs7ncFVJ5s1aSUDMrDWAdACPMwdU_rT2pwapPb5603Up6rTtkDVlzAMU_YuDypAvjVSugAC2vT3N_u9xkry7hk89vazomNMWd-XqszcBcw/s320/Satantango.jpg" /></a></div><br />There are
two types of people in the world – those who think Satantango is a masterpiece,
and those who never seen it. This doesn’t mean that everyone should see
Satantango because it would instantly be one of their favorite films – far from
it. But I think the type of people who won’t like Satantango by the time the
first shot ends, that the film isn’t for them, and turn it off. That first shot
lasts ten minutes, and focuses on cows. The camera will eventually start slowly
panning, following the cows, showing you the very small Hungarian village that
the film will take place in, but in the end, the shot is 10 minutes of cows. If
you’re bored early in this shot, you should probably just give up – and save
yourself the next seven-and-a-half hours it would take to watch the rest of
Satantango. Yes, the movie is about more than cows – far more in fact, but in
that shot you discover the speed at which director Bela Tarr is going to go for
those seven and half hours, the meticulous care he puts into every shot. It’s a
film that demands your attention – and most people won’t want to give it that
attention. This isn’t a value judgment on people. Most viewers have been
conditioned by classic film grammar to expect certain things – and Tarr
defiantly doesn’t give you that. The film is not for everyone – it’s not for
most people. But if it’s for you, then it’s really for you. And it is a
masterpiece.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 3.6in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">For a
long time, Satantango wasn’t available for home viewing. Tarr has said the film
is designed to be seen in one sitting, no breaks, in a movie theatre – and
while you can (probably accurately) accuse Tarr of being pretentious on that
point, you also have to admit that he is right. This is a slowest burn of a
film imaginable, and it builds and builds and builds over those seven hours.
Watching it over multiple sittings wouldn’t work as well – you have to get
yourself back into the headspace he gets you in with those cows all over again
– and perhaps that’s impossible. It now is on DVD – and on the Criterion Channel
(where I watched it). And it is glorious.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
is about a small farming collective in Hungary, and what happens to it as it is
slowly destroyed. The destruction is caused by Irmias, who was one of them, but
has been presumed dead for months now. Then he and his friend saunter back in
one day. The others in the commune don’t know that he has made a deal with a
Police Captain from nearby to spy on the collective. He is charming, and good
with words, and he will lay the foundation for the slow destruction of the
collective.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">That is
the plot – sort of – although Tarr takes detours on his way there, sowing the
seeds of discontent all over. There is a masterful, and almost unbearably
painful, sequence that runs nearly an hour – as a little girl slowly tortures
her cat to death in order to control something in her life, but then is so
racked with guilt, that she walks all night with the dead cat in her arms,
before taking her own life. Yeah, it’s that sort of film.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Yes, the
film is unremittedly grim. Tarr shoots the film in wonderful, glassy black and
white. His shots often last minutes on end – following people as they walk
through the trash strewn streets in a windstorm for example, or watching
drunken people dance for a long stretch of time. He focuses on their grizzled
faces that you only get when you lived a hard life. Is the film nihilistic?
Definitely.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">And yet,
that implies that Satantango is one grim, seven-and-a-half-hour slog that no
one could possibly enjoy, doesn’t it? That perhaps the reason why everyone who
has sat through Satantango calls it a masterpiece is simply because they sat
through a seven-and-a-half film, and if it wasn’t great, then you just wasted
all that time didn’t you? It’s true that can happen sometimes – show me a film
that runs more than four hours, and I will show you quite a few critics who
claim it to be a masterpiece. But while the outlook of the film is grim, and
Tarr is certainly earned his place among the “slow cinema” giants for a reason,
there is also so much humanity on display in the film. And moments of grim
humor.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">And the film is
enthralling. It really does, as the cliché goes, cast a strange spell over your
– enveloping you in this world. The cinematography is among the best in any
movie you will ever see. It is every bit the masterpiece people who have seen
it claim it to be. You already know if you’re one of those people – because
you’ve probably already seen it. If you haven’t, turn it on the Criterion
channel just to experience those cows. If you’re enthralled by the end of that
shot, strap yourself in for another seven plus hours of it. It is worth the
journey.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-48530710878778761872020-09-10T10:38:00.007-07:002020-09-10T10:38:53.881-07:00Movie Review: I'm Thinking of Ending Things<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I'm Thinking of Ending Things ***** / *****<br /></span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by:<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Charlie
Kaufman.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Charlie
Kaufman based on the novel by Iain Reid.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Jessie Buckley (The Young
Woman), Jesse Plemons (Jake), Toni Collette (Mother), David Thewlis (Father), Guy
Boyd (Janitor).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyKCsT-zr59Geygfi7E4pqDQir4wjikt-M39nRfp6Am7004Hd4j4QSsck1NHV-H7eas-oLWzFfxZJGcrAu2_k11KxN3j3pHFzuwiogwfW7FwEEnFUkRhyphenhyphen1PC0wqVL7MeTpwakUkc9FXT7a/s755/im_thinking_of_ending_things_ver3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="513" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyKCsT-zr59Geygfi7E4pqDQir4wjikt-M39nRfp6Am7004Hd4j4QSsck1NHV-H7eas-oLWzFfxZJGcrAu2_k11KxN3j3pHFzuwiogwfW7FwEEnFUkRhyphenhyphen1PC0wqVL7MeTpwakUkc9FXT7a/s320/im_thinking_of_ending_things_ver3.jpg" /></a></div><br />If
Adaptation proved anything, it’s that no matter what Charlie Kaufman writes, he
is going to make it his own. That’s how you get an adaptation of a book about
an eccentric orchid hunter, turned into a story about Kaufman struggling to
adapt that book, inventing for himself a fictional twin brother, and a story of
the author itself. No one else would adapt the book that way – and that’s why
it’s brilliant. Kaufman does something similar with Ian Reid’s book I’m Thinking
of Ending Things. Kaufman stays true – mostly – to the events in the book –
which is about a young woman (Jessie Buckley) going on a long car trip to visit
her new boyfriend’s parents, even as she is thinking of breaking up with him
the whole time. So this isn’t a complete 180 like Adaptation was. But it’s also
very clearly not a straight adaptation either. Kaufman gives the entire movie a
surreal, almost dreamlike feeling that he slowly turns into a nightmare. The
end of the book suggests another connection to Adaptation that I won’t reveal
because it would give the game away – but Kaufman takes that and twists it as
well. You cannot say that Kaufman didn’t adapt Reid’s novel – he very clearly
did. But I’m having a tough time thinking of another example of a filmmaker
staying so true to the events of a book, while also completely making it his
own (maybe The Shining – but Kubrick changed a lot more about King’s novel than
Kaufman does).<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The car
ride that opens the movie – and last for a good 30 minutes – feels deliberately
interminable. As The Young Woman sits in the passenger seat, she is almost in
her own world. We hear her thoughts – not just about breaking up with her new
boyfriend, Jake (Jesse Plemons) but on many other subjects as well. He keeps
interrupting those thoughts with questions, queries, asides – an attempt to
make conversation, and like the young woman herself, we constantly feel jerked
out her head, and back to this very long, very cold, very snowy car ride.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Things
get more unsettled once they are at the farm house. Jake’s parents – played by
Toni Collette and David Thewlis – seem like typical, loving parents. A little
old fashioned, and not quite with “it” – whatever that is. The mother waves
from the window, but then doesn’t come down right away. Jake and The Young Woman
go exploring – a traumatic experience from childhood is revealed. They will
settle into dinner – and it’s, well strange. And there are other strange
happenings as well – The Young Woman’s job and name doesn’t seem consistent
from scene to scene – and she’s constantly getting phone calls. Her story about
how she met Jake doesn’t completely add up. And why the hell does Kaufman keep
cutting away to a high school janitor throughout?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">There
are, of course, answers to these questions – and Kaufman isn’t going to leave
them dangling. His mind may not have the mathematical precision of Christopher
Nolan’s, but his films usually do answer the questions they raise – even if
they do so in odd ways, which it certainly does here. Yet, for a movie that is
so surreal, so much about a mounting unease, that continually shifts under your
feet every time you think you have a handle on things, Kaufman, as always, doesn’t
take the easy way out on any of them. His characters, even when they seem to
inconsistent in the details, are not merely just playthings for him. They have
agency, even if they are trapped in this weird film. This is most true of The
Young Woman – brilliantly played by Jessie Buckley, who is quickly becoming one
of the best actresses around. It almost feels like the creator wants her to be
one thing – but she keeps twisting, insisting that she is something else
entirely – so much so that eventually the creator also has to admit it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Buckley’s
performance is clearly the best in the film – but that doesn’t mean Plemons,
Collette and Thewlis are great as well. Plemons has become a perfect everyman
actor – and he’s wonderful at the way he twists that when needed – like in
Breaking Bad, where his character is clearly a bad guy, but doesn’t quite
realize it – or why others may see him that way. Here, Jake isn’t evil – but there’s
something just not quite right there – and Plemons plays it perfectly. Thewlis is
just odd here – a seriously underrated actor, he was great in Kaufman’s
Anomalisa, and you should see his weirdness in Atom Egoyan’s Guest of Honour
just to see how different it is from the weirdness here. And Toni Collette
continues her streak of great performances – where she very definitely makes
choices and runs with them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">I find
that this review I’m dancing around the ending – which is brilliant, because I
want you see it without knowing is coming. Ultimately, Kaufman does answer the
questions he is raising. But yet, I fear that saying that will make it sound
like a M. Night Shyamalan movie, in which in the end, when all is revealed, you
sit back and say “ah-ha”, like you’ve completed a puzzle, and can now put it
away and never think of it again. Those type of twist ending are popular – and I
think perhaps you could (rightly) accuse the book of being one of those. But in
Kaufman’s film, the ending serves to deepen what we’ve seen before – yes, it
resolves the “what the hell happened” of it all – but also makes you want to
dive back in again, and see it from a different perspective. Because doing so
will make it a different experience – perhaps a sadder one, but also perhaps a
more profound one. Kaufman has always been good at that – seeming to make one
thing, while he’s really making another. I know this is a movie that will
frustrate as many as it beguiles – and others will think that the journey isn’t
worth the destination. Fair enough. But for me, by the end, the film felt so
deeply felt, so deeply personal, and – not quite knowing what this says about
me – deeply relatable. If it’s not the best work of Kaufman’s writing or
directing career – perhaps that’s just because of how strong most of his work
is. It certainly is the year’s best film so far – and a masterwork.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-22170599231774765912020-09-10T10:37:00.002-07:002020-09-10T10:37:09.619-07:00Movie Review: The New Mutants<h1 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The New Mutants ** ½ / *****<br /></span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by:<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Josh
Boone.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Josh
Boone and Knate Lee.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Maisie Williams (Rahne
Sinclair), Anya Taylor-Joy (Illyana Rasputin), Charlie Heaton (Sam Guthrie),
Alice Braga (Dr. Reyes), Blu Hunt (Danielle Moonstar), Henry Zaga (Roberto da
Costa), Adam Beach (Danielle’s Father), Thomas Kee (Sam’s Father), Colbi
Gannett (Young Illyana), Happy Anderson (Reverand Craig), Dustin Ceithamer (Smiling
Man).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2appOj1cVHfipATdTJ9YlwvC9Siq0Enejd5Dyg3Fm-sP5A07g6lTveIqAIBpO30mLtSsyYazC2QfaCX7USXwzkWine-k7uMQRdS3laauHRWndElWTyNRLqTMSnnqdUk7D6jbmD7wsp1V0/s755/new_mutants_ver8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="497" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2appOj1cVHfipATdTJ9YlwvC9Siq0Enejd5Dyg3Fm-sP5A07g6lTveIqAIBpO30mLtSsyYazC2QfaCX7USXwzkWine-k7uMQRdS3laauHRWndElWTyNRLqTMSnnqdUk7D6jbmD7wsp1V0/s320/new_mutants_ver8.jpg" /></a></div><br />It should
tell you something about how much the studio believed in The New Mutants, that
even though it is the final installment in Fox’s X-Men franchise before Disney
officially takes over, and it was released a week before Tenet, that everyone
still lists Christopher Nolan’s film as the first big movie to come out in
theatres since the Covid-19 pandemic hit. The film has been oft-delayed, had
more than one reshoot, and now that Disney owned it, but didn’t pay to make it,
they just dumped it out there – hoping to make a few bucks off it, before
putting in their library as just more content. It’s not particularly good – but
as someone who suffered through Dark Phoenix last year, I can confidently say
at least it’s not that bad.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
is about a group of five teenage mutants – all of whom have a dark secret involving
their powers, when they emerged, and were unable to control them. That’s how
they ended up at the remote hospital run by Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga) – who wants
them to be able to control their powers better. Her superiors will be happy then
- and they will be able to leave. Until then, they are trapped. Reyes is
capable of putting a force field around the hospital to prevent escape. No
matter what they do, they aren’t going anywhere.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The
protagonist of the movie is Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt), a member of the
Cheyenne, who she is told has been wiped out by a tornado – something she
remembers in flashes. She doesn’t know what her powers are yet – Reyes is trying
to figure them out – but her mutant energy is off the charts. She is stuck with
the rest of them in the hospital – kindly Rahne (Maisie Williams), who can
transform into a wolf, Kentucky coal miner Sam (Charlie Heaton) who can take
off like Superman, the Russian Illyana (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is full of
surprises that she hides behind her puppet, and Roberto (Henry Zaga), child of
the richest family in Brazil, who doesn’t want to reveal his powers. The
participate in Cuckoo’s Nest like group therapy sessions, and go on Breakfast
Club like adventures around the building when they don’t think Reyes is
watching.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
is clearly setup to be an origin story – so gradually, we will get the tragic
backstory of each of the five people, and learn what their powers are. Danielle
bonds with Rahne quickly, and just as quickly develops a rivalry with Illyana.
Mainly though, they sit around and wait for the climax.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The
young, talented cast aren’t really able to do very much with their roles.
Mainly, they tell you everything you need to know about them, and drop hints
about what is going to happen in the end. For as much talk as there was about
this being a horror film, it’s only there in fits and starts. Yes, the Smiling
Man is creepy, and a Priest is also creepy – but that’s about as far as it
goes. The climax is basically more CGI soup – although thankfully on a smaller
scale than normal.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">I think The New Mutants
could have been an interesting place to take the X-Men – start using some
different faces rather than Wolverine, Cyclops, Professor X, Magneto et al that
we’ve been watching for 20 years now. I just wouldn’t want this production team
to continue the story, as they basically found the least interesting way
possible to introduce us to the story. Filmmaker needs to stop looking ahead
two or three movies at what they’re going to do in the future, and make the
movie they are making now better. The New Mutants doesn’t do that – and its
precisely the reason there won’t be any more coming in this series.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-18434768715986240162020-09-10T10:35:00.002-07:002020-09-10T10:35:20.713-07:00Movie Review: Feels Good Man<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Feels Good Man **** / *****<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Arthur
Jones.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Giorgio
Angelini and Arthur Jones and Aaron Wickenden based on original artwork by Matt
Furie.</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Kx2NSgR1XBkAsq3uU9JeCrkMokEKWDe2Z8c6J1178T5vibuCAAMClo2nvFMs_yboVNc75jLoT3-0IENeKF39cczM-1q2NvNNpLqOo5PzMVr4F1xomllz4pqUH2tR92RyE8XMPbYUfZCJ/s1000/feels-good-man-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="666" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Kx2NSgR1XBkAsq3uU9JeCrkMokEKWDe2Z8c6J1178T5vibuCAAMClo2nvFMs_yboVNc75jLoT3-0IENeKF39cczM-1q2NvNNpLqOo5PzMVr4F1xomllz4pqUH2tR92RyE8XMPbYUfZCJ/s320/feels-good-man-poster.jpg" /></a></div><br />What do
you do if you’re a mild mannered comics artist, who sees one of your creations
adopted by the alt-right, and memed to death, supporting a cause you don’t
agree with? If you’re Matt Furie, the creator Pepe the Frog, at first the
answer is nothing. Pepe didn’t start his life as an alt-right troll, but as a
character in Furie’s Boys Club comic – essentially a riff on post-college
malaise, and male friendship. He grew out of that phase of his career, and
moved onto others things. As what often happens with these things, Pepe’s
journey to the alt-right started slowly – and Furie didn’t really seem to care
if some fringe, basement dwellers in a small, dark corner of the internet had
appropriated his creation. Besides, what was he supposed to do? It’s up to the
artist to go after copyright infringement, and these people weren’t really
using Pepe to make money. He just let it go. And in letting in go, he allowed
it to get bigger. And by the time he decided to fight back against it, it was
too late – and his fight perhaps even made things get worse. Many of the people
who love Pepe are trolls – they don’t really believe in much of anything – they
just want to get a rise out of you, and if they get it, they’re just keep
coming back.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">I almost
wish the film had spent even more time than it does on the trolls on 4chan who
started using Pepe the Frog. The film shows how it happened – how these
basement dwellers saw an image of Pepe the Frog, and liked it, so they started
using it on their boards. It slowly grew, and soon, the wider internet had
adopted Pepe the Frog as well – still not as a symbol of the alt-right, but
rather has a cute meme. This infuriated those who first discovered the meme –
and going all “I liked that band before they got famous” on it, decided to ruin
Pepe the Frog for everyone. You think he’s cute, eh? What if he’s a
concentration camp guard gassing Jews? Not so cute now.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">This dark
corner of the internet needs a fuller exploration. We get a few of them here –
who help us see how it all worked, how Trump supporters adopted Pepe, and how
eventually the campaign did as well. You get the sense from those the film
talks to though that they aren’t really Trump die hards – they’re nihilists.
