Movie Review: Staying Vertical

Staying Vertical ** / *****

Directed by: Alain Guiraudie.

Written by: Alain Guiraudie.

Starring: Damien Bonnard (Léo), India Hair (Marie), Raphaël Thiéry (Jean-Louis), Christian Bouillette (Marcel), Basile Meilleurat (Yoan), Laure Calamy (Doctor Mirande).

 

I’m struggling to find a way to describe Alain Guiraudie’s Staying Vertical – his follow-up to his acclaimed, Hitchcockian thriller Stranger By the Lake – a great thriller, set at a gay hookup spot, in which one man may very well watch another kill his lover, but finds himself drawn to him anyway. Staying Vertical doesn’t really have much in common with that film, they certainly are not the same genre, and this film has none of that films discipline or tight pacing. Both does feature rather graphic depictions of sex – but other than that, they don’t really relate to each other. Staying Vertical is a film that careens wildly down its path, which seems aimless when it begins – and will eventually confirm that suspicion. I’m not quite what to make of the film – and unlike many times when I say that, this time it isn’t meant as a compliment.

 

In the film, Damien Bonnard stars as Leo - film director, who has gone wondering in the French countryside. While there, he meets Marie (India Hair) – who is out with her grazing sheep, and soon the pair of them are fucking. Flash forward nine months, they now have a son, but she takes off with her two older kids to live a life of seclusion (why, I’m not sure), and he’s raising the kid by himself – but he isn’t very good at it. He spends a lot of time with Marie’s father – and also hanging out with an older man, and his younger lover he grows obsessed with. And he also heads out into the forest – via canoe – to see a doctor, who attach plant electrodes to him for his therapy. Eventually he will run into money trouble – he isn’t working after all – and help the older man die through sex (yes, he euthanizes him through sex).

 

Staying Vertical doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and what sense it does make isn’t very interesting. Guiraudie seemingly want to rub our face in something as an audience, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out what we’re being punished for. By making his protagonist a filmmaker, he encourages you to see Leo as his own doppelganger – but that’s not really very flattering for him – and I don’t see much of a connection. We never really know what kind of filmmaker Leo is, what sort of screenplay he’s supposed to be working on, or what happens with it after he writes some pages for his producer who shows up in the middle of nowhere one day, and proclaims the crap Leo has churned out to be brilliant.

 

If Staying Vertical shares anything with Stranger by the Lake, it’s in the contradiction of sex – its ability to bring pleasure and pain, to be fulfilling, and dangerous – sometimes at the same time – and how some people cannot say no, even if they should. I remember reading about Stranger by the Lake when it came out, and many saying it had little in common with Guiraduie’s other work, and if Staying Vertical is any indication, they were right. That film was great, Staying Vertical struck me as a shallow provocation, without much to say.

Movie Review: War on Everyone

War on Everyone ** / *****

Directed by: John Michael McDonagh.

Written by: John Michael McDonagh.

Starring: Alexander Skarsgård (Terry Monroe), Michael Peña (Bob Bolaño), Theo James (Lord James Mangan), Tessa Thompson (Jackie Hollis), Caleb Landry Jones (Russell Birdwell), Stephanie Sigman (Delores Bolaño), David Wilmot (Pádraic Power), Malcolm Barrett (Reggie X), Paul Reiser (Lt. Gerry Stanton), Zion Rain Leyba (Danny Reynard).

 

The first two directorial efforts by John Michael McDonagh are both very good. The Guard is a witty, funny cop/buddy drama/comedy with Brendan Gleason in fine former an Irish cop stuck with an uptight FBI agent (Don Cheadle) – as they look into a drug ring. His follow-up, Calvary, was more subdued and subtle – once again, it starred Gleason, but this time as a Priest in a small town, who was told in confessional that he would be murdered the next day – but he refuses to say who threatened him. His third film, War on Everyone, is sadly pretty much horrible. It is an attempt by McDonagh to return to the witty comedy of The Guard – but this time make a film as cynical and nihilistic as possible – setting it this time in America, and telling the story of two corrupt cops trying to steal money from people who are even worse than they are. The movie lacks as sort of flow however – scenes end abruptly, and have little in common with what comes next. There are a few isolated moments that are amusing, but overall, War on Everyone simply drags.

