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Set a Course for Adventure

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Harpoon

by Hope Madden

There are a limited number of reasons people become and remain friends. Some of those reasons are just nonsense. And yet, three friends of dubious worth to one another gather to repeat their familiar patterns, which land them on a yacht for an apology daytrip.

Richard (Christopher Gray) —  brash, spoiled and quick to anger— is apologizing. Jonah (Munro Chambers – Turbo Kid!) —bruised and bloody—is probably too quick to forgive. Sasha (Emily Tyra) has plenty of reason to be tired of both boyfriend Richard and bestie Jonah.

The fact that Jonah and Sasha bring along Richard’s birthday gift clarifies how little anyone in this triangle has learned.

And so, Sasha, Jonah, Richard and Richard’s new harpoon set off on an unplanned, ill-advised, seafaring jaunt.

Drinks all around!

Co-writer/director Rob Grant keeps events snarky with a voice-of-God narration (assuming God’s a sailor) performed by a brilliantly deadpan Brett Gelman. As far as this nameless narrator who inexplicably sees all is concerned, the dangers facing this volatile threesome have less to do with their pathological history and more to do with the sailing omens they ignorantly flout.

Give an irrational drunk prone to fits of rage the gift of a pointy projectile weapon? Meh. But bring bananas on board—now that’s really pushing things.

The darkly silly commentary adds some tang to the friends’ foolhardy adventure, but Grant’s themes are not entirely comedic. He strands the trio at sea for days on end, their survival instincts overtaking their petty sniping as they find a new reason for friendship: the common good.

Grant offers a nice balance here between dark humor and genuine tension born of realistic performances. Chambers, Tyra and Gray offer frustratingly recognizable characters, the kind that make idiotic choices, less because it forwards the action of the script (although it does) and more because people are stupid and they fall into familiar roles.

The film makes more than a few convenient moves, but it packs a lot of surprises and showcases very solid performances.

Who knew redheads were bad luck?

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Hillbilly Elegy

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The Death of Dick Long

by Hope Madden

Director Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man) walks an amazing tight rope between hillbilly stereotype and sympathetic character study with his latest, The Death of Dick Long, a crass comedy with deeply human sensibilities.

Zeke (Michael Abbott Jr.), Earl (Andre Hyland) and Dick (Scheinert) work on some Nickelback covers for their band, Pink Freud. Band practice out at Zeke’s ends late, long after Zeke’s misses (Virginia Newcomb, excellent) and their daughter (Poppy Cunningham, also excellent) head off to bed.

The fellas get a little weird, things get out of hand and let’s just say Pink Freud won’t be touring.

Yes, we have all witnessed films situated within the world of dive bar cocktail waitresses and their paramours. Tailer parks, mullets, giant prints of tigers, they’re all here. But what makes Dick Long kind of miraculous is how generous Scheinert, writer Billy Chew and the whole cast are with these characters.

Really, generous to a degree unseen in a comedy of this sort—which is to say, the sort of comedy built entirely on the idiocy of its white trash characters.

As Scheinert slowly unearths the details of the mystery, a lesser filmmaker might wallow in inbred, backwoods, banjo pickin’ gags. Not this guy. The more unseemly the subject matter, the more bare the soul. Abbott’s inevitable vulnerability is almost alarmingly heart wrenching given the comedic tone of the film and the actual crime committed.

Likewise, Newcomb mines her character and this situation for something honest enough that you wonder what the hell you would do if you were to find yourself in this situation. Her performance has the texture of a long and comfortable relationship suddenly and irreparably busted.

Hyland’s Earl, on the other hand, is straight up hill jack comic gold, but even this performance sidesteps broad strokes and finds a recognizable, human soul.

There’s not a single performance in the film that isn’t a welcome surprise. And underneath it all, Dick Long reimagines small town masculinity, isolation and loneliness.

Daniel Scheinert follows up on the promise of the crowd favorite madness of Swiss Army Man with a crime caper of a wildly, weirdly different sort. I’m all for his brand of lunacy.

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The Shapes of Water

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Aquarela

by George Wolf

“We swam out through the trunk!”

Those are six of the very few spoken words in Aquarela, and they quickly establish the stakes in Victor Kossakovsky’s immersive documentary. His aim is to get you startlingly close to the world war between man and water.

There is power, there is beauty, there is death. And there’s some death metal, which isn’t as out of place as you might think.

