Big week! So many movies! Some of them are even great. This week we break down Men in Black: International, Shaft, Late Night, The Dead Don’t Die, Halston plus everything worth your time in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
Tag Archives: George Wolf
Shaft Happens
Shaft
by George Wolf
“JJ” Shaft walks gingerly into traffic, taking care to watch for cars. He doesn’t constantly drop expletives and he’s keen on Brazilian dance fighting.
So, he’s a little different from Dad, then?
It’s the first clue that writers Kenya Barris and Alex Barrow and director Tim Story might have a sound plan to bring Shaft into the 21st century. They need one, because successfully transplanting those solidly 1970s sensibilities to present day is a bit of a trick.
The Brady Bunch Movie got around it by having the 90s Bradys still living gloriously 70s while everyone else called them weird. Genius move.
2005’s Bad News Bears remake just tried to tone down the unacceptable elements. Swing and a miss.
Taking much more of a straight up comedic approach than John Singleton’s 2000 sequel, this Shaft‘s culture clashes between John (Samuel L. Jackson) and JJ (Jessie T. Usher) offer some amusingly organic attempts to freshen the air of misogyny and homophobia.
It’s not a bad strategy, but the dam can only be held back so long. Guys, quit being such pansies. Women like real men who only want sex, guns, and any chance to kill people!
And then there’s the matter of the unintentional comedy.
JJ is a data analyst at the FBI who’s also apparently a hacking genius: “This is the most advanced encryption I’ve ever seen…I’m in!” He drags Pops into a completely ridiculous drug case where the clues come easy and the henchman stand straight up in every line of fire while explaining their motivations for giving chase (“It’s that Shaft kid! He saw everything!”)
Is Jackson a wonderful badass who’s perfect for this? Duh.
Does Regina Hall (as JJ’s mother) brighten every scene she’s in? She always does.
Do the samples of Isaac Hayes’s original music remind it’s probably the greatest theme in movie history? You damn right!
And Richard Roundtree again, casually dismissing that “Uncle Shaft” business from last time? Love it so hard.
There are fun elements here, but the lazy execution never fully commits to the promising setup. Shaft’s early self-awareness ends up devolving into self-parody and sadly, I cannot dig that.
Funny How?
Late Night
by George Wolf
Just weeks ago, Long Shot gave us an in-the-moment, proudly raunchy comedy with brains and big laughs. Audiences largely balked.
Late Night also offers plenty of insightful funny business, but trades the hard R-rating for a more agreeable sell, one that will hopefully translate into selling more tickets.
Mindy Kaling’s debut screenplay may be ultimately eager to please, but it’s also a sharp and solidly funny takedown of the challenge in navigating a social landscape in motion.
Kaling also stars as Molly, a factory worker who’s main outside interest is comedy. Though her only standup experience is cracking them up over the intercom at work, Molly lands an interview for a writing gig at her favorite late night talk show.
Her timing is perfect. Comic legend Katherine Newbury (a pitch-perfect, absolutely Oscar-worthy Emma Thompson) has ordered some diversity be added to her all male, all pale writing staff, so Molly gets the gig.
Katherine may have been the first woman to enter the late night wars, but her act has grown stale and complacent. Icon or no, Katherine faces an overthrow attempt from a network president (Amy Ryan) with eyes on an obnoxiously edgy comedian (Ike Barinholtz as Kaling’s barely-veiled swipe at Daniel Tosh) as new host.
Can Molly’s fresh comedic takes save her hero’s job?
Credit Kaling and director Nisha Ganatra for answering that question without sacrificing the bigger points at work.
From slut shaming and #metoo to diversity, office politics and the shifting sands of comedic relevance, Kaling’s script is brimming with writing-what-you-know confidence, even when it’s coasting on roads most traveled.
But still, in those most predictable moments, Thompson’s deliciously droll timing meshes irresistibly with Kaling’s wide-eyed enthusiasm. They both get able support from a uniformly solid ensemble, and the biggest question mark about Late Night becomes that R rating.
The convenient layups the film settles for in act 3 seem like an understandable trade-off for a greater chance at mainstream appeal. So why not trim a few of those F-bombs to get a PG-13?
Late Night deserves plenty of eyeballs. For F@#! sake, let’s hope it gets them.
I Don’t Want to Go Out – Week of June 10
One of the biggest and baddest hits DVD this week, plus two other middling efforts that were better than they should have been. Here’s the skinny.
