Tag Archives: Eddie Redmayne

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Dead Horses and Where to Find Them

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Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

by Hope Madden

After much delay, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore comes to big screens this weekend. The film is the needless third installment in a 5-part series based on a single 2001 guidebook that walked readers through the various magical animals of the Harry Potter universe. The guidebook’s “author” is Newt Scamander, and Harry Potter has jotted notes throughout it.

That’s it. No narrative, no characters, really. It’s like a little, pretend textbook from Hogwarts.

The book was a semi-adorable cash grab — one additional little scrap to throw the hungry Harry-heads at the height of Pottermania — meant to raise money for charity. And now it’s a planned 5-part series, each installment thus far clocking in at well over two hours.

Oof.

The new adventure catches up with Newt (Eddie Redmayne) assembling a ragtag band of witches, wizards and muggles to help mentor Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) fight the dark magic of Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen).

Grindelwald hates muggles (non-magical losers like us) and wants a war. He’ll deceive, bully, appeal to baser instincts, and when it comes down to it, cheat the election to take over the wizarding world.

It’s a good guys v bad guys tale with loads of Trumpian nods (keep an eye on that newspaper), but that feels hollow given creator/co-writer J.K. Rowling’s history of bullying vulnerable populations. A main role for the recently shameful Ezra Miller (who plays forlorn baddie Credence Barebone) doesn’t help those optics, either.

As superficial spin goes, though, it is nice to have Mikkelsen on board. He replaces Johnny Depp (easily the best thing about the previous installment) as the film’s villain. Where Depp embraced the magical elements and leaned into camp, Mikkelsen is all elegant, understated menace.

The cast boasts a lot of solid, wasted talent. Law continues to charm as the unflappable Dumbledore, Redmayne’s quirk tests patience, Dan Fogler’s a bright spot.

Director David Yates — who directed four HP movies as well as the previous two installments in this franchise — struggles this go-round to even conjure much visual panache to distract from the bloated, overpopulated and underdeveloped script.

Rowling co-writes for the screen again with Steve Kloves, her scripting partner for every Potter and Fantastic Beasts installment. The Potter films often suffered from unimaginative adaptation, which could be chalked up to the writers’ tough time pruning the source material.

No idea what’s to blame here, but these movies are not getting any better.

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The Whole World Is Watching

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The Trial of the Chicago 7

by Hope Madden

Oscar winning, much beloved and frequently frustrating writer Aaron Sorkin first ducked behind the camera for the clever if overwritten 2017 indulgence Molly’s Game.

A courtroom drama (very Sorkin) about celebrity tabloid fodder (less Sorkin-like), the film seemed an odd match for the filmmaker. He’s found a much more comfortable focus in his follow up, the tale of eight defendants, their counsel, prosecution, and a corrupt establishment: The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Chicago 7 artfully and urgently recreates the scene of the federal court hearing against eight defendants alleged to have conspired to incite the infamous riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The film rings with historical significance as well as disheartening immediacy. It is another courtroom drama, this one benefitting from surprising restraint, as well as Sorkin’s deep well of passion for the subjects of legal processes and liberalism. Like Ave DuVernay’s 2014 masterpiece Selma, Sorkin’s new film details the past to show us the present.

He’s assembled a remarkable ensemble, each actor leaving an impression though none gets an abundance of screen time. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is a blistering Bobby Seale while Frank Langella is infuriatingly believable as Judge Julius Hoffman. Eddie Redmayne, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Mark Rylance are all also excellent, as you might expect.

Jeremy Strong and Sacha Baron Cohen share a comfortable, enjoyable chemistry as Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, respectively. Both appear in the film, as they did in life, as the wise-cracking comic relief in the room, but Cohen’s turn is thoughtful, wise, and slightly tragic. He’s obviously a talent, but this may be the first time we’ve seen the magnitude of his acting prowess.

An alarmingly relevant look at the power of due process, free speech, and justice, Chicago 7 is catapulted by more than the self-righteousness that sometimes weights down Sorkin’s writing. This is outrage, even anger, as well as an urgent optimism about the possibilities in human nature and democracy.

