New In Theaters

Nothing Permanent in This Wicked World

Leave a comment

Tron: Ares

by Hope Madden

Tron was a fun idea in 1982. What director Joachim Rønning’s Tron: Ares gets very right is its commitment to simplicity, impressive yet simple visual effects, and soundtrack.

Greta Lee is Eve Kim, head of ENCOM, a tech industry whose whiz kid founder vanished back in the 80s. Kim’s been working on AI that can materialize into something concrete—like an orange tree. But she’s missing the string of code that will make the thing permanent, helping her eradicate hunger and do so many other good things AI will clearly never actually be used to do.

Meanwhile, megatech competitor Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) is materializing soldiers, of course. But their impermanence is a stickler for him as well.

The race is one to own the permanence code! Natch, Dillinger sends one of his soldiers (Ares, played by Jared Leto) to nab Kim, leading to adventures inside and out of “the grid”.

Is it dumb? Of course it is. Is it fun? Sometimes it really is! There’s a motorcycle chase that looks amazing, a gorgeous opening sequence, and visuals that manage to be both forward thinking and adorably retro—kind of a highly polished version of a tech world as imagined in the early 1980s.

Supporting turns from effortless badass Jodie Turner-Smith and ever glorious Gillian Anderson class up the joint. And did I mention the characteristically jarring, distorted and sorely missed sounds of Nine Inch Nails?

Jared Leto does his best Jared Leto, handsome and wise and weirdly stiff. Whatever. But Greta Lee is clearly better than the material, which can’t help but elevate the few scenes requiring true acting. She runs well too. And Peters is a bit of fun as our favorite punching bag, the spoiled, entitled, weak tech billionaire playboy. (He’s no Nicholas Hoult, but the performance is still solid.)

Is Tron: Ares great? It is not. But it doesn’t suck, either.

New In Theaters

Tale of Three Pretties

Leave a comment

Kiss of the Spider Woman

by George Wolf

Trusting Bill Condon to bring the Kiss of the Spider Woman stage musical to the big screen is an understandable choice. With Dreamgirls, Chicago and even Beauty and the Beast, the man has shown he knows how to write and/or direct the necessary pop and pizazz.

He brings both again this time, just enough to offset what’s lacking on the political intrigue side of the ledger.

Based on the 1993 Tony Award-winning adaptation of Manuel Piug’s 1976 novel (which also spawned the 1985 film version), Condon’s Kiss keeps the core story intact. It’s set after Argentina’s coup d’état in the late 70s, when the military dictatorship began rounding up scores of political opponents.

One of these activists, Valentín (Diego Luna), is sharing a jail cell with Molina (Tonatiuh), a window dresser who has been convicted of “public indecency” with another man. To brighten their spirits, Molina begins regaling Valentín with the plot of one of his favorite movie musicals starring the glamorous Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez).

All three actors impress in multiple roles, as Condon crafts the fantasy song-and-dance numbers with the staging, visual panache and aspect ratio to recall the golden age of Hollywood. Shifting often from lavish sequence to jail cell squalor, the film’s two plot lines begin to mirror each other, and some layers of love, loss, and sacrifice grow stronger than others.

The fantasy throwbacks, queer and Latin influences pull each other along nicely, but Condon never quite establishes the prison as a setting with real grit or tangible danger. Granted, it’s tricky to walk this line without recalling too much Man of La Mancha. But the lengths which Condon goes to differentiate the worlds visually only makes those slippery tone shifts more curious.

Is it entertaining? It is, even at just over two hours. JLo is award-worthy yet again, Luna is quietly heroic and Tonatiuh (Carry-On) delivers a smashing and star-making breakout turn. Give in to them all, and Kiss of the Spider Woman can get you lost in the fantasy.

New In Theaters

Don’t Wanna Grow Up

Leave a comment

Roofman

by Hope Madden

It’s been nine years since Derek Cianfrance directed a feature, but he’s still drawn to beautifully impossible tenderness and insurmountable longing. This time, though, the story is true.

Roofman, which Cianfrance co-wrote with Kirk Gunn, tells the somehow delightful story of Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum). In 2000, Manchester was convicted of breaking into a series of McDonald’s locations by drilling through the roof. Like the gentlemanly true-life bandit of Old Man and the Gun, Manchester is remembered by his victims exclusively as a good guy.

That didn’t lighten his sentence, but no matter, because by the beginning of Act 2, the real story begins with Manchester on the run and living inside a Toys-r-Us.

Cianfrance and Gunn keep pretty close to the real details of the case, perhaps because the story’s nutty enough as is, or maybe because it’s not the story beats they’re looking to explore. Roofman is a film more fascinated by the human than the criminal, and Tatum’s characterization brims with humanity.

Channing Tatum can be hit or miss, but his strongest performances are those that allow him to find both vulnerability and humor in a character. He’s never been better than in Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice, where he tinged his techbro narcissist with just enough amiable doofus to be truly terrifying. But his turn in Fly Me to the Moon sank because he was the handsome, brilliant straight man—not funny, not dumb, not broken.

Luckily, Cianfrance understands Tatum’s strengths and Roofman offers the actor ample opportunity to be all three of those things. The result is an affable, broken sweetheart of a crook you can’t help but root for, even though you know he’ll probably shoot himself in the foot.

Tatum’s not alone. Kirsten Dunst is steal-the-show wonderful as Leigh, the Toys-r-Us employee Jeffrey falls for. Peter Dinklage is a ton of fun as Mitch, unfeeling store manager with a weakness for No Doubt. Ben Mendelsohn turns up in a small but entertainingly off-brand character. And as Jeffrey’s army buddy Steve, LaKeith Stanfield’s weary, wiry performance offsets Tatum’s lovable dumbassedness as a stark reminder of the type of person who can survive as a criminal.

Like Blue Valentine and A Place Beyond the Pines, Roofman is another romantic look at good dads who make bad decisions. Cianfrance may be preoccupied with one story, but he does tell it well.

Uncategorized

Always Been in Meat

Leave a comment

Chain Reactions

by Hope Madden

Not everyone believes Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a masterpiece of American filmmaking. I find those people suspicious. Luckily, those are not the people filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe (Memory: The Origins of Alien, 78/52) talks to for his latest documentary, Chain Reactions.

The film is a celebration of 50 years of TCM. The celebrants are five of the film’s biggest fans: Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama. It’s a good group. Each share intimate and individual reminiscences and theories about the film, its impact on them as artists, and its relevance as a piece of American cinema. What their ruminations have in common is just as fascinating as the ways in which their thoughts differ.

Heller-Nicholas, an Australian film critic and writer, creates a fascinating connection between Hooper’s sunbaked tale of a cannibal family with desert-set Aussie horrors like Wake in Fright and Wolf Creek. Meanwhile, Kusama sees the story as profoundly, almost poignantly American.

And Miike, genre master responsible for some of the most magnificent and difficult films horror has to offer, including Ichi the Killer and Audition, credits The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with inspiring him to become a filmmaker. And all because a Charlie Chaplin retrospective was sold out!

Philippe’s approach is that of a fan and an investigator. When Oswalt compares Hooper scenes to those from silent horror classics, Philippe split screens the images for our consideration. When Kusama digs into the importance of the color red, Chain Reactions shows us. We feel the macabre comedy, the verité horror, the beauty and the grotesque.

It’s fascinating what the different speakers have in common. So many talk about Leatherface, worry about him, pointing out that from Leatherface’s perspective, TCM is a home invasion movie.

What you can’t escape is the film’s influence and its craft. The set design should be studied. Hooper’s use of color, his preoccupation with the sun and the moon, the way he juxtaposes images of genuine beauty with the grimmest sights imaginable.

Each of these artists came to the film from a different perspective—some having seen it early enough in their youth to have been left scarred, others having taken it in as adults and still being left scarred. But each one sees layers and importance—poetry, even—in Hooper’s slice of savage cinema.

Chain Reactions is an absolute treasure of a film for fans of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

New In Theaters

Machinations of the Gods

Leave a comment

Deathstalker

by Hope Madden

From the Saturday morning lunacy of Psycho Goreman to the puppet chaos of Frankie Freako, Steven Kostanski has mastered the art of recreating the most ridiculous entertainments of Eighties youngsters. He wasn’t always this way. His 2016 film The Void was an outright, non-satirical horror, and it was great, kind of Halloween 2 by way of H.P. Lovecraft.

But Manborg (2011) and Father’s Day (also 2011) suggested early that Kostanski’s heart is with silly, juvenile retoolings of the crap we watched as kids in the 80s.

His latest, Deathstalker, is another reminder of how we wasted our mornings, middays and late nights. A loose and intentionally silly remake of the 1983 Barbi Benton vehicle, Deathstalker returns to a time when special fx were ludicrous, costumes were Spirit Halloween level authentic, and drama was high.

Like any of those earnest swords and sorcery fantasies, there’s a barely clothed and begrudging hero, a magical sidekick mainly there for exposition and comic relief, and a young one to mentor and learn from.

And, again, really bad masks and Halloween decorations.

Our reluctant hero is the titular Deathstalker, played by longtime action character actor Daniel Bernhardt, who’s played a soldier/assassin/villainous athlete in everything from Bloodsport 2 throughand Nobody 1 & 2.

His soldiering behind him, Deathstalker contents himself with scavenging from dead knights fighting an unholy army. But an amulet he takes from one not-quite-dead knight compels him on a journey to save the universe from endless darkness and torment.

Naturally, he’ll need the help of a wizard who can translate the runes on the amulet and explain long lost history and curses and what not. Doodad’s the name, voiced by Patton Oswalt and performed by Laurie Field. The diminutive wizard is a perfect ode, but two wheels is hardly enough. A brash young upstart is required, and Brisbayne (Christina Orjalo) fits the bill.

Kostanski’s touch is so spot on, and his chosen subgenre is so ridiculous to begin with, that you may forget this is a spoof, or at least a fun romp. His work is too loving to be truly spoof, but there’s little room in this type of film to go over-the-top with anything. There’s no top. Even for all its wild nonsense, Deathstalker could pass for an honest reboot rather than a comedic retooling.

Nothing will ever match Psycho Goreman for inspired lunacy. Deathstalker certainly doesn’t, but it definitely offers a bit of fun.

New In Theaters

Windflower

Leave a comment

Anemone

by Hope Madden

As a young filmmaker, would having arguably the most revered actor of his generation—perhaps of all time—as a father be a blessing or a curse? For Ronan Day-Lewis, directing his first feature with co-writer and lead actor (and dad) Daniel Day-Lewis, it seems to be working out.

Anemone is a tale of fathers and sons, of one generation of men inflicting damage upon the next, and the tenderness that either dies, finds an outlet, or runs to madness.

Sean Bean a is Jem, a good man who strikes out from his dodgy neighborhood in Northern England to the woods, led by the navigational coordinates on the back of a page that reads: Anemone: In Case of Emergency, Break Glass.

The coordinates lead him to his brother, Ray (DDL), a hermit since his time fighting against the IRA. Ray is wanted at home.

Like many of Day-Lewis’s greatest performances, his work here impresses with lengthy stretches of silence punctuated by a couple of brilliantly executed monologues. His lean and scrappy physicality belie the character’s vulnerability in ways that expertly match Ray’s reticent then vulgar speech.

Ray’s a man off the rails, while Bean deftly crafts a character who’s found comfort and strength in structure. Neither actor overplays the brothers’ differences, rather falling into a tenuous if lived-in familiarity.

The great Samantha Morton and an impressive Samuel Bottomley round out the cast, but as usual, all eyes are on Day-Lewis.

RDL knows it, not only providing memorable lines, but crafting an atmosphere that evokes Ray’s troubling inner landscape. Bobby Krlic’s (Eddington, Beau Is Afraid, Midsommar) score conjures an angry melancholy while moments of painterly surrealism deliver flashes of beautiful, hopeful madness. Even when lensing the natural elegance of Ray’s isolated world, RDL and cinematographer Ben Fordesman (Love Lies Bleeding, Saint Maud) evoke a magical splendor.

Anemone feels uncertain of how to resolve itself, to bridge the two worlds it creates. Structure failed Ray, and it nearly fails Anemone. But the film offers more than enough reason to believe in filmmaker Ronan Day-Lewis. And if you needed another reason to believe in actor Daniel Day-Lewis, well, here you go.

New In Theaters

Tall Tales and Fiction

Leave a comment

Killing Faith

by Hope Madden

A raucous opening sequence eventually settles into a classic old Western vibe that keeps you guessing in Ned Crowley’s latest, Killing Faith.

Like Mary Bee Cuddy in The Homesman and Joanna in News of the World, Sarah (DeWanda Wise) is in need of a traveling companion. Her daughter (Emily Ford) needs help that the town doctor (Guy Pearce) can’t offer. Not that the ether-sniffing doc has been much help to his patients of late.

Dr. Steelbender is an ether addict on account of a plague of sorts. Voiceover tells us of a sickness ravaging the countryside almost as savagely as a notorious group of bounty hunters. But Sarah is determined to take her daughter to see Dr. Ross (Bill Pullman) because he deals not just in medicine, but in holy healing.

Crowley’s shot making, particularly in the opening act, is equal parts stunning and unnerving. At his best, he tells the tale like a picture book, images sharing as much of the story as dialog. There’s a grim poetry to the shots that creates an beautifully brutal atmosphere as it delivers information.

Pearce has made a lot of movies, many of them horrible, most mediocre, but he does have a pretty good track record with Westerns. John Hillcoat’s The Proposition is one of the most affecting Westerns of the 21st century. Killing Faith doesn’t nearly reach that high water mark, but it has its moments.

I like the more contemporary Westerns, where no one’s to be trusted and everyone’s a weirdo. Killing Faith is at its most compelling when our little band of travelers finds themselves among unexplained carnage or unexplainable fellow wayfarers. Joanna Cassidy is especially delightful in a macabre way.

But a couple of obvious turns and the general simplicity of the story keep Killing Faith from reaching classic status.

The film loses steam whenever it clings too tightly to its main themes, its hero’s journey. But Crowley elevates that well-worn road with ideas of being haunted by the sight of innocence corrupted, something that connects the Western with dystopian tales, like John Hillcoat’s other Pearce-starring fable, The Road.

All Westerns are about redemption. The best Westerns, new or old, are about hope. Can you allow yourself a flicker of hope? The answer is often what differentiates the classic Western from the contemporary one. Killing Faith toys with those mighty big struggles, sometimes provocatively. The solutions aren’t as interesting as the journey, though.

New In Theaters

Poison Pen

Leave a comment

A Savage Art: The Life & Cartoons of Pat Oliphant

by George Wolf

“If Pat Oliphant couldn’t draw, he’d be an assassin.”

That quote gets your attention, even if you don’t know the name Pat Oliphant. Either way, you’ve probably seen some of his work, and A Savage Art: The Life & Cartoons of Pat Oliphant is a broadly effective intro to a legend of political cartooning.

Oliphant wielded a revolutionary artistic style and the kind of cynical mind that had him rebelling against the very committee that awarded him the Pulitzer Prize in 1967. Aided by his alter ego “Punk” the Penguin, Oliphant skewered the political landscape through five decades and ten U.S. Presidents.

In his feature debut, director Bill Banowsky keeps things pretty standard, rolling out a succession of Oliphant’s best cartoons, and chatting with family members and colleagues to provide some personal details that Oliphant himself seems averse to.

And though today’s political and social climate carries some issues that are very relevant to Oliphant’s legacy, Banowsky doesn’t dig in. We do get mentions of the increased threats to a free press, and to the rise of internet memes as a shallow imitation of cartoon commentary, but those seem to be conversations for another day.

Banowsky’s aim is to give a legend his due and maybe spur some interest in learning more. A Savage Art hits that target square.

New In Theaters

Slippery

Leave a comment

The Ice Tower

by George Wolf

Fifteen-year-old Jeanne doesn’t want to build a snowman. What she wants is an escape, but finds plenty more than she expected in The Ice Tower, Lucile Emina Hadzihalilovic’s dreamlike re-imaging of “The Snow Queen.”

In 1970s France, Jeanne (a wonderful feature debut for Clara Pacini) is among the oldest children in a foster home, where she comforts the younger ones and silently longs for a better life. She finally leaves one evening, taking refuge in an empty warehouse to sleep.

But in the morning, Jeanne finds the warehouse is home to a movie crew, with director Dino (Gaspar Noé, Hadzihalilovic’s husband) filming a new adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson classic. Mistaken for an extra, Jeanne becomes part of the production and is instantly captivated by the star of the show, Christina (Marion Cotillard).

The Oscar-winning Cotillard is, of course, perfect as the detached and demanding diva who begins to take an equally strong interest in the young Jeanne. But to what end? Hadzihalilovic explores that question with a cold, barren beauty. The aesthetic is tactile and intoxicating, a perfect playground to envelope the film in strange fascination.

The Ice Tower casts an undeniable spell. Despite lingering a bit too long in some dry spots, it crafts an enriching trip to the darker floors of a fairy tale.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?