Tag Archives: 2021

Reel Views, Review

The Night House

A year and a half after debuting at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, a hefty Searchlight Pictures acquisition finally sees the light of day, which is to say the dark of the movie theater. The atmospheric and genuinely chilling The Night House is half tantalizing mystery and half psychological horror but wholly gripping all the way through. Like Netflix’s The Woman in the Window from earlier this year, the film depicts a female protagonist who isolates herself from the rest of the world to pull a nagging thread that threatens to unravel everything around her. Just as Amy Adams knocked it out of the park in that unfairly maligned Netflix offering, Rebecca Hall turns in a fiercely committed performance that puts us firmly within her fractured psyche.

Hall plays Beth, a high school teacher failing to make sense of the abrupt suicide of Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), her loving husband of almost 15 years. Retreating to the ornate lake house that he built for them before their marriage, she goes through mementos like wedding videos and love notes before happening upon the blueprints for their luxurious home. Strange inscriptions and evidence of hidden rooms prompt Beth to dig deeper, which in turn causes sleeplessness and disturbing visions that only get her more involved in the dark secrets that are waiting to be uncovered. Beth’s new obsession disturbs friends like Claire (Sarah Goldberg) and neighbors like Mel (Vondie Curtis-Hall) alike, begging the question if all of these supernatural connections are simply a matter of Beth’s grief-stricken imagination.

Directed by David Bruckner, veteran of horror anthology showcases like V/H/S and Southbound, The Night House doesn’t have the sturdiest script around but makes up for the more ungainly plot elements with some well earned scares. Yes, there are jump scares and yes, some of them are cheaper than others, but the movie also provides more drawn-out sequences that give us time to study the frame and investigate the shadows that may or may not be there. While the film has slightly different goals and intentions than last year’s The Invisible Man, both movies share a proclivity for negative space in the frame, suggesting the evil that may lurk there and allowing our imagination to fill the chasm. The Night House makes even more evocative use of moving shadows and shifting rooms, to profoundly creepy and unsettling effect.

Bruckner also thematically and visually quotes several films of a master filmmaker not traditionally associated with the horror genre: Ingmar Bergman. His narrative invokes Jungian duality and doppelgängers in ways that brought me right back to Bergman’s endlessly debated masterwork Persona. A shot late in the film between Beth and a deathly figure is composed and choreographed so similarly to the iconic chess scene in The Seventh Seal that I find it impossible for it not to be intentional. More obliquely, the crimson-tinged third act of The Night House recalls the inescapable reddish rue of Cries and Whispers and all of its stirring underpinnings. It’s heartening to see directors implement concepts of classic cinema so seamlessly into a modern ghost tale.

Since appearing in The Prestige 15 years ago, Rebecca Hall has become one of the most captivating actresses around and here, she proves that she can hold a movie together with little help from other performers. Her Beth isn’t always likable in the traditional sense — she’s not afraid to confront people and make them uncomfortable if it seems warranted –but her struggle to put these twisted puzzle pieces together is always engaging. Hall wears the fears and insecurities of her characters with such boldness that it’s often inspiring; if her characters can overcome their baggage and damage, perhaps we can too. When Bruckner introduced the film at Sundance, he said it’s “about which idea you find scarier: that ghosts exist, or that they don’t.” The Night House has the capacity to haunt properly, no matter which option you choose.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is Candyman, a supernatural slasher sequel starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Teyonah Parris about a Chicago-based group of young professionals who awaken the titular bogeyman once again.
Streaming on Hulu is Vacation Friends, a comedy starring John Cena and Lil Rel Howery about a couple whose wedding is crashed by a pair of casual friends from a vacation.
Available on Netflix is He’s All That, a gender-swapped remake starring Addison Rae and Tanner Buchanan about a high school girl who accepts a challenge to turn the school’s least popular boy into prom king.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Annette

For a band that’s toiled in obscurity for decades, Sparks is finally finding themselves squarely in the spotlight this year. Premiering at Sundance Film Festival back in January, The Sparks Brothers is a documentary/love letter from director/fanboy Edgar Wright covering 50 years of the duo’s idiosyncratic work in the music industry. Now comes Annette, an undeniably eccentric but frustratingly hollow musical that Sparks members Ron and Russell Mael conceived with French writer/director Leos Carax. Its oddball energy and conviction to its own brand of strangeness would suggest the singular vision of a stubborn auteur but apparently, this trio of outsiders found a common ground upon which to craft this audacious but arduous melodrama.

