What if the next Avengers movie was a laugh riot? A full-blown comedy—would you be OK with that?
The answer to that question has serious implications for your appreciation of Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok.
You’re familiar with Thor, his brother, his buddies, his hair. But how well do you know Waititi? Because he’s made a handful of really great movies you should see, chief among them What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Waititi’s films are charming and funny in that particularly New Zealand way, which is to say equal parts droll and silly. So a total goofus has made our latest superhero movie, is what I’m trying to tell you, and you’ll need to really embrace that to appreciate this film, because Thor: Ragnarok makes the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise seem dour and stiff.
There’s a real Thor movie in here somewhere. Thor (Chris Hemsworth and his abs) learns of his older sister Hela (Cate Blanchett—hela good casting!). Sure, Thor’s the God of Thunder, but Hela’s the Goddess of Death, so her return is not so welcome. But daaayumn, Cate Blanchett makes a kick-ass Goth chick.
Indeed, the film is lousy with female badasses. Tessa Thompson (Dear White People, Creed) proves her status by taking all comers, Thor and Hulk among them.
But can you get behind the idea of Hulk and dialog? Because he has dialog in this movie. Like whole conversations. Dude, I don’t know about that.
Loki (Tom Hiddleston) returns, as does Idris Elba, so this is one bona fide handsome movie. Mark Ruffalo makes an appearance in a vintage Duran Duran tee shirt. It’s like Waititi thought to himself, how many of Hope’s crushes can we squeeze into one film?
One more! Jeff Goldblum (don’t judge me) joins as a charming and hysterical world leader. His banter with his second in command (Rachel House—so hilarious in Wilderpeople) is priceless.
Also very funny, Karl Urban (who brings a nice slap of comic timing to every bloated franchise he joins), Waititi himself (playing a creature made of rocks), and one outstanding cameo I won’t spoil.
Thor: Ragnarock lifts self-parody to goofy heights, and maybe that’s OK. There’s no question the film entertains. Does it add much to the canon? Well, let’s be honest, the Thor stand-alones are not the strongest in the Marvel universe.
You will laugh. You’ll want to hug this movie, it’s so adorable.
Unless you’re totally pissed about the whole thing, which is entirely possible.
Imagine the most fun you’ve ever had in your life. Then prepare to watch a dude who is having 100 times more fun Every. Single. Day. That’s Laird Hamilton, pro surfer and quite possibly the luckiest guy alive.
The documentary Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton details the life of the 53-year-old adrenaline addict who, though disdainful of participating in any one-on-one competition with mere mortals, affords an ocean-front, surfing day everyday lifestyle by falling into modeling gigs with Vogue, landing roles in some bodacious surf movies, and nabbing sponsorships from choice beachwear companies.
Nice work if you can get it. (Especially if you refuse to lower yourself to auditions.)
As the movie starts, you are introduced to an aging Poseidon who trains aggressively to combat the injuries sustained in a lifetime of wipe-outs: arthritis in the hip, a fused arch in one foot, numerous shoulder injuries, and an ankle that has been crushed seven separate times. His goal is to ride a foilboard on the biggest waves of his life.
The foilboard is something Hamilton pioneered—a surfboard that hovers several feet above the water, suspended via a strut using hydrofoil technology developed by America’s Cup engineers.
But this isn’t the only novelty that Hamilton’s been into over the years. Over the course of the documentary you get to watch the glint in his eye as Laird recounts how he big-dogged his way through the line-up at some of Hawaii’s top big wave surf spots, figured out how to use industrial strength Velcro to strap himself to his surfboard (allowing for X Game-style tricks), adopted the sport of windsurfing in its infancy, and co-invented tow-in surfing. (You know, when a jet ski tows you improbably far out so you can surf a 40 to 50 foot wave that’s located directly in front of a cliff face.)
You also see the envious and sometimes irritated faces of Laird’s friends and family as they recount his sometimes douchey exploits and marvel at the fact that his body is still basically intact while some of his contemporaries sport gnarly scars and spin yarns about the times they were playing with him and almost died.
Via a mix of vintage footage, interviews, and camerawork worthy of the cover of National Geographic, Take Every Wave provides an epic escape into the radical world of an almost uncomfortably handsome and fortunate top athlete.
It’s a fitting tribute to the range of Harry Dean Stanton that his career could’ve ended with just about any role and you could decently argue, “Well, that makes sense.” But to give us Lucky at the end of a decades-long career is nothing short of one last cosmic joke at the non-religious character’s expense: God not only exists, but is a huge Harry Dean Stanton fan.
Lucky is the debut feature from John Carroll Lynch, who is, like Stanton, a gifted character actor probably used to being called “ohhh that guy!” And with Lucky (written by Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja), the collaboration between Lynch and Stanton is pitch-perfect.