Click the film title for the full review.
Captain Marvel (DVD)
Captive State
Five Feet Apart
Hey Lady, Dark Lady
Dark Phoenix
by Hope Madden and George Wolf
Hey, remember back in ’06 when director Brett Ratner and writer Simon Kinberg crashed the X-Men franchise into oblivion by telling the story of how the perpetually boring Jean Grey was really the most powerful of all mutants, plus maybe she was bad, and not even the love of two good mutants and the misguided belief of Dr. Charles Xavier could save her?
You don’t?! Because it was so bad it tanked the promising series until director Matthew Vaughn revived it five years later with Ashley Miller’s clever time warp, X-Men: First Class. Then there was another good one, then a terrible one—basically, we’re back on that downside of this cycle.
So why not put some polish on that old turd about Jean Grey, and this time give it the overly ominous title Dark Phoenix?
Some elements are the same: Jean’s powers are beyond anyone’s control and there’s a dark power that’s overtaking her. But this go-round, writer Kinberg also makes his feature debut behind the camera, spinning a yarn with more aliens, more girl power and less Wolverine.
The writing is just as bad, though.
How bad? Exposition and inner monologues continually jockey for position, with lines bad enough to choke even the bona fide talent of Jessica Chastain, who joins the fray as alien leader Vuk.
Sophie Turner returns as Jean – the role she took on in 2016’s abysmal X-Men: Apocalypse – with little more charisma than she wielded three years ago. James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence all also return because, one assumes, contracts are contracts.
There’s really no excuse for a film with this cast to fail, but Kinberg’s story weaves and bobs with no real anchor, all the veterans repeat the same old conflict/guilt/resolution spirals and the newbies simply lack the charisma to draw attention away from the weakly choreographed set pieces.
Okay, some of the mutant vs. alien throwdown on a moving train has zip, but it’s too little, too late.
By then the attempts to make us care about a character that’s always been lacking in investment – for us and these X superfriends – have pulled up lame.
To paraphrase social historian Regina George: Stop trying to make Jean Grey happen, she isn’t going to happen.
Screening Room: Dark Phoenix, Secret Life of Pets 2
Not the strongest week in theaters, sad to say. This week we break down Dark Phoenix, Secret Life of Pets 2, All Is True, The Tomorrow Man and all that’s fit to watch in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
Self Portrait
The Souvenir
by George Wolf
The Souvenir rests at the hypnotic intersection of art and inspiration, an almost shockingly self-aware narrative from filmmaker Joanna Hogg that dares you to label its high level of artistry as pretense.
It is an ode to her craft and her experience, reflecting on both through an autobiographical tale of hard lessons learned.
Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne – Tilda’s daughter) is a young film school student with a privileged background and a cautiously supportive mother (played, of course, by Tilda, who’s customarily splendid). It is the early 1980s, and Julie has high aspirations for projects that will mine truths she has yet to experience.
That changes when she begins a relationship with Anthony (Tom Burke) a complicated older man who preys on Julie’s naivete.
Hogg lays the relationship bare, literally opening her diaries and projects for a portrait of the artist on her own unapologetic terms.
While other cast members had scripted dialog, Byrne worked improvisationally from Hogg’s own journal, with Julie’s student films also closely resembling those in the director’s past.
In her first major role, Byrne is tremendously effective (which, given her lineage, should not be that surprising). In her hands, Julie’s arc is at turns predictable, foolish and frustrating, yet always sympathetic and achingly real.
The intimacy of Hogg’s reflection on a toxic relationship is worthy on its own, but her story’s added resonance comes from its unconventional structure, and the brilliantly organic way Julie’s thoughts on filmmaking tell you why that has to be.
The Souvenir is finely crafted as a different kind of gain from pain, one that benefits both filmmaker and audience. It is artful and cinematic in its love for art and cinema, honest and forgiving in its acceptance, and beautifully appreciative for how life shapes us.
I Don’t Want to Go Out – Week of June 3
From sublime to interesting to tired and predictable, this week’s home entertainment offerings certainly vary. Here is our take on each one.
Click the film title for the full review.
Gloria Bell
JT Leroy
A Madea Family Funeral
Fright Club: Gateway to Hell Horror
Our friend is looking to buy her first home and our only advice was probably the same advice she got from everyone: check the basement for the gateway to hell. That always causes trouble for new homebuyers, doesn’t it?
