Logan

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If you want to see what Stranger Things would look like on a cocktail of meth and BGH then Logan is for you. Also, if you don’t mind or even relish, if that is possible, watching a giant forked hand go through about 10 skulls like a serving fork through and overly ripe cantaloupe — then again, this film was literally made just for you. As for the rest of us, Logan was really was a downward spiral but did have some redeeming qualities. The film did show some heart, some actual human emotion, at least more than the more recent films I have seen like Collide or John Wick 2. I think Marvel takes a lot of pride in their output and you can see that they tried in terms of production value. One big mistake here was tacking a Deadpool coming attraction to the beginning of the film. For the first 30 minutes you are left wondering how long until Deadpool comes out. And ultimately, I think Patrick Stewart is wasted in this roll, though again they try to give him screen time and something important to say. Apparently it will be his last time playing Professor Charles Xavier. I just never got used to his character. However, that may have to do more with me, since Superhero/Comic Book films are not my forte. I spend half of these films trying to get comfortable in “the universe” (I have learned to use this term since beginning to write about this genre) and wondering about the references I seem to be only half getting or totally missing.

It’s interesting how comic books, or in the case of John Wick, a video game, can become a movie. Or did the movie create the comic book or video game? And does it matter anymore? I remember a cheap paperback of a Dirty Harry movie. The book was written after the movie was a hit, as a way to cash in on it. You could tell after the first few pages. I was watching Linklater’s Waking Life on Netflix last night. It is a live action film, tweeked to have a comic book look. It really does have a unique feel. I don’t have any problem with all of this style and genre and format mashing but each work should take advantage of the unique values its particular medium. If I want to play a video game, I will do that. If I want to read a comic book, the same. All to say, once again, that Deadpool for example, got it right. There is a line to walk here and it should be respected. Notwithstanding, if you go in for the comic book genre, Logan is a must see.

Kong

Kong: Skull Island.  The scenery is pretty spectacular. The monkey isn’t bad. There are many moments of surprise, intrigue, shock and awe (as well as “aw, that’s gross”).  But the storytelling is poor and that sinks the project.

The movie is set in the final days of the Vietnam War and with its constant allusions to Apocalypse Now forces us to ask where the line is between “homage” and “painfully derivative and stupid.”  From the choice and use of music to the helicopter sequences to the journeys up and down various bodies of water to the napalm detonations to the singularly obsessed military officer, there are many points of comparison (though never even remotely favorably).

Of course, it is difficult to compete with the classics and, in fairness, there are a few bright spots.   Samuel L. Jackson has some good lines in a pretty cool trip through the clouds.  There are some good action sequences, particularly with the big guy tossing stuff around with the accuracy of Greg Maddux and his UFC-style grappling with various slimy creatures.  I also really liked the island itself, particularly the glow of the nighttime lights.

Unfortunately, the list of things to object to runs so much longer that I’m not even sure it’s worth dredging them up.   John Goodman is completely wasted.   John C. Reilly is worse than wasted, as his lines and his story trajectory are painful. The Brie Larson “anti-war” photographer angle is even less developed than her would-be romance with the  pro-war mercenary Tom Hiddleston character (If Kong had accidentally squished the Larson character in his clenched fist, that would have really made up for a lot of the movie’s other shortcomings).  John Ortiz, who I loved in Drop, has no discernible role. Indeed, there must be four or five story arcs falling into the categories of undeveloped, underdeveloped, stupid, insulting to the intelligence, and poorly thought out (most falling into several of these categories) passing time until we get to the climactic sequence.

So the verdict here is to keep the $5 in your pocket.  How this isn’t completely panned on Metacritic is definitely a mystery.  I would have walked out, but when I looked over my colleague was sleeping and I didn’t want to wake him up.

The horror, indeed.

John Wick, Chapter 2

We ventured out to see *John Wick, Chapter 2* this past Thursday, a testosterone-fueled affair where all but two of the principals are males.  The first is the target of a hit, and she demonstrates her defiance by stripping naked for the protagonist and jumping in a tub.  The second is a mute who is pretty masculine in her own right, with cropped hair and a conventional men’s suit.  She’s also tatted up.   What is going on with her is not exactly clear. The love interest is actually just a picture of his former love interest (who must have died in the previous movie?) and probably doesn’t count as a character, unless you need at least three females in the film to get it green-lighted in Hollywood these days.

Not that I was expecting it, but not a real feminine touch here.