They don’t love Trump – they love that Trump makes so many people angry. And to
them, that’s funny, so if they can get Trump to be President, it’s even
funnier.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">But the
way the film goes has its merits as well. It looks at Furie, as he decides he
has had enough. His innocent, stoner creation was never meant to be this symbol
of hate – it is literally put on the Southern Poverty Law Centre’s list of hate
symbols – and so he tries to take it back. First, he tries to kill off Pepe –
which didn’t work. Then he tried to get artists to draw Pepe as a symbol of
love – they did, but the trolls ruined that as well. Then, he calls a lawyer. You
may not be able to sue an anonymous troll in his basement – but you can sue
Alex Jones, who uses Pepe to make money.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">To be
fair, while Furie has made progress, it isn’t likely he’ll ever be able to
“take back” Pepe the Frog. As Randall learned in Clerks II, when he tried to
take back the phrase “Porch Monkey”, once the cat is out of the bag, it’s out.
But he’s trying. And Feels Good Man ends up being a portrait of a nice guy – an
artist who saw the worst thing that can happen to your art happen, and decide
to do something. Maybe it’s not – but it’s the best he can do.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-69258041022359156702020-09-10T10:33:00.002-07:002020-09-10T10:33:11.034-07:00Movie Reivew: Irresistible<h1 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Irresistible ** / *****<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Jon
Stewart.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Jon
Stewart.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring:<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Steve Carell (Gary Zimmer),
Rose Byrne (Faith Brewster), Chris Cooper (Jack Hastings), Mackenzie Davis (Diana
Hastings), Topher Grace (Kurt), Natasha Lyonne (Tina), Brent Sexton (Mayor
Braun).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt18B3xC8nMRZAavxU53EKvTpCRM6aTuR3GJsDwm69jYEMfrbY-gg8FuKYhkZbFi8tzYCGPHIcEXzfzOfX32RE6FPF8-m5JGX9Of34a6XVrCnI1X_QfoQun7nRm4JF8_gqQ1itKxBFGJ30/s755/irresistible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="509" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt18B3xC8nMRZAavxU53EKvTpCRM6aTuR3GJsDwm69jYEMfrbY-gg8FuKYhkZbFi8tzYCGPHIcEXzfzOfX32RE6FPF8-m5JGX9Of34a6XVrCnI1X_QfoQun7nRm4JF8_gqQ1itKxBFGJ30/s320/irresistible.jpg" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Throughout
the George W. Bush years, and through the beginning of the </span><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">Barack</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Obama years,
Jon Stewart was a necessarily voice in political discourse. Yes, he was a
comedian, and no, young people should not have gotten all their news from him
on The Daily Show – but he was a smart, incisive voice – someone capable of
cutting through all the crap and the noise, to show you what was going on
beneath it. With his new film, Irresistible, his first work of the Trump era,
Stewart reveals himself to be almost painfully out of touch. He isn’t alone in
this – late night comedians, including those who have followed in his footsteps
from John Olivier to Samantha Bee to Trevor Noah to Stephen Colbert don’t
really seem to know what to do with Trump. They attack, sure. But they aren’t
getting anywhere. But with them, at least, they seem to know that we’re in a
different era. If you told me Irresistible was a film Stewart wrote in 2005,
and just forgot to make it for 15 years, I would believe you. But it would have
seemed quaint even then.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
stars Steve Carrell as Gary Zimmer, a bigwig at the DNC, who was confident
Hilary would win, and is reeling when she loses. He wants the Democrats to
reconnect with the heartland – and when he’s shown a video of Jack Hastings
(Chris Cooper), a military lifer, given an impassioned, pro-immigrant speech,
at the town council meeting in small town Wisconsin, he thinks he has found his
avatar – at least a way to prove that Democrats can compete for those white
voters in the Rust Belt. He heads to that town to convince Jack to run for
Mayor – and he agrees, but only if Jack runs the campaign personally. When it
starts to draw some media attention, he is joined by GOP strategist, Faith
Brewster (Rose Byrne), who backs the current Mayor. Soon money is pouring into
the race, that takes on national attention.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Stewart,
who was always (not entirely incorrectly) accused of preaching to the choir,
seems to go out of his way here to paint “both sides” as bad. Yes, Faith is a
hypocrite, a huckster, who will tell any lie she feels will get her ahead –
Zimmer isn’t any better, except maybe he believes some of the crap he spews –
but he spews so much of it, the line gets blurred, and it’s hard to tell.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Stewart
seemingly wants to make a new Frank Capra movie here – although with the people
Capra usually casts as the bad guys as the main characters. On his show, he
never seemed to buy into the “real America” vs. “Coastal Elites” narratives
Republicans spew – but he seems to here. The people in this small town just
want to make their small town better – and they get no help from people like
Gary or Faith. The film will become an indictment about money in politics – and
sure, that’s bad, and should be fixed. It’s also not the real problem right
now.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">So
Stewart strands his talented cast with a lot of dialogue they strain to make
work. That it succeeds at all is testament to how good Carrell, Cooper and Mackenzie
Davis are as actors, and Byrne’s willingness to go wherever the script takes
her. But it’s a tired movie – a movie that would have seemed old fashioned when
Stewart was on the air. People have pointed out recently that much of what
Stewart did on The Daily Show has aged poorly. Perhaps they are right. But that
type of comedy is not designed to last – it’s designed for that moment in time.
Stewart, unfortunately, seems stuck there.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-56040612439231665372020-09-10T10:29:00.000-07:002020-09-10T10:29:00.603-07:00Movie Review: Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against
the Universe *** ½ / *****<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Bob
Bowen.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Dan Povenmire
& Jeff 'Swampy' Marsh and Jon Colton Barry and Jim Bernstein and Joshua Pruett
and Kate Kondell and Jeffrey M. Howard and Bob Bowen based on characters
created by Povenmire & Marsh.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 107%;">Vincent Martella
(Phineas), Ashley Tisdale (Candace), David Errigo Jr. (Ferb), Dan Povenmire (Dr.
Doofenshmirtz), Alyson Stoner (Isabella), Maulik Pancholy (Baljeet), Bobby
Gaylor (Buford), Dee Bradley Baker (Perry / Mama / Additional Voices), Olivia
Olson (Vanessa), Ali Wong (Super Super Big Doctor), Wayne Brady (Stapler-Fist),
Thomas Middleditch (Garnoz), Diedrich Bader (Borthos), Thomas Sanders (Throat-Lobster),
Caroline Rhea (Mom), Richard O'Brien (Dad), Mitchel Musso (Jeremy), Kelly Hu (Stacy),
Jeff 'Swampy' Marsh (Major Monogram), Tyler Alexander Mann (Carl), John
O'Hurley (Roger Doofenshmirtz), 'Weird Al' Yankovic (Shirt Cannon Guy), Tiffany
Haddish (The Sound Someone Makes When They Explode From The Waist Up).<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrabqoxQjoWtZCDmjPEhkJUTSANwucb7KMXrddXEXrtOXtifdIKN6RP0C9UmMBX3mztm6qr8QTpsrOzBBP4vQW3aIjKwouM1FVWhW-H9qJdk3ZkYdWbkhx3EPzB9MDYZOgUu2ZG6TMQYpY/s755/phineas_and_ferb_the_movie_candace_against_the_universe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrabqoxQjoWtZCDmjPEhkJUTSANwucb7KMXrddXEXrtOXtifdIKN6RP0C9UmMBX3mztm6qr8QTpsrOzBBP4vQW3aIjKwouM1FVWhW-H9qJdk3ZkYdWbkhx3EPzB9MDYZOgUu2ZG6TMQYpY/s320/phineas_and_ferb_the_movie_candace_against_the_universe.jpg" /></a></div><br />There
really is no denying that Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the
Universe is a cynical ploy by Disney to get more “original” content for Disney+
to keep subscribers happy. It’s a low risk endeavor, because even if the show
the movie is based on went off the air five years ago, it lives on in countless
repeats, and of course, on Disney+ itself. The brainchild of Dan Povenmire and
Jeff “Swampy” Marsh – the show was ingenious in the ways it found to
essentially repeat itself every episode. The title characters are stepbrothers,
and geniuses, who create some super complicated device in their backyard one
day, their teenage sister, Candace, wants to bust them, and every episode she
just about does it. The only problem is that the boys pet Platypus, Perry, is
really a secret agent in disguise, and every episode, he has to foil the plot
of the “evil” Dr. Doofenshmirtz, who is always inventing an “enator” of some
kind – and those devices will inevitably make whatever the boys invented
disappear right before their mother finds out. The same thing happened every
episode, for 222 episodes, over an 8-year span. And most of it was great –
smart and funny, the show had running gags galore, great visual humor, and
enough smarter humor that it really was the clichéd show that adults could
watch with their children, and love it as much as they did.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Did we
need this movie? To be honest, no we didn’t. We probably really didn’t the show
anymore after the 2011 movie Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2</span><sup style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif;">nd</sup><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">
Dimension, which showed us exactly what would happen if Candace ever really did
bust the boys, and if the boys found out about Perry’s secret identity. It was
a high point of the run, but the show merrily continued on its joyous way for 4
years – mainly because the end of the movie erased everyone’s memory, so you
can reset it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">And yet,
the movie works. It’s always harder to try and make a feature out of a TV show,
especially one with such a circular pattern as Phineas and Ferb, where the same
thing happens again and again. Yet, even if they’ve been away from it for five
years, Povenmire and Marsh know precisely who these characters, what they will
do, and put them through their paces well. The plot is, of course, ridiculous.
It finds Candace, and Doofensmirtz’s daughter Vanessa, beamed to a distant
planet, and the stepbrothers needing to go rescue them – with the help, of
course, of Doofensmirtz, and their ragtag group of friends – Isabella, Baljeet
and Buford – with Perry tagging along, having to remain hidden. If you haven’t
seen the show, then you have no idea who these, characters are – but then why
are you reading this at all?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The snag
is that Candace doesn’t really want to be rescued. She is idolized on the new
planet, and finds a new bestie in Super Super Big Doctor (Ali Wong), who she
has much in common with. No, Phineas and Ferb aren’t really doing The Searchers
(or Taxi Driver), but they touch on that same dilemma.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Mostly
though, the film is just goofy fun. You may be a little disappointed in the
songs – always a highlight of the show, but aside from the opening number by
Candace, and Doofensmirtz’s wonderful song about “Adulting” you aren’t likely
to remember them (and even at their best, the don’t come close to something
like Doofensmirtz’s duet with another version of himself in the 2011 movie).
Mostly though, the film gets things right, keeps things moving, and has many
great moments – often standalone gags (like an alien who escapes – twice).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">You
easily could have left Phineas and Ferb alone – their legacy is secure, and
this doesn’t really add to it. It doesn’t detract from it either though. We are
in the “content” days now – where things are made for the sake of them being
made, to build a library of “content”. At least this is good.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-62452685590072608232020-08-31T17:26:00.001-07:002020-08-31T17:26:08.890-07:00Movie Review: Tenet<h1 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Tenet **** / *****<br /></span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by:<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Christopher
Nolan.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Christopher
Nolan.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">John David Washington (The
Protagonist), Robert Pattinson (Neil), Elizabeth Debicki (Kat), Kenneth Branagh
(Andrei Sator), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Ives), Clémence Poésy (Laura), Fiona
Dourif (Wheeler), Michael Caine (Michael Crosby), Andrew Howard (Stephen), Wes
Chatham (Sammy), Himesh Patel (Mahir), Martin Donovan (Victor), Dimple Kapadia (Priya),
Anthony Molinari (Rohan), Yuri Kolokolnikov (Quinton), Jonathan Camp (Archibald),
Rich Ceraulo Ko (Timmy), Mark Krenik (Toby), Laurie Shepherd (Max), Denzil
Smith (Liam).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuGgRMiZr_pImrgBG6xKLrVAoGBhWUTVN8GDr7KBl68NKIQYezeoQs_vx6P-TrTXyxcVKszTttv1jxbxmbVQFC5CUwI323pzjIfpecoD0AuBCHVJomLZ83eMQ6TqY0G1Smk9EqVggo0ca8/s755/tenet_ver2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="509" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuGgRMiZr_pImrgBG6xKLrVAoGBhWUTVN8GDr7KBl68NKIQYezeoQs_vx6P-TrTXyxcVKszTttv1jxbxmbVQFC5CUwI323pzjIfpecoD0AuBCHVJomLZ83eMQ6TqY0G1Smk9EqVggo0ca8/w276-h410/tenet_ver2.jpg" width="276" /></a></div><br />T<span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">ime really is the driving obsession behind most of
Christopher Nolan’s work. It’s a main point in all of his non-Batman films, and
now that I think of it, even there – but in the more traditional sense, in that
Bruce Wayne wonders how long he can do this for. I’m not going to traffic in
spoilers for Nolan’s latest film – I am acutely aware that I have seen this
film before many others (specifically in America) have even had a chance to,
and well before many – worldwide – will comfortable going. I often think spoiler-phobes
are insane with the degree in which they demand people write about films,
giving away absolutely nothing – so if you’re one those, probably stop reading,
but if you’re sane, you’ll be fine. But with Nolan, I think perhaps warranted –
not because his films are so complex and mysterious, but actually kind of the
opposite. Since Memento, Nolan has specialized in making this kind of intricate
puzzle box films – Tenet is certainly one of those – but while the first time
through any of them you may be confused in the moment, you can also rest
assured that (spinning top aside), Nolan is going to wrap everything up in a
nice, neat package for you in the end. That’s just the way his mind works.
Personally, I like a little more mystery in my films – even at the end. But you
cannot deny just the massive amount of technical craft that goes into a film
like Tenant, the skill of the performers, or just how well thought out the film
is by Nolan. I’m sure someone will come up with plot holes – they always do – but
I didn’t see them.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">W</span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">ithout giving too much away in terms of plot, let
me just say that the film revolves around The Protagonist (John David
Washington), who is sucked into a world he doesn’t understand, and tasked with
saving the world. He will eventually team up with Neil (a very charming Robert
Pattinson), and get involved with the beautiful Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) and her
Russian oligarch husband Andrei (Kenneth Branagh) – no points for guessing
whether a Russian oligarch is a good guy or a bad guy. I have a feeling that
even saying this much will anger people, so I’ll just leave it at that.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">On the performance side, you probably cannot expect
much more out of the four principle cast members of Tenet. Hell, Washington is
literally stuck playing a character called The Protagonist, and he somehow
makes it an interesting performance. It may not be a deep performance – none of
them are – but the way he struts through a scene, and seemingly effortlessly
takes it over on the strength of his charm alone will certainly remind you of
his father – and a higher compliment, I find it hard to imagine. Washington
surely is a movie star, and if he were British, he may even make the case for
being the next James Bond here. Pattinson, who has gone from one indie director
to another, delivering fascinating performances, is here back in the
blockbuster realm – and he’s equally adept here. He has a roguish charm here –
he fits into the world of the film effortlessly in a way that Washington stands
out (because of his race). Pattinson, who I didn’t think much of in the
Twilight films, has turned into one hell of an actor – and he is terrific here.
