REVIEW: Beauty and the Beast

20 03 2017

From their first moments, all movies start establishing a contract with their audience to set the framework of guidelines and conventions through which to view the work. This might sound like advanced film theory – it’s not. And for all those who just want to know if Disney’s live-action remake of “Beauty and the Beast” is worth seeing, this is relevant. These implicit contracts are some of the first things you factor into your decisions about a movie’s quality because they relate to whether or not you believe their created worlds.

Fictional films present distortions of observable reality that ask for various suspensions of normal existence. Conveniently, one of the easiest illustrations of this principle resides in the musical genre. We generally accept that people do not burst out into song as a mode of expression. If they do in a film, though, why? Is it a sung-through musical like “Les Misérables,” where music is the only mode of communication? Is it like “La La Land,” where song and dance numbers provide an expressionistic commentary? Is it more akin to “Into the Woods,” where moments of heightened emotion cause the characters to break out in a catchy melody?

The animated musicals of the so-called “Disney Renaissance” from 1989 to 1999 hinged on a fairly interesting set of conventions. The films borrowed heavily from the Broadway musical format but also took wild flights of animated fancy. Their limitation was not the confines of a stage but the edges of imagination. It’s no wonder these films carved out such a special place in the millennial consciousness.

But when it comes to adapting “Beauty and the Beast” into a live-action feature, musical numbers and all, director Bill Condon had a special challenge that Kenneth Branagh did not face in his 2015 version of “Cinderella.” Fans of the 1991 animated classic expect a certain fidelity to the original film. But so much of what made that film so effervescently delightful simply does not translate easily to a world that more closely resembles our own.

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REVIEW: Kong: Skull Island

7 03 2017

“Am I the story of the Negro in America?” asks a German major in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” as he tries to guess the name written on a card affixed to his forehead in a bar game. He gets a resounding “no” after running through a series of questions that could just as easily describe the importation of slaves. But he quickly pivots and rattles off, “Well, then, I must be King Kong.”

Traditionally in cinema – and fiction as a whole – our monsters mean something. They reflect the deep fears and anxieties of a society, ones that might not obviously rear their heads but can find vicarious expression through metaphor and transitive representation. In 1933’s version of “King Kong,” Tarantino saw a deeply symbolic tale about race in America. It’s too bad that “Kong: Skull Island,” the latest spin on the giant ape, arrives at a time of no racial tension and the complete absolution of prejudice based on ancestral origin. (Ha.)

But what kind of monster is Kong in Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ film? At first, the behemoth primate seems to be something between a colonialist allegory given the backdrop of the Vietnam War and a cautionary tale for human overreach in a technology-heavy era. The longer the film goes on, the more these aspects reveal themselves as clear offshoots of Vogt-Roberts’ key touchstones, “Apocalypse Now” and “Jurassic Park.” Then the real question of “Kong: Skull Island” arises. Is it worse if the filmmaking team (which includes four credited writers) have an undercooked meaning of the monster … or if there’s just no meaning at all?

We get the answer – it’s the latter of the two options – in a post-credits zinger. No spoilers about the contents of the scene, but Warner Bros. deliberately robs King Kong of any allegorical meaning to strip him down to pure commercialism. He’s now just another branded property, another franchise toy who can be trotted out in any number of series without being weighed down by cultural baggage. The ape who loomed large in the American imagination is now just another large CGI creation in a veritable zoo created by the VFX wizards that be. The whole film amounts to a less neon-bathed “Avatar,” a creature feature full of empty spectacle (and even less politicization).

Kong’s presence in the film is practically nonexistent, too. That includes implied appearances, a method to which Spielberg acolyte Vogt-Roberts fondly makes homage. The majority of “Kong: Skull Island” consists of a ragtag band of people who have been in too many action movies (Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, John Goodman) and those whose careers could use an action movie (Brie Larson, Thomas Mann, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell) trying to make it to the top of a mountain for rescue after a military mission goes south. Their journey has its enjoyable moments, but who really buys a ticket to a King Kong movie for pithy banter between photojournalists and cagey war veterans? B- / 


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REVIEW: Table 19

6 03 2017

Even as it resorts to some familiar tropes about the forced cohesion created within a band of misfits, Jeffrey Blitz’s “Table 19” still manages to do enough within a familiar framework to create a memorable moviegoing experience. There are some good running gags, like the ubiquity of the wedding photographer’s flash and how one character’s outfit looks suspiciously like the waitstaff’s getup. The script, which shares a story credit with the Duplass Brothers, also throws a major wrench in the expected turn of events at the midway point which proves truly surprising.

