The Prestige (2006) Review

rating: ****

the story: Rival magicians push each other to dangerous limits.

review: I’ve had, of all Christopher Nolan’s films, the most difficulty appreciating The Prestige. For me it’s the most desperate of his efforts.

Which is kind of the point.

Following Memento there was tremendous pressure to follow it up with something equally compelling. With his next two films, actually, next three films, including Batman Begins (but that’s another matter entirely), Nolan adapted the work of others rather than conjure his own magic. Insomnia adapted a Swedish film, The Prestige a book. Insomnia, in hindsight, seems to lack the typical Nolan ambition entirely. It is, rather, “merely” Nolan playing, for the first time, as a member of the Hollywood establishment, giving two well-known actors, Al Pacino and Robin Williams, roles that instantly defined that particular stage of their careers. It was atmospheric, but it was very much an actor’s showcase.

The Prestige is the bridge. It is both an actor’s showcase and an obvious return to Nolan’s own brand of magic. 

And deliberately so. I think he took the course he did to reach this point, and beyond it, quite deliberately. Nolan rose to prominence a few years after M. Night Shyamalan’s own breakthroughs. But Shyamalan was quickly, and all but permanently, dismissed as an obvious act, always, at least perceptually, relying on a twist ending to sell his concepts. Nolan didn’t want to be seen as a gimmick filmmaker. So he first stepped away, and then leaned heavily into it.

That’s the whole point of The Prestige, to put a big emphasis on the popular perception of his work.

The story of the movie revolves around rival magicians who very nearly stop at nothing to achieve their magic. In fact, terrible sacrifice, on both their behalves, are revealed as the story reaches its climax. And again, that’s the whole point, but then it’s also in the manner in which they do it, the lengths, and the contrasts between them, they are willing to go.

Which is to say, Nolan is using this film to convey to the audience that he knows what they expect of him, and he is not going to be what they think he is. At least until Inception, anyway, when he will weave his magic in an entirely different manner.

Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman couldn’t possibly do a better job representing all this. They are a new breed of actor, and this is the moment in which they cast off all doubt. They are surrounded by other remarkable performers: Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Piper Perabo, David Bowie, even Andy Serkis, back when he was still best known for motion-capture performances. It takes a bold director to build such a cast, which is itself part of the magic of this movie.

Watching Bale and Jackman duel, learning their awful secrets, Jackman’s final confession (“It was the look on their faces”), emphasizing all over again their contrasts, what motivated them, it’s like another parable, a message well beyond the magic: Is the sacrifice worth it? Or do you become, perhaps, a monster capable of rationalizing anything? 

So when Nolan is ready, four years later, to reveal his own brand of magic again, the stakes have been raised considerably. And he has been working out of that playbook ever since. That’s only possible if he’s willing to sacrifice what came before, that budding artist, the one everyone thought they had figured out. And, well, of course it’s sleight-of-hand.

So yeah, I dig it.

Memento (2001) Review

rating: *****

the story: Guy with memory issues tracks down clues to his wife’s killer.

review: Yeah, I was one of those people who got caught up in Christopher Nolan thanks to Memento, that movie with the apparently gimmicky backwards narrative. I watched his debut feature, Following, which is on the whole fairly similar (an ending that rewrites the whole story), which confirmed for me what I thought of Nolan’s filmmaking. I didn’t actually catch his third movie, Insomnia, until a few years after it was released. I caught back up with him thanks to Batman. I actually thought the other magician rivalry movie from 2006, The Illusionist, was better, even though I enjoyed The Prestige. It wasn’t until Inception (okay, The Dark Knight, which gave me whole new reasons to appreciate Nolan and replaced Memento as my favorite Nolan) that I saw him as truly capable of living up to the promise of Memento as I originally understood his talent.

So I thought pretty highly of it. But it’s not necessarily a movie I went out of my way, in the next twenty years, to revisit.

So watching it again, especially with those additional years and all the subsequent Nolan projects, was quite interesting. I ended up viewing its achievement differently.

It’s actually thanks to his most recent effort, Tenet. A lot of observers think Tenet was basically vastly overhyped. It was an especially strange year, 2020, and Nolan positioned Tenet to carry a lot of weight. A lot of people thought it would be Nolan’s first film to live up to Inception, which is to say it seemed to be so similar, at least as far as its premise looked. But then people actually saw it and they ended up thinking, that backwards time thing, it looked a lot like Memento.

Which is nonsense. The link between them, meanwhile, is real, but also very different than people imagine. Tenet is basically a story about threat prevention. It’s a complicated way to explore what it’s like to stop a tragedy before it happens. So it’s “about” time travel, which in this version looks like time running backwards.

So Memento, from this vantage point, looks different, too. Watching it again, I see it very differently. Maybe I just understand it better now. The whole story is a parable of using, or more accurately misusing, facts.

It’s an interesting thing to think about. We live in an age fraught with the application of facts: facts versus lies, facts as a totem of truth, of moral rectitude. But facts can be unreliable. Facts can in fact be lies. It’s in how they’re reached and how they’re applied that they become, well, dangerous.

And Nolan’s whole story, the way it unfolds, is a perfect testament to that. It doesn’t hurt that he tells it so well, that he has a cast so perfect to purpose, actors who seemingly could never top their roles in it, despite being so interesting: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano. I’ll give you a minute. Tell me one thing any of them did later that was nearly as magnetic. 

Yeah, didn’t think you could. Usually that’s what happens with actors in blockbusters. Later, when Nolan exclusively made blockbusters, he could afford to access actors whose careers were well-established, could pull away from his remarkable gravity, even conjure entire careers from it (Tom Hardy, the true miracle of Inception). Here at the beginning, it was a special kind of privilege to be trapped by it. Because they inhabit the truest form of classic.

This isn’t just a movie with a clever framework, it’s one that exhibits complete command of itself. That’s what defines the potential for greatness, if not greatness itself, why everyone still talks about Christopher Nolan, even if Memento itself seems somehow forgotten. It shouldn’t. If Nolan himself abandoned the relative small scale it represents for an endless series of grand visions, none of them would have been possible without Memento, quite literally. This is the portrait of an artist discovering the canvas. And filling it. And preparing to make that canvas even bigger, in the future. Same talent, different scale. 

You cannot appreciate Nolan, or the art of film itself, without due appreciation of Memento.

Waiting for the Barbarians (2020) Review

 rating: *****

the story: An allegorical tale about an imperial outpost and the magistrate trying to keep it moral.

review: Mark Rylance found himself a late-career critical favorite, but until Waiting for the Barbarians I hadn’t really found something to enjoy him in. In it he embodies a gentle morality that’s as magnetic as the forces he finds himself up against, namely villainous roles for Johnny Depp and Robert Pattinson.

Depp is particularly interesting, as he tends to be. Lately a pariah in Hollywood, it probably made it all the easier to accept roles like this one, at once the visually flourished look he tends to go for but also the same edge he brought to Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (which I imagine, as he was selecting projects, these two were chosen in quick succession of each other for that very reason, even though their contexts and thus impact are vastly different). And as interesting as he is, he knows he isn’t meant to be the star of this thing, and seems content to take that backseat.

He’s assisted, in both senses, by Pattinson, who shows up late into the movie as a kind of stand-in. Pattinson could not possibly do a better job of picking interesting projects. To see him show up for something like this is a further affirmation that he knows exactly what he’s doing with his career at this point.

But again, it’s Rylance at the core, Rylance for whom the audience is meant to, and easily so, care about, as he stands up to the unforgiving forces Depp and Pattinson represent, apparently losing everything in the process.

And in the process, Waiting becomes a sort of less heavy-handed Lawrence of Arabia, less a story about some interloping hero and more about a man just trying to do the right thing, and all the more effective when he seems to have failed miserably. That’s where Rylance is so easy to depend on, how effortlessly he embodies the role of martyr without being needlessly flashy about it, what makes the whole movie work so well, steeped heavily in an era that seems to have rejected a figure like Rylance, as presented here, could possibly hope to solve anyone’s problems, let alone his own.

I’d like to imagine in an earlier era Waiting for the Barbarians would have been hailed as an instant classic, gotten all the buzz and even the Oscars to prove it. I don’t mind championing it in lieu of such acclaim. Not at all.

True History of the Kelly Gang (2020) Review

rating: *****

the story: Mostly the sort of fictional history of Ned Kelly.

review: True History of the Kelly Gang is a bold piece of filmmaking. It doesn’t really matter if you think Ned Kelly was thug or hero, Australian rogue or patriot. This is the kind of movie that throws up all kinds of reasons why he ended up the way he did, but isn’t particularly concerned if you agree or even think it has conclusions to reach. It’s complicated. And that’s a good thing.

Obviously the big draw of 1917 was the illusion of a single cut, but George MacKay did a good job of helping keep things interesting. By the time he shows up as Ned, ripped to a lean core, he’s holding his own against a backdrop of better known talents including Charlie Hunnam and Nicholas Hoult. The star of the early movie is Russell Crowe, the nasty figure who spurs on a resentful young Ned, whose domineering mother and disgraced father set him on an uncertain path of immigrants reacting against a British establishment.

And the whole is a kaleidoscope of rough moments, poetic in their way, from the cheerful, profane tune Crowe sings about constables to the dresses the Kelly Gang dons just to throw off their opponents. This is no ordinary biopic. It isn’t as weird as you may have heard, either. But by the time Ned’s fate is discussed by ostentatious politicians you can see its grandeur well enough.

I’m not heavily versed in Kelly lore. I’ve seen the Heath Ledger version. That’s about as much as I knew before True History. Nothing’s sacred here. And that’s what makes it so interesting.

It’s the kind of filmmaking that can’t help but be memorable, in all the right ways.

End of Watch (2012) Review

rating: ****

the story: Partners on the police force find themselves embroiled in trouble.

review: Here’s another movie I was initially wowed by but eventually took for granted until a rewatch. Especially in 2020, in which End of Watch suddenly seems impossible. 