Indeed, these netherworld exits and entrances don’t exist only in suburban basements. Nope, you can find them anywhere. In fact, you can even create your own. No idea why you would want to do that, but (assuming horror films are how-tos), it can be done. Which are the best gateway to hell horror movies, you ask? Luckily, we’ve done the math.
5. The Ninth Gate (1999)
A bunch of films nearly had this fifth slot: Amityville 3D (mainly so we could make fun of Laurie Laughlin), The Gate and its Harryhausen influences, Event Horizon’s blackhole to hell. But we landed on The Ninth Gate because we love Frank Langella and Lena Olin.
Johnny Depp plays a sleazy rare books dealer in Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Arturo Perez-Reverte’s novel. Depp’s Dean Corso falls into a mysterious adventure of finding and appraising three volumes allegedly co-authored by Satan himself (or herself?).
Maybe the element of this film that makes it more interesting than it might be is that, while the humans longing for the knowledge in these volumes are terrible people, the film doesn’t seem to find Satanism (the real worship of an actual Satan, not today’s activism branch) a potentially worthwhile activity. Satan (Emmanuelle Seigner, Polanski’s wife) is also an interesting character—in concept, anyway.
Plus, black masses! Love those!
4. The Beyond (1981)
Lucio Fulci was really preoccupied with the gateway to hell. He produced an entirely worthwhile trilogy on the topic. And while City of the Living Dead and House by the Cemetery have their charms (well, for one of us), The Beyond is by far the most entertaining of the three.
As is always the case in Fulci films, the dubbing is half the fun, here unintentionally aiding in the overall surreal quality of the picture. Liza Merrill (Catriona MacColl, who stars as different characters in each of the three Gateway films) has inherited an old Louisiana hotel from her dead uncle.
Guess what’s in the basement?!
Silly, gory as hell, hypnotic and oh-so-Fulci, The Beyond is a dreamy peek into hell. The clashing accents and lack of logic only strengthen the vibe.
3. Insidious (2010)
Yes, technically this one takes place in “The Further” – but we don’t buy that this creepy red guy plays organ in limbo or purgatory. We’re going with hell.
Director James Wan and writer (and co-star) Leigh Whannell launched a second franchise with this clever, creepy, star-studded flick about a haunted family.
Patrick Wilson (who would become a Wan/Whannell staple) and Rose Byrne anchor the film as a married couple dealing with the peculiar coma-like state affecting their son, not to mention the weird noises affecting their house.
But what makes this particular film so effective is that we get to go into The Further to reclaim the lost soul. It’s a risky move, but these filmmakers do what few are able to: they show us what we are afraid of.
2. The Sentinel (1977)
Journeyman writer/director Michael Winner helmed this weird little gem about a damaged young woman and her journey toward the only destiny that can save her.
It starts, as these things so often to, with the search for a new place to live. New York model Alison (Cristina Raines) is offered an incredibly great rate for a gorgeous NY brownstone apartment.
Is it the gateway to hell? Yes, but NY real estate being what it is, she takes it.
Look at this cast: Burgess Meredith, John Carradine, Christopher Walken, Ava Gardner, Jerry Orbach, Jose Ferrer, Beverly D’Angelo and Chris Sarandon, mainly playing the various and fascinating demons hoping to throw poor, fragile Alison off her path.
Meredith in particular is a magnificent Satan.
1. Baskin (2015)
Welcome to hell! Turkish filmmaker Can Evrenol invites you to follow a 5-man police squad into the netherworld, where eye patches are all the rage, pregnancy lasts well under the traditional 40 weeks, and you don’t want to displease Daddy.
The serpentine sequencing of events evokes a dream logic that gives the film an inescapable atmosphere of dread, creepily underscored by its urgent synth score. Evrenol’s imagery is morbidly amazing. Much of it only glimpsed, most of it left unarticulated, but all of it becomes that much more disturbing for its lack of clarity.
As is always the case, the real kicker is the Satan character. Here, central figure Mehmet Cerrahoglu’s remarkable presence authenticates the hellscape. Evrenol’s imaginative set design and wise lighting choices envelope Cerrahoglu, his writhing followers, and his victims in a bloody horror like little else in cinema.
Screening Room: Godzilla 2, Rocketman, Ma
Big, bold, oversized weekend in movies. We talk through Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Rocketman and Ma and hit on all that’s worth a look in new home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