If I may quote my own review of Molly’s Game and my take on Sorkin as a filmmaker:

His are dialogue-driven character pieces where brilliant people throw intellectual and moral challenges at one another while the audience wonders whether the damaged protagonist’s moral compass can still find true north.

Still the case. But with Chicago 7, Sorkin’s struck a balance. He’s found a story and convened a cast that demand and receive his very best, because The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a story about today, this minute.

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High Tension

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The Aeronauts

by George Wolf

Director Tom Harper wastes little time in taking The Aeronauts into the wild blue, but I’m not complaining. Once we’re up there, I didn’t want to come down, no matter how many knots my stomach was twisting into.

Based on some of the true-life events outlined in Richard Holmes’ book Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air, screenwriter Jack Thorne imagines how a spunky daredevil balloon pilot heroine might have helped pioneering London meteorologist James Glaisher break the world altitude record in 1862.

Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne crafts Glaisher as a politely determined man out to prove to his shirt-stuffed, muttoned-chopped colleagues that it just might be possible to predict the weather.

What Glaisher needed was to take temperature and humidity readings at the highest level of the atmosphere. If he failed, the ribbings from the boys at the Royal Society would be fierce. But if he prevailed, he would take the first step toward scaring the shit out of your mom on the 6 o’clock news.

And yeah, also make a huge scientific advancement.

While history remembers Glaisher’s partner was actually balloonist Henry Coxwell (hello, ladies), for these narrative purposes it is defiant aeronaut Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones). She’s haunted by a tragic memory from the past, but won’t let that – or the usual boys club baffoonery – deny her destiny as a “creature of the sky.”

I take no issue with the liberties taken. This isn’t a documentary, Jones is an Oscar nominee who shares a sweet brother/sisterly chemistry with Redmayne, and her character adds a welcome layer of mischief to a backstory that badly needs it.

Most importantly, as the focus quickly settles on two people in a balloon gondola, Amelia brings a sharp contrast to James that just makes the ride more fun and – thanks to the breathless visual gymnastics – sometimes downright terrifying.

Seriously, this film should come with a trigger warning for acrophobics, because Harper (Wild Rose, TV’s Peaky Blinders) and cinematographer George Steel unveil some truly awe-inspiring, anxiety-inducing set pieces begging for IMAX, or 70mm, whatever you can find.

The Aeronauts may give gentle reminders about the importance of science, but it pounds a visual fist in defense of the big screen. The film’s ultimate calling card is not the story but the ride (in real time, no less!), and a smaller canvas just will not do it justice.

Strap in tight, and enjoy the thrill.

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Cheap Tricks

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Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindewald

by Hope Madden

People really miss Harry Potter.

Maybe they miss the romantic notion of outsiders among outsiders, or the oh-so-earnest world of good versus evil. J.K. Rowling enchanted a generation with a densely populated world of magic and mayhem and an awful lot of people long to go back. So many, in fact, that they will mostly settle for the sloppy bastard Fantastic Beast series.

It is still Rowling’s words, after all—the author pens the screenplays, inviting us back into that wizarding world, albeit about a generation or two earlier.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindewald picks up six months after its blandly likeable predecessor, 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Odd duck Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is banned from international travel by the Ministry of Magic. Grindewald (Johnny Depp) is in prison. Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller)—who conveniently survived what was clearly his death in the previous effort—wants to know who he is and where he belongs.

The second installment opens well, offering more vitality, thrill and sinister mayhem than you’ll find in its predecessor’s full 133 minutes.

Redmayne is as adorable as last time. Depp brings something seductively sinister to the role. And Rowling’s clear distaste for leaders who bang the drum for racial supremacy and fear mongering is both understandable and nicely executed.

David Yates returns to direct his sixth Potter-verse flick. He finds opportunities for the visual flourish that was the only true strength of the first Fantastic Beasts film, but manages far stronger narrative momentum this time around.

All of which really only leads to the frustration of realizing at the 134-minute mark that this film doesn’t end. In fact, the last scene is basically the beginning of the movie. The 130- minutes previous basically amounts to exposition that sets up the next film.

