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Teenage Dream

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Spider-Man: Homecoming

by Hope Madden and George Wolf 

With brief but wildly enjoyable screen time, the newest Spider-Man (Tom Holland) introduced himself to us in last year’s Captain America: Civil War. His presence was energetic, light-hearted and fun – childlike. Appropriate for a high school freshman.

It’s exactly that bottled exuberance that makes Spider-Man: Homecoming so enjoyable.

The events of Cap and Iron Man’s battle for control of the Avengers only months behind them, Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr. – like you didn’t know) takes arachnid-bitten science nerd Peter Parker under his wing.

Pete’s not ready for the big time yet, though. Mr. Stark would prefer his protégé focus on being a friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man instead of pestering for an invite to be the next Avenger.

There are several things director Jon Watts (Clown, Cop Car) and his enormous team of writers get right.

Firstly, they know we’re hip to Pete’s origin story, so the bite, Uncle Ben and all that needless angst are mercifully missing.

Next, they keep the story tight and low to the ground. It’s a training-wheels villain – somebody too big for you or me to contend with, but no intergalactic menace or god waiting to annihilate global humanity.

It also helps that said villain, the “Vulture,” is played by the reliably nutty and likeable Michael Keaton, who brings the perfect mix of psychosis and humanity to a role that could have easily been pushed over the top.

But mainly, Watts hits a bullseye with the film’s joyously entertaining tone.

As solid as the Marvel universe has been, it’s not hard to find moments (especially in Civil War) when the push for a hip chuckle undercuts the action. The humor in Homecoming hits early and often, but only to reinforce that the film’s worldview is sprung from a teenage boy. In this way, it feels more true to its comic origins than most in the entire film genre.

Holland, who just turned twenty-one, has no trouble passing for fifteen in a wonderfully wide-eyed performance. Paired with a nicely diverse group of classmates, Holland finds the perfect sweet spot to contrast the social minefields of high school with the learning curve of his new Stark Industries super suit.

Best of all, Holland re-sets the character to a place where its growth seems both unburdened and unpredictable. That’s exciting, and not just for Pete.

Same goes for the film. Watts and his writing team fill Homecoming with the thrills, wit and humanity (plus a plot twist that’s subtle genius) to give the entire superhero film genre a freshness that’s plenty welcome.

Throw in a letter-perfect final scene, and we’re already tingling about what Spidey might be up to next.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

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Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing

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Baby Driver

by Hope Madden

Start to finish, the soundtrack-driven heist flick Baby Driver has a bright, infectious charm – and you can dance to it.

It needs to be good, though. The third film in as many years about a mixtape, a rag-tag gang and a dead mom, this movie needs to bring something genuinely mesmerizing.

If there is one thing writer/director Edger Wright knows how to do, it’s propel a film’s action. That’s hardly his only talent, but few excel here quite the way he does. Scene to scene, set piece to set piece, he makes sure your eyes and your ears are aware that things are moving at a quick clip.

Never has this been more true than with Baby Driver.

Wright edits in time with his expertly curated mix tape, creating a rhythm that keeps his lead dancing, his film moving, and his audience engaged.

The beats offer more than a gimmick to ensure the flick dances along – the tunes getaway driver Baby (Ansel Elgort) has buzzing through his ear buds give rhythm to his impressive high speed antics.

Baby is the one constant in the teams Doc (Kevin Spacey) assembles to pull off his jobs. A reluctant participant making good on a debt, Baby keeps his distance from the crew – whether it’s the oily Buddy (Jon Hamm, marvelous as ever), his sketchy girlfriend Darling, (Eiza Gonzales), or the straight-up psycho, Bats (Jamie Foxx – glad to see you in something worthwhile again).

Of course, the tension comes in when Baby tries to leave the robbery biz behind, egged on by feelings for the cute waitress at his favorite diner (Lily James).

If you’ve ever seen a movie, you’ll know that getting out is never easy.

