Category Archives: Review
Breaking
Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year with the name 892, the now-retitled thriller Breaking introduces us to beleaguered Lance Corporal Brian Brown-Easley (played by John Boyega) as he’s being escorted by policemen in handcuffs. His appointment at the veteran’s affairs office one morning does not go as planned, ending with a physical outburst after being shorted desperately-needed funds due to unresolved school debt. Now facing the potential of homelessness for his family, Brown-Easley finds himself out of options and walks into a Wells Fargo bank carrying a backpack he says has an explosive device inside. Fast thinking by the bank’s manager Estel (Nicole Beharie) allows her to evacuate all the customers before his threat becomes known, leaving just her and teller Rosa (Selenis Leyva) on the premises with him.
But Brown-Easley makes it clear early on that he’s not out for some 6 or 7-figure score from the bank and that this isn’t a traditional robbery. He doesn’t want some bank’s money; he wants his money, the money that he’s owed, and he also wants the platform to tell his story to the media. When conversations with the negotiator outside (played by Jeffrey Donovan) stall out, he phones news reporter Lisa Larson (Connie Britton) as a lifeline to tap into what happened to him and why he’s doing this. Police outside finally get Brown-Easley in touch with Detective Bernard (the late Michael Kenneth Williams, in his final film role), a fellow Marine who starts to sympathize with his predicament and aims to get him out of the situation unharmed.
Along with his Red, White and Blue entry in 2020’s Small Axe anthology series, Breaking is a cogent argument for Boyega as an acting powerhouse following his three-film stint in the Star Wars universe. His Brown-Easley is understandably indignant about his circumstances and not above getting heated from time to time but for most of the film, Boyega makes a point of portraying him as polite and penitent during the bomb threat. I’m not sure I’ve seen another bank robbery movie where the robber says “sir” and “ma’am” this much and I’ve certainly never seen one where the robber takes a phone message from a customer for one of the tellers. Director and co-writer Abi Damaris Corbin leans a little too hard on the pathos (and pop culture references) involved in Brown-Easley talking on the phone with his young daughter but Boyega makes the moments in which they pray over the phone feel authentic and tragic.
Sadly, Breaking is based on a true story that occurred in August of 2017 and even if you don’t know before going into this movie how the actual events concluded in real life, a happy ending seems unlikely. Too often, Hollywood is late to the punch when addressing social issues that matter to people at the times that they matter most but the themes about racial inequality and the treatment of US veterans remain depressingly relevant. In fact, the inciting event of Brown-Easley’s actions being an unpaid student loan from a for-profit college suddenly became even more front-of-mind in the national conversation. This film is a reminder of what the best kinds of movies like this can do: take complicated and systemic issues around us and channel them through a few souls with whom we can empathize.
Corbin’s intentions are no doubt noble when telling this story and her message certainly gets across by the film’s conclusion but she does get swept up in some of the sensationalism inherent in this genre. The film is fittingly tense and generally well-rendered but some of the editing was a bit showy given the timbre of the story Corbin wants to tell. As with any movie based on a true story, dramatic license was likely used during certain moments of heightened emotion and a few scenes do feel like they’re straying a bit too far from realism. But the ensemble, which includes excellent performances from Beharie and Williams in addition to Boyega, carries the day and does this tragic tale justice. It may not be the easiest trip to the movies this summer but Breaking is a sobering reminder of how those who serve overseas are too often underserved when they come back home.
Score – 3.5/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Opening in theaters and streaming on Peacock is Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul., a satirical comedy starring Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown about the first lady of a prominent megachurch who attempts to help her pastor-husband rebuild their congregation in the aftermath of a huge scandal.
Swinging back in theaters is Spider-Man: No Way Home – The More Fun Stuff Version, an extended cut of last year’s box office champion which features 11 minutes of additional and deleted scenes to the superhero flick.
Premiering on Netflix is Ivy + Bean, a children’s comedy starring Keslee Blalock and Madison Skye Validum about an adventure that kindles a friendship between two very different girls: the scrappy and fearless Bean, and the thoughtful and quiet Ivy.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Orphan: First Kill
On a list of films unlikely to generate a prequel for release in 2022, the 2009 horror film Orphan would have to rank somewhere close to the top. Director Jaume Collet-Serra has since worked his way up the Hollywood ladder, culminating with a directing gig for the upcoming superhero flick Black Adam, while star Isabelle Fuhrman is now twice the age she was when playing nine-year-old Esther in the first film. Those who haven’t seen Orphan and would like to do so unspoiled may not want to read past this sentence, since it’s difficult to discuss Orphan: First Kill without revealing its predecessor’s shocking twist. Knowing that “Esther” is actually a murderous woman in her early 30s with proportional dwarfism presents yet another stumbling block for a potential follow-up: what’s left to tell now that we already know the big reveal? Despite these challenges, First Kill nevertheless registers as a mild success.
