Red Tails (2012) Review

rating: ****

the story: Tuskegee airmen perform heroics during WWII.

review: Until Top Gun: Maverick exploded at the box office last year, I was, like many other filmgoers, overlooking one of the original joys of Star Wars: the X-Wing run down the Death Star trench.  It's easy to forget the appeal of the sequence when the focus so often shifts to the world-building, the characters, the tension of the moment, but really, it's a holdover of the fighter pilot era best defined by WWII, and by the release of the original Top Gun, fast receding into the past.  Incredibly, George Lucas never featured that exact kind of storytelling again, until Red Tails, which he developed much earlier than its release date suggests, but kept getting turned down by studios (yes, even though it came from George Lucas), he contends, because it features an almost entirely black cast.

Lucas himself doesn't direct Tails, though by all accounts of his filmmaking career it's extremely difficult to imagine he stayed far behind during production (he's credited with direct involvement only during reshoots).  In effect this was his big goodbye to the world of film, before Disney kicked off the new Star Wars era without him.  The whole thing is basically one long excuse to immerse deeply into the dog-fighting Luke Skywalker experiences for just one moment in 1977, though its grounding in the all-black squadron history subsequently unearthed is probably far more personal to Lucas than it might be supposed, given his childhood memories of the black community around him and the black woman he married later in life.  Star Wars fans who always complained there wasn't enough black representation in the saga would have you believe otherwise, but Lucas himself never had a problem with black people.

The actors in Tails would be a highlight in any film, and by this point had been, including Cuba Gooding, Jr., whose breakthrough performance in Jerry Maguire was a tough act to follow, and basically he tried everything and never found traction.  He's joined by Terrence Howard, one of the modern era's great actors, frequently sabotaged by the reputation of being difficult to work with.  Howard appears in a very similar movie, Hart's War, which covers a sequence omitted in Tails of what happens to a black soldier in German captivity.  They're surrounded by an embarrassment of riches, including Leslie Odom, Jr. (later associated with Hamilton), Michael B. Jordan, Nate Parker (whose Birth of a Nation was crippled by allegations made against him), and David Oyelowo, whose least rewarding performance, to date, for me anyway, was MLK in Selma.  Otherwise, as Tails again proves, he's an overlooked treasure, easily the star just below Howard and Gooding of the movie.

The politics of what films gain recognition are so byzantine it's sometimes impossible to navigate, but something like Red Tails is worth the effort to discover.

The Prestige (2006) Review

rating: *****

the story: Rival magicians can't figure out that they have very different approaches to and goals for their craft.

review: I've reviewed The Prestige before, here, which you can read for yourself. It's one of those movies I'm constantly reevaluating, and it's absolutely worth the effort.  By this point, I'm perfectly willing to call it a classic.

Now, the whole reason I've struggled in this manner is that it's a film by Christopher Nolan, but unlike other film fans, this isn't the result of trying to keep up with Nolan's dizzying stories, but in comparing it to his other films themselves.  For a while, Memento was my favorite movie, having dislodged The Truman Show for that honor.  I value ambition and cleverness, but these are qualities that walk a dangerous line.  I used to view The Prestige as being the result of Nolan desperately trying to live up to the reputation of Memento.  I had a similar problem with Batman Begins, which I thought didn't chase that legacy enough.  The Dark Knight Returns was the point at which I began to realize Nolan himself wasn't that concerned with the need for some gimmick, but appreciating Nolan's abilities as mere storyteller took time.  By Tenet, I saw a director who was trying to make a point, and using all manner of tricks to achieve it.  I adore Interstellar, which hit me in a visceral way that had been absent from his other films.  Inception dazzled me most in its casting.  Dunkirk is a tour de force of tension without letting it ever get in the way, in all respects Nolan having learned his lesson from Memento.  Very early on I also went back and watched his first film, Following, which is all style.  Insomnia might have fallen into such a trap, but it's driven by two great performances, the first time Nolan allows his actors to leap ahead of him.