Wright’s agile camera keeps tempo with his killer playlist. Whether back-dropping romance at the laundromat with gorgeous color and tongue-in-cheek visual call-backs, or boogying through back alleys, on-ramps and highways, Baby Driver is as tasty a feast for the eyes as it is the ears.

The game cast never drops a beat, playing characters with the right mix of goofiness and malice to be as fun or as terrifying as they need to be. For all its danceability, Wright’s film offers plenty of tension, too.

Like much of the filmmaker’s work, Baby Driver boasts a contagious pop mentality, intelligent wit and sweet heart.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

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Lost & Found

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Lion

by Hope Madden

Inspirational, true-life tales – however tailor-made they seem to be for a big screen presentation – can be tough to deliver with integrity. In fact, the more tailor-made they seem, the tougher it can be.

Director Garth Davis manages to hit most of the right notes with his cinematic telling of Saroo Brierley’s amazing journey in Lion.

At 5-years-old, Saroo (played as a child by the impossibly cute and talented Sunny Pawar) follows his older brother to the train station where they’ll scrounge what they can from between seats and on the ground. But Saroo wanders off, falls asleep in a train car, and by the time he gets off, he’s thousands of miles from home – alone in a train station in Calcutta.

What follows – told with surprising restraint and solid focus – are the details of his struggle to survive and, decades later, to find his mother.

The adventure is harrowing. Davis chooses wisely between the events to explore deeply and those to leave ambiguous. We glimpse things that are clearly menacing but not fully explained because we’re seeing them through the eyes of a bewildered child. The result is a dark sense of all that could have occurred, not a sledge-hammer about the lurid details Saroo couldn’t possibly have articulated.

Once the film moves to Australia, where the boy relocates with an adoptive family, Davis again shares enough details to give the film a memorable sense of authenticity. The now grown and well-cared-for Saroo (Dev Patel) struggles with longing, guilt and a crippling concern for the pain his birth-family must bear because of his absence.

Patel deserves credit for a performance unlike the work we’ve seen from him in previous efforts. As a performer, he has tended toward painfully earnest representations, an over-actor who relies heavily on hyperbolic reactions.

Here, though, is a far more nuanced turn – one that benefits immeasurably by the chemistry he shares with Nicole Kidman, playing his adoptive mother Sue Brierley.

Dependable as ever to explore the depths of grief, Kidman conveys the conflicting emotions that, in their way, inform Saroo’s struggle. She’s surrounded by solid performances from a strong ensemble.

The film does make its missteps. The talented Rooney Mara is both underused and overused. Her flatly written character contributes little to the overall narrative, and yet the romance crowds a story that has more interesting things to say.

Faults aside, Lion dives into grief, guilt and love with refreshing honesty to tell the most unbelievable story in a way that echoes with a human connection we can all appreciate.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

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Hard Knock Life

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No Pay, Nudity

by Hope Madden

Director (Ohio’s own) Lee Wilkof and screenwriter Ethan Sandler tap into years of collective wisdom from the inside to create a bittersweet, in-the-know glimpse at the near-thankless life of the workaday actor.

Gabriel Byrne, low key but excellent, is Lester Rosenthal – or Lawrence Rose, as the old playbill would have read. He’s having a hell of a time, as his longtime friend Hershel (Nathan Lane) explains to us via narration.

He’s a New York actor. An aging one whose dog just died, who hasn’t worked too steadily since that soap opera killed him off a few years back, who whiles away his days with similarly stagnant thesps in the Actors’ Equity Lounge, who may be willing to accept the role as King Lear’s Fool – in Dayton.

A mash note to the beleaguered actor in it for the long haul, No Pay, Nudity hits more often than it misses. The filmmakers possess a clear, lived-in knowledge of this world, this life. The yarn they spin is as empathetic as it is frustrated, and Byrne effortlessly embodies this embittered, wearied soul.

The premise is a bit slight and the resolution a tad rushed, but Wilkof and company make up for most of that with insight and affection to spare.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toO8g8fgtP4

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Magical Menagerie

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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

by Hope Madden

Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) protects that which is unusual and therefore feared and persecuted. Funny that it took so long for a series about witchcraft to finally embrace this theme, but JK Rowling’s latest, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, digs in.

