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Dolittle Jones

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Dolittle

by George Wolf

Man, when I was a kid I wanted a Pushmi-Pullyu so bad.

I would try to get all the way through “If I Could Talk to the Animals” without messing up a lyric, and imagine how fun it would be to get one of those mythical Pushmis delivered in a crate, just like Rex Harrison in 1967’s original Dr. Dolittle.

Over thirty years later, Eddie Murphy ditched the tunes for a more straightforward comedic approach in two franchise updates, and now Robert Downey, Jr. steps in to move the doctor a little closer to Indiana.

Jones, that is.

But’s it’s Indy by way of Victorian-era Britain, as Young Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado) calls on the famous animal-taking doctor with a dispatch from Buckingham Palace and an urgent plea to help the deathly ill Queen Victoria herself (Jessie Buckley).

As suspicions arise about Royal Dr. Mudfly (Michael Sheen) and the true nature of the Queen’s ills, Dolittle and friends (some human, most not) set sail on a grand adventure to acquire the cure from King Rassouli (Antonio Banderas), who just happens to be the father of Dolittle’s dear departed Lily (Kasia Smutniak).

Plus, there’s a big dragon.

Director/co-writer Stephen Gaghan (Syriana) re-sets the backstory with an animated fairy tale, then ups the ante on action while letting Downey, Jr. and a menagerie of star voices try to squeeze out all the fun they can.

From Emma Thompson to John Cena, Octavia Spencer to Rami Malek, Tom Holland, Ralph Fiennes and Kumail Nanjiani to Selena Gomez and more, the CGI zoo juggles personalities, while Downey curiously chooses a whispered, husky delivery that sometimes makes his Do a little hard to understand.

But, of course, he still manages to craft an engaging character, even centering the Dr. with a grief just authentic enough for adults without bringing down the childlike wonder.

This is a Dr. Dolittle set on family adventure mode, with plenty of talking animal fun for the little ones and a few clever winks and nudges for the parents. But as the start of a possible franchise, it’s more of a handshake than a high-five. It may not leave you with belly laughs or tunes stuck in your head, but it’s eager to please manner doesn’t hurt a bit.

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Tunnel Vision

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The Cave

by George Wolf

A mother wails in agony over her dead son. A child, sick from a chemical attack, cries for his mother.

The bombs of the Syrian Civil War keep coming, bringing more dead and injured civilians, and inside a makeshift underground hospital known as The Cave, the attending physician wonders aloud if God is really watching over them.

Director Feras Fayyad returns to the Syrian battlegrounds for a film that is perhaps even more unsettling than his Oscar-nominated Last Men in Aleppo. And while it is not enjoyable to watch, its grip is only strengthened by the heartbreaking relief you feel when it ends and you’re free to return to your life.

Fayyad’s camera moves with frantic precision through the underground tunnels where Syrians have fled since 2013, when “the streets became battlefields.”

With an unflinching, verite-style eye, Fayyad follows Dr. Amani Ballour much as he followed the “White Helmet” volunteers in Aleppo. But here, Dr. Amani’s fight to save lives and foster change also encompasses the systemic sexism she’s been fighting all her life.

Dr. Armani saw pediatrics as “a righteous outlet for her anger,” and her experiences provide several juxtapositions Fayyad wields to great effect. Inside a world unfit for children and a religious doctrine used as a “tool for men,” a subtle humanity is revealed, one that refuses to waver amid constant waves of inhumanity.

Oscar-nominated this year for Best Documentary Feature, The Cave is among the most rewarding kicks in the gut you’re likely to experience.

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Nom Nom Nom 2020

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Any year as strong a 2019 is going to see its share of snubs in the Oscar race because there are just too damn many worthy films and performances. It’s a blessing, really. But we will complain anyway.

First, though, we’ll celebrate Scarlet Johansson for finally getting a nomination, and then getting a second. She nabbed a nom in both lead and supporting categories this year. Antonio  Banderas and Cynthia Erivo nab their first Oscar nominations—Banderas waited just a tad longer for the recognition, but both are well deserved. Also thrilled to see Parasite clean up, JoJo Rabbit and 1917 collecting so much love.

But where was Uncut Gems? Not a peep for Adam Sandler’s career-turning performance or for the Safdie Brothers writing, direction or film. Same for Awkwafina and writer/director Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, both films that deserved a spot.

The most obvious snubs belong to Jennifer Lopez, whose brilliant turn in Hustlers was forgotten, Frozen 2, which didn’t garner an animation nomination (although we’re OK with that), and Apollo 11, which went unnoticed in the documentary category.

Here’s what we did get.

Best Film

Ford v Ferrari

The Irishman

Jojo Rabbit

Joker

Little Women

Marriage Story

1917

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Parasite

Surprises

Knives Out struck us as a clear contender for Best Picture. It would be great to fill the list out to its full capacity of 10, include Knives Out and either The Farewell or Uncut Gems.

Best Director

Martin Scorsese for The Irishman

Todd Philips for Joker

Sam Mendes for 1917

Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Bong Joon Ho for Parasite

Surprises

Greta Gerwig needed to be here for Little Women, not just because this is once again the All Male Olympics, but because she deserves to be here. We’d give her Phillips’s spot.

Best Performance by a Lead Actress

Cynthia Erivo for Harriet

Scarlett Johansson for Marriage Story

Saoirse Ronan for Little Women

Charlize Theron for Bombshell

Renee Zellweger for Judy

Surprises

Awkwafina, who won the Golden Globe and showed remarkable skill, vulnerability and range in The Farewell deserved a slot as did Lupita Nyong’o for Us. We’d have put them in over Theron and Erivo. It would not have made us unhappy to see Tessa Thompson or Elisabeth Moss make the list for Little Woods and Her Smell, respectively, but that would have been asking a lot.

Best Performance by a Lead Actor

Antonio Banderas for Pain and Glory

Leonardo DiCaprio for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Adam Driver for Marriage Story

Joaquin Phoenix for Joker

Jonathan Pryce for The Two Popes

Surprises

Hooray for Antonio Banderas. It’s about damn time.

I don’t know that we’re surprised the Academy voters didn’t go with Adam Sandler, but we’re definitely disappointed. He should have had Pryce’s spot. It’s a tough, stacked year for lead actor, which is why glorious work by Robert Pattinson (The Lighthouse), Eddie Murphy (Dolemite Is My Name) and Kelvin Harrison, Jr. (Luce) went unnoticed. More surprising are snubs for DeNiro (The Irishman), Taron Edgerton (Rocketman) and Christian Bale (Ford v. Ferrari), but again, this category is loaded.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Tom Hanks for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Anthony Hopkins for The Two Popes

Al Pacino for The Irishman

Joe Pesci for The Irishman

Brad Pitt for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Surprises

Who are those guys? Never heard of them.

If we had our way, Song Kang Ho’s incandescent turn as patriarch in Parasite would have edged out Hopkins, but the biggest let down is Willem Dafoe, whose insane wickie in The Lighthouse deserved a spot.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Kathy Bates in Richard Jewell

Laura Dern in Marriage Story

Scarlett Johansson in Jojo Rabbit

Florence Pugh in Little Women

Margot Robbie in Bombshell

Surprises

If you’d asked us ten years ago whether we would ever utter the line, “Jennifer Lopez deserves the Oscar nomination that went to Kathy Bates,” we would have assumed you were high. But there you have it. Or maybe Robbie took J Lo’s place, we don’t know. They were all good, but Lopez was better.

Best Screenplay, Adapted

The Irishman

Jojo Rabbit

Joker

Little Women

The Two Popes

Surprises

That’s an exciting category.

Best Screenplay, Original

Knives Out

Marriage Story

1917

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Parasite

Surprises

Another great category, and one that’s hard to argue. The Farewell deserved a spot as did  Uncut Gems, but we don’t know where we would have put them.

Best Documentary

American Factory

The Cave

The Edge of Democracy

For Sama

Honeyland

Surprises

No Apollo 11? We’d have given the damn Oscar to that breathtaking piece of history, and here it isn’t even nominated. It was a great year for docs, though, and here’s proof. 

Best Animated Film

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

I Lost My Body

Klaus

Missing Link

Toy Story 4

Surprises

Lots. I Lost My Body might come as a surprise to a lot of people, but we thought it might crack the list. Hell, Missing Link might surprise some folks, even with the Golden Globe win. But Klaus is certainly a film that few expected to see named on this list. What did we expect? Frozen 2, although if we’re honest, we’re pleased as punch to see this list. (As long as TS4 wins.)

Best International Feature Film

Corpus Cristi

Honeyland

Les Miserables

Pain and Glory

Parasite

Surprises

Great to see the  brilliant Honeyland draw noms in both International Picture and Documentary, but where the hell is Portrait of a Lady on Fire?

Best Cinematography

The Irishman

Joker

The Lighthouse

1917

Once Upon a time in Hollywood

Surprises

All deserving. We are just grateful they recognized the glorious cinematography in The Lighthouse.

Best Score

Joker

Little Women

Marriage story

1917

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Surprises

No Us? We’d put Michael Abels score in Skywalker’s place, but the rest sound fine to us.

Best Original Song

“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away” (Toy Story 4) — Randy Newman    “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” (Rocketman) — Elton John & Bernie Taupin “I’m Standing With You” (Breakthrough) — Diane Warren                   “Into the Unknown” (Frozen 2) — Robert Lopez & Kristen Anderson-Lopez “Stand Up” (Harriet) — Joshuah Brian Campbell & Cynthia Erivo

Surprises                                                                                                                                               “Glasgow” from Wild Rose would have been a nice inclusion, but everyone here is battling for second place after Rocketman.

The 92 annual Academy Awards will be held February 9th, and aired live on ABC.

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Fright Club: Time Loop Horror

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Ever feel like you’ve been here before? This week we celebrate that spooky feeling with some of the best horror movies to take advantage of time loop nuttiness.

5. Haunter (2013)

Nicolas Vincenzo (Cube) starts off with the standard Groundhog Day premise—surly teen Lisa (Abigail Breslin) wakes up to the walkie talkie sound of her brother playing hidden treasure with an imaginary friend. It’s not Sonny & Cher, but it’s not that far off.

But Vincenzo (working from Brian King’s screenplay) starts bending the time loop structure, blending it with a more recognizable horror trope and subverting expectations. Breslin delivers a solid performance, and Pontypool’s Stephan McHattie’s outstanding as the devilish Pale Man. Plus, excellent support work from Siouxsie Sioux’s big face on Lisa’s tee shirt!

The film does kind of collapse on itself by the third act as it gets all Frequency (or Lake House or Don’t Let Go) on us, but for a good chunk of time Haunter delivers.

4. Happy Death Day (2017)

Tree (Jessica Rothe) wakes up on her birthday in some rando’s dorm room with no memory of the night before, a raging hangover and an attitude. She’s murdered that night by a knife-wielding marauder in a plastic baby mask, only to wake up back in that same dorm room under that same They Live poster.

It doesn’t take too many déjà vu mornings before Tree decides there is a mystery to solve here and just like that, we’re off in Phil Connors territory: reliving the same day again and again gives you the chance to become a better person, right?

Director Christopher Landon (Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse) wisely mines Scott Lobdell’s screenplay for laughs. Rothe boasts strong comic timing and a gift for physical comedy, a skill that transitions nicely to the demands of being repeatedly victimized by a slasher.

3. The Endless (2017)

There is something very clever about the way Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead’s movies sneak up on you. Always creepy, still they defy genre expectations even as they play with them.

Camp Arcadia offers the rustic backdrop for their latest, The Endless. A clever bit of SciFi misdirection, the film follows two brothers as they return to the cult they’d escaped a decade earlier.

It is this story and the pair’s storytelling skill that continues to impress. Their looping timelines provide fertile ground for clever turns that fans of the filmmakers will find delightful, but the uninitiated will appreciate as well.

2. Timecrimes (2007)

This one is nutty, and absolutely required viewing for anyone with an interest in space/time continuum conundrums.

Writer/director/co-star Nacho Vigalondo (Colossal) mocks our desire for control and our fear of the doppelganger with a very quick and dirty trip through time. So much can go wrong when you travel just one hour backward. The less you know going in, the better.

An always clever experiment in science fiction, horror and irony, Timecrimes is a spare, unique and wild ride.

1. Resolution (2012)

Not exactly a traditional time loop horror, Resolution plays with the concept of time in ways that are baffling and eerie.

Michael (Chris Cilella) is lured to a remote cabin, hoping to save his friend Chris (Vinny Curan) from himself. Chris will detox whether he wants to or not, then Michael will wash his hands of this situation and start again with his wife and unborn baby.

But Michael is in for more than he bargained, and not only because Chris has no interest in detoxing. Directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson (working from Benson’s screenplay) begin with a fascinating and bizarre group of characters and a solid story, layering on bizarre notions of time, horror and storytelling in ways that are simultaneously familiar and wildly unique. The result is funny, tense, and terrifying.

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Indirect Message

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1917

by George Wolf

War. Maybe you’ve heard of it lately.

Taking inspiration from the past, director Sam Mendes has crafted an immaculate exercise in technical wonder, passionate vision and suddenly vital reminders.

