Category Archives: Reviews

‘The Meyerowitz Stories’ Review: Adam Sandler gives his best performance yet in this neurotic, affecting Baumbach ensemble

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Imagine The Royal Tenenbaums, featuring a sprawling ensemble cast who all bring their A-game playing an entirely dysfunctional family, blending drama and comedy in equal measure, but without the Wes Anderson artificiality, and with a very distinctive but realistic New York state-of-mind story that only Noah Baumbach could concoct, and you get Netflix’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected).

Yet comparing The Meyerowitz Stories to The Royal Tenenbaums might be a slight to both films, as each have their own pleasures. For example, and maybe most notably, The Meyerowitz Stories features the best performance Adam Sandler has ever given. As Danny Meyerowitz, the black sheep of the family, with a bad limp, Sandler plays one of the sons to Harold (Dustin Hoffman) — the son with the most strained relationship to his Dad. Once a seemingly talented musician, who blew his career on drugs and having a child at a young age, he is a caring father but a shell of a man when around his domineering, former sculpture professor father. As the story reveals more and more about Danny’s past, we realize that he and his sister Jean were neglected as children, because their father and his four wives (he was divorced three times) never spent quality time with Danny and Jean.

Partly because of this, he feels a great rivalry with half-brother Matthew (Ben Stiller), who may be the only Meyerowitz child with a successful career — even though he is far removed from his father’s goals for having each of his children become a talented artist. Sandler nails this quiet complexity, where he is outwardly loud and has random moments of (comic) swearing, but, for the most part, keeps his pain under the surface. The film is pretty low-key and likely won’t gain much awards traction, but Sandler deserves notes throughout the season for his turn. It’s good to see him do this much character work, rivaling his performances in Punch-Drunk Love and Funny People.

The whole cast, though, is excellent throughout, with Hoffman being particularly affecting as a cranky, retired intellectual. In fact, the biggest complaint for the film would be its longish run time. At 1 hour and 52 minutes, it seems as if Baumbach loved the characters so much that, instead of maintaining the novelistic short story ambitions the film starts with, he creates three to four seemingly capable endings before deciding on the last sequence.

Overall, though, this neurotic, poignant dramedy is a welcome addition to the fall season.

Grade: 8.2/10

 

Featured image via Netflix.

‘Blade Runner 2049’ Review: Sci-fi sequel is a masterpiece that questions the constitution of humanity

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What does it mean to be human? Is it the capacity to feel emotions? To feel sadness? Happiness? Fear? Is it the ability to live with a purpose? To die? To remember your past?

If so, then can replicants be the next evolution of mankind?

These are all questions the landmark 1982 Blade Runner wisely posed, but refused to answer in simple measures. This year’s follow up, Denis Villeneuve’s visual masterpiece Blade Runner 2049, brings all of these questions back to the forefront, only to magnify the stakes, in an event that multiple characters either say will “break the world,” or be a “miracle.”

Agent K (Ryan Gosling) is tasked with getting to the bottom of this event, slowly uncovering the hidden truths from the world. Gosling, in full Drive-mode, stoic and commanding for the entire run time, carries this complex, intellectual film with ease. With a performance that starts as closed-off from portraying emotions (a battle-hardened blade runner), he, over the course the film, sells his character’s quiet, but moving arc about a man placed in a burgeoning war between man and its closest competitor: the replicants.

In fact, all of the actors bring their A-game, with Ana de Armas (War Dogs) and Carla Juri (Wetlands) making the most of their relatively small screen-time. However, outside of Gosling, it really is Harrison Ford — reprising his role of Deckard — who steals the show. Where Ford’s performance in Star Wars: The Force Awakens was pure fan service, his role in BR2049 is much more demanding, much more emotional. In every scene Ford inhabits, the camera and the other actors are as glued to him as the audience is, watching this withering, soul-crushed character coping with memories lost in time. Whether it’ll gain awards traction or not is a different debate, but seeing Ford this committed to bearing his heart and mind is stunning.

What else is stunning is the incredible craft work on display. The production design, the score, the sound and the editing, despite its nearly three hour run time, are consistently spectacular. Yet, it is Roger Deakins and his mastery of light and composition that dominate the film. It’s arguably his most showy cinematography ever, yet it’s all in service of the film’s controlled atmospherics. With straight line designs, piercing rays of light through the darkest of locations, or an extended take involving a crashing vehicle, BR2049 is inarguably the showcase for all of Deakins’ exquisite powers behind the camera. After 13 Oscar nominations and no wins, it appears it’s finally his time.

Regardless of awards though, Blade Runner 2049’s insistence on posing the biggest of big existential questions, and powerfully refusing to offer simple answers, makes this a modern science fiction masterpiece. Denis Villeneuve, much like Christopher Nolan, takes his spot alongside the pantheon of great cinematic artists who push big budget filmmaking to another level — finally making blockbusters “more human than human.”

Grade: 9.6/10

 

Featured image via Warner Bros./Columbia/Sony.

‘Our Souls at Night’ Review: Robert Redford is masterful in this tender, quiet and profound drama

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When we get old and our partners pass, the nights can get lonely with no one to talk to — that’s the idea behind Our Souls at Night, and the impetus that drives Louis (Robert Redford) and Addie (Jane Fonda), two 70-something widows, together.

At first platonic, simply to have someone to talk to, and then slowly and gently romantic, Louis and Addie’s relationship is something unbelievably intimate and profound to watch — and that’s due in large part to the quiet yet raw performances of Fonda and Redford. Fonda hangs on to moments, her eyes fluttering, nervous, capturing the vulnerability of Addie’s admittance of loneliness and efforts in bonding with Louis. Redford, whose performance is very much like Adam Driver’s in Paterson, incredibly reserved yet entirely wholesome, is quite stunning. The film focuses on the deep history of these two people’s lives, and while Addie’s history surfaces, Louis’ doesn’t. But Redford moves through the film shouldering that history, in small glances and brief words, and we feel the indirect presence of his past life as much as we see Addie’s directly. It’s truly the work of a masterful actor.

But much of what allows us to see all of this in Fonda and Redford in Our Souls at Night is the writing of Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (500 Days of Summer, The Spectacular Now, The Fault in Our Stars) and the directing of Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox, The Sense of an Ending). Neustadter and Weber’s dialogue is simultaneously a showcase of naturalism and of calculated specificity. Nothing is over-explained or overstated. Nothing seems written. Yet, every naturalistic word feels writerly, almost painterly.

And just as Fonda holds on to moments, so does Batra. It’s the editing that produces the film’s quietude, leaving many of the shots to play in silence or extend beyond our preconceived notions of where a cut should be or where a scene should end. And while it may be slow, Our Souls at Night never feels slow. It’s progression is refreshing, an organic and unrushed development akin to the way life is when we get lonely, and when we try to connect again.

Grade: B+

 

Featured image via Netflix.

‘First They Killed My Father’ Review: Angelina Jolie’s Cambodian film is a haunting, emotional testament to historical trauma

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In First They Killed My Father, Angelina Jolie’s adaptation of Loung Ung’s memoir of the Cambodian genocide, the sentence “A daughter of Cambodia remembers so others may never forget” appears on-screen — a perfect summation of the hauntingly emotional film. Though it is told from Ung’s perspective (played by Sareum Srey Moch), the Netflix film becomes the story of Cambodia as a whole, a recollective testament to an entire country’s trauma. The words aren’t etched on a stone monument, but a filmic one.

The film’s casting process was criticized for being exploitative, but whether or not Jolie’s exercise in improvisation was as innocent as she claims, the film deserves recognition as a true Cambodian production while many Hollywood films are marred by whitewashing and white savior tropes. Jolie wrote the script with Ung, and worked closely with acclaimed Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh to ensure the film’s authenticity — First They is largely spoken in Khmer, and even the closing text is written in Khmer.

Nevertheless, the film doesn’t rely on its dialogue, preferring to convey the horrors of war through its own visual language. We aren’t told about the titular murder, but see it through Ung’s recurring nightmare, one of many dream sequences that communicate Ung’s interiority. This emphasis on visual storytelling comes at the expense of developing Ung as a character, but her seeming numbness makes sense in a world so rife with horrors.

First They Killed My Father also includes several overhead shots which underscore the notion that this film is about the entirety of Cambodia. In one such shot, dozens of makeshift campfires illuminate the families gathered around them, defying a seemingly invincible darkness.

Even though the film is often tough to watch, moments like these tastefully suggest that love and empathy always win the day. Later in the film, Ung stands before the withered shell of a captured Khmer Rouge soldier. She stares him down, neither condemning nor condoning his actions, but seeing him as someone’s father, a person capable of love but manipulated to hate. The film’s success lies in its belief in humanity’s capacity for goodness, putting the onus on the viewer to validate that belief.