We open in an Estonian psychiatric institute, where we see the brutally devious Leena (Isabelle Fuhrman) stage an unlikely escape, as was revealed towards the end of the first film. While scouring the internet for missing persons reports, Leena discovers she resembles Esther Albright, a young girl from Connecticut who hasn’t been seen in the past four years. Upon hearing the news, Esther’s mother Tricia (Julia Stiles) flies to an embassy in Moscow to reunite with who she thinks is her missing daughter. Leena further infiltrates the Albrights, traveling back to the States to con Esther’s father Allen (Rossif Sutherland) and brother Gunnar (Matthew Finlan) in the’s family expansive New England estate. But how long will Leena be able to pass for Esther and what will the Albrights do if they uncover the deception?
At the outset, Orphan: First Kill has the difficult task of giving the now 25-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman the appearance of a pre-teen, ironic given that Leena is 33 years old in Orphan but convinces a family that she’s 9. Digital de-aging has gotten very popular on big-budget fare over the past several years but with more limited resources, director William Brent Bell and his crew instead implement more low-tech solutions like body doubles and forced perspective shots to maintain the illusion. Cinematographer Karim Hussain also does some heavy lifting on his part, casting the frame with a warm glow that aggressively softens facial features, even if it becomes detrimental to tasteful camerawork. Some of the scenes are so overlit or overexposed or both, it can be downright garish aesthetically but Hussain eases up some as the film progresses.
But the most important aspect of reviving “Esther” for Orphan: First Kill is the performance by Fuhrman, who returns to the role following a 13 year hiatus. Not only is she able to once again tap into the signature creepiness that made the first film as memorable as it was but she brings out Leena’s loneliness and longing to a degree that we somehow begin to sympathize with her evil character. Vera Farmiga was terrific in Orphan and in the role of a fellow traumatized mother adjusting to the presence of a new daughter, Julia Stiles delivers similarly excellent work. As good as Fuhrman and Stiles are, no one else in the cast is able to make nearly as much of an impact. Filling out the well-to-do Albright family, Rossif Sutherland and Matthew Finlan just don’t add much depth to their already shallow characters.
Both of the Orphan films exist in a subgenre of horror that I would describe as “elevated trash”. The premises are, frankly, a bit silly and hard to take seriously and yet, there is an art and craft to pulling them effectively. The performers and those behind the scenes all seem to be on the same page that they’re making some high camp and serious shlock. Even along those lines, this entry really strains some credulity down the stretch on behalf of its characters and that’s even given its already outlandish narrative. But I respect the pure panache that went into willing this most unlikely prequel into being, which is currently available to watch in theaters, rent digitally or stream on Paramount+. However one chooses to re-enter the Orphan universe, First Kill should surprise and delight those who go in with low expectations.
Score – 3/5
New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
Three Thousand Years of Longing, a fantasy film starring Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton, follows a scholar in Istanbul who encounters a Djinn that offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom.
Breaking, a thriller starring John Boyega and Michael K. Williams, tells the true story of a former Marine Corps veteran in financial trouble who robs a bank by way of a bomb threat.
The Invitation, a supernatural horror movie starring Nathalie Emmanuel and Thomas Doherty, finds a young woman discovering dark secrets about her family during the lavish wedding of her long-lost cousin.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Bodies Bodies Bodies is a movie that tries so hard to be several different things that it doesn’t amount to much of anything in the end. It wants to be a satire of Generation Z and zoomer culture but it doesn’t push hard enough on those elements to succeed; the worst crime a satire can commit is to not be recognizable as one. Maybe it’s an in-on-the-joke slasher like Scream (2022, since designation is now necessary) but if that’s the case, why aren’t any of the characters making fun of the tropes that surround them? Murder mysteries like the superior Werewolves Inside and the Apple TV+ series The Afterparty have been popular recently but this film doesn’t exactly fit that categorization either. Though I can’t say I laughed much, perhaps it fits best as a dark comedy about interchangeable caricatures without a clue.
We open on young lovers Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Maria Bakalova) as they head to a “hurricane party” hosted by Sophie’s friend David (Pete Davidson) inside his dad’s mansion. Upon their arrival, they’re greeted warmly by some like Alice (Rachel Sennott) and her older boyfriend Greg (Lee Pace) but much less so by others like Jordan (Myha’la Herrold) and David’s girlfriend Emma (Chase Sui Wonders). To break the tension, Sophie suggests a game of Bodies Bodies Bodies, the rules of which are never clearly explained other than the fact that it resembles a variation of Mafia with flashlights. Once an actual dead body pops up within their game of fake murder, each of the partygoers becomes a suspect for one another as the tropical storm rages on outside.
The talented young cast does a nice job filling in the gaps of the screenplay where the development behind their characters should be, doing their level best to distinguish these otherwise indistinguishable characters from one another. In her English directorial debut, Halina Reijn often shifts the narrative focus between each of the houseguests, both keeping the audience on their toes and allowing us to spend split time with all of them. Amandla Stenberg was perhaps the only good aspect of last year’s otherwise atrocious Dear Evan Hansen and she gives another compelling performance here as an addict struggling to reconnect with her friends. Though characters pester her about not keeping up in the group chat, it’s made clear in time that this group of friends really only functions in a virtual sense as opposed to a face-to-face setting.