This is actually a cop movie in which the cops themselves decide to record their activities. This is after they have already been involved in a service-related shooting incident. And they can’t stay away from trouble. Imagine recommending this to someone outraged this past summer. I don’t understand why End of Watch was so easy to take for granted in 2012, never mind, part of the shift movies started taking, toward almost exclusively blockbusters for audiences and art films for critics. From that vantage point it’s inevitable for everything else to be lost in the shuffle.

And in the process Michael Peña’s career becomes narrowed down to a caricature. Peña is now that motormouth from the Ant-Man movies, which is a great spot, sure. Who else can pull that off? But Peña has so much more to offer. Between this, World Trade Center, Lions for Lambs, there’s a whole alternate film history where he’s a major star of great acclaim. Just not this one.

Jake Gyllenhaal, meanwhile, has a movie star career, but likewise if any of his films at all were better appreciated, he would himself be better appreciated. This is a guy who consistently makes good choices, some of the most interesting choices of any modern actor, and yet he gets little enough attention for any of it.

Combine both with the gritty tendencies of David Ayer, who soon enough for pigeonholed as the “urban chaos guy,” and easily enough dismissed, that he doesn’t get any love either. There are few enough directors whose work is distinctive enough, consistent, that you know what you’re going to get, that it is always going to be interesting. Ayer is one of those.

Frank Grillo is in the supporting cast. Eventually he found himself typecast as a thug, so it’s good to see him as an outright good guy. Anna Kendrick, David Harbour help round out the cast, among others.

But this is really a showcase for Peña, Gyllenhaal, Ayer, and a look at how wonderful, and awful, it is to be a cop.

Bee Movie (2007) Review

rating: ****

the story: A bee discovers that humans use honey.

review: The thing about Bee Movie is that it’s an animated movie that’s probably better appreciated by adults than by kids. It’s kind of the whole point.

For one thing, it’s probably going to end up the only time Jerry Seinfeld does an actual attempt at telling a story, rather than what he did for nine seasons of Seinfeld, “a show about nothing,” in which he poked fun at everyday foibles with no real concern whether he acting or sort of just waiting to deliver his stand-up material around a given cast of characters. I mean, I loved it, but no one, including Seinfeld himself, was ever going to argue that Seinfeld made any kind of effort to be an actor.

A lot of Bee Movie is a collection of gag material, too, but it ends up being an actual story, with a point an’ everything, and not just a point but a very good one. Seinfeld’s bee goes to trial to prevent humans from stealing honey. And this leads to bees no longer producing as much honey. And not so much pollinating. And suddenly it gets real.

It’s a morality tale. It’s about failing to see the interconnectedness of things, how in trying to rip one thing apart from another, it ends up being like that loose thread that unravels the whole sweater. This has huge applications for a modern world that no longer understands how much unraveling is really being done, that can’t distinguish between distinctions being made and losing the sweater in the process.

And it’s got Patrick Warburton! I don’t know, I’m always a sucker for the guy, ever since discovering him in Dave’s World. And John Goodman, making full use of his booming voice. Renee Zellweger kind of recedes into the animation (I think even she learned years later that her eyes are a huge part of her appeal when she tried to surgically change them). Also: Chris Rock. He’s Chris Rock. Hilarious minor role.

And Jerry Seinfeld. As a bee. It’s kind of a big deal. I loved the movie when I first saw it, and then eventually just thought of it as that movie where Jerry Seinfeld is a bee. But the whole thing absolutely works, and is worth celebrating.

Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) Review

rating: ****

the story: Bill & Ted, thirty years later, still trying to find the song that will change the world.

review: Here’s my reaction in a nutshell: Most excellent!

Bill & Ted Face the Music may end up the entry in the series that’s most easy to enjoy years down the road, the kind of experience the series has been chasing since the start, taking all the familiar elements and finally knowing exactly what to do with them.

The idea of time-traveling dimwitted wannabe rockers was a fine novelty, guaranteed to stand out, especially since when we first met them Bill & Ted were in high school, like so many other movie characters in the ‘80s. They gave off a similar vibe as Back to the Future, but less complicated, wackier, and as it turned out, Keanu Reeves had better movie star chops than Michael J. Fox. He went on, aside from everything else, to launch two additional franchises with The Matrix and John Wick. Which is virtually impossible. Usually the max is two. Even more usually, one. A lot of stars would be very happy just to have one, especially in the modern era, but many can’t even pull that off.

I don’t think Face the Music works off nostalgia alone. I think you could watch it with no prior knowledge of its two predecessors and it would still be satisfying. Even the callback gags aren’t difficult to parse, and there’s more than enough new gags built directly into the plot (Bill & Ted meeting future versions of themselves, couples therapy) that even if you don’t settle into the air guitars you’ll be fine.

Then there’s Kid Cudi being a time travel physics genius. There’s Dennis Caleb McCoy, who only gets better as the film progresses. There’s even the idea of Bill & Ted not even being the heroes, but knowing not to lean too heavily into that.

It works. It absolutely works. This is how you solidify a cult classic. By making a sequel that only further justifies that status. And pretty much replaces it.

Live by Night (2016) Review

rating: ****

the story: A Boston gangster is relocated to Tampa and finds unexpected complications in establishing himself.

review: Gangster movies are about as old as Hollywood itself, so well-established that it’s become increasingly difficult for new entries to find any real appreciation. It’s just assumed that everything’s already been seen and done, and if not, The Sopranos was too big a recent phenomenon to worry about what the movies might be doing, too. I think Sopranos spent a little too much time glorifying gangsters, the way Goodfellas did, the exact opposite of how human Donnie Brasco made them, the last time a movie made an impression.

Live by Night opts for an entirely new route. It actually makes gangsters potentially moral authorities.

Yeah. Based on the middle act of a historical trilogy from Dennis Lehane, Hollywood’s favorite author in the first decade of the millennium, Ben Affleck’s adaptation posits an Irish immigrant cleaning up a white supremacist scene by uniting all the undesirables under his empire. He has a black girlfriend (Zoe Saldana), his nemesis is a phony Christian proselytizer (Elle Fanning) and his biggest ally is her police chief father (Chris Cooper). He also wants to replace booze (about to become legal again) with gambling, when no one else sees the wisdom in it.

Like The Godfather, this is a story that doesn’t really dwell on whether or not the basic premise of gangsters is justifiable, but rather whether there is any semblance of honor in what they do. So we follow Affleck around as a hero. His enemies are the viewer’s enemies. His ideas are ideas we can get behind. 

So it’s interesting. Of course, the cast is pretty interesting. Brendan Gleeson’s also in it, Titus Welliver, guys who’re natural fits for this kind of movie. Clark Gregg is there, too, Sienna Miller. Fanning continues to be an inexplicably mature youthful screen presence, in perhaps one of her best roles. Affleck himself never goes out of his way to put the spotlight on himself. If anything, he’s finally found a role that allows him to be the star but also the casual screen presence that saw his best early material (Good Will Hunting, Shakespeare in Love), which often found him in supporting roles.

This is the sort of movie that doesn’t feel like it should be a big deal. But perhaps is for that very reason. It leaves a better impression that way. By not trying to be so impressive, it is. In an era bereft with flashy material, large and small, it’s a welcome digression.

2020 thru November

I keep doing these updates partly because I haven’t written actual reviews for all the new movies I’ve watched from the very strange 2020 movie year, but it’s worth keeping track of them before I settle on formal rankings (which I informally did in August, before watching a lot of what will be covered here). So here’s a summary of things I’ve so far caught:

Ava - Wonderful spotlight for Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell mixing action with drama.

Bad Boys For Life - Puts the spotlight firmly on Will Smith in this follow-up, Gemini Man without CGI shenanigans.

Birds of Prey And the Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn - Just the right amount of spunk.

Bloodshot - Better than a would-be superhero franchise starter has any right to be.

The Burnt Orange Heresy - Old school throwback featuring Elizabeth Debicki.

Capone - Tom Hardy in another sensational showcase.

Downhill - Hilarious and uncomfortable midlife Will Ferrell.

Emperor - Slave drama that diverges into fresh territory by dramatizing John Brown and focusing on a little-known true story around him.

The Gentlemen - An early favorite featuring an all star cast.

The Last Full Measure - Another old school drama that would’ve gotten far more attention previously, with an all star cast of aging Hollywood stars.

Legion - Critics seem positively allergic to Mickey Rourke, but his few scenes in this one absolutely emphasize all the right thought-provoking elements.

The New Mutants - Last of the original X-Men movies.

The Night Clerk - Yet another old school Hollywood production that deserves greater and better attention.

The Rhythm Section - Blake Lively has turned into one of the most fascinating actors we have. This spy drama only further emphasizes that.

Robert the Bruce - An improbable late follow-up to Braveheart.

Sonic the Hedgehog- Jim Carrey returns to form.

Tenet - Christopher Nolan. Doing what he does.

True History of the Kelly Gang - The leading contender for runner-up in best film of the year.

Waiting for the Barbarians - My leading contender for best film of the year.

The Way Back - Another great sports drama.

And there will be more watched later, by the end of the year itself and the usual lingering assortment in the months and years to come...Already at this point I think 2020 speaks well for itself. As I’ve said before clearing out the kind of material that has come to dominate Hollywood at least in the past decade has helped make room for movies that have become easy to ignore, which of course is what’s still happening to them. But the void they inhabit now might make them easier to rediscover later. This might yet become known as a renaissance year.

Actor Spotlight: Josh Brolin

 I’ve been reading Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, and the thing that keeps standing out is how I can’t tear myself away from thinking about Josh Brolin’s performance as Bigfoot Bjornsen in the 2014 film adaptation every time Bjornsen appears in the book. It got me thinking all over again how fascinating Brolin has become as an actor.

When I think about my favorite actors, I don’t necessarily include Brolin among them, in part because he never really broke out as a lead. But very few actors in modern cinema have so thoroughly dominated the supporting actor field like Brolin.