Which is funny, since the previous entire film amounts to little more than a preface to an actual narrative.

Characters are quirky, wardrobe is glorious, Ezra Miller broods well—all of which is a lot of what we’ve already seen. What Grindewald doesn’t offer is anything new, or any reason to care.





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Soccer Buddies

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Early Man

by Hope Madden

There is something adorably British about Nick Parks’s latest plasticine adventure, Early Man.

No I am not being condescending. It’s animated. It’s supposed to be adorable.

This Aardman export—the Brit animation studio responsible for the Wallace & Gromit classics, among others—pits dunder-headed but lovable cave dwellers against greedy Bronze Age Euro-trash as it spoofs sports flicks.

We open at the dawn of time, when dinosaurs and cave men and giant, toothy mallards roamed the earth outside Manchester, England. Around lunchtime.

It’s silly. And sweet. And basically a 90-minute mash note to Manchester United.

When those posh bullies from the Bronze Age (led by Tom Hiddleston’s Lord Nooth) push Dug (Eddie Redmayne) and his nincompoopy cavemen friends out of their fertile valley, Dug devises a challenge to regain his beloved home.

Like all great sports films, Early Man pushes the underdog narrative to epitomize more than simple foot-to-ball competition. Plus, you really do want these earnest faces, overbites and all, to learn to believe in themselves.

And why can’t a pig play soccer?

Dug’s quick trip into town square offers opportunities for the Aardman Easter eggs—be sure to scan the vendor booths for hilarious names. With voice talent to spare (Timothy Spall and Rob Brydon are among those with smaller roles), you’re assured the intentionally silly jokes are delivered expertly.

The problem is that Early Man would have made for a really hilarious short.

The story doesn’t benefit from a 90-minute stretch. The setting—mainly an imposing landscape littered with enormous rib bones—doesn’t offer enough opportunity for visual distraction and the characters are not memorable enough to keep your attention for the full run time.

Expect much of the familiar: googly eyes, enormous teeth, simple characters and kind-hearted laughter. CGI mixes with the stop-action to rob the film of some character, but Early Man has charm to spare.





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Great Dane

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The Danish Girl

by Hope Madden

Tom Hooper is a proven director. He followed an Oscar for The King’s Speech with an impeccable reimagining – perfectly theatrical and cinematic – of Les Miserables. He now turns his attention to the true life tale of what is likely the world’s first transgender surgery.

The Danish Girl is the gorgeously appointed, elegantly acted portrait of artist Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne – proving himself a chameleon of the same caliber as Tom Hardy or Tilda Swinton). His wife Gerda (a remarkable Alicia Vikander), an artist of less fame, needs a favor: her model has cancelled.

What begins as a favor – some silk stockings and fancy shoes – turns into a game for Gerda, but something else entirely for Einar.

The film works best as a study of marriage in turmoil, as Gerda’s riot of conflicting emotions is beautifully articulated by Vikander. Hers is an authentically tumultuous, tender and human performance.

Redmayne – Oscar winner for last year’s The Theory of Everything – is a fierce and nimble talent, no question. His graceful turn here is filled with vulnerability and longing. But The Danish Girl – and Redmayne’s performance, in particular – may be too restrained, too dignified for its own good.

Vikander’s character is fascinating from the beginning, and her fiery yet tender performance drives the film. But that’s kind of the problem. It’s Lili, the woman Einar is determined to become, that we should care for more, learn more about. The Danish Girl should be her story, but it really isn’t.

The fault is hardly Redmayne’s. He evolves slowly from a passionate if delicate husband to an even more delicate yet burgeoning woman, but he never invites us into Lili’s head. She’s an enigma.

The film never truly belongs to Gerda’s story, either, and the lack of true focus leaves the lovely film feeling superficial.

The story itself is astonishing, bordering on unbelievable. Lili Elbe was pioneering and tragic, fragile but fearless in a time when her journey was utterly unimaginable. The Danish Girl has a lot to offer, but it needed quite a bit more of Lili’s spirit if it was to leave a lasting impression.