It’s a shame that Blitz bites off a little more than he can chew in an 87 minute film. Setting up and resolving six different narrative arcs for a wedding rejects table proves a lot to handle in such a short amount of time, and the sheer volume of events and conversations often overwhelms and clouds out quality. The quantity also overshadows some of the more intriguing storytelling that Blitz attempts in “Table 19.” For example, the pattern of conflict resolution takes on a much less straightforward direction, and the general story propulsion comes from strung-together tension and awkwardness.

The film is at its best at the outset when the characters are defined by how they relate to the room, not by how they relate to each other. In one of the most enjoyable sequences in “Table 19,” Anna Kendrick’s Eloise narrates a self-aware taxonomy of the wedding reception table layout. It’s genuinely perceptive about the unwritten rules of nuptial rituals, so it’s too bad that the characters largely lack the depth of thought given to the roles they play in the ceremony. B / 


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Reflecting on the 2016 Academy Awards

26 02 2017

This is the first year I haven’t live blogged the Oscars since 2009 (well, except for the year I got to sit along the red carpet). I thought I’d write something profound after a calm show but … THAT ENDING. What. Just. Happened.

Also, my ballot is horrendous, but that’s because I chose deliberately unsentimentally. So pleased to see two wins for “Manchester by the Sea.” That’s all I really needed tonight.

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Margarita with a Straw + ReelAbilities Film Festival

24 02 2017

margarita-with-a-strawReelAbilities Film Festival – Houston

In his 2016 book “But What If We’re Wrong?,” cultural critic Chuck Klosterman attempted to predict where our age’s great hidden text lies. What future generations tend to remember about bygone eras are works that did not receive proper due in their own time – in part because cultural archaeologists have an esoteric’s activist mentality when canonizing art. His guess was a Native American writing on a message board on the Dark Web, citing the relative paucity of attention given to each.

Far be it from me to make such a sweeping prophecy, but I do think there’s a decent chance that disabilities could factor into that conversation about overlooked, undervalued culture. There are countless courageous Americans fighting daily for the disability community, though their efforts never seem to pierce the public consciousness in the way that movements surrounding civil rights or marriage equality have. To be clear, it’s the people on the ground working for substantive policy gains who make the real change – yet popular culture can also play a large role in changing hearts and minds.

“Margarita with a Straw,” which I saw as part of Houston’s ReelAbilties Film Festival, could help reverse the trend. I so often associate narratives surrounding disability with clichéd struggles and hokey uplift. We’re regularly encouraged to see these individuals as victims, afflicted with some condition they cannot control and acted upon rather than serving as active agents in their own stories. Shonali Bose’s film, which also played such prestigious festivals as Toronto and London, does none of these things. (Although I should add that it does contain some elements of wish fulfillment to the detriment of the overall film.)

The protagonist Laila is a person above all, a young adult with a passion for music and a little bit of wanderlust that directly conflicts with her provincial Indian family’s desires. While pursuing a degree abroad at NYU, Laila’s openness to life and unbridled enthusiasm brings her into the romantic orbit of peers from both genders. The film never downplays her disability and the way it affects her story, but “Margarita with a Straw” is not about that part of her. It’s about her journey of self-discovery in her bisexuality. Not to take away from what Bose accomplishes here, but I spent much of the film thinking about the range of stories still left to tell in this community. I look forward to seeing what lies ahead for ReelAbilties in the years to come.

 


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (February 23, 2017)

23 02 2017

I first saw Ryan Fleck’s “Half Nelson” a few years ago and, admittedly, was not impressed. Perhaps the film fell victim to high expectations. Critics and cinephiles put it on a pedestal for so long, citing Ryan Gosling’s Academy Award-nominated work as evidence that he amounted to more than just a Tumblr heartthrob. Yet I was unmoved.