In a lot of ways, he’s something of a miracle. A lot of actors have to fight tooth and nail for a career, but Josh Brolin’s family kind of gave him an edge, so he didn’t have to work too hard to find a way in. His first film credit is Goonies (1985). He didn’t quite count as a child actor at that point, but he was still a teenager at the time. 

His career for the next twenty years is pretty unremarkable. He was just a guy who appeared in movies. In 2004 he acted in Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda. I would have to rewatch it to know what Brolin does, but that’s the first movie I personally care about to feature Brolin in some capacity. He’s got long locks in the Jessica Alba/Paul Walker gazing vehicle Into the Blue from 2005.

Brolin’s unquestionable breakout year was 2007, in which he starred in No Country for Old Men, as well as appeared in Grindhouse, American Gangster, and In the Valley of Elah. I caught all four in theaters and enjoyed each of them, and Brolin was a pleasant discovery each time. He had, at last, a magnetic, unavoidable presence. Ironically he actually takes a distinct backseat in No Country, which will always be remembered for Javier Bardem’s Anton Chicurh.

But there was no turning back from that point. In 2008 he starred in Oliver Stone’s W. He was featured in a string of projects from that point onward, but with Men in Black 3 in 2012 solidified his place in supporting actor lore, doing an impressive version of a young Tommy Lee Jones that somehow manages to feel natural and be the kind of performance Bardem had previously pulled on him, stealing the show from under the nominal lead (Will Smith).

Then in 2014 of course there was Inherent Vice. There’s lots of reasons to watch this one, but as I said, reading the book I kept coming back to Brolin’s Bjornsen. If you want to disentangle Brolin from his later career role as Thanos and consider him only as a classic actor in classic film material, this is the one that showcases him in all his natural charisma.

That same year he makes his first appearance as Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy, with larger spotlights in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame (neither of which, to my mind, really nail the character). He has another standout comic book movie  appearance in 2018’s Deadpool 2.

But again, if you prefer more earthbound heroics, you would probably prefer his appearances in 2015’s Sicario and 2018’s Sicario: Day of the Soldado, which feel like the organic follow-ups to his 2007 work.

It’s a career I will continue to follow with great interest.

Downhill (2020) Review

 rating: ****

the story: A marriage hits a rough patch on a ski vacation.

review: Based on the Swedish film Force Majeure, Downhill is the third film directed by the duo of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (The Descendants, The Way, Way Back). I haven’t seen Force Majeure. I have no earthly clue why it would be remotely relevant to worry about this when talking about Downhill.

Downhill is exactly like Faxon and Rash’s prior films. It’s a movie about awkward family moments that are both heavy and presented in as light a fashion as possible. There’s unpleasantness, and it might be uncomfortable to watch at times, but this is a legitimate way to make a movie, and is perhaps all the better for it.

George Clooney was the hook in Descendants, coming off arguably the best period of his career (Michael Clayton, Up in the Air). You care about his widower problems because of his inherent charm. You can put up with Steve Carell’s nastiness in The Way, Way Back because you also have Sam Rockwell at his most charming.

And you can cope with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who in Downhill is having the hardest time with a near-catastrophic event, because as counterpoint you have Will Ferrell. Before knowing anything about Downhill I really had no interest in it. I love Will Ferrell, but sometimes it just seems like his films are a Rolodex of every possible context for the same basic elements. Sometimes they work really well, and sometimes they don’t. I thought Downhill was just Will Ferrell in a skiing movie. But it’s actually one of his increasingly rare dramatic roles, insofar as he’s ever overly dramatic in his dramatic movies (which has actually made him refreshing as a comedian who sometimes does drama).

The only problem here is that Louis-Dreyfus comes off as a shrew because Ferrell feels more sympathetic. But that only emphasizes how awkward the whole situation is. If it were a matter of picking sides it would be more difficult. In the original movie the onus is more of the husband’s side, how he apparently obviously abandoned his family in the emergency. But so much emphasis is already on Ferrell before the (quasi)avalanche, and even how the ski resort doesn’t take the event seriously (the best scene of the movie), that it makes it that much harder to side with Louis-Dreyfus as she increasingly freaks out about it. And while Ferrell is not at all averse to showing his comedic instincts, Louis-Dreyfus is, making her even harder to root for.

But as much as I find myself siding with Ferrell, Louis-Dreyfus ends up giving him a generous opportunity to redeem himself, and then at the very last minute (this is how I currently interpret it) there’s a second moment of potential disaster, and it’s Louis-Dreyfus who pulls away....And cut straight to credits!

Even viewed as a Will Ferrell movie alone, Downhill is rewarding enough, but Faxon and Rash once again prove they have a winning formula, however unlikely it seems to be. Miranda Otto shows up in an equally unlikely supporting role, thereby somewhat proving that this is exactly how the movie is supposed to be received.

The Burnt Orange Heresy (2020) Review

 rating: ****

the story: A con artist art critic stumbles on the opportunity of a lifetime.

review: Sometimes titles alone are a hook, which for me anyway if you’re going to call your movie The Burnt Orange Heresy it’s practically irresistible. The other big draw is Elizabeth Debicki, who has also been a standout in Widows and Tenet. Technically she isn’t the lead actor here. Danish actor Claes Bang is (he comes off like a bootleg Cary Grant, where the movie itself feels like authentic classic Hollywood), playing the con artist art critic.

Here’s another movie worth talking about based off how terrible its reviews have been. It’s astonishing how terrible these things can be, so utterly obviously dismissive, because critics know audiences aren’t really going to care one way or another (especially thanks to aggregate websites that arbitrarily grant grades to movies based on the results, which somehow only emphasize how poorly critics do their jobs).

Anyway, this is to say that you don’t have to worry what critics have said about it. Their opinions are worthless.

The results are interesting for the very reason that Claes Bang is himself so hard to care about. You don’t need to care about him. So much of popular entertainment in recent decades has been obsessed with trying to make bad people look compelling, it’s refreshing to let the lead character in one of them suavely unsympathetic, emphasized by the actor himself having the lowest profile of the main cast. You get to see him for what he is, a conman willing to do anything to get what he wants, in an environment that’s considered high brow, and as a result diminishing attacks on the results as part of its message. Mick Jagger is an easy target as the smarmy collector who both facilitates the results and condemns them, Donald Sutherland the reclusive artist who ends up kind of welcoming his doom. 

The only victim here is Debicki, or at least her character, who actually becomes a martyr in her effort to expose the conman, who believes until the clever twist ending that he got away with it. But he absolutely doesn’t. The art world celebrates him, but he doesn’t get away with it, murdering Debicki, Sutherland. History will eventually expose him. 

Anyway, it’s a movie that’s sultry in all the right ways, losing itself in the glamour of the con, the patent romance of filmmaking, of art, and using it against itself.

So yeah, it’s a modern version of classic Hollywood. With a great title.

Ava (2020) Review

 rating: ****

the story: A hitwoman is targeted for elimination by an associate who views her as a liability.

review: Here’s a movie I felt compelled to review based on the idiotic reviews I’ve so far seen for it. They seem fixated on its familiar plot. You can boil even the most innovative plot to something familiar. In this case the selling point is absolutely Jessica Chastain as the title character. Of course it is. To even begin to suggest anything else is to completely fail to comprehend the art of filmmaking.

But if you really want to boil it down, Ava could be called the Jessica Chastain John Wick. What made John Wick so much fun was how it helped viewers see Keanu Reeves as exciting again. Reeves has been pretty good at finding defining roles over the years. He’s got three recognizable franchises under his belt at this point. Ava was never going to be as popular as John Wick, for the same reason that Chastain doesn’t have the same kind of career as Reeves. It’s arguably tougher now than in Hollywood’s golden age for actresses. When it’s gotten tougher for actors in general to stand out in a blockbuster-saturated era (which has actually made 2020 refreshing, with so many blockbusters relocated away), women will especially struggle for attention. You have a few that critics can’t seem to get enough of, and then you have ones like Chastain and Cate Blanchett who more often than not are taken for granted.

Simply put, if this were an earlier era, it’d be a lot harder to say “blah, another Katherine Hepburn movie” (fully aware as I am that even Hepburn could be taken for granted, but the greater point here being Hepburn is a widely acknowledged cinematic treasure, and Chastain is not). The fact that Ava is a Chastain movie is absolutely itself a good enough reason to pay attention.

It’s like the John Wick version of her best movie(s) The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, if anything. As much attention is given to her professional problems (and prowess) as her domestic problems. This is a good year, if anything, for human women action stars, counting Blake Lively’s Rhythm Section. And while Lively is very human in all aspects, Chastain is given no room for doubt in her ability to survive a brutal fight, even if little space is even given how much her background hurts her, and the family she had to leave behind.

So the perceived limitations critics see in Ava are quite calculated. It’s a movie bold enough to let us know what we need to know but not dwell on it, and have flashy elements but not dwell on them.

The other reason I had to catch it was Colin Farrell, who costars as the guy who decides Chastain has become a liability. He shows flashes of real passion, something Farrell usually keeps below the surface. It’s one of his villainous roles, and yet another that also proves his utter lack of vanity, which is what has continually cost him mass appeal (early in his career, for instance, Farrell exhibited few qualms to looking less obviously heroic than his more famous costars, Tom Cruise in Minority Report and Bruce Willis in Hart’s War). It’s a great role at this point in his career.

Chastain’s ally against Farrell is John Malkovich, who gets to have an epic fight scene but also the kind of death that leaves you guessing until the end. Her mom is Geena Davis, and the one weak acting link is Common as her ex-lover. I don’t know why Common is so common.

If the problem is that it confounds expectations, then that’s a very good one for Ava to have. When people get around to appreciating Chastain, it ought to be remembered as the kind of thing only she could pull off.