As Lucky, Stanton carries more weight than his brittle frame should bear. Lucky is a 90-year-old World War II veteran who has seemingly outlived everything save death. A minor fall and a visit with the town doctor (Ed Begley Jr.) prods the tequila-drinking, cigarette-smoking atheist Lucky to maybe, finally, reflect on his mortality, which he does begrudgingly through a series of interactions with local friends and strangers.
With little more than a light of his cigarette or a hoarse whisper of “bullshit,” Lucky makes it clear that he hasn’t the time or interest in what comfort God or religion has to offer in a world of horrors and loss. Yet the film is deeply—reverently—spiritual.
Lucky is the spiritual heir of Max von Sydow’s knight from The Seventh Seal, if he got to live out his days through the funhouse of America. The oppressive Lutheranism of Ingmar Bergman has been replaced by a more searching acceptance—and both films uncomfortably force us to make our own peace with the time we have.
If Lucky doesn’t waver in his beliefs, he can still realize a sort of spiritual enlightenment. You get the sense, with his age and relative good health, that Lucky is more afraid of being immune to destiny than of dying, and how can anyone find meaning in that?
Thankfully, the film gives Lucky perfectly cast sounding boards to figure it out by way of the supporting characters, especially a show-stealing turn from David Lynch as a man in mourning for his lost tortoise, President Roosevelt. (That this doesn’t crack the top five strangest moments in the history of David Lynch/Harry Dean Stanton collaborations is saying something.)
John Carroll Lynch chooses to leave us with something hovering between resolution and reservation, as if Lucky is one long Zen koan. But knowing how things end doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to discover. Watching Stanton in any performance is to see flashes of some elusive truth buried within his characters. Watching him as Lucky is an untouchable capstone.
American Sniper screenwriter Jason Hall moves behind the camera for his thematically similar big screen adaptation, Thank You for Your Service.
Where the Clint Eastwood-helmed Sniper dealt in large part with its hero’s bumpy re-acclimation to civilian life, Thank You deals almost exclusively with veterans’ troubles on the homefront.
Miles Teller is Adam Schumann, returning permanently to his wife and two small children after his third tour in Iraq. He’s joined by buddies and platoon-mates Solo (Beulah Koale) and Will (Joe Cole).
Too earnest for its own good, Thank You for Your Service shadows these three servicemen as the responsibility for and repercussions from their actions overseas haunt their post-war lives.
This is a film about PTSD, but more than that, it’s about a country both ill-equipped to serve those who served, and often disinterested in trying.
Hall’s storytelling can’t rise above cliché, but he manages to tell his painfully heartfelt tale without cloying manipulation or judgment. Though Thank You buzzes with impotent rage—that of the filmmaker as well as that of the protagonists—it never feels preachy or even pessimistic. Hall articulates these veterans’ helplessness and frustration in a way that is genuinely rare in our current glut of flag-waving dramas, big screen and small.
Teller, always strong when playing a likable goof who’s just hanging on, is in his comfort zone as the soldier with the best chance to make it. He and Haley Bennett, playing Schumann’s wife Saskia, share believable, well-worn chemistry and there are moments between them when Hall’s gift for naturalistic writing shines.
At other times, the dialog forces too much explanation at the audience, as if Hall doesn’t trust us to understand the extent of the problems plaguing our veterans. A newcomer to directing, Hall’s unsteady craftsmanship can’t overcome that weakness in the same way that Eastwood was able to.
This is a tough film to criticize, though. Hall and crew do get an awful lot right, and the film surprises with periodic bits of gallows humor, selfishness and other glimpses at human frailty that make the film feel far more authentic than Sniper or most any other veteran-themed film.
The flaws can’t go unseen, though, and Hall either needed a better writer or a director who could take some of the obviousness of this screenplay and find a fresher way to approach it.
Heathers meets Scream in the savvy horror comedy that mines social media culture to truly entertaining effect, Tragedy Girls.
Sadie (Brianna Hildebrand) and McKayla (Alexandra Shipp) are looking for more followers to improve their brand, and they have been doing a lot of research to make their content more compelling. The Tragedy Girls plumb their small Ohio town’s surprising death toll with more insight than the local police seem to have. Where do they get their knowledge?
Provocative.
Tyler MacIntyre directs a screenplay he co-wrote with Chris Lee Hill and Justin Olson. The trio wade into the horror of a social media generation with more success than anything we’ve seen to date. A great deal of their success has to do with casting.
Hildebrand and Shipp (both X-Men; Hildebrand was the moody Negasonic in Deadpool while Shipp plays young Storm in the franchise proper) nail their characters’ natural narcissism. Is it just the expectedly shallow, self-centeredness of the teenage years, or are they sociopaths?
Mrs. Kent (Nicky Whelan) would like to know. The spot-on teacher character offers the film’s most pointed piece of social (media) commentary when she points out the traits encouraged in a snapchat world, where shallowness and parasitic, even psychotic behavior is a plus.
The film is careful not to go overboard with its commentary, though, and the final product is the better for it. MacIntyre’s affectionate, perhaps even obsessive, horror movie nods receive at least as much of his time and attention.
The result is both mean and funny. Josh Hutcherson’s small, image-lampooning part is an absolute scream proving that MacIntyre and company have pop cultural insights to spare, and proper comedic timing to boot.
McIntrye loses his snidely meta tone briefly with a lengthy sidetrack focusing on Craig Robinson, which becomes more zany and broad than anything before it. The director can’t entirely find his footing again, as the resolution of the film gets mired a bit too much in the genre tropes.
Still, the details are priceless (she lends him a copy of Martyrs! Dig that ringtone!), the performances impress and the whole thing is a hoot.
Some great stuff rolling out for couch potatoes this week, including one of the most riveting summer blockbusters, a sequel to make you weep for our future, and proof that Kristen Stewart can act. What?!
We finally did it. We finally took a look at short compilations and horror anthologies—all sixty million of them—and found that there are many great ones. So many, in fact, that filmmaker Jeff Frumess teamed up with us so we could cover twice as many. Here are our five favorites.
5. Creepshow (1982)
Campy, gruesome and trashy like the comic books that inspired it, Creepshow benefits from two of the most impressive pedigrees in the genre world. Written for the screen by Stephen King and directed by George Romero, the grimly comedic film demands attention.
Though some of the shorts are less effective than others, the hits are strong enough to carry the effort.
Though the cake in “Father’s Day” remains maybe the movie’s most lasting image, the shorts “The Crate” and “Something to Tide You Over” offer the strongest bursts of horror.
Bridged with inspired comic book art bumpers, the film maintains a juvenile aesthetic that helps its mean spirit and humor land. It doesn’t hurt that getting to see Hal Holbrook, Leslie Nielsen, Ted Danson and Ed Harris wade into such garish and campy territory is forever fun.
4. The Signal (2007)
A transmission – a hypnotic frequency – broadcasting over TV, cell and landline telephones has driven the good folks of the city of Terminus crazy. David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry created a film in three segments, or transmissions.
Transmission 1 introduces our lover heroes as well as the chaos. Can Mya (Anessa Ramsey) and Ben (Justin Welborn) remain sane, reunite and outrun the insanity?
Transmission 2 takes a deeply, darkly funny turn as we pick up on the illogical logic of a houseful of folks believing themselves not to have “the crazy.” The final transmission brings us full circle.
The movie capitalizes on the audience’s inability to know for certain who’s OK and who’s dangerous. Here’s what we do know, thanks to The Signal: duct tape is a powerful tool, bug spray is lethal, and crazy people can sure take a beating.
3. Fear(s) of the Dark (2007)
This animated French film brings nightmares almost too beautifully to life. The film showcases a glorious variety of black and white artistic style, each animating a different short that tells a tale of phobias, bad dreams and shadowy terror.
Though the styles change, there is a shadowy fluidity to most of these pieces that feels slippery and alarming. One piece about a man who finds refuge in an abandoned house emphasizes a slow-building dread while another tale about a grim-faced man and his menacing hounds generates more vibrant bouts of terror.
The program morphs from the supernatural to the cerebral, each piece filling the screen with disturbingly gorgeous sound and image.
The film as a whole has the feel of childhood nightmares. The collection digs into anxieties in a way far more subtle and sophisticated than what you’ll find in the balance of films on this list, but the lingering effect is haunting, even disturbing.
2. Three…Extremes (2004)
Three of the most promising genre directors Asia had to offer came together in 2004 to cast a grisly spell. Two—Chan-wook Park and Takashi Miike—would blossom into two of the most respected filmmakers in the world. Miike just released his 100th film. While Park may be a bit slower with his output, he’s not made a single misstep in his filmmaking career. Everything he’s ever made is required viewing.
Fruit Chan’s career may not draw as much attention, but this piece in this anthology may be the strongest. “Dumplings” offers a savvy if distasteful piece of social commentary boasting two magnificent performances and sound design destined to disturb.
Miike’s “Box” is a serpentine riddle of sideshow freaks, ghosts, destiny and twins. Beautiful, grotesque and hypnotic, it showcases the filmmaker’s knack for visual storytelling and spell casting.
Park’s “Cut” offers a cynical and bloody look at the film industry. Though it’s the least in keeping with the filmmaker’s overall canon, as a part of the series it offers bold visuals and uneasy humor.
1. Trick or Treat (2007)
Columbus native Michael Dougherty outdid himself as writer/director of this anthology of interconnected Halloween shorts. Every brief tale compels attention with sinister storytelling, the occasional wicked bit of humor and great performances, but it’s the look of the film that sets it far above the others of its ilk.