For whatever reason, I decided to check it out again given Gosling’s recent Oscar nominated turn in “La La Land” – and a general reversal of fortune for his career altogether. Further inspection of “Half Nelson” reveals a remarkable two-sided performance that fully captures the actor’s versatility. From my early ’10s vantage point, I probably saw a reflection of what I consider Gosling’s worst tendencies: an exaggerated machismo where his smolder goes hand in hand with the stoicism. When contextualized within his films of that time – “Drive,” “The Ides of March,” “Gangster Squad,” “The Place Beyond the Pines,” “Only God Forgives” – the turn as a junior high history teacher who resolutely refuses intimacy and embraces drug needles feels like the genesis of a dour period.

But after the exuberance of “The Nice Guys” and “La La Land,” Gosling’s cheerier streak opened up another side of “Half Nelson” that now vaults into “F.I.L.M. of the Week” territory. His Dan Dunne has a streak of incorrigible impetuousness, particularly when digressing from the assigned curriculum to instruct with a more philosophical slant on the past. He projects such confidence when he dwells in his element, a fitting and necessary contrast to his moments of vulnerability to cocaine. Reconciling the highs with the lows presents a difficult task for any performer, and Gosling nailed it at just 26 years old. He’s also fortunate to create this character under the auspices of a thoughtful script from Fleck and Anna Boden, who avoid all the pratfalls of drug addict or other self-destructive protagonist narratives.


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REVIEW: A United Kingdom

22 02 2017

History is rarely tidy enough to have personifications of complicated systems of belief like racism and colonialism, but movies nevertheless tend to present the past in such a way to simplify what seems unfathomable to modern audiences. Amma Asante’s “A United Kingdom” lies among these crisp-edged period pieces and stands out as one of the better of the bunch.

The film succeeds at depicting high-level concepts of segregation and prejudice that are still relevant today. Yet it also works when pinpointing the ethos of a specific moment in the late 1940s where the sun was setting on the empire in which the sun never sets. British-born Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) falls head over heels for African tribal king Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo), who studied in London to prepare himself to assume the throne in Botswana.

The grumblings from her ardently colonialist father could sufficiently set in motion the drama of an entire film altogether. But don’t worry, “A United Kingdom” charts the vast geopolitical complications arising from their marriage. What begins as mere disruption in a community presents an opportunity for the waning British powers to destabilize an entire region.

Guy Hibbert’s script front-loads the film’s most explosive moments – a refreshing change of pace. A fiery speech from Seretse in defense of his wife feels like the climactic moment of a more conventional story, but Hibbert situates it towards the beginning. The shocking segregation of blacks in their own country also appears primarily at the outset. These micro-level moments are just drops in the bucket of a larger narrative, one whose ever-expanding scope consumes “A United Kingdom.” Seeing how far those ripples extend proves the most fascinating component of Ruth and Seretse’s history, although little moments such as Ruth’s limp imitation of Queen Elizabeth’s wave to appear more regal to Botswanans delight along the way. B / 2halfstars


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REVIEW: The Girl with All the Gifts

21 02 2017

the-girl-with-all-the-giftsFantastic Fest

As much as I strive to provide as close to objectivity as possible, some subjective factors do sometimes get in the way and exert an outsized pull on my response to a film. “The Girl with All the Gifts” was the sixth film in a marathon day of binge moviegoing at 2016’s Fantastic Fest. Colm McCarthy’s film had to contend for my attention with the perennial reigning champion of sleep.

This zombie flick mostly managed to hold my attention, though its contention with some high-quality shut eye led me to nitpick away at its flaws and banalities. Glenn Close’s near-constant regurgitation of exposition would be bad enough. But her shaky British accent made nearly every line she spoke like nails on a chalkboard. (Also, Gemma Arterton kind of looks like she could be related to Mads Mikkelsen. Look for it.)

