Logan (R)
"Bezereker Barrag... wait let me get my cane"
In the not so distant future the last remaining mutants struggle to survive in their old age, but when a new conspiracy falls in their laps with a new threat uncovered, a sickly Wolverine and a mentally unstable Professor X must travel across America's future landscape with a mutant-cloned daughter in tow to rescue their own race's perpetuation in Director James Mangold (Cop Land), stylized Logan.
Hailed as Hugh Jackman's final turn as the adamantium infused anti-hero Wolverine, Logan is a strange farewell to the star that helped reignite the current comic book movie craze. He anchored the now-loopy X-Men (2000) film and franchise that has seen many a high and low since, but it was his portrayal of the iconic Wolverine that was it's centerpiece attraction; a cage fighting, cigar chomping loner without a past and a serious attitude problem. As a character his story has gone through several convolutions, some Good (X2), Bad (X3) and Ugly (Xmen Origins), but now the most surprising wrinkle is how it all ends. Or, put less obliquely, how Fox has allowed it to end.
Directed and written by Mangold, Logan doesn't say much about the reluctant X-Man that we already didn't know; he's grumpy and sick of being alive (except he's also now a pill popping alcoholic). These themes are well worn by Jackman and Mangold, their previous collaboration (2013's The Wolverine) somewhat explored this side of the character to somewhat clunky results. And now instead of a Japanese motif the American West is the dusty fuel in this film's veins. Logan not only dips his hairy toes into the Western but the actual movie plays as a huge homage to one of the genre's most famous entries, Shane (1953). It's a strange idea for a mash-up, and it isn't the film's only weird foray. Touched upon are the institutional death of the small town American farmer as brought about by the meddling GMO corporations that are villainously tampering with our genetic code through corn syrup. Yes, corn syrup is another odd backbone in this film's rather strange story skeleton. Also a dying Wolverine isn't the funnest Wolverine, his staggering fight choreography and limping action sequences are not the limelight, and yet the pain inflicted and wrought in a lifetime of snikts also aren't called back upon. It comes through as a one-off story, completely divorced from any other X-movie, like a trip to the depression dimension with ol' Bluehair. These kinds of things are the norm in the books, but at the cinema it's new territory and is a ballsy choice for Fox.
So is the scary prospect of Professor Xavier with a diseased brain, out of control and off his meds. It becomes the most interesting plot point, he's a ticking time bomb in a wheelchair. Played again by Patrick Stewart, he is also bringing his presence in the Xmovies to a close and almost steals the whole show. Not only are his wide ranging super powered seizures frightening, but his hollow eyed grief and grandfatherly stubbornness give his co-star Jackman a true emotional motivation. Comedy writer Stephen Merchant's role as the albino tracker Caliban came as a great surprise as well. Then follows other great strong dystopian Sci-Fi touches to the franchise, like a conglomerate creating it's own test subjects in third world countries and using nefariously violent means to control them with it's bio-mechanically enhanced mercenaries called Reavers lead by Donald Pierce (played with delightful gold-toothed malice Boyd Holbrook). Just the "slightly in the future" design of the vehicles in Logan is also a nice touch. The X-Men have never strayed so close reality, to true gritty Science Fiction as they do here and it is much to it's benefit. Also included are several new mutants, all young children escaping the Reavers which include Wolverine's clone-daughter Laura X-23. They are treated with surprising care and with nary a cliche (go electrical fat kid!), but in reality they are just a Mcguffin to kick off Logan's last ride into the sunset, a script-writing-by-the-numbers: add a character's "child" to generate new motivation and emotions for an audience to react to.
Logan is also being much ballyhooed due to it's harder "R" rating. Deadpool broke that barrier (and Box office records) with aplomb a year earlier (and it must be mentioned that the majority of the film's belly laughs come from old Skull-Poop-L's teaser preceding the Logan film), but here the R is much more of a gimmick. The proliferation of FBombs dropped by Wolvy and Chuck are excessive and out of character, and the violence (while indeed more extreme) never truly reaches the high level of gore made possible by 6 impossibly razor sharp claws. True, the adult themes of death and dying lay heavy on Logan, but does a quick flash of tits justify Logan's stronger rating or just prove they did it because Deadpool made so much money doing it first? Box office receipts will tell all.
In the comics Logan is the best at what he does. In the movies, not so much. They have muddled his motivations and mannerisms to a point where the two characters are now distinctly different beasts. There is Jackman's version and the book's, and though they are closely related and we will always have the source books to flip through, it will be Jackman in the leather suit that will pop into the audience's mind and measure up to the next likely actor(s) taking up the mantle (how many years did it take before it was safe to replace Christopher Reeve?). Luckily this film only shows how Hugh's Wolverine ends, not the character itself. And much like the books, as writers and artists come and go, changing plot points and history and overwriting nuances, Jackman's legacy too will be slowly buried. Considering how the X-titles have been treated on screen lately, perhaps it was the best time to bow out, and what a surprisingly brutal way to choose to go.
7 SNIKTS, But Where's My Stan Lee Cameo? out of 10 (GOOD)
Showing posts with label R. Show all posts
Showing posts with label R. Show all posts
The Neon Demon (2016)
The Neon Demon (R)
"..treats objects like women, man."
It's a story as old as Los Angeles itself, a young girl looking for fame and fortune, innocent to the world, runs into the dark belly of the entertainment industry (LITERALLY!) in Director Nicholas Winding Refn's (Drive) gorgeously weird film, The Neon Demon.
Stunning cinematography, beautifully dangerous hellcat women, electro-smoky pulsing soundtrack, stilted Kubrick-like dialog, strange symbols and visions, and that one scene: Oh, that show stopping Scene! They all make up the brunt of Refn's attack on the fashion industry, that it exists and how it cannibalizes (heh) the female form. Early on, Elle Fanning's Jesse, the young lovely but impressionable youth who is the star of the film, is told "to always say she is 19. 18 is too on the nose." This is shorthand for her situation, shorthand for the entire enterprise of film and subject. She is quickly embraced by the industry's entrepreneurs, drunk in by the male gaze, and vilified by it's older, less natural looking models. Even her new friend Ruby (Jena Malone) seems to have a strange fascination with Jesse, who soon gets caught up in her own hype and gets led down a dark walkway of doom.
Special attention must be made to the soundtrack by Cliff Martinez, once again joining Refn after scoring Drive. Easily half of this film's enjoyment can be derived from the musical landscape of electronic moods, from 80s synth to edgy Pop Diva. It matches all the gore and glitter perfectly and the film uses it extremely effectively. Many will rewatch the film just as a means to experience the sweet dark marriage of visuals and sound. The use of light, the shadowy early hours, the flash bulbs and mirrors, the cinematography is just as nuanced and beautiful as the audio and constructs a nightmare world of gloss and reflection for us to watch Jesse lose herself in.
ND will be too slow for many, too little viscera for others, the third act too toe-curling intense for anyone sane. But for some the experience of wallowing through this blood bath will be sublime. Slow, brooding and methodical, The Neon Demon mystifies for a long period and then suddenly drives it's point home with a pair scissors. It's almost a twisted giallo mashup, like Diana Ross' Mahogany remixed by Dario Argento. This is Refn at his most feminist, the men in the film treat women as mere meat puppets for their cameras, and the ones that don't the women themselves push away (Keanu Reeves himself has a small yet significant part). The expected fashion cat fights, the women infighting by snidely brutalizing each other, these eye rolling cliches all happen. But there is a deeper layer to it, and once that layer gets scratched and bleeds all hell breaks loose. It's Refn's interest in not exploiting the women on screen who are being exploited that makes his intentions very clear, so beautifully on the nose it cuts it off to spite it face artistically.
8.5 You'll Never Look at Funeral Homes the Same Way Again out of 10 (GREAT)
"..treats objects like women, man."
It's a story as old as Los Angeles itself, a young girl looking for fame and fortune, innocent to the world, runs into the dark belly of the entertainment industry (LITERALLY!) in Director Nicholas Winding Refn's (Drive) gorgeously weird film, The Neon Demon.
Stunning cinematography, beautifully dangerous hellcat women, electro-smoky pulsing soundtrack, stilted Kubrick-like dialog, strange symbols and visions, and that one scene: Oh, that show stopping Scene! They all make up the brunt of Refn's attack on the fashion industry, that it exists and how it cannibalizes (heh) the female form. Early on, Elle Fanning's Jesse, the young lovely but impressionable youth who is the star of the film, is told "to always say she is 19. 18 is too on the nose." This is shorthand for her situation, shorthand for the entire enterprise of film and subject. She is quickly embraced by the industry's entrepreneurs, drunk in by the male gaze, and vilified by it's older, less natural looking models. Even her new friend Ruby (Jena Malone) seems to have a strange fascination with Jesse, who soon gets caught up in her own hype and gets led down a dark walkway of doom.
Special attention must be made to the soundtrack by Cliff Martinez, once again joining Refn after scoring Drive. Easily half of this film's enjoyment can be derived from the musical landscape of electronic moods, from 80s synth to edgy Pop Diva. It matches all the gore and glitter perfectly and the film uses it extremely effectively. Many will rewatch the film just as a means to experience the sweet dark marriage of visuals and sound. The use of light, the shadowy early hours, the flash bulbs and mirrors, the cinematography is just as nuanced and beautiful as the audio and constructs a nightmare world of gloss and reflection for us to watch Jesse lose herself in.
ND will be too slow for many, too little viscera for others, the third act too toe-curling intense for anyone sane. But for some the experience of wallowing through this blood bath will be sublime. Slow, brooding and methodical, The Neon Demon mystifies for a long period and then suddenly drives it's point home with a pair scissors. It's almost a twisted giallo mashup, like Diana Ross' Mahogany remixed by Dario Argento. This is Refn at his most feminist, the men in the film treat women as mere meat puppets for their cameras, and the ones that don't the women themselves push away (Keanu Reeves himself has a small yet significant part). The expected fashion cat fights, the women infighting by snidely brutalizing each other, these eye rolling cliches all happen. But there is a deeper layer to it, and once that layer gets scratched and bleeds all hell breaks loose. It's Refn's interest in not exploiting the women on screen who are being exploited that makes his intentions very clear, so beautifully on the nose it cuts it off to spite it face artistically.
8.5 You'll Never Look at Funeral Homes the Same Way Again out of 10 (GREAT)
SLC Punk 2 {Punk's Dead} (2016)
Punk's Dead; SLC Punk 2 (R)
"Only posers die"
Of all the crowd funded, nostalgia-glomming and remake raping that the film scene perpetrates now, nothing takes the crappy cake quite like SLC Punk 2, aka Punk's Dead. So, how dead is it?
If the ultimate message of SLC Punk! was the inevitability of selling out in modern society to survive, then SLC Punk 2 shows just how damaging artistically it can be to do so. Watching this film leaves one with the impression that maybe you're better off freezing to death than living. One half of the movie, the better half, focuses on a carload of teenaged punks, some goth some hardcore some straight edge, crossing back over county lines into Salt Lake City for a concert while. One, Ross, is suffering from heart break of a very stereotypical nature. Along the way they get drunk, do drugs, fight redneck fathers and barely act their way out of their cliched paper bags. However, let's not focus on them; at least they are young and inexperienced and serve some reason for the film to have been made (misguided though it may be). Meanwhile the film is haunted by the ghost of Heroin Bob (Goorjian) who provides us context (hah!) exposition (haha!) and the strongest tie to the original movie (sad face).
Bob, with an ill fitting bald cap/mohawk, is now the narrator of SLC2 (Matthew Lillard reportedly refused to appear in the sequel, good call Matt). One of the young punks, Ross, is his son who he fathered with Trish, and so Bob paces about oblivion in his combat boots offering his opinions on the state of his family and society. This is the only part of the film that even barely resembles the original film. Joining Bob in SLCP2 are also our old friends Sean, Eddie and John the Mod, aka, the only other actors unwisely willing to return for the sequel. They are given a few useless lines (and reportedly paid next to nothing for doing so), and have their beloved characters dragged through the mud (John a sleazy internet porn tycoon?). They sit in obvious, flat sets or in the back of cheap rented limos and read as much time-filling mush of dialog as the director can give them to fill in the holes between Bob and his kids. Meanwhile, the concert they are all meeting at not only looks and sounds terrible, it was a kickstarter "bonus" to backers and is given so much screen time its almost another character. A character every bit as terrible as the rest in the movie, both in conception and portrayal (betrayal)? Compare, for instance, the Sean character's amusing anecdotes from both movies: SLC1: the acid flashback, the homelessness, Sean is a funny yet tragic tale of youth gone awry. In SLC2 he is a lawyer (somehow) who steals a cop's bike in a scene that is painfully, systematically unfunny. The only thing laughable in that scene is how inept it is.
Gone is the intelligence, the wit, the energy, the newness, the raw camera work, the snappy conversations, the pastiche of film, even the underground music! In it's place are bad wigs on top of unpracticed performers stiffly reading a bad script in a bad movie that shovels in as much concert footage as it can to pad it's run time. If SLC Punk! hadn't been such an artistic success, would Punk2 be as Dead as it is here, visually decomposing the good will from the first to fleece the good memories and bank accounts of the original's devotees?
If Punk is dead you'll have to ask returning writer/director James Merendino. Who killed it James?
2 No Stevo, No Shooter, No Service out of 10 (AWFUL)
"Only posers die"
Of all the crowd funded, nostalgia-glomming and remake raping that the film scene perpetrates now, nothing takes the crappy cake quite like SLC Punk 2, aka Punk's Dead. So, how dead is it?
If the ultimate message of SLC Punk! was the inevitability of selling out in modern society to survive, then SLC Punk 2 shows just how damaging artistically it can be to do so. Watching this film leaves one with the impression that maybe you're better off freezing to death than living. One half of the movie, the better half, focuses on a carload of teenaged punks, some goth some hardcore some straight edge, crossing back over county lines into Salt Lake City for a concert while. One, Ross, is suffering from heart break of a very stereotypical nature. Along the way they get drunk, do drugs, fight redneck fathers and barely act their way out of their cliched paper bags. However, let's not focus on them; at least they are young and inexperienced and serve some reason for the film to have been made (misguided though it may be). Meanwhile the film is haunted by the ghost of Heroin Bob (Goorjian) who provides us context (hah!) exposition (haha!) and the strongest tie to the original movie (sad face).
Bob, with an ill fitting bald cap/mohawk, is now the narrator of SLC2 (Matthew Lillard reportedly refused to appear in the sequel, good call Matt). One of the young punks, Ross, is his son who he fathered with Trish, and so Bob paces about oblivion in his combat boots offering his opinions on the state of his family and society. This is the only part of the film that even barely resembles the original film. Joining Bob in SLCP2 are also our old friends Sean, Eddie and John the Mod, aka, the only other actors unwisely willing to return for the sequel. They are given a few useless lines (and reportedly paid next to nothing for doing so), and have their beloved characters dragged through the mud (John a sleazy internet porn tycoon?). They sit in obvious, flat sets or in the back of cheap rented limos and read as much time-filling mush of dialog as the director can give them to fill in the holes between Bob and his kids. Meanwhile, the concert they are all meeting at not only looks and sounds terrible, it was a kickstarter "bonus" to backers and is given so much screen time its almost another character. A character every bit as terrible as the rest in the movie, both in conception and portrayal (betrayal)? Compare, for instance, the Sean character's amusing anecdotes from both movies: SLC1: the acid flashback, the homelessness, Sean is a funny yet tragic tale of youth gone awry. In SLC2 he is a lawyer (somehow) who steals a cop's bike in a scene that is painfully, systematically unfunny. The only thing laughable in that scene is how inept it is.
Gone is the intelligence, the wit, the energy, the newness, the raw camera work, the snappy conversations, the pastiche of film, even the underground music! In it's place are bad wigs on top of unpracticed performers stiffly reading a bad script in a bad movie that shovels in as much concert footage as it can to pad it's run time. If SLC Punk! hadn't been such an artistic success, would Punk2 be as Dead as it is here, visually decomposing the good will from the first to fleece the good memories and bank accounts of the original's devotees?
If Punk is dead you'll have to ask returning writer/director James Merendino. Who killed it James?
2 No Stevo, No Shooter, No Service out of 10 (AWFUL)
Green Room (2016)
Green Room (R)
"Wolfenstein 2D"
A small time Metal music band becomes stranded in Oregon when their gig cancels. They accept a make up gig from a fan in order to generate enough funds to get home: a rural backwater club that just so happens to be patronized by Neo-Nazis. When things go terribly wrong the band is stuck with their backs against the wall in Director Jeremy Saulnier's gritty and intense Green Room.
When Saulnier's Blue Ruin (he must have a thing for colors in his titles) hit the indy scene it caused a sensation with its dynamic thrill vs budget ratio. In Green Room he raises the bar even higher, the look is much more evened out and professional, the thrills more smartly paced, the acting and situations more believable, the plot more brisk, the characters more expendable. This is one of those films where you can totally put yourself in the protagonists shoes, and are doubly shocked when characters are suddenly and violently killed. The cast is mostly young, bearded and realistic, with perhaps the most notable exception being the ol' Captain himself, Patrick Stewart (STTNG). We all should have guessed, he was a natural Skin Head all along!
Much like Ruin before it, Green Room does have some issues. Audio is either unclear or not mixed properly, it can be a pain to understand clearly some important moments. Sometimes motivations are just as unclear as the audio. And the director's motif may also veer a little too close to previous efforts, violent white-trash shoot outs in the woods anyone?
Yet it all doesn't fall apart at the end like Blue, it remains tense and full of anxiety until it's last few moments. A survival tale with a real sense of dread and chock full of surprises, Green Room achieves exactly what it sets out to do more competently than anyone would have guessed. Now lets see if the filmmakers can get out of their comfort zones and make something truly great since from the looks of things they have the talent to do so (also good choice on the CCR).
7.5 Red Laces out of 10 (GOOD)
"Wolfenstein 2D"
A small time Metal music band becomes stranded in Oregon when their gig cancels. They accept a make up gig from a fan in order to generate enough funds to get home: a rural backwater club that just so happens to be patronized by Neo-Nazis. When things go terribly wrong the band is stuck with their backs against the wall in Director Jeremy Saulnier's gritty and intense Green Room.
When Saulnier's Blue Ruin (he must have a thing for colors in his titles) hit the indy scene it caused a sensation with its dynamic thrill vs budget ratio. In Green Room he raises the bar even higher, the look is much more evened out and professional, the thrills more smartly paced, the acting and situations more believable, the plot more brisk, the characters more expendable. This is one of those films where you can totally put yourself in the protagonists shoes, and are doubly shocked when characters are suddenly and violently killed. The cast is mostly young, bearded and realistic, with perhaps the most notable exception being the ol' Captain himself, Patrick Stewart (STTNG). We all should have guessed, he was a natural Skin Head all along!
Much like Ruin before it, Green Room does have some issues. Audio is either unclear or not mixed properly, it can be a pain to understand clearly some important moments. Sometimes motivations are just as unclear as the audio. And the director's motif may also veer a little too close to previous efforts, violent white-trash shoot outs in the woods anyone?
Yet it all doesn't fall apart at the end like Blue, it remains tense and full of anxiety until it's last few moments. A survival tale with a real sense of dread and chock full of surprises, Green Room achieves exactly what it sets out to do more competently than anyone would have guessed. Now lets see if the filmmakers can get out of their comfort zones and make something truly great since from the looks of things they have the talent to do so (also good choice on the CCR).
7.5 Red Laces out of 10 (GOOD)
Sausage Party (2016)
Sausage Party (R)
A frankfurter and his bun-to-be are thrown into an spiritual (and cuss laden) adventure in the aisles of their grocery store and beyond in the first CGI R-rated animated farce Sausage Party.
Sausage Party, brought to us by Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill, is a stoner movie, and that doesn't just mean the characters hit a bong (which they do, thanks for reminding us you love weed, again, Rogan), no it means it was written and starring people who are literally stoned, and the plot reflects it.
"Let's make Toy Story, except about FOOD!"
"And have a musical number like a Disney movie, about God n shit cuz they are stupid like us!"
"Yeah, and they think we are the Gods, but really we are disgusting monsters who EAT them!"
"God is religion which is bad, so have a Bagel and a whatever-the-fuck Muslims eat hate each other!"
"And the bad guy is a literal Douche, like a Douche from the feminine aisle or some shit!"
"And people that take bath salts, like, lets us dudes see the Food for reals!"
"And at the end they all get to bone! They find freedom and like have a huge food on food orgy!"
The anti-religion, pro-atheism, sex and drugs are freedom message is obvious and too strong, Seth is not awakening us with his comedic wiener movie. The film is also filled with questionable racial stereotypes done by a handful of un-ethnic comedic friends of Rogan and Company. There are only two female characters (both characterized as meat receiving vessels,) although one is Selma Hayek playing a lesbian Taco so there is that. There is some wit, some funny ideas, some laugh out loud moments, some funny cartoon gore but most of it's is just cursing.
Hint. When you make a movie, if the very first line is a curse, if you drop FBombs and Cbombs literally every other word it loses it's impact. Steve Martin's famous FBombing in Planes, Trains works because they speak like normal people up until that moment (i.e., talk normal, curse when necessary, repeat). And then suddenly it earns its R with the huge blue tirade of rage. Sausage Party isn't blue, it's purple in the face from shouting all the bad words constantly and it isn't funny. If it was handled right, a Pixar film that suddenly turned raucous (which on paper is what it intends to be), it would indeed be much funnier. But by the skin of it's sheath Sausage Party stays just enough ahead of its dumb ideas to deliver entertainment, but was it worth the terrible working conditions for it's animators Mr. Rogan?
5.5 Deadpool's Favorite Movie out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
A frankfurter and his bun-to-be are thrown into an spiritual (and cuss laden) adventure in the aisles of their grocery store and beyond in the first CGI R-rated animated farce Sausage Party.
Sausage Party, brought to us by Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill, is a stoner movie, and that doesn't just mean the characters hit a bong (which they do, thanks for reminding us you love weed, again, Rogan), no it means it was written and starring people who are literally stoned, and the plot reflects it.
"Let's make Toy Story, except about FOOD!"
"And have a musical number like a Disney movie, about God n shit cuz they are stupid like us!"
"Yeah, and they think we are the Gods, but really we are disgusting monsters who EAT them!"
"God is religion which is bad, so have a Bagel and a whatever-the-fuck Muslims eat hate each other!"
"And the bad guy is a literal Douche, like a Douche from the feminine aisle or some shit!"
"And people that take bath salts, like, lets us dudes see the Food for reals!"
"And at the end they all get to bone! They find freedom and like have a huge food on food orgy!"
The anti-religion, pro-atheism, sex and drugs are freedom message is obvious and too strong, Seth is not awakening us with his comedic wiener movie. The film is also filled with questionable racial stereotypes done by a handful of un-ethnic comedic friends of Rogan and Company. There are only two female characters (both characterized as meat receiving vessels,) although one is Selma Hayek playing a lesbian Taco so there is that. There is some wit, some funny ideas, some laugh out loud moments, some funny cartoon gore but most of it's is just cursing.
Hint. When you make a movie, if the very first line is a curse, if you drop FBombs and Cbombs literally every other word it loses it's impact. Steve Martin's famous FBombing in Planes, Trains works because they speak like normal people up until that moment (i.e., talk normal, curse when necessary, repeat). And then suddenly it earns its R with the huge blue tirade of rage. Sausage Party isn't blue, it's purple in the face from shouting all the bad words constantly and it isn't funny. If it was handled right, a Pixar film that suddenly turned raucous (which on paper is what it intends to be), it would indeed be much funnier. But by the skin of it's sheath Sausage Party stays just enough ahead of its dumb ideas to deliver entertainment, but was it worth the terrible working conditions for it's animators Mr. Rogan?
5.5 Deadpool's Favorite Movie out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
The Lobster (2016)
The Lobster (R)
"Love is Blind"
A man, recently divorced, and his dog, recently his brother, are sent to a coastal hideaway resort where the inmates must find love or be themselves turned into animals in director Giorgos Lanthimos' (Dog Tooth) newest oddity, The Lobster.
Colin Ferrell (In Bruges) plays the saggy down trodden man forced to look for love (in all the wrong places), and does it without his normal bravado and grimace to his character. He meets all kinds of interesting fellow love seekers (the most likeable being A-list character actor John C. Reilly as a lisping animal bound hopeless case), for it is the Universe, and not just the people inhabiting it, that makes this film so fascinating.
Whether to take it literally or figuratively, a world that not only looks down socially upon a single uncoupled person but oppresses them and forces them into relationships (via a Nazi-like Police force asking for papers) or be animialified is fantastically unique! Then to expound on that Universe, show quick insights into how this system works (the singles who rebel are hunted, but are themselves revolutionaries who reject all human copulation and actively attempt to break up the couplehoods) is rich and fulfilling. Then add friendships, children and society to that mix and you have something to talk about.
Go into this movie knowing as little as you can, let it tell it's story organically (it is all there if you let it talk and you listen), enjoy the harrowing little moments of terror and pain, embrace the surrealist reality, the absurdist gravitas and the moral ambiguity. After all, all's fair in war and love, especially if love can turn you into a shellfish.
8 Dead Rabbits of Love out of 10 (GREAT)
"Love is Blind"
A man, recently divorced, and his dog, recently his brother, are sent to a coastal hideaway resort where the inmates must find love or be themselves turned into animals in director Giorgos Lanthimos' (Dog Tooth) newest oddity, The Lobster.
Colin Ferrell (In Bruges) plays the saggy down trodden man forced to look for love (in all the wrong places), and does it without his normal bravado and grimace to his character. He meets all kinds of interesting fellow love seekers (the most likeable being A-list character actor John C. Reilly as a lisping animal bound hopeless case), for it is the Universe, and not just the people inhabiting it, that makes this film so fascinating.
Whether to take it literally or figuratively, a world that not only looks down socially upon a single uncoupled person but oppresses them and forces them into relationships (via a Nazi-like Police force asking for papers) or be animialified is fantastically unique! Then to expound on that Universe, show quick insights into how this system works (the singles who rebel are hunted, but are themselves revolutionaries who reject all human copulation and actively attempt to break up the couplehoods) is rich and fulfilling. Then add friendships, children and society to that mix and you have something to talk about.
Go into this movie knowing as little as you can, let it tell it's story organically (it is all there if you let it talk and you listen), enjoy the harrowing little moments of terror and pain, embrace the surrealist reality, the absurdist gravitas and the moral ambiguity. After all, all's fair in war and love, especially if love can turn you into a shellfish.
8 Dead Rabbits of Love out of 10 (GREAT)
The Nice Guys (2016)
The Nice Guys (R)
"Nice Guys don't always finish last"
A Private detective who is an alcoholic single father gets hired by a muscle-for-hire goon, the same one who broke his arm the night before, to help find a mysterious woman and the mysterious LA underworld circumstances under which she vanished in Shane Black's entertaining NeoNoir flick, The Nice Guys.
Shane has long been the good manly man movie writer working in Hollywood, what with Predator, Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, and Iron Man 3 under his belt. His current high water mark was the similarly themed (and funny) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. This Nice Guys dips back into his well as once again a detective buddy picture about two disparate men with gore and sex and all that good stuff we liked in manly movies from the 80s, which clearly bucks the trends of socially friendlier adult fare on the big screen.
This time it stars Ryan Gosling (Drive) and Russel Crowe (Gladiator) as at-odds partners stepping from trail to trail to find even greater mysteries to solve. The key to the film is that these two have great chemistry, have lots of funny lines to spout and lots of guns to shoot. The rest of the cast are mere filler (though Black's trend of having a kid sidekick can be a little grating to the audience and the plot). The underlying mystery, traveling from the porn friendly Los Angeles hills to the streets of urban life, lays out an exaggerated 1970s retro lifestyle that matches the decor and costumes and music. The story is often slumming through post-counter culture sex and mores, and the ambiguous mix of testosterone in Gosling and Crowe go great with it. But not everything is cool like a 7&7 here.
While the underlying message of the struggle of fatherhood can be seen in most of Black's work, here it has a creepy underpinning of underage sexual proclivities, rubbing up as it does with the 70s porn scene. This may not sit right with some modern viewers, even though its cringe-impact is obviously intentional. Also, the gun fights and action aren't as well paced or blocked as other director's have done with his scripts. Shane has a proven track record of outstanding punchy dialog but his direction of action scenes is stodgy to say the least, as is some of the digital compositing. Sadly, Kim Basinger is in the cast to relive her LA Confidential comeback but she appears completely uncomfortable as a shady LA DA and doesn't add much credence to the sometimes murky plot. However if you can kick your feet up and go with the flow it all shouldn't stress you out too too much.
In action/comedy however he excels, and he and his leads nail it to the wall with an original, witty, decadent twist on a genre forgotten by most Studios, to which which we ask for more.
"More? Me too, mine's as big as a house!"
8 ...and Stuff out of 10 (GREAT)
"Nice Guys don't always finish last"
A Private detective who is an alcoholic single father gets hired by a muscle-for-hire goon, the same one who broke his arm the night before, to help find a mysterious woman and the mysterious LA underworld circumstances under which she vanished in Shane Black's entertaining NeoNoir flick, The Nice Guys.
Shane has long been the good manly man movie writer working in Hollywood, what with Predator, Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, and Iron Man 3 under his belt. His current high water mark was the similarly themed (and funny) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. This Nice Guys dips back into his well as once again a detective buddy picture about two disparate men with gore and sex and all that good stuff we liked in manly movies from the 80s, which clearly bucks the trends of socially friendlier adult fare on the big screen.
This time it stars Ryan Gosling (Drive) and Russel Crowe (Gladiator) as at-odds partners stepping from trail to trail to find even greater mysteries to solve. The key to the film is that these two have great chemistry, have lots of funny lines to spout and lots of guns to shoot. The rest of the cast are mere filler (though Black's trend of having a kid sidekick can be a little grating to the audience and the plot). The underlying mystery, traveling from the porn friendly Los Angeles hills to the streets of urban life, lays out an exaggerated 1970s retro lifestyle that matches the decor and costumes and music. The story is often slumming through post-counter culture sex and mores, and the ambiguous mix of testosterone in Gosling and Crowe go great with it. But not everything is cool like a 7&7 here.
While the underlying message of the struggle of fatherhood can be seen in most of Black's work, here it has a creepy underpinning of underage sexual proclivities, rubbing up as it does with the 70s porn scene. This may not sit right with some modern viewers, even though its cringe-impact is obviously intentional. Also, the gun fights and action aren't as well paced or blocked as other director's have done with his scripts. Shane has a proven track record of outstanding punchy dialog but his direction of action scenes is stodgy to say the least, as is some of the digital compositing. Sadly, Kim Basinger is in the cast to relive her LA Confidential comeback but she appears completely uncomfortable as a shady LA DA and doesn't add much credence to the sometimes murky plot. However if you can kick your feet up and go with the flow it all shouldn't stress you out too too much.
In action/comedy however he excels, and he and his leads nail it to the wall with an original, witty, decadent twist on a genre forgotten by most Studios, to which which we ask for more.
"More? Me too, mine's as big as a house!"
8 ...and Stuff out of 10 (GREAT)
Everybody Wants Some (2016)
Everybody Wants Some!! (R)
"Some, why not all?"
A group of freshman college baseball players settle into their new life of stiff competition, stiff drinking, loose girls and acting all grown up in Texas in Richard Linklater's comedy Everybody Wants Some!!.
Sold as the spiritual sequel to Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993), EWS follows a group of freshman baseball players trying to fit into their new lives, trying to out perform the older players, and trying to stay as stoned and laid as possible. It's now the 1980s, and boy was it a different time. As a study of how America has changed in just a few short decades (which Linklater's films often revel in) Everybody Wants Some succeeds, but as a pure form of visual entertainment it sadly falls on it's own cleats.
Maybe it's the lack of "loss of innocence" plot line or pungent stench of post-pubescent ambition, but Everybody Wants Some!! leaves you wanting a bit more and less. There's no issues with the comedy which is humorous, the acting which is naturalistic, the directing which is approachable. However all together these testosterone fueled Jocks in a Frat house will only appeal to a certain audience, if it was your Father or favorite Uncle telling these tall tales of chopping baseballs with axes or the night they got kicked out of the disco after meeting your mother inbetween gulps of Shiner Bock then you'd have a sincere reason to listen. Told to a modern audience it falls flat, a rude boy story/brag bereft of the nostalgia and hope that shone from Dazed and Confused. Instead it concentrates on the potential for success (or failure) for these near-men, friends, odd balls and sexual dynamos that only a small group of modern individuals could really relate too, or more importantly, really laugh at.
6.5 Still Not as Boring as Boyhood, But Not High Art Either out of 10 (GOOD)
"Some, why not all?"
A group of freshman college baseball players settle into their new life of stiff competition, stiff drinking, loose girls and acting all grown up in Texas in Richard Linklater's comedy Everybody Wants Some!!.
Sold as the spiritual sequel to Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993), EWS follows a group of freshman baseball players trying to fit into their new lives, trying to out perform the older players, and trying to stay as stoned and laid as possible. It's now the 1980s, and boy was it a different time. As a study of how America has changed in just a few short decades (which Linklater's films often revel in) Everybody Wants Some succeeds, but as a pure form of visual entertainment it sadly falls on it's own cleats.
Maybe it's the lack of "loss of innocence" plot line or pungent stench of post-pubescent ambition, but Everybody Wants Some!! leaves you wanting a bit more and less. There's no issues with the comedy which is humorous, the acting which is naturalistic, the directing which is approachable. However all together these testosterone fueled Jocks in a Frat house will only appeal to a certain audience, if it was your Father or favorite Uncle telling these tall tales of chopping baseballs with axes or the night they got kicked out of the disco after meeting your mother inbetween gulps of Shiner Bock then you'd have a sincere reason to listen. Told to a modern audience it falls flat, a rude boy story/brag bereft of the nostalgia and hope that shone from Dazed and Confused. Instead it concentrates on the potential for success (or failure) for these near-men, friends, odd balls and sexual dynamos that only a small group of modern individuals could really relate too, or more importantly, really laugh at.
6.5 Still Not as Boring as Boyhood, But Not High Art Either out of 10 (GOOD)
Hardcore Henry (2016)
Hardcore Henry - R
An augmented man with no memory chases after his wife who is kidnapped out of the Russian lab he was created in, rushing through the buildings, streets and rails in a nonstop barrage of violence and first person camera work in the very video-game like Hardcore Henry.
Hardcore Henry is basically the longest (and worst acted) GoPro camera commercial in existence. Yet the footage doesn't have the visual definition usually seen on the big screen for a big release, it can be an unpleasant blurry mess (especially in low light). The acting is atrocious, the main villain has followed the "bad movie actor playbook" as close as possible, shouting lines and gritting teeth and flipping his hair while avoiding actually killing the protagonist at all times. The other extras and leads limp along in his wake.
Hardcore Henry is original in being the first movie to pull this genre off, and yet is wholly unoriginal by not only aping most First Person video games but also not matching them. With high end PCs and PS4s now most games look better than Henry's scummy sunlit scenes. The film's finale is the worst kind of final video game level, with terrible video graphics, long time coming plot twist, easily disposed cannon fodder and hammy acting from your cackling final Boss. But considering how low budget H. Henry must be, how much seat of the pants filmmaking it must have used, you can't help but gain a grudging respect for the project (and quite a bit of fun).
For instance, Sharlto Copley's role as a scientist who has invented Henry's technology is a breath of fresh air from all the mind numbing punching and jumping. Despite a severely underwhelming lead role in Eleysium and being a possible albatross on this production, here his comedic antics make him the only visible actor who has a grasp of how to behave on camera. And he takes it to extremes (much to the filmmakers credit) by playing a plethora of characters ala Peter Sellers, each with their own costumes and funny accents. It is the only part of Henry that took any balls to put to screen, after all the action stunt work and parkour sequences are what we would expect. Add that to a seldom seen peek into the suburban sprawl of life in Russia and it's satellite states, some outstanding action and death defying stunts makes Hardcore Henry not a bad movie, it's just not as violent as the title promised, not as original as it's poster promised, and not as revolutionary as it is entertaining.
5.5 Steel Knuckles out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
An augmented man with no memory chases after his wife who is kidnapped out of the Russian lab he was created in, rushing through the buildings, streets and rails in a nonstop barrage of violence and first person camera work in the very video-game like Hardcore Henry.
Hardcore Henry is basically the longest (and worst acted) GoPro camera commercial in existence. Yet the footage doesn't have the visual definition usually seen on the big screen for a big release, it can be an unpleasant blurry mess (especially in low light). The acting is atrocious, the main villain has followed the "bad movie actor playbook" as close as possible, shouting lines and gritting teeth and flipping his hair while avoiding actually killing the protagonist at all times. The other extras and leads limp along in his wake.
Hardcore Henry is original in being the first movie to pull this genre off, and yet is wholly unoriginal by not only aping most First Person video games but also not matching them. With high end PCs and PS4s now most games look better than Henry's scummy sunlit scenes. The film's finale is the worst kind of final video game level, with terrible video graphics, long time coming plot twist, easily disposed cannon fodder and hammy acting from your cackling final Boss. But considering how low budget H. Henry must be, how much seat of the pants filmmaking it must have used, you can't help but gain a grudging respect for the project (and quite a bit of fun).
For instance, Sharlto Copley's role as a scientist who has invented Henry's technology is a breath of fresh air from all the mind numbing punching and jumping. Despite a severely underwhelming lead role in Eleysium and being a possible albatross on this production, here his comedic antics make him the only visible actor who has a grasp of how to behave on camera. And he takes it to extremes (much to the filmmakers credit) by playing a plethora of characters ala Peter Sellers, each with their own costumes and funny accents. It is the only part of Henry that took any balls to put to screen, after all the action stunt work and parkour sequences are what we would expect. Add that to a seldom seen peek into the suburban sprawl of life in Russia and it's satellite states, some outstanding action and death defying stunts makes Hardcore Henry not a bad movie, it's just not as violent as the title promised, not as original as it's poster promised, and not as revolutionary as it is entertaining.
5.5 Steel Knuckles out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Knight of Cups (2016)
Knight of Cups (R)
"In his Cups"
Traipsing through the weird world of Hollywood, a depressingly lost scriptwriter goes through a series of relationships (sensual, family and business) to attempt to find meaning in his meaningless life in auteur Terrance Malick's obtuse yet seemingly autobiographical film, Knight of Cups.