 

The story is about two cops – Terry Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard) and Bob Bolano (Michael Pena) – who have been suspended as number of times by their superior, Lt. Stranton (Paul Reiser – perhaps the best part of the movie). Stranton warns them – next time, they’ll be fired. That roles right off of Monroe and Bolano’s backs however, as they start to plan a robbery, where they can score a cool $1 million. They assemble a team, but get double crossed, etc. – and end up running afoul of a very rich, very bad man played by Theo James, and his weird henchman (Caleb Landry Jones). The wonderfully talented Tessa Thompson also shows up as a love interest to Skasgard, but when her most memorable scene involves her as a majorette, you know she’s been wasted.

 

War on Everyone is a film that verges on being nihilistic, but it is at least very cynical. I don’t necessarily mind that – I don’t relate to it as much as I did as a young man, but it can be fun to play at it for a few hours. Sadly though, nothing in War on Everyone really sticks. The characters don’t ever feel complete – Skarsgard tries his best to have a “fuck it” attitude, but he doesn’t pull it off. Pena has undeniable comic chops – and great timing and delivery, but other than a few isolated jokes, there’s really nothing to his character. That goes for the bad guys as well. I did enjoy Paul Reiser – a lot – as their boss, but he’s only in a few scenes. The rest of the film feels like the movies own trip to Iceland in the middle – where McDonagh like, fuck it, let’s see if this works, and if not we’ll just abandon it 5 minutes later anyway.

 

There was a time – the late 1990s – when indie films like this were a dime a dozen, as every up and coming filmmaker wanted to be the next Tarantino. Most weren’t much better than War on Everyone, but a few were. The sad part here is that McDonagh has already shown he isn’t a Tarantino clone – but a talented writer/director in his own right. There’s little evidence of that on display in War on Everyone however – a huge disappointment given the talented involved.

Movie Review: Table 19

Table 19 ** / *****

Directed by: Jeffrey Blitz.   

Written by: Jeffrey Blitz and Mark Duplass & Jay Duplass.

Starring: Anna Kendrick (Eloise McGarry), Lisa Kudrow (Bina Kepp), Craig Robinson (Jerry Kepp), Tony Revolori (Renzo Eckberg), Stephen Merchant (Walter Thimble), June Squibb (Jo Flanagan), Wyatt Russell (Teddy), Margo Martindale (Freda Eckberg), Rya Meyers (Francie Millner), Amanda Crew (Nikki), Thomas Cocquerel (Huck), Andry Daly (Luke Pfaffler).

 

It isn’t really fair to be disappointed by a movie because of its marketing, but that’s kind of how I felt after watching Table 19. True, movies always sell the movie they think audiences want to see, which isn’t always the movie they are trying to sell, and you should take all trailers with a grain of salt – but it was my impression that Table 19 was going to be a goofy comedy, about a group of misfits at a wedding where they were basically unwanted, but attended anyway. That is the basic premise of the movie, but the film takes it more seriously than I would have thought, and the result is a film that isn’t particularly funny, but doesn’t hit the insights it’s reaching for either. Instead, it’s just kind of a flat film, in which a game cast doesn’t really have much to do.

 

Anna Kendrick stars as Eloise, who was set to be the Maid of Honor at her best friend’s wedding – until, two months before the wedding, the bride’s brother, who is also the best man, dumps Eloise via text message. Feeling awkward, she drops out of the wedding, but decides to attend anyway – and ends up seated at Table 19 – at a wedding where they were only 19 tables. He table mates include a convicted felon, Walter (Stephen Merchant), a nearly forgotten former nanny, Jo (June Squibb), a squabbling couple Jerry and Bina (Craig Robinson and Lisa Kudrow), and a teenage outcast looking to get laid, Renzo (Tony Revolori). That’s a good cast – every one of those actors can be, and has been, very funny in the past, and likely will be in the future as well. The trailer makes the film look like a kind of comedy of errors, where they will all rally around Eloise, as she ensures that her former boyfriend (Wyatt Russell) gets his comeuppance when she lands the hot British guy, Huck (Thomas Cocquerel).

 

Yet, there is a twist fairly early in the proceedings where I realized, as an audience member, that the film wasn’t going in that direction. The film isn’t as interested in being funny as it is in concocting a rather labored version of The Breakfast Club for adults at a wedding – complete with a lot of soul searching, and heartfelt conversations. These are set alongside things that are more overtly jokey like the smashing of a wedding cake, or what Renzo tells the only other teenager at the wedding when he misinterprets Jerry’s advice to him. This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, except for the fact that the movie isn’t very insightful either. It tries very hard to be sure, and the actors give it their best, but it doesn’t work.