“The Girl with All the Gifts” is not going to move the needle in its genre of horror. Mike Carey’s screenplay, adapted from his own novel, brings one interesting feature to the flesh-eating creatures. A group of young children can live with the fungus that creates zombies but maintain basic functions of a sentient human. They are sequestered away from the rest of the plague-infested earth by military personnel, although new developments involving the particularly gifted “hungry” Melanie forces a coalition out into ravaged areas of Britain to do … something. I’m not entirely sure, and that lack of certainty stems both from my own tiredness watching the film as well as unclear character motivations. Stick around for the ending if you can endure the familiar feeling of the rising action. B / 2halfstars


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REVIEW: Fireworks Wednesday

20 02 2017

fireworks-wednesdayAs I noted when reviewing Asghar Farhadi’s “About Elly,” the release of the director’s prior films after his latest work achieves such success proves disorienting. I usually seek out the past filmography of a major filmmaker before seeing their new releases. After all, if one assumes that directors always sharpen and hone their craft over time, why watch those skills digress?

“Fireworks Wednesday” arrived in America about a decade after its initial release, a period in which Farhadi directed four additional films and won an Oscar. For the uninitiated, like myself, the writer/director’s masterful command of human behavior in “A Separation” seemed effortless. This 2006 feature shows that Farhadi did not reach those heights without some hard work and gradual yet significant improvements. (Encouraging for those of us who feel on the cusp of greatness!)

That’s not to say “Fireworks Wednesday” is belabored or undercooked – and certainly not bad by any stretch of the imagination. Farhadi sets up a complex plot involving three Iranian women around the time of the Persian New Year. Soon-to-be-bride Rouhi tries to grab some extra cash for the wedding in Tehran by doing odd jobs, yet one housekeeping job finds her in the middle of a collapsing marriage and burgeoning affair. The jealous wife, the lecherous other woman and their unsuspecting middlewoman find themselves caught in a death spiral of deceit. When the dust settles, the film retains about a layer less of depth than Farhadi’s “The Past,” though that’s still plenty to work with for a compelling human drama. B / 2halfstars


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REVIEW: The Salesman

19 02 2017

the-salesmanEver since his film “A Separation” shook the globe earlier this decade, I’ve believed that we will study the work of Asghar Farhadi like a great dramatist. His multi-layered, internalized character studies recall Shakespeare, Ibsen or Williams more than any cinema director. “The Salesman,” Farhadi’s latest feature, crystallizes this connection by foregrounding the film’s moral dilemmas against a stage production of Arthur Miller’s renowned “Death of a Salesman.”

The film does not draw upon this weighty source to provide gravity for the narrative, nor does it require the audience to possess an 11th-grade English class working knowledge of the play to fully appreciate the film. (Almodóvar’s “All About My Mother,” poignant as it is, closes off meaning to a segment of the audience unfamiliar with “A Streetcar Named Desire.”) In fact, “The Salesman” feels like Farhadi’s least proscenium-ready work to date, particularly in its final act. More than anything, the film shares a kinship with the cinema of Michael Haneke where seemingly random violence strikes and its aftershocks tremble throughout all aspects of the psyche and milieu.

After their apartment building collapses in the film’s opening scene, Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti) and Emad (Shahab Hosseini) take temporary shelter in a space they later find out belonged to a lady of the night. This revelation comes too late after Rana buzzes in a client of the former tenant … and winds up brutally wounded once he leaves. Farhadi does not depict what transpires in the domicile, instead opting to show us something much more frightening: the ramifications. Both deal with shame, Rana for receiving the injury and Emad for being unable to prevent it. Unlike Farhadi’s previous films, which envelop communities and involve multiple characters, “The Salesman” dwells primarily in their private humiliation like a chamber drama.

All the while, Farhadi sneaks up on us with the power of his observations on how anger clouds out our compassion for other people. His films have long existed at the intersection of miscommunication and misdeeds, but “The Salesman” lingers longer at this juncture. In a contained, single-location finale, he methodically unfurls a claustrophobic exploration of how disgrace can drive our darkest, cruelest impulses. Farhadi may narrow his scope, though not for a second does he sacrifice the depth of his understanding about human nature.