A brief summary of some brilliant movies I’ve watched during the pandemic, including some 2020 highlights

 I haven’t been updating this blog as much as I should. I’ve seen some pretty great movies while sitting through the pandemic. Two were months ago, stuff I came across by sheer chance.

One was Bill (2015), which strictly speaking is not a theatrical feature (which is what this blog typically discusses), but a BBC production, a farcical, brilliant fictional account of Shakespeare’s formative development. Since I grew up adoring Monty Python, it’s always nice to see something that resembles the level of satirical insight of Holy Grail, which is exactly what Bill does, as The Death of Stalin did a few years later. Pythonesque is officially a film genre, I guess.

The other was Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011), a Japanese film (in case it weren’t obvious from the title) in which the ramifications of a feudal lord’s decision to force a supplicant to perform seppuku play out in unexpected ways. It’s a hugely affecting drama in all manners, that cuts well beyond the romance of samurai life we normally see (but still has an epic showdown).

Funny thing is, I also finally watched what will likely go down as the last Monty Python production, a little more recently, what has turned out to be the obscure Absolutely Anything (2015), directed by Terry Jones and featuring all surviving members in vocal performances, as squabbling aliens, as they decide what is to become of humanity based on... Simon Pegg’s ability to wield infinite power. Yes, Simon Pegg. You’d think we were screwed, right? But his dog, voiced by Robin Williams in one of his last roles (which is what made me interested in the movie in the first place, not Monty Python), has...other ideas. Williams is surprisingly committed to a specific scope for the role, so unlike...every other animated role he tackled he’s pretty subdued. And Kate Beckinsale is pretty in general, of course, and Pegg’s would-be girlfriend. The basic outline of the movie is similar to Bruce Almighty, but the results are ultimately very different. I think they’re well worth celebrating, at any measure.

I’ve finally watched The Wiz (1978), which is a bit ridiculous because I had been working on an Oz project earlier this year without having done so. Turns out Michael Jackson’s whole career pivoted around this thing, and watching him in it is a real treat.

For films to be considered 2020 releases, in a year that couldn’t possibly be more challenging, in every regard, if it tried, I’ve seen two that are now contenders for my favorite of the year.

The first is Waiting for the Barbarians (2020). Mark Rylance has sort of been a critical favorite, out of nowhere, in recent years. This is my first Rylance, and as far as this one’s concerned, he was absolutely worth the hype. Somewhat a pity he has such a worthy adversary in Johnny Depp, in another recent villainous role, as a government official auditing an imperial outpost and finding Rylance...entirely too sympathetic to the locals. Rylance’s deep convictions aren’t presented in a preachy fashion but a personal concern. He isn’t looking to convince anyone of anything, and yet he finds Depp’s attitude appalling. Robert Pattinson has a supporting role as Depp’s supercilious subordinate. It’s the kind of allegorical tale that’s both timely and timeless. Before I cracked the other film, I thought I’d found the best movie of the year.

The other one’s True History of the Kelly Gang (2020). This is the kind of movie that’s designed to be the exact opposite of everything you’d expect, so of course a lot of what I’ve read about it assumes it’s everything you’d expect it to be. It’s supposedly too violent, even though it doesn’t actually show most of the violence (or even young Ned Kelly saving another boy, perhaps the only time he’s unabashedly a hero). It’s a complicated study of gender, even though most of that is kind of incidental, merely a part of the intricate web of motivations that led to Ned’s infamy. George MacKay (1917, which I’ve also finally seen and absolutely loved) is Ned, and Charlie Hunnam, Nicholas Hoult, and especially Russell Crowe are the males in his life that only complicate it, to say nothing about his domineering mom. I had to keep trying to watch it to make it all the way through. But it was absolutely worth it. This is an unusual film that’s unusual in all the right ways, forcing you to consider Ned Kelly in a lot of different ways, if not sympathetically then certainly as a product of his experiences, which is also a hugely pertinent message for these times.

Watched lots of other movies, of course. I finally gave Jojo Rabbit (2019) the time of day, and, yeah, absolutely worth it. If I blogged here as much as I watched, it would be clearer how much I love movies. Yeah. It’s a great medium. In a different lifetime I would have loved to have pursued a career in it. Well, still time, I guess.

The New Mutants (2020) Review

 rating: ****

the story: Young mutants in a kind of rehab center.

review: The X-Men film series began in 2000 with a girl named Rogue who was trying to get over the traumatic way she discovered her mutant abilities. In a lot of ways, it ends on the very same note. That’s as appropriate as it gets.

The problem, if it can be said to be one, with that first film was that Rogue’s journey was completely stolen by other plot elements (and a breakthrough performance by the best-known X-Men actor; you know his name). By the time she makes her last appearance in the series (X-Men: Days of the Future Past), it was apparently possible to pretty much cut the part entirely but later release a different cut of the film with it, and actually market it that way. 

Anyway, New Mutants focuses squarely on the archetype Rogue established. Most of the cast is unknown, including the actress who plays lead character Dani Moonstar, Blu Hunt, who is unlikely to garner a bigger career from the role. Alice Braga is the authority figure running the center. Among the other young actors are Game of Thrones alum Maisie Williams and Anya Taylor-Joy, who turns out to be the highlight here, just as she’s been an emerging star in general (among other roles she starred in the Unbreakable sequels, Split and Glass).

It seems any time someone’s powers are a problem in these X-Men movies, it involves perception of reality. Several attempts were made to explore Jean Grey (including the nominal final X-Men, Dark Phoenix), and X2, originally received by fans as a standout superhero movie (since lapsed), as well as the Legion TV series. Dani’s of course part of that trend. No powers in the movie are especially unique, but they’re used effectively (as is a sock puppet, which is eventually...not a sock puppet), as extensions of character rather than the whole character (which can sometimes be a problem in superhero movies).

Bottom line here is that you don’t even need to be a fan of the series, or even superhero movies in general, to enjoy the results. You can follow the story as recovery and acceptance. As part of the series it’s a fitting final statement, and finally puts all distractions to the side and lets the audience dwell on the customary mutant (and Marvel in general) concept that powers usually cause equal amounts trauma as anything else. 

I’ve enjoyed the series all along, so it’s nice to enjoy the last one, too.

Tenet (2020) Review

 rating: ****

the story: In order to prevent the end of the world, a man must travel back in time.

the review: All of Christopher Nolan’s films are about cause and effect. Usually but not always it’s easy to tell which, um, comes first. Of course, he made his name with Memento, which plays out chronologically in reverse. Tenet is sort of like that, except this time it isn’t merely for storytelling effect but built into the plot.

So I’m a big fan of Nolan’s. His existence in a persistent blockbuster moviemaking state, the sheer scale of his ideas, has of course existed since The Dark Knight. The opening of Tenet is perhaps the first time he’s consciously sought the feel of that particular achievement, which for a fan of that particular film was a great way to kick things off.

From there we eventually reach the time travel element. It’s called “inverting” in the movie, but it’s time travel. The cleverness is in how it’s executed. Visually it looks like effects being played backward. It’s memorable in that regard to how Inception most obviously presented its conceit, with the cityscape folding in on itself.

The cleverness, however, is that “inverting” essentially means time travel in Tenet is “rewinding the tape.” It reminds me of Source Code, another high concept movie using a repeating time conceit that turns into a chance to actually prevent (not merely inhabit the circumstances, as is originally believed) a catastrophe from happening. 

Unusually, Nolan lets the concept sell itself more than rest on the star power of the actors (although he did this in his last movie, Dunkirk, too). Since Memento (which for the general public was in casting a mini-reunion of actors from The Matrix), Nolan has consistently gone for as well-known a cast as he could get. His star this time, however, is as close to an unknown as he’s gotten since his first movie, Following. John David Washington (son of Denzel Washington) has one prior lead role to his credit (BlacKkKlansman), in which, for me anyway, he sported a distractingly fake-looking afro. Chances are more people viewed that as a Spike Lee movie than a John David Washington one. As a known commodity, then his screen presence is minimal. That allows the audience to follow him along in the movie far more than linger on him alone (which is half the danger of the rabbit hole Leo DiCaprio leads us through in Inception).

Robert Pattinson, still popularly known for starring in the Twilight movies, costars. He’s been making a new name for himself in recent years by pursuing the kind of “interesting project, interesting role” career that Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp previously pursued as “pretty boy actors,” though they never really succeeded in avoiding the spotlight. But these are far different cinematic times. Now if you aren’t starring in obvious blockbuster material your career plays out in relative obscurity. Pattinson plays his part in Tenet with no desire to upstage anything, and in the process is perhaps inhabiting his first mature role (a knack for which Nolan should be well-known).

The rest of the cast is filled with highlights. Clémence Poésy (like Pattinson a veteran of Harry Potter, same entry and all! as well as In Bruges) and Michael Caine trade off early efforts to guide the audience along. Elizabeth Debicki, who was a standout in a cast of standouts in Widows, takes on the role that might have been the lead in a previous Nolan project, the woman whose life unravels and is the chief beneficiary from the opportunity to rewrite things. Her nefarious husband is played by Kenneth Branagh, perhaps the best strictly villainous figure Nolan has yet conjured, in yet another mid-careee standout performance. Himesh Patel, so appealing in Yesterday last year, has a fun supporting role (which itself is not normally a feature of Nolan movies), while Aaron Taylor-Johnson, so often robbed of his ability to be the movie star he deserves to be, is unrecognizable in a performance that seems to riff on Christian Bake (a familiar Nolan presence).

The whole affair is a trademark example of Nolan’s effortless ability to create sensational moviemaking magic. It plays out like James Bond (that’s how a lot of observers seem to be simplifying it) but is fueled by clever execution of yet another stylistic gimmick, which to my mind Nolan has so far failed to make anywhere close to a routine affair. Christopher Nolan is the opposite of routine. If nothing else Tenet is the latest example of this.