In case you haven’t noticed, this is a great time to be a documentarian, and thus, a fan of documentaries. This year alone, we’ve seen technological breakthroughs make possible the wonders of Apollo 11, They Shall Not Grow Old and Amazing Grace.

Like those, Aquarela (“watercolor” in Portuguese) employs cutting-edge wizardry for an experience that begs for the biggest screen you can find.

Monstrous ocean waves build and crash, huge chunks of ice fall prey to rising global temperatures, and a hypnotic narrative emerges. Mankind has battled the shapes of water for centuries, in hopes of lessening its dangers and harnessing its power, and Kossakovsky feels it’s time to hear from the other side. The few humans who speak feel like party crashers.

Don’t expect explanations, you won’t get any. What you will get in Aquarela is an utterly astounding profile of a living, breathing, dying force of nature.

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Born in a Trunk

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Judy

by George Wolf

Call it a comeback, a re-introduction or a friendly reminder, but Renee Zellweger’s channeling of Judy Garland is an awards-worthy revelation.

Since winning an Oscar for Cold Mountain over fifteen years ago, Zellweger’s resume has been scattershot and curious enough to make seeing her name on top of the marquee a rather nostalgic blast from the past.

But here, she’s just a blast, bringing a can’t-look-away magnetism to every moment she’s on screen, and leaving a noticeable absence when she’s not.

Based on Peter Quilter’s stage play The End of the Rainbow, Judy shows us a legend struggling to get work and fighting to retain custody of her children. By the late 1960s, daughter Liza was off starting a career of her own, but Judy’s two young kids with producer Sid Luft needed a stable home that Garland could not provide.

Accepting a lucrative offer for a string of concerts in London, Judy leaves her son and daughter with their father in hopes that the British engagement will give her the resources needed to take them back full-time.

Focusing on this late, sad period in Garland’s life is a wise move by director Rupert Goold (True Story) and screenwriter Tom Edge (The Crown). A limited scope can usually provide biopics with a better chance for intimacy, and true to form, Judy’s false notes arrive with the flashbacks to Garland’s days as a child star.

Showcasing her mistreatment as a young cog in the MGM studio system is well-intentioned but unnecessary, the blunt forcefulness of this thread adding little more than jarring interruption.

Zellweger is all we need to feel the tragedy of Garland’s fall. Her portrayal comes fully formed, as both remarkable outward impersonation and a nuanced glimpse into a troubled soul. Nary a movement seems taken for granted by Zellweger, and her delivery of Edge’s memorable dialog is lush with an organic spontaneity.

And though she barely sang publicly before her training for Chicago, Zellweger again shows impressive vocal talent. Of course she can’t match the full richness of the real Judy (who could?), but Zellweger’s style and phrasing are on-point bullseyes, never shrinking from Goold’s extended takes and frequent closeups during some wonderfully vintage musical numbers.

In one of the film’s best moments, Judy joins two male superfans (Andy Nyman, Daniel Cerqueira) for a late night dinner at their apartment. I won’t spoil what happens, but have some tissues handy. It’s a beautifully subtle and truly touching ode to Garland’s status as an early gay icon, and to the universal pain of loneliness.

Ironically, this brilliant performance should bring Zellweger the second act that Judy didn’t live long enough to enjoy. I’m guessing she’ll appreciate it, and I know she’s earned it.

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Do You Want to Pet a Snowman?

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Abominable

by Rachel Willis

Writer/director Jill Culton has crafted a sweet, magical children’s tale with Abominable.

The film opens with a man-sized yeti escaping from a laboratory at the sinister Burnish Industries. While being hunted through the streets of a big city in China, the yeti is injured. He hides on the roof of a building and seems to be safe – for the time being.

The opening scene is dark and a little scary, which explains the film’s PG-rating. This is fare for older children, which isn’t a knock on the film, but it isn’t the cute romp one might expect for the 3 – 6-year-old crowd. The opening hints at more terrifying moments to come as Burnish Industries is not willing to let its latest discovery go without a fight.

The film switches gears, and we’re introduced to Yi (voiced by Chloe Bennet), a teenage girl who rushes through life doing odd jobs to make money. She’s estranged from her mother and grandmother, who don’t understand her attitude. As we follow Yi through a typical day, we are given small pieces of information to help us understand who she is. Not only is she distant from her family, she is mocked by her peers, and her only friend is a younger boy named Peng (Albert Tsai).