The final shot of the film features makeup artists drawing lines of old age on Rana and Emad before going out on stage in “Death of a Salesman.” Damned if that doesn’t feel fittingly redundant by the end of “The Salesman” after all they’ve experienced. B+ / 3stars


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REVIEW: Logan

18 02 2017

Does “Logan” feel as good as it does because of its own merits – or because the superhero genre is just that bad these days? I’m tempted to argue for the latter if for no other reason than to cover my own ass. Skeptical reviews tend to hold up better than overzealous ones. (See my 2011 review of “I Am Number Four” for an example.)

Director James Mangold as well as co-writers Michael Green and Scott Frank succeed by avoiding so much of what makes comic book adaptations – including the “X-Men” series – flop. The film boasts a remarkably self-contained story free from a glut of new characters or excessive action sequences. Remarkably little happens over the course of “Logan,” even to the point where the opening sequences of Wolverine’s pensive limousine driving recalls the Matthew McConaughey Lincoln commercials.

This ability to ruminate on character and dwell in the submerged pain of the moment no doubt stems from the circumstances surrounding the film. Hugh Jackman has given a remarkable 17 years to playing Logan, a role that launched him into stardom – but also a character that helped stabilize the franchise throughout its different incarnations. Supposedly “Logan” marks Jackman’s last time sporting the claws, and such finality likely gave Fox and Marvel the confidence to begrudgingly let him go out on his own terms. Those terms include invoking the spirit of the old Western genre, specifically the archetype of the aging and world-weary gunslinger.

Heavy-handed “Shane” allusions aside, “Logan” earns the right to make these comparisons simply through Jackman’s decades-long commitment to the character. At least for now, it’s hard to imagine any other actor in the superhero arena with enough cultural cachet to earn this resolution. Jackman’s haggard expressions and general exasperation more than once gave me flashbacks to his gaunt appearance at the beginning of “Les Misérables.” He appears tired and weary – and as the character, not the actor! (An important distinction to make for many franchise headliners.) Logan has a clear antagonist in the corporation Transigen, although he’s mostly grappling with his own legacy and history.

Yet without eight serviceable “X-Men” films prior, the narrative stakes of “Logan” might not have felt as weighty. As the hero attempts to outrun, but ultimately acquiesces to, the definitive final battle, there’s simply no other way to convey the battle wounds of the past than to have watched them accumulate over time. But even so, Mangold still makes a convincing argument that the superhero genre need not only resemble the western in cultural functionality. It can also take on their form, tone and content for satisfying, incisive cinema. B / 2halfstars


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REVIEW: X-Men: Apocalypse

14 02 2017

Is it becoming contractually obligatory for a series’ third installment to be bland and lackluster? Must they expend all their energy in the first two films? Because by the time “X-Men: Apocalypse” came to a close, I found myself struggling to recall what it was that had me so jazzed after Matthew Vaughn’s reinvigoration of the franchise in the first place.

“It’s like a two hour pilot that introduces you to a fantastic ensemble while also fleshing out the conflict between its two biggest stars,” I wrote of “X-Men: First Class” back in 2011. So to extend the television metaphor, I guess this is that point a few seasons into a show where I disengage after noticing it’s clearly jumped the shark. The deeper dive into the series’ key figures, James McAvoy’s Professor X and Michael Fassbender’s Magneto, has now officially ceded way to bloated, overstuffed “Spider-Man 3” syndrome.

The numerous characters in the “X-Men” universe, from supersonic Quicksilver (Evan Peters) to teleporting Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), have moved from strength to liability. Singer, with the aid of screenwriter Simon Kinberg, packs “X-Men: Apocalypse” full of new characters who ultimately feel like they are playing out narratives in search of a spinoff franchise. And while there’s really only one villain, Oscar Isaac’s prehistoric Apocalypse, he gets so little to do that a great actor ends up giving a mummified performance.

That cast of rising stars, once such an asset for the series, now weighs like a millstone around its neck. McAvoy, Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult have all seen their stars rise considerably since 2011. They owe a lot of that to the “X-Men” franchise. And they don’t pay it back in what could likely serve as their final outing in the respective roles. It’s less acting and more contract fulfillment. C+ / 2stars


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REVIEW: Moonlight

13 02 2017

“Who is you, Chiron?” Characters pose this question – or, perhaps, exhortation – to the protagonist of “Moonlight” as he ages. It’s not exactly so much an inquiry in search of answer as it is an expression of confusion at the bundle of contradictions and inconsistencies before them.