Meet Henry McHenry (Adam Driver). He’s a stand-up comedian whose persona hinges on the premise that he’s the last person who should be performing on-stage. He appears to crowds disheveled in a bathrobe, murmuring petty observations with his back to the audience, generating comedy from the mere fact that no stand-up in their right mind would go forward with this act. Somehow, McHenry has captured the affections of luminous opera singer Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard), whose international popularity in the theater scene means that the couple is plagued by paparazzi nearly everywhere they go. With the world watching, Henry and Ann welcome their daughter Annette in the world but struggle to raise her together as Henry’s career stalls out while Ann travels the world to perform for sold-out crowds.

Beginning in a recording studio where the Mael brothers (playing themselves) address the audience and launch into the cheeky, walk-and-sing opener “So May We Start”, Annette benefits from an infectious and lively energy from the first frame. Sadly, it’s mostly a tease, promising a fun and rambunctious challenge to the conventional musical when what follows is a moody half-opera with saturnine pacing. It’s a film whose narrative shifts quite wildly around the halfway mark, following a tragic turn that has McHenry and an accompanist played by Simon Helberg renegotiating their relationships to Ann and Annette. Both halves are held together by themes from the allure of fame to the bounds of artistry, exploring the efficacy of entertainment in profoundly weird and sometimes unsettling terms.

Driver is quite excellent throughout, disarming our inclinations to write off his narcissistic protagonist by committing fully to his beguiling but compelling anti-comedy schtick. It’s hard to know where “McHenry” stops and McHenry begins, creating a line that Driver has some serious fun dancing around. He doesn’t have the strongest singing voice out there but as we found out from La La Land a few years ago, you don’t need world-class pipes to weave together some movie magic. His conviction to such a deranged but magnetic central character reminded me of his work in the similarly cockeyed The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, doggedly holding the center in both of the deeply out-there tales.

The Sparks-crafted music that serves as the backbone for this project bares the off-kilter and droll watermark the duo has perfected over the decades but the coinciding lyrics are often redundant and deprived of subtlety. When Driver and Cotillard croon the lines “we love each other so much, it’s so hard to explain” over and over at one another, I actually laughed at how unsophisticated the underlying sentiment was and I don’t think that’s what Carax and crew intended. Then again, there are quite a few fourth-wall breaks, including a number where Helberg’s character spills his heart out to the audience while apologizing for having to get back to conducting an orchestra, so maybe I’m just not fully in on the joke. Those who want to take a dive in the deep end may give Annette the attention it demands but your best bet may be to stay out of the pool altogether.

Score – 2.5/5

More new movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters and streaming on HBO Max is Reminiscence, a sci-fi thriller starring Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson about a scientist who discovers a way to relive his past and uses the technology to search for his long lost love.
Playing only in theaters is The Night House, a psychological horror film starring Rebecca Hall and Sarah Goldberg about a widow who begins to uncover her recently deceased husband’s disturbing secrets.
Also playing in theaters and streaming on Paramount+ is PAW Patrol: The Movie, an adaptation of the popular animated children’s series starring Iain Armitage and Marsai Martin which finds the band of pups up against the evil mayor of their city.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

CODA

The opening film of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, which brought audiences to their feet when it screened on-site and virtually back in January, is now here to warm hearts the world over. Apple acquired distribution rights to CODA for $25 million, a record-setting price tag for a Sundance selection, two days after it premiered and I’m happy to report that the movie is worth every penny spent. Apple TV+ is a streaming service that has gotten off to a slow start since programming began in November of 2019 but crowd-pleasing content like Ted Lasso, the ongoing Schmigadoon! and this new entry could be a formidable way forward. Theoretically, the demand for feel-good streaming entertainment should be higher than ever and this indie gem has all the hallmarks of an endearing and enduring classic.

The film stars Emilia Jones as Ruby Rossi, a demure high school senior whose designation as a Child Of Deaf Adults gives the film its acronymous title. As the only hearing member of her Massachusetts-based family, she plays a crucial role in aiding the fishing business her father Frank (Troy Kotsur) started with little more than a schooner to his name. Ruby splits her time at school going out to sea with her father and her brother Leo (Daniel Durant), singing along to oldies while helping them bring in their fishing nets. Her burgeoning passion for music is recognized and emboldened by Ruby’s choir teacher Bernardo (Eugenio Derbez), whose proposition that Ruby consider music school puts her personal dreams at odds with her desire to keep her tight-knit, working-class family together.