But Bodies Bodies Bodies doesn’t seem to have much of an attitude or perspective on the culture behind these young (except Greg) faces. A scene of confrontation later in the film is one of the only sequences that feels like it was conceived as a series of Tweets, with characters volleying jabs about “feelings are facts” platitudes and “ableist” accusations. If this film is supposed to be mocking how these characters interact, it needs to either keep up this cadence throughout or drop it entirely but as a thesis, it’s undercut by a movie that elsewhere doesn’t have enough else to say about Gen Z. I’d be happy to see a movie that either stands up for this crowd or takes them down but the film resides within a safe space where it wants to offend without offending.
Rhetoric aside, Bodies Bodies Bodies falls flat in the visual realm, which is especially troubling at a time when movie theaters finally seem to be coming back in fashion and only films “meant to be seen on the big screen” are selling tickets. The hurricane outside the mansion causes an obligatory power outage, which leads to most of the film being lit by either characters’ cell phone flashlights or glow sticks. This should be a unique challenge for any cinematographer to take on but director of photography Jasper Wolf shoots too much over-the-shoulder with very few wide shots to give us a sense of the space. Strong performances and some amusing dialogue aside, Bodies Bodies Bodies is boring, bland and basic.
Score – 2.5/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is Beast, a survival thriller starring Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley about a father and his two teenage daughters who find themselves hunted by a massive rogue lion intent on proving that the Savanna can only have one apex predator.
Streaming on Paramount+ is Orphan: First Kill, a psychological horror film starring Isabelle Fuhrman and Julia Stiles following Esther as she breaks out of an Estonian psychiatric facility and travels to America by impersonating the missing daughter of a wealthy family.
Available to rent or stream on AMC+ is Spin Me Round, a romantic comedy starring Alison Brie and Aubrey Plaza about a woman who wins an all-expenses trip to Florence through the company where she works but finds a different adventure than the one she imagined.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Official Competition
After the would-be comedy The Bubble burst on Netflix this past spring, we now have another comedy released this year that skewers the film industry but goes about it in a much smarter and more sophisticated way. Where Judd Apatow’s film went after low-hanging fruit like big-budget sequels and green-screen fiascos, the targets of Official Competition are prestige dramas and the artistic egos that drive them in front of and behind the camera. It turns out that there’s still plenty of fodder outside the Hollywood soft targets and the writing/directing duo of Gastón Duprat & Mariano Cohn finds ways to poke at the pretensions of artists while still respecting what they bring to the craft. Most importantly, it’s a film with jokes that consistently land, some of which are the laugh-out-loud variety and others which aim for sly snickers instead.
The film opens on the 80th birthday of millionaire Humberto Suárez (José Luis Gómez), who pensively looks out of his skyscraper window and relates to his assistants that he longs to add to his legacy. He already has charity foundations set up and building bridges is boring, so he decides he wants to produce a feature film that bears all the marks of greatness. In this spirit of perceived excellence, he meets with Palme d’Or-winning director Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz) with intentions of adapting a best-selling novel he hasn’t read about two feuding brothers. After being hired, Cuevas gets to work on the script and helps cast revered stage thespian Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez) and certified movie star Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) in the two lead roles. The trio then comes together for rehearsals, revealing disparities in their personalities and artistic processes.
Since the movie is primarily centered around this threesome as they work on the project together, the interplay between the three actors is a large source of the humor and each performance radiates wildly with wit. Sporting a coiffure of red curls that seem to shoot in every direction, Cruz conjures the eccentricities of various arthouse directors while begrudgingly accepting the role of surrogate mother to her two competing actors. Martínez channels the likes of Olivier and Kingsley in his portrayal of a classically-trained stiff who takes the lead in a feature film because teaching theater classes doesn’t inspire him like it used to. Banderas has lots of options for inspiration (including, perhaps, from his own real-life career) in crafting a slick heartthrob character trying his hand at “serious films” for the first time.
Beyond evoking the classic comedy conceit of clashing opposites, Official Competition scores tons of laughs from the arbitrary nature of artistic collaboration and, specifically, the frustrations of filmmaking. During their very first script reading, Cuevas requests that Torres repeat the simple line “good evening” about a dozen times, pontificating about how much meaning can be conveyed in just those two words while Rivero looks on nervously. Prop designers and casting agents come to Cuevas when decisions need to be made, prompting her to test out far too many single-scene handbags or left-swipe the faces of background actors on a tablet for seemingly arbitrary reasons. As many real-life actors have done recently, Rivero takes to TikTok for gaudy social awareness spots that make Cuevas laugh with pity. There are dozens of other gags that I could outline but they’re best left for audiences to enjoy together.
