This film is hilarious. I would put it up there with some of my favorite comedies like last years’ underrated Office Christmas Party and the Will Ferrell classic Old School. Though it has more in common with American Pie. With Blockers I felt like I was watching an instant classic. The film has a great innocence to it mixed in with plenty of full frontal dudity. Not the nudity we were expecting but comedicly perfect.
We don’t get paid (yet) for writing the L & D but let’s say we are a known quantity at the movie theater. From the moment we entered until we took our seats, we were asked several times what we were watching tonight. And I will speak for myself when I say that I blushed. It’s just the word cock. There, I said it, cock, cock, cock.Even when you just have to say Blockers, cock is implied. Even sometimes, you know, I live on Hancock Street and sometimes I feel funny when I have to spell it out for someone. I mean, self-conscious.“Sir, did you say Hancock?” “Yes, H. A. N. C. O. C. K.”
So what happened is that neither one of us would say what we were going to go see and just sort of walked away. But they knew. They knew. And would yell to us, “It’s supposed to be really good!” And really good it was. I laughed out loud and knee slapped like there was no tomorrow. It seemed to capture this zeitgeist and generational gap flawlessly and easily, while taking side steps to ask a few profound universal questions —in between bouts of anal abuse and projectile vomiting.
I want to congratulate the filmmakers and actors on a smart, inclusive, funny, irreverent and enjoyable work. I look forward to watching it again sometime. And that is rare.
This is a split decision on the L and D report. Not putting words in my colleagues’ mouth but I got the impression he had seen all this before…and better. I myself enjoy the Western genre as much as the next person but have never really gotten that into it. To me it’s so cliché as a filmmaker to answer the question, “What would you like to do next?” with “A Western.” It’s like you must say this or the Directors Guild of America will swoop in on horseback, six-guns a-blazin’ and take away your filmmakers card. In my life I’ve definitely mostly watched and made what I liked: foreign film, indie film, art films, documentaries. In fact, only recently did I catch Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which is an amazing movie. Another Western I really enjoyed was Book of Eli starring Denzel Washington and Mila Kunis. My point is that not everyone has seen everything from every genre. So here we are at Hostiles. After The Revenant, it’s tough to go back to standard fight scenes in Westerns. But Hostiles has no problem with that. The filmmakers might even celebrate it as an homage to the old style of filming action. Also, it seemed that there was a lot of crying in this film for Christian Bale. He cried more than most of the women in an any Almodóvar film combined. Nothing wrong with your protagonist crying. But that is certainly not part of the old school Western genre. It really pushes the audience when every difficult situation calls for a close up of Christian Bale with lots of deep breathing like Tom Selleck on Blue Bloods and then a few big crocodile tears. I will say this though, like Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread, Christian Bale is one person on set I would not like to sit next to at lunch. He is so intense onscreen that I can’t imagine him in real life, just cracking a goofy joke or talking about the weather — that would terrify me. In this film, like every Tom Hanks movie, Christian Bale’s character starts out great, does great things and ends well, you guessed it, great. His evolution from a person who hates the Other to a person who can forgive stretches your disbelief. In other words, nothing happens on this journey to cause this change in him that would not have already occurred in his many years as a soldier. He would have seen Indian nation fight against Indian nation, he would have seen treasonous and criminal soldiers acting badly towards everyone and anyone and he would have experienced random acts of kindness on every side as well.
I did have an issue in that a lot of the heroic acts of the protagonist are told and not shown. That gets to be trying. I also thought it was weird that Chief Yellow Hawk (played admirably by Wes Studi), who they were transporting back to his original sacred land, didn’t have a tribe there anymore to greet him. This was the seeming set-up when the return of the Chief was a front page newspaper headline in Act I. So visually and story wise, these were let downs. What I really enjoyed about the film was the pace. It was unafraid to linger on moments. The performance by Rosamund Pike was powerful and memorable. I also liked that the film dealt with a lot of existential issues. Westerns are great for dealing with philosophical questions wrapped up in the simple justice of the wild and a six shooter. I thought that the script employed flowing and authentic language, including Native dialect which was enjoyable. If I wasn’t necessarily wowed by the story, I thought the dialogue itself was strong and believable. I would like to give a nod to Director of Photography Masanobu Takayanagi, whose widescreen landscapes and night exterior photography were beautiful and something to write home about. If you are into ontological pondering, excellent performances, enjoy historical stories and groove on truly epic Western vistas I would recommend this film. On the other hand, if you know this genre back and forth and are looking for an original Western story shot in a groundbreaking way you won’t miss not seeing Hostiles.