Adapting from the French dramedy La Famille Bélier, writer/director Sian Heder has crafted an irresistible and utterly charming coming-of-age story packed with both achingly authentic and warmly funny moments. It’s a fair criticism to point out that the shape of CODA‘s narrative is not novel to the genre but for every story beat that may seem familiar, Heder adds a character detail or extra moment that gives her film its own unique signature. She isn’t interested in making saints out of her deaf characters; Leo playfully exchanges vulgarities with her sister in American Sign Language (ASL), while Ruby has to translate for her not-so-discreetly amorous parents during an uncomfortable doctor’s visit. These are full-featured and soulful characters who inspire empathy and affection from minute one.

Much of that is credit to the immensely talented cast, headed up by the phenomenal 19-year-old British actress Emilia Jones. As Ruby, she is CODA‘s magnetic center, carrying the weight of her family’s struggles and expectations of her while trying to find herself and realize her dreams in the process. It’s a breakout performance, affecting and pure with heaps of compassion baked in. Along with Marlee Matlin in addition to Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant, the film features an exceptional trio of deaf actors who effortlessly flesh out characters usually relegated to the periphery with fantastically lived-in performances. Kudos to casting director Deborah Aquila for not just finding actors that “fit the bill” but matching each performer flawlessly with their respective roles.

Since a significant portion of the film is in ASL, CODA is to be the first film with “open” subtitles being displayed throughout for every member of the audience during its theatrical run. Whatever taboo may exist around American audiences being shown subtitles during an English-language film may be dissolving thanks to other movies like A Quiet Place and its recent sequel, which also feature extensive use of ASL. Personally, I prefer to watch as many films with subtitles as possible (regardless of language) and I hope the experience of viewing one in theaters will open audiences up to the possibilities it provides. As Parasite director Bong Joon Ho pointed in one of his Oscar speeches from last year, “once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” I’m happy to cite CODA as a prime example.

Score – 4.5/5

More new movies coming to theaters this weekend:
Free Guy, an action comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer, follows a non-player character in an open world video game who becomes self-aware and decides to save the day.
Don’t Breathe 2, a horror thriller starring Stephen Lang and Madelyn Grace, fast forwards 11 years after the home invasion of the original film to find The Blind Man fending off more bandits.
Respect, a music biopic starring Jennifer Hudson and Forest Whitaker, details Aretha Franklin’s rise from choir singer in Detroit to the Queen of Soul while depicting her personal struggles along the way.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Podcast

Ep. #56 – The Green Knight

I’m joined by my friend Nick as we get medieval on your heinies to discuss The Green Knight, the new Arthurian tale from A24 and writer/director David Lowery. Then we share other things we’ve been listening to and watching, including the Radiolab project The Vanishing of Harry Pace and the Apple TV+ comedy musical series Schmigadoon! (first four episodes currently streaming, final two in the coming weeks). Nick also plugs his excellent short story series podcast Written and Read By. Find us on Facebook, Twitter and Letterboxd.

Reel Views, Review

The Green Knight

Texas-based filmmaker David Lowery has always had Camelot on his mind. In a recent press release, he shared a photo of himself at 8-years-old donning a tunic and shiny helmet, crediting Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for his obsession around Grail mythology and Arthurian lore. Now 40, Lowery has realized his childhood dream with The Green Knight, a beautiful and bold medieval fantasy that doesn’t play by any of the “rules” laid out by previous Round Table movies. While the film follows the narrative laid out by the 14th-century poem, the ethereal epic explores the text’s themes of courage and loyalty in an evocative and challenging manner that immerses all of one’s senses in the theatrical experience.

The focus of the tale is Sir Gawain (Dev Patel), who joins his uncle King Arthur (Sean Harris) in the royal court for a Christmas feast among a group of legendary knights. Gawain laments that he has no notable stories to share with his esteemed brethren when a mystical treelike creature calling himself the Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) proffers a festive challenge to the group. He offers his axe to whomever can land a clean strike against him but warns that an equal blow will be returned in a year’s time, prompting Gawain to heedlessly behead the Green Knight. When the otherworldly being retrieves his head and rides away laughing, Gawain must decide whether to accept his fate by traveling to the Knight’s home of Green Chapel the year following or to cower in Camelot until Christmas comes again.

