Movie Review: Finding Dory

Finding Dory

Directed by: Andrew Stanton.

Written by: Andrew Stanton and Victoria Strouse & Bob Peterson based on characters created by Andrew Stanton.

Starring: Ellen DeGeneres (Dory), Albert Brooks (Marlin), Ed O'Neill (Hank), Kaitlin Olson (Destiny), Hayden Rolence (Nemo), Ty Burrell (Bailey), Diane Keaton (Jenny), Eugene Levy (Charlie), Sloane Murray (Young Dory), Idris Elba (Fluke), Dominic West (Rudder), Bob Peterson (Mr. Ray), Kate McKinnon (Wife Fish), Bill Hader (Husband Fish - Stan), Sigourney Weaver (Sigourney Weaver).. 

 

Pixar’s best movies, and 2003’s Finding Nemo is certainly one of them, are able to speak to both children and their parents on different levels at the same time. At their best, Pixar avoids the cheap way other companies animated films – like, say, Dreamworks, accomplish this, which is basically including two types of scenes – one aimed at kids, that parents may suffer through, and ones aimed at adults, that go over the children’s heads. Pixar does things different – the craft beautiful looking films, filled with recognizable emotion that speaks to both children and their parents. Finding Nemo did this as well as any Pixar film ever has – perhaps better than most, because it really is about parents and their children – how parents want to protect their children from the real dangers out there, but also need to let go, and let them become themselves. In Marlin’s journey to find his lost son Nemo – and Nemo’s struggle to grow up – the film speaks powerfully to everyone in the audience.

 

The long awaited for sequel, Finding Dory, attempts to do something very similar, even if the situation is essentially flipped. It’s a year after the first film, and now it’s Dory – the fish with short term memory loss that helped Marlin on his journey in the first film – who needs to go on a journey herself. Flashes of memory are returning to her – and she is determined to head out and find her parents. As fearful as Marlin is, he agrees to help her on her journey. Most of the film takes place inside a Marine Park – nicer than SeaWorld, since their goal is to help the sea life back into the ocean when they are healed – where Dory remembers she is from. Most of the movie has Dory separated from Marlin and Nemo – who spend their time trying to get into the park, which Dory was able to do easily, and find her. Dory is mainly teamed up with Hank – an Octopus, with only seven arms (so, as septopus, as the movie points out) – as she tries to make her way to the exhibit her parents should be in – and Hank tries to find a way onto the truck bound for Cleveland – he has no interest in returning to the ocean.

 

That Finding Dory doesn’t reach the heights of its predecessor is probably to be expected – even Pixar, with its excellent track record has struggled making sequels to their films – with all second installments to their films never living up to the first films, with the exception of the Toy Story films (sorry, Toy Story 3 is clearly the best of that trilogy). This is hardly a Pixar specific problem, and it should be said that they still do sequels better than most (Monsters University, I find is particularly under-rated). Finding Dory would be a triumph for almost any other American animation studio – and the fact that it’s only really good Pixar instead of great Pixar, speaks more to the heights the studio has reached, not so much the quality of the film itself. The film is beautifully animated – the technology has clearly improved since Finding Nemo, and the water looks better that ever. Finding Dory is also another example at how Pixar is the best in the business at creating animated action sequences – there are many moments of Hank and Dory getting from one tank to another, dodging and weaving around obstacles, and staying hidden that work brilliantly – as does a sequence involved fish chasing a truck down on a highway (and they don’t even have to rely on an inlet or fjord to do so) a la Knight Boat.

 

What ends up holding back Finding Dory from true Pixar greatness, is that I think the film places more emphasis on the action and the comedy aspects of the film – again, both are top notch – than on the dramatic, emotional pull that is present in their best work. The movie spends so much time with Dory and Hank getting from one exhibit to the next – or with Marlin and Nemo, trying to get into the park in the first place (not to mention some hilarious sequences involving sea lions – poor Gerald) – that that emotional thrust is shunted to the background far too often in the film. It doesn’t help that it’s Dory who is responsible for this emotional pull either – Ellen DeGeneres excelled in the first film, in a role that essentially amounted to comic relief, but here, asked to do some more heavy lifting, he doesn’t quite nail those dramatic moments. I was far more moved by the vocal performance of Sloane Murray as a young Dory is flashbacks than anything DeGeneres does. I am a sucker for Pixar – heck, I cried at The Good Dinosaur (in that devastating moment when the two new friends find a visual way to tell each other their parents are dead) – yet although Finding Dory had me close to tears a few times, I never quite spilled over. Not every Pixar movie needs to leave me in a puddle on the floor – like poor Bing Bong did in Inside Out – although that has always been at least a part of their charm.

