Category: $5 Marcus Special

Luc Besson’s Anna stars supermodel actress Sasha Luss as the achingly — in the sense that she produces a lot of physical pain for anyone she who gets on her wrong side — beautiful killer in the titular role. The part is somewhat reminiscent of Charlize Theron’s in the take no prisoners action film Atomic Blonde which recieved a double review from L & D. I was interested in watching Anna knowing it was the work of auteur Writer/Director Luc Besson. He is known for one of my favorite films, Leon: The Professional, which was Natalie Portman’s first film and had a great performance by Jean Reno. You also know his work with The Fifth Element and another one of my favorites, Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson. Lucy is another style first, kick-ass woman in a take no prisoners role. Besson knows how to visually translate style and action from his screenplays.

I’m a fan of unmotivated elements of style in the films I make and watch. Why did the camera move that way? Well, it just felt right. Or, where did that pink light come from? Well, that pink light came from exactly where you think the music in this film came from. It’s not like there is a musician actively scoring your life. Yet music that isn’t actually in the physical reality of a scene (aka non-diegetic sound) is given a free pass in our movie viewing. It’s a little tougher to get away with unmotivated, unnaturalistic elements in terms of lighting, camera movement and editing but it’s something that I appreciate and an audience will get behind or “suspend their disbelief” if it is done well. And to answer the question, the music and lighting all come from the same place, the imagination of the Director. 

Interestingly, most Directors work in obscurity. For example, can you tell me who directed Saturday Night Fever, War Games and Blue Thunder? The answer is John Badham. You’d think that this would be common instead of trivial knowledge. To be known as a Director, it helps to have a distinct style, whether you work within a movement or blaze your own trail. And even then to say something is _________ esque means that you weren’t taken seriously at some point. But also that you stuck to what you thought was the most honest version of storytelling for you — your distinct style. Sometimes films that are made by particular directors don’t have their stamp. Perhaps it was a studio film where they didn’t have control. But in this case Anna is one hundred percent Bessonesque from the John Wick meets Hardcore Henry throwdown in the restaurant to the really beautiful plan sequence (aka oner) in the bedroom closet, which reminded me of the confessional scene in Coppola’s masterpiece, The Conversation. If you have never seen The Conversation on DVD with the audio commentary by sound editor/ designer Walter Murch on, do yourself a cinematic favor and check it out. There are other nods to The Conversaton in Anna as well.

Anna contains a lot of the scenes and elements which we have come to expect from the recent heroine driven international spy genre: the car chase in little European streets, the lesbian love affair, the plain ol’ just ass-kicking of entitled / douchey / know it all men —  and it’s all pretty satisfying stuff. It is also executed with a ton of silky yet heart pumping style. I’m already looking forward to Besson’s next offering.

I think the Taco Bell by the movie theater has finally closed down. Maybe there aren’t enough people to work there anymore? — We are winning, America! — And so it was prophesied that L & D sat in an essentially empty and quite large multiplex theater to see Samuel L. Jackson star in Shaft. The film started off on shaky ground with some intensely stiff acting and dialogue. But luckily for everyone involved it loosened up once Mr. Jackson arrived on scene. 

If you’ve ever watched any Blaxploitation films, say on the Bounce network, (which I get on TV airwaves here in Northeastern Wisconsin — though if that’s not enough for you, Bounce owns Brown Sugar, a 1970’s era Blaxploitation on demand service) there’s one common denominator, namely low production value. Bad, I mean bad! lighting, awkward, I mean distractingly awkward! editing and poor, piss poor! composition people. Is there a reason for this? I’m sure there is. The reason has to do with low budgets. Those days are gone, as the new Shaft has the production value of a James Bond film. The lighting, camera movement, wardrobe, art direction and sound are of the highest caliber. The film has enough confidence in itself to make light of the genre. For example, when Shaft is about to enter a shady nightclub, there is a blatant smoke machine hidden behind a trash can spewing way too much non-motivated smoke. It’s confusing at first until you get the joke. Then, in a most excellent scene, Shaft is in the apartment hallway of his ex-wife. He is at her door, pleading to be let in, when he is interrupted by a neighbor who gives him the stink eye. Suddenly the groovy music winds down like someone pulled the plug on the Rev. Al Green 33 that was spinning on your record player. As soon as the neighbor gets a look at Shaft’s gun, he is terrified and slams his door — the song cranks up to speed again. It’s a great breaking the fourth wall moment. 

I would be remiss in writing about Shaft without mentioning the great African-American writer of hardboiled novels and social narratives, Mr. Chester Himes. If you’ve never heard of Chester Himes, click on that link already. He delighted many readers and inspired many writers and filmmakers with his series of nine Harlem Detective novels. It’s safe to say what Raymond Chandler is to Hollywood, Chester Himes is to Harlem. And with this in mind, I really enjoyed Shaft. I have no idea if I was laughing at the appropriate places but I was definitely laughing. Even D, who was not impressed with the wobbly opening, started laughing. There is just something about Samuel L. Jackson, he really is like a funky Mr. Miyagi. After all, he has already portrayed a Jedi Master. Also, in one scene he reminds us that he is tired of the Laurence Fishburne comparisons! 

At its core, Shaft is a generation-gap-father-son film. It at least acknowledges that times have changed, even if it sticks to stereotypes. However, the stereotypes are with tongue firmly planted in cheek and with the good intention of the audience having a little fun. Of course here, the good guys win through violence, the Dad teaches the kid how to be a proper manly man and the women in the film either step aside, need to be rescued or forgive the unforgivable — or at least the truly shitty. It’s still a Blaxsploitaion genre movie but Shaft does have his heart in the right place even if sometimes his actions and words betray him. His character flaws and redeeming values are identical to Himes’ hardboiled heroes.

Yeah, it’s a family movie if your family eats expletives for breakfast, doesn’t mind people getting shot up with AK-47s and finds glitter all over a bare chest quite amusing. I’m not going to tell you if I found it quite amusing. I’m also not going to tell you where the glitter was on Shaft. In the final analysis, Shaft checked all the kick up your feet and enjoy a summertime movie for 6 bucks boxes but it wasn’t a great movie and certainly something you could enjoy in your La-Z-Boy recliner or loveseat at home. Also, motherfucker. A lot.

Us is a bad LSD trip the inner mind of Jordan Peele is having that we, the audience, communally share.  As a former Banana Slug, I can attest to the utter appropriateness of Santa Cruz as the location. It’s a proudly weird place, a vortex of time and space, a living breathing acid test in motion. The film draws inspiration from and pays homage to some pretty varied sources, most notably Dante’s Inferno (but also Dante’s Purgatorio), Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the Bible, The Shining, The Lost Boys, Stranger Things, Hot Tub Time Machine, Zombieland, Thriller, Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, Jaws, Black Flag, Bernard Herrmann’s iconic scores for Alfred Hitchcock, Childish Gambino’s This is America music video etc. etc. etc. And it’s all tastefully and often humorously done. 

Our clerk at the concession stand did an amazingly good job summing up the movie, even though his tag said his favorite film was La La Land. His 1 minute critique was concise, precise and didn’t include any spoilers. He said it was not a horror film but more of a slasher, suspense film that was very entertaining and had a great ending. We replied — Yes, we would like butter. We would always like butter.

The density of the film in terms of references and symbols made D and I both come to the conclusion that we could watch this film many more times and still not be able to get everything Jordan Peele was trying to express. And at least for me, that’s okay. Us made my heart beat fast for its entire 2 hour and 1 minute run time. When I was using the restroom after the film, absolutely everything was freaking me out. The sound of the paper dispenser, the feel of the water faucet…my senses were certainly heightened in a way I hadn’t felt since Besson’s Lucy had me freaking out, sweating and staring at all the surveillance cameras on the traffic lights in L.A. 

In the sense that Us has a profound ability to move you, Us wins. The plot is most certainly flawed, the density of references and meanings may turn off some people but ultimately, it is a thought provoking allegory and entertaining film. If some gore, violence and blood don’t turn you off, I’m sure you will heartily enjoy Us. In Slug parlance…doood, the flick is a total trip. 

Ben is Back takes on a pressing issue in our society, the onslaught of opioids that have flooded our communities, as drug overdose deaths have tripled since 1990. This morning I was reading an article, “Massachusetts Attorney General Implicates Family Behind Purdue Pharma in Opioid Deaths” about a company so obsessed with sales that it paid 600 million in fines for intentionally misleading the public about the addictive qualities of OxyContin. The kicker being that even after that admission and pay out the company expanded its efforts, sending even more sales reps to convince doctors, nurses and pharmacists to prescribe even more Oxy. Why? For perspective, one company memo details how through overprescribing just two doctors made the company 800,000 in only two years. 

I believe Ben is Back will find an audience with the people and families who most need a message about addiction. Even though it plays like an extended Afterschool Special, with implausible situations that make you ask yourself, what exactly are the elements of an interminable movie? After a moving Christmas Eve mass scene, the plot shifts gears into modern day parable territory. A Dante’s Inferno meets Dickens’ A Christmas Carol mash up. It’s a good technique for the story but the pretext motivating the plunge back into the depths of Ben’s utterly messed up and devastating life choices seems flimsy at best for one so easily triggered. One character says out loud, “This doesn’t make any sense. What we are doing is not worth it.” I understand characters’ statements like this as a verbal agreement between the filmmakers and the audience. It goes something like, “We don’t actually expect you to suspend disbelief but if you don’t leave we can tell you what we have to say, which you will agree is a good message.” 

I am not saying that I could have come up with a more convincing story. Or that telling a story like this is easy. I actually sympathize with this film and feel like the filmmakers and actors were trying their absolute best. The film does boast powerful performances by Julia Roberts as Holly, Ben’s ever hopeful and grieving mother, Kathryn Newton as Ivy, the skeptical with reason sister and Lucas Hedges as a convincingly angsty Ben, who knows that there is little he can do in the face of this crippling curse, his addiction. The situation is as terrifying as A Quiet Place but even more so because we all know that this national scourge and personal tragedy is happening in real life as we speak.

In spite of the strength in the acting, production value and sentiment in this film, the parts don’t ever come together to form a greater whole. The cause is a meandering story that strains plausibility and telegraphs its plot points miles ahead of when they occur. However, this is an intelligent film with a lot of heart that also has the possibility of spurring on conversations around this most critical of social issues. It may not rise to the level of a classic family drama as say Ordinary People but Ben is Back will provide a powerful message for those closely dealing with the problem of addiction and as a cautionary tale for many others. 

How could any film honestly dealing with the life of Gary Hart not be called Monkey Business? Even if there were already several other films about him titled Monkey Business, that would be no excuse. As Chappaquiddick is to Kennedy, Monkey Business is and always will be to Hart. 

That these filmmakers chose to call this movie The Front Runner set me up to viewing it skeptically. They must be Gary Hart apologists, I thought. And it does seem that way as the film bends credulity in trying to have you somehow sympathize with a man who after becoming the lead candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1987, decided to charter a boat, Monkey Business, for a week long trip to Bimini. Here he openly has an affair with one Donna Rice. It comes at a point in American culture when suddenly the private lives of public figures like politicians were fair game for the traditional press. This could be due to the rise of cable TV, the 24 hour news cycle, the perception that the tabloid press was becoming more mainstream, all of the above and perhaps even other factors. The point being that Gary Hart flaunted his indiscretion and simply shrugged it off. 

After his affair is revealed, Hart doesn’t get the implications and completes several tone deaf moves like arguing with the editor of the paper that exposed him at the podium of what was ostensibly an economic forum and coming up flat in his response to a press conference question, “Have you ever cheated on your wife?” Defining moments for his candidacy. 

The film is especially annoying in that you are supposed to somehow feel that Hart is an anti-hero who is trying to protect all of our privacy rights. When in the end it is Hart who is calling for the spotlight on himself. At one point daring the press to follow him. So what did he expect and what are we left to think about him and his sense of judgement and character?

There is one great opening shot, a fantastic oner that floats around an on-location TV broadcast outside Hart’s hotel and captures the milieu around a presidential race. Otherwise, the film generally clunks along cinematically.  If you are a political wonk, or get into films where people take shots at each other while doing logistics and PR  around a table, some of this film might work for you. Or maybe you are a history buff and are simply curious about this episode in American political and pop culture. Okay, I can see that. But otherwise this film doesn’t do anyone justice and is the visual equivalent of stubbing your toe.

Even the casting is way off here as Gary Hart was never so buff and Hugh Jackman seems like he is about to sprout Wolverine’s metallic fangs at any moment and gouge a few reporters. Instead of maybe taking his foot off the protein powder pedal and transforming more into the actual physique of the character, Jackman doubles down including a moment where Gary Hart is doing push-ups at a meeting. It’s laughable, in the worst way.  Instead of watching Monkey Business, why not toss a few National Enquirer copies on the yule log this holiday and fire up Three Days of the Condor?