For a film that lampoons the behind-the-scenes minutiae that can go into these projects, Official Competition‘s production design and set decoration is somewhat surprisingly first-rate. I’m not sure that directors and actors often rehearse in spaces as lavish and pristine as the ones seen in this movie but cinematographer Arnau Valls Colomer certainly has a ball capturing their reserved beauty. The background for title card and opening credits is later revealed to be the green marble plaque for one of Rivero’s numerous acting awards, connecting the authentic beauty still linked to these artificial popularity contests. With the proliferation of entertainment news and constant access to celebrities, it’s easy to get cynical about the state of moviemaking and Official Competition certainly has some fun at its expense. But by its end, we’re reminded how the very best movies still make the process worthwhile.
Score – 4/5
More new movies coming to theaters this weekend:
Bodies, Bodies Bodies, a comedy slasher starring Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova, follows a group of rich twenty-somethings whose party at a remote family mansion turns deadly when they begin a Mafia-style party game.
Fall, a psychological thriller starring Grace Fulton and Virginia Gardner, finds two best friends struggling to survive while trapped at the top of a 2,000-foot radio tower.
Summering, a coming-of-age drama starring Lia Barnett and Madalen Mills, tells the story of four girls who embark on a mysterious adventure during their last days of summer and childhood.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
Based on a series of charming mockumentary YouTube shorts from the 2010s, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a super-sized film adaptation about a tiny creature with appropriately diminutive origins. Developed by comedian Jenny Slate and director Dean Fleischer Camp while attending a wedding in 2010, the anthropomorphic seashell that gives the series its name made some serious waves on the internet, leading to a series of tie-in storybooks that quickly became bestsellers. The challenge when adapting any short film (or series of shorts, in this case) into a full-blown feature is expanding on the source material without stretching things too thin. Despite having an ending that feels a little too pat, the movie finds wonderful ways to elaborate on the endearing mollusk at its center with incisive dialogue and imaginative stop-motion animation.
Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate) is a one-inch talking shell living with his sweet grandmother Nanna Connie (voiced by Isabella Rossellini) in the house of documentary filmmaker Dean (Dean Fleischer Camp), who discovers the pair of them one day. He starts filming interviews with Marcel and finds out that his shell community was inadvertently taken when the previous homeowners hastily packed up their sock drawer during their move out. After Dean posts videos of Marcel online that receive millions of views, they use the opportunity to crowdsource help from the new fanbase to help find Marcel’s parents and extended family. With a pair of tiny shoes and the gumption of a creature many times his size, Marcel ventures out into the world to reunite with the seashell collective from whom he was separated two years prior.
The test that Marcel the Shell with Shoes On sets up for itself immediately is whether or not it will be crushed by the potential weight of overly-cutesy affectations but it doesn’t take long for the film to prove that it’s more than adorable. Slate’s voice work is a key component to making this film soar, carrying over the tender timbre crafted from the original short films but adding in wit and wisdom that sensibly fills out the character. Marcel playfully spars with Dean as he questions the process behind Marcel’s daily activities and his recollection of a Wayne Gretzky quote that he misattributes to “Whale Jetski”. Rossellini is a perfect addition to this lovable protagonist, her nurturing tone and delightful disposition pushing Marcel along in his overwhelming but worthy mission.
Like Ratatouille or the Toy Story series, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On marvels in the ways that miniature characters adapt in a human-sized world and reappropriate human-sized objects. Traveling around the house is quite a task when you’re only one inch tall, so Marcel procures a tennis ball he dubs “The Rover” and rolls around at speeds much faster than his undersized Converse shoes would be able to go. He’s even found a way to climb up walls, thanks to an ample supply of honey that Marcel is able to stick his feet in and amply adhere to a given wall as he walks up it. In remembrance of his displaced family members, he even makes a shrine out of small flowers and blades of grass, fashioning a shofar out of a cavatappi noodle to honor them with a rendition of “Taps”.
I also recognized some Spongebob Squarepants influence in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, though Marcel has a bit more of a rambunctious edge than the titular square of the Nickelodeon series. But unfailing optimism in the face of life’s challenges is a key component to what makes both characters so indelible. “Guess why I smile a lot?” Marcel asks Dean, following it up with “’cause it’s worth it!” before he can opine. Marcel’s interactions with the off-camera Dean bring home why he wanted to start filming this small creature in the first place, aside from the fact that it’s a talking object that is typically inanimate. Whether they’re trading parts singing the scout song “Linger” or getting ambient background tone for Dean’s documentary, it’s clear that Marcel makes Dean’s life better just by being around. There’s no reason to think he can’t do the same for us.
Score – 4/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is Bullet Train, an action comedy starring Brad Pitt and Joey King about an unlucky assassin tasked with recovering a briefcase aboard a high-speed train filled with rival killers traveling from Tokyo to Kyoto.
Streaming on Hulu is Prey, a sci-fi action film in the Predator franchise starring Amber Midthunder and Dakota Beavers about members of the Comanche Nation fending off an advanced alien hunter during the early 18th century.