In Tarot, the Knight of Cups signifies change, excitement and romance, a bringer of new ideas. This does not accurately describe the film. However, in Tarot if a card is dealt from the deck upside down (which as inferred by the poster for the film it has been), then the card is inversed and means the opposite; trickery, naivete, redundancy, tedium. Now we are getting somewhere. For all its faults and obtuseness, it makes Knight of Cups the most appropriately (and interestingly) titled film of the year, and probably the most obviously intimate look into the persona of Malick.
Using the terms and storylines from Medieval pilgrimage literature and the Tarot, Knight of Cups has more of striking visuals and cohesiveness than Malick's previous film To The Wonder. The mere semblance of a plot gives Knight the upper hand, as does having a much more varied and stellar cast (Christian Bale stars but rarely talks and in turn is spoken to by Cate Blanchett, Brian Dennehy, Natalie Portman and others). Yet again, Knight of Cups is another rumination on life, as Tree of Life was before it, a pastiche of the past, a montage of the moment. Images shutter by, some breathtaking, some mundane, some surprisingly on low res video cameras instead of the gorgeous film photography of his previous efforts. Also different is the use of Nature, often a dominating force in Terrance's films. Here the Knight of Cups seems separated form the natural Earth until the very end of the film, he appears lost in a world of marble, concrete and asphalt. This intentional shift in tone works on your subconscious, but only in context to the rest of Malick's oeuvre and therein lies it's biggest problem.
For those steeped in Malickian lore, for those illuminated by ancient pilgrimage literature or well versed in the symbology and subtext of the Tarot (the movie's chapters and their repsective characters are all named for cards in the deck), even for ones such as these Knight of Cups would be a difficult movie to recommend. And so your average American will have no interest in this Facebook moments-like tableaux of ex-girlfriend's speeches, family squabbles or extravagant Beverly Hills parties. Terrance Malick's best work has an indescribable tone that can deeply affect the viewer and it just so happens that his movies are getting more and more specific in the audience it reaches for (himself mostly, but without a doubt there will be a small minority this movie will sing to). It has neither the visual panache of Tree, the humble humanity of Thin Red Line nor the youthful destruction of Badlands and yet there are touches here and there where it does almost meet them. How it was made, how a script was never shown to anyone, how the actors were unknowingly lead through these moments, all those interesting things are secondary to it's directors reason to make it, and the notoriously reclusive Malick certainly isn't going to tell us that.
For all the world Knight of Cups feels like a cryptic memory of a past life that someone outgrew and now reminisces about in some other part of the world with some other people who could never fully understand. It's the kind of thing Terrance Malick does best (in fact the only one who does it at all), even if we also will never understand it as much as we'd like.
6 Slow Motion Dogs In Pools Missing Balls out of 10 (GOOD)
"In his Cups"
Traipsing through the weird world of Hollywood, a depressingly lost scriptwriter goes through a series of relationships (sensual, family and business) to attempt to find meaning in his meaningless life in auteur Terrance Malick's obtuse yet seemingly autobiographical film, Knight of Cups.
In Tarot, the Knight of Cups signifies change, excitement and romance, a bringer of new ideas. This does not accurately describe the film. However, in Tarot if a card is dealt from the deck upside down (which as inferred by the poster for the film it has been), then the card is inversed and means the opposite; trickery, naivete, redundancy, tedium. Now we are getting somewhere. For all its faults and obtuseness, it makes Knight of Cups the most appropriately (and interestingly) titled film of the year, and probably the most obviously intimate look into the persona of Malick.
Using the terms and storylines from Medieval pilgrimage literature and the Tarot, Knight of Cups has more of striking visuals and cohesiveness than Malick's previous film To The Wonder. The mere semblance of a plot gives Knight the upper hand, as does having a much more varied and stellar cast (Christian Bale stars but rarely talks and in turn is spoken to by Cate Blanchett, Brian Dennehy, Natalie Portman and others). Yet again, Knight of Cups is another rumination on life, as Tree of Life was before it, a pastiche of the past, a montage of the moment. Images shutter by, some breathtaking, some mundane, some surprisingly on low res video cameras instead of the gorgeous film photography of his previous efforts. Also different is the use of Nature, often a dominating force in Terrance's films. Here the Knight of Cups seems separated form the natural Earth until the very end of the film, he appears lost in a world of marble, concrete and asphalt. This intentional shift in tone works on your subconscious, but only in context to the rest of Malick's oeuvre and therein lies it's biggest problem.
For those steeped in Malickian lore, for those illuminated by ancient pilgrimage literature or well versed in the symbology and subtext of the Tarot (the movie's chapters and their repsective characters are all named for cards in the deck), even for ones such as these Knight of Cups would be a difficult movie to recommend. And so your average American will have no interest in this Facebook moments-like tableaux of ex-girlfriend's speeches, family squabbles or extravagant Beverly Hills parties. Terrance Malick's best work has an indescribable tone that can deeply affect the viewer and it just so happens that his movies are getting more and more specific in the audience it reaches for (himself mostly, but without a doubt there will be a small minority this movie will sing to). It has neither the visual panache of Tree, the humble humanity of Thin Red Line nor the youthful destruction of Badlands and yet there are touches here and there where it does almost meet them. How it was made, how a script was never shown to anyone, how the actors were unknowingly lead through these moments, all those interesting things are secondary to it's directors reason to make it, and the notoriously reclusive Malick certainly isn't going to tell us that.
For all the world Knight of Cups feels like a cryptic memory of a past life that someone outgrew and now reminisces about in some other part of the world with some other people who could never fully understand. It's the kind of thing Terrance Malick does best (in fact the only one who does it at all), even if we also will never understand it as much as we'd like.
6 Slow Motion Dogs In Pools Missing Balls out of 10 (GOOD)
Deadpool (2016)
Deadpool (R)
"Skull Poop L"
An ex-special forces commando with a heart (and mouth) of gold finds love, yadda yadda, actually the point of a Deadpool movie should be to abandon the need for a movie with these kinds of standard comic book adaptation-driven synopsis', and sometimes it does- making Deadpool a riot in Fox's newest X-Men film franchise entry.
From the opening frame of a wonderfully off-kilter and sarcastic opening-title sequence, Deadpool promises and delivers R rated thrills that the budget doesn't quite live up to. Half the movie feels like a standard origin story with more than average funny quips, while almost all the action is separated by long (yet humorous) exposition in the other half (rumored last minute budget cuts from Fox have been fingered). Where a character like Deadpool could be skewering the cash-grabs and grotesque sameness inherent in "The Comic Book Movie" formula, instead just does them in a uniquely and still appreciated fun way. Meta-humor is used sparingly, like making fun of it's own villain by calling him a cliche with a British accent in the aforementioned opening sequence? That loses it's sting when the joke of a boring old Limey super-villain actually comes true. It's the greatest 4th wall of all, the one this film is never really able to break through; the same old training montages and goop-that-gives-you-powers are all present even if tongue is planted firmly in cheek (could be worse places!).
Luckily the Merc-with-a-pottymouth's sense of humor (gallows or otherwise) are left dashingly intact. Ryan Reynolds, who last played the same character in Fox's abysmal X-Men Origins: Wolverine, gets a chance to nail what the fans have been slavering for (and it isn't your momma). There are a lot of laughs, both raunchy and silly, but the overall charm of the film is from Reynolds' Pool, and it's surprising release on Valentine's day a welcome violent surprise for boys and girls, a healthy fun alternative to the chick-flick bait of yester-weekends. Here we have a pooting red-booted killing machine who lives with a old blind lady in a basement apartment, looks like a walking tumor under the spandex and who takes cabs to his mass-shooting sprees instead of B-52 Blackbirds, big shiny friends from the other X-franchises to chide him or make him feel old (New Mutants uniform FTW). It is at least unusual, at most very funny and a lastly a fresh breath of gunpowder-laden air. Next time just leave the flashbacks for other franchises with episodes on the CW, ok sport?
7.5 Testicles with Teeth out of 10 (GOOD)
"Skull Poop L"
An ex-special forces commando with a heart (and mouth) of gold finds love, yadda yadda, actually the point of a Deadpool movie should be to abandon the need for a movie with these kinds of standard comic book adaptation-driven synopsis', and sometimes it does- making Deadpool a riot in Fox's newest X-Men film franchise entry.
From the opening frame of a wonderfully off-kilter and sarcastic opening-title sequence, Deadpool promises and delivers R rated thrills that the budget doesn't quite live up to. Half the movie feels like a standard origin story with more than average funny quips, while almost all the action is separated by long (yet humorous) exposition in the other half (rumored last minute budget cuts from Fox have been fingered). Where a character like Deadpool could be skewering the cash-grabs and grotesque sameness inherent in "The Comic Book Movie" formula, instead just does them in a uniquely and still appreciated fun way. Meta-humor is used sparingly, like making fun of it's own villain by calling him a cliche with a British accent in the aforementioned opening sequence? That loses it's sting when the joke of a boring old Limey super-villain actually comes true. It's the greatest 4th wall of all, the one this film is never really able to break through; the same old training montages and goop-that-gives-you-powers are all present even if tongue is planted firmly in cheek (could be worse places!).
Luckily the Merc-with-a-pottymouth's sense of humor (gallows or otherwise) are left dashingly intact. Ryan Reynolds, who last played the same character in Fox's abysmal X-Men Origins: Wolverine, gets a chance to nail what the fans have been slavering for (and it isn't your momma). There are a lot of laughs, both raunchy and silly, but the overall charm of the film is from Reynolds' Pool, and it's surprising release on Valentine's day a welcome violent surprise for boys and girls, a healthy fun alternative to the chick-flick bait of yester-weekends. Here we have a pooting red-booted killing machine who lives with a old blind lady in a basement apartment, looks like a walking tumor under the spandex and who takes cabs to his mass-shooting sprees instead of B-52 Blackbirds, big shiny friends from the other X-franchises to chide him or make him feel old (New Mutants uniform FTW). It is at least unusual, at most very funny and a lastly a fresh breath of gunpowder-laden air. Next time just leave the flashbacks for other franchises with episodes on the CW, ok sport?
7.5 Testicles with Teeth out of 10 (GOOD)
Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Bone Tomahawk (R)
A posse sets out from the town of Bright Hope in pursuit of some mysteriously sinister natives who have made off with a nurse, a deputy and their charge, a murdering vagrant. With an aging backup deputy, a paranoid man with a healthy trigger finger and a husband with a shattered leg, the local Sheriff heads out with his crew with no backup, no guide and no real hope of succeeding in the auspicious debut of director/writer S. Craig Zahller's surprisingly successful Horror/Western genre mashup.
A still mustachioed Kurt Russell (Hateful Eight) leads the men and the cast as the veteran Sheriff Hunt with supporting roles filled by fantastic character actor Richard Jenkins (The Cabin in the Woods), out-of-his-element Patrick Wilson (The Watchmen) and quirky Matthew Fox (Lost). This rousing group has a great script to play with and better repartee, and like the film are better than the sum of their parts. Jenkins in particular uses his great personal charms to enliven the role of dim-witted backup Deputy Chickory. The same can not be said for the female roles where a competent line reading has been sacrificed for a pretty face. The writing however is not to be blamed, as the jolly palaver and old timey vernacular of the dialog can attest to be the strongest asset of the film.
Not so strong are the visuals, a flat arid desert may be our playground but something perhaps could have been done to liven up the proceedings. Perhaps it was an attempt to accentuate the stark realism that underlies the plot, but more likely it is a symptom of the independent (and cheap) nature of the production that everything looks so one dimensional and backyard like. The posse's monstrous foes, a pack of cannibalistic troglodytes that even other Native-American fear come straight out of a 1980's D&D rule book. Alien, immutable and stoic, these cave-Indians are built like body builders and sound like video-game werewolves (which is quite silly). However the overall mythical, adventure-gone wrong feel to the plot lends itself to these creatures existing in a world where Tombstone meets Beowulf with a dash of Hostel.
This is where the genre mixing comes into full force. Bone Tomahawk is a long film, at over 2 hours with most of the action in the last half hour it can be a trek. In fact most of the beginning of the film can be seen as a ill-conceived camping trip through the badlands, and if it wasn't for the sharp characterization and pristine chatter among the group it would have sink into tedious sands from the wieght of pretension. Instead it builds tension quite slowly until the quick sudden release of bow strings and triggers, then blood bursts and appendages sever (the great practical effects show where the film makers allegiances lie) as it's genre mashup goes into full effect. To go 2 hours of tromping through the trail to sudden, violent, in your face charnel house really places the viewer squarely into the terrified boots of these law-loving prairie folk who are about to witness it up close and personal. It is shocking, brutal and very effective for both parties, and better than it has any right to be.
It's shortcomings easily outpaced by it's strengths, Bone Tomahawk is an auspicious start to a writer's career, one with interesting ideas and a zest for dialog. The movie itself is aptly named, the bony instrument would be blunt and cheap and yet just as effective as any expensive steel ax at cleaving, maiming or slaughtering, probably more painfully so.
7.5 Corn Chowders out of 10 (GOOD)
A posse sets out from the town of Bright Hope in pursuit of some mysteriously sinister natives who have made off with a nurse, a deputy and their charge, a murdering vagrant. With an aging backup deputy, a paranoid man with a healthy trigger finger and a husband with a shattered leg, the local Sheriff heads out with his crew with no backup, no guide and no real hope of succeeding in the auspicious debut of director/writer S. Craig Zahller's surprisingly successful Horror/Western genre mashup.
A still mustachioed Kurt Russell (Hateful Eight) leads the men and the cast as the veteran Sheriff Hunt with supporting roles filled by fantastic character actor Richard Jenkins (The Cabin in the Woods), out-of-his-element Patrick Wilson (The Watchmen) and quirky Matthew Fox (Lost). This rousing group has a great script to play with and better repartee, and like the film are better than the sum of their parts. Jenkins in particular uses his great personal charms to enliven the role of dim-witted backup Deputy Chickory. The same can not be said for the female roles where a competent line reading has been sacrificed for a pretty face. The writing however is not to be blamed, as the jolly palaver and old timey vernacular of the dialog can attest to be the strongest asset of the film.
Not so strong are the visuals, a flat arid desert may be our playground but something perhaps could have been done to liven up the proceedings. Perhaps it was an attempt to accentuate the stark realism that underlies the plot, but more likely it is a symptom of the independent (and cheap) nature of the production that everything looks so one dimensional and backyard like. The posse's monstrous foes, a pack of cannibalistic troglodytes that even other Native-American fear come straight out of a 1980's D&D rule book. Alien, immutable and stoic, these cave-Indians are built like body builders and sound like video-game werewolves (which is quite silly). However the overall mythical, adventure-gone wrong feel to the plot lends itself to these creatures existing in a world where Tombstone meets Beowulf with a dash of Hostel.
This is where the genre mixing comes into full force. Bone Tomahawk is a long film, at over 2 hours with most of the action in the last half hour it can be a trek. In fact most of the beginning of the film can be seen as a ill-conceived camping trip through the badlands, and if it wasn't for the sharp characterization and pristine chatter among the group it would have sink into tedious sands from the wieght of pretension. Instead it builds tension quite slowly until the quick sudden release of bow strings and triggers, then blood bursts and appendages sever (the great practical effects show where the film makers allegiances lie) as it's genre mashup goes into full effect. To go 2 hours of tromping through the trail to sudden, violent, in your face charnel house really places the viewer squarely into the terrified boots of these law-loving prairie folk who are about to witness it up close and personal. It is shocking, brutal and very effective for both parties, and better than it has any right to be.
It's shortcomings easily outpaced by it's strengths, Bone Tomahawk is an auspicious start to a writer's career, one with interesting ideas and a zest for dialog. The movie itself is aptly named, the bony instrument would be blunt and cheap and yet just as effective as any expensive steel ax at cleaving, maiming or slaughtering, probably more painfully so.
7.5 Corn Chowders out of 10 (GOOD)
The Revenant (2015)
The Revenant (R)
A man on a trapping expedition, mauled by a bear and wronged by his companions, crawls his way back to civilization and survival by sheer will and the lust for revenge in director Alejandro Inarratu's followup to 2014's Best Picture "Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)".
Based very loosely on the widely told tale of professional trail scout Hugh Glass (played with baby face and big bearded Leonardo DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street)), a man so wronged even his own exposed ribs nor 200 miles full of blood thirsty natives will keep him from his vengeance. Leo plays him as the quiet type, surrounded by the vast blanketed mountains or picking his way through the tree studded fields he doesn't say much (having one's throat shredded by a momma grizzly may have helped). When asked why he fled civilized parts of the world, Leo's Glass mutters something about "Liking it where it's quiet". These are his best moments, but DiCaprio cannot so easily shed his Mega-star image and face beneath a bearhide and buckskins, and too often (despite his truly best efforts and solid acting ability), we are forced to admit that no, Leo does not resemble a wild Mountain-man of the frontier age, a man so hardy and full of spirit that he could survive the cold and wounds and misfortune. He looks, much as he did in The Aviator, like Leo DiCaprio.
Tom Hardy (Bronson), on the other hand, once again completely transforms himself for a role. As Glass' trapping partner Fitzgerald he is bitter, racist, self-serving and sports a plotting, devious mind. His country Texas twang feels great, every time the film gives him something to do he is riveting and completely steals the show from DiCaprio, there is a self confidence present that stands it's ground as an authentic Western ideology. Perhaps he wasn't as electric as Mad Max since he could not truly make the role singularly his own, but in Revenant he fits into Fitzgerald perfectly and is fantastic antagonist.
It is only too bad the film strays from what makes it good so often. The cinema, the wide open wild places look terrific while at the same time the CGI wild animals populating it detract. The long takes, now famous from these filmmakers, feel more constructed and sewn together with twine when done in nature than the smooth seamless backstage views. The compositing is distracting, mostly during the action sequences, there is a reliance on technology way out there in wilds of nature that simply clashes with the aesthetic being sold to us. As is some of the audio design, for instance the Natives all are dubbed strangely and out of sync, the words literally put into their mouths in post. More power to Inarratu for braving the forces of nature to capture this stuff with natural light and freezing actors and crew, but if Dances with Wolves had just had a herd of CGI buffalo that too would have stuck out like a sore thumb too. However there are shots here of such sublime beauty as to be in a Terrance Mallick film (in fact much can be seen as homage to T.M.), but unfortunately many do not help along the blood thirsty narrative. A man done so wrong would not sleep so placidly or have such a spiritual dream journey. And, like the many Hollywood epics before it, the script of the Revenant takes an amazing true life story of determination and grit and gussies it up with more drama for modern audiences, rehashing a classic trend that itself should be mauled and buried. A man did do this, crawled that great long way, survive a bear attack and had maggots eat his gangrenous flesh, there is no need to gussy it up and "humanize" it more. Revenge does not only come from blood, motivation not just from love and close ups of eye's leaking, the real story of Glass was already about how strong and hardy a human being could be, and diluting it with modern cinematic tricks really wounds it to the quick.
Much like its protagonist Glass, Revenant is ritualistically real. The snow, dirt and blood and environments is under his feet and nails and stains his clothes (costume). And yet mixed in equal parts is fabrication, with an empty spirituality, preachy modern morality and technological shortcuts. Where it gets it right, the opening Bear horror, the closing showdown with the fantastic Hardy, the rest is a barren cold wasteland of misspent ideals. All in a film just as lengthy as Hateful Eight yet without the constant, cartoonishly fired from the hip Western-fried delights. Greatness lurks beneath a thick ground fog of modern necessity, and instead of a tall tale we get a long one.
By the end, worn out by tiresome long camera takes, you stumble out of the theater on benumbed legs like a snow blind trapper with nothing to show for your journey except a deep yearning for hearth and home.
7 Historical Showdowns that never actually happened out of 10 (GOOD)
A man on a trapping expedition, mauled by a bear and wronged by his companions, crawls his way back to civilization and survival by sheer will and the lust for revenge in director Alejandro Inarratu's followup to 2014's Best Picture "Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)".
Based very loosely on the widely told tale of professional trail scout Hugh Glass (played with baby face and big bearded Leonardo DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street)), a man so wronged even his own exposed ribs nor 200 miles full of blood thirsty natives will keep him from his vengeance. Leo plays him as the quiet type, surrounded by the vast blanketed mountains or picking his way through the tree studded fields he doesn't say much (having one's throat shredded by a momma grizzly may have helped). When asked why he fled civilized parts of the world, Leo's Glass mutters something about "Liking it where it's quiet". These are his best moments, but DiCaprio cannot so easily shed his Mega-star image and face beneath a bearhide and buckskins, and too often (despite his truly best efforts and solid acting ability), we are forced to admit that no, Leo does not resemble a wild Mountain-man of the frontier age, a man so hardy and full of spirit that he could survive the cold and wounds and misfortune. He looks, much as he did in The Aviator, like Leo DiCaprio.
Tom Hardy (Bronson), on the other hand, once again completely transforms himself for a role. As Glass' trapping partner Fitzgerald he is bitter, racist, self-serving and sports a plotting, devious mind. His country Texas twang feels great, every time the film gives him something to do he is riveting and completely steals the show from DiCaprio, there is a self confidence present that stands it's ground as an authentic Western ideology. Perhaps he wasn't as electric as Mad Max since he could not truly make the role singularly his own, but in Revenant he fits into Fitzgerald perfectly and is fantastic antagonist.
It is only too bad the film strays from what makes it good so often. The cinema, the wide open wild places look terrific while at the same time the CGI wild animals populating it detract. The long takes, now famous from these filmmakers, feel more constructed and sewn together with twine when done in nature than the smooth seamless backstage views. The compositing is distracting, mostly during the action sequences, there is a reliance on technology way out there in wilds of nature that simply clashes with the aesthetic being sold to us. As is some of the audio design, for instance the Natives all are dubbed strangely and out of sync, the words literally put into their mouths in post. More power to Inarratu for braving the forces of nature to capture this stuff with natural light and freezing actors and crew, but if Dances with Wolves had just had a herd of CGI buffalo that too would have stuck out like a sore thumb too. However there are shots here of such sublime beauty as to be in a Terrance Mallick film (in fact much can be seen as homage to T.M.), but unfortunately many do not help along the blood thirsty narrative. A man done so wrong would not sleep so placidly or have such a spiritual dream journey. And, like the many Hollywood epics before it, the script of the Revenant takes an amazing true life story of determination and grit and gussies it up with more drama for modern audiences, rehashing a classic trend that itself should be mauled and buried. A man did do this, crawled that great long way, survive a bear attack and had maggots eat his gangrenous flesh, there is no need to gussy it up and "humanize" it more. Revenge does not only come from blood, motivation not just from love and close ups of eye's leaking, the real story of Glass was already about how strong and hardy a human being could be, and diluting it with modern cinematic tricks really wounds it to the quick.
Much like its protagonist Glass, Revenant is ritualistically real. The snow, dirt and blood and environments is under his feet and nails and stains his clothes (costume). And yet mixed in equal parts is fabrication, with an empty spirituality, preachy modern morality and technological shortcuts. Where it gets it right, the opening Bear horror, the closing showdown with the fantastic Hardy, the rest is a barren cold wasteland of misspent ideals. All in a film just as lengthy as Hateful Eight yet without the constant, cartoonishly fired from the hip Western-fried delights. Greatness lurks beneath a thick ground fog of modern necessity, and instead of a tall tale we get a long one.
By the end, worn out by tiresome long camera takes, you stumble out of the theater on benumbed legs like a snow blind trapper with nothing to show for your journey except a deep yearning for hearth and home.
7 Historical Showdowns that never actually happened out of 10 (GOOD)
The Hateful Eight (2015)
The Hateful Eight (R)
"Reservoir CowDogs"
A pair of bounty hunters cross paths on the way to a snowed in Wyoming outpost, only to meet a slew of strangers holed up in a blizzard. One is hauling a live prisoner worth a $10,000 reward, and suspects everyone else of collusion, theft or chicanery. Some may live or die, but none will escape unbloodied in Quentin Tarantino's 8th film, the red-soaked return to form The Hateful 8.
First, it must be said that Hateful Eight is less of a genre-ape than his previous few films, if anything TH8 is in the genre of his own first film Reservior Dogs (stick with your own genres QT), but by moving the narrative to the post-Civil War era has allowed him to toy with the idea that sometimes in our past even the good guys were pretty bad. It turns into a slight whos-gonna-doit/who-dunnit but since every one is a racist/misogynistic pig of varying likeability the answer could be anyone and we'd be happy. The cast who plays these 8 are as much a who's who of past QT films as it's own plot points, and the story is framed like a stage-play, built from acts, using many of QT's previous trademarks that have come and gone through the years (the chapter marks from Kill Bill, the blood and crime drama of Res Dogs, the western-as-a-setting-to-provides-discussion-of-modern-race-relations of Django, the time distortion from most his films, the sudden out of place narrator and hidden-just-beyond-sight danger of Inglorious Basterds, and of course the director's cameo (though admittedly one of his least obtrusive)). All of these make H8 more of a classic QT film (unlike Django Unchained, which we may have been too-hard on but we hold QT to a higher level and expect something beyond just a genre-rehash for modern wish fulfillment). Hateful Eight is bolder than anything he's done in awhile, with a full commitment to his play-like setting with a large cast of regulars to mix it up in his bloody evil sandbox.
And those Hateful Eight are Kurt Russell (Death Proof) as John "Hangman" Ruth, brutally leading his prisoner Daisy Domergue (an almost unrecognizable Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the noose, the irreplaceable Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) as his fellow bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren who must justify his own existence constantly due to the color of his skin, Walton Goggins and Bruce Dern (both from Django) as Southern Rebels still nursing their loss in the War of Oppression, and Tim Roth and Michael Madsen (both from Resevoir Dogs) dressed up as two dangerous dandies out of place on the Western frontier. There are other new faces and old, but they are all wrapped singularly into the fate of Daisy and her appointment with the hangman and those who would stand in the way. Madsen's bizarre toughguy routine is blunted by his equally bizarre Will Rogers wardrobe (sticking out like a saddle sore thumb). Yet Jennifer's deliciously evil spitting crone has some viewers screaming "anti-woman" for the violence she is subjected to and lack of white-knighting onscreen. However, what QT is going for, and has successfully captured, is the harsh world of crime and punishment on the outlying segments of civilized society, a place where a gun and a fist are daily occurrences, where death is just outside your door if you aren't huddled by a fire and keep your horses fed, a world with a deadly lack of information and shifting trusts, of self reliance and uneasy pacts, the non-idealized old west where lynching and Injun wars and getting shot in the back were the realities, and women really were second class citizens trying to make a life amongst these brutes. You can hate the player a bit, but you should really be hating the game more, and QT is shining the light on our forefathers.
Now it ain't all comin' up roses. The movie is lengthy, and although it pays off in spades for it's long run it is also very wordy (luckily no "in the middle of everything Superman speeches" here however). In that weighty runtime there aren't enough amazing moments to quite sustain; no Jew Hunter at the table, no ear severance dance, no showdown at House of Blue Leaves, no Bags on Heads, no high octane car crash leg ejection. There is however enough tension and blood to maintain entertainment. And with a delightfully bombastic score by Spaghetti Western master-composer Ennio Morricone (with some leftover bits from his score from Carpenter's The Thing), it marks the first film Tarantino has used an original score and it comes off perfectly (he still sneaks in some choice cuts from modern sources). The cast at large does a terrific job (love ya Bob!), with Roth and Leigh and Russell and Goggins in particular enjoying their dialogue time on screen as much as we enjoy witnessing it.
So what is the point of all this, the 70mm wide angles, the straight foray into the American west of an admitted genre-muckraker, the encapsulating music, the buckets and buckets of gore, the fur coats and facial hair, the disparity of North vs South, Black vs White, Man vs Woman, Everyone vs Mexican? Why Channing Tatum, why a Roadshow release, why yet another good excuse for QT to use the N-Word? For the best reasons of all. To tell a story that you can feel and see and hear and think about, and that is why Quentin wrote it and the actors enjoyed playing it and why it can be watched by us. All 8+ characters are to be reviled and cheered as they suffer loudly, it is shades of grey for who justly lives and dies and ultimately who is the least hateful and who triumphs despite being hateful themselves. It is almost a polar opposite of this year's other big (biggest ever) release, Disney's Star Wars The Force Awakens. TH8 is Non-PC, non-regurgitated, non-self referencing, non-market tested consumer approved popart, and it was all made on non-digital cellulose film for and by cinephiles. This is cinema as high-art succumbing to it's basest desires, the spoken word from the typed page, the cold puffs of breath from a boiling actor lost in their role, the mountain vistas splashed with golden sunlight and the grungy floorboards soaked in crimson lifeblood.
See y'all down the trail.
8 Well-Loved Lincoln Letters and Pots of Coffee out of 10 (GREAT)
"Reservoir CowDogs"
A pair of bounty hunters cross paths on the way to a snowed in Wyoming outpost, only to meet a slew of strangers holed up in a blizzard. One is hauling a live prisoner worth a $10,000 reward, and suspects everyone else of collusion, theft or chicanery. Some may live or die, but none will escape unbloodied in Quentin Tarantino's 8th film, the red-soaked return to form The Hateful 8.
First, it must be said that Hateful Eight is less of a genre-ape than his previous few films, if anything TH8 is in the genre of his own first film Reservior Dogs (stick with your own genres QT), but by moving the narrative to the post-Civil War era has allowed him to toy with the idea that sometimes in our past even the good guys were pretty bad. It turns into a slight whos-gonna-doit/who-dunnit but since every one is a racist/misogynistic pig of varying likeability the answer could be anyone and we'd be happy. The cast who plays these 8 are as much a who's who of past QT films as it's own plot points, and the story is framed like a stage-play, built from acts, using many of QT's previous trademarks that have come and gone through the years (the chapter marks from Kill Bill, the blood and crime drama of Res Dogs, the western-as-a-setting-to-provides-discussion-of-modern-race-relations of Django, the time distortion from most his films, the sudden out of place narrator and hidden-just-beyond-sight danger of Inglorious Basterds, and of course the director's cameo (though admittedly one of his least obtrusive)). All of these make H8 more of a classic QT film (unlike Django Unchained, which we may have been too-hard on but we hold QT to a higher level and expect something beyond just a genre-rehash for modern wish fulfillment). Hateful Eight is bolder than anything he's done in awhile, with a full commitment to his play-like setting with a large cast of regulars to mix it up in his bloody evil sandbox.
And those Hateful Eight are Kurt Russell (Death Proof) as John "Hangman" Ruth, brutally leading his prisoner Daisy Domergue (an almost unrecognizable Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the noose, the irreplaceable Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) as his fellow bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren who must justify his own existence constantly due to the color of his skin, Walton Goggins and Bruce Dern (both from Django) as Southern Rebels still nursing their loss in the War of Oppression, and Tim Roth and Michael Madsen (both from Resevoir Dogs) dressed up as two dangerous dandies out of place on the Western frontier. There are other new faces and old, but they are all wrapped singularly into the fate of Daisy and her appointment with the hangman and those who would stand in the way. Madsen's bizarre toughguy routine is blunted by his equally bizarre Will Rogers wardrobe (sticking out like a saddle sore thumb). Yet Jennifer's deliciously evil spitting crone has some viewers screaming "anti-woman" for the violence she is subjected to and lack of white-knighting onscreen. However, what QT is going for, and has successfully captured, is the harsh world of crime and punishment on the outlying segments of civilized society, a place where a gun and a fist are daily occurrences, where death is just outside your door if you aren't huddled by a fire and keep your horses fed, a world with a deadly lack of information and shifting trusts, of self reliance and uneasy pacts, the non-idealized old west where lynching and Injun wars and getting shot in the back were the realities, and women really were second class citizens trying to make a life amongst these brutes. You can hate the player a bit, but you should really be hating the game more, and QT is shining the light on our forefathers.
Now it ain't all comin' up roses. The movie is lengthy, and although it pays off in spades for it's long run it is also very wordy (luckily no "in the middle of everything Superman speeches" here however). In that weighty runtime there aren't enough amazing moments to quite sustain; no Jew Hunter at the table, no ear severance dance, no showdown at House of Blue Leaves, no Bags on Heads, no high octane car crash leg ejection. There is however enough tension and blood to maintain entertainment. And with a delightfully bombastic score by Spaghetti Western master-composer Ennio Morricone (with some leftover bits from his score from Carpenter's The Thing), it marks the first film Tarantino has used an original score and it comes off perfectly (he still sneaks in some choice cuts from modern sources). The cast at large does a terrific job (love ya Bob!), with Roth and Leigh and Russell and Goggins in particular enjoying their dialogue time on screen as much as we enjoy witnessing it.
So what is the point of all this, the 70mm wide angles, the straight foray into the American west of an admitted genre-muckraker, the encapsulating music, the buckets and buckets of gore, the fur coats and facial hair, the disparity of North vs South, Black vs White, Man vs Woman, Everyone vs Mexican? Why Channing Tatum, why a Roadshow release, why yet another good excuse for QT to use the N-Word? For the best reasons of all. To tell a story that you can feel and see and hear and think about, and that is why Quentin wrote it and the actors enjoyed playing it and why it can be watched by us. All 8+ characters are to be reviled and cheered as they suffer loudly, it is shades of grey for who justly lives and dies and ultimately who is the least hateful and who triumphs despite being hateful themselves. It is almost a polar opposite of this year's other big (biggest ever) release, Disney's Star Wars The Force Awakens. TH8 is Non-PC, non-regurgitated, non-self referencing, non-market tested consumer approved popart, and it was all made on non-digital cellulose film for and by cinephiles. This is cinema as high-art succumbing to it's basest desires, the spoken word from the typed page, the cold puffs of breath from a boiling actor lost in their role, the mountain vistas splashed with golden sunlight and the grungy floorboards soaked in crimson lifeblood.
See y'all down the trail.
8 Well-Loved Lincoln Letters and Pots of Coffee out of 10 (GREAT)
Anomalisa (2015)
Anomalisa (R)
"He who would pun would pick a pocket"
A married foreign-born writer on a speaking tour of the US for his new book finds himself falling in love with a complete stranger who's main appeal is that she sounds like no one else. Her name is Lisa and she is an anomaly, and they also happen to be stop-motion puppets in director Charlie Kaufman's adaptation of his own three person play, Anomolisa.
Kaufman's work often comes down to the nerve wracking realities of relationships. With Anomalisa, taking it from the starkness of a play to a film, Kaufman chose (brilliantly) to use stop-motion animation which is counter-intuitive medium for a film about adult situations. Meanwhile character actor David Thewlis (The Big Lebowski) brings Micheal's desperation for love to poignant life, he fills the role with pudgy exasperation. His counter part Lisa meanwhile is played against type by Jennifer Jason Leigh, and she is a bubbling self depreciating mess with a heart of gold.
Our time in Anomalisa is short, and at first we are bewildered, then scandalized, then reproachful, perhaps even a bit traumatized. By the film's end all the cards are laid onto the table and our own personal judgments are set, but much like tarot what we see in those cards is entirely subjective. And for these all too real relationships and bad choices and desperate people, to be just puppets on film with their dialog dubbed is itself a spectacular statement on our lives, and justifies the lengths the filmmaker's went to make it this way. Anomalisa is as real a statement on our romantic entanglements as any film made in decades. It is equal parts frenetic passion and loathing nightmare, perfectly embodied by these complex dolls who live a life filmed at a just few frames an day under their masters hand. The high artistry of the animation, it's complexity and characterized-humanity, mirror perfectly the script's ability to autopsy these characters to their earthen cores. Don't be surprised if you find yourself thinking and feeling about this film for years to come. Do be surprised if you feel your face shift just so.
9 Fregoli References out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)
"He who would pun would pick a pocket"
A married foreign-born writer on a speaking tour of the US for his new book finds himself falling in love with a complete stranger who's main appeal is that she sounds like no one else. Her name is Lisa and she is an anomaly, and they also happen to be stop-motion puppets in director Charlie Kaufman's adaptation of his own three person play, Anomolisa.
Kaufman's work often comes down to the nerve wracking realities of relationships. With Anomalisa, taking it from the starkness of a play to a film, Kaufman chose (brilliantly) to use stop-motion animation which is counter-intuitive medium for a film about adult situations. Meanwhile character actor David Thewlis (The Big Lebowski) brings Micheal's desperation for love to poignant life, he fills the role with pudgy exasperation. His counter part Lisa meanwhile is played against type by Jennifer Jason Leigh, and she is a bubbling self depreciating mess with a heart of gold.
Our time in Anomalisa is short, and at first we are bewildered, then scandalized, then reproachful, perhaps even a bit traumatized. By the film's end all the cards are laid onto the table and our own personal judgments are set, but much like tarot what we see in those cards is entirely subjective. And for these all too real relationships and bad choices and desperate people, to be just puppets on film with their dialog dubbed is itself a spectacular statement on our lives, and justifies the lengths the filmmaker's went to make it this way. Anomalisa is as real a statement on our romantic entanglements as any film made in decades. It is equal parts frenetic passion and loathing nightmare, perfectly embodied by these complex dolls who live a life filmed at a just few frames an day under their masters hand. The high artistry of the animation, it's complexity and characterized-humanity, mirror perfectly the script's ability to autopsy these characters to their earthen cores. Don't be surprised if you find yourself thinking and feeling about this film for years to come. Do be surprised if you feel your face shift just so.
9 Fregoli References out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)
The Witch (2015)
The Witch (R)
"Something VVicked This VVay comes"
In Colonial America, a family is ostracized from their village and forced to live in the dark, deep woods. Soon enough evil things befall them and as they begin to accuse each other of their sins the evil black truth comes to light in the moody yet cultured The Witch.
First and fore most, the Witch attempts to be a period piece, with all actors attempting the proper antique accents. The costume and production design maintain this illusion well, and the impending pall of raw supernatural fear that the family's unrestrained ignorance precludes slowly begins to seep into our experience. Shockingly, there are no morals to preach or symbolic circumstances to glean, but a clean dusky cinematography and naturalistic dialog. The Witch is a supernatural horror story told in ye olde English style, like one they would whisper in the village about not trusting black cats or breaking mirrors. The strength of the acting forces you through their world, one without pittance and mercy. There are many moments, visual and contextual, that shine in the film, however the scene of the mother with the crows alone is one of the best horror moments of the millennium (Kubrick would be proud). Stylized, realized and altogether well presented without a hint of cheese, the Witch will scratch an itch you may not have known you had, probably with a craggly black finger nail.
7 Black Tom Talks out of 10 (GOOD)
"Something VVicked This VVay comes"
In Colonial America, a family is ostracized from their village and forced to live in the dark, deep woods. Soon enough evil things befall them and as they begin to accuse each other of their sins the evil black truth comes to light in the moody yet cultured The Witch.
First and fore most, the Witch attempts to be a period piece, with all actors attempting the proper antique accents. The costume and production design maintain this illusion well, and the impending pall of raw supernatural fear that the family's unrestrained ignorance precludes slowly begins to seep into our experience. Shockingly, there are no morals to preach or symbolic circumstances to glean, but a clean dusky cinematography and naturalistic dialog. The Witch is a supernatural horror story told in ye olde English style, like one they would whisper in the village about not trusting black cats or breaking mirrors. The strength of the acting forces you through their world, one without pittance and mercy. There are many moments, visual and contextual, that shine in the film, however the scene of the mother with the crows alone is one of the best horror moments of the millennium (Kubrick would be proud). Stylized, realized and altogether well presented without a hint of cheese, the Witch will scratch an itch you may not have known you had, probably with a craggly black finger nail.
7 Black Tom Talks out of 10 (GOOD)
Sicario (2015)
Sicario (R)
"Traffic Jam"
FBI Agent Kate (Emily Blunt) makes a grisly discovery during a raid on an Arizona suburban home believed to be holding hostages. The deadly results lead her into the path of working with CIA officer Graver (Josh Brolin) and his adviser Alejandro (Benicio del Torro, as grim as ever) in drug pushing Mexico to find the real bad guys responsible. What they find south of the border and the Vietnam-ish mess of cause and effect in the Norther hemisphere results in a brooding yet overstated hot button issue that is the literal militarization of the Police-state that is Sicario's core message, brought to us by Director Denis Villenueve (Prisoners).
Sicario is a dark film, about the dark circumstances and business/political practices surrounding the U.S.'s southern border. The lens is once again artfully wielded by Cinematographer superstar Roger Deakins (who also worked on Prisoners), but unfortunately in Sicario there are very few moments of clarity or calamity to bask in the beauty. And where Prisoners got away with some of it's more convenient leaps in logic and plot due to it's very high tension and the rush of Hugh Jackman's parental instincts, Blunt's Kate is often left confused yet capable. Emily does an admirable job, but the character as written barely accomplishes anything, merely allowing herself to be swept along into the further escalation like Hamlet in Afghanistan. Sure the script gives her the option of backing out, but her character for some unspoken reason must heroically go through with it despite all the implied torture/rape/murder that could (and already almost did) befall her. The film makers want a "bad ass female lead" but give her nothing to do but pout and be a damsel in distress most of the movie being led around by the nose by Brolen's CIA jerk (he plays a good jerk FYI). Benicio's silent but deadly hit man plays to his strengths but gives him nothing new or challenging, except not enough screen time. Meanwhile Kate is front and center with nothing but a confused gape as she is told and shown things without context or exposition (we know how you feel Kate). At least with Savages or Traffic or (god forbid The Counselor) there wasn't a feeling of "welp, thats the way it is gringos" *shrug*.
Sicario knows what it wants to say (guns guns guns and drugs) and who it wants to say it about (love and fear thy southern/northern neighbor), it just does it in a disingenuous "how bleak is the future huh?" fashion tinged with backhanded misogyny that it leaves a bad aftertaste. Stick with the Taco Bell instead, it's better for you (just not as much atmosphere).
4.5 Never Trust the Latino Advisor in a White Suit out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"Traffic Jam"
FBI Agent Kate (Emily Blunt) makes a grisly discovery during a raid on an Arizona suburban home believed to be holding hostages. The deadly results lead her into the path of working with CIA officer Graver (Josh Brolin) and his adviser Alejandro (Benicio del Torro, as grim as ever) in drug pushing Mexico to find the real bad guys responsible. What they find south of the border and the Vietnam-ish mess of cause and effect in the Norther hemisphere results in a brooding yet overstated hot button issue that is the literal militarization of the Police-state that is Sicario's core message, brought to us by Director Denis Villenueve (Prisoners).
Sicario is a dark film, about the dark circumstances and business/political practices surrounding the U.S.'s southern border. The lens is once again artfully wielded by Cinematographer superstar Roger Deakins (who also worked on Prisoners), but unfortunately in Sicario there are very few moments of clarity or calamity to bask in the beauty. And where Prisoners got away with some of it's more convenient leaps in logic and plot due to it's very high tension and the rush of Hugh Jackman's parental instincts, Blunt's Kate is often left confused yet capable. Emily does an admirable job, but the character as written barely accomplishes anything, merely allowing herself to be swept along into the further escalation like Hamlet in Afghanistan. Sure the script gives her the option of backing out, but her character for some unspoken reason must heroically go through with it despite all the implied torture/rape/murder that could (and already almost did) befall her. The film makers want a "bad ass female lead" but give her nothing to do but pout and be a damsel in distress most of the movie being led around by the nose by Brolen's CIA jerk (he plays a good jerk FYI). Benicio's silent but deadly hit man plays to his strengths but gives him nothing new or challenging, except not enough screen time. Meanwhile Kate is front and center with nothing but a confused gape as she is told and shown things without context or exposition (we know how you feel Kate). At least with Savages or Traffic or (god forbid The Counselor) there wasn't a feeling of "welp, thats the way it is gringos" *shrug*.
Sicario knows what it wants to say (guns guns guns and drugs) and who it wants to say it about (love and fear thy southern/northern neighbor), it just does it in a disingenuous "how bleak is the future huh?" fashion tinged with backhanded misogyny that it leaves a bad aftertaste. Stick with the Taco Bell instead, it's better for you (just not as much atmosphere).
4.5 Never Trust the Latino Advisor in a White Suit out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Mad Max: Fury Road (R)
"What a Lovely Day!"
In the bombed out dusty future of our world, the remnants of society are banded together in savage attempts to survive the wasteland. Those, like Max, who cling to the past and refuse to submit to the new world are seen as mere untapped resources, lone wolves. And those that revolt against this insane patriarchy are pursued with chrome and bloody exhaust in Post-Apocalyptic godfather George Miller's 30 years in the making follow up to the Mad Max series, Fury Road.
With a character design dregged from the weird fantasies of Brom, vehicle designs that Ratfink would salivate over, a brutal world finally fully realized and minutia-ized, and stunts and action that are in-camera and astonishing to behold, Mad Max returns full throttle and on the red line. This is the kind of film either you know the genre and enjoy immersion or the over-the-top-ness will turn you off and you'll avoid. There are quite a few surprising twists thrown into the mix however, completely shattering the mold that Miller himself invented. CGI is prominent and a bit unwelcome (mostly it looks like for 3D showings and sometimes cheaply). Females now have a more prominent role, lead by Imperator Furiosa (the incomparable Charlize Theron who is well cast as the co-lead of the film). This may in fact turn off some of the muscle car and gear head beer swillers who traditionally enjoy Max films, as Furiosa commands much of the bad-assery on screen, what with the Evil-Dead arm and newly styled savage fem-action hero who somehow retains her femaleness (a woman Max she's not). Grrl Power is the name of the game in Fury Road, and many fans will astound at the backseat driving Max does for most of the film. Now played by Tom Hardy (Mel Gibson is retired in all but name due to his shenanigans), Max almost barely deserves to be in the title. And, unfortunately, Hardy is either not up to filling Gibson's Mad shoes or Miller unwilling to completely allow him to. The character is missing the insane drive and masculinity that Gibson brought the role, and combined with sharing the screen with Theron and having his character's madness upped to actual insanity really hampers one of the great action roles of all time. Perhaps a return of the character to full glory first without all the femme-fatals (sic) would have lessened the sting, but Max almost seems like just another of the interesting side-characters that colorize Miller's Apoc films.
And what colorful characters there are! The ultra-males, the seed saving grandmothers, the War Boys and concubines and Bullet Farmers, all tumor laced and disgusting. One is a stand out, young Nicholas Hoult (Hank McCoy in X-Men First Class) is a stand out as Nux the sickly War Boy. He has a manic energy and fanaticism that drives the first half and mellows the second, and is a stand out performance. All of the Max films have benefited from villains that you enjoy spending time with and seeing defeated, but Fury Road has so many of these characters whose insane lifestyle you just can't help but admire, who ride into battle like Valkyries with a Rock'N'Roll opera being performed live as they drive (like Wagner gene-spliced with GWAR) with flame throwers spitting and exhaust pipes flaming, that unlike much of the genre of post-apocalypse, Fury Road is a dangerous outback that seems fun to visit (even if no one would want to live there). The first break in the action left the audience winded, and then continued for another hour and a half. Fantastic stuff.
9 Don't Look Thumbs Up out of 10 (GREAT)
Bone-us Haiku
Shotgun eyes at dusk
Lizard skulls and blood bag dust
Chrome fenders eat well.
(Humongus Approved)
"What a Lovely Day!"
In the bombed out dusty future of our world, the remnants of society are banded together in savage attempts to survive the wasteland. Those, like Max, who cling to the past and refuse to submit to the new world are seen as mere untapped resources, lone wolves. And those that revolt against this insane patriarchy are pursued with chrome and bloody exhaust in Post-Apocalyptic godfather George Miller's 30 years in the making follow up to the Mad Max series, Fury Road.
With a character design dregged from the weird fantasies of Brom, vehicle designs that Ratfink would salivate over, a brutal world finally fully realized and minutia-ized, and stunts and action that are in-camera and astonishing to behold, Mad Max returns full throttle and on the red line. This is the kind of film either you know the genre and enjoy immersion or the over-the-top-ness will turn you off and you'll avoid. There are quite a few surprising twists thrown into the mix however, completely shattering the mold that Miller himself invented. CGI is prominent and a bit unwelcome (mostly it looks like for 3D showings and sometimes cheaply). Females now have a more prominent role, lead by Imperator Furiosa (the incomparable Charlize Theron who is well cast as the co-lead of the film). This may in fact turn off some of the muscle car and gear head beer swillers who traditionally enjoy Max films, as Furiosa commands much of the bad-assery on screen, what with the Evil-Dead arm and newly styled savage fem-action hero who somehow retains her femaleness (a woman Max she's not). Grrl Power is the name of the game in Fury Road, and many fans will astound at the backseat driving Max does for most of the film. Now played by Tom Hardy (Mel Gibson is retired in all but name due to his shenanigans), Max almost barely deserves to be in the title. And, unfortunately, Hardy is either not up to filling Gibson's Mad shoes or Miller unwilling to completely allow him to. The character is missing the insane drive and masculinity that Gibson brought the role, and combined with sharing the screen with Theron and having his character's madness upped to actual insanity really hampers one of the great action roles of all time. Perhaps a return of the character to full glory first without all the femme-fatals (sic) would have lessened the sting, but Max almost seems like just another of the interesting side-characters that colorize Miller's Apoc films.
And what colorful characters there are! The ultra-males, the seed saving grandmothers, the War Boys and concubines and Bullet Farmers, all tumor laced and disgusting. One is a stand out, young Nicholas Hoult (Hank McCoy in X-Men First Class) is a stand out as Nux the sickly War Boy. He has a manic energy and fanaticism that drives the first half and mellows the second, and is a stand out performance. All of the Max films have benefited from villains that you enjoy spending time with and seeing defeated, but Fury Road has so many of these characters whose insane lifestyle you just can't help but admire, who ride into battle like Valkyries with a Rock'N'Roll opera being performed live as they drive (like Wagner gene-spliced with GWAR) with flame throwers spitting and exhaust pipes flaming, that unlike much of the genre of post-apocalypse, Fury Road is a dangerous outback that seems fun to visit (even if no one would want to live there). The first break in the action left the audience winded, and then continued for another hour and a half. Fantastic stuff.
9 Don't Look Thumbs Up out of 10 (GREAT)
Bone-us Haiku
Shotgun eyes at dusk
Lizard skulls and blood bag dust
Chrome fenders eat well.
(Humongus Approved)
What We Do In The Shadows (2015)
What We Do In The Shadows (R)
"BAT FIGHT!"
Four Vampire roommates in New Zealand allow a camera crew into their den, a flat in Wellington that is soaked in blood and laughter in the new mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows.
Ridiculous and raucous, the flatmates interpersonal relationships drive the film as we discover the weird and zany lives of bloodsuckers. Co-written, starring and co-directed by Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement (of HBOs Flight of the Conchords), the film offers a peek into the underbelly world of the undead as they deal with finding victims, taunting (s)werewolves and doing the (literally) bloody dishes. Flatmates include Viago as a vampiric neat freak with a hole in his dead heart, Vladislav the Prodder has serious issues with his Ex leading to a lack of self confidence, Deacon is the brash newcomer at only 183 years old, and their terrifying master 8000 year old vampire Petyr sleeps in a sarcophagus in a basement covered with gore and bones. When Petyr converts a new kid named Nick to his brood, tensions arise in the house as rules are broken and fashion is stolen, leading to brushes with vampire hunters and irritable lycanthropes, culminating at the annual Undead masquerade ball where a human friend and the camera crew itself is in mortal danger from the attendees.