The real love interest, it turns out, is John Wick’s dog, who behaves a lot like a woman typically behaves in these affairs — follows the hero around and focuses its attention solely on the hero (in this case literally sitting at attention until it is told it can do otherwise). The dog doesn’t have a name, either, which is both mildly comedic and instructive.

What the movie lacks in women, it makes up for in action, and in spots the action is brilliant.  The initial chase scene contains several moments where L&D (and our special guest, A) jumped out of our seats or covered our faces or shouted “OH!” and generally reacted in ways men react when they see another man take a direct and unexpected shot to the nutuals.  This is John Wick at its best.  The film also featured dozens of shots where the victim’s brain and skull spatter out the back of the head.  For example, Mr. Wick might angle the gun below a victim and the bullet would come out the back of the victim’s head, along with residual brain and skull, sort of like seeing the silhouette of water out of a fountain.

In fairness, most of the victims had it coming.

Speaking of fountains, I also liked the scene where hero and one of the villains were shooting at each other blindly through the fountain.   Why they were being so coy in the station a minute earlier and then start blindly shooting at each other out in the open is an unanswerable question, and if you see the film, you will not be able to answer it, either.

This is pure, live-action comic book.   Which, I gather, is pure live-action first-person gaming these days.  If you like watching people play first-person shooter video games, this is the movie for you.

But for the rest of us, even low expectations going in wasn’t enough to save it.  This movie has no heart.  The story isn’t interesting.  The characters aren’t interesting.  The great Ian McShane gets to play a priggish bore, like Teddy Bass running his own retirement community or a modern-day Al Swearengen who doesn’t allow swearing within his club. The only grasp at sex appeal in the entire affair is immediately supplanted with noirish bloodletting.

And even the villain isn’t that villainous,  at least not in a way that inspires true audience animus or awe. Aren’t great action movies as much about the villain as the hero?  Darth Vader, the Joker, Hans Gruber, Sam Gerard.  That’s probably as much of a deal breaker as anything.

Heart and a good Villain.  We will return to these themes in future posts, I’m certain.

As for the verdict:   For me, the movie was saved by low expectations and I got my $5 worth.

It passes the time.

It shocks.

It awes.

And then, like it never happened, I go home and forget all about it.

Unfortunately, my colleague was expecting more and was sorely, sorely disappointed.   So, plan accordingly.

Collide and John Wick Chapter 2 — Essay

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I am not the intended audience for these films. In fact, they demand a suspension of disbelief that only a child could allow. “Collide” could easily be renamed “Implausible”. Let’s consider human consciousness, it resides in the brain, right? But you can’t quite put your finger on it. It doesn’t reside in one exact part of your brain. You can’t take human consciousness, put in a bottle and then display it in a museum. In fact, human consciousness, like PTSD resides in every part of your body. My friend, the filmmaker Wynn Padula, just released his latest documentary, Resurface, about combat vets who take on surfing as a way to deal with PTSD. It’s an official selection at the Tribeca Film Festival next month. Wynn did a Zoom session with the documentary film class I teach and told us about his experiences with the soldiers and how PTSD affects them. No one in Collide or John Wick ever had PTSD. They just get a few scratches, dust themselves off, elude a thousand rounds and keep going.

When Collide gathers together bona-fide actors like Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsley to rehash successful performances, when it takes us on high speed chases on the autobahn and includes sexy, sexy, ladies. Well, isn’t that a recipe for success? Or is it, as it turns out, just a recipe for a Frankenstein monster of film. One with no consciousness and no heart. If it was that easy to stick together a hit film, then everyone would do it.

Now if you are going to be over the top with violence, totally blurring the line between first person shooter video game and movie — in a sense creating a first person shooter game where the player can eat pop-corn and never be killed or even wait to spawn again — you should at least have a sense of humor and some humanity about it. When John Wick enters the Continent Hotel after one of his many bloody firefights, he doesn’t even ask the concierge, who is in charge of his beloved dog, how the old fella is. Those seemingly benign moments are perfect opportunities to inject a little comedy, humanity and even sympathy for a protagonist whose exploits make them more and more robotic. And besides, the audience wants to know how the dog is doing! Don’t forget about us. We paid to watch this. Even if it was only $5 and with free pop-corn in the reclining La-Z-Boy red leather loungers of the Valley Grand Marcus Cinema. We. Still. Care.