Leading up an exemplary ensemble cast, Patel has never been better as a temerarious but trustworthy young journeyman trying to find his place in the world between myth and mediocrity. A24 regulars like Barry Keoghan and Kate Dickie (the latter of whom also appeared with Ineson in the studio’s 2016 breakout The Witch) make the most of their screen time as a creepy scavenger and Queen Guinevere, respectively. The always welcome Joel Edgerton also turns up as a chuffed lord eager to help Gawain on his quest, with some caveats. Alicia Vikander is also terrific in a dual role whose characters bleed into one another in a seductive and mysterious way. In the third act, one of her characters gives a colorful monologue about the unstoppable forces of nature that made me temporarily scared of the color green.

Many modern medieval movies (2018’s Robin Hood springs to mind) tend to focus on the battle and swordplay associated with these tales, bringing in loads of computer-generated effects and legions of stunt people to give things an “epic” feel. Though he does use some CGI for the Green Knight creature and a friendly fox that aids and, on one occasion, scolds Gawain, Lowery often utilizes the immaculate production design and practical effects to convey his pensive and impressionistic tale. This isn’t an action movie; the violence in the film takes place quickly but the consequences reverberate throughout. There are more than a handful of Arthurian allusions in the picture and those not familiar with the material may be frustrated at the movie’s lack of explanation and exposition. One would do well to brush up on the source material before going into the theater.

In addition to writing and directing The Green Knight, Lowery serves as the editor and applies the unique rhythm and texture he established in 2017’s A Ghost Story. He’s often unpredictable in his movement, using startling jump cuts to pass over long stretches of time but holding and lingering on shots that we may expect other directors to cut away from sooner. With cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo, he composes shots that are haunting and suggest depths of emotion that may not be felt otherwise from the story. Lowery revealed in an interview last week that in the long lead-up to the film’s release, he had doubts about continuing to make future films in the face of an increasingly uncertain world but decided to press on with projects he deemed worthwhile. If The Green Knight is evidence of what else he has in store, he has chosen wisely.

Score – 4/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters and on HBO Max is The Suicide Squad, a DCEU superhero sequel starring Margot Robbie and Idris Elba about super-powered penitentiary inmates who are sent to a South American island to destroy a Nazi-era laboratory.
Available to rent on demand is John and the Hole, a psychological thriller starring Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Ehle about a disturbed young boy who holds his family captive in a hole in the ground.
Streaming on Amazon Prime is Val, a documentary that depicts the life and career of actor Val Kilmer.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Old

Since his ubiquitous breakout The Sixth Sense in 1999, writer/director M. Night Shyamalan has managed to capture the attention of the movie-going and non-movie-going public alike with tantalizing high concept mysteries. His follow-up Unbreakable grafted the nascent superhero genre onto a thriller that asked “what if Superman lived in the real world and didn’t know he was Superman?” His existential science fiction tale Signs wondered “how would the world react if those farmers who saw crop circles were right after all?” While films like Lady in the Water and The Happening haven’t been as nearly as well-received as his earlier work, their loglines have undeniably lingered in the zeitgeist longer than their quality would suggest they would. I expect a similar fate for his latest project Old, a mercurial and macabre misfire whose promising pitch is undone by frustratingly marred execution.

The setting of Shyamalan’s story forms the basis for his water cooler-ready concept: a picturesque beach that causes unsuspecting visitors to age rapidly, turning hours spent in its “sands of time” into decades of their respective lives. The secluded stretch of seaside is located near a tropical resort, where guests like Guy (Gael García Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps) are gayly greeted with customized cocktails at check-in, while their kids Maddox (Alexa Swinton) and Trent (Nolan River) fawn over the 24-hour candy station. Looking for a less crowded spot to lay over their towels, the family takes a shuttle with other vacationers like Charles (Rufus Sewell) and Chrystal (Abbey Lee) to the aforementioned beach. It doesn’t take long for the supernatural effects of the area to induce panic among the group and leave them desperate to free themselves from its clutches.

Based on the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters. Old is a surprisingly dark and almost refreshingly morbid chiller from Hollywood’s most painfully earnest auteur. Not since Max von Sydow played chess with Death in The Seventh Seal have beaches and mortality been this inextricably linked. Shyamalan uses his terrifying set-up to explore the helplessness evoked by natural aging and the vulnerability of watching our loved ones grow up faster than we’d like. An hour away from one’s children on a normal beach means a break to get through two chapters of a book but on this beach, it means you’ve missed two years of their lives. The film is at its best when it ignores the rocky facets of its premise and explores the emotion of watching time evaporate so rapidly.

But a jumping-off point is only as good as the crystal-blue water below it and it doesn’t take long for the cliff jump that Shyamalan sets up to turn ugly. He’s never been the most elegant screenwriter but the dialogue here is about as on-the-nose and tin-eared as you’re likely to hear in any movie this year. Worse than the specific words characters use is their collective inability to grapple with the otherworldly effects of their surroundings, even when their presence and the nature of their power are beyond obvious. Shyamalan tries his best to patch over the script’s plot holes — there’s a brief explanation as to why fingernails and hair don’t grow rapidly along with the rest of the characters’ bodies — but the story just can’t hold up to however many waves of scrutiny a given audience is likely to send its way.

Most disappointing is the profound lack of chemistry between the qualified cast, given how great some of the actors have been in recent projects. Krieps was an absolute revelation in Phantom Thread, one of the finest films of at least the past ten years, but aside for a few moments of familial tenderness, she looks utterly lost here. The bright young talent Thomasin McKenzie appears as an older version of Maddox but strains too hard and forces awkward line readings past the point of salvageability. Even with limited screen time, other actors like Aaron Pierre and Lost‘s Ken Leung impart hollow performances to the flotsam. Old has a combination of campiness and creepiness that leads to some shining moments in the sun but it ultimately gets washed away by fragile filmmaking atop a faulty foundation.

Score – 2.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters and Premier Access on Disney+ is Jungle Cruise, a fantasy adventure starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt about a riverboat captain and a British scientist who go on a perilous mission to find the Tree of Life.
Playing only in theaters is The Green Knight, a medieval epic starring Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander which tells the story of King Arthur’s headstrong nephew and his quest to confront the eponymous tree-like creature.
Also playing only in theaters is Stillwater, a crime drama starring Matt Damon and Abigail Breslin which follows a father traveling from Oklahoma to France to help exonerate his estranged daughter for a murder she claims she didn’t commit.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Space Jam: A New Legacy

When the ESPN docuseries The Last Dance aired last year, it unveiled plenty of insights into the Chicago Bulls’ historic NBA run in the 1990s but perhaps none more tantalizing than the implication that filming Space Jam allowed Michael Jordan to return to the league in top shape. To prepare for the 1996 sports comedy-turned-millennial pop cultural artifact, Jordan played scrimmage games with greats like Reggie Miller and former teammate Dennis Rodman in a state-of-the-art basketball facility built by Warner Bros. Perhaps it will take another 25 years or so to uncover the hidden merit behind its belated and belabored sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy but in the meantime, it’s best to take it at face value as the visually abrasive and artistically adrift piece of corporate cinema that it is.

Succeeding Jordan is Cavaliers/Heat/Cavaliers/Lakers star LeBron James, playing a fictionalized version of himself but retaining his real-life status as a father of three. He pushes his youngest son Dom (Cedric Joe) to follow in his footsteps on the court, while ignoring the fact that Dom would rather attend video game design camp than basketball camp. After taking an ill-fated meeting at the Warner Bros. studios, the two get on an elevator to leave but are lured down to a server room where the evil computer AI Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle) capitalizes on the rift between father and son. After becoming trapped in a virtual reality based on one of Dom’s games, LeBron and his son must square off in a digital game of hoops to get back to reality.

Any way you look at it, Space Jam is no masterpiece but it’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit when compared to A New Legacy. The former stands at a reasonable 87 minutes (79 minutes, if you lop off the lengthy closing credits), where its follow-up plays like a 115-minute unskippable ad for Warner Media, LLC. Sure, the Looney Tunes factor heavily into both movies but the process of reuniting the Tune Squad in Legacy leads to a tacky and irresponsible montage where various animated characters are copy-and-pasted into scenes from WB properties like Mad Max: Fury Road and Austin Powers. Even stupider is the decision to reference other movie characters from (inexplicably) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? to (more inexplicably) A Clockwork Orange by way of cosplaying extras in the stands of the fateful digital ball game.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a studio so garishly promote its own IP within a film as Warner Bros. does here and that’s including Ready Player One, the WB-produced Spielberg misfire that was less of a movie and more of an “Easter egg” hunt. Just because Bugs is the Bunny hiding the eggs this time around doesn’t make the designs on the outside any more appealing and the prizes on the inside any less putrid. Beyond the barrage of pop culture references, the screenplay with 6 credited writers attached is full of airball after airball in the humor department. There’s one joke that lands: a mistaken identity gag with a relatively clever punchline and a cameo from a well-known actor who doesn’t look totally embarrassed to be there. Still, it’s the equivalent of scoring a layup during a 40-point deficit with 2 minutes left in the game.

There have been cloying and unfunny films in the past but Space Jam: A New Legacy depresses me most because its narrative’s existence within a virtual world implicitly promotes another level of removal from reality to its impressionable audience. Movies are enough of an escapist entertainment as it is and devices that distract us from real life already pervade every facet of daily living. Do we really need to set kids’ entertainment in a techno-scape of zeroes and ones to keep their attention? The Space in Space Jam used to mean outer space; now it refers to a digital space that is constantly changing and warping around us in ways we can’t totally understand and ways that Hollywood certainly doesn’t understand. Let’s hope the legacy of Space Jam: A New Legacy is much shorter lived than its predecessor.

Score – 1/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming only to theaters is Old, an M. Night Shyamalan supernatural mystery starring Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps about a vacationing family who discovers a beach that inexplicably causes them to age rapidly.
Also playing exclusively in theaters is Snake Eyes, a G.I. Joe spin-off starring Henry Golding and Andrew Koji about the titular fighter joining an ancient Japanese ninja clan.
Streaming on Amazon Prime is Jolt, an action comedy starring Kate Beckinsale and Laverne Cox about a bouncer whose homicidal tendencies are kept at bay by an electrode-lined vest.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Pig

Nicolas Cage. Since sneaking on-screen as Brad’s Bud in Fast Times at Ridgemont High almost 40 years ago, he’s forged an ironclad foothold in our pop culture consciousness with over 100 film roles to his name. Over the past 3 years, he’s appeared in 10 direct-to-VOD movies, almost all of which I’ve seen and are admittedly terrible. But Cage is an actor that knows when certain projects are worthy of his best and the new indie drama Pig is one of the defining examples of his career. When the film’s trailer was released last month, depicting it as a revenge movie in which Cage’s character seems to go on a rampage looking for his lost pig, the internet was understandably alit with choruses of John Oink and Bacon as a swine-based swap for Taken. But those coming into this expecting Cage to ham it up will hopefully be delighted to have an entirely different kind of meal served to them.

Cage stars as Rob, a reclusive forager living in the vast Oregonian woods with an affectionate and intelligent truffle-hunting pig always by his side. One of Rob’s only visitors is Amir (Alex Wolff), a Portland-based purchaser who drops by once a week to buy the in-demand truffles and sell them to the city’s most competitive chefs. The value of such a potentially profitable pig is realized when Rob’s prized pet is stolen from him one night, prompting him to pair with the now disadvantaged Amir to track down the pig-nappers and punish them for their crimes. The journey into Rob’s former hometown does indeed unveil a specific set of skills that he possesses but they aren’t as bloodthirsty and violent as the narrative might suggest.

As much as the marketing of Pig painted it to have the singular focus of a traditional revenge movie, the movie is not only about much more than one thing but it’s also incredibly wise about the other topics it chooses to invoke. For one, it’s a melancholic but relentlessly optimistic portrait of broken men blindly scouring the world for power and purpose in the absence of women for whom they’ve cared. It’s a sensitive examination of toxic masculinity that doesn’t resort to having female characters chew male characters out about their indiscretions. Watching these men flail about as they try to put themselves back together is more painful than the fury behind any scornful words that could be uttered at them.

In the film’s meditation on man’s place in nature amid the creeping forces of commerce and capitalism, Pig reminded more of last year’s quietly moving First Cow than your typical Liam Neeson-starring vengeance tale. “There’s nothing for you here anymore,” a suspect laments to Rob, “There’s nothing here for most of us. You don’t keep a grip on it, that’s pretty much it.” These lines have an extra layer of shattering context given the social unrest that has pervaded Portland as of late but even taken on a more broad level, they speak to a sense of identity that urban living promises to the young and idealistic but naturally can’t fulfill for everybody. More than anything else, the movie beautifully explores past lives, future selves and the mess we create in between.