Premiering on Peacock is They/Them, a slasher movie starring Kevin Bacon and Carrie Preston about a group of LGBTQ teens who must fend for themselves against a mysterious killer while attending a gay conversion camp.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Nope
Three films into his career, writer/director Jordan Peele has established himself as a rare breed in Hollywood: a creative force with a distinctive voice who not only has big ideas but also has the budget to put them on the screen. But those who appreciated the cheeky brand of social commentary on race and class from Get Out and Us may be left scratching their heads after Nope, Peele’s attempt at a Western blockbuster. As evasive as the marketing for it has been, the ads pitched the film as a Spielbergian summer spectacle a la Jaws or Close Encounters but naturally, Peele also has other things on his mind too. The ideas he puts forth about the voyeuristic insatiability of the entertainment industry and man’s meddling with the laws of nature feel underdeveloped and more importantly, unrelated to the otherwise straightforward story.
Nope follows two siblings, Otis Jr. (Daniel Kaluuya) and Em (Keke Palmer), who run Haywood Hollywood Horses in the secluded desert town of Agua Dulce after their father Otis Sr. (Keith David) passed in a freak accident. Their business of training and handling horses for feature films has suffered since their father’s death, forcing them to sell some of their horses to child star-turned-tourist attraction owner Jupe (Steven Yeun). But flickering lights at their ranch may signal an end to their financial woes, as the Haywoods become convinced that an unidentified flying object is in their midst. Desperate to record its existence, they recruit tech store employee Angel (Brandon Perea) and enigmatic cinematographer Antlers (Michael Wincott) to capture its movements on film without being able to use electronics in its presence.
After opening with a one-two punch of tantalizing images in a blood-covered chimpanzee on a TV set and a passage from the Book of Nahum, Nope dutifully sets up the disparity in personalities between Otis Jr. and Em. This isn’t the first time Kaluuya has played the strong silent type but he’s usually able to put plenty of charisma into whatever role he portrays. Whether it’s in his acting choices or Peele’s direction of his performance, he comes across as off-puttingly sedate and almost obstinate in not letting us into his headspace. Palmer fares better as the more extraverted of the two, effortlessly winning a film crew over with a charming safety speech, but there’s not much on the page beyond that opening monologue to give her character dimension and depth.
Nope has no paucity of compelling story points, even if Peele doesn’t seem to know how they all fit together. The Haywoods being descendants of a jockey seen in the first motion picture dating back to the 1880s speaks to their firsthand knowledge of the power that images can hold and explains why they would fight so hard for UFO footage. The subplot about a sitcom filming that turned deadly when a trained chimp goes rogue calls to mind how often animals are still exploited for entertainment. The presence of a TMZ reporter, whose face is never shown, in the third act seems to comment on sensationalism in the internet age. Rich subtext, to be sure, but the text itself has to be captivating on its own terms first but it simply isn’t.
Fortunately, the film is at least always captivating to the eye, courtesy of one of the best DPs in the world, Hoyte van Hoytema, behind the camera. Scale is important both in Westerns and in movies about alien craft and Hoytema does a beautiful job organizing each frame with relative size in mind. The music from Michael Abels heavily recalls the scores of John Williams as majestic horns and quizzical strings percolate with wonderment below the sonic surface. Even though he has a Spielberg soundalike in the music department, Peele just doesn’t have the same knack for this Spielberg style of storytelling as he did with socially-conscious horror in his first two features. Spielberg is a master of being gracious with his audience, cluing them in to characters’s motivations without hitting us over the head with it, where Peele doesn’t seem to care whether or not we’re on the same page with our protagonists. I hope he finds a way to draw us back in his next time out.
Score – 2.5/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is DC League of Super-Pets, an animated superhero film starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart following Superman’s dog Krypto and his other furry friends as they rescue kidnapped members of Justice League.
Also playing only in theaters is Vengeance, a mystery comedy starring B.J. Novak and Boyd Holbrook about a journalist and podcaster who travels from New York City to West Texas to investigate the death of a girl with whom he was romantically involved.
Streaming on Hulu is Not Okay, a dark comedy starring Zoey Deutch and Dylan O’Brien about a young woman who fakes a trip to Paris to gain followers online but a terrifying incident takes place and becomes part of her trip.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Where The Crawdads Sing
Based on the massively popular novel by the same name, the new period drama Where the Crawdads Sing tells the story of Kya Clark (Daisy Edgar-Jones), an underprivileged but resourceful young girl living in 1950s North Carolina. Abandoned first by her mother, then her siblings and finally by her abusive and alcoholic father, Kya learns to live on her own within their marsh-bound home. She meets fellow nature lover Tate (Taylor John Smith) while boating through the wetlands one day and a romance blooms between the two, until Tate unintentionally serves Kya with another round of abandonment when he leaves for college. She finds a rebound in the form of the football-playing Chase (Harris Dickinson), who commits to his relationship with Kya but also seems to be harboring secrets of his own.