 

The film was directed by Jeffrey Blitz, who came over to features after his delightful documentary Spellbound, about the annual Scripts Spelling Bee (FYI – I haven’t missed an airing of the finals since that movie debuted in 2002). His first (and last) feature was the underrated, underseen Rocket Science (2007) – which was Kendrick’s first movie role. Since then, Blitz has worked in TV – on shows like The Office and the recent Trial & Error (you catch up with that one – it was a delight). Here though, he never quite finds the right tone, and his screenplay (from an idea by the Duplass brothers, who probably could have made this sucker work) is stuck between wanting to be a more mainstream comedy, and an indie study in awkwardness. And as a result, it doesn’t do either very well. With this much talented involved, it should be possible to make something this dull.

Top 25 Films of the 21st Century

So this past weekend, the New York Times released a list of the 25 best films of the 21^st Century according to their two critics – A.O. Scott and Manhola Dargis. It’s a fine list – I may not agree with all their choices, but I respect their choices, and understand why they choose what they did. Ever since then, I’ve been thinking about my own list. You could go back and find inconsistencies with previous lists in terms of rankings, but I don’t really care – this list makes sense for today.

A couple of things, this is a Ranked List (and there was never a moment of doubt over what my number 1 would be). I did decide to limit it to one film per director – so if any filmmaker made more than one film that would have made the list on their own merits had it not been for the existence of another film by same director that is even better, I noted it as an Alternate. Please note, this doesn’t mean this is the only great films from that director for the 21^st Century (for instance, I have no alternates for Martin Scorsese – but I love most of his films from this century – but would any but the film I choose actually crack the top 25 on their own? I don’t think so). Only one director has three alternates – Paul Thomas Anderson – but the Coens and Todd Haynes both have two alternates. And, yes, I know Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter are not the same person, but Pixar is as much the auteur of their films as any one director (for this reason, I almost didn’t include Synecdoche, New York AND Eternal Sunshine in two spots, as Charlie Kaufman is arguably the auteur of both, but I decided against that). I do wish the list wasn’t as American centric as it is, or as male centric (only two female directors are represented) – but what can you do. Anyway, here’s the list.

1. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001) – Alt: Inland Empire (2006)
2. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007): Alt: Punch-Drunk Love (2002), The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014)
3. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2013) – Alt: No Country for Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2007), A Serious Man (2009)
4. Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007) – Alt: The Social Network (2010)
5. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)
6. Cache (Michael Haneke, 2005) – Alt: Amour (2012)
7. Inglorius Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)- Alt: Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003/04)
8. The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)
9. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) – Alt: The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
10. The Tree of Life (Terence Malick, 2011)
11. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michael Gondry, 2004)
12. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)
13. Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005) – Alt: A.I. (2001)
14. Wall E (Andrew Stanton, 2008) – Alt: Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015)
15. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2011)
16. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
17. 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)
18. Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002): Alt: I’m Not There (2007), Carol (2015)
19. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2002)
20. Upstream Color (Shane Carruth, 2013)
21. O.J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman, 2016)
22. Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
23. Elephant (Gus Van Sant, 2003) – Alt: Last Days (2005)
24. Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang Dong, 2007)
25. Dancer in the Dark (Lars Von Trier, 2000)

Movie Review: It Comes at Night

It Comes at Night **** / *****

Directed by: Trey Edward Shults.

Written by: Trey Edward Shults.

Starring: Joel Edgerton (Paul), Christopher Abbott (Will), Carmen Ejogo (Sarah), Riley Keough (Kim), Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Travis), Griffin Robert Faulkner (Andrew).

 

Trey Edward Shults wasted little time making his follow-up to last year’s remarkable Krisha – one of the year’s great debut films. That film was almost an emotional horror film, about a woman returning to her family for the first time in years, trying to bury her demons (addiction and mental issues) and reconnect – and failing spectacularly. With It Comes At Night, he has made a more traditional horror film – although it’s still a film about family more than anything else – a horror film without a villain, but almost unbearable tension. It may well frustrate viewers looking for something bloodier, or that spells everything out for you – which this film refuses to do. While it is more clearly a genre picture, where Krisha was not, it isn’t exactly like most other horror films.