On the roof of her apartment complex, Yi has a hideaway where she stows a map of China, an old violin, and a dream of visiting several places across the country. It’s here that she discovers the hidden yeti.

Reminiscent of How to Train Your Dragon (another DreamWorks production), Yi slowly forms a bond with the beast she names Everest. While the development of the bond between Toothless and Hiccup in HTTYD is a slow process, the connection between Yi and Everest feels rushed. And like Toothless, Everest has behaviors similar to a cat or dog as he navigates this new world.    

The few minor similarities aside, Culton manages to craft a film of her own that explores the value of friendships, family, and the beauty of the natural world. It’s a lot to explore in a children’s film and while some of it is handled well—particularly the friendships between Yi, Everest, and her friends—other aspects are neglected.  

The film drags a bit during the second act. As Yi, Peng, and Peng’s cousin, Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) try to keep Everest out of the clutches of Burnish Industries, there are a few montage moments that slow the film’s pace and will have even the most devoted viewer twiddling their thumbs waiting for the action to resume.

However, Abominable is a film that, while predictable, has a few good laughs and plenty of heart.

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Keep the Change, Ya Filthy Animals

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Rambo: Last Blood

by Hope Madden

For those who’ve followed the Rambo franchise, Rambo: Last Blood (please, God, please say it is so) will look familiar.

Stallone is here. The deeply brutal violence is here. The one man against a depraved world is here. But in place of the broken heart of a soldier mistreated and forgotten by his government, of the prodigal son bringing US Military chickens home to roost, is something far less complex.

Rambo: Last Blood is basically Taken meets Home Alone, only racist.

No, John Rambo isn’t turning his training on the rotting center of the military industrial complex at home or in Burma. He’s actually a pretty relaxed, aging cowboy on the Rambo family horse ranch in Arizona, sharing a cordial friendship with his housekeeper and raising her teenage niece as if she were his own.

John Rambo’s teenage daughter. Oh my God, can you imagine a bigger nightmare?

Stallone can. Co-writing along with Matthew Cirulnick and Dan Gordon (who’s wearing a camo vest and AK in his imdb photo), Sly shows Gabrielle (Ybvette Monreal) exactly why adolescent girls need to squelch their own sense of agency.

Gabrielle wants to go to Mexico to find her deadbeat dad. She’ll be leaving for college soon and she just wants to clear the air. And so, against Rambo’s wishes she secretly heads south of the border. And you know what’s in Mexico?

Well, in the undulating sea of thugs, gang bangers, drug lords, rapists and sex traffickers is a lone investigative journalist who seems like very good people. She has three scenes.

Director Adrian Grunberg crafts a film that mercifully requires little attention to dialog as Stallone mumbles indecipherably through his own pages. The 73-year-old nabbed his second Oscar nomination for acting in 2016, revisiting the old war horse Rocky in a supporting role.

Every 30 years or so, Sylvester Stallone gives a good performance.

Creed was three years ago.

But you don’t go to a Rambo movie for the acting! You go for the carnage, and hoo boy, Last Blood does not skimp.

People give horror a hard time because of all the slicing, dicing, arterial spray and virgins in peril, but in nearly every instance, we are meant to recoil at the violence. In this film, we are meant to celebrate it: every decapitation, dismemberment, gutting, castration, every head blown clean off a blood-spraying, still standing body is our own vicarious victory.

Earlier this year, after another mass shooting in the US, Hollywood shelved the Craig Zobel horror film The Hunt because they wanted to send a message that gun violence shouldn’t be celebrated. This weekend, they released Rambo: Last Blood.

The Hunt is the story of wealthy Americans kidnapping poor people to hunt them down, but the tables are turned and the poor people kill all the rich people.

Rambo: Last Blood, on the other hand, is a MAGA fantasy come to vivid, bloody fruition.

Weak.

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Heart of Darkness

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Cold Case Hammarskjöld


by Christie Robb

Initially an exploration of the suspicious death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961, Mads Brügger’s documentary Cold Case Hammarskjöld takes a sharp turn down a rabbit hole into the lengths taken to maintain white supremacy in Africa. 

In a meta move, Brügger makes himself and the process of creating the documentary as much of a focus as Hammarskjöld and the film’s elderly interview subjects. Brügger’s a bit of a fop—dressing in the same clothes affected by the “villain” of the film and occasionally sporting a pith helmet. In much of it, Brügger looms over a black female secretary explaining the twists and turns of his years-long investigation.