I hesitate to boost the results too far. It’s bravura but stops just short of wanting to be seen as much more than an exceptional action movie. If you can wrap your head around rewinding time travel, then you aren’t left with the ambiguity that made Inception so intoxicating. It really feels as if it’s Nolan saying he could do Dark Knight without Batman. Where that film examines the surveillance state that was then hotly debated, Tenet is essentially an argument for intelligence agencies, which most often end up viewed with suspicion and distrust. It’s a sensational depiction of such work being incredibly effective.

So it’s very interesting, sometimes in ways Nolan hasn’t really pursued before. In the years to come, depending on what he does next, Tenet might be viewed differently, as the movie that transformed Nolan’s already extraordinary career. We’ll see!

2020 thru August

 Here’s a list of 2020 movies I’ve seen thru August, my thoughts. And how I’d rank them:

1. The Gentlemen - The latest Guy Ritchie (I’m not overly versed in his work, so I don’t love this one, much less would’ve hated it, based on that alone), a great ensemble flick told interestingly.

2. Capone - The latest example of Tom Hardy’s brilliance.

3. The Way Back - The latest Gavin O’Connor, another great spotlight for Ben Affleck.

4. Sonic the Hedgehog - For me, Jim Carrey’s mainstream comeback.

5. Birds of Prey and the Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn - This definitely worked for me.

6. Bloodshot - An attempted Valiant comics universe starter, it’s a fun vehicle for Vin Diesel that actually works really well as a meta response to costar Guy Pearce’s best-known film, Memento. Totally unexpected. Totally works.

7. The Night Clerk - A great spotlight for Tye Sheridan and Ana De Armas.

Obviously I hope to see a lot more 2020 releases one way or another. But this has been a solid set so far.

Capone (2020)

 rating: ****

the story: Al Capone in his last year, riddled with dementia.

the review: Sometimes great acting is its own reward. Capone isn’t just about great acting but great storytelling, too, though.

Getting films released obviously got a lot harder when the pandemic hit. Capone started out as Fonzo but metamorphosed to get its release. Whatever hassles were involved, they were well worth it. Tom Hardy is the “great acting” in question, even if he’s absurdly hard for critics and mass audiences to love. He scored a box office hit with his last movie, Venom, despite a considerable amount of doubt, but for the most part he’s the rare instance where critics and audiences converged to scoff at the hype he’s amassed in the ten years since his breakout appearance in Inception.

And he’s playing Al Capone here, the second time he’s done a gangster movie (after the criminally underrated Legend, dismissed by the critics as “just another Kray Brothers rehash”...despite the fact that no one outside of England had ever heard of them).

Only, he’s not playing “Al Capone,” as in the dude at the height of his powers, but the guy after he’s been released from prison because it’s been determined...he’s no threat to anyone anymore.

(Ah, unless he imagines it.)

It’s not as if we’ve never seen deconstruction in film before. My personal favorite is The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, for instance. But to do it to a gangster, let alone a famous one, let alone a real one...We’re used to glorifying these guys, since at least The Godfather, since the nauseatingly acclaimed Goodfellas. We hear Capone fart. There’s nothing pretty here. This is a guy even the feds realize isn’t worth anything anymore.

The folks who still love him are his family, those who work for him. He’s got bills that need paying, things that need selling to pay them, a museum of a home that gets gutted to do so. The movie bookends itself at Thanksgiving and the granddaughter who in all innocence idolizes Capone.

Hardy’s Capone is practically catatonic. He’s an actor who can be compelling almost entirely by looking compelling, and director Josh Trank is brave enough to let him. Trank knows deconstruction. He did Chronicle, he did the Fantastic Four remake, which dared to sideline three of four major characters, for the most part. Nothing is sacred to him except the dramatic results. 

Surrounding Hardy are Linda Cardellini in the traditional long-suffering wife archetype, Kyle MacLachlan as the guy trying to keep Capone’s remaining wits together, and Matt Dillon as the guy who thinks it’s still possible to find his hidden treasures. They ground the movie in enough traditional expectations that it’s easier to accept it on Trank’s and Hardy’s terms.

For some reason we find it increasingly difficult to appreciate great acting. The less ambitious Daniel Day-Lewis got, the more he was loved. I don’t get it. Hardy remains as ambitious as they come, and he’s yet to dip into Johnny Depp levels of cartoonery. There’s always the sense that he believes in the integrity of his creations, even the bombastic Bane. He’s one of the few actors, or perhaps the only actor, who could sit in a car the whole movie, literally the whole movie, and be the only actor we see throughout it, and still be completely compelling (Locke). Hardy’s Capone is a great performance.

And on that level alone, this is a must-see. But the whole movie works.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - Films That Begin With “Z”

The final day!

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt, Mark Strong, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Édgar Ramírez, James Gandolfini
Brief Thoughts: With the exception of Birdman, The Hurt Locker is the last work of real art to have won Best Picture at the Oscars. It put a big spotlight on Jeremy Renner, but also on director Kathryn Bigelow. Her next movie was about the mission that took out Osama bin Laden (an ending that didn’t exist when the movie originally went into production). But it ended up being better known as a de facto justification for torture in interrogation techniques. The cast is impeccable, led by Jessica Chastain, in what was her biggest shot at seizing the spotlight, but I think the film’s controversial nature ended up sabotaging that. Still, she remains one of the most effortlessly commanding screen presences today, in a package that seems to defy such distinction. That’s the power of acting, folks, and there are few who can be considered her peers.

The Zero Theorem (2014)
Director: Terry Gilliam
Starring: Christoph Waltz, David Thewlis, Lucas Hedges, Matt Damon
Brief Thoughts: Terry Gilliam has a reputation for making weird movies, but on the whole his output is not as weird as you’d think. But Zero Theorem is pretty weird. Take Brazil but then chain Christoph Waltz securely to his work station, in a futuristic setting, with futuristic clothing, and...It’s sometimes difficult even for me not to find the results weird, as I love both Gilliam and Waltz, so it should be a great combination, right? Except Waltz is at his best when he’s allowed to command a scene, and basically this whole movie is everything conspiring to prevent him from doing so, which means the results are about confounding expectations, and Waltz being forced to be upstaged by everyone else. Very refreshing, actually! Matt Damon shows up uncredited. He’s had such an interesting career. Increasingly, he just kind of turned up anywhere he wanted to, like here. Also: Lucas Hedges, which is kind of hilarious, because he’s kind of Young Matt Damon. Later, he even finally gave us the Good Will Hunting follow-up we still haven’t actually gotten, Manchester by the Sea (which I still haven’t seen), which costars Affleck. (Casey Affleck, actually. A near-reunion at every turn!) The thing Gilliam has done most consistently is come up with the most interesting casts imaginable. That’s why, for instance, Robert De Niro did the uncredited honors in Brazil. That’s reason alone to enjoy this one.

Zoolander (2001)
Director: Ben Stiller
Starring: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell
Brief Thoughts: The cult comedy of all cult comedies, perhaps, so completely absurd you can’t help but stare, a tale of male models that’s basically Austin Powers if everyone was dumb enough to continue insisting on one million dollars. Ben Stiller may have hit big with There’s Something About Mary but without Zoolander his popular career would have been a lot shorter. Still haven’t seen the sequel, alas. Blue Steel!

A to Z Challenge 2020 - Films That Begin With “Y”

The Yellow Birds (2018)
Director: Alexandre Moors
Starring: Alden Ehrenreich, Tye Sheridan, Jack Huston, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Patric
Brief Thoughts: An all-star cast of young Hollywood in Alden Ehrenreich, Tye Sheridan, and Jack Huston in a war movie. The screenwriter is David Lowery, otherwise known as one of the great underrated directors working today. Jennifer Aniston turns in a fine supporting role as a mom. Jason Patric is a treasure, as always.

Yesterday (2019)
Director: Danny Boyle
Starring: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon, Beatles songs, Ed Sheeran
Brief Thoughts: I remain hopelessly in love with this movie! Critics were fairly merciless about it, even though Danny Boyle is ordinarily their kind of director. I guess anything resembling traditional gooey romance repels them? Ordinarily not my kind of genre, either. But the Beatles...! Kate McKinnon puts in another great supporting role as a record exec. Ed Sheeran, for a lot of people who may be drawn in by the Beatles, is probably exactly what the critics said about the Beatles, that his presence is inexplicable. They won’t have any clue that he’s a big star today. His biggest hit (“Shape of You”) shows up as Sheeran’s own ringtone. It’s the only song I know of his. No offense to Ed Sheeran, but “Shape of You” is not the Beatles. There’s nothing wrong with pointing this out.

You Were Never Really Here (2018)
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix
Brief Thoughts: In my review of Joker here, I mentioned that Joaquin Phoenix starred in this a little before it, and that there are many parallels. There are some differences (no clown makeup, he has a beard, no Robert De Niro, he is a badass), but otherwise...!

A to Z Challenge 2020 - Films That Begin With “X”

Here we’re changing it up again, talking about the X-Men movies, in chronological order:

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
I have no idea why this one gets such a bad wrap, except probably that superhero films had taken a giant leap forward the previous year with The Dark Knight and Iron Man, and it seemed like Origins was looking backward to a recent past (The Last Stand) that had soured. But the results are solid and they star Hugh Jackman, still one of the indisputable stars of the genre, alongside Liev Schreiber, taking over and commanding the role of Sabretooth. The only real complaint here is Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, but in the grand scheme it ended up achieving what had at that point been impossible. Well, that and playing into superhero fatigue with a wicked satire...

X-Men: First Class (2011)
I personally think linking Magneto with the Holocaust is needlessly melodramatic at best, and seeing it play out twice in the series didn’t make it work any better. But here we are with the second, but at least it gets us Michael Fassbender in the role. He’s this iteration’s MVP.

X-Men: Days of the Future Past (2014)
This is the one that plays both ends of the series, although it’s really an excuse to give Jackman another spotlight. Hey, no complaints here. Also the first appearance of Evan Peters’ Quicksilver.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
For me, the all-around most satisfying of the prequels, with Fassbender and James McAvoy turning in their best work, and at least the second best appearance of Quicksilver.

