Quiet week in home entertainment, but if you’re hankerin’ for a redhead (and who isn’t, really?) there are two options.
Click the film title to link to the full review.
Wild Rose
Dark Phoenix
I Don’t Want to Go Out—Week of September 16
Tag Archives: George Wolf
Screening Room: Hustlers, Brittany Runs a Marathon, Tigers Are Not Afraid, Haunt, Depraved
She-Wolves of Wall Street
Hustlers
by George Wolf
“You don’t have to believe me. I’m used to people not believing me.”
“Destiny” (Constance Wu) is telling her tale to Elizabeth (Julia Stiles), a writer in the midst of a story on a gang of high-end strippers who were busted for drugging clients and fleecing them for thousands.
The disclaimer is a clear yet-not-overbearing sign that our window into the world of Hustlers may not necessarily be the most clear and reliable. It’s one of many wise choices made by writer/director Lorene Scafaria in her adaptation of Jessica Pressler’s article on “The Hustlers at Scores.”
Wu is terrific as the naive newbie, overshadowed only by a completely magnetic Jennifer Lopez as Ramona, the stripping legend who teaches Destiny (and by extension, us) the ropes of spotting the highest-rolling Wall St. d-bags to milk for all they can.
But when the crash hits in ’08, times get tough for everybody, and it isn’t hard to justify hatching a plan to swindle the swindlers.
Scafaria ((Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, The Meddler) is not shy about the Scorsese influences, and seeing Will Ferrell and Adam McKay as executive producers makes The Big Short-syled humor all the more understandable.
No matter. This is still a supremely assured vision from Scafaria, cleverly constructed with visual flair, solid laughs, a sizzling pace and some truly memorable sequences.
One of the many great soundtrack choices comes right out of the gate, as Scafaria sets the stakes with Janet Jackson’s spoken-word opening to “Control.”
Who’s got it? Who doesn’t? And who’s badass enough to go get it?
It’s a wild, intoxicating high of girl power. And when it all comes crashing down, the moral ambiguities are scattered like dollar bills under the pole. As Ramona is quick to remind us, if there’s money being thrown, there will always be people ready to dance.
Different Drum
Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice
by George Wolf
You may have heard that Linda Ronstadt can’t sing anymore, her incredible instrument silenced by Parkinson’s disease. But Ronstadt’s harmonies with a nephew in The Sound of My Voice are gentle and effective, and rendered more bittersweet by her quick, self-deprecating dismissal.
“This isn’t really singing.”
The ironic truth in this engaging documentary is that the sound of her spoken voice is what gives the film the warmth it needs to register as more than just a big screen fan letter.
Ronstadt initially balked at the pitch by directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (Howl, Lovelace) but they won her over with a promise to let her tell the story and define its terms.
So while we don’t get any juicy intimacies or sordid details, we do get some fantastic highlights from her archives and a unique, first-person perspective of being a queen in a king’s game.
For anyone under 40, the film is also a great intro to one of the most successful female singers in history. I know Taylor Swift is great and all, kids, but in the 1970s, her name was Linda Ronstadt.
An Arizona native who was raised on a multitude of musical styles, Ronstadt came to L.A. as a teen. After first raising interest and eyebrows as the defiant girl singer not wanting to be tied down to just one lover on the Stone Poneys’ 1967 hit “Different Drum,” Ronstadt’s 70s solo success reached unprecedented levels for a female artist.
With hits on the pop, R&B and country charts, a string of platinum albums and magazine covers, she was everywhere. Later decades brought torch song projects with Nelson Riddle, a starring role in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, a record-breaking Spanish language album paying tribute to her father’s heritage, and forming a legendary country trio with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris.
It is truly an incredible career, and reminding us of that fact seems to be goal number one for Epstein and Friedman. Their mission is more than accomplished, and with Ronstadt herself as the guide, it’s like getting a backlot studio tour from Spielberg.
You hear wonderful anecdotes about how Ronstadt handled sexism both systemic and casual (former boyfriend J.D. Souther asked her to cook him dinner – she handed him a PB&J), how her backing band left to start a little combo called the Eagles and how none of the successes could quell the nagging feeling that she was never good enough.
She was. The Sound of My Voice is all the proof you need.
Running for Her Life
Brittany Runs a Marathon
by George Wolf
In a surprisingly touching circle of art and life and imitating, Brittany Runs a Marathon charts its main narrative course with humor, charm and insight, while solid doses of humanity are never out of sight.
It may be the based-on-truth story of a woman taking control of her life, but in the process, it’s also the story of longtime supporting actor not only taking the lead, but literally transforming before our eyes.
Writer/director Paul Downs Colaizzo, a playwright and TV director making his feature debut, drew inspiration from close friend Brittany O’Neil, who got her messy affairs in order by making some big changes.