Dougherty takes the “scary” comic approach to the film—the kind you find in Creepshow and other Tales from the Crypt types—but nothing looks as macabrely gorgeous as this movie. The lighting, the color, the costumes and the way live action bleeds into the perfectly placed and articulated moments of graphic artwork—all of it creates a giddy holiday mood that benefits the film immeasurably.
Dylan Baker (returning to the uptight and evil bastard he perfected for his fearless performance in Happiness) leads a whip-smart cast that includes impressive turns from Brian Cox, Anna Pacquin, Leslie Bibb and Brett Kelly (Thurman Merman, everybody!).
And it’s all connected with that adorable menace, Sam. Perfect.
Jump inside The Screening Room podcast with us to talk through everything you can find in cinemas this weekend and everything newly available in home entertainment. We cover Only the Brave, The Snowman, Same Kind of Different as Me, Mark Felt: The Man Who Took Down the White House, Jungle and Human Flow. Listen HERE.
The “overview effect” is a phenomenon known only to astronauts who experience a shift in consciousness when looking back at the Earth while in orbit. Edgar Mitchell, a member of the Apollo 14 mission, once described the effect as “instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it.”
Director Ai Weiwei’s attempts to recreate this profound effect with his stunning and timely documentary, Human Flow.
The film is a sprawling examination of the millions of refugees around the world and allows us to bear witness to the lives of that increasing number of displaced people. It is a film that serves to humanize those who are suffering and who are too often maligned in this unfortunate age of travel bans and Brexits.
Weiwei’s artistic eye for calming cinematography paired with the brutal theme of the film forces us to assess all that we’re witnessing over the course of two and a half hours.
We’re lured in by the harrowing beauty of the Greek coastline in winter, only to then come to terms with the situation at hand once the camera exposes the countless life preservers that litter the rocky beach. There is much to consider with this film, including the continuous ticker of information providing alarming statistics regarding this global crisis.
Human Flow does not contain itself to one specific region or group of displaced people, but rather addresses all the ongoing plights such as the Rohingya fleeing ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, those escaping famine in East Africa, and the supposed “bad hombres” crossing America’s southern border.
Ai Weiwei’s documentary is not trying to prove any point or win any argument regarding this highly politicized and misunderstood crisis. Rather, he presents a film that works in earnest to be objective through the statistics it provides and the subjects it highlights.
Human Flow is a powerful film that puts faces to the 65 million people we are quick to dismiss as nothing more than refugees, rather than see them for what they actually are: humans.
Imagine what could go wrong if one group of power hungry thugs could subvert any investigative body, discredit the press and cover their corrupt, nation-degrading tracks.
Yes, in light of pussy grabbing, Nazi accepting, wall building, election tampering, hurricane victim abandoning and countless other inconceivable abominations, Watergate seems quaint.
But maybe that’s where Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House could find its power. It could not only underscore the nearly incomprehensible severity of our current climate but also remind us that change is possible.
Liam Neeson plays Felt, the Associate Director of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover who found himself so aggrieved by the corruption overtaking the bureau after Hoover’s passing that he leaked confidential information to the press, earning himself the affectionate nickname Deep Throat.
Writer/director Peter Landesman takes on nearly 45-year-old history perhaps to draw comparisons between then and now. For the former New York Times investigative journalist, the material may have been too tempting.
Since his leap to filmmaking, Landesman’s been concerned with true-life tales, but he’s been stronger as a writer (Kill the Messenger) than a writer/director (Concussion). Here, he stumbles with both.
The script wedges in too many clunky connectors to help the audience figure out who each participant is rather than creating a set of characters. Ensemble dramas have loads of characters. Watergate has loads of characters and drama. Let it breathe.
Worse still are the soliloquies Landesman saddles onto poor Diane Lane as Felt’s wife Audrey. Lane does what she can but her overwritten monologues beg the question: why is she telling him these things? Surely her husband already knows. The answer, of course, is that she’s telling us, which is just weak writing.
On paper, Felt’s a fascinating character, as any lifer in the bureau must be. And Liam Neeson’s a fine actor. So why is it the film never plumbs any deeper than a distant stare, a grimace, an errant curse word?
Mark Felt is onscreen for maybe 4 minutes in All The President’s Men and I understood him as a character more fully than in his full 2-hours here.
What may be the most interesting idea Landesman shares is that Felt was less interested in criminal activity at the highest level than he was in the idea that the FBI would become beholden to the White House. He was busy looking beyond a single presidency to the power and necessity of an independent investigative body when everybody else was too stunned by the felon in the White House to notice.
You know what, though? I bet Nixon knew he was president of the US Virgin Islands.