Integrating all his instincts is really Nolan's defining production technique.  Memento proved he could work with known actors, but it also trapped Guy Pearce into that role, and he's really never recovered since.  He's the Memento guy.  When The Prestige was released, it was most notable as starring Batman and Wolverine, so it was hardly going to suffer from known quantities.  And yet Hugh Jackman was himself in the early process of disentangling himself from one role, and hadn't yet accomplished it, so to view The Prestige, since Jackman is the lead actor, on its own terms, you need to not only separate it from Nolan, but from Wolverine, to let the story settle into itself.  For me, it was a process of letting its conclusions settle.  I always found it easiest to view the lead character as the most sympathetic, so Jackman's concluding thought ("It was the look on their faces.") that always stuck with me, and was the basis for which I would attempt to explain the movie to others, never mind myself.

It's a movie you have to understand in order to appreciate.  Bale's character doesn't have his story spelled out, not even by the ending.  Chronologically, we never really see a starting point.  We have to fill it in for ourselves.  Since the movie ends with Bale theoretically "winning," we are then to assume that maybe he was the good guy all along, and yet he really isn't.  He makes unfathomable sacrifices, and basically the whole point of the story is Jackman trying desperately to understand them, and he never can, even as he subsequently makes even more horrifying ones in order to do so.  In the end, it's because they have very different goals, and their approaches are defined by them.  For Bale, the act is its own reward, the knowledge of a trick well-performed.  For Jackman, the point is to entertain, and in order to derive any pleasure from pursuing such a craft, he needs to see his audience entertained.  It's a post-Gladiator world, folks.

Interpreting any of this through Nolan's need to live up to Memento is, in this context, absurd.  He knew very well what he was doing, and he was certainly not sending his audience any messages.  He was, if anything, telling us that how we interpret his films are as much our business as his in making them.  He knows what goes into them, and he certainly doesn't mind seeing how audiences react (he was to his detriment a proponent to reopening theaters during the pandemic), but regardless he's going to make movies the way he finds interesting, and he's now got a long career to show for it.  Studios might be willing to indulge him in scale, but if he really needed to, he could bring it back to intimate levels.  This is where his skill in casting comes in, his storytelling.  He doesn't need David Bowie (who this time I noticed actually sounds a lot like Pierce Brosnan), but it doesn't hurt to get him, either.  It doesn't hurt to include as subplot the perennially enigmatic Nicola Tesla, when anyone might have expected him to headline a Christopher Nolan film.  For Nolan, expect the unexpected, but don't expect that twist to be necessary.  That would be your mistake.

The result is a film only Nolan could have made (even if it's based on someone else's material).  The Prestige was released the same year as The Illusionist.  It used to be that I allowed this fact to distract from my enjoyment of it.  But I don't revisit Illusionist as obsessively as Prestige.  Sometimes having to work for it works in its favor.

Reign of Fire (2002) Review

rating: ****

the story: Dragons are accidentally awakened in the modern world, and subsequently are the subject of a desperate quest to eliminate as mankind struggles to survive.

review: This is the of film you're maybe not sure what to think of initially, if you're like me, but years later realize what an improbable phenomenon it really is.  Here I'm thinking of it in terms of Matthew McConaughey, whom I've grown to appreciate more and more over the years, and how even now he's never done anything even remotely close (unless you count Free State of Jones) to it since, and he's basically a supporting player to Christian Bale the whole time.  Bale has made a career of the unexpected, and since Reign has certainly covered genre material quite heavily (Batman, Terminator: Salvation), so it's not as difficult to reconcile with the rest of his career, but in hindsight it might be easier to view as a rare original role in one that with Batman and Salvation sought to myth-build so eagerly.

Besides that, it's another movie featuring Gerard Butler before 300, when he was still mostly anonymous.  For me, it was also one of the films from this period to feature Alexander Siddig, a standout from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, although he has few enough lines, and the original reason I sought Reign out in the first place.  The film is directed by another Star Trek veteran, Rob Bowman, whose next and most recent production, Elektra, ended up defining his Hollywood career.