One of those was a commitment to running, and a goal to complete the New York City marathon.
The film version finds Brittany Folger (Jillian Bell) out of shape and out of sorts. Allowing herself to be used by friends and randos, Brittany is the fat, funny sidekick who uses her quick, caustic wit as a suit of armor.
Early on, Brittany is just the sort of vessel Bell has used to steal big and small screen scenes for years. She nails the setup with hilarity, which isn’t surprising. But the most impressive layer in Bell’s performance is how she ups her game when the laughs don’t come as often, dodging any false notes in Brittany’s wake up call.
We knew Bell could do funny, but this is a performance full of drama that’s equally impressive (if not more).
Credit Colaizzo for some equally deft maneuvering, making sure this is more complex that the standard “get hot to get happy” makeover fantasy you could hardly be blamed for expecting.
Brittany may joke about people who “missed the point of those Dove ads,” but when she tells her attractive friend that “my life is just harder than yours,” it rings with the capital that Colaizzo’s script has earned.
The in-the-moment nods are numerous but not overdone, contrasting Brittany’s self-loathing with the emptiness of comparing real life to social media staging or quick assumptions from afar.
As hard as it is for Brittany to stick with running, dropping the pounds is the easy part. She has to grow emotionally, starting with accepting the fact that she’s worthy of the friendship her running pals (Michaela Watkins, Micah Stock) are offering.
And what’s up with Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar- terrific), who pulls the night housesitting shift the same place Brittany handles the daytime? Is he stuck in the friend zone? Is she?
Sure, the film has a convenient plot turn or two, but this is some sneaky good crowd-pleasing. Brittany Runs a Marathon ropes you with the comfort of formula, then dopes you with emotional complexities, warm sincerity and a knockout lead performance.
Winner winner sensible dinner.
Screening Room: It Chapter 2
Even the Losers
It Chapter 2
by Hope Madden and George Wolf
Two years ago, director Andy Muschietti and writer Gary Dauberman accomplished quite a magic act. They made the film It, not only improving upon Part 1 of the beloved 1990 TV miniseries, but cleaning up some of Stephen King’s most audacious, thrilling and sloppy work.
Their second outing together closes the book on Pennywise, the scariest of all scary clowns. But this sequel faces inherent obstacles that loom even larger because the second half of King’s novel and the ’90 adaptation are both worse than weak. They’re massive let downs, and it’s pretty tough to make a great film with poor source material.
How bad is the King ending? So bad that it’s actually a running gag in It Chapter Two, a tale that sees a bunch of losers returning to their hometown 27 years after they last battled town bullies, abusive fathers, low self-esteem and that psychotic, shape-shifting clown.
The outstanding young cast from chapter one returns for flashback sequences and sometimes awkward de-aging effects. Their adult counterparts are, to a one, impressive. Jessica Chastain is reliably solid, as is James McAvoy. Isaiah Mustafa (hey, it’s the Old Spice guy!) and James Ransone (Tangerine – see it!) make fine additions to the cast, but it’s Bill Hader who owns this movie. He’s funny, heartbreaking and more than actor enough to lead this ensemble.
But Muschietti runs into serious problems early and often. He’s at a disadvantage in the thrills department in that children in peril generate a far more palpable sense of terror than what you can get by threatening adults. We’re just not nearly as invested in the survival of the grown up Losers Club.
The filmmaker flashes some style with his scene transitions, but betrays a serious lack of inspiration when it comes to both CGI and practical effects. If the scare doesn’t come directly from Bill Skarsgård’s committed performance as Pennywise, it doesn’t come at all.
And even then, set piece after set piece seems constructed with only one aim: a clearly telegraphed jump scare. The slog of a second act is where the film is at its most undisciplined -and where the nearly three hour running time feels more than unnecessary.
When the Losers strike out alone to face their long repressed demons, the narrative loses its grip on any sustained, cohesive tension.
Then, like a conquering hero, act three arrives with guns blazing, blood spurting and the emotional weight to give this bloated clown show a proper send off.
It’s here – when things get most intensely horrific – that the psychological wounds Muschietti had been poking are the most raw and resonant. Nostalgic melodrama finally gives way to graceful metaphor, and we remember why we cared so much about these characters the first time.
Does Chapter Two improve the finales of the novel and TV version? Most definitely.
But can it successfully realize all the promise from the first chapter?
Sadly, that’s a clown question, bro.
Fright Club: Gas Stations in Horror
You think the price of gas will kill you! What about those creepy gas attendants?
Gas stations, for one reason or another, have become a staple in horror films – especially slashers and those backwoods thrillers. Jenny Raya of Dave’s Pop Culture Podcast joins us to count down the films that make the most of the spooky service station.
5. Tucker and Dale Versus Evil (2010)
Because Eli Craig’s comedic upending of the hillbilly horror sub-genre is nearly perfect, there had to be a pivotal scene set in a gas station.