Writer/director Barry Jenkins makes these divisions of the self apparent by showing Chiron at three unique stages of his development, portrayed by a different actor at each phase. All bear a different name as well. Alex Hibbert’s Little is the youngest, a boy who makes his earliest attempts to make sense of his emotions and environment in drug-riddled Miami. Ashton Sanders’ Chiron navigates the tricky straits of adolescence as a sensitive, withdrawn teenager with no real recourse or comfort. Trevante Rhodes’ Black swaggers about with the toughness of a man, but that confidence wilts away when standing in front of key figures from his past.

These are three personas, but how does one reconcile them into one consistent identity? Chiron’s crack-addicted mother, Naomie Harris’ Paula, certainly can’t. The closest thing he has to a friend, Kevin, only manages the occasional peep beyond the posturing and performance. And given the way that Jenkins structures the film, we as the audience are not meant to click these into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Making sense of a person is not this easy. There are gaps we cannot fill, thoughts we cannot know.

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REVIEW: Dark Night

12 02 2017

dark-nightSundance Film Festival, 2016

A survivor of a movie theater massacre sits on a curb outside wearing a shellshocked but blank expression. The police have arrived with their sirens and lights filling the night air. The colors on her face alternate between blood red and sea blue. This is the American flag of Tim Sutton’s “Dark Night,” a portrait of a country where the threat of senseless death by firearms seeps into every fiber of the national consciousness.

Sutton uses a facsimile of 2012’s Aurora theater shooting at the midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises” as a springboard into a tone poem for a rattled, tattered America. Calling the film “episodic” does not do justice to the experience of watching the film. “Dark Knight” is like a mosaic inside of a kaleidoscope. It’s the story of isolated individuals who all converge on a single theater, but their real connection lies in their loneliness, disappointment and despair.

The film consists of little moments and glances – a Ronald Reagan portrait on the wall, a slightly obfuscated selfie – that Sutton grafts together with jump cuts and white noise to discuss larger ideas about contemporary community in America. The only thing that draws these disparate humans together is the promise of escape into fantasy. They form, to some extent, a makeshift community inside the theater. A group of like-minded individuals all with their eyes on one thing. (Ironically, not each other.) What makes that shooting, and “Dark Night” by extension, so frightening is the way it dwells on the destruction of something so rarely found anymore.  B+ / 3stars


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REVIEW: The Accountant

11 02 2017

In big-budget cinema these days, I’m looking to get a lot of bang for my buck. So are most Americans, many of whom are far more inclined than I am to browse for a better option on Netflix. Whatever Gavin O’Connor does in “The Accountant” gives me plenty of bang, but the noise comes from lots of big bullets being fired indiscriminately from a sniper rifle.

The film, written by Bill Dubuque, smashes several movies into one. There’s the Jason Bourne-like super assassin narrative, which is the one you sell during sports games. Then there’s the bit about an autistic wunderkind, Ben Affleck’s Christian Wolff, uneasily assimilating into corporate America, which can be emphasized to select audiences to give the film an appearance of thematic heft. And don’t forget an awkward platonic romance subplot between said autistic man and his fumbling co-worker, Anna Kendrick’s Dana Cummings, for … wait, who exactly cares about this aspect?

All of these aspects compete for airtime in “The Accountant” with the latest Greengrass ripoff winning out most often. Whatever extra intrigue that Wolff’s condition might add to the film gets nullified by Affleck’s weak acting, which treats autism like an affect that turns on and off when convenient. The connective tissue of this closet killer to a larger scheme of financial malaise is weak, too, spoiling any chance for a sideshow to serve as pleasant diversion.

In fact, the only thing that O’Connor does manage to do well is advertise. “The Accountant” might represent the most elaborate promo for a Ford F-150 I’ve ever seen. If any clips of these scenes of Wolff driving were posted on social media, I should hope they were tagged with #ad or #sponsoredcontent. C / 2stars


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