Watching Bale and McConaughey grapple with the dragon problem, and each other, Bale's guilt for having unleashed them (in his mind) to begin with, also rings true with Bale's later career, also filled with such roles, and as such is essential viewing as to how it took shape.  The bald pate McConaughey sports doesn't really hide his essentially heroic nature, though as in his critical breakthrough role in True Detective, he's his rogue self trying to let the hero out when other people (Bale, in this instance) can't see it.

And it's a movies about dragons!  Since most of the action takes place at night, the film doesn't have to worry about the effects holding up, since they were designed to pop effortlessly, and so they certainly hold up to modern expectations.  Critics typically hate genre films that don't blunt their stories with comedy, but then they also hate comedy, which is to say, they don't like genre films, so Reign was always going to have a tough crowd.  Even in 2002, franchises were so important to success, but Reign concludes its epic in the one movie, so there was no hook other than the spectacle on display, and mostly the human drama generated by Bale and McConaughey, which should have been enough, and is, if you let it, and it shouldn't be that hard to manage.

It's a textbook definition of a lost gem.

Savage Salvation (2022) Review

rating: ****

the story: An ex-military ace seeks revenge on the system that allowed his wife to overdose.

review: Such are the times that star actors can see their movies swallowed into a void.  Robert De Niro costars in this, but his presence didn't prevent such a fate for Savage Salvation, which also features John Malkovich and stars Jack Huston.

Huston's the reason I made sure to watch.  The latest of a storied Hollywood family, he's struggled to find footing since Ben-Hur, which otherwise suggested to me a new talent worth following, but few enough starring roles to show for it.  Most of the story beats of Salvation are well-trodden material, so it's not something you watch for originality, but I've certainly never let it get in the way of spending time with quality actors.  De Niro is in subdued mode, and for him Salvation is No Country for Old Men, Hell or High Water territory.  You wait for Malkovich's part to amount to something, and on that score the end twist is telegraphed, as Huston discovers the system is all too happy to exploit individuals without much concern to the consequences.  Waiting for that to play out is more suspenseful than the revenge rampage Huston undertakes, or the withdrawal scenes he appears in.

With so little to show for his career to this point, Huston had a lot riding on whether or not he could carry Salvation, and to my mind he does, and for that reason watching him find a context in the rampage, how he carries himself is worth the experience.  The greater narrative around all of this, the eponymous concept, both when the body of his wife is baptized and when he himself sinks into the water at the end, it gives depth to the rampage that can sometimes be relegated only to the original impetus, since the reward tends to be reduced to mere memory, rather than consequences or some greater goal, which in this case is finding peace, from a community that both supports him (De Niro) and betrays him (Malkovich), as well as beyond it.

Where Huston goes from this point I'm as eager as ever to find out.

Angry Neighbors (2022) Review

rating: ****

the story: A writer seeking to lead a secluded life feels infringed upon by a neighbor's ongoing development project.

review: Not being overly involved in the streaming world (previously I was never overly involved in the cable world), I still participate in physical media, which is why I frequent Redbox kiosks, which is why I knew about the existence of Angry Neighbors, which exists well outside the mainstream despite starring Frank Langella.  Langella's career is been that way all along, of course, rarely appearing in movies people have actually seen, but otherwise being well-respected.  The closest he's come to a starring role with critical acclaim is probably Frost/Nixon.  I had recently seen him in the Jim Carrey TV series Kidding, and Angry Neighbors, on a superficial level, resembles those results closely enough where I would endorse it for that alone, a quirky production featuring Langella.  (The last time ones of his films got noticed was Robot & Frank, in which he stars opposite, obviously, a robot.)

The only chatter surrounding Neighbors stemmed from the original source material, which drew on the woes of other pampered residents of wealthy waterfront property, which was of interest mostly to them.  Everyone else was left to scratch their head over the title, which surely evoked Grumpy Old Men if anything, and yet Langella's antagonist doesn't show up until the end (it turns into a metaphor of lost youth, I think), and he instead plays off others caught up in his struggles, including Bobby Cannavale playing the foreman in charge of the worksite unhappily afflicting him.