Part of the Harry Potter universe, though set decades earlier and continents apart, Beasts sees Newt land in NYC circa 1929 with a suitcase full of incorrigible creatures. He’s writing a book (it will eventually become a standard text at Hogwarts), but for now he has a spectacular winged creature to return.

If only the rest of the menagerie would stay put – and the American council of witches is none too pleased to find that his critters have escaped to run amuck in Manhattan.

The witches don’t like Newt’s beasties, so he hides them. The New Salem sect does not like witches, so they hide. The New York elite doesn’t like the freaks of New Salem. All this revulsion of the unknown leads to very bad things – things that could be avoided if we could see beyond our own fears.

Not that Rowling, adapting her own novel for the screen, or Beasts director David Yates (who helmed the final 4 Potter films), beats you about the head with the message. You’ll be plenty distracted by the wings, coils, teeth, horns and antics of Newt’s whimsical pals, and Yates’s giddy FX.

The film looks great – appropriately grim and glorious, in turns – and strong casting helps buoy a somewhat thin plot.

Redmayne (who may need to play a normal guy at some point) charms as the impish lead. As the quietly malevolent leader of the witch hunters, Samantha Morton delivers the most commanding performance among supporting players with characters as peculiar as Newt’s creatures.

Mercifully free of the adolescent angst that plagued the Potter series, Beasts contents itself with lovable losers in search of wild beasties and basic harmony between magic and nomag (the US term for muggles).

Though uneven at times – as if introducing too much and too little simultaneously – the first in a series of 5 films offers enough magic to make it worthwhile.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

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Grandmaster Flash

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Queen of Katwe

by Hope Madden

Director Mira Nair has a long history of films told with respect to the cultural heritage of the story itself. Having begun her career as a documentarian, she also builds in an eye for authenticity that can be sorely lacking in underdog sports films – which, on its surface, does describe Queen of Katwe. In fact, those genre trappings tend to be the film’s only major flaws.

The film follows Ugandan teen Phiona Mutesi (Madina Nalwanga). A child of devastating poverty, Phiona finds escape – and eventually incredible success – in chess.

Nair periodically stumbles over her formula. Particularly effected are the talented David Oyelowo. As Phiona’s chess coach, Oyelowo’s lot is to be the comprehensively honorable, selfless mentor with little to do besides look heavenward as he worries over his students with the unflagging encouragement of his by-the-playbook supportive wife (Esther Tebendeke).

But fear not, because Lupita Nyong’o sets the screen ablaze with a performance that reminds us just why she won that Oscar. As Phiona’s mother, she depicts a survivor’s stubborn strength that belies deep, heartbreaking emotion. She’s magnificent.

Making her screen debut, Nalwanga also impresses, surrounded by a talented ensemble of young actors. The large, often loud group around her makes great use of dialog, argument and physicality, but Nalwanga expresses an enormous range of emotion with the slightest change in expression. Hers is a quietly memorable performance that easily carries the film.

There were so many ways this movie could have gone wrong. You can almost see it being told from the point of view of the white, American journalist Tim Crothers researching the tale and learning valuable lessons from the tenacity and noble sacrifice of its heroin. Thank God, this is not that movie.

Crothers’s book (based on his Sports Illustrated article) was adapted for the screen by William Wheeler. Wheeler penned Nair’s weakest feature, 2012’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, using exactly that “white reporter learning from a subject of color” framework that is so, so tired. So tired.

While he – and by extension, Nair – can’t quite break free from “inspiring sports film” clichés, those weaknesses are easily eclipsed by a set of magnetic actors and a true story that cannot help but move you.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4l3-_yub5A

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Baby Mama Drama

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The Ones Below

by Cat McAlpine

Having a child is an amazing and joyous event. It is also terrifying. Alien knew it. That whole Season 8 arc of the XFiles knew it. We’ve even dedicated a Fright Club to Pregnancy Horror. But The Ones Below favors less bursting out of chests and more psychological slow burn.