The film’s framework is set around the discovery of Chase’s body under a fire tower by policemen in 1969 and the correlated trial a year later, in which Kya finds herself the lone murder suspect. Because the reclusive Kya is something of a local pariah, dubbed “The Marsh Girl” by unfeeling natives to the area, there aren’t many attorneys jumping at the opportunity to represent her in court. Once Kya is detained, the kindly lawyer Tom Milton (David Strathairn) ultimately steps up to her defense and during the trial, we’re shown extensive flashbacks that detail Kya’s time with Chase leading up to his death. With witnesses and evidence stacking up against her, Kya’s life is in Milton’s hands as he fights to defend her innocence.
Besides being touted as a book club pick by co-producer Reese Witherspoon, a big part of what made the best-seller that inspired Where the Crawdads Sing eclipse 12 million copies is its rich depictions of nature around the fictional town of Barkley Cove. Kya is drawn to ethology from a young age and her illustrations of the wildlife in the area eventually catch the eye of publishers looking to detail the Carolina swamplands. The film’s location work and sound design does a great job of adapting author Delia Owens’s descriptive prose to the frame, filling the aural and visual space with natural wonders for the endlessly curious Kya to document. In this context, every chirp and croak of this sonic landscape helps envelop us in her world even further.
Unfortunately, this intricate and evocative backdrop is squandered on a movie that unfolds like a Nicholas Sparks adaptation mixed with an overwrought courtroom drama. Director Olivia Newman bounces back and forth between the two timelines with too little attention being paid to the rhythm and tone of the narrative. But no matter when we are in the story, the events play like paperback pablum bogged down in romance and legal drama tropes. Even if we didn’t know from the start that Chase would end up dead, it’s obvious from his first interaction with Kya that they shouldn’t be together and that she has a deeper connection with Tate. It’s a strained love triangle wherein the movie indulges an obviously bad point of the triangle for too much of the running time.
With her presence in Hulu projects Fresh and Under the Banner of Heaven earlier this year, 24-year-old Daisy Edgar-Jones is clearly trying to get herself out there early in her burgeoning career. This is a tricky role because Kya is a very withdrawn person and in trying to stay true to the character, you run the risk as an actor of not emoting enough for the audience to connect with you. Although it’s not an unforgettable performance, Edgar-Jones does a fine job overall but the rest of the cast is generally unmemorable. Taylor John Smith and Harris Dickinson are handsome bores as the love interests and Strathairn is reliable as the tender litigator but it’s firmly within his expected wheelhouse. If you’re a devotee to the source material, Where the Crawdads Sing may float your boat but for someone like me who wasn’t wrapped up in the literary sensation, it was dead in the water.
Score – 2/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Nope, a science fiction movie starring Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer about a pair of ranch-owning siblings who attempt to capture video evidence of an unidentified flying object with the help of a tech salesman and a documentarian.
Premiering on Netflix is The Gray Man, an action thriller starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans about a CIA mercenary who is on the run from a merciless former colleague after accidentally uncovering dark agency secrets.
Streaming on Amazon Prime is Anything’s Possible, a coming-of-age romcom starring Eva Reign and Abubakr Ali about a high school student who summons up the courage to ask a transsexual teen out on a date.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Thor: Love and Thunder
When it comes to the conception of Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the jump in quality from where he started to where he is now could be described as super-heroic. His inaugural entry was a misguided attempt at Shakespearean tragedy that still ranks as my least favorite in the franchise, while the follow-up The Dark World was received so poorly that Kevin Feige and his team were forced to go back to the drawing board. Thor‘s second sequel Ragnarok brought on comedy director Taika Waititi to essentially reboot the superhero’s standalone movies, resulting in a god of thunder who was now much less stoic and much more jovial. Now we have Thor: Love and Thunder, another adventure that is mercifully in the same spirit of Ragnarok as opposed to the dreadfully self-serious first two films.
We’re re-introduced to Thor (Chris Hemsworth) as he travels across space with the Guardians of the Galaxy seeking to help those in need, who Thor finds in fellow Asgardian warrior Sif (Jaimie Alexander) on a ravaged planet. She tells Thor the one responsible for the carnage is Gorr (Christian Bale), a vengeful alien possessing a powerful god-killing weapon who seeks to put an end to all higher beings. Back on Earth, Thor’s old flame Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is battling cancer but after traveling to New Asgard, she’s drawn to the remnants of Thor’s shattered hammer, which she is apparently now worthy to wield. With the now super-powered Foster, along with heroes Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and Korg (Taika Waititi), Thor must rescue a group of kidnapped New Asgardians while sidestepping Gorr’s pernicious traps along the way.