An actor who is frequently charged with “over-acting”, Cage proves once again after his wordless Willy’s Wonderland performance from earlier this year that his best version of more is less. His Rob is a character who seems to be hovering above these characters and this story, not in an arrogant or dismissive way but in a way that suggests an ethereal sense of empathy. He listens, and listens intensely, and when he speaks, he chooses the fewest amount of words for the highest level of emotional impact. It’s calm and controlled work but not self-consciously so and quite simply, it’s one of the very best performances of his career. Sensitive and smart, Pig is a hidden gem that will reward adventurous moviegoers who choose it from the menu of uninspired selections that are being offered up weekly both at home and in theaters.

Score – 4.5/5

More new movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters and on HBO Max is Space Jam: A New Legacy, a sports comedy starring LeBron James and Don Cheadle which finds another basketball icon getting sucked into an animated world to play a high-stakes game of hoops.
Playing in theaters and available to rent digitally is Die In A Gunfight, a stylized update of Romeo and Juliet starring Diego Boneta and Alexandra Daddario which finds a pair of star-crossed lovers flanked by a jealous ex-boyfriend and two rival families.
Streaming on Netflix is Gunpowder Milkshake, an action thriller starring Karen Gillan and Lena Headey about a mother and daughter assassin duo out to protect an 8-year-old girl caught in the middle of a gang war.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Black Widow

In an early scene from The Avengers, still the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s finest entry, Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff is being interrogated by Russians when she gets a phone call from S.H.I.E.L.D. handler Agent Coulson. “I’m in the middle of an interrogation, this moron is giving me everything,” she protests while the Russian general and his henchmen look confused. “I don’t give everything,” he barks back, not even realizing how much he just got played. Almost 10 years later, Romanoff and Johansson finally get their own headlining feature in Black Widow, a too-little-too-late prequel that sidesteps the qualities that make the character distinct in favor of generic action setpieces and family-based pathos.

The film takes us back to 2016 after the events of Captain America: Civil War, which find Romanoff on the run from the US government for violating the Sokovia Accords. She flees to a safe house in Budapest, where she is surprised to find her sister Yelena (Florence Pugh) hiding out as well. Growing up in Russia, both Natasha and Yelena were trained to become deadly spies under the Black Widow program, now ruled by the power-hungry Dreykov (Ray Winstone) who utilizes mind control to keep his burgeoning assassins in line. Incensed by the idea that hundreds of women have lost their free will to a madman, the sisters team up with their estranged father (David Harbour) and mother (Rachel Weisz) to take down Dreykov and his elusive training grounds known as the Red Room.

When Avengers director Joss Whedon spoke years ago about a potential Black Widow project, he envisioned it as a paranoid spy thriller in the vein of John le Carré. While I can’t imagine Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios would go for something that subdued at this stage in the game, I would still love to see that movie. Instead, the final product here feels much more anonymous by comparison with some glimmers of personality but far too many action beats that don’t seem germane to this character. I kept thinking during Black Widow how much different it would be if it were another Avenger like Hawkeye in the main role and I doubt the end result would’ve been altered very much.

The best parts of the film play like both a far less pretentious re-do of the Jennifer Lawrence dud Red Sparrow and a female-centric take on The Bourne Supremacy. When Natasha and Yelena chart out their mission, we get a sense of both their shared skills and shatterproof sisterhood as they plot together. A sequence late in the film is cross-cut with a prior scene of planning, giving us just enough insight to figure out how carefully those moments were configured and how the cat-and-mouse game may transpire. Unfortunately, director Cate Shortland doesn’t have as firm a grip on editing and timing for the majority of the film. A prison break scene that serves as the Black Widow‘s major action sequence has admirable stunt work but is marred by dubious staging and an uneven rhythm.

Johansson is strong as ever as a character she’s played for over 10 years now but the movie’s secret weapon is Pugh as Natasha’s younger sister. After a Bourne Identity-aping brawl during the sisters’ reintroduction, Yelena doesn’t waste much time razzing Black Widow for her penchant for posing when alongside her fellow Avengers. “I doubt a god from space has to take ibuprofen after a fight,” Yelena smirks. That Romanoff is a human among superheroes is one of the qualities that reportedly drew Johansson to the role but in an effort to super-size her narrative, Black Widow forgets the cunning and intellect that made the character unique in the first place.

Score – 2.5/5

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Playing in theaters and streaming on Hulu is Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), a Questlove documentary which unearths never-before seen footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival.
Playing only in theaters is The Forever Purge, a dystopian horror film starring Ana de la Reguera and Josh Lucas that concludes the Purge franchise with the story of a Mexican couple who clashes with a group of outsiders who unlawfully continue the Purge on their own terms.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup