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Everybody Wants Some – 4 stars

July 18, 2016
2016, 4 stars, Comedy
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Richard Linklater’s astute command of time and place is forever proven by his masterpiece, Dazed and Confused, which captured a Texas town’s high school circa 1976 in all its bell-bottomed, long-haired, keg-in-the-woods glory. Everybody Wants Some! ain’t Dazed and Confused. Focusing on a young college baseball player’s matriculation at a Texas college, Linklater appears to be satisfying an 80s-era checklist. Mud wrestling. Check. Disco. Check. Mechanical bull. Check.  “Get the Knack!” Check. And while Dazed and Confused gave you insight into the jocks, the stoners, the geeks, the parents, the coaches, the teachers and the townies, Everybody Wants Some! is limited to the hyper-male competitive environment of the baseball team, a group that parties hard, jumps on your Achilles at every opportunity, and challenges each other in all respects, when not dime-store philosophizing about winning, commitment, pot and “pussy.”

Yet, with all its flaws and limitations, I dug the movie. Linklater lovingly recreates the art of male bullshitting, which, granted, is not for everyone; the wonder of all the possibility of college; and the camaraderie of sports, all to an unabashedly “classic rock” soundtrack. it’s an acquired taste, and this is a very light film that at its best is merely charming, but I was smiling throughout.

Southpaw – 4 stars

July 4, 2016
2015, 4 stars, Drama
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There’s not one thing in Antoine Fuqua’s boxing rise-and-fall epic that even nears original, but cliche’ does not always have to be hackneyed, and through inventive camera work, all-in performances by Jake Gyllenhaal (as the Hell’s Kitchen boxer who loses it all) and Forrest Whittaker (playing the wise and world weary trainer), a captivating turn by the child actress playing Gyllenhaal’s daughter (Clare Foley) and expert pacing, assisted by a jumped up soundtrack, the thing works and works well.  There are problems. Gyllenhaal’s fall is a bit too protracted, and as hard as she tries to be working class, Rachel McAdams simply lacks the necessary grit.  They tried to dirty Amy Adams up in another boxing movie, The Fighter, and that too was a bridge too far.  These actresses don’t evoke the street, unless that street has a cul-de-sac.

Risen – 3.75 stars

June 23, 2016
2016, 3 stars, Historical
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Kevin Reynolds was a big deal at exactly the same time Kevin Costner was a bankable lead, directing or helping Costner out in massive budget fare like Dances With Wolves and Robin Hood (they fell out over Waterworld, with Reynolds remarking that Costner “should only act in movies he directs. That way, he can work with his favorite actor and director”).   It’s been a decade since Reynolds last helmed a Hollywood feature, but with Risen, he manages several minor victories that amount to a pretty compelling religious/historical procedural.

Jesus is on the cross and Pontius Pilate’s right-hand tribune, Clavius (Joseph Fiennes) is dispatched to hurry the process and smooth out the disposal of the body. When that body disappears, due it seems to the drunken inattention of Clavius’ guards, the politics of the situation (a pressed Pilate, furious Pharisees) finds Clavius embarking on an investigation and a manhunt for the apostles. In an era when big budgets and sweep are expected in “mere” television (see Game of Thrones), Reynolds does a nice job of minimizing the scope of the film while projecting authenticity. Shot on location in Malta and Spain for $20 million, the picture looks right.

Reynolds also effectively communicates the religious message (the previews for Risen include numerous films that share a common Christian theme that God is here, with us, saving kids from illnesses, showing them heaven, etc.) Naturally, Clavius has his own religious conversion, but it is not a momentous, eyes-shimmering thing.  Fiennes is understated and quite moving as he grapples with what he cannot believe. While the end is anticlimactic (Jesus appears to his disciples and then he’s off), it had to be, unless we were going to follow those apostles to their eventual, gruesome ends (11 of the 12 died ugly; only John died of natural causes).

It’s not perfect.  The script is a little thin and the one battle scene between the Romans and the Zealots feels tiny, but all-in-all, this is a game effort.

Joy – 2.5 stars

June 8, 2016
2 stars, 2015, Drama
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David O. Russell’s American Hustle was an over-heralded, stream-of-consciousness mess, but it was nominated for Best Picture, and I was a huge fan of Silver Linings Playbook, so the watching of Joy was obligatory. It was not an altogether unpleasant experience given Russell’s command of the camera and his early sense of pace. Russell briskly lntroduces us to Joy Mangano, a little girl and then a young woman destined for great things, if only she weren’t consistently thwarted by her lunatic family, a coterie of misfits and weirdos so peculiar they veer into Tim Burton territory. Still, with her one big idea – a self-wringing mop – she perseveres to become queen of The Home Shopping Network, though her journey is an exhausting “one step forward, two steps back” ordeal so arduous, even Jennifer Lawrence’s pluck and a kick ass Rolling Stones song (“Stray Cat Blues”) can’t make the resolution tolerable. One gets the sense Russell knows his audience is bored, because he appears to get bored, veering off into a resolution so off-kilter (Lawrence faces down her business foe in Texas, cutting her hair and donning leather, after reviewing some documents in a “Voila!” moment) it is laugh out loud funny.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – 3.25 stars

June 7, 2016
2016, 3 stars, Comedy
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Semi-compelling in its melding of the English countryside circa 1812 and brain-eating undead, this film has its moments.   In particular, Matthew Smith (an old Dr. Who) as Parson Collins and Lena Headey (Ceirse Lannister in Game of Thrones) as Lady Catherine de Bourgh get the joke, stealing every scene they are in with wink and nod mugging that acknowledges the levity of this venture. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast actually seems to be struggling with the delivery of Jane Austen in the middle of a zombie outbreak and choose to treat the latter as a catastrophe that demands some degree of solemnity. Worse, director Burr Steers finds it necessary to inject the tiresome physicality of a kung-fu movie, which is one ingredient too many for the stew. Still, this is pretty decent fun.