 

Still, Finding Dory is better than any other animated film I’ve seen so far this year (Zootopia is close, but this is better) – and it may just be the best we’ll see this year. No, Finding Dory doesn’t hit the magical level that Finding Nemo did – but then again, few films do.

Movie Review: De Palma

De Palma

Directed by: Noah Baumbach & Jake Paltrow.

Featuring: Brian De Palma.

 

There are a few ways in which documentaries centered on the work of one director can go – it can be the kind of fawning treatment, meant only foe diehards, that really should be nothing more than a DVD special feature (like Altman or Milius were a few years ago), or something like Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s De Palma – which, yes, is still for diehards, but it is a fascinating film in its own right, and contains a tremendous amount of insight into the films of Brian De Palma – from the man himself – as well as observations about Hollywood, from a man who has been there for more than 40 years. De Palma is mostly clear eyed about his own work – admitting when he made mistakes, or when something just didn’t work, but also being proud of his accomplishments – of which there have been many.

 

According to IMDB, Brian De Palma has 40 directing credits, and the film De Palma is basically the famed director talking about each and every one of them (they mostly skip the few shorts he made in school, but after that, the list is exhaustive). From his first Hitchcock homage, Murder a la Mod (1968), through subversive indie comedies like Greetings (1968) and its sequel, Hi, Mom! (1970) – which were early breaks for Robert DeNiro), through a disastrous first experience in the studio system – Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972), which De Palma says didn’t work, and when he told the studio how to make it work, they fired him, through the indie shockers Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise and Obsession, and then returning to the studio fold with Carrie (1976) – and then on and on, the film is full of observations, and De Palma pulls no punches. He’ll tell you how Cliff Robertson was an asshole on Obsession – how he realized Genevieve Bujold was stealing the movie from him, and did everything possible to undermine her. Or how he had to ban Oliver Stone from the set of Scarface, which Stone wrote, because Stone was trying to direct the actors. Or how David Mamet refused to work on The Untouchables after a certain point, so he had to do things himself. Or how Robert Towne wanting the climax of Mission Impossible to be a bunch of guys in a box car taking off their masks. De Palma admits that sometimes he has been hamstrung by the material – he doesn’t really like The Fury (1978), which made him do a car chase, which he hates doing, or how he had to completely restructure Raising Cain in the editing room, because it wasn’t working. He’ll admit his mistakes – he doesn’t dispute the fact that The Bonfire of the Vanities doesn’t work, but he does dispute the much made argument that he didn’t get it. He got it just fine, he just didn’t think that since he had Tom Hanks as the lead, that he could make a movie that cynical and depressing, or make Hanks that deplorable – so he lightened it, with horrible results. He knows Mission to Mars (2000) doesn’t really work – and it looks bad in parts, but that is, he argues, because they ran out of money. In regards to that film, he also argues why most CGI heavy blockbusters today look the same – it’s because the big effects sequence are pre-visualized, and not by the directors, but by effects houses, and they cost so much, that directors don’t really have the ability to go back and ask for something else. Ever wonder why every blockbuster seems to climax with a bunch of “stuff” crashing into other stuff, as building collapse, etc. That’s the reason.

 

One of the positives, and negatives of a movie like De Palma, which only questions the director on his own work, is that you end up with only one perspective. When I watched Hitchcock/Truffaut a few months ago, I wondered why there were no female directors questioned on Hitchcock’s work – which, many have argued, often bordered on, and occasionally crossed right on into, misogyny. The same can be said of De Palma’s work – but he mainly brushes off such criticisms. I would have liked to see dim delve more deeply into the sexual politics of Dressed to Kill (1980) for instance – a film, that is in many ways a stylistic masterpiece, but whose treatment of a trans character would make it impossible to make today. Or, delve a little deeper into the sexual politics of Body Double (1984) – one of my absolute favorites of his, but one that does feature a woman being killed by a giant drill (De Palma’s answer to that – that the drill had to be so big, so it could go through the floor where the main character would see it, is both an interesting practical note, but also a little bit of a copout) – but also, undeniably, has a great role for Melanie Griffith – her first great one, as a porn star, who completely owns and controls her sexuality. There is more to say about the sexual politics in his films, but De Palma doesn’t seem too interested in saying them.

 

Still, there are tons of great notes on the making of his masterpieces, like Carrie and Blow Out (my two favorites), his constant battle with the ratings board, or his regrets over something like Causalities of War (1989) basically being ignored at the time it came out (it’s one that I think still requires a critical re-evaluation). My one major regret is that it seems like once Baumbach and Paltrow get De Palma’s thoughts on CGI and Mission to Mars, they’re pretty much done with him, and the film. The Black Dahlia gets only a minute or two, Redacted even less, and I don’t think Passion is even mentioned by name. Worst of all, the film pretty much skims right by Femme Fatale (2002) – which would rank in my top five of all De Palma films, but which they don’t really discuss.

 

Still, De Palma is a fascinating document of De Palma’s career – a reminder of how great he can be given the right material (in the past two weeks, I’ve re-watched both Blow Out and Body Double – and loved both), and how to build a career in Hollywood. A career like De Palma’s could only happen at precisely the time it did – any earlier, and he’d be too shackled by the studio system, any later, and they wouldn’t give him the money needed to make such bold, provocative movies. He has had a wildly inconsistent career – but a great one.

Movie Review: Love & Friendship

Love & Friendship

Directed by: Whit Stillman.

Written by: Whit Stillman based on the novella Lady Susan by Jane Austen.

Starring: Kate Beckinsale (Lady Susan Vernon), Xavier Samuel (Reginald DeCourcy), Morfydd Clark (Frederica Vernon), Tom Bennett (Sir James Martin), Chloë Sevigny (Alicia Johnson), Emma Greenwell (Catherine DeCourcy Vernon), Justin Edwards (Charles Vernon), Stephen Fry (Mr. Johnson), Jemma Redgrave (Lady DeCourcy), James Fleet (Sir Reginald DeCourcy), Jenn Murray (Lady Lucy Manwaring), Lochlann O'Mearáin (Lord Manwaring), Kelly Campbell (Mrs. Cross), Conor MacNeill (The Young Curate).

 

The best book to screen adaptations are the ones in which it seems like both the novel and the film are meeting each other halfway – that even if it isn’t possible, that the author of the novel was writing it specifically for this filmmaker to tackle it, and turn it into a movie. I’m thinking of adaptations like Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997), where although he changed a lot of Elmore Leonard’s novel, really does seem like a merger between two of the best writers of dialogue out there. Or the Coen Brothers No Country for Old Men (2007), which is nowhere near Cormac McCarthy’s best novel, although it feels like it was written for the Coens – it’s more heavy on plot and character, and less on McCarthy’s tough to parse prose. Both of those now feel like marriages that were inevitable – and so to does Whit Stillman adapting Jane Austen. Stillman took an unfinished novella instead of one of Austen’s longer, more famous (and celebrated) novels – and yet, that’s the right choice for Stillman. He is not a director who excels at – or even seems to give a damn about – plot. He’s at his best when his characters are simply sitting around, shooting the shit with each other – especially when those characters are highly educated and pretentious, who are basically saying stupid things, in ways that are designed to make themselves seem smart. Had Stillman chose to adapt Sense & Sensibility or Pride & Prejudice, or another Austen novel, he may have been stuck doing what other directors have had to do – focus on the complicated plots, or who is in love with whom, who hates whom, and why, and then why that all changes. Instead, by choosing Lady Susan, and turning it into Love & Friendship, Stillman doesn’t have to worry about all that. There’s barely a plot in this film, and what there is, doesn’t matter. This makes Love & Friendship little more than an enjoyable trifle – but when trifle is this enjoyable, who could possibly complain?