Grade: 9/10

 

Featured image via Netflix.

‘American Made’ Review: Tom Cruise is in peak form in this messy, but dynamic biopic

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Whenever Tom Cruise shows up in a movie, it’s hard to see anyone other than Tom Cruise. And yet, one of the few true movie stars finds a way to adapt his own persona to so many different films. His most recent, American Made, is a hell of a joy ride mainly because of him. Playing Barry Seal, a drug smuggler who ends up working for a CIA agent (Domhnall Gleeson) and Pablo Escobar, Cruise, sporting a Southern accent, is magnetic, a presence with gravity, one that drives the energy of each scene.

But director Doug Liman and crew pull more than just their weight. Shooting in extreme documentary style, and including recreations of tapes of Seal speaking directly to a camera, Liman emphasizes the reality of the story despite its crazy events. The editing echoes that tone and effect, zipping along as quick and sharp as Seal’s airplanes, bursting with bags of cocaine. And when the acting and scene composition are at their finest, American Made is deliciously dynamic, buzzing with tangible adrenaline. During those same moments, the film also proves to be a searing dissection of the political corruption taking place on both American soil and below the border. The trio of actors who portray the heads of the Medellín Cartel help create some hilarious yet subtly unnerving scenes, and Domhnall Gleeson shows why he’s one of the finest actors working today, matching Cruise’s intensity as a blunt personality foil.

There’s no denying that American Made is a great time at the movies, but it still struggles at points. Oftentimes, the film seems like a collection of moments more so than a unified story. It’s biographical, so it’s awarded the leniency that the genre permits, but even then, it becomes hard to see exactly where the film is going and what it wants to say in the larger picture, whether it be about Seal or the politics behind his operations. Thus, the pacing suffers in the first act as we bounce around from year to year and place to place without a goal firmly set. American Made ends up feeling as reckless as Seal is, and sometimes that’s a good thing, but it never necessarily seems like the point.

And can we stop casting married couples where the man is 20 years older than the woman? Even Tom Cruise is not entirely worth that practice.

Grade: C+

 

Featured image via Universal Pictures.

‘Gerald’s Game’ Review: Netflix’s Stephen King adaptation is as unsettling as ‘It’

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What’s as scary as Pennywise the Dancing Clown snatching up children in the sewers? A husband (Bruce Greenwood) and a wife (Carla Gugino) on a short getaway trip to spice things up and, after the wife has been handcuffed to the bed, the husband dying from a heart attack, leaving the wife trapped with no one coming for days. Netflix’s Stephen King adaptation, Gerald’s Game, directed by Mike Flanagan (Ouija: Origin of Evil), could never be the sort of crowd-pleaser that It has turned out to be, but it is undoubtedly as gut twisting, expertly crafted and emotionally engaging.

Despite being set almost entirely in one room, Gerald’s Game turns out to be a deeply visual and physical film, one about a character who is as fleshed out, if not more so, than those of most typical feature length pictures. Flanagan mines the progression of fear brought on by the situation, utilizing careful framing to solidify the peril, dynamic editing and abrasive close-ups to evoke the hallucinatory panic and bluntly lengthy shots when drastic measures must be taken.

Yet, Flanagan needed the level of commitment that Gugino and Greenwood bring for the elements to gel. Greenwood is mesmerizingly intense and Gugino is particularly moving, channeling a quiet vulnerability to sell her character’s arc. Her desperation is pitch perfect, adaptive to what’s emotionally at stake in each moment and never over the top just for desperation’s sake.

Similarly to It, this film deals with parental sexual harassment. Thankfully, it never verges into the exploitive. While a few tropes present here are definitely tiresome, a majority of the work done to frame the character’s journey is sensitive but direct, fully aware of the stance it needs to consistently take but also willing to venture into uncomfortable territory to justly tackle certain aspects. Take a careful look at the camera work. It’s never intrusive or excessive, used simply to augment the character’s emotions and the story’s elements of tension.

Gerald’s Game is the type of horror movie we need more of — an interesting concept, a story and a character that feel organic within that conceit and some purely cinematic filmmaking to make us want to look away, but never be able to.

Grade: B-

 

Featured image via Netflix.

‘The LEGO Ninjago Movie’ Review: Zany jokes can’t justify cultural appropriation, soulless plot

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In The LEGO Ninjago Movie, whose title suggests Japanese history and culture, one of Jackie Chan’s first lines is “对不起,” the Chinese phrase for “sorry.” Though it’s presented as a cute exchange between an antiques dealer and a kid who wanders into his shop, this single line of dialogue can be read as an apology for the film’s quest to lump distinct Asian cultures into one vague, cinematic PF Chang’s, held together by performances that are literally yellow-face. But forget for a second that the film wants you to believe that Dave Franco is a ninja. Even if Japanese actors were approached to be in The LEGO Ninjago Movie, it’s easy to see why they would avoid this film like you would a rogue 2×4 LEGO brick on your carpet.

This film attempts to copy the aesthetic of The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie, but captures none of the heart of those previous films. This film is predicated on the father-son dynamic of the warlord Garmadon (Justin Theroux) and his estranged son, the ninja Lloyd (Franco), but there’s no particular reason why we should care for their reunion. Garmadon doesn’t have any redeeming qualities, and Lloyd is doing fine without him. Sure, it’s cute when Garmadon teaches Lloyd how to play catch, but one feels more attachment to one’s bag of popcorn — the consumption of which, may be the only upside of watching this film.

Okay, maybe not the only upside, since this film has a few good jokes in it, though they’re not as funny as live-action Will Ferrell showing up in the third act, or Lego Batman roasting 50 years of cinematic Batmen. Yet, a character named Meowthra, some bonkers live-action montages and a Locke joke are wacky enough to keep adult audience members from sneaking into a neighboring screening of It — a film I’d rather take my hypothetical child to. Sure, Pennywise would traumatize Harry Jr., but at least he wouldn’t have to sit through yet another example of Hollywood whitewashing and a plot that gestures toward emotion without ever eliciting it.

Grade: 3.5/10

 

Featured image via Warner Bros.

‘mother!’ Review: Jennifer Lawrence captivates in this gonzo descent into hell

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“Howl to the moon” was the phrase Darren Aronofsky used to opaquely describe his feelings behind mother!, an impeccably mounted, nearly impossible-to-digest-on-one-viewing allegory for the folly of mankind. And truly, love it or absolutely f*cking hate it, mother! can really only be described in that phrase.

To speak much about the story of mother! is a spoiler. What can be said, however, is that mother! is an equivalent to Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, but without the hope for life that Malick’s film glowed with. Rather, Darren Aronofsky’s film presents itself as a damning critique of many things, including, but not limited to religion, celebrity and marriage.

The brazenness of it all comes from the fact that mother! is obvious in its ambitions, but refuses to hold viewers’ hands, forcing them to confront its precipitous descent into humanity’s darkest depths.

Much admiration must be lobbed toward the stunning work of Aronofsky regular Matthew Libatique, whose cinematography is tightly framed here, and the incredible sound mixing crew, who, without any score, build a palpable sense of dread from everything that happens off-screen.

Most impressively, though, is Academy Award-winning Jennifer Lawrence’s ability to command the screen so effortlessly. The willingness of Lawrence to literally and figuratively bare it all, physically and emotionally, in this film is absolutely commendable, but that framing nearly verges toward exploitative. However, the film’s dirtiness and its treatment of her character is what the film asks viewers to ponder as they leave the theater.

Is mankind worth saving, or are we all doomed to destroy the things we should be loving and taking care of the most? Aronofsky refuses to give an answer, even if he suggests a pessimistic view. For cinephiles who like their films that way, mother! may stand as a landmark for years to come.

Grade: 9.4/10

Our full review of mother!

Featured image via Paramount.

Darren Aronofsky’s ‘mother!’ is an allegorical, savagely comedic nightmare — Full Review

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“Howl to the moon” was the phrase Darren Aronofsky used to opaquely describe his feelings behind mother!, this impeccably mounted, nearly impossible-to-digest-on-one-viewing allegory for the folly of mankind. And truly, love it or absolutely f*cking hate it, mother! can really only be described in that phrase.

To speak much about the story of mother! is a spoiler, since the marketing has done a brilliant job of hiding its twists and turns, and because the film makes obvious references to the most popular book in the world. Essentially, an ego-driven writer (Javier Bardem) and his wife, an endlessly loving woman (Jennifer Lawrence), are met by an uninvited couple (Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer) — and the writer is happy for the couple’s admiration of his work, yet the wife realizes nothing and no one are quite like they seem.

From here though, the film becomes an admittedly pretentious, but gonzo exploration of the depravity that can be fit within one single house.

What can be said, without the fear of giving too much away, is that mother! is an equivalent to Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, but without the hope for life that Malick’s film glowed with. Rather, Darren Aronofsky’s film presents itself as a damning critique of many things, including, but not limited to religion, celebrity, global warming, immigration, war, trafficking, marriage, divorce and parenting.

The film is obvious in its ambitions, to the point where an engaged, literary-minded audience will quickly pick up the broad strokes at play. But the brazenness of it all comes from the fact that mother! also refuses to hold the audience’s hand, should they check out from this film’s delayed, but precipitous descent into humanity’s darkest depths.

If It is the ultimate crowd-pleasing horror film, then mother! is the ultimate soul-crushing one, albeit one brimming with the darkest of dark comedy — not far off from Dante’s playfully titled The Divine Comedy.

Much admiration, even from the audiences who reject the film’s aspirations and themes, must be lobbed toward the stunning work of Aronofsky regular Matthew Libatique, whose cinematography is tightly framed here, and the incredible sound mixing crew, who, without any score, build a palpable sense of dread from everything that happens off-screen.

Most impressively, though, is the Academy Award-winning Lawrence’s ability to command the screen so effortlessly. Aronofsky and Libatique wisely frame all of the film from her perspective, either with a tight close-up on her face or medium shots where she can still be seen within the frame even if another character is the focus.

The willingness of Lawrence to literally and figuratively bare it all, physically and emotionally, in this film is absolutely commendable, but that framing nearly verges toward exploitative. However, the film’s dirtiness and its treatment of her character is what the film asks viewers to ponder as they leave the theater.

Is mankind worth saving, or are we all doomed to destroy the things we should be loving and taking care of the most? Aronofsky refuses to give an answer, even if he suggests a pessimistic view. For cinephiles who like their films that way, mother! may stand as a landmark for years to come.

Grade: 9.4/10

Featured image via Paramount.

‘It’ Review: A terrifying, engaging and crowd-pleasing Stephen King adaptation

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When the biggest complaint one might have walking out of a horror movie is that the film might feature too many scares per minute, then that film has done its job.

It’s an unimaginably tough task to tackle the first half of a 1100-page beloved novel and condense it to a two hour and 15 minute film. Yet, the Andy Muschietti-directed It not only lives up to the hype, but is also the best Stephen King adaptation outside of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

Because the film only features the younger characters’ stories — rather than their adult form, which will be in Part Two — it feels like a darker, more horrific Stand By Me. Following the teenage Losers Club searching for Bill’s (Jaeden Lieberher) younger brother Georgie, as well as the other countless missing children during the summer of 1989 in Derry, Maine, the film spends a significant amount of time developing the town and these young heroes.

Thankfully, this pays off in dividends in the emotional arcs of each one of the seven child actors. When the film slowly reveals the traumatic home lives of each one of the kids — parents might be just as harmful as the infamous monster — this adds a palpable sense of empathy for the kids and, most terrifyingly, a real sense of fear and despair when they’re haunted by “It.”

Which leads to what everyone wants to know: how is Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, or “It”?

The answer: horrifically stunning. The performance is a masterclass in physical and vocal tics. The terrifyingly realized character never feels forced in its manipulative dialogue (“You’ll Float Too” is the stuff of nightmares here) or unhinged movements — elements incredibly captured by the intensely focused cinematography from Park Chan-Wook regular Chung-hoon Chung. While Tim Curry’s memorable version of the character may have provided the voice Bill Skarsgård (sometimes) uses, this film and the performance get under your skin much more effectively here. Think what Heath Ledger did for The Joker in comparison Jack Nicholson, in the fact that Ledger brought real anarchy and terror to the character — and that’s what Skarsgard does for Pennywise.

If anything though, the scares — which come fast and often — threaten to overtake the strong character development that Muschietti so wisely sets up in this first part. And the solid (but not great) CGI breaks immersion at points, especially when Bill Skarsgård’s natural portrayal is scarier than anything a computer can whip up.

All in all though, It is an event-horror movie that we rarely get. With all of the hype surrounding the film, it was potentially easy to whiff — killing any desire for a sequel. Instead, it’s a rare jump-scare horror movie that earns its audience’s emotion for both thrills, laughs and tears. And that makes it one of the better studio films of 2017 and the rare situation where a much needed follow-up may just make the full experience ever greater.

Grade: 8.6/10

Featured image via Warner Bros.

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