If Ragnarok swung the pendulum of the Thor movies firmly towards comedy from the stark drama of the first two, Love and Thunder finds Waititi trying and ultimately failing to find more of a balance in the middle. In past films like Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Jojo Rabbit, he’s proven his ability to mix laughs and pathos together but the tonal shifts here are much more wild and mismanaged by comparison. A tragic prelude introducing Gorr’s character opens with a shot that wouldn’t be out of place in a Terrence Malick project but five minutes later, an obese Thor is doing battle ropes with a trucker hat on. The pace of this film is similarly untamed; huge swaths of narrative process and character development seem to have been left on the cutting room floor in what seems to be an effort to get this latest entry under the two-hour mark.
Hats off, then, to Love and Thunder‘s cast, for not only being the glue that holds the story together in its haste but for also filling in the gaps that Waititi and co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson should have already firmed up. It’s been 5 years since Ragnarok‘s release and almost 10 years since Portman starred in an MCU film but her charisma and chemistry with Hemsworth immediately makes up for lost time. Foster was a passive character with very little agency in her prior appearances but Portman has more room here to expand the role, even before she picks up the reforged Mjolnir to become Mighty Thor. On the villain side of things, Bale delivers a sturdy performance as a worthy antagonist who’s deliciously evil one moment and indubitably pitiable the next.
When it comes to laughs, Love and Thunder is eager to please, which might explain why this is filled with some of the broadest humor in the entire franchise. What will make or break this newest adventure for audiences is whether the jokes land or not. If you don’t think gags based on those screaming goat videos from years ago are funny, you’ll likely roll your eyes at a pair of new characters who join the gang this time around. Others may sigh at the inclusion of several very obvious Guns N’ Roses needle drops and savor more unexpected cuts from the likes of ABBA and Mary J. Blige. When in doubt, call on Hemsworth to tap into Thor’s bawdy enthusiasm and you’ll have chuckles more often than not. Thor: Love and Thunder is not an especially well-crafted superhero movie but it gets the job done while keeping Thor on a more promising path than when he started.
Score – 3/5
New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
Where the Crawdads Sing, a mystery drama starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Taylor John Smith, is an adaptation of the best-selling novel about a woman who becomes a suspect in the murder of a man with whom she was once involved in the marshes of the deep South
Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, an animated martial arts comedy starring Michael Cera and Samuel L. Jackson, follows a down-on-his-luck dog who is trained to be a samurai by a cat mentor, all while a villainous cat wants to destroy their village.
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, a historical dramedy starring Lesley Manville and Isabelle Huppert, tells the story of a widowed cleaning lady living in 1950s London who becomes obsessed with a couture Dior dress and embarks on an adventure to Paris to track it down.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
The Black Phone
Ten years ago, writer/director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill teamed up with actor Ethan Hawke to make Sinister, a first-rate supernatural chiller about a true-crime writer who gets too close to the evil that inspires his work. Now the trio reunites for The Black Phone, another horror project that doesn’t quite have Sinister‘s supreme scares but proves that the chemistry established from that film was far from a fluke. Based on a short story of the same name from Joe Hill, whose father Stephen King has dabbled in horror fiction from time to time, the movie extrapolates from its conceit with unbearably tense setpieces and an evocative sense of setting.
The time and place is 1978 Denver, where teen siblings Finney (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) endure family life with an abusive father (Jeremy Davies) while fending off bullies at school. To make matters worse, children have been disappearing all over the community with an abductor nicknamed The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) to blame for the disappearances. Finney tries to be careful but is nonetheless taken by The Grabber, waking up in a basement with little except a bare mattress and a disconnected landline. Hope seems lost, until the phone mysteriously rings early in Finney’s kidnapping, with one of The Grabber’s previous victims on the other line with instructions on how to get out alive.
Bleak but not without some well-earned moments of levity, The Black Phone fearlessly takes on difficult subject material that lesser horror movies might try to skirt around or avoid entirely. Derrickson sheds the rose-colored glasses that can be associated with this time period and reminds us early and often that life for kids back then could be downright brutal at times. The constant threat of a schoolyard pummeling is enough to make some of the boys overcompensate when it comes time to fight back; an early scene depicts a new kid whaling on a would-be bully far past a reasonable stopping point, just to make a statement. Tragically, this violence is often learned first at home and the broken families of abused or neglected children produce perfect victims for The Grabber.
Though it’s not a traditional tale of empowerment, the thesis of The Black Phone revolves around persevering through cruel circumstances and coming out the other end a stronger person. The premise of someone communicating with the dead and learning from their mistakes is a nice plot device for Finney to keep his head up during his abduction and simply work the problem. It’s not until the very end that it’s revealed how the bits of advice he gets from The Grabber’s abductees will help Finney escape but when each piece snaps together, it’s quite satisfying for both the protagonist and us in the audience. In the meantime, Hawke makes a meal of his immensely creepy killer character, sporting a two-piece mask that should be a hit when Halloween rolls around in a few months.