 

The film stars Kate Beckinsale, giving the type of performance she does once every five years or so, that reminds just how great she can be in the right role – and simultaneously remind you of how infrequently she gets to do it. She is so jaw-dropping beautiful, that it seems like most directors want her to do little else except look jaw droppingly beautiful (what has the Underworld franchise been really, except an excuse to dress Beckinsale in skintight leather every couple of years). In something like Love & Friendship, Stillman (who cast in The Last Days of Disco in 1998 – another one of her great roles) writes a brilliant role for her. She’s at the center of most of the scenes in the movie – she is the widow of a rich man, now in a precarious financial situation, and trying to snag a rich husband for daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark), and herself, while also carrying on an affair with an already married, rich man herself. That affair blowing up has made her pick up, and move into with her brother-in-law Charles (Justin Edwards) and his wife Catherine (Emma Greenwall) – even though Lady Susan had tried to get him to call off their wedding. The man he wants her daughter to marry is Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), who, to put it mildly, an idiot – but he’s such a jolly idiot, you cannot possibly hate him – unless, of course, you’re being pushed into marriage with him. Lady Susan has her eyes set on Catherine’s brother, Reginald (Xavier Samuel) – a young man, of good breeding, who has a catalogue of expressions to make whenever someone says something stupid that rivals John Krasinski on The Office. Lady Susan is shameless in her flirting, and her scheming, but she gets away with it all, in part, because everyone else is too polite to say anything about it to her face. It seems like no one really likes Lady Susan – aside from her friend, Alicia Johnson (Chloe Sevigny, an American who doesn’t want to get sent back Connecticut by her husband – Stephen Frye), and the various men who are in love with her. Behind her back, everyone insults Lady Susan – but to her face, they are polite – so polite in fact that none of them will even call her out for her own rudeness.

 

The movie moves quickly through it 90 minute plot, where nothing of any real significance happens – and what does, you can probably see coming. This isn’t an Edith Wharton adaptation after all, so things are going to work out for the central characters – which of course they do, and everyone ends up with precisely the partner that will suit them best – except for that poor woman, who won’t stop complaining about her marriage that ended weeks ago. How shameless!

 

Beckinsale is the star of the show here – and her Lady Susan is such a force of nature, and gets all the best lines, that to be honest, no one else really has a chance to keep up with her. The lone exception is Tom Bennett as Sir James, who somehow finds a way to extend every conversation much longer than he should – and even if he’s proven wrong, he just keeps right on talking. In real life, this may be annoying as hell – in the movie, it’s hilarious.

 

Stillman is still thought of as a better writer than director – and Love & Friendship won’t much change that – the dialogue calls so much more attention to itself than the visuals. But, Stillman is a fine visual director as well, and he seems to have an instinct for camera placement – the best way to get two laughs out of his best lines – the line itself, and the reaction it inspires. The film is a definite improvement on Damsels in Distress (2011), which was his first in 13 years at that point (many love that film – I did not, I found it too mannered and stilted). This, though, is a return to form – a Stillman film that stands alongside Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco – and an Austen adaptation that stands alongside the best of her work onscreen. When you can say all of that, does it matter if the film ends up being completely superfluous?

The Films of Todd Haynes: I'm Not There (2007)

I’m Not There (2007)

Directed by: Todd Haynes.

Written by: Todd Haynes & Oren Moverman.

Starring: Cate Blanchett (Jude), Ben Whishaw (Arthur), Christian Bale (Jack / Pastor John), Richard Gere (Billy), Marcus Carl Franklin (Woody), Heath Ledger (Robbie), Julianne Moore (Alice Fabian), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Claire), Bruce Greenwood (Keenan Jones / Garrett), Michelle Williams (Coco Rivington), David Cross (Allen Ginsberg).

 

Biopics of musicians have long been a staple of Hollywood – they give actors a chance to show off both their chops at impersonating someone else famous, and their musical abilities – and often lead to Oscar nominations and wins. They all pretty follow the same basic formula – a few scenes of the musician as a child, to let the audience know what inspired them, then scenes of them struggling, and finally scenes of them succeeding. Or else, the follow someone like Johnny Cash or Ray Charles as they get famous, get strung out on drugs, and then beat their addictions, etc. You know the story – and Jake Kasdan’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story brilliantly skewers the genre. Because these films remain so popular, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to make one about Bob Dylan – one of the most iconic American musicians of the 20^th Century. But how could you tackle someone like Dylan, who has deliberately kept himself an enigma for his entire career by constantly re-inventing his public self, while not providing all that much insight into his private self? Who the hell is Bob Dylan?