There's also, of course, Langella's dog, who speaks to him in the voice of Cheech Marin, personifying his closed world.  If Langella and the narration and style of production weren't pitched enough, Marin's part cements the film's intentions.  I have no idea why Neighbors would drop straight into obscurity (except, perhaps, allegations against Langella, which is such an old Hollywood story one wonders why the studios still get away with it except for the existence of endlessly compliant press).  Spend some time in Langella's company.  Don't worry if anyone else is, or if his character would approve of your choices.  This would be an excellent one.

Amsterdam (2022) Review

rating: *****

the story: Three friends make a pact during WWI, and unexpectedly find themselves having to fulfill it during WWII.

the review: The movies one considers a classic are sometimes confused with personal favorites, especially when critics have decided to ignore, overlook, or downplay their worth for whatever reason.  I suspect this occurred with Amsterdam since director David O. Russell has had bad publicity in recent years stemming to his treatment of Amy Adams on the set of American Hustle, and he hasn't produced a wide success on the order of Silver Linings Playbook, despite high expectations for both Hustle and Joy after it.  I've been a fan of Russell since Three Kings, which remained my favorite of his efforts despite his critical reputation blowing up with Playbook, and while I loved what he did with Christian Bale in The Fighter (a showy supporting role, but one that took pressure off an actor who can sometimes get lost in his performances, and thus became a career highlight), I hadn't been wowed by one of his films again.  Russell is an idea guy in the vein of Orson Welles, and the way he achieves his results can lead to complicated productions, but the results speak for themselves.  George Clooney found his first great film in Kings, when he was often typecast as a rogue (Out of Sight being the exception that proved the rule) without a way forward.  Russell used the film to make a bigger point about the chaos of war, and how even the worst of intentions (stealing Iraqi gold) can lead to altruistic results (saving the innocent lives being ground up by the war).  That Russell shows up in Amsterdam, plus a cast I couldn't resist (and certainly Russell has developed a reputation for great casts, regardless of what he does with them) in Bale, John David Washington, and Margot Robbie.  So when I saw the results for myself, I found myself with an instant personal favorite, which for me turned out to be a classic waiting to be discovered.

The leading factor in my evaluation is Bale's performance.  I haven't seen all of his films (much less some of his more famous, or infamous, ones in American Psycho and The Machinist), but he's long been a favorite, so I have a decent idea of his range, and certainly his willingness to transform himself for a role.  One of the great joys of following a career is seeing an actor age, and what they do with that.  Amsterdam is the first time I've seen him lean into his aging as part of the performance, not merely because the film covers more than a decade of time, but that instead of gaining or losing weight to inform a character, he gets to showcase how his face has changed over the years.  This time it's very much the hair that helps shape the look, a period style that accentuates the effect of seeing Bale look older.  Besides that, he gives an atypically lively performance, a comedic one that gives the film its voice.  I've read critics suggest there's no memorable dialogue in Amsterdam, and even if that were the case (which it is not), the pleasure of Bale's phrasing keeps things moving along nicely.  Too often we take for granted the mere acting, unless it's filling out a greater message, which Bale's does not.  All he does is set the tone.  This film, as a result, is very easy to watch.  It's unlike anything Russell has done before.  Even Clooney didn't get into his Golden Age act until well after Kings.

Washington, who was a breakout star in both BlacKkKlansman and Tenet, has his first real chance to shine on his own merits.  Putting aside my reservations of his physical appearance (how Spike Lee designed the distracting afro) in the former, and Christopher Nolan's patented ambition in the latter, in Amsterdam Washington has a part that rises or falls on its own, how he plays against other actors.  He couldn't ask for better partners than Bale and Robbie, both of whom could very easily swallow him whole if he couldn't keep up with them, but he can.  He's not his father, who commands effortlessly any scene he's in, sometimes with very little dialogue at all.  He doesn't even particularly look like Denzel Washington.  Clean-faced, he almost looks anonymous, but Amsterdam soon gives him a look to match Bale's, and the result is more proof that the man pulls off a beard as well as anyone ever has.  The undercurrent of race relations that never plays out in conflict with Bale or Robbie, or any other character who carries weight in the movie, is instead moved to subtext, a complementary commentary to the reasons for the conspiracy the characters unite against as they attempt to solve a murder mystery.