The inherent gamble in crafting a film via one extended take – or the illusion of it – lies in the final cut existing as little more than a gimmick, spurring a ‘spot the edit’ challenge that eclipses the narrative.

1917 clears that hurdle in the first five minutes.

It is WWI, and British Corporals Blake and Schofield (Dean Charles-Chapman and George MacKay, both wonderful) are standing before their General (Colin Firth) amid the highest of stakes. Allied intelligence has revealed an imminent offensive will lead straight into a German ambush, and the corporals’ success at traveling deep into enemy territory to deliver the order to abort is all that will keep thousands of soldiers – including Blake’s own brother – from certain death.

Mendes dedicates the film to the stories told by his grandfather, and it stands thick with the humanity of bravery and sacrifice that ultimately prevailed through the most hellish of circumstances.

Blake and Schofield head out alone, enveloped by ballet-worthy camerawork and pristine cinematography (Roger Deakins, natch) that never blinks. The opportunities for edits may be evident at times, but the narrative experience is so immersive you’ll hardly care. We’re not merely following along on this mission, we’re part of every heart-stopping minute.

Anyone who’s seen the actual WW1 footage from Peter Jackson’s recent doc They Shall Not Grow Old (an irresistible bookend to 1917) will recognize a certain sanitation to the production design, but the trade-off is a fresh majesty for familiar themes, one that’s consistently grounded in stark intimacy. Mendes and Deakins (buoyed by a subtly evocative score from Thomas Newman) brush away any dangers of “first-person shooter” novelty with a near miraculous level of precise execution that succeeds in raising several bars.

1917 is absolutely one of the best films of the year, but it’s more. It’s an unforgettable and exhausting trip, immediately joining the ranks of the finest war movies ever made.

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I Don’t Want to Go Out—Week of January 6

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Got some stuff this week – good week to avoid the chill, pull out that ratty old throw and stay on the couch, especially if you like to watch white guys descend into madness. If you do, this is your week, brother.

Click the film title to link to the full review.

Joker

The Lighthouse (DVD)

Girl on the Third Floor (DVD)

Paradise Hills (DVD)

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Trying Not to Hold One

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The Grudge

by Hope Madden

Any time a film is remade, you have to ask why. Not to be cynical, but because it’s a legitimate query. Is there a compelling reason to watch this new one?

Nicolas Pesce hopes there’s reason to watch his retooling of The Grudge.

The Grudge began in 2000 with Takashi Shimizu’s Japanese horror Ju-on, which spawned three Japanese sequels and now four English language reworkings, two of which Shimizu directed himself. His 2004 version starring Sarah Michelle Geller became a tentpole of our J-horror obsession of the early 2000s.

Pesce, working with co-writer Jeff Buhler (The Midnight Meat Train—that was your first problem), pulls story ideas from across the full spate of Ju-on properties and braids them into a time-hopping horror.

Is there room for hope? There is, because Pesce landed on horror fanatics’ radars in 2016 with his incandescent feature debut, The Eyes of My Mother.  He followed this inspired piece of American gothic in 2018 with a stranger, less satisfying but utterly compelling bit of weirdness, Piercing.

And then there’s this cast: Andrea Riseborough, John Cho, Lin Shaye, Betty Gilpin, Jacki Weaver, Frankie Faison, Damian Bichir—all solid talents. You just wouldn’t necessarily know it from this movie.

Pesce’s basically created an anthology package—four stories held together by a family of especially unpleasant ghosts. But that one sentence contains two of the film’s biggest problems.

Let’s start with the ghosts. Shimizu’s haunters—Takako Fuji and Yuya Ozeki—were sweet-faced, fragile and innocent seeming. The perversion of that delicacy is one of the many reasons Shimizu’s films left such a memorable mark. Pesce’s substitute family loses that deceptive, macabre innocence.

The way the film jumps from story to story and back again undermines any tension being built, and each story is so brief and so dependent on short-hand character development (cigarettes, rosaries, ultrasounds) that you don’t care what happens to anyone.

Jacki Weaver, who seems to be in a comedy, is wildly miscast. Go-to horror regular Shaye has the only memorable scenes in the film. Riseborough, who is a chameleonic talent capable of better things, delivers a listless performance that can’t possibly shoulder so much of the film’s weight.

Jump scares are telegraphed, CGI and practical effects are unimpressive, editing is uninspired and, worst of all, the sound design lacks any of that goosebump-inducing inspiration Shimizu used to such great effect.

So, no. There was no reason to remake The Grudge.