The film is often hilarious, the premise of mixing vampire jokes with bad roommate jokes is fantastic and rife with humor. The NZ cast is funny, the mockumentary angle, while trite, is effective, and it hits all the right veins of humor and horror. The camera work and editing can be a bit rough at times, but the special effects work in its favor and the characters will win over your black heart as they charm your neck out of hemoglobin and laughter. Perhaps a bit of a trifle, and it's low budget nature does rear it's shaggy head now and again, but in general you will be too distracted by the humor and good intentions of the filmmakers to mind being hypnotized into liking this silly goof-off
8 Vampires Vacuuming Vehemently out of 10 (GREAT)
"BAT FIGHT!"
Four Vampire roommates in New Zealand allow a camera crew into their den, a flat in Wellington that is soaked in blood and laughter in the new mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows.
Ridiculous and raucous, the flatmates interpersonal relationships drive the film as we discover the weird and zany lives of bloodsuckers. Co-written, starring and co-directed by Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement (of HBOs Flight of the Conchords), the film offers a peek into the underbelly world of the undead as they deal with finding victims, taunting (s)werewolves and doing the (literally) bloody dishes. Flatmates include Viago as a vampiric neat freak with a hole in his dead heart, Vladislav the Prodder has serious issues with his Ex leading to a lack of self confidence, Deacon is the brash newcomer at only 183 years old, and their terrifying master 8000 year old vampire Petyr sleeps in a sarcophagus in a basement covered with gore and bones. When Petyr converts a new kid named Nick to his brood, tensions arise in the house as rules are broken and fashion is stolen, leading to brushes with vampire hunters and irritable lycanthropes, culminating at the annual Undead masquerade ball where a human friend and the camera crew itself is in mortal danger from the attendees.
The film is often hilarious, the premise of mixing vampire jokes with bad roommate jokes is fantastic and rife with humor. The NZ cast is funny, the mockumentary angle, while trite, is effective, and it hits all the right veins of humor and horror. The camera work and editing can be a bit rough at times, but the special effects work in its favor and the characters will win over your black heart as they charm your neck out of hemoglobin and laughter. Perhaps a bit of a trifle, and it's low budget nature does rear it's shaggy head now and again, but in general you will be too distracted by the humor and good intentions of the filmmakers to mind being hypnotized into liking this silly goof-off
8 Vampires Vacuuming Vehemently out of 10 (GREAT)
Inherent Vice (2015)
Inherent Vice (R) - Noir Review
"Smoke 'em if you got 'em"
Gordita Beach, LA County, SoCal, 1970. A stoned PI is approached by his beach bunny ex-girlfriend about a case that ends up involving surf bands, white yachts, billionaire Real estate developers being kidnapped, Indonesian Tar Heroin syndicates, Commie Black Lists, anti-subversive units of the LAPD, Dentists, kinky sex, overdose of drugs and not enough rock n roll in director P.T. Anderson's (The Master) adaptation of the infamous Tom Pynchon's famous novel, Inherent Vice.
Firstly, the acting is stupendous. The cast is led by Joaquin Phoenix as "Doc," the bleary eyed mumbling flat foot with a spliff and a straw sunhat instead of a Marlboro and fedora. His counter balance is with LAPD Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, whose big shoes are filled with straight laced-rage and equal paranoia by Josh Brolin, bringing a much needed humor to his buttoned up meat head who likes to munch on frozen chocolate bananas. Other associates infiltrate the screen; Owen Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short (!) and Benicio Del Toro take turns at the absurd. But it's the femmes-(non)fatales that really shine with the leads, newishcomers Katherine Waterson sizzles with her own sensual light as Shasta the tricky ex and Joanna Newsome does a sunny double duty as a psychic friend and hippy dippy voice over narrator that really adds volumes to the post-60s ambiance.
Cinematographer Robert Elswit (BoogieNights and others) again gives PTA some knockout frames, and like Doc you may feel like someone slipped you a PCP spiked-joint filled with beautiful smoky colors that will put you on your ass, out cold. We, however, cannot avoid the bummers, and they are not hallucinations, we think? The manic energy of Anderson's earlier films is again missing when it is most sorely missed. This movie is a somber downer, but that itself isn't a criticism, the story is supposed to be a fuzzy headed hangover of a meandering Noir plot, memories of the night before terribly hard to dredge up through the haze of marijuana killed brain cells. However the red-veined eyes rarely ever impacts the lens, things are SAID and not VISUALIZED, which is a shocking misunderstanding of the book for a master visualist like PTA and company. This film has reverent regard for the source material, and to be sure this is one of the most faithful adaptations of a book, but instead of showing plot points the movie often only druggedly slurs them. This may make the plot over-complicated for some, extremely frustrating for others, where in the novel the clarity of the printed page helped somewhat.
The book? As a very faithful adaptation of the words, the film often sadly misses the novel's purpose. PTA's Inherent Vice is best when it riffs on the source material instead of sex-slavishly regurgitates it. The more exaggerated Cop vs Private Eye relationship is great stuff, the additional slap stick and notebook gags (which sadly stop about half way through) bring needed comic relief. The wish would be that PTA made more of those decisions instead of being 90% the page, which it is. For instead of being able to concentrate on the film, it brings up what was necessarily removed to achieve it's almost too long run time. The character of the places is almost gone, the surfer lifestyle mixed with the death of the 60s, the hectic surf music on the Dodge's radio dial, the post-Manson paranoia, the foggy beaches and scruffy surfers driving around in woodies and eating whole pies at delicatessens at midnight, this whole liver of the piece has been removed, and so the audience is left with the skeleton of the story with much of it's corpulent flesh shaved away, a junkie on a diet. Since music and moving pictures is what Anderson does best, it is a double downer that the soundtrack isn't affecting or period blaring rocknroll. Meanwhile everything else being so tied to the exact wording has hamstrung the film from the jazz-like improvisation that energized his early work or the darkly simpatico rhythms that fueled the madness of There Will Be Blood or The Master. Vice could really have used some of those offbeat vibes, and loudly.
And yet for every bad acid trip there is a good, and every scene Waterson's Shasta appears in outshines every other, even the Doc/Bigfoot bromances (which are subtly fantastic). The way the camera captures her, the way she embodies the poisonous image of "the ex," is obviously the focal point of Anderson's emotional reasons for making this film and wonderfully transports us to the mindset of a man hungup on a dame no matter how hard he tries. Her couch scene is worth the price of admission alone, for the reasons of her brazen acting courage, beautiful camera work, naturalness of environment, raw emotion and savage desires. Doc's feelings for Shasta aren't stated, they are shown, a tortuously toxic turn-on that he hides beneath layers of denial. It is a fascinating relationship, and a wonderfully realized hippy version of the black widow from noir-past as originally envisioned by Pynchon. It's an outstanding scene in a good film, and not the only one. They all have great acting and direction and cinematic panache, the entire film does. And yet the movie isn't great on its own, at least not yet. Perhaps with more viewings, as with the Master and yet so unlike his other films, that scenes that were great will overwhelm the rest and force it's entirety to greatness. *Sad Sax Solo* But unlike the movies whose company it wants to join, the neo-noir classics like Polanski's Chinatown or Altman's The Long Goodbye, Inherent Vice in the end fizzles like a wet zigzag joint (surprising for a writer so dedicated to fantastic endings and last words, even the book's ending has more punch). Perhaps, with time and a little TLC, Inherent Vice will blaze brightly, heavily potent and without it's (and our) former hangups to get in the way of letting us fade into the hazy spicy smoke of a complicated good time.
7 Painted Lady Neck Ties out of 10 (GOOD)
"Smoke 'em if you got 'em"
Gordita Beach, LA County, SoCal, 1970. A stoned PI is approached by his beach bunny ex-girlfriend about a case that ends up involving surf bands, white yachts, billionaire Real estate developers being kidnapped, Indonesian Tar Heroin syndicates, Commie Black Lists, anti-subversive units of the LAPD, Dentists, kinky sex, overdose of drugs and not enough rock n roll in director P.T. Anderson's (The Master) adaptation of the infamous Tom Pynchon's famous novel, Inherent Vice.
Firstly, the acting is stupendous. The cast is led by Joaquin Phoenix as "Doc," the bleary eyed mumbling flat foot with a spliff and a straw sunhat instead of a Marlboro and fedora. His counter balance is with LAPD Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, whose big shoes are filled with straight laced-rage and equal paranoia by Josh Brolin, bringing a much needed humor to his buttoned up meat head who likes to munch on frozen chocolate bananas. Other associates infiltrate the screen; Owen Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short (!) and Benicio Del Toro take turns at the absurd. But it's the femmes-(non)fatales that really shine with the leads, newishcomers Katherine Waterson sizzles with her own sensual light as Shasta the tricky ex and Joanna Newsome does a sunny double duty as a psychic friend and hippy dippy voice over narrator that really adds volumes to the post-60s ambiance.
Cinematographer Robert Elswit (BoogieNights and others) again gives PTA some knockout frames, and like Doc you may feel like someone slipped you a PCP spiked-joint filled with beautiful smoky colors that will put you on your ass, out cold. We, however, cannot avoid the bummers, and they are not hallucinations, we think? The manic energy of Anderson's earlier films is again missing when it is most sorely missed. This movie is a somber downer, but that itself isn't a criticism, the story is supposed to be a fuzzy headed hangover of a meandering Noir plot, memories of the night before terribly hard to dredge up through the haze of marijuana killed brain cells. However the red-veined eyes rarely ever impacts the lens, things are SAID and not VISUALIZED, which is a shocking misunderstanding of the book for a master visualist like PTA and company. This film has reverent regard for the source material, and to be sure this is one of the most faithful adaptations of a book, but instead of showing plot points the movie often only druggedly slurs them. This may make the plot over-complicated for some, extremely frustrating for others, where in the novel the clarity of the printed page helped somewhat.
The book? As a very faithful adaptation of the words, the film often sadly misses the novel's purpose. PTA's Inherent Vice is best when it riffs on the source material instead of sex-slavishly regurgitates it. The more exaggerated Cop vs Private Eye relationship is great stuff, the additional slap stick and notebook gags (which sadly stop about half way through) bring needed comic relief. The wish would be that PTA made more of those decisions instead of being 90% the page, which it is. For instead of being able to concentrate on the film, it brings up what was necessarily removed to achieve it's almost too long run time. The character of the places is almost gone, the surfer lifestyle mixed with the death of the 60s, the hectic surf music on the Dodge's radio dial, the post-Manson paranoia, the foggy beaches and scruffy surfers driving around in woodies and eating whole pies at delicatessens at midnight, this whole liver of the piece has been removed, and so the audience is left with the skeleton of the story with much of it's corpulent flesh shaved away, a junkie on a diet. Since music and moving pictures is what Anderson does best, it is a double downer that the soundtrack isn't affecting or period blaring rocknroll. Meanwhile everything else being so tied to the exact wording has hamstrung the film from the jazz-like improvisation that energized his early work or the darkly simpatico rhythms that fueled the madness of There Will Be Blood or The Master. Vice could really have used some of those offbeat vibes, and loudly.
And yet for every bad acid trip there is a good, and every scene Waterson's Shasta appears in outshines every other, even the Doc/Bigfoot bromances (which are subtly fantastic). The way the camera captures her, the way she embodies the poisonous image of "the ex," is obviously the focal point of Anderson's emotional reasons for making this film and wonderfully transports us to the mindset of a man hungup on a dame no matter how hard he tries. Her couch scene is worth the price of admission alone, for the reasons of her brazen acting courage, beautiful camera work, naturalness of environment, raw emotion and savage desires. Doc's feelings for Shasta aren't stated, they are shown, a tortuously toxic turn-on that he hides beneath layers of denial. It is a fascinating relationship, and a wonderfully realized hippy version of the black widow from noir-past as originally envisioned by Pynchon. It's an outstanding scene in a good film, and not the only one. They all have great acting and direction and cinematic panache, the entire film does. And yet the movie isn't great on its own, at least not yet. Perhaps with more viewings, as with the Master and yet so unlike his other films, that scenes that were great will overwhelm the rest and force it's entirety to greatness. *Sad Sax Solo* But unlike the movies whose company it wants to join, the neo-noir classics like Polanski's Chinatown or Altman's The Long Goodbye, Inherent Vice in the end fizzles like a wet zigzag joint (surprising for a writer so dedicated to fantastic endings and last words, even the book's ending has more punch). Perhaps, with time and a little TLC, Inherent Vice will blaze brightly, heavily potent and without it's (and our) former hangups to get in the way of letting us fade into the hazy spicy smoke of a complicated good time.
7 Painted Lady Neck Ties out of 10 (GOOD)
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About Me
- Kevin Gasaway via HardDrawn
- Turlock, California, United States
- Media and Reviews by Kevin Gasaway