Enter a small house containing two flats, one upstairs, and one downstairs. Upstairs is home to longtime residents Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) and Kate (Clémence Poésy), who is pregnant with her first child after years of denying motherhood. New neighbors have moved in downstairs, and Kate finally catches a glimpse of equally pregnant Theresa (Laura Birn).

Theresa and husband Jon (David Morrissey) come upstairs for dinner one evening, and express how desperate they’ve been for a child over some very stilted small talk. Thus tears the rift between the two couples, which only grows after a tragic accident leaves everyone scurrying to dodge guilt and blame.

First time feature director David Farr chases a touch of timelessness in his arrangement and almost pulls it off. There’s a neither here nor there quality to the set and costuming. Milk is delivered daily in glass bottles on the doorstep, smart phones fill hands but pictures are taken with digital cameras, young couples work in open floor plan offices. The upstairs couple dresses as modern young professionals, comfortably. The downstairs pair is more pressed, more clean, and further off trend. A perfectly manicured garden gives off an eerie, Stepford feel.

The editing and design seem to struggle with Farr’s intention a bit. Cool tones downplay some of the raw emotional quality of the scenes, making more intimate moments feel a bit detached. This could be intentional, or I could be trying to cover up for the lack of chemistry between couples.

The most intriguing performance by far is Birn’s Theresa, who is fascinating to watch with equal measures of conniving and innocent. Poésy and Moore are both down-to-earth and relatable, but Poésy ultimately just doesn’t have much to work with. Moore, as the straight man character to everyone else’s crazy, gives a solid performance and becomes the beating heart of the film.

The dialogue mostly consists of bickering, which lends both realism and additional tension, but doesn’t seem to otherwise motivate the characters. There are vague references to strained relationships, which, while underdeveloped, provide breadcrumbs leading to both false and unbelievable-but-true conclusions.

The film ends, deliciously, with a few sharp twists. The thriller connoisseur will see these tricks coming, but the payoff to Farr’s mounting tensions is welcome either way. The Ones Below is a middling to good directorial debut for David Farr that promises, with a few more turns around the block, he will be serving up a style undeniably his.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

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All the Awkwardness, No Mashed Potato Bloat

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Listen Up Philip

By Christie Robb

As we head into the holiday season, do you worry that your family and friends are just too delightful? Do you long for awkward stories to share with co-workers in the break room about the rude kids with eyes glued to their smart phones, cousin Stan’s narcissistic monologues about how much money he makes, and repressed childhood rage erupting over Pillsbury Crescent Rolls?

If so, Listen Up Philip might fill the void.

Dive into the life of notable author Philip Lewis Friedman (Jason Schwartzman) as he prepares to usher his second novel into publication. He’s got everything he wants: a New York apartment, a successful photographer girlfriend (Elizabeth Moss), and placement in a top 35 under 35 list.

But he is incapable of experiencing happiness, crippled with anxiety and dread.

When established-author Ike Zimmerman (Jonathan Pryce) offers him craft advice and a place to crash, Philip flees upstate to the country.  With misanthropic Zimmerman as a model, Philip fully begins to explore the dark and musty corners of his asshattery. And this after he has made two separate social engagements to berate an unsupportive ex and his less successful college roommate (“This could have been us! Instead, I’m all alone.”) and thrown a tantrum, refusing to promote his novel.

With Schwartzman playing a novelist you might think you’re in for the wacky hijinks of HBOs Bored to Death. With the delightful faux vintage book covers and narrator, you might think you stumbled on a Wes Anderson knockoff.

Nope.

Instead writer/director Alex Ross Perry, treats us to character studies of entitled, white males who operate like emotional vampires, sucking their intimate relationships (and the women recovering from them) dry to fuel their work. Don’t expect any reformed curmudgeons in this one.

Listen Up Philip is faultlessly acted and often darkly funny, tickling a malignant funny bone when Ike and Philip brazen past the social niceties. (At one point, when a student in his creative writing class asks Philip for a recommendation, he scolds her while shuffling around on his desk, then shoves a blank piece of paper at her, saying, “Here’s a piece of paper with staples in it.”)

You may recognize this kind of guy from your humanities classes. Maybe you had the misfortune to have one sidle up to you at a party. Or perhaps one is waiting for you to pass him the turkey.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 


 

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Who Knew Acting Was His Forte?

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Run & Jump

by Hope Madden

Five years ago, if someone said to me that Will Forte would become a respected talent in independent cinema, I would have said, “Nice to meet you, Will Forte’s mom.”

Who could have know that the mostly forgettable SNL star would have such a way with understated authenticity? But with his Golden Globe-nominated turn as the very patient son in Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, we got a glimpse of what he could do. Run & Jump offers another such sighting.

Forte plays Ted, an American psychological researcher living for two months with an Irish family that’s coming to terms with the patriarch’s stroke. Thirty-eight-year-old Conor Casey’s entire personality changes due to the damage done to his brain, and while Ted observes Conor’s condition, he also witnesses the unraveling of a family held together by a vibrant mother (Maxine Peake).

It’s Peake who steals the show with such a raw and lovely performance. You can see the anguish and optimism duking it out in this effervescent redhead’s every thought. Thanks to Peake and a handful of multidimensional, natural performances, the film never feels false or contrived.

It’s a credit to co-writer/director Steph Green’s light touch that this complicated, even heavy premise can feel so genuine. Green’s nimble writing introduces scores of grand ideas, and under the direction of a lesser craftsman, the film would have crumbled with the weight of it. Run & Jump does not. Instead, it feels like the kind of endless mess real life often becomes.

Compassion and resilience are as bountiful as the gorgeous landscape, and both family and sun-dappled environment are fimled equally lovingly. Whether the artist is new to you (Green, Peake), or a familiar face with hidden talent, each plays a remarkable part in animating this fresh charmer.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

 

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Why Do New?

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Oldboy

by Hope Madden

When contemplating Spike Lee’s new film Oldboy, don’t ask yourself why central character Joe Doucett  was set free. It’s pointless to even ask why he was imprisoned in the first place. The real question is: why remake this movie?

Seriously, what was it about the experience of watching Chan-wook Park’s 2003 masterpiece of punishment that made Spike Lee want to make his own version? Did he see things he thought needed improvement? Thought the US audience wouldn’t sit through subtitles? Or more likely, thought we needed a watered down, moralistic version?

The thing about the original Oldboy it that you just can’t unsee that film. There’s no way to watch the reboot without comparing. If you haven’t seen the original, then you still have the fresh perspective on the mystery unraveling, as Joe finds himself strangely incarcerated for 20 years, then even more mysteriously set free.

But if you have seen the original, then you, like me, may have wailed aloud the first time you heard someone planned to make an English language version, certain as you were that they would gut the tale, sterilize it, tidy it up, give it heart.

But then you saw the first couple ads for Lee’s version, and you thought – well, good cast (Josh Brolin, Sam Jackson, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley). And the ads suggested a very close approximation to the original. But in your heart you knew Brolin was no Min-sik Choi and Lee is no Chan-wook Park.

Obviously, both are extremely talented, but the film is a mismatch to their particular gifts. Lee struggles to find a tone, and while Brolin’s transformation impresses, it feels stale and safe when compared to the mania Choi brought to the role.

Most damagingly, screenwriter Mark Protosevich is not up to the task of adapting the original screenplay, or the manga that spawned it.

No, apparently we need a heart. We need a hero. We need a straightforward story where, though details are lurid, lessons are learned. Tidied where it shouldn’t be, sloppy elsewhere (Copley could really have dialed down the Dr. Evil), Oldboy has trouble on every front.

Plot summary for a review of Oldboy will not stand. Even a neutered, disappointing retread deserves to keep all its secrets intact. But Lee and Protosevich pull punch after punch that Park landed with relish, and their reigned-in, moralistic mess of a film won’t satisfy newcomers or fans.

Verdict-2-0-Stars

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd20pywMXuY