Dark Phoenix (2019)
It’s a little surprising that fans didn’t embrace the concept of the sliding scale in the prequels. The sliding scale was a staple in comics for decades, the idea that everything, especially in Marvel comics, that previously happened still happened even decades later, despite certain cultural touchstones from different eras making it somewhat problematic. So you have characters stretching back to the early ‘60s (and of course in Magneto’s case as a boy in WWII) looking, well, just as if they only aged a decade in thirty years. Anyway, these prequels got progressively less interest from fans who had concluded that the only superhero movies they cared about were part of the MCU, and came up with ridiculous justifications like, “Jennifer Lawrence looks bored.” Well, folks, that’s literally every Jennifer Lawrence performance, and she’s still more engaged-looking than the average Kristen Stewart. Anyway...

X-Men (2000)
And, paradoxically, where we began! Without Jackman, who was actually the last-minute replacement for the guy originally cast as Wolverine, this whole series would have looked and been drastically different. Startling to think how crucial the character is in this first movie alone...!

X2 (2003)
This is the one commonly considered the best of the originals, and by default best of them, period. But, I don’t know...It always bothered me that the first two, let alone the third one, were so eager to dispense with Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, with these first two even accomplishing it in more or less exactly the same manner, his own device (Cerebro) being used against him. Other than that, and Nightcrawler, X2 is really best and can only be appreciated as a de facto Wolverine spotlight. And...yeah.

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
In contrast, this one’s got just about a million parts and yet somehow seems to have something definitive and worthwhile to say about all of them. If it weren’t for the last film in this sequence, this would still be my pick for the best of them, easily.

The Wolverine (2013)
The good thing about everyone complaining about Origins is that it got a couple of neat results. This was the first of them, a movie that was the first half of “making things right,” by allowing Wolverine to grieve the events of The Last Stand.

Deadpool (2016)
Here’s Ryan Reynolds getting to become a bona fide movie star!

Deadpool 2/Once Upon a Deadpool (2018)
Yes, I count both versions, and I prefer both to the first one.

Logan (2017)
The upside to continually demanding something better from Wolverine’s solo adventures is that it culminated in the best of them all, that completely transcended the series and pretty much the genre in general, a top shelf superhero movie the way, say, High Noon is for westerns. Jackman still insists this is the last time he played Wolverine. It’s a helluva way to go.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - Films That Begin With “W”

Walk the Line (2005)
Director: James Mangold
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon
Brief Thoughts: The biopic can be a fairly formulaic genre, so it’s probably best to pick and choose the subject. This one was pretty easy for me. My dad’s a big fan of Johnny Cash, and around the time this was released he listened to Cash obsessively. I became a fan a little before this period thanks to Cash’s late career renaissance that culminated with “Hurt.” Joaquin Phoenix may not have the best possible voice for the role, but he does fine, and his versions of the songs are still quite good. Bubbly Reese Witherspoon ended up with all the awards love, and why not? It’s probably her perfect role.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Director: Nick Park, Steve Box
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter
Brief Thoughts: So, yeah, definitely a fan of Wallace & Gromit. The rabbits are adorable!

Watchmen (2009)
Director: Zack Snyder
Starring: Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino
Brief Thoughts: Of course I loved this. Was there really any doubt?

The Way, Way Back (2013)
Director: Nat Faxon, Jim Rash
Starring: Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell
Brief Thoughts: This is a coming-of-age movie that isn’t embarrassing to admit loving. The “way, way back” is the backseat in a station wagon, which is something I definitely experienced growing up. Nat Faxon & Jim Rash are criminally underrated; this was the movie they made after The Descendants, although admittedly it featured far less George Clooney. But another perfect vehicle for Sam Rockwell! And one of many, many roles no one ever expected to see from Steve Carell, who easily has one of the most interesting careers in modern Hollywood.

We Are Marshall (2006)
Director: McG
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox
Brief Thoughts: If biopics are formulaic, then sports flicks definitely are, but they’re harder to pick through. My sister swears by, as far as football movies go, Remember the Titans, but this is mine. It’s the movie where Matthew McConaughey became a personal favorite, and it’s inexplicably the only movie that had any clue what to do with Matthew Fox.

Wind River (2017)
Director: Taylor Sheridan
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen
Brief Thoughts: Taylor Sheridan is one of the great directors working today, and also one of the great directors today who receive very little acclaim. Wind River ended up being viewed as a Jeremy Renner movie when that was no longer what anyone was looking for, possibly because everyone quickly realized that Hawkeye was never going to get his own movie. Boo to those people.

Woman Walks Ahead (2018)
Director: Susanna White
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Sam Rockwell
Brief Thoughts: You, ah, may have noticed a running theme in these mini-reviews, that I think there’s a lot of filmmaking talent that’s criminally underrated. You can bet Jessica Chastain belongs in that group. Woman Walks Ahead was...completely ignored upon release. Chastain plays a woman who conducts a series of interviews with Sitting Bull “in retirement” on the reservation. It plays a little fast and loose with history, and might seem a little preachy, but then, every western since Dances With Wolves that’s portrayed Native Americans as protagonists gets that label (and any that features them as antagonists gets buried...you really can’t win). Either way, you also get Sam Rockwell!

A to Z Challenge 2020 - Films That Begin With “V”

Vice (2018)
Director: Adam McKay
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell, Steve Carell, Tyler Perry, Jesse Plemons
Brief Thoughts: Before The Big Short, Adam McKay was already savaging the state of the country in The Other Guys, which hangs its shenanigans on the same subject matter, so when he made Vice, it seemed almost easy to take his work for granted. Vice is in a lot of ways, the film everyone was waiting for since 2000, the savaging of George W. Bush that W. proved not to be (or at least as it was received). Sam Rockwell’s Bush is the Bush out of a thousand caricatures that probably finally nailed it, as only Rockwell can. Of course, the star of this story is Dick Cheney, as portrayed by Christian Bale, who inexplicably has been utterly taken for granted in recent years despite continuing to have one of the most interesting careers at least in modern film, willing to make himself look foolish in ways not even Will Ferrell ever did in various other McKay movies (you can see how badly McKay wanted this taken seriously when he didn’t cast Ferrell as Bush, despite Ferrell’s long track record doing exactly that). Of course, what sank Vice was that it wasn’t savage enough, it gave Cheney sympathetic moments. Thankfully we don’t live in a society where it matters how such films are received, as I think the results are pitch-perfect.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - Films That Begin With “U”

United 93 (2006)
Director: Paul Greengrass
Starring: history
Brief Thoughts: A wildly uncelebrated film achievement, and I don’t really know what to say about that. There are wild conspiracies about everything, so of course there are wild conspiracies about “what really happened to this flight,” but regardless, this is a look at what happened without trying to distort anything one way or another. Maybe it’s still too difficult to appreciate.

The Upside (2019)
Director: Neil Burger
Starring: Bryan Cranston, Kevin Hart, Nicole Kidman
Brief Thoughts: We’re at the point where if it’s not a blockbuster, even if it’s a hit film you need some reason to talk, much less care about a movie...other than the movie itself. The Upside was a rare hit drama last year, but because it feels uncomfortably like old school Hollywood it was apparently embarrassing to admit enjoying. Well, not me. Bryan Cranston gained inexplicable fame portraying an asshole (but I guess that answers my earlier question) but has found no real interest in virtually anything else he’s done. Kevin Hart, obviously best known for his comedy, did the Serious Movie thing, but I guess since he wasn’t the unequivocal lead actor it didn’t count? Anyway, both are in top form here. Also features Nicole Kidman in a supporting role, because I guess she’s too old to be a lead now, but great as always. Only realized while I was preparing this that Neil Burger also directed The Illusionist, which might further explain why I liked it so much.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - Films That Begin With “T”

Takers (2010)
Director: John Luessenhop
Starring: Idris Elba, Paul Walker, Hayden Christensen, Matt Dillon
Brief Thoughts: Idris Elba first game to my notice saying the seemingly idiotic phrase, “That’s what we do, gents, we take.” Literally only he could pull that off. That’s magnetic screen presence for you. The thing about the current state of film is that something like this can’t be made. Paul Walker here points in the direction of where they are, the Fast & Furious series, but there really ought to be more space for them. Anyway, also by far Hayden Christensen’s most badass film appearance, before prequel backlash officially scuttled his career.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
Director: Adam McKay
Starring: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Amy Adams
Brief Thoughts: One of my all-time favorite comedies, and by default favorite Will Ferrell film (and by default favorite pairing with John C. Reilly), highlighted by Sacha Baron Cohen as his French rival (here’s more of that Pink Panther legacy from my dad), and Amy Adams as she was still climbing the Hollywood ladder and proving every step of the way how awesome she is.

Thirteen Days (2000)
Director: Roger Donaldson
Starring: Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood, Steven Culp
Brief Thoughts: Some of my Kennedy hero worship stems from my mom (she soured on him in part because of the whole infidelity thing, but she never shook him entirely). Even if you think JFK is hogwash, there’s still Kevin Costner’s other, seldom celebrated film where he gets to play alongside history, this time spotlighting the Cuban Missile Crisis. The thing I hate about how history can sometimes be viewed is that it seems easier to fixate on how some people get into trouble, rather than how they get out of it. The most brilliant thing Kennedy ever did was get out of this crisis. Even if historians are loathe to give him credit, at least there’s this film to pay adequate tribute.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
Director: Martin McDonagh
Starring: Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson
Brief Thoughts: Martin McDonagh made two brilliant films with Colin Farrell (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths), but when he was finally accepted by the Hollywood mainstream, and audiences in general, Farrell didn’t get to go along for the ride (he’s my favorite actor). Instead, McDonagh brings along Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, and Woody Harrelson, who adequately translate his tendencies to a fully American setting, and help him look like the Coen Brothers in the process. Context is everything.