Verdict-3-5-Stars





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Patience Waning

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Jupiter Ascending

by George Wolf

Didn’t we see the first trailer for Jupiter Ascending sometime around 1998?

It seems like quite a long journey toward an opening weekend, and the film is such a ridiculous mess, you wonder why they just didn’t get it over with and take their lumps long before now. There’s only so much you can fix in post-production.

Writers/directors Andy and Lana Wachowski, creators of The Matrix trilogy, again focus on an alternate reality that Earthy humans can’t even fathom.. Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) gets hip to the news pretty fast, when the swashbuckling Caine (Channing Tatum) swoops in on his gravity boots and saves her from alien assassins who’ve been posing as fertility clinicians.

Sneaky.

Jupiter has been marked for death by the evil galactic ruler Balem (Eddie Redmayne), because she’s the only thing standing in the way of his long-standing plan to “harvest” Earth and everyone on it. It seems that Jupiter is first in line to inherit her planet, a fact even she can’t doubt when a swarm of bees seems to fall under her command. Jupiter is told “bees are genetically designed to recognize royalty,” and that she is, in, fact, a Queen.

Your move, Beyoncé!

The Wachowski’s intent seems to be a modern-day Star Wars, but they focus too much on the visuals while their big yarn becomes a bigger yawn. Impressive starships, sparkling costumes and an array of other-worldly creatures can’t hide the sophomoric storytelling at work here. The convoluted plot is thrown at us in hyper speed, as if pages of script were tossed aside to make room for the next battle sequence.

Kunis and Tatum bring one-note performances to their one-note roles, but Redmayne’s effort backfires badly. Though he’s proven himself a gifted actor, here he’s pushed to laughable levels of “bad guy” theatrics. Seriously, people will laugh.

Of course, Redmayne may get the last one with a best actor Oscar in just a few weeks, and Jupiter Ascending will quickly settle into the role it has earned: a bad memory.

 

Verdict-1-5-Stars

 





Fright Club

Skeletons in the Closet: Oscar Edition

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There’s nothing more fun come Oscar season than to dig around celebrity closets to find the long lost horror output of the year’s nominees. Of course we all remember Michael Keaton’s unfortunate late-career genre work in White Noise, while Reese Witherspoon starred years ago in the glorious American Psycho. You may not know that the always magnificent Eddie Redmayne starred as a conflicted friar in the low budget effort Black Death. But we don’t mean to pick recent scabs, and our point is not to applaud excellent early careers in horror. So instead, we thought it would be more fun to look at four gems of a different color. Oscar nominees Mark Ruffalo, Laura Dern, Patricia Arquette and Bradley Cooper star in this month’s Skeletons in the Closet: Oscar Edition.

The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
Photographer Leon (Bradley Cooper) comes to believe he is snapping evidence of a serial killer – a meticulously groomed butcher who emerges from the subway in the wee hours every morning carrying a suspicious bag. Written by Clive Barker (Hellraiser), the film is meant to implicate the viewer. It opens on all out slaughter, followed quickly by an image of Cooper, the lens of his camera pointed directly at you, the viewer. Why are we watching? Why is he watching? What does he find so fascinating about the festering underbelly of the city that he chooses to watch no matter how ugly. Why do we keep watching this film, even after Ted Raimi’s eyeball bursts out at us? It’s a bloody, foul mess, this one, but somehow not terribly tense and rarely if ever scary. Cooper overacts, and while the premise shows promise, the conclusion doesn’t satisfy.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Patricia Arquette – a working actress with her first Oscar nomination, which only means that the Academy turned a blind eye to her awesome turn as Alabama Worley – got her start in 1987’s third Nightmare on Elm Street installment: Dream Warriors. Of course, Johnny Depp got his start in Wes Craven’s original nightmare, but by the franchise’s third episode both budget and inspiration were running short. Arquette plays a patient in a sleep clinic. Screechy Nancy (the epically untalented Heather Langenkamp – sole survivor of the original) is now an adult and a psychiatrist working with patients to take control in their dreams and kill Freddy. Arquette plays Kristin, lead dream warrior. Aside from being known as Arquette’s feature film debut, this is also the episode where we learn that Freddy is the bastard son of hundred maniacs. Sets are pretty ludicrous, we don’t get nearly enough Freddy, but Langenkamp’s wondrously wooden performance makes everyone else look talented by comparison.

The Dentist (1996)

Oh, we’ve celebrated the ridiculous glory of The Dentist previously, but given Mark Ruffalo’s Oscar nom, it deserves just another quick mention. The film follows a psychotic dentist (Corbin Bernsen) who goes off the deep end after his wife gets dirty with the pool boy. Director Brian Yuzna’s film misses every opportunity to capitalize on the discomfort of the dentist’s chair, and the film’s puffy hair and pastel sweaters suggests that it’s ten years older than it is. The sole reason to sit through this is the small, supporting turn from Ruffalo as the boyfriend/agent of one of the not-so-good doctor’s patients. God bless him, even in a film this bad, Ruffalo can act.

Grizzly II: The Concert (1987)

Here’s the crowning jewel for nearly any Skeletons in the Closet feature. It features not just a current nominee, but one past winner and ever-the-winner Charlie Sheen. It’s hard to come by and even harder to watch. The sequel to William Girdler’s 1796 forest-astrophe Grizzly was filmed in 1983 and never completed, but sort of, kind of released anyway in 1987. Every death scene ends just before the death itself, because the bear side of the struggle was never shot. So, we get a lot of bear’s eye view of the victim, but never a look at the bear side of the sequence. It’s surreal, almost.

Sandwiched somewhere between the non-death sequences is a never ending faux-eighties synth pop concert. The concert footage is interminably long, nonsensical enough to cause an aneurism, and awful enough to make you grateful for the aneurism. You will lose your will to live. So, why bother? Because this invisible grizzly puppet kills Charlie Sheen, Oscar nominee Laura Dern, and George Clooney. (Dern and Clooney are making out at the time, which actually probably happened).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG0dfhbyXBQ

Check out our Fright Club podcast on the subject of Skeletons in the Closet and join us the 4th Saturday of every months for Fright Club live at the Drexel Theater in Bexley, OH.





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He Blinded Her with Science

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The Theory of Everything

by Hope Madden

If there is one thing that The Theory of Everything should convince you to do, it is this: Get to know Eddie Redmayne.

He is a magnificent, chameleonic actor who has found a way to bring humanity to roles as varied as that of a matricidal son, a suicidal homosexual teen, a socially awkward hick, a deeply conflicted witch hunter, and a love-struck baritone in post-revolution France. And now he will finally be known – and likely Oscar nominated – for his subtle, authentic and moving portrait of Stephen Hawking.

Redmayne is the reason to see this film. It’s a remarkable performance at the heart of a decent but not exceptional film.

Based on Jane Hawking’s second memoir, the film begins as a young doctoral student falls for a medeival poetry major and, despite the death sentence of a medical diagnosis, marries. While Anthony McCarten’s adaptation retains the struggles and failings in the marriage, director James Marsh can’t find the passion or urgency the story needs.

The problem is certainly not his cast. Alongside Redmayne, Felicity Jones offers a tender, thoughtful performance, and the supporting players turn in solid work as well. But their relationships, passions and drama are all kept too tidy and too subdued.

Marsh, whose previous films – documentaries, in particular – have proven to be honest, impish and fascinating – can’t seem to find his footing. Where his approach in previous work has always felt fresh, here he makes safe choices at every turn. Aside from an odd, fish-eye close up here and there, nothing about his telling of this extraordinary life ever feels daring.

The science itself is minimized to the point of near nonexistence, making the only examined aspects of the Hawkings’ story that of her love and his physical disability. And even that feels slight.

It’s a gorgeous film to watch, with lush but muted colors, manicured lawns and relentlessly clean sidewalks, hallways and college students. Marsh’s framing is always truly lovely. And Jones and Redmayne exhibit a deep connection that allows their characters’ struggles to feel poignantly real.

There is much to applaud in The Theory of Everything, but there should have been more.

Verdict-3-5-Stars