 

Almost all of the film takes place in a boarded up house deep in the woods – and those woods themselves. Father Paul (Joel Edgerton), mother Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and 17 year old son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) – live there by themselves, and follow very strict rules about going in and out of the house, and two door system that creates an airlock of sorts to protect them from the outside world. We in the first scene why such precautions are necessary – as Paul and Travis take an elderly man, coughing blood, into the woods – Travis tells him “I’ll miss you Grandpa”, before Paul wraps him in a carpet, shoots him in the head, and sets the body on fire. A stranger arrives at the house – as strangers always do in these movies – but the precautions protect the family, and Paul is able to capture the man trying to break in. This is Will (Christopher Abbott), who will tell Paul that he’s just trying to look after his own family – his wife Kim (Riley Keough) and young son Andrew – living themselves in an abandoned house some 50 miles away. Paul decides to help Will and his family – bringing them all back to his place. But Paul never really does trust them – there are some things in their story that could be the kind of innocent mistake anyone could make, but could also mean that he’s being lied to. All we know about the outside world at this point is that some sort of disease has wiped out most people – so while Paul may be paranoid, he also may well he right.

 

Shults is a talented filmmaker, and while It Comes at Night isn’t quite as visually daring as Krisha was (that film, had strange elements that recall Lynch, Cassavetes and Kubrick in one film), it is more consistent this time around. He makes great use of the darkness in the film – especially around the nightmare sequences we see Travis experience, or his moments when he spies on the other in the house (not in a perverted way). Even when they are outside – and they’re only every outside in the day – things are exactly bright – the trees cast shadows over everyone and everything out there.

 

The cast is uniformly excellent, even if for the most part, everyone is paying archetypes more than complicated characters – the stern, strict father, the more loving, sympathetic mother, the possibly dangerous stranger, his beautiful, alluring wife, the precocious child. The film is seen through the eyes of Travis, although he’s probably the quietest of the characters, observing everything, and saying very little – not even revealing the nightmares that haunt him to anyone.

 

It Comes at Night lacks the complexity of Shults’ Krisha – mainly because we don’t have a character like that at the center of this film this time around. That was a remarkable character and performance. This is more of a director’s showcase – a sustained act of building and maintaining tension for 98 minutes, because there’s barely a moment in the film that isn’t intense, that you aren’t on the edge of your seat. That Shults quietly is able to sneak some of emotions into the film when you weren’t looking – so that the ending of the film, although inevitable, still hits you harder than you thought it would, is remarkable – and shows that Shults, who still isn’t even 30, truly is one of the indie filmmakers to watch for in the future.

 

It Comes at Night is not quite what I was expecting from the director of Krisha, and it won’t be quite what audiences thinking they’re going to see a horror film are likely to expect either. In this case, that’s a good thing. I cannot wait to see what Shults does next.

 

Movie Review: Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie *** ½ / *****

Directed by: David Soren.

Written by: Nicholas Stoller and David Soren based on the epic novels by Dav Pilkey.

Starring: Kevin Hart (George), Ed Helms (Captain Underpants / Mr. Krupp), Nick Kroll (Professor Poopypants), Thomas Middleditch (Harold), Jordan Peele (Melvin), Kristen Schaal (Edith), DeeDee Rescher (Ms. Ribble), Brian Posehn (Mr. Rected), David Soren (Tommy).

 

I make a special effort to take my daughter to every animated movie that is appropriate for her – whether I expect them to be good or bad. It’s because I love the movie going ritual, and I want her to love it as well. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t – she will stubbornly become her own person one day – but at the very least I want her to be aware of what going to the movies can mean. It’s become our thing that we do together, and often I love it – there are a few animated films every year that are legitimately wonderful, but most are 90 minutes of inspired brightness, action and music – the time passes quickly enough, but doesn’t leave an impact. Sometimes, the movies are awful, but we go anyway – again, I want my daughter to be aware that not every movie is great – we go anyway. When I saw the preview of Captain Underpants, I knew we’d go to the movie – especially since my daughter laughed throughout. This wasn’t going to be a movie I could avoid, even if it looked dire. So it is with some surprise that I report that I mostly found the film to be an utter delight – the film is clever and funny, has a wonderful animation style, and full on embraces childhood silliness for 90 minutes. Is it ridiculous? Of course. Juvenile? In the extreme. It’s also a lot of fun.