Much like her male co-stars, Debicki is wonderful here – it’s the film’s most
sympathetic role, and she certainly shows that she is a movie star like they
do. Branagh has fun with his Russian accent, because of course he does, and
he’s quite good as well.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">F</span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">rom a technical standpoint, it’s hard to find fault
in Tenet – which not only does all the things you expect a Christopher Nolan
movie to do well on a massive scale, but even does some things I don’t think
I’ve quite seen before. Please note, I seem to be in the minority of people who
never found dialogue in any Nolan film hard to hear (seriously people, I
understood every word Tom Hardy said in both The Dark Knight Rises and Dunkirk)
– but the sound work here is still perhaps the best of Nolan’s career. Hoyte
Van Hoytema’s cinematography is excellent, composer Ludwig Goranasson steps in
for Hans Zimmer and doesn’t miss a beat. The editing is a definite feat – and
the special effects is excellent.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">I
do think, in the end, Tenet is a film that hit me much like Inception did –
perhaps a little less. Both films are certainly complex in terms of their plot
and implications – but they are both perhaps so complex that it feels like roughly
50% of the dialogue is explaining what they hell just happened, or what is
going to happen. It’s all explanatory – and while the actors make it work, and
it’s needed so you don’t get lost – it’s also not the most fascinating thing in
the world to listen to (especially, one thinks, a second time through). For all
of its faults, there is nothing in Tenet that hit me as emotionally hard as
Interstellar did. Much more so than Nolan’s other films, Tenet really does feel
like a mathematical equation – a left brain exercise in precision. I admire the
hell out of most of what the film does - I just wish it did a bit more. </span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-42611735712313113462020-08-31T17:24:00.002-07:002020-08-31T17:24:09.974-07:00Movie Review: The King of Staten Island<h1 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The King of Staten Island *** ½ / *****<br /></span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by:<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Judd
Apatow.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Judd
Apatow & Pete Davidson & Dave Sirus.</span><br /><b><o:p></o:p></b></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Pete Davidson (Scott
Carlin), Marisa Tomei (Margie Carlin), Bill Burr (Ray Bishop), Ricky Velez (Oscar),
Bel Powley (Kelsey), Maude Apatow (Claire Carlin), Steve Buscemi (Papa), Pamela
Adlon (Gina), Jimmy Tatro (Firefighter Savage), Kevin Corrigan (Joe), Domenick
Lombardozzi (Firefighter Lockwood), Mike Vecchione (Firefighter Thompson), Moises
Arias (Igor), Carly Aquilino (Tara), Lou Wilson (Richie), Derek Gaines (Zoots),
Pauline Chalamet (Joanne).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Pwm5HxNXadRo-RvYj5gIL880hi_BzZ7dfrAA3vhMhTuE85XVVcgXYxv6KyIJjz43iByFfb4U8AiZFffdiebkgCz4OQyk2y6jIo746WfgE53SEsLqw7uyemUNY8t4wCX6676w6q_bxJVA/s755/king_of_staten_island.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="473" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Pwm5HxNXadRo-RvYj5gIL880hi_BzZ7dfrAA3vhMhTuE85XVVcgXYxv6KyIJjz43iByFfb4U8AiZFffdiebkgCz4OQyk2y6jIo746WfgE53SEsLqw7uyemUNY8t4wCX6676w6q_bxJVA/w257-h410/king_of_staten_island.jpg" width="257" /></a></div><br />Judd
Apatow has essentially made a directing career out of movies telling famous
comedians it’s time to grow the hell up. Whether it’s Steve Carrell in The 40
Year Old Virgin or Seth Rogen in Knocked Up, Adam Sandler in Funny People or
Amy Schumer in Trainwreck – or hell, even Paul Rudd as a Apatow stand-in in
This is 40 – Apatow’s filmography is full of funny people, who are basically
overgrown children, who just need to mature – usually, it’s through a
relationship with someone, but not always (Funny People being the obvious
exception here). His latest, The King of Staten Island, attempts to do the same
thing for SNL’s Pete Davidson, essentially taking Davidson’s persona, and
details from his life, and making a movie about how Davidson’s Scott Carlin
needs to grow up. I do think the film softens some of the real Davidson’s
issues – mental illness is brought up, but not really explored, and even in a
filmography such as Apatow’s – where there has never been a subplot that hasn’t
been explored, this time it seems excessive. Still, the film is winning and
funny, and essentially warm hearted – basically, what you expect from Apatow.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">In the
film, David stars as Scott Carlin – a 24-year-old still living at home on
Staten Island with his mother, Margie (Marisa Tomei) and younger sister Claire
(Maude Apatow) – although Claire is about to go away to college, and is
understandably worried about her big brother. Their firefighter father died in
a fire when they were little (not on 9/11 as Davidson’s real father did – perhaps
Apatow and company figured bringing that into it would make it far too dark) –
and Scott has never really gotten over it. He basically does the same thing he
did in high school – sit around with his friends getting stoned, giving himself
– and them – bad tattoos, and arguing with Kelsey (Bel Powley) his childhood
friend turned friends with benefits/girlfriend that he doesn’t know why she
wants to put a label on their relationship. He doesn’t have a job – he’ll get
one as a busboy – he dropped out of art school (he is talented) – and doesn’t
really know what he’s going to do. He goes into a little bit of a tailspin when
his mother starts dating Ray (Bill Burr) – another fireman, which brings out
the worst in him, and in turn, in Ray as well.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film has
approximately a million subplots – so we get scenes with his friends, scenes
with Ray’s ex-wife – Pamela Adlon, who Scott bonds with when he starts walking
their kids to school, scenes with Kelsey, scenes at the restaurant where he
works, scenes of him trying to become a tattoo artist, etc. before the film
settles down in its second half and focuses on Scott, living with the firemen
at the firehouse, who kind of take him under their wing, tell him stories about
his dad, and make him grow up a little. You could argue there is a better,
tighter 90-minute version of this film – rather than 135-minute version we got
– one that focusing primarily on the firemen, his mother and Kelsey (Bel Powley
is a delight) – but over the last 15 years, I’ve come to think that perhaps
Apatow is like Tarantino in that he needs the subplots, side roads and
diversions to get to where he ultimately wants to be.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I</span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"> still
don’t know if Davidson is a good actor or not. He’s incredibly hit and miss on
SNL and is in his standup, but playing a version of himself here, he is quite
good. It doesnI’t hurt him that he is surrounded by an excellent supporting cast
– I really liked the previously mentioned Tomei and especially Powley, along
with Steve Buscemi as the elder statesman of the fire department, Pamela Aldon,
who makes the most out of little screen time, and The Nightly Show’s Ricky
Velez as one of Scott’s loser friends. In a more serious role, Burr is also
quite good – although I wouldn’t be shocked to find the role was written especially
for him and his comedic skills.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">I do wish
that the film had delved a little deeper into mental illness though – even if
this is a comedy. Davidson has been open with his struggles – and Scott
mentions them early in the film as well, but they are kind of forgotten about
as the film moves along. Unlike other Apatow protagonists, I don’t think it’s
quite so easy as saying Scott needs to grow up, and commit to the perfect girl
right in front of him. Like changing his father’s death from being on 9/11 to
just being in a random fire, you wonder if perhaps Apatow just didn’t want to
deal with what it would bring up in a comedy – but doing so may have taken The
King of Staten Island from what it is – a good little comedy, into something
greater.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Still, for what it is, The
King of Staten Island definitely works. It is funny and heartwarming, and gives
Davidson a chance to show what he can do – and surrounds him with a first rate
ensemble cast. If I wanted a little more, it’s a testament to what was already
there, that I felt the film could have gone there if it chose to. </span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-21534426612246834222020-08-31T17:22:00.000-07:002020-08-31T17:22:01.179-07:00Movie Review: The Burnt Orange Heresy<h1 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Burnt
Orange Heresy ** ½ / *****<br /></span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed
by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Giuseppe Capotondi.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written
by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Scott B. Smith based on the novel by Charles
Willeford.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring:
</span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Elizabeth Debicki (Berenice Hollis), Claes Bang
(James Figueras), Donald Sutherland (Jerome Debney), Mick Jagger (Joseph
Cassidy).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbENJL3c3t8nm2zBxeS7dCt53cBuAEnbh83dIGUBCry81iPaD0dKucdueDNANTR6s-G3JoeVIKxTwuVD8nYelbGrBkA7Pi5o4ofgKVBhXvxXKJcpOeAvpdqvE3G4UI6GI9xjnPzQedtCdN/s755/burnt_orange_heresy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="510" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbENJL3c3t8nm2zBxeS7dCt53cBuAEnbh83dIGUBCry81iPaD0dKucdueDNANTR6s-G3JoeVIKxTwuVD8nYelbGrBkA7Pi5o4ofgKVBhXvxXKJcpOeAvpdqvE3G4UI6GI9xjnPzQedtCdN/w222-h328/burnt_orange_heresy.jpg" width="222" /></a></div><br />Elizabeth
Debicki has certainly become one of the best working actresses around. She
should have least been nominated for her excellent performances in Steve
McQueen’s Widows, she’s excellent in pure movie star mode in Christopher
Nolan’s Tenet – and has delivered any number of interesting performances in
other movies as well. She is even good in this film, The Burnt Orange Heresy,
which overall isn’t a particularly good film – but she, along with Donald
Sutherland, elevate a rather silly art world thriller. Perhaps a director like
Hitchcock could have made this film work – but even then, it would be full of
pseudo-intellectual posturing about art and its meaning, so maybe not.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
stars Claes Bang as James – an art critic, who was once a rising star in the
field, who everyone assumed would be running his own prestigious gallery by
this point – but he’s screwed up, and so now he writes books, and delivers
lectures to old people on the meaning of art that he doesn’t much believe in.
He meets Debicki’s Berenice at one of those lectures – the pair fall into bed almost
immediately, and soon are a couple. James is approached by Joseph Cassidy (Mick
Jagger) – a big time art dealer, with an offer. The legendary artist Jerome
Debney (Sutherland) is willing to sit down for an interview with James. All of
Debney’s work was apparently burned in a gallery fire decades ago, and he
hasn’t released anything since – although according to Cassidy, he has never
stopped working. What Cassidy wants is for James to steal one of Debney’s newer
works. It will make a fortune for Cassidy – who in turn will do a solid for
James – and get him that gallery he always wanted. Things, of course, don’t go
as planned – and James starts to distrust everyone around him – not without
reason.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">There is
certainly enough crackling chemistry between Bang and Debicki in the opening
act that make you wish the pair were starring in a film like Hitchcock’s To
Catch a Thief, or either version of The Thomas Crown Affair – films that I’m
sure the Netflix algorithm will suggest if you watch this one. All of those
films are light and fluffy – they don’t have much serious on their mind, and
had The Burnt Orange Heresy continued in that vein throughout, it undoubtedly
would have a been a fun little film. This is especially true once the third
major character – that legendary artist played with a twinkle of mischief in
his eye by Sutherland shows up.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">But
somewhere along the way, the film turns rather dark and self-serious – with a lot of questions
about art, including questions about an artist who supposedly worked during
their time in a Concentration Camp, and a lot of heavy symbolism about dead
flies. The film takes some dark twists and turns – as I suppose it must – in
the final act involving murder and guilt.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film,
it must be said, is beautiful to look at. Not only does the camera get to take
in the beauty of Bang and Debicki, but it’s shot in Lake Como in Italy, so
director </span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Giuseppe Capotondi doesn’t
have to do much to make it all look pretty. Unfortunately, he really doesn’t do
all that much else. The movie is all about its surface pleasures – with Bang,
Debicki and Sutherland having fun throughout – even trying to keep things light
as the film turns dark. Perhaps Bang got cast here because of his international
breakthrough The Square – as once again, he’s playing an art world figure in
over his head, although otherwise, the films have nothing in common. Still,
he’s in fine form – as is everyone else save for Mick Jagger, who seems to have
forgotten how to act over the years.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">In the end, The Burnt
Orange Heresy is never boring, and further proof – not that any was needed – of
the tremendous charm of Bang and Debicki – and still further proof that
Sutherland is just as talented as always (it’s still shocking to me that the
now 85-year-old Sutherland has never even been nominated for an Oscar – or
received a Lifetime Achievement award). It does kind of feel though that the
filmmakers didn’t know what was working about the film when they made it. </span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-37682101828517277342020-08-31T17:19:00.002-07:002020-08-31T17:19:08.971-07:00Movie Review: Host<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Host *** / *****<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Rob
Savage.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by:<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Gemma
Hurley and Rob Savage and Jed Shepherd.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Haley Bishop (Haley),
Jemma Moore (Jemma), Emma Louise Webb (Emma), Radina Drandova (Radina), Caroline
Ward (Caroline), Alan Emrys (Alan), Edward Linard (Teddy), Jinny Lofthouse
(Jinny), Seylan Baxter (Seylan).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipOb7NDB2rVQpWJw4ok7INba8nglBqe7XExcFXdiQ1d3m6P3uAtNhrWVLFY7zU9OiMrqS9-s3K2AZz5HOZ2GVcDn6sDw_pnntQiDE5RAfB9LMG8qb_Dmmx-nY2HOEGbNhVdYGiik6DUa5x/s1200/host.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="630" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipOb7NDB2rVQpWJw4ok7INba8nglBqe7XExcFXdiQ1d3m6P3uAtNhrWVLFY7zU9OiMrqS9-s3K2AZz5HOZ2GVcDn6sDw_pnntQiDE5RAfB9LMG8qb_Dmmx-nY2HOEGbNhVdYGiik6DUa5x/w215-h410/host.jpg" width="215" /></a></div><br />You can
tell that Host, a Shudder exclusive horror film, was written and made in haste
– to try and capitalize on our current state of quarantine and the fears it
brings up. The film runs a little less than an hour, and is basically a haunted
Zoom call – where six friends, and a flaky medium, get together to try and
connect with the “astral plane”. It’s clear that everyone involved wanted to
get the film out in a hurry – not just before the Covid-19 lockdowns end, but
also before the inevitable wave of films like this crash over us. It isn’t a
particularly good film – but it is effective for its limited budget and
ambition. You kind of wish that perhaps there would be a way to connect the
evil lurking in this Zoom call to our current situation – but that would have
required some fancier writing than we have here. As far as horror films that
take place on computer screens over chats, the film doesn’t come close to even
Unfriend: The Dark Net – let alone the far superior original, Unfriended, which
is the gold standard for this sort of thing. Then again, the people who made
that film weren’t under the gun like Savage and company were.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The
premise is simple – Haley (Haley Bishop) has set up a Zoom call with her
friends, and a psychic, so they can all have a socially distanced séance. No
one in the group really believes that it will be possible – they likely
wouldn’t believe it even if they were together in person – but hey, it’s
something to do, rather than talk about how scared they of the pandemic, how
lonely they are in isolation, or the troubles in their romantic relationships,
etc. Of course, in the grand tradition of horror movie characters who don’t
believe in ghosts, spirits or séances, they actually do make contact – and it’s
not with a friendly spirit.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">You know
where this is going when the film begins, and it gets there all right. Unlike
say, Unfriended – or a lot of horror movies – the victims here don’t really do
anything to deserve their ultimate fates. Yes, they kind of mock the psychic at
the beginning – but not that harshly. Perhaps that is deliberate – the nod to
the pandemic, that doesn’t discriminate, but comes after you no matter what.
But it’s hard to feel too much for these characters either – they are basically
cookie cutters – and for the most part, I barely remembered who was who from one
moment to the next. It doesn’t really matter – they are all lambs to the
slaughter.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Host
mainly works though on its own very limited terms. Yes, you get the sense that
everything about it was rushed – but it certainly looks and feels like a real
zoom call, the practical effects work about as good as can be expected, and
even if there are a lot of cheap, jump scares – well, they work anyway. We are
probably going to get countless films about this pandemic – horror films that
try and tap into the fear we all felt, dramas about “the way we live now” and
the “new normal” – etc. Most will almost definitely be insufferable. Host, for
all its limitations, isn’t that. It’s lean, mean and effective.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-54271743871079562062020-08-28T11:23:00.001-07:002020-08-28T11:23:00.143-07:00<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Criss Cross (1949) <br /></span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by:<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Robert
Siodmak.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Daniel
Fuchs based on the novel by Don Tracy.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Burt Lancaster (Steve
Thompson), Yvonne De Carlo (Anna), Dan Duryea (Slim Dundee), Stephen McNally
(Pete Ramirez), Esy Morales (Orchestra Leader), Tom Pedi (Vincent), Percy
Helton (Frank), Alan Napier (Finchley), Griff Barnett (Pop), Meg Randall
(Helen), Richard Long (Slade Thompson), Joan Miller (The Lush), Edna Holland
(Mrs. Thompson), John Doucette (Walt), Marc Krah (Mort), James O'Rear (Waxie),
John 'Skins' Miller (Midget).</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Underneath (1995)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Steven
Soderbergh.</span><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Steven
Soderbergh and Daniel Fuchs based on the novel by Don Tracy.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 107%;">Peter Gallagher (Michael
Chambers), Alison Elliott (Rachel), William Fichtner (Tommy Dundee), Adam Trese
(David Chambers), Joe Don Baker (Clay Hinkle), Paul Dooley Ed Dutton), Shelley
Duvall (Nurse), Elisabeth Shue (Susan Crenshaw), Anjanette Comer (Mrs.