I watched another film last night. It was at the Wildwood Film Festival here in Appleton, Wisco. The film is called Halfway and stars Quinton Aaron, who you might recall from “The Blind Side”, as an ex-con who ends up living with his extended family on a farm in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin.  Aaron’s portrayal of life on the outside was truly stirring and there were times in the drama when I got chills. Films like “Halfway” are the ones we should be watching and celebrating as a society. If I want to play a video game, or in the case of these films, watch someone else play a video game for me, I will go to gammer convention or head over to D’s house. I know he gets his video game on in the basement.

Finally, I would like to mention that I love action movies and even enjoy violent ones. “Shooter”, “Deadpool” (one of our combined top movies of last year) and even last years’ over the top Hardcore Henry were all films I really got into. And also, this is not a knock on Keanu Reeves who I worked with on a documentary called “Sunset Strip”. He was the nicest, coolest person, sincerely. He will probably start a foundation to help Hawaiian sea life, if he hasn’t already.   It’s just that if a film has no heart, I can’t get into it and it becomes a meaningless series of gore and cinematic mush. I am not the intended audience for these films.

Collide

There are many, many things colliding in the new Hollywood mashup Collide, coming soon to video near you.

The movie is set in Germany of all places, following the trajectory of Casey Stein, a reasonably good-looking American ex-pat with really big blue eyes (Nicholas Hoult).  Casey is involved in some illicit activities, acting as the pickup boy for the the underworld boss, Gerun (played by Ben Kingsley). At first glance, Kingsley seems  to be reprising his role as the bumptious bald guy from Sexy Beast, only with a different accent and a gaudier wardrobe, something along the lines of “Evil Bono” (ht: L). In this case, however, Kingsley is less worried about recruiting henchmen than he is about getting a fair cut from his boss, the trucking magnate Englishman thugmeister, Anthony Hopkins (played by Anthony Hopkins).  The uneasy tension sets the stage for a mutinous collision, of course.

Meanwhile, Casey has his eye on the good-looking American ex-pat bartender, Juliette (Felicity Jones), who doesn’t approve of his profession.  So, head-over-heels in love, Casey goes straight and starts working as a salt-of-the-earth guy in one of the many jobs available to Americans in European metal scrapyards, while the couple do the efficient German thing and fall in love over the course of a couple minute montage.  But, alas, their booze-fueled affair hits an icy patch, and the couple find themselves in the need of a very quick cash infusion, setting Romeo back to the underworld for that one last big chivalrous score. The cliches come Fast & Furious, and what ensues is the aforementioned gangster-heist-car chase-action hero mashup, with cars traveling at blistering speeds down the autobahn and things crashing and blowing up here and thar, leading to the climatic collision between the principals.  I’m guessing you can guess what happens from here.

One change from this standard formula is that Hopkins’ henchmen all have dark hair and steely blue eyes, sport monochromatic clothing, and excitedly shout things out in German during some heated moments, adding (probably inadvertent) comic effect to the extended manhunt. (It is possible these henchmen are all played by the same actor, with a beard tacked on at times to mix things up; the credits for actors was much shorter than the list of stuntmen).

Some of the sequences are done really well and, coupled with Hopkins in a fabulous light-blue suit and Kingsley parading around in high-end pajamas, hopped up on gop, it makes for a rather enjoyable, at times laugh-out-loud funny, 90 minutes or so.

I can think of worse ways to spend my $5, but I’m not so sure I’d spend too much more than that on this film.

Lion

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For anyone who has done any significant exploration into their genealogy, Lion is going to be a powerful experience. I watched the third act with a lump in my throat.

This film, whose simple story could easily be described in a line or two, to the point that you might consider not watching it, was actually layered and complex. The film is carried by a brilliant young actor Sunny Pawar (I haven’t seen such great acting by a child, in fact all the kids in Lion, since Beasts of No Nation in 2015) and also Dev Patel who is deservedly up for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Lion has enormous heart. In this past year of weekly movie viewing, I have come to realize that it’s one of the single most important elements in a film. In current movies, technical capabilities are limitless and have generally been conquered via VFX and/or tons of cash. So for me, production value, though key, will not save a movie if the story is about let’s say two self-absorbed kids seeking fame at the cost of their own love. But in Lion, the story is one that, like Moonlight, centers around self-discovery. And this journey is absolutely necessary for the continued survival of the protagonist. The stakes couldn’t possibly be higher.

Lion made it right under the wire into my top 10 list for 2016 and I highly recommend it.

L&D Picks for 2016

Here is our long-awaited (mostly by us) list of the top five movies of 2106, taken from the universe of movies viewed by both L & D in 2016.   The rankings are based on a proprietary L&D weighting formula that you can just bet Netflix would kill for.