 

The film is about two childhood friend – George (Kevin Hart) and Harold (Thomas Middleditch) – who are probably about 8, and are close in the way that only a pair of 8 year olds can be. They share a sense of humor, and their entire world is basically the two of them. Together they create comic books – and their “most famous” character is Captain Underpants – an overweight, middle-aged white guy, who flies around in his underwear and a cape, fighting crime. The pair have their own arch-nemesis, in Mr. Krupp (voiced by Ed Helms) – their short tempered Principal, who just knows that the pair of them are responsible for every prank in the school, but can never prove it. To make a long story short, eventually the pair of friends hypnotize Mr. Krupp with a ring from a cereal box, and convinced him he is the real Captain Underpants, and then eventually, he has to fight Professor Poppypants (Nick Kroll, giving an truly inspired vocal performance) – as a small, old German man, who poses as a science teacher as a cover for his evil intentions, as he is building a machine to rid the world of laughter, because he is tired of everyone making fun of his name. You know, that old plot.

 

The plot is probably the weakest part of the film – as there is so much to it, and it rushes by so quickly, that the entire film feels a little bit rushed. It is also not the reason to the see the film at all. The film is based on a series of books by Dav Pilkey – I’ve never read them to my daughter, but may have to start now, but I’ve seen them in bookstores, and the film wisely decides to keep the deliberately crude and cartoony visual look to those drawings. The film has a great let’s throw everything at the wall and see what will stick quality to its gags – there are throwaway visual gags that happen in the background, delightful comic asides and one-liners (an Oprah line made me laugh more than any single line in an American comedy so far this year).

 

Yes, the film is juvenile. Many of the jokes are toilet humor – in the action climax, literally – but its toilet humor aimed at children, so it’s not gross, just downright silly. This is the type of film that understands that humor that makes children laugh uncontrollably, while the clueless adults around them wonder what the hell is so funny. It’s funny, it’s goofy, it’s clever, it’s stupid, and it’s ridiculous. It’s not a great film – it does suffer from the same thing that many Dreamworks films do, in that it has the same house style in part, that make a film timely, than instantly date it – but it is a heck of a lot of fun. And for a film called Captain Underpants, isn’t that the best case scenario?

Movie Review: My Life as a Zucchini

My Life as a Zucchini **** / *****

Directed by: Claude Barras.

Written by: Céline Sciamma & Claude Barras & Germano Zullo & Morgan Navarro based on the book by Gilles Paris.

 

If you happen to be a parent, who puts on the delightful animated film My Life as a Zucchini for your young children, you’ll be alerted fairly soon that this is not just another time waster for the kiddies – but a film that you’ll have to talk to your children about afterwards – that is if you determine they’re old enough to watch it at all. No, this isn’t an animated raunchfest like last year’s Sausage Party – but instead a quiet, intimate film about long and grief, but also about hope, friendship and love. Your (mature) children will get a lot more out of it than most animated fair – just be sure to watch it with them.

 

The movie opens with a scene of the hero – named Zucchini – alone in his attic, making a pyramid out of his mother’s discarded beer cans. They come crashing down, his angry mother starts ascending the stairs to the attic telling him he’s going to get a beating – at which point he slams the attic room door, sending his mother crashing to the floor before. “She’s gone” is what a sympathetic police officer will tell Zucchini as he takes him to a group home – filled with other kids, who for some reason or another are not being looked after by their family – it’s a home for children who have no one to love them one kid tells Zucchini. Strangely enough, given his possible act of matricide, Zucchini’s backstory is the darkest of the kids at the group home – that belongs to Camille – a girl who arrives even after Zucchini.

 

Give that last paragraph, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is a depressing film – which it really isn’t. Yes, there is sadness at various moments in the film – the opening, Camille’s arrival, a scene late in the film where one kid gets angry at being left behind, etc. But all children experience sadness at various times in their lives – hopefully not as sad as these children – but it’s an emotion they can relate to. There is also joy in the film as well – children are resilient – as when they group goes on a ski trip, or has a dance party. The film is largely plotless – the only real plot followed involves Camille’s greedy Aunt – and that probably takes up a total of 15 minutes of the film’s 67 minute runtime. It is basically a film that drifts from one incident to another – and yet it builds in a way that sneaks up on you.

 

The real highlight though is the animation. This is stop motion work at its finest – the characters are distinctive looking, with large eyes, and weirdly shaped noses. They are cute, but not cloying so, and their faces are remarkably expressive. The group home can be a place of isolation and loneliness at first, but it grows into something more warm and inviting.

 

The film was one of the five nominated for the Animated Film Oscar last year – although it didn’t really get released until February 2017. It probably never had a chance to take the prize away from Zootopia anyway – a nomination is a win for a small film like this from France. But it is a thoughtful film, and a quietly touching one. No, I’m not about to show it to my five or three year olds – but I’ll likely show it to them at some point. It’s a film they can relate to in way more profound than most animated features try.