Chambers), Joe Chrest (Mr. Rodman).<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi19dxnRbh6KkiEFPLPxaaBTjYyxfXQw8YrQy7gP2QVCnsmCBtJ-QydjzKhMo1lZwI1n4ms9e3AMVl1kP8RitDZc5fPIt5v9FJg_9ACJteC4xbZn1YfvNoIqK4FVAJhtNAy6uPPx3mRcHv/s500/Criss+Cross.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi19dxnRbh6KkiEFPLPxaaBTjYyxfXQw8YrQy7gP2QVCnsmCBtJ-QydjzKhMo1lZwI1n4ms9e3AMVl1kP8RitDZc5fPIt5v9FJg_9ACJteC4xbZn1YfvNoIqK4FVAJhtNAy6uPPx3mRcHv/w266-h400/Criss+Cross.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br />Richard
Siodmak’s Criss Cross (1949) is a reunion of sorts – reuniting the director
with the star of his 1946 hit, The Killers, Burt Lancaster. The structure of
the film is similar as well – told in flashback, although this time from the
point-of-view of Lancaster’s character – Steven Thompson, rather than being
told from the point of view of those who knew him as in The Killers – which is
the structure that gave that film the nickname of the Citizen Kane of Film
Noir. It isn’t that the masterwork that The Killers is – it doesn’t have that
amazing opening scene, the structure is more typical, and Yvonne De Carlo is a
poor substitute for Ava Gardner. Still, Criss Cross is a fine noir – with an
absolute killer of an ending. Steven Soderbergh’s remake of Criss Cross The
Underneath (1995) was mainly greeted with shrugs in 1995, and a re-evaluation
has never really happened – in part because Soderbergh himself is so dismissive
of the film. He jumped into the film quickly, after losing the Quiz Show
directing gig, at an interesting point of his career – sex, lies and videotape
(1989) had made him an indie darling – a Palme D’or win, lots of praise – but
he had been struggling to follow it up. Kafka (1991) was seen as a commercial
and critical failure, and while King of the Hill (1993) had gotten mainly good
reviews – it was also mainly ignored. Soderbergh recalls now that he knew for
the time he stepped onto the set that it was a mistake – he was miserable, he
was going through the motions, and the result is a sleepy film. He’d recharge
after – doing the experimental Schizopolis (1996) – that led into the best
period of his career – Out of Sight, The Limey, Erin Brockovich, Traffic,
Ocean’s 11, Solaris, etc. He says he needed to make The Underneath to
understand how miserable he was. But watching the film now – honestly, for the
first time (it was the only Soderbergh I hadn’t seen) – I think Soderbergh is
too hard on the film. It’s not a masterwork by any means – but you can
certainly see the roots of those films I just mentioned – in terms of
structure, in terms of visuals, etc. – that you didn’t see before this. If this
is Soderbergh going through the motions, it certainly shows how much talent he
has. And while it’s far from the prolific director’s best film, it’s also
pretty far from his worst.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">In Criss
Cross, Lancaster’s Thompson is a classic hero stooge. He has just returned to
L.A. after a year of drifting around the country, licking his wounds, and trying
to get his ex-wife, Anna (De Carlo) out of his system. They had a hot and heavy
relationship, but one marked with a lot of fights – they are that couple that love
each other, have terrific chemistry, but still shouldn’t be together. He says
he wants his old life back – his old job working for an armored truck company,
a return to his family – his beloved mother, a younger brother who is getting
married, etc. He says he has no plans of seeing Anna – and yet, he cannot help
himself. He’s barely back when he starts going to their old hangout, so it isn’t
long before he “runs into” Anna. Their relationship starts up again – slowly –
complicated more than a little by the fact that she is seeing someone else –
criminal Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea, playing the Dan Duryea role). Things get even
more complicated when Anna runs off with Slim – and marries him. Yet, she just
cannot seem to get over Thompson, and Thompson cannot get over her.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
is classic noir – the nice guy brought low by the femme fatale he should know
well enough to leave alone, but cannot help himself. A relatively short film –
90 minutes – with a three act structure, the opening and closing of which are
stellar. Siodmak does a terrific job of setting everything up in the opening,
Lancaster is in fine form, playing the stooge (this was in the period where
critics still were unsure if this handsome lunk could act), and Duryea at his
slimy best. The final act of the film is even better – the armored car heist is
absolutely terrific, the hospital scene is incredibly intense, as Lancaster
worries that they are out to get him, and Siodmak slowly ratchets up the
tension – all leading to the classic final moments of the film, which is one of
the best end. The problem is that the second acts drags more than a little –
and it’s mainly due to the fact that Yvonne De Carlo just isn’t overly
convincing as the femme fatale. Compare her to Ava Gardner in The Killers –
where you have no trouble believing that Lancaster would sacrifice everything
for her, and you see the issue. </span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">We buy
that Thompson does all this for her because the screenplay, and Lancaster, tell
us he does – not because she is particularly great. This is supposed to be a
relationship where the characters cannot help their lust for each other – and
it never quite comes off. This makes Criss Cross certainly a flawed film – but
still a very good one – what works more than makes up for what doesn’t work,
yet at the same time you see perhaps why someone would want to remake the film
– and fix what was missing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Soderbergh’s
The Underneath though doesn’t really do that – it doesn’t have the interest.
The setup is similar – this </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_OoX40N0kM1y2I1BNMg4YOw-2EfC-55RduNQR8Ysy-qrlVQy06reQj-sUbRwgXn3hyE81CJgZ_R0UmoYtFHncenoGZMYcZ-ae93BqlD8Ck5Mb-kSjB4EOHeGQCIOc4B4IS2lR1SLS04H/s842/Underneath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="842" data-original-width="564" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_OoX40N0kM1y2I1BNMg4YOw-2EfC-55RduNQR8Ysy-qrlVQy06reQj-sUbRwgXn3hyE81CJgZ_R0UmoYtFHncenoGZMYcZ-ae93BqlD8Ck5Mb-kSjB4EOHeGQCIOc4B4IS2lR1SLS04H/w274-h410/Underneath.jpg" width="274" /></a></div>time Peter Gallagher plays Michael Chambers,
returning to Austin for his mother’s marriage, falls back in with his old
girlfriend Rachel (Allison Elliott) who is now criminal Tommy Dundee (William
Fichtner). Again, he starts working for an armored car company, and again is
drawn into a heist with Dundee and company, where here are double and triple
crosses. Again, there is an insanely intense hospital sequence (this one is
probably even better), leading to a different, though still tragic, ending.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">But
Soderbergh and company change the details up considerably in the first two
acts. Gallagher’s Michael isn’t some innocent trying to reclaim what he lost.
He was a gambling addict, who owed money all over town, and left Austin at the
risk of getting killed by some of the people he has screwed over – leaving
Rachel to pick up the pieces. The flashback structure gives us more of those
details. Chambers here is a screw-up – and while his family acts as if they are
glad he’s back, they also cannot help but wonder when he’s going to screw-up
again. Rachel is far less happy to see him back than Anna is to see Thompson in
Criss Cross – yes, they start seeing each other, but she’s smart enough to know
they shouldn’t. The last act of the film is really when the noir aspect really
takes over – you see the roots there more clearly. Up until then, it feels like
Soderbergh and company are more interested in the characters, than putting them
through the noir paces.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Perhaps
this is why Soderbergh refers to the film as “sleepy”. The pacing is certainly
slower here, but it’s because its taking its time to establish Michael and
Rachel – and the larger cast of characters, and showing them in their prior
life before Michael fled, to make sense of what happens later. The two leads
are certainly more complicated here than they were in the 1949 original –
Michael is slimier, less innocent (watch how he uses Elisabeth Shue’s character
for example) – and Rachel more guarded and controlled. In the original, it felt
like Lancaster was the one who felt burned and betrayed – here it has been
flipped.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">You also
certainly see a lot of Soderbergh touches throughout The Underneath. Watch the
cinematography by Elliot Davis (not “Peter Andrews”, who of course is
Soderbergh himself – a process he wouldn’t start until Traffic) for its
saturated colors, and overarching color scheme for how it predates Traffic.
Watch the structure that predates things like Out of Sight or The Limey. Or the
heist, which predates Ocean’s 11 – and several other Soderbergh films. Perhaps
this makes The Underneath more interesting in retrospect than it was at the
time – knowing what was coming, we can see roots of some of it here - and
Soderbergh himself has said that he “wouldn’t recommend the film to anyone”
except to as part of the arch of his career. In that interview, on the
Criterion disk for King of the Hill, where The Underneath is a “bonus” – he
seems to be referring to how it made him realize how he didn’t want to make
films – but it could also refer to some of the things it prefigures.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">It's odd
to me that Soderbergh and company decided to change the ending of Criss Cross –
both because it’s perhaps the best thing about the original, and the most
famous – which is perhaps reason enough to change it to catch the audience who
had seen the original off-guard. I do think that perhaps without the last shot
of the movie it would work – that shot, of a character who if I’m being honest
I don’t really know why they would be there or care, and who frankly you forget
about because he had been missing for a while, implies that the ultimate end of
the story – what will happen off-screen – will be the same as Criss Cross. And
yet, without it, perhaps the ending would work better – as it would not right
the wrongs of the film, but would certainly be the type of ending you couldn’t
get away with in 1949 – but you’d want to in 1995.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Overall,
I think Criss Cross and The Underneath make a fascinating double bill. It’s not
just how watching the films back to back highlight the similarities and
differences in approaches. It’s also fascinating in terms of the director’s
careers – for Siodmak, he was returning to his greatest success, and trying to
recapture the magic of The Killers – and getting close. For Soderbergh, it was
his personal nadir – a miserable experience, that nonetheless produced what I
think is an underrated film. Perhaps that’s just because Soderbergh himself
lowers expectations so much for the film – but I think The Underneath is a key
film in his filmography – not just because he was so miserable making it, he
changed his entire approach – although that is true. But because you can see
the filmmaker Soderbergh was going to become in just a few short years.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-37256065004545575472020-08-27T11:13:00.001-07:002020-08-27T11:13:00.213-07:00Classic Double Movie Review: The Killers (1946 and 1964)<div class="separator"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Killers (1946)</span></b></div><h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Robert
Siodmak.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Anthony
Veiller based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway.</span><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 107%;">Burt Lancaster (Ole
“Swede” Anderson), Ava Gardner (Kitty Collins), Edmond O’Brien (Jim Reardon),<br /> <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Albert
Dekker (Big Jim Colfax), Sam Levene (Police Lt. Sam Lubinsky), Vince Barnett (Charleston),
Virginia Christine (Lilly Harmon Lubinsky), Jack Lambert (Dum-Dum Clarke),
Charles D. Brown (Packy Robinson – Ole’s Manager), Don MacBride (R.S. Kenyon),
Charles McGraw (Al), William Conrad (Max).</span><br /></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Killers (1964)<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Don
Siegel.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Gene L.
Coon based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Lee Marvin (Charlie
Strom), Angie Dickinson (Sheila Farr), John Cassavetes (Johnny North), Clu
Gulager (Lee), Ronald Reagan (Jack Browning), Claude Akins (Earl Sylvester),
Norman Fell (Mickey Farmer), Virginia Christine (Miss Watson).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju4-TPKWVn_XrtKt58_d8bskmbU-G5aP6itj-DHcV82wj0cAokugUCN7DWeVTWy1TBejhnYmJaLD1AAzroQ1W-6QlcIe9ZjU7QozxacSxOeSexyT6VBZLSNgBhM35aWTZ7F0ZwmabCnjAb/s1390/Killers+46.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1390" data-original-width="866" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju4-TPKWVn_XrtKt58_d8bskmbU-G5aP6itj-DHcV82wj0cAokugUCN7DWeVTWy1TBejhnYmJaLD1AAzroQ1W-6QlcIe9ZjU7QozxacSxOeSexyT6VBZLSNgBhM35aWTZ7F0ZwmabCnjAb/w204-h328/Killers+46.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><br />There’s
no real point in denying that the opening of Richard Siodmak’s classic noir The
Killers (1946) is better than the rest of the movie – and it’s also easy to
figure out why. The opening scene, in which two hired killers enter a small
town lunch counter, try to order off the dinner menu, even though it’s not
quite 6 o’clock yet, then proceed to tell the counterman that they are here to
kill the Swede – and they hear he comes in every night at 6 for dinner. They
intimidate the counterman, tie up the cook and the only other customer in the
place, before leaving – correctly figuring the Swede isn’t coming that day. The
other customer, Nick Adams, then goes to the Swede to tell him that there are
men there to kill him – and the Swede doesn’t react, doesn’t try to run away,
he simply accepts his fate. We don’t actually see the killing itself – but we
know it has happened, and Adams determines he is going to leave this small town
behind – no one much cares about what happened. That opening – which maybe runs
15 minutes or so is pretty much the exact Ernest Hemingway short story that the
film is adapting. It then spends roughly 90 minutes answering the question of
why – what n happened to bring the Swede to that point – that Hemingway never
answered. The film is terrific all the way through – those last 90 minutes
borrows Citizen Kane’s structure – as an insurance investigator, Jim Reardon
(Edmond O’Brien) pieces together what happened by interviewing people who knew
the Swede (Burt Lancaster, in his first screen role) – and we see it play out
in flashback – a classic noir structure complete with a femme fatale (Ava
Gardner), a heist and double crosses. But as great as those 90 minutes are, the
opening 15 represent one of the greatest scene in film history.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">When Don
Siegel remade The Killers in 1964, he pretty much chucks the whole thing out –
gone is Hemingway’s great opening sequence, but also gone is practically
everything else. This time, there is no insurance investigator – it’s the
hitmen themselves – Charlie Storm (Lee Marvin) and his younger partner Lee (Clu
Gulager) who do the investigating. They surmise, much like O’Brien did in the
original, that it is odd that they were hired to kill someone who apparently
was involved in a robbery and made off with all the cash, and not try and get
the cash back. In the words of Lee Marvin here – “the only people who don’t
miss a million dollars are people who have a million dollars”. Siodmak’s film
is a classic – one of the best noirs of its kind. Siegel’s film has become
legendary in its own way – it prefigures the type of roles that would make Lee
Marvin an icon, it inspired, and anticipates, Quentin Tarantino and is the last
film ever made by future President Ronald Reagan – his first playing the
villain, and shows that perhaps that he missed his calling as an actor (he is
very convincing as the heavy”. Both are films that are products of their time
and place – and in that they are fascinating.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The 1946
The Killers was made at the height of classic film noir. Once that opening is
over, it pretty much falls into the familiar arch of noir – albeit with the
Citizen Kane structure which makes it slightly more ambitious. Lancaster, a
hunk of man, leading with his chin, is perfect here as the foil – a boxer whose
career ends, and then gets sucked into a criminal life by a femme fatale –
beautifully played by Ava Gardner. He tries to get out of that life – to live a
small town life as a gas station attendant, but is recognized and knows he’s
doomed (prefiguring Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past the following year – an
even better noir). You cannot escape the sins of the past.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZnU8pIc0m9NqD-pH-DSRmiCNR6_YbHlTIlVMGKzvwAwJ9GZxdcDD3MINrwBu8PtrHmaNU8f8dtF4LgQro8wRADKCINe5uL6oAzKcEFvpDVhbaJTDqRaAnxkcdifUAv012qHpmQhsJ5WuR/s2048/Killers+64.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1315" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZnU8pIc0m9NqD-pH-DSRmiCNR6_YbHlTIlVMGKzvwAwJ9GZxdcDD3MINrwBu8PtrHmaNU8f8dtF4LgQro8wRADKCINe5uL6oAzKcEFvpDVhbaJTDqRaAnxkcdifUAv012qHpmQhsJ5WuR/w210-h328/Killers+64.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br />Siegel’s
1964 The Killers is a different sort of film – it started out as supposedly
being made as TV movie – although the murderers row of talent – Marvin, Reagan,
John Cassavetes, Angie Dickinson – make that odd, that turned into a theatrical
movie mainly because it ended up too violent. The opening scene here is Marvin
and Gulager walking into a school for the blind (the extras actually being
blind) where Johnny North (Cassavetes) is a teacher, and gunning him down –
which may have been enough right there. The infamous slap Reagan gives
Dickinson – so casual, so sudden, so shocking – also didn’t help much.<span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">This time
though the lyrics may be the same, but the music is different. Johnny North isn’t
a boxer, but a race car </span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">driver. Once again though, he falls head over heels for
a woman – Dickinson’s Sheila Farr – and ends up ruining his career, and being
drawn into a robbery – where apparently he betrayed his cohorts, but it may not
be that simple. The 1946 The Killers already didn’t have much use for the
police – it is telling that it is an insurance investigator (perhaps a nod to
Double Indemnity) not the cops who investigate in 1946 – the cops even say they
don’t much care – they didn’t know the Swede well, he only arrived a year ago,
the killers came and went, and there’s no danger to anyone else in town – so
let the State Police handle it. Even that is thrown out though in the 1964
version – the killers themselves become the investigators. You can see why
Tarantino loved the killers played by Marvin and Gulager so much that he copied
their outfits for Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. They have a strange banter
between them – not the chilling cold bloodedness of the killers from 1946 – but
a casualness that is also disturbing. Siegel highlights the differences between
them in their banter. Marvin would play this type of role to perfection later on
– and it’s close to it here as well. Dickinson’s role here is underwritten –
she is a femme fatale in some respects, but not really – she’s more a pawn than
Gardner was – powerless, instead of in control. Cassavetes, who was a great
actor, although perhaps not here, sneers his way through this role – he isn’t
the innocent stooge Lancaster played, but far more cynical. Reagan really is
quite good here as the villain – not because he twirls a mustache, but more in
the casual, corporate boringness his performance – this is true evil, a nice
suit in a nice office, who seems like a man who would sell you insurance.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">It’s
undeniable that the 1964 film was made on the cheap – Siegel was still
establishing himself, and after all, it was supposed to go to TV. And yet, the
sets, which looks makeshift and disposable, somehow add to the film. The film
is bright and in color – leaving behind the masterful use of shadows and grey
of the black and white original. It’s a cynical movie – it ends with pretty
much everyone dead – and perhaps shows the way towards the future of American
filmmaking in the later 1960s and 1970s – of cynicism, and violence without
purpose.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">All of
that perhaps make Siegel’s film sound like a masterpiece – but it really isn’t.