We were about 45 minutes into this latest Paul Thomas Anderson piece when I realized I was completely transfixed by a movie about an uptight dressmaker who lived with his very measured sister and was making a lot of dresses for a young waitress. Not exactly Thor for a plot line or for action. I also realized I was pretty excited because I had no idea where this was headed.
The movie is set in 1950s London, and focuses a lot on gender roles and who gets what in a relationship. The central tension is between the dressmaker, Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis), and his love interest / model / protege / partner, Alma (Vicki Krieps). The other major player is is Woodcock’s sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville), who is subtly managing the board to keep her brother on the straight and narrow. In the deeper background is Woodcock’s mother, Woodcock is a mama’s boy, and the questions of matrimony and maternity are paramount throughout, even if the movie doesn’t ever come right out and say it.
So what do you need to know here? First off, the movie is ostensibly about an insufferable male tyrant type, the type of guy who simply cannot start the day with a confrontation because he has no time for confrontations — if he has a bad breakfast, he may never recover. The one who commends his own “gallantry” for eating asparagus that is not prepared the way he likes it. Were you sent here to ruin his evening?
Second off, the movie is actually about the women around him. One set is predominantly populated with the Woodcock label’s army of skilled seamstresses, who spend their days watching Woodcock eye up his dresses, and then work their magic with the needles and thread. This group is skilled but lacks agency. Cyril lets them know when to come and she lets them know when they can go.
There is another group of women with various levels of authority based on either their wealth or their social status — indeed, the Woodcock empire is built on draping wealthy women with unimaginably beautiful clothing. These women purchase Woodcock’s attention.
The third group is Woodcock’s love interests, including Alma, and there is some dissection of how a woman can move into a different social strata based either on her position or her money or on Woodcock’s interest. There is some fluidity here between groups, and in the clumsiest exposition in the film, a competitor for Woodcock’s attentions dutifully (and annoyingly) attempts to undermine Alma’s claim on Woodcock’s affections.
And, finally, we have his sister, Cyril, who represents the meritocratic & perhaps nepotistic element. It is Cyril who enables, encourages, Reynolds’ single-mindedness and surliness, and one suspects that without her machinations, Reynolds may well have gone the route of Bartleby the Scrivener. Cyril evaluates her brother’s potential companions like the second in command looking out for the alpha dog. Indeed, when Cyril first encounters Alma, there is a prolonged scene where she sniffs her, up close like, and susses out why Alma smells the way she does, and then the Woodcock siblings literally take to sizing her up. It is ridiculous and unsettling and evidently as normal as can be in the land of Woodcock. I’m pretty sure I could make the case that she is playing the role of a protective mother, though I think there is something else going on here. At any rate, Lesley Manville is both beautiful and marvelous in this role.
The bottom line is that you can take the movie at face value and you will find it beautiful and possibly that it has a lot to say about cut-throat competition in human interactions. The dresses are certainly astonishing. I’m no fashionista — I leave that to my colleague — yet I enjoyed the sartorial splendor for the women and for the men. Krieps, Manville, and Day-Lewis are all phenomenal. It is straight up quite the show.
But I would urge you to have an open mind about this being a comedy, because the movie is seriously hilarious. After all, the main character’s name is Reynolds Woodcock, a name with tremendous comedic potential. If you don’t agree, I mean, what is wrong with you? Reynolds Woodcock?!? That’s not an accident. Consider this: this is the same filmmaker that brought us Tom Cruise saying unspeakably filthy things, gave us Boogie Nights and all that entailed, and built an entire movie around Adam Sandler arbitraging coupons off of pudding cups. We also have the sniffing scene, Daniel Day-Lewis ordering breakfast like he was expecting a table full of lumberjacks, Daniel Day-Lewis wearing purple pajamas and a tweed sport coat, and a running joke about how annoying toast butterers can be. And then there is the wedding dress for the princess. If you are watching this as a comedy, you are laughing at this dress. Indeed, L&D laffed out loud throughout, and there was audible cackling from all corners the theater. Overall, I can pretty much guarantee that there are more laugh out loud moments in this than you will find in the film actually called Mr. Woodcock.
I encourage you to check it out because it is beautiful, awesome, hilarious, and may well be Daniel Day-Lewis’ last role. As a P.T. Anderson junkie, this is way over the $5 bar for me. L wasn’t completely sold on it, but I don’t think he had buyer’s remorse over his $5. I can see his point and will admit that I was a bit disappointed in the final half hour and don’t think it was tied together as a masterpiece (like, say, There Will Be Blood), but it was certainly thought provoking — we had a good discussion about the differences between Wes Andersen and P. T. Anderson, the parallels to Mother!and The Beguiled (and here) and a bunch of other stuff. I bet L would even put this over the $6 Thursday bar.
All the Money in the World is a fine example of what can go wrong if you don’t actually have a story to start with. Considering this, it is shocking that Ridley Scott Produced and Directed this film. It’s almost like he got carried away by the chance to shoot in remarkable locations, with an A-list cast and tell a story that in parts could inspire real horror and empathy. Yet there is no core to All the Money in the World. No one to sympathize with. No stakes to get raised. Furthermore, to the detriment of the narrative, the film continues to refer back to J. Paul Getty’s (played convincingly by Christopher Plummer) immense and constantly growing wealth. This serves to deflate the thin tension that exists in the story in the first place. Meanwhile, as contemptible as they are, you almost feel bad for the goofball peasants who kidnapped grandson Paul III. They just want to eat their pasta, play their music and expand their good quality knock-off Gucci bags empire. (Who doesn’t appreciate a good knock-off Gucci?) This is another slap in face to basic storytelling. Make your bad folks really bad. So the villains, though criminal, ultimately aren’t that villainous and the heroes, if you can call them that, aren’t that heroic. It seems like they are all just having a bad case of the Mondays that goes on for a few months.
You know that sooner or later the Getty’s will get back to those antiquities, paintings and villas. There is no psychological drama, no Stockholm syndrome, no real connection among anyone in the film. I started making up obstacles like, “Will Paul III fall in love with that home made gravy from the one lady cook who all these kidnappers seem to always have around?” Or how about the relationship between Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams? This would have been a perfect place to invoke artistic license and build up a strong fictional yet meaningful relationship. But the relationship here remains about as superficial as the flesh would Williams delivers to Wahlberg with the handset of a faded mustard yellow telephone. The telephone in the film becomes a main character, another storytelling faux pas breaking the show don’t tell rule. Yet the actors did do an admirable job in spite of having so little to work with story-wise.
Is the movie based on a true story? Yes. Loosely based. Instead of human relationships though, the film decides to fictionalize a Keystone Cops style chase in ACT III. It’s almost impossible to suspend disbelief in this case. The only thing this film does make me want to do is watch a survey of Patty Hearst movies like the 1979 made for TV classic, “The Ordeal of Patty Hearst.” Or any other kidnap movies for that matter. Taken comes to mind. Maybe Die Hard, since it is Christmas. Or since it’s minus 5 degrees out and more of a heist than kidnap movie, some egg nog and Dog Day Afternoon, you know, just to warm up a little. Like the lives depicted, All the Money in the World certainly left me cold.
The people responsible for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri made some great choices, but they did not make a great film. The plot centers around the aftermath of a rape and murder of a young woman in Ebbing, whose mother, Mildred, (Frances McDormand) puts up billboards calling out Police Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) to make some headway in the case. Chief Willoughby says he doesn’t have much to go on, and it’s no wonder: his right-hand man is a dipshit racist (Jason Dixon played mostly brilliantly by Sam Rockwell), and the rest of the gang is a bunch of brazenly white guys that don’t seem to be doing too much in the way of police work. On top of that, Willoughby has his own problems. Indeed, everyone in this movie is damaged goods in one way or another, and the film does a really good job of conveying the complicated emotions for all involved.
Despite these emotions, the story is told with this sort of a screwball comedy vibe, and this tension in the production never gets resolved. On the way out of the theater, L wondered aloud how he didn’t like the movie even though it was a good movie. I think the answer is that the film makers didn’t want to go completely Altman and let it be built on character pieces, and they didn’t have the stomach to cut the good material they were working with in order to tighten it up to make it a great drama. The former is tough to do (and probably tough to sell in Hollywood), and the latter would have required cutting out some great acting and dialog. So what we are left with is something that is sort of a mush of some of the best and the worst of the likes of Twin Peaks,Fargo and Mystic River. This will go down as a movie where people remember some great scenes and amusing dialog, but will scratch their heads at some of the plot holes and other peculiarities.
The positives include the cast and characters, and the casting is brilliant top to bottom: Red (Caleb Landry Jones) is the semi-principled ad exec, Robbie (Lucas Hedges) is Mildred’s son who has to deal with the blowback from his mother’s antics, and Charlie (John Hawkes) is Mildred’s ex-husband, a wife beater now living with the unreasonably good looking “19-year old” Penelope (Samara Weaving). On the negative side, Penelope is caricatured as a ditz, though she works as an animal trainer and reads about horses in her spare time. Even more unfortunately, although the movie takes some stabs at race issues, the several African American characters are not developed at all. Even Chief Abercrombie (Clarke Peters), who is eventually sent in (by whom?) to replace Willoughby, is just a place holder, not a character. There is possibly a metaphor I am missing here.
Another positive is that there are some lucid scenes, including a a “date” between Mildred and the alcoholic used car salesman and midget, Peter Dinklage. The meal takes place for what passes for an upscale restaurant in Ebbing, and the ex-husband arrives with his young girlfriend about midway through. This allows Dinklage to rattle off a brief monologue that lays bare life’s prospects for the likes of these folks, and there is probably a thesis of the movie in there somewhere. We all play the hand we were dealt. Other scenes, particularly the one where Mildred dresses down the Catholic priest, aim high and miss the mark.
Finally, at the risk of introducing spoilers, during the end of the film I was reminded of one of the great and mysterious lines of the 1993 movie, Tombstone, where the Val Kilmer Doc Holliday character says of Wyatt Earp:
“Oh, make no mistake, it’s not revenge he’s after;it’s a reckoning.”
A reckoning is a resolution and an ending, but that is not really what these characters are after. And even if it were, a reckoning isn’t attainable, is it? Finding the girl’s killer might offer some clarity along some margin, but it doesn’t change much of anything else. So there will be no revenge, no resolution, no reckoning, and ultimately no justice. That’s just the way it goes in Ebbing, Missouri.
So this makes its way over the $6 bar for some compelling characters and some good scenes. But, too many question marks and not enough Woody limit its upside. So despite the gaudy critical acclaim elsewhere, this one won’t be filling space in the Best of L&D for 2017, which is coming sooner than you probably think!
The most revelatory thing I learned while watching The Foreigner is that Pierce Brosnan can actually act. He really turns in a stellar performance here. In a film whose characters all play the same note, he adds great variation to his. Arguably Brosnan’s character, a presumably reformed IRA chief, Liam Hennessy, is the central figure of this story. In the end it is he who comes to shame and epiphany. Only his character has shifting ideas of right and wrong.
Of course, Executive Producer and star Jackie Chan is why we came. I’m not sure how many times I leaned over to D to mention that he does his own stunts. “See how he lit that photo with the lighter? He actually did that.” I guess I am just a huge Jackie Chan fan. And Jackie, who to me is timeless, does kick some royal, well actually rogue IRA ass.
It took me a while to warm up to the story and to who the bad guys are. Which is good because it does keep you off balance about the antagonists for awhile. There are obvious homages to Taken, Taken 2, Taken 3 and even more to Rambo, in the best way possible. One reason to catch The Foreigner in the theatre as opposed to watching it on TNT next year is that it is shot in widescreen (2.39:1 aspect ratio) and it does take you on a ride with strong aerial footage and intense exterior situations.
There is also a certain gravitas to the film. I made D sit through the credits, as he has made me do during Marvel movies. Jackie Chan movies often have a whole series of the bloopers and goofed up stunts he did in the film on a split screen with the credits. But The Foreigner had no such outtakes. I think that Jackie Chan wanted to measure up to Pierce Brosnan and say, “Hey, I can act too. I can be serious too.” He did do a fine job in his portrayal of Quan Ngoc Minh, whose heartbreak and capacity for vengeance is boundless.
Battle of the Sexes is a political commentary wrapped in a history lesson holding at its core an entertaining and spellbinding narrative. I figured that Billy Jean King had defeated Bobby Riggs, or why make the movie but I really wasn’t absolutely sure about what happened. Their 1973 match and its buildup are as legendary as Cosell and Ali interviews. Emma Stone as BJK and Steve Carell as Riggs pull off the tennis stars’ volatile on-screen chemistry flawlessly.
The true nemesis in the film turns out not to be the marketing genius and buffoon Bobby Riggs, who by all accounts was a dedicated gambler above all. But rather Margaret Court, who as one of the greatest tennis players ever, was beaten in straight sets by Riggs before BJK stomped him. Court went on to be a Pentecostal Christian minister in her home country of Australia and staunch enemy of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. The film has no qualms grinding that axe and would fit in easily as the Opening or Closing Night film at Outfest or Framline. Speaking of history lessons, Outfest and Framline are two of the premiere LGBT film festivals in the U.S. and have been around for 35 and 40 years respectively.
Battle of the Sexes itself is sensual and fun, well-crafted with great period touches like coin-op TVs in airport lounges and excellent wardrobe and costumes like BJK and Riggs’ glasses and fancy kicks. The film is helmed deftly by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (the team that delivered with the classic Little Miss Sunshine). They know how to handle tension and drama. They keep perfect continuity with the period without falling into sappy nostalgia. The Directors also keep the various storylines with BJKs personal and professional life and Riggs’ own drama with his gambling addiction, problems with his wife — played expertly by the great Elisabeth Shue — and the pressure of his resurgent career as a self-proclaimed male chauvinist pig. Every time Steve Carell appeared, I laughed out loud. I haven’t appreciated him as much since his brilliant performance in The 40 Year Old Virgin. I thought the casting was spot on except for Fred Armisen who really should be starring in his own films by now. As Riggs’ restrained pill-pushing dealer Fred is unable to unleash his true comic genius. Or perhaps the role would have been more in tune with someone more intense like John Goodman. However, a wonderful turn was made by the great Scottish-American Alan Cumming as Cuthbert ‘Ted’ Tinling, the flamboyant, big hearted and empathetic stylist to the women on the Virginia Slims tour. One of the best lines is in the last act, right after her victory, Ted turns to BJK and says “Times change. You should know, because you changed them.”
I was surprised by the scope of American Assassin. The film does a lot of globe trotting and in this way feels like the next Borne or Bond installment. If you have been reading the L & D at all you know how often I bemoan the big explosion at the end of movies. I think it should be its own genre: THE BIG EXPLOSION movie. And it’s not just action, it seems like anything outside of Jarmusch or Baumbach has one. However, I will give credit where credit is due and say that American Assassin has got an enormous explosion at the end that actually contains a lot of drama. American Assassin is well crafted and passable for what it is.
If you are interested in turning your mind off and pretending the world is made up of easily categorized good guys and bad guys then this is right up your blindly patriotic alley. I however have watched 6 hours of Ken Burns & Lynn Novick’s The Vietnam War since I watched American Assassin, so I am under no illusions. Spoiler Alert: Lyndon Baines Johnson lied about how good we were doing, when in fact we were losing and had no way to win.
Back to American Assassin. If you like to watch action, things blowing up, close range firing and don’t mind a little “torture-lite” this is the right thing for you. It will be cathartic. Of course, the world will have become two hours more complicated then when you entered the theater but remember, it is a movie and you can catch up. I did think that the star, Dylan O’Brien did a solid job. Shiva Negar as Annika was also convincing. And of course, I was glad to see Michael Keaton but it did make us wonder why he did such a typical movie after such a great recent run including Spotlight, Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Spider-Man Homecoming and The Founder. I guess he has to feed the Hollywood machine sometimes too.
The milieu this film depicts is only known to me through my obsessive childhood viewing of The Dukes of Hazard and Smokey and the Bandit. Just like Bo, Luke and Daisy or the Bandit and Cledus, brothers Jimmy (Channing Tatum), Clyde (Adam Driver) and sister Mellie (Riley Keough) try to break out of a streak of bad luck by making money on the other side of the law.
There are some bizarre casting choices. The only word that comes to mind is incongruous. Like Daniel Craig as Joe Bang, the genius bomb maker. It’s wonderful to see him act and he does steal this film but at the same time, you are constantly wondering what James Bond is doing locked up in West Virginia jail cell. Not too dissimilar is Hilary Swank’s turn as FBI agent Grayson. It seems to me these actors should be doing some Globe Theatre work on the West End but are forcing out performances here for some reason. Did they lose a bet at director Soderbergh’s weekly poker game? Finally and most glaringly there is Seth MacFarlane, the voice of Stewie on Family Guy. Here he is doing the voice of Stewie as an evil stock car driver with a bad pasted on mustache. I can’t suspend disbelief that long and no one should ask me to. If you are looking for a comedic bad guy NASCAR driver, it will be a long time before anyone tops Sacha Baron Cohen in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentson, “Sir, I’ve seen Talladega Nights and this is no Talladega Nights.”
For all the A list stars in this film, I was not a fan of the cinematography. After the impressive and tightly choreographed camera movements in last years heist favorite Hell or High Water, there is no excuse for shaky, motivated or unmotivated camera moves. And also, natural lighting doesn’t mean you let the characters fall into shadow. It’s not that kind of film. I don’t know the reason but I guess most of the budget was spent on the car racing segment because those scenes look like they are from a totally different film.
Besides all these thorny issues this film can even melt the heart of a hardened Yankee like myself with a sweet rendition of Take Me HomeCountry Roads by John Denver. If this song doesn’t get you, doesn’t pull at your heart strings, you should really have your circuitry checked out, because you are a robot. Even if this moment does come at the expense of Rhianna. What did Rihanna ever do to writer Rebecca Blunt? But I can accept that like Waylon Jennings’ Dukes theme song Good Ol’ Boys, the movie is just trying to have a little fun without meanin’ no harm. So if you can lower the bar and just want to go along for a hi-octane ride you can still enjoy Lucky Logan.
I went into The Big Sick with higher than usual expectations and it did not disappoint. That is saying something. The film is produced by Amazon Studios. In 2016 we saw another notable Amazon film, Love and Friendship, which was an excellent work from Director Whit Stillman. Each year it will feel less and less odd that online companies are also in the film biz as producers. In this case Amazon was smart enough to team up with Judd Apatow and in turn with Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon. Kumail, who is also the star, and Emily are the writers and The Big Sick is based on their life experiences.
I am not exactly sure how The Big Sick got an R rating. D explained to me that F bombs are dropped. Is that all it takes these days? Well, it’s a shame because I think younger folks would get a lot out of watching this movie. It’s not preachy but it is intelligent and gets its points about relationships and culture across in a humorous and meaningful way. On the other hand, kids will stream it on Amazon. So much for the MPAA and its outdated ratings system.
This film reminded me a lot of When Harry Met Sally. There is even a scene at a batting cage. Though it is not the theme, the movie is driven by the question, “When do you know you’re in love?” The twists here involve the cultural roadblocks Kumail faces in pursuing his relationship with Emily, in a strong performance by Zoe Kazan.
Some of the best moments happen when Holly Hunter as Beth and Ray Romano as Terry, Emily’s parents, storm onto the scene. This is a critical part of the film as one of the main stars is in a coma i.e. the sick part of The Big Sick. At this point the movie really heats up with some high drama at a comedy club involving Hunter and a xenophobic heckler and Romano having an intense heart to heart talk with Kumail on an air mattress. The film never sinks to schmaltz, the actors bring it — the emotion and intensity — and the writing remains honest and moving.
One cool and interesting thing to me is its long and eclectic soundtrack. Everything from Boz Scaggs to Veilumuth Chitralekha. And as well as it is doing in the theatre, I think The Big Sick will even have greater success as a streaming title. I thought The Big Sick was an excellent film that gave new angles to a story that feels familiar.
L&D Report 