You are never unaware that the narrative is being shaped by a white male European.

Which, of course, is much of what the film is about—who gets to shape the story. And the story is both about what really happened to Hammarskjöld (pilot error or multinational assassination conspiracy) and the story of who gets to script the future of Africa. 

The looming is an interesting move, but tends to slow down the pace of the film. Much of the information is presented twice—in the style of a more conventional documentary and via Brügger’s pontification to the secretary. 

With such a breadth of information to cover, the film would have benefited from a bit less artifice and a bit more contextual information. Still, it’ll stay with you, prompting some serious thinking about the intersections of political and corporate interests and what people will do to maintain power.

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Let’s All Go to the Editing Bay

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Have You Seen My Movie?

by Matt Weiner

If the phrase “a love-letter to cinema” wasn’t clichéd by now, Paul Anton Smith’s new meta-film Have You Seen My Movie? at least sets the bar impossibly high for future directors.

Have You Seen My Movie? consists entirely of found footage from other movies. From the early silents to the latest blockbusters, Smith pieces together nearly a century of cinematic history to create a distinct and visually stunning movie about movies and moviegoing, all told through these re-cut clips.

Smith served as assistant editor for Christian Marclay’s The Clock, a 24-hour art installation that used film and TV clips featuring the corresponding time of day in their scenes. Marclay’s piece ebbs and flows throughout the day, resulting in a delirious in-person experience that questioned what film, narrative and time itself could be.

All of which is to say that Smith’s own spin on the found footage clip show builds on Marclay’s approach. While it lacks the monumental sweep of The Clock’s 24-hour marathon, Smith’s tight commitment to a feature-length film with all the attendant emotional beats makes for a similarly impressive feature experience.

Without continuity or context to rely on, Smith pieces together a cohesive — and thoroughly engaging — narrative centered on emotion instead of plot (with a big assist from the flashes of recognition that come from picking out iconic scenes and characters).

Over the course of the movie, Smith weaves in every imaginable genre and hundreds of classic films. The technical prowess stands on its own as worth a watch, but it’s clear by the end that all Smith’s clever work is in the service of something grander: yes, there are plenty of hidden delights for cinephiles with a sharp eye. (The Criterion Collection could have a field day with bonus features.)

But there’s also no denying the transformative power of film and the dominant role it enjoyed for so long in shaping the culture. It’s a convincing case from Smith, in all its sentimental and spectacular glory. And in the middle of corporate consolidation, streaming silos and our current blockbuster era, it’s also one that might be less victory lap and more requiem for a dream.



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Bird of Prey

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The Nightingale

by Hope Madden

There is a moment in George Miller’s 2015 action masterpiece Mad Max: Fury Road. The empty bridal chamber is revealed quickly. Scrawled on the wall: Who killed the world?

It occurred to me partway through Jennifer Kent’s sophomore feature The Nightingale that Miller isn’t the only Aussie director with that question on the mind.

The Nightingale is as expansive and epic a film as Kent’s incandescent feature debut The Babadook was claustrophobic and internal. In it she follows Clare (Aisling Franciosi), an Irish convict sentenced to service in the UK’s territory in Tasmania.

What happens to Clare at the hands of Leftenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin), the British officer to whom she is in service, is as brutal and horrifying as anything you’re likely to see onscreen this year. It’s the catalyst for a revenge picture, but The Nightingale is far more than just that.

As Clare enlists the aid of Aboriginal tracker Billie (Baykali Ganambarr, magnificent) to help her exact justice, Kent begins to broaden her focus. Those of us in the audience can immediately understand Clare’s mission because we witnessed her trauma in its horrifying detail. Kent needed us to recognize what British military men were capable of.

What she wants us to see is that the same thing—the worst, almost imaginable brutality—happened to an entire Australian population.

In the second act, Clare—on a higher social rung than her tracker, and just as condescending and racist as that position allows—and Billy begin to bond over shared experience. Franciosi’s fierce performance drives the film, but Ganambarr injects a peculiar humor and heart that makes The Nightingale even more devastating.

Kent’s fury fuels her film, but does not overtake it. She never stoops to sentimentality or sloppy caricature. She doesn’t need to. Her clear-eyed take on this especially ugly slice of history finds more power in authenticity than in drama.

Her tale becomes far more than an indictment of colonization, white male privilege, domination and subjugation. It’s a harrowing and brilliant tale of horror. It’s also our history.