Dick Johnson is Dead
October 24, 2020 at 12:09 pm | Posted in 2020 | Leave a commentTags: Documentary, Kirsten Johnson, Movie Review
I must give this film credit for being one of the most original documentaries I have seen in recent years. It is neither as original or as important as the masterpiece, “Waltz with Bashir.” But that is an impossibly high bar. Here, director Kirsten Johnson takes on a decidedly more intimate topic – the impending death of her father. She adores him; that is clear throughout the film. And she is trying to find a way to prepare herself for the inevitable. So, she decides to kill him over and over again on screen. Using stuntmen and some decidedly B special effects, she pummels him with air conditioners, slits major arteries, throws him across cars, and otherwise kills him with a sort of melancholy glee. The result is farcical and, at times, outright goofy, but it is also deeply moving. Seeing them together, you instantly see her adoration and her fear. This macabre romp becomes a testament to a type of parent/child relationship we all want, and the way we hope the world will miss us once we are gone. This film can sometimes become too silly by half, but it always wears its heart, vivid, pumping (spraying perhaps), right out in the open for all of us to see.
Tenet
October 10, 2020 at 4:04 pm | Posted in 2020 | Leave a commentTags: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Christopher Nolan, Dimple Kapadia, Elizabeth Debicki, Film Review, John David Washington, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine, Robert Pattinson
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Well, I finally did it. Yesterday, I went to a movie theater for the first time since March 11, almost seven months ago to the day. It turned out to be just fine. I was one of only nine people in the theater, and the way AMC had organized seating meant that I was easily twenty feet from the nearest person. Sadly, the film itself was less of a success. I went because I have been waiting for Tenet, and I did not want to wait another year for it to be streaming. It’s not that I am a huge Christopher Nolan fan. In fact, I think he is a tiny bit over-rated, and “Memento” remains his best film. But, I was intrigued by this one. Nolan has quite an imagination and he can create thoroughly provoking films, like “Inception.” This one was just a bit of a mess. The concept was unnecessarily convoluted. Despite having far too many scenes of John David Washington’s unnamed character walking while essentially trying to talk the audience through the script, it remained utterly baffling. As a result, many of the action scenes got weighted down with “what the hell is going on?” This was especially true of the last scene. Even with the conceit of putting red armbands on those moving forward in time and blue armbands on those moving backwards in time, the entire, very lengthy battle scene was an utter baffling mess. Because the audience’s perspective shifted depending on who we were watching (ie going forward or backward in time), none of the scenes fit together as a cohesive whole. It was mostly just a jumble of action without context. And what you can figure out of the plot is so ludicrous as to be nonsensical. Nobody would do what the villains of this film are trying to do. Nobody. For no reason. Ever. It’s a shame. Nolan obviously spent a fortune on this movie. The scenery was beautiful, and the suits alone must have cost a fortune. I will say I left with one clear impression– Washington should be the next James Bond; he embodies coolsexylethal in this film perfectly. I would definitely watch him, in those locations, in those suits any time.
The Boys in the Band
October 10, 2020 at 3:31 pm | Posted in 2020 | Leave a commentTags: Andrew Rannells, Brian Hutchison, Charlie Carver, Gay Film, Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer, Michael Benjamin Washington, Movie Review, Robin de Jesus, Tuc Watkins, Zachary Quinto
◊ ◊ ½
I was actually looking forward to this film. A remake of a seminal gay film, with some of the biggest gay actors in Hollywood, sounded like it might be memorable; instead, it was more meh. The original is a classic example of American theater. In plays like “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “Night of the Iguana,” and many others, American playwrights have exposed psychological gold by trapping people in a room together and then turning up the heat until they crack and ugliness pours out. This is no different. A bunch of gay men in 1968 attend a birthday party and, as they get drunker, all of their fears and self-hatred come out. The original movie was the first American film to deal so openly with homosexuality and was rejected by many in the Gay Community for how it portrayed gay men. Today, that seems like less of an issue. We have so many varied images of gay people in media, that this one does not seem toxic in the way it did then. That said, I am not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting a word-for-word, scene-for-scene, almost camera-angle-for-camera-angle exact replica of the original movie. If left me wondering, why bother making this one? The acting was fine, and sometimes stellar, though I thought Jim Parsons’s performance was a bit melodramatic; was he intending to play such a swooning queen? In the end, I was surprised to find that I still don’t enjoy it. These men are so unhappy, lonely, empty, self-hating, and corrosive that they aren’t fun to watch, even from an anthropological perspective. A night with them left me wishing I had been drinking as well.
Enola Holmes
October 4, 2020 at 3:08 pm | Posted in 2020 | Leave a commentTags: Adeel Akhtar, Burn Gorman, Children's Movie, Film Review, Harry Bradbeer, Helena Bonham Carter, Henry Cavill, Louis Partridge, Millie Bobby Brown, Mystery, Period Piece, Sam Claflin, Sherlock Holmes
◊ ½
Well, I guess this film is a bit better than the last one. By that I mean it is more honestly what it appears to be. I would have been fooled into seeing #Alive in the theaters and been quite disappointed. I would not have ever bothered with this one if it weren’t for free and I hadn’t just finished binging “Castle Rock,” season 2, and needed something to watch. The story of Sherlock Holmes’s precious younger sister is exactly as sappy as it sounds. She has to solve the mystery of her mother’s disappearance by piecing together ridiculous clues (that no real human being would have ever deciphered) and going on a rollicking trip to London with a pretty (but fairly vacuous) boy in tow. Of course, there’s a villain not on her trail who is too over-the-top to be anything but silly. But, this is a film for kids, probably tweens would be my guess. And, I bet they would mostly find it enjoyable. I mostly found it to be a benign way to distract me from my games of solitaire. Take that as you will.
#Alive
October 4, 2020 at 2:43 pm | Posted in 2020 | Leave a commentTags: Korean Film, Movie Review, Zombies
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So, I guess I am going to write a quick review of these next two films. I was on the fence about it. My delineator for whether or not to write a review has been if I thought the film would have been released in theaters. I am not sure about this one, but I definitely think “Enola Holmes” would have had a wide release. So… here we are. #Alive is a South Korean zombie movie, which might make you immediately think of “Train to Busan.” That South Korean film was a fantastic thrill ride and one of the best Zombie movies of the past decade. In fact, some people have even called this film its sequel, though they have different directors and cast. I wish this film were anything like that one. But, this is much more of a romantic comedy-ish horror movie. It takes place between two apartment buildings. A man seems to be the sole survivor in his building and a woman is the sole survivor in hers. They begin to communicate and, well, blahblahblah… I would not have cared one wit about the romance if there was also some real action. The idea of having someone trapped in a tall building is almost as brilliant as trapping them on a train. It also reminds me of a great chapter of the brilliant novel “World War Z” that was turned into a blasphemy of a movie. It could have been nerve-racking and claustrophobic. But, very little is done with it. We get a few good scenes, but not nearly enough to justify seeing the film. It ended up being more cutsey than creepy. Trust me, you are much better off watching “Train to Busan” again.
Pete
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