Category Archives: Drama

Air

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Release: Wednesday, April 5, 2023

👀 Theater

Written by: Alex Convery

Directed by: Ben Affleck

Starring: Matt Damon; Ben Affleck; Jason Bateman; Viola Davis; Chris Tucker; Marlon Wayans; Chris Messina

Distributor: Amazon Studios

 

***/*****

Air is a sports drama detailing the birth of the Air Jordans, the Nike shoe line that would change the sports marketing landscape forever. It may not be the kind of material that gets the adrenaline flowing in the traditional way, but Ben Affleck and a star-studded cast bring the brand recognition necessary to make a film about footwear actually fun.

Directed with verve by Affleck, with a script provided by Alex Convery, Air plays out as a corporate underdog story about how Nike, then a distant third to rivals Adidas and Converse, managed to woo a young Michael Jordan to the most lucrative athlete endorsement deal in history. It’s also a total time capsule of a movie, shuttling us back to the era of questionable fashion, big hair and the beeper. The opening montage pulls us down a tunnel of 80s nostalgia before settling on 1984 and a blocky brick building in Beaverton, Oregon.

It’s in these relatively limited confines of the Nike corporate headquarters where Robert Richardson’s camera swooshes through like a nervous intern trying to identify where all the most important rooms are, taking us into the lab where dust gathers compared to the way in which things are about to change. Everything including the mood seems to be trending downward, red lights flashing. It’s this limited line of sight that makes Air not the victim of predictability, but rather the beneficiary of hindsight and dramatic irony. 

Nike founder, CEO and meditator-in-chief Phil Knight (Affleck) is particularly concerned over the future of his basketball shoe division, which is coming off of an annual loss. He taps brash talent scout Sonny Vaccaro, portrayed by an affable (and out of shape) Damon, to find a new spokesperson. Vaccaro, in essence the star and to whom the film plays as a belated thank-you note, believes Nike’s saving grace is in getting Jordan to sign with them. Convincing the 21-year-old hot shot to walk away from his preferred choice (Adidas, then the market leader) isn’t going to be easy. And as marketing VP Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) doggedly reminds him, even less financially viable. 

Vaccaro wants to allocate their entire $250,000 budget to attracting a player who he sees as a generational, franchise-changing talent. He will differentiate Nike from the field by not just building a shoe, but custom designing a product specifically for MJ, despite him not yet having played a minute of pro ball. Matthew Maher portrays designer Peter Moore, whose conception of the name ‘Air Jordan’ serves as an amusing bit of controversy. Of course Vaccaro’s plan is met with heavy skepticism, not just from his colleagues but from Jordan’s ruthless agent, one David Falk (Chris Messina, whose research seems to have been heavily based on Jeremy Piven in Entourage). 

Staking his entire reputation on a hunch while incurring the wrath of the super agent in the process, Vaccaro packs his car for Wilmington, North Carolina, where he plans to speak directly to the parents, James (Julius Tennon) and Deloris Jordan (an outstanding Viola Davis, acting alongside her real-life husband). As MVP of the movie Davis exudes the appropriate gravitas of Mrs. Jordan, the x-factor. This woman knows how to negotiate. With crystal ball clarity she lays out the future — Michael will be the icon to which the NBA will hitch its wagon, not the other way around. Accordingly, she expects her son to be given his share of the pie. (In its first year of sales, the Air Jordan brought in $126 million, against a projected $3 million in three years.)

Despite the title Air stays grounded in reality. With the exception of the big pitch scene at Nike HQ where again Vaccaro finds himself going off-script, very little about the dialogue feels heightened for a Hollywood-friendly flavor. Tension is derived from real world concerns over reputation and livelihood rather than some fabricated event. To that extent, most of the characterization is restricted to professional ambition. There are hints at complications beyond the office, and Bateman has a good scene where he confides what’s at stake for him, personally, should Vaccaro not pull this stunt off, but the plot mostly keeps the focus on the business at hand.

Air is a highly specialized movie to the point where Jordan himself barely registers as a blip. Instead he hangs around the edges of the frame, unknowable for now and untouchable later. That we don’t much notice he doesn’t have a single line of dialogue speaks to the engrossing nature of these conversations. 

If you build it, they will fly

Moral of the Story: A sports story almost entirely lacking the cliche one expects out of the genre, Air undoubtedly is a movie that requires some knowledge of basketball history and a fandom for the game itself. At the same time, the star power goes a long way in making the esoteric more accessible and interesting. You could consume this crazy true story as an uplifting drama about career ambition and the power of self-confidence. Streaming now on Amazon Prime. 

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 112 mins.

Quoted: “A shoe is just a shoe.”

“. . .until my son steps into it.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

On the Count of Three

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Release: Wednesday, August 17, 2022 (Hulu)

👀 Hulu

Written by: Ari Katcher; Ryan Welch

Directed by: Jerrod Carmichael

Starring: Jerrod Carmichael; Christopher Abbott; J.B. Smoove; Henry Winkler; Tiffany Haddish 

Distributor: United Artists Releasing

 

 

****/*****

Jerrod Carmichael is a stand-up comedian known for pushing the envelope with his sets. Now he transposes that edginess to the big screen with his stunningly bold directorial debut On the Count of Three, a radical application of the day-in-the-life style narrative wherein two lifelong friends form a suicide pact.

With supreme confidence the 36-year-old not only directs and produces but also plays Val, a mulch factory worker who has lost the will to live. Following a failed attempt to take his own life, one afternoon he up and quits his job, stops talking to his pregnant girlfriend Natasha (an excellent Tiffany Haddish in limited capacity) and goes to free his friend Kevin (Christopher Abbott) from the psychiatric facility where he’s being kept following his own recent suicide attempt.

He then drives them in his Jeep to behind a strip joint during off-hours and, presenting a pair of pistols, explains to Kevin they have a chance to finally put their suffering behind them, once and for all. Before they go through with the act Kevin convinces Val they should at least celebrate their last day together. If nothing else, they can spend their final hours putting right a few wrongs, bringing their own kind of justice to the doorstep of those who they feel most deserve it.

What ensues is the kind of nomadic trundling you get in a Duplass brothers misadventure, except everything here feels dangerous. This is a movie that truly lives in the moment, a dark thrill ride marked by impulsive behavior and underpinned by a ceaseless, queasy tension. While Val has unfinished business with his abusive alcoholic father (an impressively against-type J.B. Smoove) who still owes his son the thousands of dollars he stole from him years ago, all paths lead to a showdown with one Dr. Brenner (a slimy turn from Henry Winkler), the psychiatrist who sexually abused Kevin as a child.

The script by Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch swims in a morass of strong emotions and twisted morals. Even at a brisk 86 minutes it can be challenging to endure, but like Owen Pallett’s score, a moody accompaniment that’s ominous one scene and almost whimsical in another, their story prefers variation over monotony. There is hope and even humor in this desperate last hoorah, one that also involves impromptu dirt bike races, a confrontation at a gas station (with entirely unexpected results) and exhilarating cop chases.

Finding a way to turn a positive out of so many negatives, On the Count of Three is made not just possible but palatable through the compassion the filmmakers demonstrate. That really comes through in the quality of the performances; while everyone takes their role seriously, Carmichael and Abbott, through wildly contrasting emotional registers, carry pain in a way that doesn’t feel performed as much as lived. The commitment results in a powerful testament to the support system of friendship, as well as a scathing indictment of the failure of institutions and of individuals who should know better.

** If you or a loved one is in crisis, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK or the Crisis Text Line (Text ‘TALK’ to 741741) to talk to someone who can help. **

Moral of the Story: On the Count of Three is not casual moviegoing fare but it’s also not an exercise in audience abuse, even when the mood remains heavy and dialogue cuts deep. While I do think this is a very important movie to have been made, I struggle to fully recommend such upsetting material to a wide audience. 

Rated: hard R

Running Time: 86 mins.

Quoted: “Thanks for hitting my dad in the head with the tire iron. You’re a good friend Kevin.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

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Release: Friday, June 24, 2022 (limited)

👀 Showtime

Written by: Dean Fleischer Camp; Jenny Slate; Nick Paley

Directed by: Dean Fleischer Camp

Starring: Jenny Slate; Dean Fleischer Camp; Isabella Rossellini; Thomas Mann; Rosa Salazar; Lesley Stahl

Distributor: A24

 

*****/*****

For a movie whose star stands a whopping one-inch tall, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On packs a sizable emotional punch. A runner-up at the 95th Academy Awards in the Best Animated Film category, this gentle reminder of the importance of friendship, community and bravery in the face of uncertainty finds the little guy really coming out of his shell as he tries to reunite with his extended family.

Shot in stop-motion and at basically ankle-height, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On acts as a continuation of a series of YouTube short films featuring the talkative, inquisitive little mollusk but it ups the ante in terms of the challenges he faces and territory he has to cover. At his size he obviously has to deal with the physical obstacle course of navigating ordinary household objects — the laundry room is a particularly treacherous place — but this is also a journey of self-discovery that will require him to face some of his biggest fears, a prospect that may sound cliché but is handled in surprisingly mature and interesting ways.

Once part of a bustling community of shells, Marcel, whose whispery, childlike voice is rendered in a seemingly impossible pitch by SNL alum Jenny Slate, now lives only with his grandmother Connie (Isabella Rossellini) and his pet lint Alan. They reside in an Airbnb whose previous occupants (Thomas Mann and Rosa Salazar) fought so much Marcel and company came up with designated fall-out shelters to retreat from the chaos. Unfortunately that plan backfired during a particularly bad blowup and the group got split up. Since then the two have managed to eke out a quiet if lonely existence, spending their days in the garden and their nights in front of the TV sharing a mutual admiration for 60 Minutes host Lesley Stahl.

Our way into this world is through aspiring filmmaker Dean (Dean Fleischer Camp) who has just rented the place following some turmoil in his own life. Empathetic to his housemate’s situation but also impressed by his resourcefulness and positivity he decides to film Marcel’s daily activities and uploads the footage to the internet, which then goes viral. Complications arise when Marcel reaches out to his rapidly growing fanbase for help in tracking down his family — a development that ends up bringing new levels of stress and danger to their doorstep.

The pitfalls of the internet may not be as topical a theme as it was when Marcel first debuted on YouTube, but the concept opens up the movie in ways that are unexpectedly affecting. As the national media get involved — even the 60 Minutes crew reaches out with a request for an interview — Marcel grows more resistant to the idea of allowing more strangers into his life and possibly destroying what little he has left. Yet Connie, ever a beacon of wisdom, urges her grandson to embrace the opportunity for personal growth and to live a life that’s meaningful.

The collaborative screenplay (by Camp, Slate and Nick Paley) is surely heartwarming but the craftsmanship takes the experience to another level. Scaled down to proportions that are amusing but also practical and lifelike (where else are you going to find tennis balls being repurposed as vehicles, or the muzzles of champagne bottles functioning as upscale furniture?) Marcel’s world is the beautifully ergonomic result of some clearly painstaking effort — one careless bump of an elbow or a knee and the whole scene, the whole world falls apart. The minutiae of stop-motion animation is a labor of love that puts to shame some of the most elaborately detailed CGI showdowns.

The aesthetic makes it tempting to describe Marcel the Shell with Shoes On as a playful thing destined to be limited to a younger audience. But just as there are new things to discover in the nooks and crannies of just about every shot, there is an undercurrent of melancholy, even darkness to the story — to a few of Marcel’s pithy observations about the world around him. The dialogue is as witty as it is incisive, like a precocious child unaware of their own impact. 

While there is some drag to the running time and some of the plot points feel rushed, the filmmakers justify the big-screen treatment by making Marcel’s journey a universal experience, one of human emotion and connection rather than just a series of cutesy questions and observations remarking on his diminutive stature. There’s significant growth for our protagonist, which seems a weird thing to say about a shell, but there you go.

setting up the IMAX screening for the public

Moral of the Story: I was expecting to get along great with the Marcel the Shell movie; I was not expecting to be moved as deeply as I was by it. A beautiful, bittersweet little adventure that has something to offer viewers of all ages. 

Rated: PG

Running Time: 80 mins. 

Quoted: “My cousin fell asleep in a pocket and that’s why I don’t like the saying, ‘everything comes out in the wash,’ because sometimes it doesn’t. Or sometimes it does and they’re just like a completely different person.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com

The Banshees of Inisherin

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Release: Friday, October 21, 2022 (limited)

👀 Theater

Written by: Martin McDonagh

Directed by: Martin McDonagh

Starring: Colin Farrell; Brendan Gleeson; Kerry Condon; Barry Keoghan; Sheila Flitton; Gary Lydon

Distributor: Searchlight Pictures

 

****/*****

With The Banshees of Inisherin Martin McDonagh has discovered a new offshoot of the buddy comedy genre, the “You Are Dead to Me Buddy” comedy. Far from a feel-good experience, McDonagh’s fourth effort is a darkly amusing folly about male egotism, connection and loneliness that rests in the hands of tremendous performances and whose grimness is often obscured by some truly gorgeous production design.

The baffling story, in which the disintegration of a longstanding friendship leads to harsh consequences for all involved, takes place in 1923 on the fictional Irish isle of Inisherin. Two men find themselves at an impasse when Colm (Brendan Gleeson), an aspiring Important Musician, decides out of the blue to stop associating with his lifelong friend Pádraic (Colin Farrell), a nice but apparently “dull” farmer. On the mainland the waning days of the Irish Civil War are signified by periodic gunfire echoing off the limestone coastlines, as larger reverberations of what’s unfolding on this disenfranchised stone. They’re hardly subtle, but still effective as part of a grand orchestration of comically depressive factors that render Inisherin as more purgatorial than anything accessible.

In medias res McDonagh throws us into farce as Pádraic, who’s been operating under the assumption he’s no more boring today than he was yesterday, goes to make his rounds at his friend’s like he always does but instead gets the cold shoulder. To Pádraic, the daily pilgrimage to the pub for a cold brew and some idle chitchat is hardly the worst thing a fella can do with his time. But Colm, a fiddle player whom we watch gladly taking on the company of fellow musicians while routinely snubbing his mate, disagrees. “I have a tremendous sense of time slipping away,” he bemoans at one point — as if delusions of grandeur could qualify as a terminal illness. 

When Pádraic refuses to accept the silent treatment, Colm sees no other option but to offer a grim ultimatum: Each time he is bothered by Pádraic he will cut off one of his own fingers. An absurd suggestion, not least because this will make it more challenging to complete the song he’s putting together, but sadly not a bitter old man’s bluff. As tensions worsen, we see the various ways other lives are affected. Chief among them is Pádraic’s kindhearted but exasperated sister Siobhán (Kerry Condon), who yearns for something more out of life than the misery Inisherin seems to inspire. Meanwhile Barry Keoghan may well play the film’s most tragic character, Dominic, the dimwitted son of the local Garda (Gary Lydon) who copes with his father’s horrible abuse by confiding in Pádraic, one of the few “nice” guys.

The story is slight but not inconsequential, a series of farcical vignettes building to an unsurprising but still somehow shocking crescendo of childish behavior. Whatever Banshees lacks in complicated plot it makes up for in strong craftsmanship and the performances are top of the list. What starts as passive-aggressive avoidance becomes more like a heavyweight boxing match where it isn’t clear which performer leaves the more bruising impact. Farrell has the showier role and uses his thick eyebrows and slumped shoulders to etch a devastating portrait of dejection, while Gleeson is intriguing in his own icy, enigmatic way and more than a little infuriating for the same reason.

As good as they are, and for how good the work is across the board — Condon in particular is outstanding as the island’s resident Sane Person — the rich production design and brilliant location scouting elevates the whole thing. Neither peninsula nor panhandle would seem to cut it for the depths of despair McDonagh is reaching for here, and his vision is supported by DP Ben Davis’ camerawork which oscillates between intimate, lonely interiors and sweeping atmospheric shots that powerfully evoke mood. Purpose-built sets are quaint inside and even the various animals taking advantage of the production’s open-door policy have important roles to play.

Banshees reunites Farrell and Gleeson with their In Bruges director after 15 years. The results have been met with critical adoration, most notably nine Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture. Because of the simplistic nature of the story a win seems like a long shot, but the film is powerfully transportive and certainly has the emotional gravity of a winner without ever feeling like it’s fawning for all that attention. It’s just such a natural movie despite, well, its unnatural actions. It is a pathetic state of affairs to be sure, but then that is kind of the point.

A feckin’ reckonin’

Moral of the Story: Melancholic and maddening, Martin McDonagh’s elegiac take on friendship, a cautionary tale about unchecked hubris, might not fit the bill for those looking for easy laughs but it’s a strong recommendation for those who are familiar with the director’s work and those who like offbeat stories. Not to mention an impressive follow-up to his previous effort, a movie that famously saw Frances McDormand drill her own dentist through the fingernail. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 114 mins. 

Quoted: “Some things there’s no moving on from. And I think that’s a good thing.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

White Noise

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Release: Friday, November 25, 2022 (limited)

👀 Netflix

Written by: Noah Baumbach

Directed by: Noah Baumbach

Starring: Adam Driver; Greta Gerwig; Don Cheadle

Distributor: Netflix

 

 

***/*****

White Noise is a movie with a lot going on. Just when you think the story is about to end it finds new batteries and keeps going. Shifting through multiple themes, genres and tones, this sprawling exploration of social and existential anxiety features a lot of the elements that have made Noah Baumbach a uniquely observant filmmaker, but it also finds him stretched as he tries to cover so much ground in a reasonable amount of time.

Baumbach’s third film for Netflix (following his Oscar-winning Marriage Story and the ensemble family drama The Meyerowitz Stories) is an adaptation of a 1985 Don DeLillo novel the cognoscenti have deemed “un-filmable.” With its potpourri of themes and an assortment of characters frazzled by their own fears, quirks and suspicions, White Noise is absurdist, complicated comedy that requires a fine directorial touch. Baumbach needs to be more of a sound engineer as he searches for the right mix, moving all sorts of dials as he balances big set pieces, tricky dialogue and nuanced characters — all while perpetuating this frenzied climate of angst that feels maybe too real.

Split into three distinct acts and rolling the clock back to the 1980s, the film follows an upper-middle-class family in suburban Ohio as they try to deal with life in upheaval following a local disaster. The first forty-ish minutes lay out the pieces of a family dynamic that is both hectic and strangely stable (for a Baumbach movie). Patriarch Jack Gladney (Adam Driver) is a college professor with a dubiously specific area of focus who spends much of his day basking in the company of his fellow intellectuals, particularly amused by the poetic and quite possibly psychotic diatribes of Murray Siskind (a scene-stealing Don Cheadle), a so-called expert on American culture who just may spin off the planet one day with his crackpot theories.

Jack descends from this high throne each day and happily embraces the chaos at home with his wife Babette (Greta Gerwig), a postural therapist, and their four children. They’ve both been married multiple times before and run their marriage with a blunt honesty that manifests most memorably in their morbid pillow talk. Heinrich (Sam Nivola) and Steffie (May Nivola) are Jack’s, while Denise (Raffey Cassidy) is Babette’s and their youngest son, Wilder, they conceived together. The blended family dynamic means there’s never a dull moment and questions about the world around them abound — especially when Heinrich, who’s always on top of current events, begins hearing radio reports of a toxic chemical spill that could affect the entire area.

A major but well-handled transition leads into what feels like a different movie altogether, not to mention a total departure from anything resembling the chatterbox pictures the writer/director has built his career on. Fortunately Baumbach has his two most reliable commodities in Driver and Gerwig to help steer the way. The seasoned actors never seem fazed by the challenge, even when their characters are beginning to lose it. The so-named “airborne toxic event” prompts an evacuation and the Griswolds Gladneys load up in the family station wagon, soon swept up in the confusion and herded through a series of disorienting events that include makeshift quarantine sites, car chases through the woods (one of the best and funniest scenes by far) and strange encounters with a creepy, balding man whose face the camera can’t quite find.

White Noise is a long and meandering film — a low-key odyssey that, despite its chameleonic genre shifts, always stays anxious, always stays weird. Yet what has been for the most part entertainingly bizarre becomes more laborious down the final stretch as the story again reshapes into something more intimate and its core themes become crystallized. Everyone has been allowed to return home but life has not exactly returned to normal. The air may have cleared but the lingering effects of a traumatic event have infiltrated the house. Suddenly we’re stalking out seedy motel rooms and being treated by atheist nuns in a paranoia-fueled thriller that grows like a tumor off the main narrative. It’s the least convincing stretch of story by a muddy-river mile. 

On the whole, Baumbach succeeds in adapting someone else’s work without sacrificing his own idiosyncratic style. Ironically it’s in a passage where things are falling apart where he too seems to lose his grip. But he merges together so many concepts and pulls together three-dimensional characters such that these moments feel more like hiccups than major hang-ups. White Noise is messy, but it’s a colorful mess.

You won’t see this everyday . . .

Moral of the Story: Those who are already acclimated to the filmmaker’s unique style (specifically the way he writes dialogue and characters) will probably have an easier time navigating through White Noise‘s many and complicated movements. It’s an audacious movie that can be just as interesting in its blockbuster-y moments as it is when roaming the grocery store aisles. A uniquely whacky experience. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 136 mins. 

Quoted: “There are two kinds of people in this world, killers and diers. Most of us are diers.” 

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

All Quiet on the Western Front

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Release: Friday, October 28, 2022

👀 Netflix

Written by: Ian Stokell; Lesley Paterson; Edward Berger

Directed by: Edward Berger

Starring: Felix Kammerer; Albrecht Schuch; Daniel Brühl; Devid Striesow; Thibault de Montalembert 

Distributor: Netflix

 

****/*****

All Quiet on the Western Front is an intense experience, mostly by virtue of its realistic depictions of wartime violence. Based on the 1929 novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque, Edward Berger’s adaptation loses some of the detail found on the pages but nevertheless adopts the powerful anti-war stance of its source, a descent into hell experienced through the eyes of a young man during World War I. It’s not subtle with its messaging, nor should it be.

The material has of course been adapted before (in 1930 by Lewis Milestone, widely considered the definitive version, and for TV in 1979) but Berger has the distinction of directing the first German adaptation of the property. The result is a breathtaking and completely devastating account that follows 17-year-old foot soldier Paul Baümer (Felix Kammerer in an impressive big screen début) as his romantic notions of becoming a war hero are quickly broken once he’s exposed to the realities of the front line.

The grim opening is a masterclass, establishing tone and theme with machine-like efficiency. A teen-aged soldier named Heinrich is killed in action and the scene cuts to show his uniform being stripped from his corpse and sent to a cleaning facility where it will be sent back out for a new recruit to call his own. When Paul, who’s forged his parents’ signature so he can join his mates in the good fight, receives his uniform and notices Heinrich’s name tag still attached, he’s simply told the uniform was too small and that “this happens all the time.” The moment passes as an afterthought — the adrenaline in Paul, galvanized by the patriotic speech delivered by his school teacher, overriding whatever concerns he has.

That excitement passes just as quickly when Paul and his friends Albert (Aaron Hilmer), Franz (Moritz Klaus) and Ludwig (Adrian Grünewald) arrive at the water-logged, disease-riddled trenches near the northern French town of La Malmaison and their first night gives them a taste of what they were never told in the pamphlet. It’s not long before shell-shock takes hold, transforming exuberant boys into statues. With the emphasis on Paul, Kammerer’s gaunt and wide-eyed countenance makes for a powerful canvas upon which the loss of innocence plays out.

Meanwhile, in a radical but still impactful diversion from the book, a second plot thread follows the efforts of German official Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl) as he scrambles to put a stop to the mounting casualties in what he and other top brass already know is a lost cause. News of the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II turns up the pressure to capitulate, yet Erzberger remains optimistic for productive discussions with the Allied forces. Brühl is very good portraying a pivotal historical figure, peaking with his high wire act of initiating peace talks with Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch (Thibault de Montalembert), who isn’t in a particularly merciful mood. The German Imperial Army has 72 hours to surrender, no negotiations.

From a standpoint of narrative flow the compromise here is apparent. The cuts back and forth sometimes feel disruptive, taking us away from what seems most urgent. However these pauses in the action are suffused with such tension and fatefulness they feel like essential inclusions, hinting toward the circumstances that fueled resentment and ultimately gave rise to a much darker period in German history. One of the most overt indications of where things are going is General Friedrichs (Devid Striesow), an overzealous power-monger who’s willing to sacrifice any number of faceless patriots in order to secure his own personal victory.

While the movie is extremely violent — there are a few sequences here that rival the opening stanza of Saving Private Ryan in terms of the disorienting, overwhelming pace and perversion of the situation — there is a bluntness about the presentation that disturbs even more. Throughout the camera remains a cold and objective observer while Ian Stokell and Lesley Paterson’s screenplay shares none of the idealism of its gung-ho protagonists who, on the cusp of manhood, are swayed by the idea of fighting for honor and courage for The Fatherland. In drawing attention to the endless cycle of death the narrative structure feels more like a machine itself.

All Quiet isn’t just intense; it’s exhausting and depressing. And that’s how it should be as well. A war film shouldn’t be easy to watch. Despite a final act that betrays logic (and history) somewhat, Berger’s approach is laudable for its brutal honesty and adherence to the spirit of the landmark source material.

Moral of the Story: Parts Dunkirk and 1917 with its immersive you-are-there POV, but more memorable for its Saving Private Ryan/We Were Soldiers-level of realistic violence, All Quiet on the Western Front is a war film that, as hard as it is to endure, might just be essential viewing. 

Rated: hard R

Running Time: 147 mins.

Quoted: “What is a soldier without war?”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

The Tender Bar

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Release: Friday, December 17, 2021 (limited)

👀 Amazon Prime

Written by: William Monahan

Directed by: George Clooney

Starring: Ben Affleck; Tye Sheridan; Daniel Ranieri; Lily Rabe; Max Martini; Christopher Lloyd; Briana Middleton

Distributor: Amazon Studios

 

 

**/*****

Movies about aspiring writers too often come across mawkish and cheesy. It’s almost a condition, something that just comes with the territory and which the likable but cliché The Tender Bar doesn’t do enough to defend against.

Orange County set on the East Coast, more specifically Long Island, The Tender Bar is a coming-of-age drama based on the memoir written by Pulitzer-prize winning novelist and journalist J.R. Moehringer. Filtered through thick accents and an unabashedly sentimental lens, it charts his path from humble upbringings to Yale University and a bit beyond, exploring the influence that his family had on shaping his dream. Yet for all its good intentions and stretches of excellent acting, it’s a strange feeling to sit through something as banal as what we get here, considering the talent both in front of and behind the camera and the Oscar-winning pedigree of screenwriter William Monahan (The Departed).

While it’s certainly not the latter’s best effort — the dialogue is often corny, most of it unfortunately spouted by Ron Livingston in his Wonder Years-like voice-over — this is more about George Clooney phoning it in as director, failing to girder Moehringer’s memoir with a compelling cinematic treatment. If this were your introduction to the subject (as it was for me) you might come away shrugging the whole thing off as inconsequential. Moehringer is an accomplished writer but the hackneyed presentation doesn’t make him seem very interesting.

About the only distinction The Tender Bar has is a terrific performance from Ben Affleck, who becomes the role model J.R.’s biological father never was interested in playing, particularly in his childhood. He plays Uncle Charlie, a stabilizing force in the chaotic house into which young J.R. (introducing Daniel Ranieri) and his mother (Lily Rabe) are flung at the movie’s open. He’s also the bartender at The Dickens, a little hole-in-the-wall where dozens of books line the shelves alongside the booze. It’s here where J.R. spends much of his time, sipping Coca-Cola and inhaling life advice from his sleeper-genius uncle, whose own murky career goals belie the clarity of his wisdom.

The movie’s other asset is Max Martini who provides the antithesis to Affleck’s charm and warmth. As J.R.’s father, a radio deejay only referred to as “The Voice,” he doesn’t appear for long but enough to leave a bruise. The inevitable confrontation between him and his upward-trending son (now Tye Sheridan — amiable if unremarkable), although patently predictable given Clooney’s strict adherence to formula, lends tension to a story where most obstacles are cleared without effort. And if not effortlessly cleared, needlessly repeated — Briana Middleton’s appearance as a love interest does nothing to advance the story, only to remind of the elitism that swirls at the Ivy League level.

The condescension J.R. experiences here is what we feel throughout much of the story. The Tender Bar is pleasant enough but also basic. Like its subject and his needing to know what his initials stand for, it’s constantly searching for an identity of its own.

You’re the greatest inspiration in my life, bar none

Moral of the Story: Though sometimes too schmaltzy, The Tender Bar has occasional moments of affecting character work, especially between Affleck and the young Ranieri. But he gets along famously with both actors, and it’s that dynamic I’d recommend more than anything else here. Without trying to sound snobby, it’s just not a particularly deep movie. 

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 104 mins.

Quoted: “I want to be a writer, but I suck.”

“Well, when you suck at writing, that’s when you become a journalist.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

All the Old Knives

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Release: Friday, April 8, 2022 (limited)

👀 Amazon Prime

Written by: Olen Steinhauer 

Directed by: Janus Metz

Starring: Chris Pine; Thandiwe Newton; Laurence Fishburne; Jonathan Pryce; David Dawson; Corey Johnson

Distributor: Amazon Studios

 

 

 

***/*****

All the Old Knives finds stars Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton locked into one of the longest dinner scenes ever put to film. You can imagine the importance of the conversation when it requires the entire length of the movie for it to transpire. Indeed the stakes are higher than your average dinner date, and it’s this back-and-forth from which director Janus Metz manages to build out a familiar but consistently engaging spy thriller, one in which profession and passion blur together in dangerous ways.

The two respectively play Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, a pair of CIA agents and ex-lovers brought back together at a luxurious restaurant where not even the spectacular Californian sunset can distract from the unpleasant business at hand. An old case, a 2012 hijacking of a Turkish Alliance passenger plane which ended in tragedy, has been reopened after new information comes to light there was a mole inside the Vienna station where Henry and Celia worked. Eight years later and Henry has been sent by station chief Vick Wallinger (Laurence Fishburne) to sniff out the leak — a task that will require Henry to face his ex for the first time since she abruptly cut ties with him and the agency following the disaster.

All the Old Knives is a talky espionage thriller that feels more like a mystery with the way it plays with perspective and strategically slips in red herrings between the rounds of red wine. Set within a world more apropos of John le Carré than Ian Fleming, the story, written by Olen Steinhauer who adapts the material from his own novel, eschews foot chases and big shoot-outs and leans more into the cerebral. Avoiding the trap of creating a stagy and static experience, Metz opens up his single-room setting with a flashback-heavy structure, peeling the layers of the onion to get to the core truth (which may or may not wow you depending on your aptitude for guessing twists).

Celia’s recollection does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of set-up, placing us amidst the chaotic scene at the Vienna branch. Yet as time progresses it becomes increasingly obvious we’re not getting the full picture. A group of four armed militants, led by Ilyas Shushani (Orli Shuka) whose backstory becomes a vital piece of the puzzle, has taken over a plane on the runway at Vienna International and is demanding the release of several of their allies from prison. Ahmed, a CIA courier, happens to be on board and feeds the team information, such as the fact the men have mounted a camera on the undercarriage of the plane and have begun using children as human shields.

Amid this walk down nightmare lane, another set of scenes fleshes out Henry’s point of view and what’s at stake for him personally and professionally. His itinerary takes him from Vienna to California by way of London where, at a pub, he corners a nervous and fidgety Bill Compton (Jonathan Pryce), a senior agent who served as a mentor to Celia. Henry has reason to believe someone inside the team leaked information to the terrorists on board which prevented a successful rescue attempt from being carried out. And there’s some suspect circumstances surrounding Bill’s office phone that compels Henry to dig his claws in.

For all the well-trodden ground found in its exploration of trauma, loyalty and betrayal, All the Old Knives has a way of keeping you invested. A lot of that comes down to the performances, with the likes of Fishburne and Pryce elevating smaller parts with their considerable gravitas. However, most of the good stuff rides on the interplay between Pine and Newton, who frequently command the screen as each successive return to the table finds their Poker faces slowly morphing into something more pained. They make the guessing game entertaining as the perceived power dynamic shifts like water sloshing in a jug. 

However there are some things good acting and palpable tension can’t cover up, like the superfluous inclusion of a so-called supporting character — not exactly a deal-breaker, but an unfortunate misstep in an otherwise taut and efficient production. Taken all together, All the Old Knives may feature a number of tricks you’ve seen before, but Metz never allows the interest to wane or the layered storytelling to become convoluted. The Danish director braids together the complicated affairs of the heart and geopolitics in a way that makes for a constantly forward-ticking narrative even when the approach is decidedly slow burn.

If looks could kill

Moral of the Story: Despite popular misconception, this is not, in fact, a sequel to the 2019 whodunnit Knives Out. (That is actually going to be a movie called Glass Onion. Go figure.) This is a throwback thriller that moves at a deliberate pace and keeps the drama at street-level. A well-chosen cast makes the familiar elements more enticing and helps bring real humanity to slightly underwritten parts. All the Old Knives is the second feature-length film from Janus Metz. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 101 mins.

Quoted: “We cannot afford the embarrassment of a prosecution. I need to know the man I send can do what’s necessary.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.indiewire.com 

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

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Release: Friday, November 19, 2021 (limited)

👀 Hulu

Written by: Radu Jude

Directed by: Radu Jude

Starring: Katia Pascariu; Olimpia Malai; Claudia Ieremia; Nicodim Ungureanu; Andi Vasluianu

 

 

 

****/*****

If you are someone trying hard to block out the noise of the last few years of heightened enmity, this confrontational tragicomedy out of Romania is not going to be your friend. I’m not sure it’s anyone’s friend; it’s more like a troll in movie form, designed to trigger and infuriate. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is not always an easy watch but in getting under your skin, it’s one you are going to struggle to forget.

Yes, it’s a silly title — there’s some nuance lost in the translation from the original Romanian title into English — but the subject matter is serious and the atmosphere tense and uncomfortable. Set in the nation’s capital of Bucharest and filmed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the award-winning Bad Luck Banging holds up a mirror to our current times. It harnesses all the emotions and energy that have been bottled up inside and directs almost all of it toward a lone woman, a history teacher named Emi (Katia Pascariu), whose sex tape that she makes with her husband ends up circulating around the internet and causes an uproar at the well-to-do secondary school where she works.

It isn’t just the subject matter that makes this a challenging and sometimes maddening experience. Writer/director Radu Jude plays with form in a way that’s both fascinating and frustrating. He deploys a familiar three-act structure but really this is a self-contained, day-in-the-life style narrative interrupted by an interminable middle section. Here, the filmmaker free-associates every single pertinent concept and symbol in a montage that distills humanity down to its base functions. Though not without purpose, the second act is so cynical it eventually becomes off-putting. There’s a lot of national identity and rage tied up in this sequence but the criticism of society is so encompassing it feels like an unfocused rant.

However what lies on either side of this creative intermission is a modern social satire with serious teeth. Marius Panduru’s camerawork plays a large part in shaping what and how much you feel as the story evolves. What begins as objective, an observation of a woman going about her day doing errands and trying to figure out how to get the video removed from a place it was never supposed to be in the first place, steadily grows more opinionated, more vicious, more ridiculous.

In the first segment Panduru follows the actor from a distance as Emi makes her way through the busy city toward the parent-teacher conference that will soon determine her fate. Moving like a tourist, or perhaps a child trying to make sense of the circus around them, the camera occasionally, and suggestively, comes to rest on the immovable and inescapable objects of a world where sex sells everything from books to Barbie dolls. 

Eventually though, and like her fellow educators who purport to be morally and intellectually upstanding (despite their liberal use of offensive epithets, particularly to women and ethnic Romani), the camera too turns on her and settles in with the hecklers. The climactic confrontation is a spectacle worth the wait. Indeed, it won’t be the eyebrow-raising opening scene that will have people talking — cleverly-placed graphics serve as a running gag throughout, the more racy content suited and tied under the guise of decency. Rather, it will be the combustible third act which chains Emi to the whipping pillar as the accusations and insults fly.

As humiliating as the scene is, it’s also galvanizing and weirdly thrilling. Without divulging all the gory details, there are yet more surprises in store in terms of the way Jude experiments with traditional narrative delivery and subverts your expectation of where things go from here. It’s not that any of the hateful rhetoric being thrown around is funny but as the animosity intensifies it becomes almost impossible not to let something slip out; a nervous chuckle does the same job as the Xanax Emi is denied in a drugstore. You need some relief from the stress.

Bad Luck Banging embraces taboo in a way that will draw only passionate responses, not just from those who endured it but from those who have only heard things about it and want to dismiss it out of hand. That’s understandable, but the movie doesn’t end up as exploitative as the title sounds. Some of the artistic choices annoyingly delay what could be a more streamlined narrative, but as the tension builds in the final stretch there appears to be a method to Jude’s class(-less) madness.

Yummy.

Moral of the Story: Not for the faint of heart, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is caustic, bizarre and features elements so heavy you kind of wonder whether this even qualifies as comedy. This is my first experience watching a film from Romania (I think) and while it’s not one I will necessarily return to, it is a breath of fresh air away from Hollywood, a bold film barely able to contain its righteous anger. (Dialogue is in Romanian with English subtitles and captions.)

Rated: NR

Running Time: 106 mins.

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

Hustle

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Release: Wednesday, June 8, 2022 (Netflix)

👀 Netflix

Written by: Taylor Materne; Will Fetters

Directed by: Jeremiah Zagar

Starring: Adam Sandler; Juancho Hernangómez; Ben Foster; Robert Duvall; Queen Latifah; half the NBA

 

 

 

****/*****

When you’re passionate about something it tends to show, and that’s what happens with Adam Sandler’s latest Netflix movie Hustle. The actor’s well-documented enthusiasm for the game of basketball bleeds over into his work here, which turns out to be some of the best of his career. Bobby Boucher and Happy Gilmore may have given us some good laughs, but Sandler is more compelling when he isn’t playing a cartoon.

In Hustle he shows that passion by bringing attention to the sidelines rather than center court. The behind-the-scenes role of the NBA scout is highlighted in a way that evokes the esoteric space of Steven Soderbergh’s High Flying Bird (2019), which told the story of a sports agent navigating an NBA lockout. The emotional beats however hew closer to the traditional underdog narrative of perennial hardwood classic Hoosiers (1986). Sandler is a recognizable face but here he effortlessly blends into the crowd as a family man, a hard-working Philadelphian who loves this town, this game and being this close to it. His authentic portrayal is largely why something so familiar works so well.

A bloodshot-eyed, fast-food-slurping Sandler plays Stanley Sugerman, a top scout for the Philadelphia 76ers who has devoted years to traveling the world over in search of the next big talent. More familiar with airport terminals than the hallways of his own home, he’s looking for a promotion that will further challenge him and also keep him closer to his wife, Teresa (Queen Latifah) and aspiring filmmaker daughter Alex (Jordan Hull). Luckily his dedication and eye for detail have built a lot of credit with team owner Rex Merrick (Robert Duvall), who finally gives him a more active team role.

But then Rex unexpectedly passes away and, in a baffling development — one of a few head-scratching moments in Taylor Materne and Will Fetters’ screenplay, another being the weird decision to prop up the NBA Combine as if it has playoff implications — ownership is transferred not to his competent daughter Kat (Heidi Gardner) but rather to his inexperienced and vindictive son Vince (Ben Foster), who promptly 180s on his father’s decision and banishes Stanley back to the road. In Spain, he comes across a streetball game being dominated by a young phenom named Bo Cruz (NBA reserve Juancho Hernangómez) and immediately identifies him as a potential franchise-changer.

It’s already an uphill battle convincing the higher-ups to take an unknown as the #1 overall pick in the upcoming draft. It certainly doesn’t help when an emotional outburst during an exhibition game exposes Bo as a potential liability and triggers an unfortunate narrative in the media, one that Stanley has trouble getting in front of considering the omnipresence of Vince and his natural disdain for everything he does. The crux of the drama finds Stanley in damage control mode, trying to save his reputation while proving to his young prospect he actually cares about his future.

Hustle may shortchange the talented Ben Foster with a one-note corporate bozo role, but it’s the two leads whom we are here to see and they form a really likable team. Though each are impelled by love of family to compete at a high level, they couldn’t be more different in background and upbringing. The story doesn’t exactly shy away from sports drama tropes. Cue the obligatory training montage, where comparisons to Rocky are inescapable and feel almost intentional, and the evolution of a partnership into genuine friendship.

What helps offset the film’s many cliches is director Jeremiah Zagar’s commitment to world-building. Hustle has production design so authentic you might actually think Zagar snuck inside the Wells Fargo Center and filmed guerilla-style. Fans of the game will have a field day spotting all the names that come through the scene, with former and current players, coaches and front office staff all getting some camera time (while sneakily supplying the production with its quota of product placement). Yet it’s Anthony Edwards (of the Minnesota Timberwolves) who gets to actually leave an impression, stealing the show for a moment as a trash-talking hotshot who’s also a top candidate for the team. 

In the end, Hustle (and by extension, Sandler) isn’t trying to dazzle you with how much it knows about the X’s and O’s. It’s all about the game within the game, the psychological aspects that make pro sport so challenging. Don’t call it a classic, but the fourth quarter rally is very fun to watch. Because the performances are so earnest and believable, what’s routine ends up feeling rewarding.

“Look, I had this Rocky montage set up especially for you. Don’t blow it, kid.”

Moral of the Story: Perhaps more for NBA fans than casual viewers, Hustle is a modern-feeling sports drama that is also worth watching for another outstanding turn from the erstwhile King of Bad Comedy. (Do we start petitioning for Sandler to star in more basketball related movies? He seems to do those pretty well.) 

Rated: R

Running Time: 117 mins.

Quoted: “Guys in their 50’s don’t have dreams, they have nightmares . . . and eczema.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com