Probably the critics poopooed the movie since they feared it went against their chosen narrative of the present, a conspiracy plotted against FDR and therefore the country itself that perhaps suggests too closely the Trump debacle.  Whether you choose to interpret it that way isn't mandatary; like any good story it's merely a cautionary tale, and that becomes its second key selling point, a story with an actual point, and one that doesn't lose its compelling lead characters in the process, but rather one that gives them their weight.

There is of course Robbie rounding out the leads, and Hollywood has found another way to explain her volatile charm, like I, Tonya a movie asking you to sympathize with her despite the insane circumstances around her, which her other big 2022 movie, Babylon, didn't quite pull off, leaving the viewer to be lost mesmerized by the spectacle she inevitably creates, in very much the Harley Quinn way.  This girl was determined not to be just a pretty face.  She's the Brad Pitt of actresses, and Amsterdam is ultimate proof.

Rounding out the cast are Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldana, Rami Malek, and of all people Mike Myers (who previously appeared with Robbie in Terminal), a small but crucial role deftly walking the tightrope between comedic and dramatic, evoking his appearance in Inglourious Basterds.

If The Batman hadn't pulled off a miracle by once again redefining its title character and thus further developing one of the modern era's defining fictional creations, I wouldn't hesitate to call Amsterdam the best film of 2022.  It is a masterpiece, and by all rights should have swept all the awards ceremonies.  Hopefully it'll be rediscovered in time.

2022 Box Office Top Ten

As of 4/9/23, according to Box Office Mojo, here’re the top grossing movies of 2022, both nationally and internationally:

US Box Office:

1. Top Gun: Maverick ($718 million) By far the biggest surprise of the year, Tom Cruise’s biggest blockbuster ever and his first unconnected to the Mission: Impossible films in years. Clearly audiences were ready to revisit the previous film. Strong X-Wing/ Star Wars vibes certainly don’t hurt.
2. Avatar: The Way of Water ($682 million) They say never bet against James Cameron, except every time he comes out with a new film that’s exactly what everyone does, and he still comes out with a blockbuster. The last one was a phenomenon more than a decade ago. 
3. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($453 million) After the huge success of the previous entry in this franchise, this was a disappointment by comparison. Still the biggest superhero success of the year, at least nationally.
4. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($411 million) After the huge success of the last Spider-Man movie, audiences were primed for another superhero flick with surprise appearances, which this one had with a few (basically) throwaway cameos.
5. Jurassic World: Dominion ($376 million) The dinosaurs remained a huge draw in this franchise, wrapping up the sprawling saga.
6. Minions: The Rise of Gru ($369.6 million) The biggest family hit of the year was another prequel in the series begun with Despicable Me.
7. The Batman ($369.3 million) Technically the first “original” (not a sequel) hit on the list.
8. Thor: Love and Thunder ($343 million) Superhero fatigue started to settle in officially with this one, leaning into the same comedic formula of its cult favorite predecessor, failed to find a happy audience.
9. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ($190 million) If you believe him, this is Jim Carrey’s last movie.
10. Black Adam ($168 million) Dwayne Johnson took years to get around to making this one. Thought it would be embraced as a game-changer for DC movies. The studio changed the game on him instead.

International Box Office:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water ($2.3 billion) The clear winner here was a little different.
2. Top Gun: Maverick ($1.4 billion) 
3. Jurassic World: Dominion ($1 billion)
4. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($955 million)
5. Minions: The Rise of Gru ($934 million)
6. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($859 million)
7. The Batman ($770 million)
8. Thor: Love and Thunder ($760 million)
9. Water Gate Bridge ($626 million) Here’s China’s contribution.
10. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish ($480 million) The biggest gain on this list was the late entry in the Shrek franchise.