 

Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There finds the perfect – perhaps only – way to make a biopic about Bob Dylan, and that’s to turn the genre inside out, and make a film that both provides insight into Dylan, yet keeps him an enigma. The film stars 6 different actors playing 6 (or 7, depending on how you view the two Bales) different Dylan personas, each of which gives you a little insight into a part of Dylan – but not the whole. The name Bob Dylan is never once mentioned. And still, Haynes doesn’t get everything – yes, one of the Dylan’s is a child, but he is a black child in love with Woody Guthrie, not a Jewish boy from Minnesota. And he really doesn’t address anything after, say 1980 or so. The film is a technical marvel – inspired by different films in each segment, and it all adds up to a dizzying, hugely ambitious film that remains as tough to crack as Dylan himself. Which is exactly how it should be. It’s not a perfect film – because how the hell could it be – but it is still a masterpiece.

 

The six (or seven) different Dylan’s are played by different actors, representing different eras, or aspects, of Dylan’s persona. The best, and most famous, of them is Jude (Cate Blanchatt), who plays Dylan around the time he’s gone electric, and gone on tour in England – famously captured in Don’t Look Back by D.A. Pennebaker. But Haynes doesn’t take that film for its visual inspiration for this segment – instead, he goes with Fellini’s 8 ½ and creates a surreal, hallucinatory portrait of an artist who has no idea where he’s going next – who can be both a genius, and an insufferable asshole. Blanchatt is an odd choice for Jude – and not just because she’s a woman (as Haynes as pointed out, Dylan at this point was very thin, and did move with a slightly feminine style) – but because we’re not used to seeing her in something this strange. But Blanchatt nails it – and what may have played like a mere stunt, instead becomes the heart of the film – and the best performance of Blanchatt’s career.

 

The other Dylan are interesting in their own ways as well. There is Woody (Marcus Carl Franklin), a young African American boy in the edge of adolescence, who rides the rails, singing Woody Guthrie songs – much to the confusion of everyone he meets, who want to know why he’s talking about things that happened 30 years ago. At this point, Dylan is merely aping what came before him, and needs to find his own style. There is Arthur (Ben Whishaw) – inspired by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, who is being interviewed by some off camera person about his career as he talks in poetic circles about his life and career – despite being so young. There is Jack (Christian Bale), the young, idealistic folk singer who became the voice of the “protest” movement for a few years, embracing it feverently, before completely rejecting it a short while later. Bale returns later as Pastor John, the older version of Jack, who has now embraced Christianity in the same way (this is why there’s a debate about whether it’s six or seven personas – is Pastor John separate from Jack, or is the same, embracing something whole heartedly for a while, before abandoning it). There is Robbie (Heath Ledger), an actor who plays Jack in a more traditional biopic than this one – but his segment, heavily inspired by Jean Luc Godard of the 1960s (but more feminist) – focuses on his first marriage to Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and how it briefly flourished before it crumbled. This is a remarkable segment, because Ledger and Gainsbourg have to do so much in such a short period of time, showing this relationship – and Gainsbourg in particular is brilliant (in fact, other than Blanchatt, I think hers is the best performance in the movie).The most head scratching segment stars Richard Gere as Billy the Kid – who instead of being dead, has been hiding out for decades, away from the public eye - going about his life in solitude, before he is forced out again.

 

In some ways, these are all separate personas, who exist in their own reality within the film. But there are deliberate echoes in each of the segments that resonant in other ways, and tenuous connections, where you can see how one persona bleeds into another one. If it makes any sense – and it may not – they are all separate, but all the same. By the final shot of the movie – which is the only one of the actual Dylan, playing his harmonica (and not speaking or singing), you feel both closer to Dylan, as well as still mystified by him. Haynes hasn’t made a film for casual Dylan fans – I wonder if anyone who doesn’t know how Dylan is when the watch the film will be able to make heads or tails of it – but he’s made one that is loyal to the subject. It is perhaps the most free-wheeling of Haynes’ great film – it has the looseness of Velvet Goldmine, but this time that’s not because the movie hasn’t been thoroughly thought through, nor is it scattershot or surface level only. Haynes applies the same rigorous visual standards to the film – as well as his passion for old movies, which are referenced throughout – but he allows the film to flow a little more freely than something like Safe, Far From Heaven or Carol, which are far more controlled. You can probably point out more flaws in I’m Not There if you so choose – but for me, it moved me more than his others. Haynes has made more perfect films than this – but I don’t think he’s made a better one.

Movie Review: The Conjuring 2

The Conjuring 2

Directed by: James Wan.

Written by: Carey Hayes & Chad Hayes & James Wan and David Leslie Johnson.

Starring: Patrick Wilson (Ed Warren), Vera Farmiga (Lorraine Warren), Madison Wolfe (Janet Hodgson), Frances O'Connor (Peggy Hodgson), Lauren Esposito (Margaret Hodgson), Benjamin Haigh (Billy Hodgson), Patrick McAuley (Johnny Hodgson), Simon McBurney (Maurice Grosse), Maria Doyle Kennedy (Peggy Nottingham), Simon Delaney (Vic Nottingham), Franka Potente (Anita Gregory), Bob Adrian (Bill Wilkins).

 

There is not a finer director of mainstream horror films today than James Wan. As a horror filmmaker, Wan has been smart – he knows the traditional horror beats better than anyone, and is more than capable of delivering them – but he’s just as skilled as misdirection, setting something up with one hand, and then delivering something unexpected with the other. And, I think most important of all, he isn’t afraid of quiet moments where nothing much happens – where there’s no thudding or panting or moaning on the soundtrack, nothing popping out of the shadows every few seconds. Watching a Wan horror film is to constantly be on edge, as he so gradually ratchets things up, you barely notice just how tense you’ve become.

 

All of that is true even in a movie like The Conjuring 2 – the sequel to the 2013 smash hit, which was also the best mainstream American haunted house movie in a generation. A sequel was, of course, inevitable – and even though Wan has moved to franchise filmmaker with last year’s Furious 7 and the upcoming Aquaman – I’m glad he came back to direct the sequel. In many ways, The Conjuring 2 is a mere exercise in style – one that moves with efficiency, utilizing some of the same tricks that worked so amazingly well the first time out, to inevitably lesser results in the sequel. This is not a mere repeat of the first film though – the setting is different – a low income area in London instead of a dilapidated Rhode Island farmhouse, the demon is a different beast altogether, and what happens, in specific, is not merely a repeat of the first film. But Wan’s tricks are largely the same, and even if they remain creepily effective this time around, there is never a sequence as terrifying as the “handclap” sequence in the original, and the finale is a little too standard horror movie fare for me to be scared by it. The scariest moments in The Conjuring are not when the demon shows its face – although, to be fair, it is a truly creepy demon face (and continues Wan’s talent for devising faces that will haunt your dreams for years, like Saw’s creepy puppet and the face of the demon in Insidious), but in the quieter moments. It probably didn’t help that, unlike the “true life” case in the original film, I was actually familiar with the “true life” story of The Conjuring 2 – which, sorry, has pretty much conclusively been proved false – although I appreciate how the movie played even with the fact that the it had been proven false, by acknowledging it, and then moving on.

 

One of the reasons why two Conjuring films works so well is the performances by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine Warren, who take their roles very seriously. They build a chemistry together, so they have a believable marriage together – the kind where they simply look at each other, and know what they are thinking and feeling – and have absolute trust in each other. They are also, strangely enough, portray their Catholic faith in one of the most positive ways I can recall in any movie – it’s the bedrock of everything they do, and the film takes it seriously as well. The performances are sincere, so even if I don’t actually believe in any of the stuff they’re spouting, for a couple of hours, in their company, I do. They are aided in The Conjuring 2 by several strong supporting performances – and if nothing quite reaches the level of Lily Taylor’s work in the original. Sally Hawkins, normally so sunny and cheerful, is wonderful as the distraught mother here, trying in vain to protect her children from something she doesn’t understand. Madison Wolfe is good, hitting notes we usually do not see in the clichéd role of “child possessed by a demon”.

 

The Conjuring 2 has some problems with it, sure. At 135 minutes, the film is far too long (the runtime of the original, 112 is about right for this type of movie. However, since it’s the quieter moments, where nothing much is seemingly happening, that are most effective – and well could have been the things cuts, so perhaps it’s just as well it is too long. The Conjuring 2 isn’t as good as the first film – doing that in a horror sequel is nearly impossible, but it comes closer than most horror films do. This is the genre where Wan is a modern master, and even if in The Conjuring 2, he’s repeating some tricks, well, they’re good tricks. And they work.

Movie Review: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Directed by:  Akiva Schaffer & Jorma Taccone.

Written by: Andy Samberg & Akiva Schaffer & Jorma Taccone.

Starring: Andy Samberg (Conner), Jorma Taccone (Owen), Akiva Schaffer (Lawrence), Sarah Silverman (Paula), Tim Meadows (Harry), Maya Rudolph (Deborah), Joan Cusack (Tilly), Imogen Poots (Ashley), Chris Redd (Hunter).

 

I’m not sure Andy Samberg is capable of playing a real asshole – but I am quite sure that I don’t care that he can’t. You would expect Samberg to make Conner, the Justin Bieber-like singer at the center of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping into a narcissistic asshole, because then, the audience can delight in that character eventually getting his comeuppance. But Samberg doesn’t do that – underneath all the bluster and ego that is Conner’s outer layer, and the image he wants to give to the world, Conner is really just a dim bulb and dammit, he’s kind of lovable. How he managed to make an entitled popstar like Conner likable is both a mystery, but also the reason why the film works so well. Sitting back to point and laugh at a dickhead would be funny for a while, and then just sad. This film first deflates his ego, then makes you like the guy. It’s quite a feat.

 

From beginning to end, Popstar mocks pretty much everything about the modern music industry, and celebrity culture, in ways that are both very obvious and very subtle. The announced “surprise” release of Conner’s album, the corporate sponsorship that forces the album to consumers who don’t want it (in a way that is far funnier than how we all just suddenly owned U2’s album on iTunes). How Conner’s girlfriend (Imogen Poots) talks about how she always wanted to be part of a celebrity couple that you can never be sure if they were real or just a publicity stunt, the absolutely merciless takedown of TMZ are all foregrounded and obvious – but also very funny. There’s also some great moments that only happen in the background though, that are never really commented on (look at the TV’s behind Conner in many scenes – it really does appear like US economy and government is going into meltdown – and no one in the movie seems to care). The songs in the movie are all excellent. This is a Lonely Island movie – and that trio who produced a number of memorable songs for SNL – like Dick in a Box, I’m On a Boat, etc. – are at their height here. Their songs are dead on parodies of what they are mocking – musically, the sound like actual hits, lyrically, they are hilarious. There is a song in Popstar that parodies Macklemore, and it’s the hardest I’ve laughed in a movie theater in a long time.

 

The film does have a plot – although it basically uses it as a clothesline to hang jokes on. The film desperately wants to be This is Spinal Tap for a new generation, and it uses the mock-umentary format that film invented (yes, I know, there were mock-documentaries before This is Spinal Tap – but nothing quite like that film was) – and it uses it well. The film is full of celebrity cameos – some who only appear in a scene or two, sometimes playing themselves, sometimes not, all of them seemingly being a good sport about mocking themselves and their image. The film follows Conner as he launches his second solo album – the first was a huge hit, but this one has the making of a disaster. Conner used to be part of a Beastie Boys-type group – but he was the “real” star, so he broke out solo – even though it was Owen (Jorma Taccone), who wrote all the beats (and is now just Conner’s DJ) and Lawrence (Akiva Schaffer) who wrote all the lyrics. But they didn’t have Conner’s star quality.

 

The movie is at its best when it ignores it plot however – we know that they group, known as Style Boyz, will eventually get back together, so all of the scenes the film spends getting there can be labored. Its best moments are the ones that are connected to nothing around them – the songs, the asides (there is a joke about a “hard r” that was barely audible, but just about the funniest line in the movie).

 

The movie, unfortunately, bombed at the box office – and yet, I cannot imagine that film will not become a cult hit – the kind of film that people play in dorms room, either with or without the aid of pot, for years to come. It is a stupid comedy – but a smart stupid comedy, and its hit-to-miss ratio in terms of jokes is really quite high. I hope that it does become that cult hit – it deserves to be, and I can see myself watching it over-and-over on cable (like Zoolander) for years to come. But mostly, it’s because I want to see this trio of guys get another shot at making a movie – and with these box office numbers, that doesn’t appear likely – even if they made one of the funniest mainstream comedies of the year.

Movie Review: Krisha

Krisha

Directed by: Trey Edward Shults.

Written by: Trey Edward Shults.

Starring: Krisha Fairchild (Krisha), Olivia Grace Applegate (Olivia), Bryan Casserly (Logan), Alex Dobrenko (Alex), Chris Doubek (Dr. Becker), Billie Fairchild (Grandma), Robyn Fairchild (Robyn), Victoria Fairchild (Vicky), Atheena Frizzell (Atheena), Augustine Frizzell (Augustine), Chase Joliet (Chase), Rose Nelson (Rose), Trey Edward Shults (Trey), Bill Wise (Doyle).

 

The barebones plot description of Trey Edward Shults’ Krisha makes it sounds like any number of Sundance films. An aging woman, Krisha (Krisha Fairchild), who has struggled with alcohol and drug addiction, returns to her family after years away, now apparently clean, and over the course of a long, Thanksgiving day, the past is drudged up, and she threatens to spiral out of control again, even as she struggles to put things right. The fact that it is inspired by the filmmaker’s own family – most of whom are playing a version of themselves (though not Krisha herself) in the film, makes it sound even more Sundance-y – the type of film that gets raves when it plays there, and then shrugs when it opens a few months later. But Krisha is a different sort of film altogether (maybe that’s why it didn’t actually premiere at Sundance – but at SXSW instead). This is no quirky family, who appears dysfunctional, but deep down, everything is normal, where eventually everything will turn out okay, with hugs and tears right before the lights come out. It is a portrait of a woman who simply cannot stop or help herself – and the pain this causes the rest of her family. And it is an unflinching portrait. It is also, a brilliantly assured directorial debut from Shults – who has made a film that feels kind of like what would happen if John Cassavetes, Robert Altman and David Lynch collaborated to make a film – which, of course, means it really is a true original.

 

In the title role, Krisha Fairchild delivers one of the best performances you will see this year. She is an actress who has worked sporadically for years, while also dabbling in other professions as well, who at the age of 65, has been given the role of a lifetime, and she makes the most of it. She did the film as a favor to her nephew – Shults, the writer/director – but her talent is evident in every frame. She is the lone professional actor in the cast – and she certainly does outshine the rest of them – but she also fits in with them as well. When she first blusters into the house, harried, late, with a giant wheeled suitcase, making excuses, everyone is at first kind to her – but also, clearly holding back. Over the course of the day, she will see and sense the glances exchanged by those around her, none of whom seem completely able to meet her gaze. She has a painfully awkward conversation with one of the 20-something year old young men in the family, Trey (the director himself), although the exact nature of their relationship isn’t spelled out until the final few minutes of the movie. She’s trying very hard to connect with him – but he isn’t having it – as he sits there, painfully quiet, and barely looking at her, as she goes on and on.

 

These scenes  - of Krisha trying very hard to fit in – and increasingly intercut with other scenes of Krisha – as she retreats to the backyard for a cigarette, and more and more often, going into a bathroom, and taking some pills – and later a smuggled bottle of wine. As the film progresses, the realism of the opening scenes gives way to something more surreal – Shults, who edited the film himself, does a masterful job at placing us in Krisha’s warped perception as things spiral out of control. He also does a great job of infusing something as mundane as a turkey cooking in the oven, with undeniable tension.

 

The movie isn’t perfect. Even if Krisha plays out in ways not wholly anticipated in terms of these kinds of drug addict returns home stories, it’s not that far off either in terms of the broader strokes. At just 82 minutes long, the final scenes feel rushed – as if Shults could have spent a little bit more time in the company of this family. Perhaps the best scene in the movie takes place in these moments – a conversation between Krisha and her sister Robyn (played by Krisha’s real life sister Robyn), in an upstairs bathroom, where all the years of pain, torment and betrayal come spilling out. The movie could have perhaps used a little bit more of this.

 

Yet, Krisha is overall, a stunning debut feature from Shults – and marks him as one of the most promising directors to emerge in quite some time. In Krisha Fairchild, he found the perfect actress to anchor his film – the pain and torment is evident on her face throughout. Fairchild has been around for while, but seems to know the type of role she got her is rare – and makes the most of it. It is one of the best performances of the year, in a film by a director I am sure we will hear more from in the future.