Suspicion – 2 stars

June 1, 2016
2 stars, 40s, Classic, Drama
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And those stars go to Alfred Hitchcock’s deft hand and Cary Grant’s irrepressible charm. Grant plays a society cad who gloms on to spinster Joan Fontaine, who impulsively marries him out of rebellion and passion. She soon learn Grant, charming though he may be, is a liar, a thief and a lay-about gambler, and his debts may be propelling him to more capital crimes. The essential tension, however, is wasted. The deck is so stacked against Grant that when he professes “it was all a misunderstanding”, you’re left disappointed at the expenditure of time and contemptuous of Fontaine, who just seems like a ninny. If Grant could not commit the capital crime, the studio sure did by insisting their star male lead could not play a wife murderer.

The film was nominated for Best Picture, Fontaine won Best Actress for her very delicate, frail but stagey performance which does not travel, and in an interview with Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock summed it up when he reported the actions of a producer who initially took every scene out that indicated Grant was a murderer, leaving a 55 minute product.

Anyone interested in Truffaut’s interviews with Hitchcock, enjoy.

 

The Witch – 4 stars

May 23, 2016
2016, 4 stars, Scary
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The Witch | Rotten Tomatoes

This is a consistently disturbing and terrifying film, one that explores myth, religion, and the dread of isolation in the cruel and unforgiving setting of pre-colonial America.  Writer-director Robert Eggers is a master of the creepy visual as he tracks a Puritan family, cast out from their community and into the wilderness on the strength of religious conviction. It is there, alone, that the bonds of their faith and family and the limits of their sanity are tested by the supernatural.

This film has a lot in common with The Babadook, invoking both curse, madness and the susceptibility of children, and like that film, there are moments of absolute horror that do not rely on a drop of shed blood.  If there is a weakness (and it is by no means universal, just one of personal taste), it is the simplicity of the threat. In The Witch, the threat is omnipotent and unexplained. It has no backstory, no articulated lore, and no vulnerability. As such, as assured as it presents, there is a decided lack of drama. We quickly learn these folks don’t stand a chance, and while their fate and story is loads more interesting than standard meat grinder fare, I just don’t have much of an interest when the deck is so stacked, no matter how skilled the effort.  Nonetheless, this movie has one of the spookiest feels of any I’ve seen.

Deadpool – 5 stars

May 16, 2016
2016, 5 stars, Action/Disaster
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It’s hard to decide on what was more enjoyable about Deadpool. There’s the ingenious flash-forward, flashback in story, which keeps the action fresh. There is also an intelligent self-referential trick; as Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is dragged to the estate of the X-Men, he asks “ “So, McAvoy or Stewart?”.  The back-and-forth between Reynolds – our hero, though he insists he is not – and the other characters is sharp and profane. The utter lack of seriousness, save for a very few poignant moments that are immediately deflated by the screenwriting equivalent of fart noises – is also a joy (indeed, Reynolds actually farts as he walks by his roommate, who, unbelievably, is a geriatric blind woman). There’s the 106 minute running time, juxtaposed nicely with the bloated, Shoah-like length of the interminable Avenger movies, which keeps things humming.

But I guess my favorite part is when Reynolds meets his love interest (Morena Baccarin) and we are educated as to the depth of their ardor via a montage of their incredibly kinky sex life, which incorporates days of commemoration. The image of Reynolds bound and on all fours as Baccarin prepares to “celebrate” International Women’s Day with him is hilarious, made more so by the image of parents quickly hustling their children out of a theater they lazily thought was showing children’s fare

Shotgun Stories – 5 stars

May 16, 2016
00s, 5 stars, Drama
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Anyone who watches movies knows that some of the greatest offerings of falsity come in the package of authenticity, and this is never more so than when a filmmaker takes his shot at rural or back home America. The pitfalls are many, and invariably, films about the small town succumb to oppressive nostalgia (Hoosiers), salt-of-the-earth worship (Promised Land), the presence of an impossibly attractive lead as he or she slums (Mel Gibson in The River, George Clooney in The Perfect Storm), cutesy “we’re jes’ folks” condescension (Passion Fish), amped up mythology (Out of the Furnace) or just plain old moronic messages, like money doesn’t buy happiness or home is where the heart is or safe sex is the best sex.

There are exceptions (Billy Bob Thornton’s Sling Blade, Carl Franklin’s One False Move, Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone), but they are rare and they are not current. In Mud, Take Shelter, and this film, a story about two modern Arkansas families drawn into a violent confrontation upon the death of their shared patriarch, writer-director Jeff Nichols cements that he can translate the patterns, pace and feel of the small town like no other. The actors portraying the family members are natural and unburdened by archetype, and the town itself is not presented to you as a metaphor or cautionary tale, just a town.

What Nichols does with actors and setting he achieves with tone. The families are seemingly in as safe a place as you can be, but when their animosities surface, their very environment becomes foreboding, and the pressure mounts accordingly. As the calamities befall them, there are no revelations or Hollywood speeches or screenwriter dot-connecting. Nichols is content to let you be the judge of what it all means.

This was Echol’s first film, and that may explain its brevity (about 90 minutes). The result is some backstory that is a tad rushed, but nonetheless, this is a gripping, thoughtful picture.