Some of the plot elements that don’t directly involve the game of wits between Finney and The Grabber aren’t quite as strong. The subplot surrounding Gwen’s psychic abilities that she inherited from her mother has some strong character moments but stretches credulity in the way that it affects the narrative. Put more frankly: I have trouble believing an entire police force would follow the visions of a teen girl as opposed to tracking down The Grabber with more concrete evidence. Elsewhere, it was nice to see Blumhouse regular James Ransone pop up but his character and his bearing on the plot make way less sense than the myriad supernatural events at play. Nevertheless, The Black Phone is a strong spookfest with compelling acting and a genuine sense of menace.
Score – 3.5/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Thor: Love and Thunder, a Marvel superhero movie starring Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman which finds the god of thunder re-teaming with Valkyrie and Korg to take on Gorr the God Butcher.
Streaming on Netflix is The Sea Beast, an animated adventure starring Karl Urban and Zaris-Angel Hator about a legendary sea monster hunter who has an epiphany when a stowaway girl befriends the most dangerous monster of all.
Also streaming on Netflix is Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between, a teen romance starring Talia Ryder and Jordan Fisher about a high school couple who go on one last epic date in both familiar and unexpected places after making a pact to break up before college.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Elvis
It’s been nine years since Baz Luhrmann made a mess of The Great Gatsby and, if nothing else, gave the world a Leonardo DiCaprio GIF so ubiquitous that searches for “cheers” and “congrats” will likely generate it within the first two or three results. Now, the Aussie’s signature brand of moon-eyed maximalism is out to claim another cultural icon as his latest victim. The music biopic Elvis is about everything you would expect from the Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge! director: visually extravagant, thuddingly obvious, occasionally inspired, and above all, supremely self-satisfied. At 159 minutes, it plays like the longest supercut video ever uploaded to YouTube. Sure, it moves and doesn’t feel its length while you’re watching it but by the end, it becomes clear that little new has been conveyed about the King’s legacy.
Austin Butler sports the well-oiled mane of Memphis rocker Elvis Presley, who meets Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) backstage at a Louisiana Hayride show in 1954. The King’s signature shaking was born that night and Parker sees dollar signs in those hips, convincing Presley to let him manage his career from there on out. We then take a whirlwind tour through Elvis’s life and career, influenced by rock pioneers like Little Richard (Alton Mason) and B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), the latter of whom particularly sees his potential to break down racial divides in the country. To avoid arrest for his lascivious gyrations, Parker arranges for Elvis to be drafted into the Army and while stationed in Germany, the heartthrob meets his future wife Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge).
There’s a popular exercise in film school used to study editing technique, where the professor will show a stretch of a film and the class is asked to clap when a cut is made in the movie. If that class was shown Elvis, it would generate a steady applause so convincing that it may finally make Luhrmann happy enough to stop chasing it so desperately. Amid the orgy of triple split screens and roving camera movements, there are some fun edits: a ferris wheel spinning out of control blended into an early hit record revolving on a phonograph was my personal favorite. But this is a chaotic scrapbook for a 20th century titan who deserves one but doesn’t really need one either, given how much has already been said and written about him.
Elvis is a tale of two performances. Presley has been portrayed numerous times of the big screen but it doesn’t take long for Butler to set himself apart as king of the King performances. He nails every era of Elvis’s walk of life, from the insecure greasy-haired kid still finding himself to the pelvic-thrusting showman to the aging bejeweled Vegas staple. Luhrmann doesn’t linger long on the negative aspects of Presley’s personality but Butler is still able to find some nuance and subtlety in the role amid the hagiography. I don’t know how much of what we hear from Elvis’s voice is actually Butler singing and after the first couple songs, I really didn’t care. The movie magic became real and the actor embodied the character so thoroughly that I didn’t question it from that moment on.
Then we have Tom Hanks. Colonel Tom Parker is a bizarre figure, a Dutch-born huckster whose origins are still shrouded in mystery to this day but whose relationship with the best-selling solo music artist of all time begs investigation. Even though Luhrmann frames this story around Parker recalling his time with Elvis during the Colonel’s final days, neither he nor Hanks get any closer to uncovering a deeper truth about this tenebrous figure. Hanks goes about Parker as a cock-eyed cross of PT Barnum by way of Dr. Demento, donning a fat suit and muttering with an unplaceable accent as he leers off-stage much less convincingly than he did in That Thing You Do! years ago. It’s a bizarre and bad performance that doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell at working in this otherwise down-the-line biography.
Score – 2/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is Minions: The Rise of Gru, a follow-up to the 2015 megahit which tells the origin story of the supervillain Gru as he meets the titular yellow creatures while living in the suburbs as a teenager.
Also exclusively in theaters is Mr. Malcolm’s List, a period drama starring Freida Pinto and Sope Dirisu about a young woman living in 1800s England who helps her friend to get revenge on a suitor who rejected her for failing a requirement on his list of qualifications for a bride
Streaming on Hulu is The Princess, a fantasy action movie starring Joey King and Dominic Cooper about a strong-willed princess who is kidnapped for refusing to wed a cruel suitor intent on taking her father’s throne.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup