Category: Review (L)

Booksmart is an intelligent and funny mashup whose ROFL parts don’t necessarily add up to a must see movie night. And even though my job as a high school film teacher was on my mind entering the movie (with the end of the school year upon me, as in the film). And even though the film is ostensibly about high school, it nevertheless did help me laugh. So if you want to kind of get away for a while and have a few good laughs I would recommend this film to you. But if you are looking for a solid all around film on the par of a Lady Bird or Eighth Grade, Booksmart isn’t going to cut it for you. 

As a mashup, Booksmart incorporates the awkward feeling of Eighth Grade, almost like a sequel but without the sense of predestined gloomy finality. It’s not the funniest thing you’ve ever seen (The 40 -Year-Old Virgin) or the most exploitive (Assassination Nation) or even one of the funniest things (Office Christmas Party). But like Long Shot, it certainly has its moments. There is also a feeling here reminiscent of the classic Scorsese comedy After Hours and Blockers with the primary action taking place over the course of one twisting crazy night. 

Many of the characters in Booksmart do seem familiar in spite of their one dimensionality. And the film does to its credit try to go into a little more depth with some of the characters. There is also a shout out to Gilmore Girls, which is apropos. If you’ve ever seen His Girl Friday or any screwball comedy, the lines come fast and furious, the banter withering, the re parteeing. So it’s unrealistic in that sense but some will find the style engaging. There are also just absurd moments that I loved like having fencers in the background of a scene in the high school courtyard. But this is followed up with grounded conversations about real world dilemmas. Falling off the edge of high school, like The Graduate. As I mentioned in my Eighth Grade review, it’s not easy being a kid and that certainly comes through in Booksmart as well. I found that though the film pulled from many sources and familiar storylines it also seemed to create an original synthesis. The pool scene and airport scenes were beautifually shot, the graduation scene, reminiscent of Stripes was also well done. 

There are some great cameos here by Jason Sudeikis, Lisa Kudrow and Will Forte. But I think the film is stolen by the eccentric and totally out there frenemy Billie Lourd as Gigi.

Booksmart certainly hit the 6 dollar Thursday bar, kept me laughing and thinking and covered some original cinematic ground with a strong mashup style. Do I think that you could also happily wait for it to stream on your favorite platform. Yes, I do.   

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?

I wish more movies were made like this. The Old Man & the Gun is a simple story, told by a cast of superstar actors in the most understated yet intensely dramatic way.  

The cast alone is a joy to behold as they light up the screen. Sissy Spacek, Danny Glover, Tom Waits and Robert Redford in what is supposedly his last screen appearance  — we shall see. I actually worked on a movie with Danny Glover once called Supremacy. It was pretty cool being on set with him. He is a sweet dude. I can only imagine it was a kind of enchanted set with these greats just riffing away on some solid writing. 

There is a certain theme in TOM&TG which is, “Why are some people compelled to destructive behavior even in the face of their own eternal happiness?” Perhaps because your idea of eternal happiness is not theirs, even though they would like it to be…life would be much simpler and enjoyable for them that way. 

In the canon of heist films TOM&TG doesn’t tout the madness of Dog Day Afternoon, no chants of “At-ti-ca! / At-ti-ca!” here. Or the violence and naturalism of Hell or High Water. The crime itself isn’t the main point. It’s a fait accompli. Some of my favorite moments were things like the Tom Waits monologue about Christmas or Redford and Spacek’s first time sitting down for coffee, just shooting the breeze while we know he’s on the lam— and her calling him on his crap. It’s genuinely smart and amusing and real in its own right. It’s not Acting but acting and its great.

It’s interesting that as a period piece, TOM&TG is also filmed in the style of the period. In other words, it tells a story from the early 1980s with the same style or look films had in that general era. You almost feel like you are in a Three Days of the Condor fever dream. To that end, the film also comes through with some seriously laudable art direction.

So do yourself a favor and catch this one at some point when you want to watch a good film.