Two backwoods buddies (an endearing Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk) head to their mountain cabin for a weekend of fishing. En route they meet some college kids on their own camping adventure. A comedy of errors, misunderstandings and subsequent, escalating violence follows as the kids misinterpret every move Tucker and Dale make.
In the tradition of Shaun of the Dead, T&DVE lovingly sends up a familiar subgenre with insightful, self-referential humor, upending expectations by taking the point of view of the presumably villainous hicks. And it happens to be hilarious.
4. Splinter (2008)
Road kill, a carjacking, an abandoned gas station, some quills – it doesn’t take much for first time feature filmmaker and longtime visual effects master Toby Wilkins to get under your skin. One cute couple just kind of wants to camp in Oklahoma’s ancient forest (which can never be a good idea, really). Too bad a couple of ne’er-do-wells needs their car. Then a flat (what was that – a porcupine? No!!) sends them to that creepy gas station, and all hell breaks loose.
Contamination gymnastics call to mind the great John Carpenter flick The Thing, but Splinteris its own animal. Characters have depth and arcs, the danger is palpable, the kills pretty amazing, and the overall aesthetic of that old highway gives everything a desperately lonesome quality where you believe anything could happen and no rescue is in sight.
3. The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
Wes Craven’s original Hills – cheaply made and poorly acted – is a surprisingly memorable, and even more surprisingly alarming flick. Craven’s early career is marked by a contempt for both characters and audience, and his first two horror films ignored taboos, mistreating everyone on screen and in the theater. In the style of Deliverance meets Mad Max, Hills was an exercise in pushing the envelope, and it owes what lasting popularity it has to its shocking violence and Michael Berryman’s nightmarish mug.
The nightmare begins (and for a lot of people, ends) at Fred’s Oasis – the last gas station before hitting an unforgiving stretch of desert.
The Hills Have Eyes is not for the squeamish. People are raped, burned alive, eaten alive, eaten dead, and generally ill-treated. You can’t say Fred didn’t warn them.
2. Deliverance (1972)
Nine notes on a banjo have never sounded so creepy.
Deliverance follows four buddies staving off mid-life crises with a canoeing adventure in southern Georgia, where a man’s not afraid to admire another man’s mouth.
They stop off, as travelers must, at a service station. No one warns them, no one delivers ominous news, but come on, no one had to. One look at the locals spending their days at that gas station should have been enough to convince them to turn back.
James Dickey streamlined his own novel to its atmospheric best, and director John Boorman plays on urbanite fears like few have done since. Dickey and Boorman mean to tell you that progress has created a soft bellied breed of man unable to survive without the comforts of a modern age.
1. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Who wants barbeque?
Jim Siedow’s under-appreciated performance as de facto patriarch begins at Last Chance Gas.
First is the classic “you don’t want to go there” warnings, a long tradition in backwoods and slasher horror. But Hooper has something fun up his sleeve with this one, introducing Siedow as a likable weirdo, a concerned older Southern gentleman.
So when Sally Hardesty makes it away from the carnage all the way back to the service station, the tension, betrayal and sadism that follows feels that much more awful and unseemly.
Plus they had bought barbeque earlier! Eeeewww!
Spinning Wheels
Bennett’s War
by George Wolf
After nearly an hour of valiantly struggling to find depth in a character written mainly in cleavage, actress Allison Paige does get to deliver the most truthful moment in Bennett’s War.
“The sponsors are all men and I have boobs!”
Writer/director Alex Ranarivelo may have just been trying for funny, but in this drawerful of ten thousand shallow spoons, the line is a self-aware knife.
Sophie (Paige) needs those sponsors for her husband Bennett’s (Michael Roark) motocross team to finally go pro. Bennett had been a promising young racer before he joined the Army Rangers, but the bum leg he came home with carried a warning Ranarivelo thinks we don’t quite get the first three times we hear it.
“No unnecessary risks, or you’ll never walk again!”
Oh, and Bennett’s dad (country singer Trace Adkins) is going to lose the family farm.
So Bennett has to race again, dammit, it’s who he is!
Ranarivelo has made a career out of what are essentially middle school sports dramas for the big screen. The heroes and villains are drawn in the most easily identifiable colors, with the stakes repeated as often as the dumbed down exposition.
There are issues here (the struggles of veterans and/or family farmers) that have merit, but exploring them is not Ranarivelo’s M.O.
The only real surprise is that no one yells “Put him in a body bag!” before our injured hero takes the bad guy down with a surprise move at the big competition.
Wax off.
I Don’t Want to Go Out—Week of August 26
What do you want to watch this week? A musical biopic that finally manages to get past the standard “behind the music” approach is our pick because it’s a charming bit of fun. And because everything else that comes out this week kind of reeks.
Rocketman
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (DVD)
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (DVD)
