Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

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Exile in Whyville

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The Grinch

by George Wolf

Before we get to the Whos, let’s consider the Whys.

Is it too much of a GOML (Get Off My Lawn) moment to ask why, beyond the obvious cash grab, The Grinch has to be redone? The original, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, is 25 minutes of perfection, an animated TV classic that was already the subject of a charmless live action update for the big screens of nearly 20 years ago.

Now we’re back to animation, and facing the same quandary.

How do you add an hour of narrative that is more than just filler, substantial enough to not dilute what made the original work so simply joyous, so universally touching?

In 2009, Spike Jonze showed it can be done, delivering a wondrous and emotional take on Where the Wild Things Are.

But in this latest re-imagining of The Grinch, what writer Michael LeSieur and Tommy Swerdlow giveth only ends up taking away.

We’re still told the heart of Mr. Grinch (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) is two sizes too small, yet we’re given a new backstory for additional explanation as to why he hates Christmas so much.

His heart is two sizes too small, didn’t you hear? That’s the reason! Well, it should be, but then we see the Grinch do little acts of kindness for his dog Max and some other creatures, meaning the whole idea of Mr. Grinch being such an unpleasant misanthrope (and thus the impact of the story’s entire resolution) is compromised early.

The narration (courtesy of Pharrell Williams) includes some of the delightful Dr. Suess wordplay from 1966, plus some fresh attempts to imitate it that, as you might guess, stand out like a ten dollar Rolex. Mr. Grinch’s ultimate change of holiday heart doesn’t fare much better, as he and Cindy Lou Who (The Greatest Showman‘s Cameron Seely) spend ample time hammering home a message that, while still welcome, shouldn’t require that much force.

Directors Yarrow Cheney and Scott Mosier craft a few giddy sequences set among the snowy terrain of Whoville, and SNL’s Kenan Thompson squeezes as much humor as he can from his role as the Mean One’s erstwhile “best friend,” but for anyone hoping to recapture the magic of a holiday standard, The Grinch is nearly as empty as Cindy Lou’s living room on Christmas morn.

 

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Susan and the Snakes

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Viper Club

by Rachel Willis

After a freelance journalist is kidnapped in Syria, his mother tries numerous avenues to get him home. With Viper Club, director Maryam Keshavarz seeks to draw attention to the plight of kidnapped journalists and aid workers around the world.

When we’re first introduced to Helen (Susan Sarandon), we learn quickly that her son, Andy (Julian Morris), was kidnapped more than two months prior by a terrorist organization. At the direction of the FBI and US State Department, Helen has had to maintain silence regarding her son’s plight. No one in her life knows the anguish and fear she carries on a daily basis as she waits for someone to rescue her son.

It’s clear that her faith in the US government has waned in the months since her son disappeared. When ransom demands arrive, Helen expects an immediate response. What she gets is the runaround from the FBI.

Susan Sarandon is nearly always impeccable, and her performance here is no exception. She ably conveys the frustration and distress of a mother incapable of saving her son. When the government fails to act, she decides to reach out to a network of people (the titular Viper Club) willing to negotiate her son’s release.

Aside from Sarandon’s convincing performance, the rest of the cast can’t seem to muster the energy to care. It’s not hard to see why. The supporting characters are shallow. The focus is rooted so completely on Helen’s plight that it’s strange the film introduces so many additional characters.

Flashbacks in the film attempt to humanize Andy, but strangely, we only get to see him as an adult or a ten-year-old boy. It’s as if no other period in his life made an impression on his mother, as the memories are filtered to the audience from her perspective. The impact would have been greater if we’d seen more of what led to Andy’s final trip to Syria and been spared the sentimental moments from his childhood.

It’s hard to root out the point of Viper Club. In trying to avoid the murky politics surrounding the negotiation for the release of kidnapped Americans, Keshavarz sends an equally murky message. In not addressing the deeper implications of Helen’s actions, the movie misses an opportunity to address the plight of journalists working in dangerous situations. The film skirts a number of issues, and in the end, doesn’t say much of anything.

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Rock You They Will

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Bohemian Rhapsody

by George Wolf

After several false stars and a midstream director change, the long-awaited Queen/Freddie Mercury biopic lands as a celebration of one legendary band and one bravura performance.

Rami Malek is a certified powerhouse as Mercury, the former Farrokh Buisara, the uniquely gifted performer and iconic presence who became of rock’s most enduring frontmen.

Mercury’s extravagant persona lent itself to caricature, but Malek has none of it. His is a true characterization, eerily mirroring the singer’s appearance, elegance, movements and, with help from both original Queen music and Mercury soundalike Marc Martel, his incredible voice.

Malek’s performance stands out all the more from the void left by Queen’s surviving band members. As executive producers, they’ve whitewashed themselves into more reaction shots and less actual human beings.

It’s one of several ways the film plays it safe and settles for a crowd-pleasing greatest hits package. Directors Bryan Singer and an uncredited Dexter Fletcher work wonders with the performance pieces (the thrilling recreation of Live Aid is worth paying for IMAX), but soften the sharp edges of rock hedonism enough for a PG-13 rating. And rock and roll ain’t PG-13.

The biggest missed chance comes in the relationship between Mercury and his muse for the song “Love of My Life,” Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton). From their first scenes together, Malek and Boynton fuel the emotional core of the film, creating an absence felt whenever screenwriter Anthony McCarten (Darkest Hours) broadens the focus, which is often.

Factual liberties are taken, timelines are sometimes carelessly misrepresented (“We Will Rock You” was not written in the 80s), and there’s a totally needless gag from Mike Myers, but whenever Bohemian Rhapsody is most unsteady, Queen’s music is there for a bailout.

It’s still great. And so is Malek.

 

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Love Is the Drug

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Beautiful Boy

by George Wolf

Those of a certain age hear the title Beautiful Boy and most likely think of the John Lennon song, a sweetly poignant ode from father to son. It’s used to touching effect in the film that shares that title, an utterly heartbreaking but ultimately hopeful adaption of separate memoirs by David and Nicolas Sheff.

David was the proud father, a successful writer who dreamed of great things for his bright, ambitious son. Instead, Nic became an alcoholic and drug addict who offered his family countless  promises of recovery that always fell empty.

Two masterful performances drive this film to its emotional heights, keeping it steady the few times it teeters on slopes of undue manipulation.

Steve Carell makes David an instantly relatable mix of unconditional love and crestfallen confusion. As Nic’s addiction batters David’s homelife with his wife (Maura Tierney) and two young children, flashbacks to sweet memories with a younger Nic outline the bond between father and son that only grew after David’s split with Nic’s mother (Amy Ryan – also stellar). Carell makes it feel real with a thoughtful, often understated turn full of quiet detail.

And people, if last year didn’t hip you to the immense talent of Timothee Chalamet, he’s back to seal the deal with a performance certain to be hailed come Oscar time.

Just when you’re comfortable with the authenticity of Nic’s slide into addiction, Chalamet digs deeper to find the shattering center of a soul at war with dependence and desperation. Though his baby-faced smile stays miles away from meth addict ugliness, Chalamet finds a raw humanity that makes Nic a walking wound, and makes us feel part of the frayed parental bonds. His scenes with Carrell – where Nic tries taking advantage of his father’s love only to turn on him moments later – find two actors in complete sync, revealing a crushing humanity that hits you hard. Bring tissues.

There are two important stories here, and they only falter when it feels some intimacy from each has been shortchanged to make room for the other. Director Felix Van Groeningen (The Broken Circle Breakdown), collaborating on the screenplay with Luke Davies (Lion), merges the dual memoirs for a series of episodes that resonate best when given room to breath, free of any heavy-handed reminders about how quickly children grow up.

Beautiful Boy illustrates a vital, shattering cycle of addiction, rehab and relapse, often beautifully. Through first-hand insight and two towering performances, it finds a thread of hope in the ashes of a family’s nightmare.

 

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Hooray for Hollywood?

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The Other Side of the Wind

by Hope Madden

The Other Side of the Wind—how pretentious is that title? It’s supposed to be, of course, because it’s an Orson Welles film and he’s a genius. His latest, released more than 30 years after his death, explores his genius and the changing paradigm of the Seventies film industry.

Retrieved from hundreds of hours of footage filmed over 10 years, The Other Side of the Wind was meant to be a comeback or sorts from an idolized auteur whose funds were drying up in the face of a changing cinematic aesthetic.

It’s about an idolized auteur with dwindling funds who’s trying to launch a comeback in the face of a changing cinematic aesthetic.

Yes, Welles was meta before meta was even a thing.

Esteemed director, Jake Hannaford (John Huston) is to screen his new film at his 70th birthday party to an audience of cinefiles, sycophants, film critics, hangers-on, freaks and industry insiders.

The event becomes an ingenious satire of 70s moviemaking, and watching it more than 30 years after the fact gives the entire spectacle a time capsule appeal. It’s like a trainwreck you cannot turn away from.

Welles pokes fun at the pretentiousness of then-cutting edge filmmakers and their neurotic relationships with self-loathing, arrogance and idol worship—usually using directors from the period, acting as stand-ins for, well, themselves.

He doesn’t seem to have much respect for the films being made at the time, either. As Hannaford’s film unspools, one in-the-know viewer yells: “The reels are out of order!”

To which the projectionist replies, “Does it matter?”

Nope. It does not. Welles’s film-within-a-film is an unendurable, plotless hippie hallucination—a perfect parody of much of the arthouse output of the era. It’s as if Welles, by way of Hannaford, is asking: Is this what I have to do to get a movie made?

As well and as wildly as the movie-making satire plays, at the heart of this film is humiliation on exhibition. Hero worship is hollow, commerce is still king and a man who can’t pay can’t play.

The whole thing is just a big ball of Seventies.

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Cracking Nuts and Taking Names

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The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

by Hope Madden

Let’s say your birthday falls in December and as a lovely gesture your family took you to The Nutcracker Suite every year to celebrate, and every year you remembered again that you had no idea what the hell the ballet was about. Suppose, then, that Disney decided to make it into a movie and you thought that maybe now, with some narrative, you could figure this shit out.

Well, you would be disappointed. But if you went to see the ballet and thought, damn, there is too much dancing here, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms might be for you.

Mackenzie Foy is Clara, a young lady who dreads enduring the first Christmas without her mother. She doesn’t even want to go to the big party thrown by her godfather, Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman in a really bad wig). But her dad (Matthew Macfadyen) drags her, along with her brother and sister.

After that, things begin to feel familiar, although they rarely feel like The Nutcracker. The film becomes an inverted exploration of childhood and adolescence. Like Alice in Wonderland meets The Wizard of Oz meets Hunger Games.

Helen Mirren plays lord of this disused amusement park overrun by rats and clowns, though, and that is hella cool. Meanwhile, Keira Knightly shamelessly steals scenes as Sugarplum. Both are fun in a film that desperately needs a bit more of it.

Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger) and Lasse Hallstrom co-direct. That checks out. Johnston brings a rather workmanlike attitude for spectacle, while Hallstrom—whose credits range from the Oscar-winning Cider House Rules to the unwatchable A Dog’s Purpose—brings an eye for manicured beauty and an utter lack of whimsy.

Do you remember watching the ballet as a child? The spooky, eye-patched uncle? The 7-headed rat? It is seriously creepy, and at the same time, there is wonder in every dance whether you understand the storyline or you don’t.

There are lovely moments peppered through this visually elegant picture, but there is no passion, no danger and no excitement.

And weirdly enough, very little Tchaikovsky almost no dancing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXfxLIuNJvw

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Dance Macabre

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Suspiria

by George Wolf

Seventies horror has had a damn good month.

Just weeks after David Gordon Green gave 1978’s Halloween the sequel it deserved, director Luca Guadagnino re-imagines 1977’s giallo classic Suspiria as a gorgeous rumination on the horror of being haunted by echoes of your past.

Wait, wasn’t the original about witches?

It still is, more than ever. Guadagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich (True Story, A Bigger Splash, the upcoming Pet Sematary remake) remove the guesswork about the dance academy coven in favor of a narrative much more layered, meaningful and bloody.

The building blocks remain the same. It is 1977 in “a divided Berlin,” when American Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson, nicely moving the character from naivete to complexity) arrives for an audition with a world-renowned dance company run by Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton, mesmerizing). Susie impresses immediately, and is soon given the lead in the company’s next production.

This “cover version” (The Tilda’s phrase, and valid) of Argento’s original lifts the veil on the academy elders early, via the diaries of Patricia (Chloe Moretz), a dancer who has fled the troupe in fear. While whispers paint Patricia as a radical member of the anti-fascist Red Army Faction, she tells psychotherapist Dr. Josef Kiemperer (also The Tilda, under impressive makeup) wild tales of witches and their shocking plans.

Guadagnino continues to be a master film craftsman. Much as he draped Call Me by Your Name in waves of dreamy romance, here he establishes a consistent mood of nightmarish goth. Macabre visions dart in and out like a video that will kill you in 7 days while sudden, extreme zooms, precise sound design and a vivid score from Thom Yorke help cement the homage to another era.

But even when this new Suspiria is tipping its hat, Guadagnino leaves no doubt he is making his own confident statement. The color scheme is intentionally muted, and you’ll find no men in this dance troupe, serving immediate notice that superficialities are not the endgame here.

Guadagnino’s stated goal of “de-victimizing” women in this film shows early and often. They move in strong solidarity both onstage and off, dancing with a hypnotic power capable of deadly results. In fact, most of the male characters here are mere playthings under the spell of powerful women, which takes a deliciously ironic swipe at witch lore as it creates a compelling bookend to what’s going on away from the dance academy.

Dr. Kiemperer, still searching for his wife missing since the end of WWII, becomes a personal illustration of Germany’s struggle with its Nazi legacy. When paired with Patricia’s rumored involvement in the “German Autumn” uprising of ’77, we get two important pillars of an epilogue that, admittedly, some may find a head-scratching overreach.

But after the finale that precedes that epilogue, the bigger problem may be breath-catching. A glorious celebration of the grotesque, it explodes into a cathartic mix of Ken Russell’s The Devils and GOT‘s Red Wedding that more than affirms the film’s intense, obsessive build. Guadagnino has thrown so much at us, he knows we deserve a payoff and damn, he delivers one.

It cements a vision of Suspiria that’s as ambitious and it is uncompromising, one that explores different definitions of horror while ultimately delivering more outright shocks and shivers than Argento ever attempted. Who knew a silly witch story could support so much mind-fuckery?

His name is Luca.

 

 

 

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Everything Except Temptation

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The Happy Prince

by Hope Madden

“Why does one run toward ruin? Why does it hold such fascination?”

Oscar Wilde, by way of writer/star Rupert Everett, wonders these potent lines partway through The Happy Prince, director Everett’s biopic of the infamous decadent/undeniable genius.

Everett’s tale flashes backward and forward but mainly focuses on the period between Wilde’s 1897 release from prison and his death in 1900. A rather bleak time in a very rich and colorful life, but Everett’s execution never forgets the heights, and his performance is haunted with the fall.

Upon his release, Wilde finds support with sometime lover and literary agent Robert Ross (Edwin Thomas) and writer/friend Reginald Turner (Colin Firth – delightful, especially when his character is not the focus of a scene). But Wilde cannot or will not deny his desire for Alfred “Bosie” Douglas (Colin Morgan).

It is a perfect vehicle for a film that lays bare this particular genius and that rumination on running toward ruin. Only a few years earlier, Wilde’s ego required recompense from his lover’s father, who’d libeled him. Wilde’s suit, however, only uncovered his own then-illegal dalliances and instead of recompense he found himself facing hard labor.

And yet, even with emotional support from his friends and financial support from his wife jeopardized by the decision, Wilde joyously takes Bosie back and the two travel to Naples to misbehave.

Everett’s film more than forgives Wilde’s wildness, though it doesn’t go so far as to fully admire it. His lead performance is colored by an understanding of the difference between living lustily when you have everything, and when all that you once had is forever out of reach.

As a writer and director, Everett tries too hard to use Wilde’s short story The Happy Prince to create a running metaphor, perhaps suggesting that Wilde’s end, like the story’s, reaches transcendence. It’s a tough sell, passing off the short’s image of voluntary self-sacrifice as analogous to Wilde’s fall from grace.

Otherwise, though, the first-time filmmaker delivers a vision edged with the melancholy of a brilliant mind never again able to see the world as bountiful and beautiful. It’s as touching as it is resonant, and nothing in The Happy Prince articulates this tragedy as beautifully as Everett’s performance.

It’s a performance simultaneously full of life and of death. You see the enormous loss, but more than that, the deflating ugliness of this world etched on Everett’s face, echoing in his every gesture.

Everett’s instincts behind the camera come as a nice surprise. With more than 70 acting credits to judge by—many of them quite fine, some even awards contenders—the real surprise is that he had this performance in him.

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Gerard Has the Con

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Hunter Killer

by Hope Madden

On a scale from Gerard Butler to 10, how bad is Hunter Killer?

It’s not London Has Fallen bad. Or Gods of Egypt bad. It’s not Geostorm bad, but what is, really?

But is it any good?

Well, no. Don’t get loony. I’m just saying, it could be worse. You know, because Gerard Butler stars.

That doesn’t make him the worst actor in history. It’s just that he’s not especially talented and he makes impressively awful films. And yet, the king of January inexplicably gets a prime October release with this one, playing Captain Joe Glass.

He’s not an Annapolis guy, but that doesn’t mean he can’t successfully lead his first crew through Arctic waters to save the President of Russia from a botched coups attempt.

If you’re worried about subtitles—well, you’re clearly not familiar with the work of Mr. Butler. No, fortunately the Russians only speak Russian when it doesn’t matter if we understand what they say. The moment the dialog is important they switch (sometimes mid-scene) to English. How lucky is that?

I’m sure we’d never be able to follow this plot otherwise. It’s not like every scene is telegraphed in advanced.

Director Donovan Marsh’s film is not unwatchable. It’s shallowly packaged derivative entertainment, boasting passable water scenes and hand-to-hand action choreography that’s entirely adequate. It’s the drama that will make you wince.

There are three primary focal points. Firstly, the drama back in DC, where level heads try to outmaneuver war mongers. Gary Oldman plays a monger.

Everybody follows up their Oscar with garbage. Don’t fret for Gary.

Common plays one of those level heads. This is literally Common’s third film in three weeks. The prior two—The Hate U Give and All About Nina—were both very good. Nobody bats 1000.

The second dramatic focus takes place on the ground—thank God, because honestly, without the small military unit landing covertly on Russian soil with their drones, swagger and witty banter, this movie would never leave a confined area and you would feel even more trapped by it.

The highest drama is, of course, hundreds of feet underwater with noble everyman Cap. Glass. You know what he has? A level head.

Just not, you know, a ton of talent.

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Board in the U.S.A.

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Mid90s

by George Wolf

More than just a time stamp, Mid90s emerges as a completely engaging verite-styled slice of place and person, a clear-eyed and visionary filmmaking debut for writer/director Jonah Hill.

While not strictly autobiographical, the film is Hill’s rewind button back to the Los Angeles skateboarding culture so omnipresent during his own coming of age.

13 year-old Stevie (Sunny Suljic) watches a tight knit group of skaters in his neighborhood, envious of the camaraderie missing from his life at home with an angry 18 year-old brother (Lucas Hedges – impressive yet again) and a self- absorbed 36 year-old mom (Katherine Waterson).

Stevie hangs around the skate shop until the boys slowly welcome him with a brand new name: “Sunburn.” With that, Ray (Na-kel Smith), “Fuckshit” (Olan Prenatt), “Fourth Grade” (Ryder McLaughlin) and Ruben (Gio Galicia) become Stevie’s new family, instantly giving him the sense of belonging and male role models he is craving.

Though the film does feel like a labor of love for Hill, it’s not draped in undue nostalgia, but rather a gritty sense of realism resting comfortably between 1995’s “Kids” and Bing Liu’s current skateboarding doc “Minding the Gap.”

The group of skaters moves like an animal pack, and Suljic (Killing of a Sacred Deer, House with a Clock in Its Walls) perfectly captures the attentive innocence behind a young boy grasping at masculinity.

The group of actors in Stevie’s skater family boast little screen experience but are long on authenticity. Smith and Prenatt especially impress as Ray and Fuckshit, two lifelong friends slowly moving in different directions. When Ray quickly and gently admonishes Stevie’s behavior, it is a touching moment that rings with genuine concern borne from experience.

Hill treats his characters with equal trust, presenting their lives without judgement, apology or condescension. He’s equally confident is his mechanics, crafting the film with abrupt cuts, a fluid camera and alternating blasts of sound and silence that help define the mood of longing masked by bravado.

An often funny, sometimes startling and endlessly human film, Mid90s is a blast from the past that points to a bright filmmaking future for Jonah Hill.