And here we go:

6. (tie) The Girl on the Train:  *The Girl on the Train* was reminiscent of the great French New Wave Director Claude Chabrol who concerned himself with the police procedural, bourgeois family life in small towns and murder. It also crossed paths with the neurosis found in many of the female leads of Hitchcock’s films and with the idea of a society turned against the protagonist, also a mainstay of Hitchcockiana. Again, going in with low expectations, I thoroughly enjoyed this film and found the production values, cinematography, set and costume design, makeup, story, editing, acting, sound design and even score (by The Simpsons theme own Danny Elfman) to be above average if not under par. So why does this film not get the hype it deserves? Well dammit it should. Perhaps a better title would have been “Murder on the Hudson”.

6. (tie) The Arrival:  (Marketed outside the US as *The Giant Space Turd Movie*)  *The Arrival* revisits the standard alien romance drama with the strong female lead made famous by Jodie Foster in *Contact*, but without the benefit of Matthew McConaughey’s Matthew McConaugheyness. Only this time, it’s Amy Adams as the lead egghead, and she is pretty terrific. If you like aliens and you like romance, there is probably something for you here.

4.  Rogue One:  The last Star Wars movie was a greatest hits album and so of course people liked it, because, who doesn’t like the hits?  But *Rouge One* was the story I have been waiting for. Not to mention I am a big Diego Luna fan. His company produced a film I worked on in Mexico called Voy a Explotar. I was fortunate enough to meet him on a rooftop in Guanajuato during production. Great guy and actor. One of my favorite films of his is called Rudo y Cursi, a fútbol comedy well worth watching. But hey, you are here to read about *Rouge One*. Yes, I knew the ending but I still enjoyed the ride getting there. And basically I enjoyed everything about it. We watched in 3D and to be honest, I can’t tell the difference. But is it because it’s so good? If it’s working, it’s working in a subtle way and maybe that’s for the best. Except for the credits. Credits in 3D are always amazing. (L)

3.  Snowden:  Oliver Stone hit it out of the park. This film could easily have been a geeky dud, filled with computer screens and talking heads but it was a classic Hollywood film wrapped around a social document told in an arresting, cinematic way. Not to mention fantastic, measured performances including Nicholas Cage. It was impressive. Everyone who watches this film will get something worthwhile out of it.

1.   (tie)  Hell or High Water:  *Hell or High Water* delivers on its promise to be the best modern western since *No Country for Old Men*. Ben Foster deserves leading-man credit for keeping his usual psychotic character under wraps to let the movie happen around him. Jeff Bridges reprises his role of Rooster Coburn as the surly,aging lawman, though he too is a little more reserved in this role. Chris Pine is a better Captain Kirk than sad sack, and is too good looking to be terribly convincing, but he does alright. We haven’t seen this all before, but it seems like we’ve seen most of this before. Nonetheless, there are a few surprises, and the compelling plot and characters, along with some reasonable action sequences and a number of provocative thematic elements, mask some of the weak links of the story line. Of particularly interest is the Evangelical Christian Native American Texas Ranger, who didn’t deal well with Bridges’ many ethnic slurs. This is definitely one of the best couple movies we’ve seen this year.

1.   (tie)  Deadpool   With action sequences targeting 15-year old boys and jokes targeting 40-something men, it’s probably no big surprise that it was a hit with the L&D crowd.  If you like the opening sequence, you’ll probably love the rest.

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Our thank yous to the Marcus Valley Cinema for $5 Tuesday and $5 student Thursday nights, which made this all possible.

See you Tuesday on the barcalounger!

Little Dieter Needs to Fly

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This Werner Herzog doc from 1997 was screened as part 3 of 4 in the series I am putting on at The 602 Club in Appleton, Wisconsin. I chose the film because I watched it in the theater, the Roxie in SF to be precise, when it first came out. One of the descriptions that remained with me for decades was the young Dieter Dengler, in his home town in the Black Forest of Germany, being bombed by American fighter planes. From his window, he and his brother could see clearly the face of the pilot in the aircraft. It was at this moment, that he knew he wanted to fly.

One of the cool things about screening a film with a wide range of people there is the discussion you can have afterward. In fact, people requested a Q and A because “Little Dieter Needs to Fly” is a heavy film, it is Herzog after all, and folks wanted to decompress —to use an aviation term. Our discussion revolved around psychology: Stockholm Syndrome (i.e. sympathizing with your enemy), PTSD (symptoms like hoarding for fear of starvation) and also truth in documentary. According to Herzog, some stories in Little Dieter are fabricated, like the scene in which Dieter talks about constantly opening and closing doors due to his time as POW. Does this change the certain facts of the story? That he was shot down during the Vietnam War over Laos and then reappeared on the other side of the country, his body ravaged and miraculously spotted by a reconnaissance pilot? No. Dieter’s account of the POW camp, his exact details and reconstruction seem unassailable. But in his own words, he was hallucinating. Ultimately, the point may not be that this or that event exactly occurred. Which is implied in the weight of the word “Documentary”. But that from the many accounts of those who survived to live to tell POW stories and stories from Europe in WWII for that matter, Dieter’s story is utterly believable if not 100 percent accurate. This pairing or Herzog and Dieter, who passed away in 2001 with full military honors and is interred at Arlington National Cemetery, an epilogue to the film tells us, seems complimentary. They are both artists of the poetic and epic story and storytelling. Their point is to illustrate human struggle, suffering, striving, compassion and even humor in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

In the end, I was happy I chose “Little Dieter Needs to Fly” as it sparked a personal and thought provoking group discussion. And I think that’s some of the best inspiration that Cinema can offer us.

Moonlight

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—SPOILERS —Moonlight is a highly stylized indie film that has reached great acclaim and is nominated for 8 Oscars including Best Picture, Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Writer/Director Barry Jenkins. It depicts the life of a person who knows he is gay and must contend with his own personal identity crisis under intense societal and family pressure. The film is told in three acts. It is as much the story of the main protagonist, Chiron, as his friend Kevin, the one person who seems to be in Chiron’s corner. Operative words, seems to be.

As I overheard someone say when we left the theater, it is a character driven story, not a plot driven story. Some people characterize films as either, or.  Though I think it’s an easy argument to make, it’s also an oversimplification. Within the three act structure and the passage of time chronologically, Moonlight certainly does have a plot and is driven by a traditional beginning, middle and end. However, the drama within the structure may surprise people. Even though there are drugs and violence spinning and threatening at all times at the periphery, the story is not so much about that but how all of that is interfering with Chiron’s growth and attempt to simply be himself. Chiron’s transformation in Act III is a powerful revelation and the denouement of the film is an intense, honest and moving portrayal of love and friendship. The film did remind me of a short Italian film I saw many moons ago but that stayed with me. That film portrays a child who is constantly bullied. He eats a lot of protein, works out, gets strong. In an alley, the bully is confronted by this seemingly new threat. But once the bully figures out that it’s the same kid he regularly beat up, he proceeds to do it again. Moonlight shares this intrigue on human psychology. What you see on the outside can mislead you about what a person is really like.

I think the film is different in that it deals with youth, gay issues and African-American issues in a sensitive way. As we noted, our last three films, “Live by Night”, “The Founder” and “Gold” were all about white guy protagonists out to conquer the world. Antithetically to those, Moonlight is a film about an African-American on a journey to discover himself.

Gold

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Gold is the third straight movie we’ve seen that focuses exclusively on a single character obsessed with conquering his world (see also *Live by Night* and *The Founder*). In this case the character is our main man, Matthew McConaughey, as a mineral prospector whose Nevada ‘plays’ have come to an end by the late 1980s, so he sets his sights to his dreams about the vast untapped wealth of rural Indonesia. From that point, the movie splits its time between the lushness of the jungle in one part of the world, to the arid semi-mountainous climes of Nevada in another, to the concrete jungle that is Wall Street that bankrolls the whole affair.

Actually, that is not quite right.  There are two candidates for main character, which the viewer has to sort out on their own.  The first candidate, of course, is McConnaughey as Kenny — a rambling guy with a protruding gut, a spectacularly receding hairline, and a tooth issue that I can’t quite put my finger on, who is often seen sporting tighty whities that are neither tight nor white. There are very few if any scenes where Kenny isn’t the focal point, and he is mostly fun to watch.  Big props to him for looking pretty much like a fat guy on a bender  from wire to wire in this one. The other main character is Edgar Ramirez as the gold whisperer, Michael Acosta, who gets to play the sharp-dressed man here, and is beautiful doing so.  I still can’t decide if he nailed it with his performance or if he kind of sucked. I’m leaning toward nailed it, with the suckiness coming more from some unevenness of the plot and pacing and incidentals.

Continue reading “Gold”