Timeline (2003)
Director: Richard Donner
Starring: Gerard Butler, Paul Walker, Anna Friel, David Thewlis
Brief Thoughts: Here’s Paul Walker again, looking like he had a bright, varied career ahead of him (at least the Fast & Furious series took off!). In a supporting role: Gerard Butler, in a “manly man” role before 300 made it irresistible to cast him as such. Based on a Michael Crichton book. (Crichton, somehow receding from memory as a literary and cultural touchstone...)

The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)
Director: Richard Schwentke
Starring: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams
Brief Thoughts: Saw the movie first, later read the book. Love both of them. The movie gets targeted as a “creepy romance” (as does Rachel McAdams’ other time-related movie, About Time, which for the record is equally delightful) by viewers unable to appreciate complicated ideas. Another highlight of Eric Bana’s brief turn as a Hollywood favorite.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story (2006)
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Steve Coogan
Brief Thoughts: Back during the years it seemed Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film would never get made, I sort of received Tristram Shandy as the closest we’d get. Based on another, more obscure, literary adventure, one I read (mostly) but got thoroughly turned around by, becomes a different kind of treasury entirely by Steve Coogan giving viewers a unique tour of it as he stars as the star of a movie as it’s being made, allowing him to comment hilariously on everything. The only thing I’ve seen remotely like it is the far, far more sober Looking for Richard (equally brilliant).

A to Z Challenge 2020 - Films That Begin With “S”

Serenity (2019)
Director: Steven Knight
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke
Brief Thoughts: I’ve seen Serenity on “worst of the year” lists, and... I can only assume it’s people who didn’t actually see it but heard about the twist. I don’t know, maybe these people watching movies like this and not getting it are real, and maybe it’s just people who didn’t see it and just couldn’t fathom the results. I mean, both are certainly possible. But the movie itself is completely legit. The hook is the classic thriller material surrounding the proposition Anne Hathaway makes Matthew McConaughey concerning her husband Jason Clarke, but the movie actually and quite deliberately revolves around McConaughey. The logic is sound, and the results are one of the best movies I’ve seen in recent years.

Seven Pounds (2008)
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Starring: Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Barry Pepper, Woody Harrelson
Brief Thoughts: Much like Collateral Beauty nearly a decade later, Will Smith stars in an intellectually and emotionally complex movie filled with moral quandaries, which few Hollywood stars are likely to do once, let alone twice in their careers. Naturally, both are overlooked in the list of Smith’s impressive accomplishments.

Sicario (2015)
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin
Brief Thoughts: The movie that made Denis Villeneuve a truly undeniable talent, an unflinching (with Emily Blunt as our guide) look at police tactics in the drug trafficking trade. The sequel, which isn’t directed by Villeneuve but reunited Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin, is a more than worthy follow-up, with a brilliantly-staged, unsettling act of terrorism setting its stage.

Sideways (2004)
Director: Alexander Payne
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Sandra Oh, Virginia Madsen
Brief Thoughts: Might as well be subtitled “For the Appreciation of Unexpected Pleasures,” the film that proved Paul Giamatti, after years of brilliant supporting roles, could carry his own weight. And at the same time, forced a reevaluation of Thomas Haden Church. And proved that Sandra Oh had a long career ahead of her. And gave Virginia Madsen her her most notable role. And yeah, suggested, at least as far as Giamatti is concerned, that I probably ought to skip merlot.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
Director: Kerry Conran
Starring: Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie
Brief Thoughts: Along with Sky Captain there’s the two Sin City movies I could be talking about here, in how audiences (and critics) seem inexplicably and irrationally afraid of advancing filmmaking techniques when they help usher the future of art in the medium. In any other era (just imagine! film noir being rejected as “ostentatious”) this would have been unthinkable. But that’s how we do things now...

Source Code (2011)
Director: Duncan Jones
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright
Brief Thoughts: One of my favorite movies, a classic time loop narrative that takes a giant intellectual leap at the end that solidifies its place in film lore for me. Jake Gyllenhaal, Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright end up embroiled in a dispute as to what exactly they’re accomplishing, while the heart of the film concerns Gyllenhaal’s relationship with Michelle Monaghan. It’s a movie that fires on multiple cylinders, and rewards on all of them.

Stick It (2006)
Director: Jessica Bendinger
Starring: Missy Peregrym, Jeff Bridges
Brief Thoughts: A movie (and storytelling) genre that’s not usually my wheelhouse, but I’ve been obsessed with Stick It since randomly deciding to watch it in theaters. Missy Peregrym plays a rebellious gymnast coached by Jeff Bridges, in the role where he officially became a personal favorite.

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Director: Marc Forster
Starring: Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman
Brief Thoughts: Will Ferrell’s Truman Show. Or his Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Brilliant surreal experience. Doesn’t get near enough attention.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - Films That Begin With “R”

Red Cliff (2008)
Director: John Woo
Starring: Tony Leung
Brief Thoughts: John Woo became the stereotypical Hollywood action director in the late ‘90s, to the point where he was basically considered a parody. He went back to China (and hasn’t returned), where he came up with Red Cliff, a sprawling war epic that may have hailed a crossover between US and Chinese audiences. Instead, today we have Chinese audiences watching Hollywood blockbusters, watching their own blockbusters, and...still no real interest from the US in Chinese films. If anyone should have been able to cross the divide, it was Woo. And no, Red Cliff does not feel like Face/Off, but with Chinese actors.

Red Dragon (2002)
Director: Brett Ratner
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes
Brief Thoughts: Yes, this initial Hannibal Lecter book was adapted as Manhunter, before Silence of the Lambs, before Anthony Hopkins ever played Lecter. Yes, Hopkins had already reprised Lecter in the exploitative Hannibal. But c’mon, it would’ve been a massive wasted opportunity not to revisit this one, with Hopkins. Still arguably the best Lecter story, with the definitive Lecter actor playing the part. I see no viable reason to pretend it didn’t happen. Backlash nonsense at its finest.

Rent (2005)
Director: Chris Columbus
Starring: Rosario Dawson, Taye Diggs, Jesse L. Martin, Idina Menzel, Anthony Rapp
Brief Thoughts: I was lucky enough to see a stage production when I was in college. Glad a film version ended up getting made. Rosario Dawson! Never nearly appreciated enough! And Idina Menzel, before “Let It Go” made her immortal (but her name still difficult for, ah, John Travolta to remember). Too many reasons to cherish.

Road to Perdition (2002)
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, Daniel Craig
Brief Thoughts: One of the best movies everyone seems to forget exists. Tom Hanks was coming off his long hot streak, so there was probably a lot of fatigue going on, both with audiences and critics, but this is arguably the best thing he made during that period, with the best supporting cast around him, Paul Newman in his last great role, Jude Law as he was still agitating for his place in film, and Daniel Craig years before he broke out, in the role that should have made it obvious, well, years earlier. (But I guess if it had, he might not have gotten heroic parts like James Bond.) Some of the best cinematography in a mainstream Hollywood movie ever. Incidentally, the kid who played Hanks’ son in the movie ended up playing Superman in TV’s Arrowverse.

The Rundown (2003)
Director: Peter Berg
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Rosario Dawson, Christopher Walken
Brief Thoughts: Dwayne Johnson’s earliest perfect vehicle, the one that proved he wasn’t chasing a fantasy by pursuing an acting career, leaning into the kind of action he was expected to deliver, but surrounded by an unexpectedly delightful supporting cast in Seann William Scott (still allowed to exhibit, at this point, his unlimited potential) Rosario Dawson, and yes, Christopher Walken, in full-blown deadpan parody mode.

Russian Ark (2003)
Director: Alexander Sokurov
Starring: three hundred years of Russian history
Brief Thoughts: 1917 is the latest movie to revel in a seemingly endless tracking shot, but one of the true visionary employments of the filmmaking technique is Russian Ark, which dances from room to room in Saint Petersburg’s White Palace, interpreting Russian history along the way. A singular achievement.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - Quentin Tarantino

Here’s a complete filmography of Quentin Tarantino:

Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Tarantino: directed it
Brief Thoughts: Driven by dialogue, story structure, carefully selected music, and a cast inhabiting generic names including “Mr. Pink,” this is the one that proved the art of cinema was taking a giant leap forward.

True Romance (1993)
Tarantino: wrote it
Brief Thoughts: Directed by Tony Scott, this is the that proved even if Tarantino just provides the script, it can still become a cult classic.

Pulp Fiction (1994)
Tarantino: directed it
Brief Thoughts: The one that proved he was definitely no flash-in-the-pan.

Natural Born Killers (1994)
Tarantino: provided the story
Brief Thoughts: Oliver Stone would later direct U Turn and Savages, less manic examples that prove he’s less a politically controversial filmmaker and more akin to Tarantino than it seems.

Four Rooms (1995)
Tarantino: directed “The Man from Hollywood”
Brief Thoughts: You’ve got to be a true completist to have seen this one. Proves that even in a collection of dynamic young filmmakers working on the same project, his work stands out as the best.

From Dusk till Dawn (1996)
Tarantino: wrote, starred in it
Brief Thoughts: Even though he’s made a brilliant career as a director, Tarantino always wanted to be an actor. This is his biggest role.

Jackie Brown (1997)
Tarantino: directed it
Brief Thoughts: Often overlooked as less flashy than Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and thus valuable as the template for his later projects.

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)
Tarantino: directed it
Brief Thoughts: This is where I came in as an active fan of his career.

Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)
Tarantino: directed it
Brief Thoughts: The first film where Tarantino allows a calm scene of seemingly ordinary dialogue to build its own dramatic tension.

Sin City (2005)
Tarantino: directed car scene with Clive Owen and Benicio del Toro
Brief Thoughts: Easily Benicio del Toro’s best scene in the film, and arguably most interesting acting to date.