There are lumps and bumps throughout the film – far more than the original –
and as an overall film, it’s nowhere near as good. Yet, it’s impossible to deny
its historical importance – it’s place in cinema history. I’ve seen both films
before – and liked both of them more this time. The make a fascinating double
bill – not just because both films are good to great – but for what it meant
about the very different circumstances, and eras, in which they were made.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-23833032351369810162020-08-26T11:13:00.004-07:002020-08-26T11:13:50.466-07:00Movie Review: Sea Fever<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sea Fever *** / *****<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Neasa
Hardiman.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Neasa Hardiman.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Hermione Corfield
(Siobhan), Dougray Scott (Gerard), Connie Nielsen (Freya), Ardalan Esmaili
(Omid), Jack Hickey (Johnny), Olwen Fouere (Clara), Elie Bouakaze (Sudi).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEdLkkaZYyOKKEFL7GWwg8mQgv8SYwTj2j_KZnjRMg2bMjq77v8vZzSglipZgueD2Ywn6abnUO6njq8YuH0m8pBTRBRkwBpK6MQe0ZMZWn4CxxqnrfuDdKvoSf951wtzHu_K5OUCLPLLSu/s755/Sea+Fever.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="513" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEdLkkaZYyOKKEFL7GWwg8mQgv8SYwTj2j_KZnjRMg2bMjq77v8vZzSglipZgueD2Ywn6abnUO6njq8YuH0m8pBTRBRkwBpK6MQe0ZMZWn4CxxqnrfuDdKvoSf951wtzHu_K5OUCLPLLSu/w178-h262/Sea+Fever.jpg" width="178" /></a></div><br />The
Irish, sea-farring horror film, Sea Fever, kind of plays like a feature version
of a cold open of an X-Files episode – those small vignettes that let us see
part of what Mulder and Scully will be investigating that week. It isn’t the
most original horror film – you can certainly see its influences like Ridley
Scott’s Alien in the first half, and John Carpenter’s The Thing in the second,
but debut filmmaker Neasa Hardiman does give the film a nice, lived in quality
to it – the characters are not cookie cutters, and you can feel what life
aboard this small, fishing vessel would be like – how difficult and
claustrophobic it would be, even without the horror elements.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The star
of the film is Siobhan (Hermione Corfield), a young scientist, who is even more
of an introvert in a field full of them. We see her pouring over data in a lab,
while the rest of her co-workers celebrate with birthday cake – her professor
urging her to interact with others. Things don’t get easier for her when she
boards the small fishing boat that will be her home for a few weeks. She is
there to study the anomalies in the daily catch made by the crew – led by
captain Gerard (Dougray Scott) and his wife Freya (Connie Nielsen). It’s and a
small crew other than that – engineer Omid (Ardalan Esmaili), along with a cook
Clara (Olwen Fouere) and two more men for good measure – Johnny (Jack Hickey)
and Sudi (Elie Bouakaze). Siobhan would be an outsider regardless – and it’s
played up just how much, since she has scientific explanations that the rest of
the crew chalk up to myths and superstitions. Those superstitions include
Siobhan’s red hair being a bad omen. The crew though is friendly to Siobhan –
it’s clear Gerard and Freya wouldn’t have allowed her on her board if they
weren’t being paid – and their own financial situation contributes to why they
do it even then.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Things
get ominous when the boat enters a zone that they have been told by the coast
guard is off limits. This is a blow to them, because that is where their catch
is, so when they drift into it, Gerard doesn’t do anything to stop them – and
soon they are hauling in a lot of fish. But they hit something, and it’s clear
something isn’t quite right. Siobhan has to dive into the water – she can scuba
dive, the rest can’t – and is shocked to find that the boat is covered in tentacles
– that stretch farther than she can see. Are they being held by some sort of
massive creature? Perhaps, but the more pressing concerns is the strange,
unknown larva in their drinking water – which they see has no good effects on
human pretty quickly.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
was made, and played the festival circuit last year, but certainly the current
situation helps to give the film added resonance. Siobhan is smart enough to
know that they have no idea what this larva is – and that it is deadly. There
is a lot of talk about quarantine when (if) they are able to make it back to
shore – which will certainly get under the skin of people living in 2020, as it
mirrors the conversations we are currently having.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
wasn’t made on a large budget – but Hardiman and company make the most of it.
The special effects are limited, but effective. What they do better is to
slowly turn the screws on the crew – ratcheting up the tension, as the
inevitable starts happening (remember the two films referenced above – they
were for a reason). What makes the film interesting however is that you
actually do care for the characters – Siobhan the most, but also everyone else.
Hardiman doesn’t cheat here – she doesn’t just line the sheep up for the
slaughter, but makes you care about the sheep first. She also has a terrific
sense of atmosphere on board that boat. One hopes that in her next film, she
perhaps tries to be more ambitious – Sea Fever works quite well, but you always
know where it’s going, and it somehow feels a little smaller than it is. Still,
it’s a fine debut from a very promising filmmaker.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-3281247176886951642020-08-19T12:19:00.008-07:002020-08-19T12:19:31.147-07:00Movie Review: Unhinged<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Unhinged
** ½ / *****<br /></span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed
by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Derrick
Borte.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written
by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Carl
Ellsworth.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring:
</span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Russell
Crowe (The Man), Caren Pistorius (Rachel), Jimmi Simpson (Andy), Gabriel
Bateman (Kyle), Anne Leighton (Deborah Haskell), Lucy Faust (Rosie), Austin P.
McKenzie (Fred), Michael Papajohn (Cop), Sylvia Grace Crim (Teacher), Stephen
Louis Grush (Leo), Juliene Joyner (Mary).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTmnpDZu3pNspfcugylb0OPIvDCEDC5-WzXv9_xeACX-yAX2pxm0JmIOZ1ZWPg5wNlNjoidRMGkjMJfFJvto0iQvP13wInac6LQ8pOXAVsEiyr6Dg_kQFTB-F820bdFX3cWQEE0lw72uo/s755/unhinged_ver4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="510" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTmnpDZu3pNspfcugylb0OPIvDCEDC5-WzXv9_xeACX-yAX2pxm0JmIOZ1ZWPg5wNlNjoidRMGkjMJfFJvto0iQvP13wInac6LQ8pOXAVsEiyr6Dg_kQFTB-F820bdFX3cWQEE0lw72uo/w277-h410/unhinged_ver4.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>Yes, I
went to the movie theatre for the first time since March when I saw First Cow
less than week before theatres closed due to Covid-19 pandemic. I didn’t go
because I felt some unrelenting need to see Russell Crowe play a road-raging psycho
– I went because I know I will be going to see Tenet when it opens next week,
and I wanted to go on a dry run to see what it’s like. I should point out that
I live in Canada – where the virus, while certainly still around, isn’t as bad
as it is in America – and in an area where we currently only have four active
cases, and only about 150 during the entire pandemic. I purposefully chose the
last show of the day – a 10:30 PM show, which was just 15 minutes after the
second last show of Unhinged of the day (which according to the seating chart
online had a few more people in it than mine did) – I showed up at 10:28, hands
freshly sanitized, wearing a mask, and was relieved to find that I was the only
person in that screening. I didn’t buy concessions, I sanitized my hands again
when I got to my reserved seat, and never once took my mask off. Movie going
during a pandemic will never be completely safe – nothing except staying home
will be – but I also know that if no one goes to the movies, staying as safe as
humanly possible during the pandemic, no one will be able to go after the
pandemic is over. I won’t fault anyone who doesn’t feel safe going, and passes –
but if the experience is much like what I had tonight, I will continue to do
so.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The movie
both is and isn’t the ideal one to resume my movie going life with – it isn’t,
because unlike when it looked like my last theatrical experience would be First
Cow, I cannot say that at least I went out watching a great film. But it is,
because I was nervous enough about going that I didn’t actually make my final
decision until I was on my way out the door – so at least the film was
completely unchallenging, and didn’t require my full attention. Unhinged is the
type of film you may expect to go straight to streaming – a kind of paycheque
movie for a great actor like Crowe (seriously, why is an actor who at one point
looked to be one of the greats of generation with performances like L.A.
Confidential, The Insider, etc. doing this movie?). It’s a cheapie thriller,
where Crowe plays a psychopath – and you know he’s a psychopath from the first
scene, where we see him break into his former house, kill his wife and new
boyfriend/husband (not sure, it’s seen in long shot so you don’t get details),
set the house on fire and then speed away in his pickup truck. His innocent
target is Rachel (Caren Pistorius) a woman going through a divorce of her own,
with a pre-teen son, a slacker brother and his girlfriend living at her house,
and money problems. She gets frustrated driving her son to school – they are
late, again – and honks at the wrong pickup when he doesn’t go through when the
light turns green. That, of course, is Crowe – who pulls alongside her at the
next light, and chastises her. Yes, he zoned out at that light, but she could
have at least given her a courtesy tap right. He apologizes, and says if she
does the same, they can just go on their own separate ways. She refuses – thus setting
up the rest of the movie, where he is determined to make sure she knows what a
bad day really is.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Crowe is
clearly over-qualified for the role – but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t give it
his all. He is an imposing physical presence – a huge, bulking man whose days
of being the lean and muscular man we saw in Gladiator is decades in the past.
He effects a drawl on his speech, which is all the scarier because of how
calmly he uses it. That goes for most his actions as well – no matter how
violent, he does it all with a cruel, casualness of someone who knows that he’ll
prevail. He knows his days are numbered – they’re already looking for him
because of the double murder – and suicide by cop sounds okay to him. Until
then though, he’s going to continue to commit as much violence as humanly
possible.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">I kept
hoping that the movie may try to go a little deeper than it does. There are
certainly hints of the roots of Crowe’s rage here – he spews vitriol that
sounds like it could come out of the mouth of a Men’s Rights Activist, and a
news report gives a few background tidbits that make him sound like one Trump’s
forgotten Americans that he exploits while not given a shit about them. But the
film doesn’t seem overly interested in any of it rather than as background
noise. It wants to be a straight ahead thriller – a cat and mouse game. I will
say that the film doesn’t really pull any punches in terms of the violence – it’s
pretty hard edged, but doesn’t dwell on it – it’s shock and awe tactics are pretty
effective. The plotting of the movie is obvious – we see has things are
introduced casually in the first act – a pair of scissors, a strategy for
Fortnite, etc. that will become key in the last act.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">In short,
Unhinged a cheapie thriller – made to make a quick buck for Crowe, and all
involved. It’s from an upstart distributor, who really wanted to be the first
wide release movie to come out after the pandemic – a way to perhaps get more
attention, eyeballs and money than it otherwise would get. I will likely never
forget Tenet, as it was my first movie back in theatres after my longest layoff
in 25 years – and with any luck, the longest layoff I will ever have. It will
have little to do with the movie itself however.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-42539867447695173382020-08-19T12:17:00.006-07:002020-08-19T12:17:52.865-07:00Movie Review: She Dies Tomorrow<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">She Dies Tomorrow **** ½ / *****<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Amy
Seimetz.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Amy
Seimetz.<br /></span><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Kate Lyn Sheil (Amy), Jane
Adams (Jane), Kentucker Audley (Craig), Katie Aselton (Susan), Chris Messina
(Jason), Tunde Adebimpe (Brian), Jennifer Kim (Tilly), Olivia Taylor Dudley
(Erin), Josh Lucas (Doc), Michelle Rodriguez (Sky), Adam Wingard (Dune Buggy
Man), Madison Calderon (Madison). </span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcNVu6JlMWMC3n59KDGM1wljdz7WJaa27bXLEI4e11i7w8wTltkqCNuuzRyWSbBKXtnx42KYBCKJZEVyFSh49LrtZKqIy064EzGJJRR041k0BEcOOQBKFUW8Qh6k8TyDg9YdZyqgQk-hsF/s755/she_dies_tomorrow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="510" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcNVu6JlMWMC3n59KDGM1wljdz7WJaa27bXLEI4e11i7w8wTltkqCNuuzRyWSbBKXtnx42KYBCKJZEVyFSh49LrtZKqIy064EzGJJRR041k0BEcOOQBKFUW8Qh6k8TyDg9YdZyqgQk-hsF/w277-h410/she_dies_tomorrow.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>Too few
people saw Amy Seimetz’s wonderful directorial debut – Sun Don’t Shine (2012),
which featured a wonderful performance by indie mainstay Kate Lyn Sheil, which
was released in the aftermath of Shane Carruth’s remarkable Upstream Color
(2013) – a mistake I hope people are rectifying in the wake of all the deserved
praise She Dies Tomorrow is receiving (the history of abuse Seimetz has
suffered at the hands of Carruth casts an unfortunate, but undeniable, dark
cloud over Upstream Color – which is a truly great movie, and not just
Carruth’s achievement – as Seimetz’s amazing performance in that film should
have won her an Oscar – and really makes the entire film work – but we may
never be able to watch the film the same way again). As a director, Seimetz
doesn’t like exposition – she dives right into her stories midstream, and makes
you catch up with them. She Dies Tomorrow is a remarkable film – mainly
plotless, mainly about death, and Seimetz has perhaps inadvertently made the
film that best sums up 2020.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
opens on the wonderfully expressive face of Kate Lyn Shiel – who plays a
character named Amy (perhaps marking the film as at least somewhat
autobiographical for Seimetz). It’s clear that Amy is in some sort of extreme
breakdown – but it only becomes clear what it is slowly. She is convinced,
absolutely convinced, that she is going to die tomorrow – how or why, she
doesn’t know, or doesn’t reveal – but she just knows. This remarkable first
scene continues – and shows you what the style of the movie is going to be –
eventually Amy will stare into the lights coming from a room in her house – we
see her face as she stares, not what she is looking at.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">At some
point during this scene, Amy talks on the phone to Jane (Jane Adams, another
indie mainstay who can always be counted on to deliver great work). She is tired
of Amy’s breakdowns – and doesn’t know what to do with this one. But once off
the phone with her, she too, is filled with the overwhelming sense that she
will die tomorrow. She crashes a birthday party thrown by her brother Jason
(Chris Messina) for his wife Susan (Katie Aselton) – with another couple.
Susan, like Jane with Amy, is tired of these breakdowns of Jane’s – thinks it’s
always about putting the attention on herself. Soon though, each person at the
party has the same sense – they will die tomorrow. And they will all look into
the lights at some point, at something we don’t know. The lights are different
colors for each of them though – implying, of course, that whatever lies ahead,
it’s different for each of them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">This is
how Seimetz makes her remarkable film. The film will flash back and forth in
time, again, not explaining the how or why of it all, trusting the audience to
figure it all out, and between all these characters. Her years in the indie
world have certainly meant that she has made a lot of contacts – a lot of
friends – and her film is full of talented actor for Shiel and Adams and Messina
and Aselton to Tunde Adebimpe, Jennifer Kim, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Adam Wingard
(who directed Seimetz in the really good horror film You’re Next) – and even
some more “mainstream” talent like Josh Lucas (whose best work was in the indie
The Mend) and Michelle Rodriguez. These actors all undeniably help Seimetz, as
they deliver wonderful, and often small, performances. No one is better than
Shiel – an actress always worth watching in anything (seriously, her
performances, both large and small in films as varied as The Color Wheel,
You’re Next, Sun Don’t Shine, The Sacrament, Listen Up Philip – where she
hilariously has one scene, and runs away from the main character, making her
the sanest one in it - , The Heart Machine, Queen of Earth, Brigsby Bear and
the “documentary” Kate Plays Christine – and many, many more is as impressive
as any actress working today). She and Seimetz are clearly on the same
wavelength here – and she delves as deep as she ever has before.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
itself is remarkable. It reminded me a little of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia –
a film I have been meaning to revisit, as I loved much of it, but also felt
Trier’s mocking on some characters was so overly harsh that it keeps me from
loving it as much as some of his other work. That film is about the coming
apocalypse – and how each of the characters handle it. She Dies Tomorrow is the
same thing, on a smaller, more intimate scale – our own, personal apocalypse as
it were that comes for all of us. The characters in the film don’t band
together to face the threat together – they are isolated, alone in it. We all
face death by ourselves, staring into our own personal light.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p>T</o:p></span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">his may
sound like a downer of a film, but it isn’t. At times it doesn’t play like a
horror film – the fear experienced is surely visceral at moments to be sure. At
times, it is an insanely dark comedy – like everything to do with the leather
jacket. It is a film about death – so it’s not a pick-me-up – but it’s not a
depressing dirge either. It shows what a talented filmmaker Seimetz is – and
hopefully, we don’t have to wait another 8 years for her follow-up.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-20700158596257734692020-08-19T12:15:00.007-07:002020-08-19T12:15:56.522-07:00Movie Review: Boys State<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Boys State **** / *****<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Jesse
Moss & Amanda McBaine.</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Ka_TOb72rtEYvCmQF2ioO9bcMCWBu7ZnkUWPbUJDbvW62e-WQVtQIwipMYoD_eeGN8zBfsb8h61KgXz5BVoEkje0Cld-n0T4fuAa7wA-SJYf_VqQMJ6g8I_ilEGzdIzZ2egeNnaTrPNh/s755/boys_state.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="510" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Ka_TOb72rtEYvCmQF2ioO9bcMCWBu7ZnkUWPbUJDbvW62e-WQVtQIwipMYoD_eeGN8zBfsb8h61KgXz5BVoEkje0Cld-n0T4fuAa7wA-SJYf_VqQMJ6g8I_ilEGzdIzZ2egeNnaTrPNh/w222-h328/boys_state.jpg" width="222" /></a></div>Boys
State is a documentary that, as the cliché goes, will make you both hopeful and
depressed about future generations, and their attitude about politics. It takes
place at the annual event put on the American Legion, where they select 1,000
young men from a state, and allow them to, over the course of a week, form
their own government (there is a separate event for women – and I really want
to see someone make Girl’s State). This one is set in 2018 in Texas – and perhaps
was the place selected by directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine (who together
made the excellent doc The Overnighters back in 2014) because the year before,
the boys voted to secede from America – the type of headlining grabbing event
that make people roll their eyes. The young men are split into two parties at
random – the Federalist and the Nationalists – and have to elect a State Chair,
local representatives, etc. – run primaries for major offices, the key one being
Governor – and then running a campaign to see how wins. They don’t do a lot of
actual governing – it’s more about the process.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Whether
the filmmakers meant it to or not, this year’s Texas Boys State gave them the
perfect opportunity to show both the positive, and negative, side of American
politics. It breaks down nicely too – with the Nationalists ending up more on
the positive, idealistic side – and Federalists giving into the type of dirty
politics than Americans claim to be sick of, being seemingly wins anyway. Rene
Otero runs for, and wins the State Party chair for the Nationalists – and is a
smart, charming, young man, who leans to the progressive side of the political
spectrum, even as he knows he is entering a world where everyone is more
conservative than he is (for example, both parties seem to end up pro-gun and
pro-life). He knows how to play the game though – and even manipulate it for
his own purposes, while not leaving aside his ideals. The soft spoken Steven
Garza, barely gets enough signatures to get on the ballot for the Governor for
the Nationalists, but ends up winning the nomination – on the strength of his
speeches, his idealism, and his honesty. When it comes to light that he led a
March for Life event in Houston – which is pro-gun control, in a state where
almost no one is, he doesn’t back down from it, doesn’t back away – he explains
it in a way that turns even more people to his side. You leave the movie,
despite all that happens, hoping that both of these young men continue in
politics.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The
Federalist side, not so much. The State Party Chair there is won by Ben
Feinstein – a double amputee due to meningitis. He had set his sights on
Governor, but when it becomes clear that won’t happen, he contents himself on
being the power behind the throne – the dirty trickster. The Federalist
Governor candidate ends up being Eddy – who everyone compares to Ben Shapiro –
here proving that to some people that is something to aspire to. If Otero and
Garza aspire to politics to try and do something good – to change society for
the better – it seems like Eddy, and particularly Feinstein, are in it to win
it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">It isn’t
that simple of course. Other people are in the documentary – the most memorable
may well be Robert, a real live Richard Linklater character, a tall athletic,
charming kid who is used to getting what he wants, runs </span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">- for Governor of the Nationalists – openly admits
to the camera that he is lying about some of his positions (he is pro-choice
for example although he campaign as the exact opposite– as a side note, it’s
bizarre and kind of disturbing how passionate all these boys are on the subject
of abortion), and he loses to Garza – because people respond to his authenticity
– instead of Robert’s cynicism. Hopefully, it’s a lesson Robert learns.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">But
ultimately, it may not be the one that the kids take away from Boys State –
which is depressing in some ways, because normally we can at least count on the
young people in the country to be idealistic that’s why the Parkland kids
inspired so many. The lesson at the heart of Boys State – at least the one the
kids involved seem to take away – is how to win. It doesn’t matter what you
stand for, so long as you win. If they’re this cynical at 17, that doesn’t bode
well for the future. Everyone learned something during their time at Boys State
– some learned the right lessons, and some decidedly did not.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-70356482664320617232020-08-19T12:14:00.002-07:002020-08-19T12:14:30.203-07:00Movie Review: Spree<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Spree ** / *****<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Eugene
Kotlyarenko.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Eugene
Kotlyarenko and Gene McHugh.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Joe Keery (Kurt Kunkle),
Sasheer Zamata (Jessie Adams), David Arquette (Kris Kunkle), Kyle Mooney (Miles
Manderville), Misha Barton (London), Frankie Grande (Richard), Lala Kent
(Kendra), Joshua Ovalle (Bobby), Reatha Grey (Grandma Adams), Caroline Hebert
(Daisy), Sunny Kim (uNo), Linas Phillips (Frederick), John DeLuca (Mario),
Jessalyn Gilsig (Andrea), Sean Avery (Officer Hall), Victor Winters-Junco
(Officer Hernandez), Amir M. Korangy (Davit the GoGo Driver).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf8yGe6MdNSmS-rRn1T50JgcDGmIFwTE_ump4FhQZai7jjkmX0tCw9LK4PCX3gN4tFVg9nv05jFJhLr7HVeaLwLqwlYKCuPNcmifLcvqpshEMSTyp-rIqzR2dIRp3tj0tkWo2yd-RRRyqj/s755/spree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="510" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf8yGe6MdNSmS-rRn1T50JgcDGmIFwTE_ump4FhQZai7jjkmX0tCw9LK4PCX3gN4tFVg9nv05jFJhLr7HVeaLwLqwlYKCuPNcmifLcvqpshEMSTyp-rIqzR2dIRp3tj0tkWo2yd-RRRyqj/w277-h410/spree.jpg" width="277" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">So far it
seems like filmmakers are not up to the task of depicting the kind of everyday
violence, committed by angry, very online young white men that grows out a
mixture of loneliness and misogyny and inflicted on the world as “payback”.
Perhaps it’s because the filmmakers who are mainly making movies about them are
themselves, white men – but they seem incapable of fully depicting the anger
and misogyny, and instead too often depict their central characters as they
seem themselves – as victims of the online society that has left them behind,
rather than the angry, violent men that they are. Like Todd Phillips completely
misreading Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy in last year’s Joker – making the
Bickle/Pupkin character in a victim rather than a violent man looking for an
outlet for that violence, or the recent The Hater, which didn’t seem to have
handle on its character at all, the recent film Spree – about a young man named
Kurt Kunkle (Joe Keery) – who has attempted to build a social media following,
and completely failed, leading to the wild night depicted in the film – where
he works as a Spree driver (think Uber) – where he kills many of his
passengers, and livestreams it all (still failing to gather a following) seems
to think that Kurt is a victim of this society, rather than a lonely, angry, misogynistic
psychopath. I’ve seen the film compared to American Psycho – if only that were
true. The film version of American Psycho, is superior to the book version,
specifically because director Mary Harron and her co-writer Guinevere Turner,
come at Patrick Bateman from a completely different point-of-view making him
far more pathetic than the alpha-male posturing of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel. If
only we had their version of Spree.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Spree is
another film than takes place entirely online – mostly the livestream that
Kunkle runs throughout the night in his car – equipped with multiple cameras
for different angles, but also some different perspectives as well (different
people’s videos and livestreams, etc.). We are informed early that Kunkle has
been trying to gain a following for 10 years – but his videos rarely hit double
digits in views (the way we are informed of this, via onscreen text implies
that we are watching some sort of documentary – but it’s confusing because it’s
pretty much abandoned from then on). What we see from there, is how Kunkle’s
night unfolds – from his first passenger, an angry, older white man spewing
racism that drinks the poisoned water bottle Kunkle has put out for his
passengers, to more and more extreme violence Kunkle commits throughout the
night. Keery, very good on Stranger Things, is good here as well – a smiling
psycho, who never drops his cheerful, online brand – the man with the plan, who
wants to impart on his fans “The Lesson”.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
muddies the water too much though with the introduction of Jessie Adams
(Sasheer Zamata), an up-and-coming black standup comedian, with a huge online
presence – she has everything that Kurt wants, and cannot get. She gets into
his Spree – alongside another passenger (it’s Spree social) – but when she gets
out, unscathed, the film and Kurt don’t abandon her either. We keep coming back
to her – and know her path will cross with Kurt’s again before the night is
out.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">I know
what co-writer/director Eugene Kotlyarenko is doing here – after introducing us
to Kurt, then the angry older Fox News viewer, and the bro-y frat boy Mario –
all of whom have a version of the angry white man shtick going, he wants to
introduce a new perspective – one decidedly not white, and not male. In theory,
this is the smart move – by showing the perspective of the type of person who
is too often the victim of this online hate, you cannot be accused of being
locked into the perspective of the perpetrator of it and feeling sympathy for
it In practice though, it doesn’t work at all – as both Adams stand-up set that
goes viral, and the end of the film, heavily implies that Adams is a huge part
of the problem in the first place – and although, like Bickle in Taxi Driver,
she is treated like a hero by the media, the movie makes you think she
shouldn’t be.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">In short,
Spree is another film that tries to address the issue of online hate, of
violence spreading from the digital world, to the real world – but it’s another
one that doesn’t quite understand what the issue is at all. Or maybe, it does –
and the execution is just way off. And it’s all wrapped in a package so extreme
– the violence is almost comically over-the-top that whatever message the filmmakers
are trying to send, doesn’t come through at all.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-71597123789712939232020-08-19T12:00:00.008-07:002020-08-19T12:00:50.562-07:00Movie Review: Amulet<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Amulet *** ½ / *****<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Romola
Garai.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Romola
Garai.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 107%;">Carla Juri (Magda), Alec
Secareanu (Tomas), Imelda Staunton (Sister Claire), Anah Ruddin (Mother), Angeliki
Papoulia (Miriam), Elowen Harris (Dina), William E. Lester (Mother - voice).<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivX1OT59iQKLH8YZlK1ajc0uqTi9rxgvfgtQ5HIVulm-DJyuZvUpBSlBhz-4vROVXVbqJacLH6w_ddJ6ffu28t9gAreFUA8HQbzzyYFQr_DFWtExfa2xYPXVeKksTjDrlpob-MhWdAEOld/s755/amulet_ver2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="510" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivX1OT59iQKLH8YZlK1ajc0uqTi9rxgvfgtQ5HIVulm-DJyuZvUpBSlBhz-4vROVXVbqJacLH6w_ddJ6ffu28t9gAreFUA8HQbzzyYFQr_DFWtExfa2xYPXVeKksTjDrlpob-MhWdAEOld/w277-h410/amulet_ver2.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>Actress
Romola Garai makes a promising directorial debut with the feminist horror
parable Amulet. You don’t quite realize just how feminist it is until the final
act, as Garai only slowly reveals the truth about the all the people involved –
but the finale really does hit hard. The film is gorgeous to look at – clearly
inspired by giallo horror movies, Garai has made a visual stunner. Her
storytelling is perhaps not quite up to that level – there is perhaps too many
twists and turns, handled a little awkwardly – and the confusion the audience
feels at certain points is perhaps not entirely on purpose. Yet, overall,
Amulet marks the announcement of a major new talent behind the camera for
horror movies – and I cannot wait to see what happens next in her career.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Tomas
(Alec Secareanu) is a day laborer living in extreme poverty on the outskirts of
London. A former soldier, racked with guilt over his actions in “the war” (what
war, is not really made clear – and what he feels so guilty about only becomes
somewhat clear as the film moves along). With nowhere to go, when he receives
an offer from a kindly nun – Sister Claire (played by Imelda Staunton, giving
you the first sign that you shouldn’t trust her) – he gladly takes it. Tomas
will work as a handyman of sorts for Magda (Carla Juri) – who lives in a large,
dilapidated, remote house as she cares for her dying mother (Anah Ruddin). It
quickly becomes clear though that Mother isn’t just some sick old woman – she
is possessed by some ancient evil – or may well be the ancient evil made flesh.
Magda is trapped with her until Mother dies anyway, and Tomas is there to help.
You sense immediately though that Tomas is uncomfortable – the way he looks at
Magda brings up mixed feelings in both him and the audience.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Garai
reveals the truth behind all of these characters – but does so slowly – perhaps
too slowly for genre fans who just want to get to the bloody climax of the
movie (rest assured genre fans, when Garai finally does go for broke in those
final minutes, it is worth the wait). The film mixes different horror genres in
its one film – it is a tale of possession of course, but it eventually makes it
clear that it is also a feminist take on the rape/revenge film – that stands
aside something like Coralie Fargeat’s underrated/underseen Revenge as an
attempt by female filmmakers to take the genre back from its pure exploitation
roots. Tomas is a complicated figure – he wants to “free” Magda from whatever
curse is on her that forces her to stay alongside mother – as if doing so will
free him of his sins. But, as the film makes clear, it may not be enough – you
cannot simply make up for a bad deed with a good one. Tomas though is a more
complicated figure than we normally see in this type of movie – and Secareanu’s
performance is quite good at navigating the different aspects of him. The same
is true for Juri’s Magda – and her performance, which really is something in
the final act. Up until then, the structure and storytelling do somewhat limit
her – as Garai doesn’t want to give the game away. An old pro like Staunton is
also quite good as Sister Claire – making the film’s simplest main character
into something interesting.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">It really
is the visuals though that make Amulet something to behold. Garai takes great
care with the cinematography and sound design to create atmosphere – and the
production design on the house is also quite special – without it, the film
would likely fall apart. Garai is clearly a talented – and ambitious –
filmmaker. Perhaps, too ambitious with this first film – the flashback
structure and storytelling is a little confusing at times – but she more than
makes up for it with the visuals, the performances and ideas. I cannot wait to
see what she does next.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-23349497923297687002020-08-19T11:59:00.000-07:002020-08-19T11:59:06.292-07:00Movie Review: The Hater<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Hater ** ½ / *****<br /></span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Jan
Komasa.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Mateusz
Pacewicz.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 107%;">Maciej Musialowski (Tomasz
Giemza), Vanessa Aleksander (Gabi Krasucka), Danuta Stenka (Zofia Krasucka), Jacek
Koman (Robert Krasucki), Agata Kulesza (Beata Santorska), Maciej Stuhr (Pawel
Rudnicki), Adam Gradowski (Stefan Guzkowski 'Guzek'), Piotr Biedron (Kamil), Jedrzej
Wielecki (Staszek Rydel), Jan Hrynkiewicz (Roommate Marcin Karpiuk), Martynika
Kosnica (Natalia Krasucka).<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVPP_zMM_Y-XgC8lEV4GZl85hII82dDt3opzHJ_tH5PH8zeLI2krKx6mr7zisWtWJfKpRJ5H3Y77cOqcJGfYDK8jCwUXXEP65BgDUNiHRd-CT327Z-wMNXe2vDPmFdHUnBr-oODAuIRkf/s755/hater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="503" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVPP_zMM_Y-XgC8lEV4GZl85hII82dDt3opzHJ_tH5PH8zeLI2krKx6mr7zisWtWJfKpRJ5H3Y77cOqcJGfYDK8jCwUXXEP65BgDUNiHRd-CT327Z-wMNXe2vDPmFdHUnBr-oODAuIRkf/w273-h410/hater.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>It isn’t
often when we have a promising filmmaker’s follow-up to their breakthrough
success released mere months after that breakthrough – but with The Hater, Jan
Komasa follows up his wonderful, Oscar nominated Corpus Christi – released in
theaters earlier this year. You can certainly see similarities with his
breakthrough success – both are portraits of angry, confused young men. But the
main character in The Hater is far less nuanced – and interesting – than the
one portrayed so memorably by Bartosz Bielenia in Corpus Christi – and the film
is also more unfocused, lashing out angrily in many different directions. At
two hours and fifteen minutes, it’s also a long movie – and it feels even
longer.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">We are
introduced to Tomasz (Maciej Musialowski), and immediately know that ethics isn’t
his strong suit. He has been called before his university’s ethics board – and
will be expelled from law school for plagiarism by the end of the film’s first
scene. But instead of learning from his transgressions and trying to make
things right, and turn his life around, instead he decides to keep digging
himself in deeper. Tomasz is from the country – a poor family, and is
determined to make good one way or another. A wealthy family – the Krasucka’s,
who used to vacation in the country near Tomasz – are partially funding his
schooling, and Tomasz goes to their house for dinner – under the guise of
thanking them. His real intentions though are to integrate himself in their
family – their college daughter, Gabi (Vanessa Aleksander) goes to the same
school (different program), and he wants to get in with her and her friends.
The Krasucka’s are into politics as well – supporting a liberal politician
running for mayor. Soon Tomasz is working for an ethically dubious online
marketing firm – they do the dirty work, spreading fake news on the internet
that the bigger places won’t do. When Tomasz sees his new plan also go up in
smoke, he starts playing both sides – volunteering for the candidate, in an
attempt to get back in good with the Krascuka’s, while sabotaging the candidate
online. He goes above and beyond even what the firm with no morals would do
though, when he targets a right wing nut job of a young man – and starts
filling his head with thoughts of violence.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The Hater
is Komasa’s attempt to delve into the internet world we live in now. I noticed
that he had another film back in 2011 called Suicide Room – about an angry
young high school student spending sending his hate out into the world in
chatrooms, and the original title of this film – Suicide Room: The Hater –
marks this as some sort of companion piece to that – updated for the fake news
era. It’s certainly a subject worthy of exploration – but filmmakers still, I
think, have not quite figured out how to address the dark corners internet in a
way that doesn’t lead to extremes. The Hater isn’t as bad – or sensationalistic
as Spree, another recent film about the subject – but I’m not sure it quite
hits the nail on the head either.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">A big
part of the problem is that Tomasz just isn’t all that interesting. The film
attempts to complicate him a little bit – like Komasa so memorably did in
Corpus Christi – trying to make Tomasz a little sympathetic, in between him
doing completely awful things – but it doesn’t really work. The film seems
stuck between wondering if Tomasz is a monster – who uses his weapon of choice,
the internet to do his monstrous things, or if he is a victim of the online
culture – a wounded young man, crushed by unrequited love, who takes things too
far because no one is around to stop him, and it’s just so easy. Perhaps Komasa
thinks he is both of those things – which, admittedly, would be an interesting
angle to take. But Musialowski’s performance lacks the nuance to make Tomasz
all that interesting. He’s a blank slate – and at some point you wonder if
there’s any “there there” at all.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The Hater touches on timely
issues to be sure – and I hope that some filmmaker finally is able to crack the
code on how to portray this generation of very angry, very online young men,
who digital violence becomes real at some point. The Hater isn’t that film –
even if it’s an honorable attempt to be.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-66753240702790306952020-08-19T11:56:00.007-07:002020-08-19T11:56:54.615-07:00Movie Review: Bloodshoot<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bloodshot ** ½ / *****<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">David
S.F. Wilson.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Jeff Wadlow
and Eric Heisserer.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Vin Diesel (Bloodshot), Eiza
González (KT), Sam Heughan (Jimmy Dalton), Toby Kebbell (Martin Axe), Talulah
Riley (Gina Garrison), Lamorne Morris (Wilfred Wigans), Guy Pearce (Dr. Emil
Harting), Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (Nick Baris), Alex Hernandez (Tibbs), Siddharth
Dhananjay (Eric).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0XfpijOnAxnz2svTMVzKfHSs-E4dIV4Yk6lI_b1CkZ4S-OsrOlvzHuyg-rCNWcOWlOSt6_kvn0xQDR4ZvdDiWEH_h52YTUfjdGRETclSD77j6BvdWEpvAG0i4rbfdXsX5-imLNGtEWBvT/s755/bloodshot_ver2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="604" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0XfpijOnAxnz2svTMVzKfHSs-E4dIV4Yk6lI_b1CkZ4S-OsrOlvzHuyg-rCNWcOWlOSt6_kvn0xQDR4ZvdDiWEH_h52YTUfjdGRETclSD77j6BvdWEpvAG0i4rbfdXsX5-imLNGtEWBvT/w262-h328/bloodshot_ver2.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>Bloodshot
is further proof that Vin Diesel was born too late to be the action star he
truly wanted to be. Outside of the Fast & Furious franchise, Diesel has
struggled to make much in the way of memorable action films. Bloodshot really
should have been that film – it is a throwback to the 1980s and 1990s action
films (much like Diesel is a throwback to those action stars himself) – more
fitting in an era where seemingly every action star had a movie about becoming
a biologically enhanced killing machine, before turning on his makers, and when
comic book movies were seen mainly as disposable trash – instead of the
defining cultural institute that they have (unfortunately) become. Considering
those films aren’t made much anymore, Bloodshot should have been a fun
throwback – forgettable perhaps, but at least a way to forget everything else
for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, it never quite gets there. It takes
itself – like Diesel himself often seems to – too seriously, and even the
attempts at in jokes and humor mainly fall flat.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">In the
film, Diesel stars as a soldier called Garrison who is mainly tasked with
leading a team that does what others cannot – dangerous rescue mission, deadly
attacks, etc. After one such attack, he is kidnapped by Martin Axe (Toby
Kebbell)- a psycho killer who literally dances to Psycho Killer as he
approaches him. Axe has also kidnapped Garrison’s wife – Gina, and kills her
right in front of Garrison, before killing Garrison himself. It’s odd then when
Garrison wakes up – brought back to life by Dr. Emil Harting (Guy Pearce) – who
has an experimental procedure that can not only bring people back to life, but
also make them virtually invincible (think Wolverine). Garrison is supposed to
become a part of team of these super soldiers – but of course because he’s
played by Vin Diesel, he refuses to play by Harting’s rules – and goes rogue,
out for revenge. But, of course, things are never quite as they seem. I won’t
reveal more of the plot than that – it has some twists and turns, most of them
you can probably see coming (if I remember the trailer correctly, it gives the
game away in it – somewhat I forgot since it’s been so long since I saw the
trailer).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Had
Bloodshot made been in the 1990s, it probably would have starred Arnold
Schwarzenegger, and been about a million times more fun than the Bloodshot we
got in 2020. Schwarzenegger never took himself too seriously in these roles –
and his smiling face helped the audience know that everyone was in the joke of
just how silly this all was. Diesel seems incapable of that – and it’s too bad,
because he is not a bad actor in anyway. But he seems content to keep doing
these silly action movies, but in a self-serious way – when he’s actually been
quite good in serious roles like Sidney Lumet’s Find Me Guilty (2006) or Boiler
Room (2000) – and he actually started as a promising director – although he
hasn’t directed a feature since his debut – Strays in 1997. Whether he doesn’t
get offered serious roles, or doesn’t seek them out, is a shame in many ways –
one of them being that because he takes something like Bloodshot so seriously,
he drags the fun out of what should be a silly action movie. The rest of the
cast – especially Kebbell and Pearce – seem to be in on the joke that nobody
told Diesel.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The movie
was directed by David S.F. Wilson. The action sequences are fairly generic –
but for the most part are quite good (the best being a shootout in a tunnel,
after a car chase sequence). They aren’t quite Michael Bay incoherent – a good
thing – and if perhaps the final fight sequence, on top of multiple moving
elevators – drags on a little long, well, at least they are kind of fun.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">I watched
Bloodshot the night I got back from a week at the cottage – those days when you
are tired from the drive, and unpacking, and a little letdown after the fun
time you had away – but not quite ready to go to bed yet. It’s a fine movie for
that sort of day – when you want to watch something completely unchallenging
and stupid, but also kind of fun. But there’s a lot better choices for those
days as well – pretty much anything Arnold made in the 1980s or 1990s, which is
what this film is trying desperately to be for example.</span></p>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-33526019538123269542020-08-13T06:31:00.003-07:002020-08-13T06:31:05.921-07:00Classic Movie Review: The Iceman Cometh (1973)<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
Iceman Cometh (1973)<br /></span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by:<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">John
Frankenheimer.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Thomas Quinn
Curtiss based on the play by Eugene O’Neill.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Lee Marvin (Hickey),
Frederic March (Henry Hope), Robert Ryan (Larry Slade), Jeff Bridges (Don
Parritt), Bradford Dillman (Willie Oban), Sorrell Booke (Hugo Kalmar), Hildy
Brooks (Margie), Juno Dawson (Pearl), Evan Evans (Cora), Maryn Green (Cecil
Lewis), Moses Gunn (Joe Mott), Clifton James (Pat McGloin), John McLiam (Jimmy
Tomorrow), Stephen Pearlman (Chuck Morelo), Tom Pedi (Rocky Pioggi), George
Voskovec (Piet Wetjoen), Don McGovern (Moran), Bart Burns (Lieb).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLDoTQvygsv8Kjc3JvFuyFVelMHcBcC4NZOh3jarLqQuNEhHrf520dFfubOLMoWnBvhW2iosMiJVcRWPkOj8bNxJPI_zfskQ1xjuB7aZnj3e5i11Z3IyaOPzujo0gmH_JQoA1hbHNRAmYF/s1585/ICeman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1585" data-original-width="1197" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLDoTQvygsv8Kjc3JvFuyFVelMHcBcC4NZOh3jarLqQuNEhHrf520dFfubOLMoWnBvhW2iosMiJVcRWPkOj8bNxJPI_zfskQ1xjuB7aZnj3e5i11Z3IyaOPzujo0gmH_JQoA1hbHNRAmYF/s320/ICeman.jpg" /></a></div>All the
denizens of Henry Hope’s bar are drunks – talking about what they had
yesterday, and what they are going to do tomorrow – perhaps knowing somewhere
deep down that the tomorrow they describe is never going to come, because
tomorrow will be just like today – they’ll spend it getting drunk in Henry
Hope’s bar. The lone exception – at least in his own view – is Larry Slade
(Robert Ryan) – who was once part of the “movement” – but gave that up 11 years
ago, and now spends his days in the bar with all the other drunks. But he never
seems to get that drunk – and he holds himself apart from them. In his own
mind, he has no delusions anymore – he did when he was part of the movement,
but he “outgrew” that, and is now basically sitting around waiting for death.
Not even the arrival of Don Parritt (Jeff Bridges)- the son of a woman Larry
knew in the movement – and perhaps even Larry’s son (he says he isn’t, but when
Ryan says it, you get the feeling he’s trying to convince himself, as well as the
kid, that it isn’t true) can shake him. Don is there because there was a rat in
their group – and all of them, including his mother, have been arrested. He
wants Larry’s help – and Larry isn’t going to help him.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The first
act of The Iceman Cometh has everyone in that basement dive bar awaiting the
arrival of Hickey (Lee Marvin). He comes every year on Henry’s (Frederic March)
birthday – and is always full of stories, pockets full of money to buy rounds –
and it’s the highlight of the year, perhaps because it’s the only time things
change. But when Hickey arrives this time, things are different. He enters the
bar and gives off the impression of what he is – a travelling salesman – with a
pitch for everyone in the bar. He isn’t drinking anymore – and doesn’t want the
others to drink either. He says he has rid himself of all his self-delusions –
and wants the rest of them to do the same. That way they will be free – and
happy. After all, just look at Hickey. Isn’t he happy?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The 1973
film version of Eugene O’Neill’s famous play was the first film produced by
what was known as The American Film Theatre – a group started by Ely Landau,
who for two “seasons” brought filmed versions of great plays to theatres. It
was a subscription series – offered to theatres to draw in a more “highbrow”
crowd – playing their shows only on Mondays and Tuesdays when movie theatres
were less busy anyway. That’s probably the only way we would ever get a four-hour
version of The Iceman Cometh into movie theatres anyway. It isn’t an unabridged
version of O’Neill’s play – it even cuts out an entire character – but it’s
probably as close as we will ever get.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The film
was directed by the great John Frankenheimer, who makes no effort to try and
“open up” the play. The whole movie takes place in Henry’s bar – the bar
itself, and the backroom. But it isn’t just a filmed version of the play either
– it’s not on a stage, with an audience, and Frankenheimer’s camera moves
freely around the bar – and makes the most of its close-up’s on the actors
faces. And what faces they are! This was the last film of both the great
Frederic March – winning of two Oscars (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1932 and The
Best Years of Our Lives in 1946) and Robert Ryan – one of the best character
actors of all time. Tough guy Lee Marvin may seem like an odd choice to play
Hickey (and I hope to watch Sidney Lumet’s TV version with veteran O’Neill
thespian Jason Robards in the role soon) – but it’s a reminder that when given
the right material, Marvin was a towering presence – and a great actor.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">It would
be easy with Hickey to go BIG for example – to make him larger than life.