Grindhouse (2007)
Tarantino: directed “Death Proof”
Brief Thoughts: His fourth and to date last collaboration with Robert Rodriguez, another underrated project. “Stuntman Mike” arguably best character name in any of his projects.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Tarantino: directed it
Brief Thoughts: Still working its way to being considered a classic, but well on its way. Might actually supplant Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction to be considered his best.

Django Unchained (2012)
Tarantino: directed it
Brief Thoughts: Second collaboration with Christoph Waltz might somehow have improved in the quality of the performance.

The Hateful Eight (2015)
Tarantino: directed it
Brief Thoughts: The film he challenged himself to pivot almost entirely on dialogue. Of course it works.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
Tarantino: directed it
Brief Thoughts: Probably as mainstream Hollywood as he’s ever going to get, which of course is still purely Tarantino.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - Films That Begin With “P”

The Pink Panther (2006)
Director: Shawn Levy
Starring: Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Jean Reno, Emily Mortimer, Beyoncé
Brief Thoughts: Growing up, there were two kinds of movies my dad obsessively promoted: westerns (which is to say, John Wayne) and Pink Panther. Of course, these are still among his favorites, but he added in Grumpy Old Men in later years. The Pink Panther movies starred  Peter Sellers as the comically bungling French Inspector Clousseau. Looking back I wonder if his nationality was one of the few “cultural links” my dad shared (it’s tough being French, much less French-Canadian, much less Franco-American, these days, insofar as there doesn’t seem to be a defined shape to it). Sellers portrays Clousseau as French mostly through a ridiculous accent. The Pink Panther movies outlived Sellers through a series of fairly painful pivoting maneuvers (here’s one with archive footage! here’s another! here’s his long-lost son!), until finally a real reboot happened. Steve Martin’s Clousseau isn’t really Sellers’, but they sync up beautifully with: a ridiculous French accent. And that, folks, is why I love this film.

The Producers (2005)
Director: Susan Stroman
Starring: Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, Will Ferrell
Brief Thoughts: Mel Brooks couldn’t possibly have timed his Broadway version of his own film The Producers better. In the wake of 9/11 New Yorkers needed a communal release valve, and by all accounts that’s what The Producers became. (I suspect something similar awaits on the other side of the pandemic.) By the time the movie version of the play version of the movie version was made, it kind of became clear that the whole phenomenon was probably more limited in scope than it had appeared. But I still love it. Lane & Broderick get to be immortalized, but perhaps more significantly you also get Uma Thurman to ramp up the movie star appeal, and Will Ferrell in his last great supporting role before he became a full-fledged leading man.

The Proposal (2009)
Director: Anne Fletcher
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Betty White
Brief Thoughts: Famously part of the Sandra Bullock Renaissance, but also underrated as arguably the impetus for the later Ryan Reynolds Renaissance. And, the Betty White Is Really Old & Still Funny! Renaissance. So an historically important movie. Also, a good movie.

The Proposition (2005)
Director: John Hillcoat
Starring: Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston
Brief Thoughts: Arguably the movie No Country for Old Men was chasing, The Proposition is the Australian western that comes up when aficionados of the western talk about later classics, and with good reason. Guy Pearce wasn’t able to sustain the popular momentum he got from this and the earlier Memento, but his career remains interesting. Features Ray Winstone’s defining role as the lawman who pits Pearce against his own brother, Danny Huston.

Bonus!

A Theory Concerning Al Pacino
(“Pacino,” so relevant for today’s letter)

I was wondering if part of the reason Godfather Part III was received so poorly actually had a subconscious explanation. It’s the only entry in the trilogy where Al Pacino is essentially unchallenged as lead actor, has no real counterpoint. In the original, he not only has Marlon Brando in his unexpected comeback role, but Robert Duvall and James Caan as well. Part II has Robert De Niro, as well as the returning Duvall. The closest Part III comes is Andy García, but at this point the trilogy is leaning toward actors you’d maybe expect to be in a mobster movie, in mobster roles (tellingly, it’s also the one that features Joe Montegna, who would later voice Fat Tony in The Simpsons). The original appeal, I think, was watching movies stars meet grizzly endings, sort of like recapturing Bonnie & Clyde (the ending of which I was watching last night when I had this thought). And chances are, you’ll conclude that people don’t like Part III because they agree with the consensus, that it’s a bad movie (agreeing with a consensus never in itself being a valid argument), but it’s worth a thought.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - O

Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Johnny Depp, Mickey Rourke, Eva Mendes
Brief Thoughts: The conclusion of Robert Rodriguez’s Mariachi Trilogy (Antonio Banderas & Salma Hayek join in the second one, Desperado, which was a formative film experience for me). For a lot of people, it became better known as The Movie Johnny Depp Made After Striking It Big With Jack Sparrow. Depp, of course, was already well-known for seeking out weirdo character roles, but after Jack Sparrow the stakes were immeasurably raised. Somewhat lucky for him, this was weirdo territory already, though the fact that it’s a supporting role was a little confusing. Still, he gets off the memorable gonzo line, “Are you a Mexican or a Mexican’t?”

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
Director: Justin Chadwick
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Eric Bana, Jim Sturgess, Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne
Brief Thoughts: There’s a whole inexplicable cottage industry of books surrounding Henry VIII’s love life, which I suspect has less to do with how irresistible he was as a lover and...the thousand wives he had, and...how he disposed of them. Sort of an object lesson in the woes of feminism, I suppose (ironically all leading up to Queen Elizabeth). Anyway, a rare opportunity to see two heavyweight actresses (Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman) headline a movie. One of those movies, too, where you get to see Benedict Cumberbatch before, um, anyone really knew what to do with him.

Over the Hedge (2006)
Director: Tim Johnson, Karey Kirkpatrick
Starring: Bruce Willis
Brief Thoughts: Based on an ongoing comic strip that remains virtually impossible to find in actual newspapers, this is one of those animated movies made before everyone realized that the Pixar brand of group adventures didn’t actually work outside of Pixar movies. But I still love it. Bruce Willis has a surprisingly long history of voiceover work, although to date (outside of a cameo in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part) this remains his most recent credit in this capacity. This was at the tail-end of his last major push, too, just as the Sixth Sense bump was fading. Remains an inexplicably underrated talent.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - N

Nebraska (2013)
Director: Alexander Payne
Starring: Will Forte, Bruce Dern
Brief Thoughts: Will Forte is somehow an underrated talent, but I guess it’s always going to be difficult for the majority of Saturday Night Live alum to have breakout careers (it took Will Ferrell years to reach that point, and he seemed like a given from the start, but he’s also an object lesson in finding that one perfect role, in his case the aging frat boy in Old School, to contextualize himself to mass audiences). In Forte’s case, he found it, oddly enough, in a drama, but I guess it was too confusing. I mean, do you keep doing dramas at that point or do you go back to the comedies that were already not working? So that explains what happened to him, unfortunately. Nebraska is an affecting story about an aging father (Bruce Dern) who becomes convinced he’s won the lottery. Anyone else would have relentlessly mocked him, but Alexander Payne instead crafts his story around the son (Forte) who does everything possible to help preserve his dignity. Anyone with aging parents will appreciate the effort.

Now You See Me 2 (2016)
Director: John M. Chu
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Lizzy Caplan, Daniel Radcliffe, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine
Brief Thoughts: I haven’t gotten around to seeing the first one, but I figured Daniel Radcliffe’s tongue-in-cheek casting in the second was reason enough to catch that one. The results are of course slick heist magic with a fun cast. The only possible complaint would be how easily Lizzy Caplan is accepted into the close-knit Horsemen family. If they played their cards right (heh) they could expand this into a whole franchise, Fast & Furious style. And c’mon, the next one would obviously have to be entitled Now You See 3.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - M

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
Director: Jonathan Demme
Starring: Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber
Brief Thoughts: Yes, the remake, not the original. Two of the very good reasons: Meryl Streep, before she entered Living Legend mode, both at awards ceremonies and the roles she took, filled with knowing winks to the audience (critics) about how great she is. At the time, her performance in Manchurian Candidate was considered a biting satire of Hillary Clinton, but I have the idea that now, not only would Streep not pursue such a role, but it would never be accepted as “a good thing” (a phrase used by someone in one of her later roles). Also: Liev Schreiber, folks. This movie is literally his closest shot at cinematic immortality, folks. He deserves it. He earned it. Don’t take it away because you’re horrified at the thought of remakes. And, of course, Denzel Washington. It’s always great to see him in a role that isn’t calculated based on his race, or one of his action movies. He’s a star. Let him be a star, at the magnitude he’s capable of reaching. Which is as high as anyone. And at least as interesting. This whole thing holds up better than the original. Of course it does.

Midnight Special (2016)
Director: Jeff Nichols
Starring: Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver
Brief Thoughts: This is one of those great cinematic experiences they tell you can’t be done anymore, thanks to all the remakes and sequels Hollywood pumps out. It is exactly equivalent to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and hails Jeff Nichols at exactly the level of Spielberg. But you wouldn’t know it. And that’s kind of the level of sophistication we have at the moment.

The Missing (2003)
Director: Ron Howard
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Cate Blanchett, Evan Rachel Wood
Brief Thoughts: This is exactly the kind of western that ought to be getting made at this point. Tommy Lee Jones completes a transformation into a kind of modern John Wayne (the poster always made me think the allusion was intentional). He plays an absent father who lived for years with Indians. The antagonist of the movie is a crazy Indian, but in no sense is the guy meant to represent all Indians. Jones, who is not being sold as appropriating the identity of an Indian but rather representing the idea that this is a character who thought that was the best way to live, even at the expense of his own family. And as counterpoint you’ve got, well, Cate Blanchett, who excels at making everything she touches compelling.

Munich (2005)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig
Brief Thoughts: This is one of my all-time favorites, and as far as I’m concerned, Spielberg’s finest achievement. As a sober reflection of the times, it’s second to none. And it’s Eric Bana’s best role, his absolute career peak. Also, Daniel Craig just before Bond, the unheralded final development of the style he had when he finally got there.