Marvin is capable of doing that when he needs to here, but he’s also capable of
going smaller, subtler when the movie calls on him to do so. The obvious
centerpiece of the performance is his massive monologue in the closing act –
one of the best monologue’s in theatre history, and Marvin makes the most of
it. It’s a monologue that in other hands may make Hickey out to be insane –
it’s certainly how the drunks in the bar read it – but in Marvin’s hands, it’s
crystal clear that Hickey is perfectly sane – he knew exactly what he was
doing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The great
March is also wonderful here. His Henry is more than little bit pathetic – sure
owning a dive bar like this is slightly less pathetic than hanging out in one
all day – but not if all you really do is sit in the corner drinking, moaning
about his beloved wife, dead now 20 years, which is also the last time he left
the bar. It’s a fitting goodbye for an actor as great as March.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">And yet,
it is Robert Ryan whose performance in the film is the best. It turns out, he
is different than the rest of the people in the bar – but being different
doesn’t make him any better. The play proceeds with Hickey convincing everyone
else except Larry to let go of their delusions – to head out into the world,
and make that tomorrow they all talk about actually happen. They head out
alright, but are all back within the day. The world outside the bar isn’t as
safe as the one in the bar – and if you’re going to make that tomorrow happen,
you actually have to do something about it. The key to the play may just be
that Hickey is completely right – that all these men are living with their own
self-delusions, but they are all happier for it. They are miserable when forced
to confront themselves, their real selves. Hickey’s confessional monologue
gives them all the excuse they need to retreat back into Henry Hope’s bar, and
dismiss everything that he said.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">All, of
course, except for Larry. By the end of the play only two people have really
taken any concrete action – Hickey himself, whose actions came before the start
of the play, and the kid – Don – who finds he cannot live with himself. The
rest of them have retreated back into their roles that they had before Hickey
even arrived. But for Larry, his delusions are gone – the way he thought of
himself before is no longer how he can ever think of himself again. He is the
one who resisted Hickey the longest – and yet he’s the only one who has
permanently changed because of him. And he’s absolutely miserable because of
it. Self-delusions prevent us from seeing ourselves clearly – but they also
protect us from the same. When they’re gone, you’re stuck with yourself.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Note: </span></b><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">I have now seen the Sidney Lumet
made for TV movie from 1960 – with Jason Robards as Hickey. It’s an interesting
film – quicker than the Frankenheimer version (it runs “only” three hours,
twenty minutes rather than 4 hours) and it doesn’t quite have the freedom of
movement that Frankenheimer’s version has – it has also aged a little bit, so
the picture isn’t quite as good. Still, it’s fascinating to watch it just a few
days after seeing the Frankenheimer version. Myron McCormick – who was mainly a
stage actor – is excellent as Larry Slade, maybe not as great as Ryan – but
close enough, and their interpretations are similar. It’s also interesting to
see a very young Robert Redford as Parritt (it’s his 8<sup>th</sup> screen
credit – but all previous 7 are also from 1960). The biggest difference is
clearly Jason Robards performance as Hickey. He’s younger than Marvin (not yet
even 40) – which by itself is a major difference. He also goes BIGGER than
Marvin throughout. By this time, Robards had already played Hickey on stage –
in the revival that basically made the play’s reputation as its original run
got mixed reviews – and this is clearly more of a stage performance than a
screen one. Yet it still works great – Robards is “on” for the entire film – a
carnival barker, salesman charming and annoying everyone in the bar. He
delivers Hickey’s great final monologue wonderfully well – and by the end, you
do question Hickey’s sanity – not when he does what he did, but after the fact
when in a moment of anger, he says what he actually thinks, and it may
completely destroy his vision of himself. In short, I think Robards is great –
I don’t see much point in proclaiming him either better or worse than Marvin –
but they are different. Personally, I would have loved to see Robards when he
took on the role again on Broadway in 1985 – because I think age may have made
him bring something different to the role (I would also would have loved to see
the stage versions with James Earl Jones or Denzel Washington or Nathan Lane as
Hickey – the acclaimed version with Kevin Spacey in the role less so, since I
can pretty much envision exactly how Spacey would do the role). In short, both
the Lumet and Frankenheimer versions are worth seeing, especially to see the
different Hickeys – but the Frankenheimer version is superior overall.</span></p><br />Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-16399977044318576972020-08-07T06:27:00.003-07:002020-08-07T06:27:00.270-07:00Classic Movie Double Bill: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) & Killing Them Softly (2012)<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Peter
Yates.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Paul
Monash based on the novel by George V. Higgins.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Robert Mitchum (Eddie
'Fingers' Coyle), Peter Boyle (Dillon), Richard Jordan (Dave Foley), Steven
Keats (Jackie Brown), Alex Rocco (Jimmy Scalise), Joe Santos (Artie Van),
Mitchell Ryan (Waters), Peter MacLean (Mr. Partridge), Kevin O'Morrison (Bank
manager #2), Marvin Lichterman (Vernon), Carolyn Pickman (Nancy), James Tolkan
(The Man's contact man), Margaret Ladd (Andrea), Matthew Cowles (Pete), Helena
Carroll (Sheila Coyle), Jack Kehoe (The Beard)</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Killing Them Softly (2012)<br /></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Andrew
Dominik.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Andrew
Dominik based on the novel by George V. Higgins.</span><br /> <o:p></o:p></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Brad Pitt (Jackie), Scoot
McNairy (Frankie), Ben Mendelsohn (Russell), James Gandolfini (Mickey), Richard
Jenkins (Driver), Vincent Curatola (Johnny Amato), Ray Liotta (Markie
Trattman), Trevor Long (Steve Caprio), Max Casella (Barry Caprio), Sam Shepard
(Dillon), Slaine (Kenny Gill).</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">I was
going to say it was inexplicable that only two movies have ever been based on
the novels by George V. Higgins – until I realized that perhaps the best way to
describe Higgins is Elmore Leonard with all the fun drained out – and then it
becomes easier to see why Hollywood hasn’t jumped on the novels. The rogues’
gallery of character in Leonard novels can betray you, kill you even – but the
stories are smart, funny, and sexy – and full of a certain energy. Hollywood
hasn’t always gotten Leonard right – but when they do, like in Tarantino’s
Jackie Brown or Soderberg’s Out of Sight, they produce masterworks. But Higgins
characters are different – beaten down by the criminal life, wounded – they are
pretty much the walking dead when the stories start – so it’s almost a relief
when they meet their inevitable fate. Higgins may have only inspired two movies
– but both are brilliant.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2julPYv6tK4V8S0j5jwTDgJcKdHttN5vk-WT8KdVrKqJ5HcFiTD3kLNFjMFXNTxxe1iSJhn5Jgp_g0FYc8FYILB_K-JkVx2818lZ48Z1OJCaaNYQyVA941B0ONz8cJz_KuWMXWOhcNF87/s700/D_3fed8XUAIZDrB.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="495" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2julPYv6tK4V8S0j5jwTDgJcKdHttN5vk-WT8KdVrKqJ5HcFiTD3kLNFjMFXNTxxe1iSJhn5Jgp_g0FYc8FYILB_K-JkVx2818lZ48Z1OJCaaNYQyVA941B0ONz8cJz_KuWMXWOhcNF87/s320/D_3fed8XUAIZDrB.jpg" /></a></div>The
Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) truly does belong on any list of the best films
of the 1970s – and probably only doesn’t because director Peter Yates doesn’t
get mentioned alongside the like of Altman, Scorsese, or Coppola. Yates was
more a journeyman director – yet a filmmaker adept of changing his style to
suit the material – meaning he could make this or Bullitt (1968) or Breaking
Away (1979) – and find the right note for the film. Hell, who else can say they
directed Krull and The Dresser in the same year?<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">His
approach to The Friends of Eddie Coyle most resembles Altman – with it’s large,
sprawling cast of characters, some overlapping dialogue, etc. The biggest asset
he has is in casting Robert Mitchum in the title role – giving what may just be
Mitchum’s best performance ever. Mitchum wasn’t quite 60 yet when he made this
film – but he feels older. Eddie Coyle is a career, low-level criminal, looking
at yet another prison term – and the weight of it all seems to make him walk a
little slower, slumped shoulders. Mitchum, who was never in a hurry to deliver
his dialogue, takes even more time than normal here. He is caught – and knows
he is caught – and knows what he has to do in order to get away. It will involve
becoming a rat. Dave Foley (Richard Jordan) is a cop who has basically told Eddie
that he can make a call to the D.A. over in New Hampshire – get that little
charge dismissed. But he needs something. Eddie, who has been dealing guns he
gets from an even lower level criminal – Jackie Brown (Steven Keats) – thinks
that maybe he can just give the kid up. But he’s also been selling those guns
to an old friend – who along with some buddies have been committing some
brazen, high profile bank robberies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The title
to the film is meant ironically of course – none of these people are really
Eddie’s friends. Neither is Dillon (Peter Boyle) – a “bartender” who seems to
know everything going on in the criminal underworld in Boston – and uses it to
his advantage – either with the cops, or other criminals, whatever benefits him
the most. Much is made of criminal code – but perhaps no film has more
accurately dramatized the saying “there is no honor among thieves” – everyone
in the film is out for themselves – the cops, the criminals – everyone. And
will only do something if forced.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Eddie is,
of course, a veteran in this world – a couple decades older even than Dillon,
even if Boyle never seemed to age from the time, he was Joe (1970) to Everyone
Loves Raymond (1995-2005). Eddie isn’t a good guy per se – he’s bad in many
ways. But he’s a tragic figure – and a sympathetic one. I defy you not to feel
for him as gets drunker and drunker at the Bruins game, shouting “Number four,
Bobby Orr” – when we know his time is up (and maybe he does too). Mitchum,
always one of the best actors in the world, in part because he didn’t seem to
give a shit, here digs deeper and delivers a masterclass in screen acting. It’s
one of the best performance you will ever see – and the film is a straight-up
masterpiece.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK9x1gYOmSctftHE6b1gXdY_KFy1LU-npwE0YBVkXGewoZIEAJpamS6lR4E0Nq4f1NzDQIyik88oUAKSsCy_8MCObgeEhTu0XhQeIB7F6FhYKWxQZPnhX2bwhC9dNisvp4lUBBicwcyvlK/s755/killing_them_softly_ver7.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="509" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK9x1gYOmSctftHE6b1gXdY_KFy1LU-npwE0YBVkXGewoZIEAJpamS6lR4E0Nq4f1NzDQIyik88oUAKSsCy_8MCObgeEhTu0XhQeIB7F6FhYKWxQZPnhX2bwhC9dNisvp4lUBBicwcyvlK/s320/killing_them_softly_ver7.jpg" /></a></div>It took
nearly 40 years for someone else to adapt Higgins – and that was in 2012’s
Killing Them Softly, based on Higgins’ Coogan’s Trade. It was Andrew Dominik’s
follow-up to his 2007 masterpiece The Assassination of Jesse James by the
Coward Robert Ford (we’re still waiting for his follow-up to this one). I
admit, I didn’t much like the film when I first saw it – other than the killer
final scene. I felt Dominik laid on too many showy directors tricks, that some
of the dialogue seemed stilted – like a poor man’s version of Leonard or Tarantino.
Watching it again, I can only say I was wrong – perhaps the director’s tricks
(particularly early) aren’t as distracting on my TV screen as they were in the
theater, I’m not sure – but the dialogue is terrific. It isn’t a poor man’s
Leonard or Tarantino – because it isn’t trying to be either. Much like the
dialogue in The Friends of Eddie Coyle, it is weighted down – the lives of
these people has beaten them down, ground them down. Most of them are as much
dead men walking as Eddie Coyle.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">It all
starts with the robbery of a mob-controlled card game. Johnny (Vincent
Curatola) brings up the idea to Frankie (Scoot McNairy), who brings in Russell
(Ben Mendelsohn) to pull it off. Normally, robbing a mob backed card game would
be suicide – but Johnny knows this particular card game was knocked over a few
years ago – and the man behind it was Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta) – who still
runs the game, even if it’s an open secret he did it himself. They looked the
other way once – but he figures they won’t do so again. They’ll just kill
Markie and move on. That is essentially the first act of the film – the first
30 minutes of a 97-minute movie. It isn’t until after that the film’s star –
Jackie (Brad Pitt) even shows up. The mob wanted Dillon (Sam Shepherd) – but
Dillon isn’t available (is it the same Dillon as Peter Boyle played in Eddie
Coyle – could be). Jackie doesn’t buy that Markie would be so stupid to knock
over the same game again – and it really doesn’t take much to figure out what
really happened. He meets with the go-between with the mob (Richard Jenkins) –
and wants to bring in a pro from New York – Mickey (James Gandolfini). Mickey isn’t
what he used to be though.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">These
characters will remind you of those in The Friends of Eddie Coyle – a rogue’s
gallery of beaten down, hard scrabble, violent but also kind of pathetic men.
Jackie is the only one who seems most in control – because he’s the only one
not living with any delusions of what the point of this all is. Dominik makes
the interesting choice to set the film in 2008 – and we hear Obama promising
hope and change throughout the film in the background. It was made in another
election year – 2012 – when Obama is back up for reelection, where the country
has lived through the worst of the massive economic downturn brought on by
corporate greed. Jackie knows what this all means – “In America, you’re on your
own” – a blistering tagline that lays in stark contrast to Obama’s.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Perhaps
therein lies the secret as to why Hollywood hasn’t adapted more Higgins novels.
They aren’t fun – they don’t show us honor among thieves, or be about the
transgressions of those who live outside the law. There is something universal
in his sad sack characters – the walking dead waiting to be put out of their
misery.</span></p><br />Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7069240801305189913.post-38602605758765866052020-08-06T12:13:00.000-07:002020-08-06T12:13:00.455-07:00Classic Movie Review: The Hired Hand (1971)<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Hired Hand (1971) <br /> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Directed by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Peter Fonda.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Written by: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Alan Sharp.</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span><b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starring: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Sylfaen",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Peter
Fonda (Harry Collings), Warren Oates (Arch Harris), Verna Bloom (Hannah
Collings), Robert Pratt (Dan Griffen), Severn Darden (McVey), Rita Rogers
(Mexican Woman), Ann Doran (Mrs. Sorenson), Ted Markland (Luke), Owen Orr
(Mace), Al Hopson (Bartender), Megan Denver (Janey Collings), Michael McClure
(Plummer), Gray Johnson (Will). </span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZNHp8IVR6n6vM8oFVNGsA3rUh7uuboOnnWT4GPmXaUzPZ_WJ77OOfCAKho9DGCP2IAo1ehLR0NJ7opNfzceOHdFdYXlEfF52g4uw3gcMZbzYq07aXpZOWIJY_JV8nxq0s0KPrPlKYzYuW/s755/hired_hand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="501" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZNHp8IVR6n6vM8oFVNGsA3rUh7uuboOnnWT4GPmXaUzPZ_WJ77OOfCAKho9DGCP2IAo1ehLR0NJ7opNfzceOHdFdYXlEfF52g4uw3gcMZbzYq07aXpZOWIJY_JV8nxq0s0KPrPlKYzYuW/s320/hired_hand.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1;"> </span></p>In the wake of the massive, unexpected success of
Easy Rider (1969), Peter Fonda – it’s co-writer, producer and star was pretty
much given carte blanche to direct a movie – and what he came up with was The
Hired Hand (1971) – the failure of which is sad for a number of reasons, the
biggest being that Fonda didn’t really go on to a directing career – making
just two other films – although this film shows he should have. Like many films
that help to define a generation, Easy Rider has aged more than most – it
remains a classic of American cinema, but it’s outsized influence in kicking
off the Golden Age of 1970s American cinema (although with a few other films
from the time) probably gives it a better reputation than it deserves. It is
very much of its time and place – even if it’s line “We blew it” – was able to
see the end of this short-lived era even before it really began. The Hired Hand
though feels somewhat fresher – perhaps because it isn’t as well-known as Easy
Rider, its greatness wasn’t copied to death in subsequent years. There were
more than a few counter-culture Westerns at the time – all of them sad and
tragic, all of them looking to undermine this most American of genres that
produced lastly images of American heroism in John Wayne (and, Fonda’s own
father) – but saw that built on lies. The Hired Hand wants to be, and is, a
corrective of those films.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1;"> </span><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">In the film, Fonda plays Harry, who has been a
cowboy, drifting the lonely prairies driving cattle alongside his partner, Arch
(Warren Oates, perhaps the patron saint of these kinds of films – see The Wild
Bunch, Two-Lane Blacktop, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Badlands, etc.)
for years now, and have just picked up a younger man – Dan (Robert Pratt) who
unlike the two older men still has a sense of romanticism and adventure about
him. They have finished their latest job, and contemplating what to do next –
Dan wants to push out to California, see the ocean – and Arch may go with him.
But Harry decides that now is the time to return home to the wife, Hannah
(Verna Bloom) and daughter he abandoned years ago. Dan, of course, is the
sacrificial lamb of the group – so once he dies, tragically and pointlessly (an
obvious reference to the Vietnam war) Harry and Arch return to see Hannah, who isn’t
exactly overjoyed to see Harry. She has had to make her own way all these years
now on her farm – and says that Harry has given up any right to expect to be
treated as a husband and father. She does offer him a job though – he can be
the hired hand their farm needs. They agree not to tell their young daughter
who he is.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The Hired Hand is a quiet film – it doesn’t really
go out of its way to explain itself, and more often than not, the big, emotional
moments are ones where characters exchange looks. The film is connected to Easy
Rider in its way – because Harry has also essentially “dropped out” of society
for all these years. When he decides he wants back in, it isn’t so easy – he
cannot go home again. Hannah is also far more complex than women usually are –
she isn’t the helpless victim, waiting for a man to rescue her. She is frank
about what has happened over the years – she will hire men to work on the farm,
and often they will also share her bed – but she kicks them out before they get
too comfortable. She says it doesn’t much matter who shares her bed these days
– and its telling that she says this not to Harry, but to Arch, who is
listening intently while stroking her foot. That’s the extent of their physical
connection in the film – but it’s weighted and meaningful just the same.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Fonda was smart with his directorial debut to
surround himself with a great crew – probably no one more so than Vilmos
Zsigmond as the cinematographer, the same year he did God level work in
Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller – which captures the vast loneliness of the
American West. Zsigmond, of course, went onto a great career – but just as
crucial are the contributions of editor Frank Mazzola and composer Bruce
Langhorne, who in particular make the montages in the film stand-out.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1;"><br /></span></p>
<span style="font-family: Sylfaen, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1;">In
the end though, this is Fonda’s film. His sense as a director is wonderful, as
his presence as an actor. He plays Harry as the walking dead – a man who is
tired of being away from home, but can longer return home either. Some of the
plot mechanics don’t make a ton of sense down the stretch – when Harry once
again has to choose between staying home and helping his friend – but is
perhaps necessary to get him to make that choice, and show it’s not really a
choice at all. Harry no longer belongs anywhere – and never will again. And he
knows it – but perhaps senses that Arch isn’t quite the same. There is hope for
him yet – but Harry is doomed.</span>Dave Van Houwelingenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02675792024957939574noreply@blogger.com0