This week we take a breather from superheroes to look into the lives of some frazzled women. Join us as we chat about Tully and Overboard, as well as The Endless and Foxtrot, plus all that’s fit to consume in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by George Wolf
The character Tully doesn’t show up ’til nearly 40 minutes in, but by then the film Tully has its anchor: a sensational Charlize Theron.
The Oscar-winner excels as Marlo, an exhausted, frazzled mom in dire need of a break. Marlo and her inattentive husband Drew (Ron Livingston) already have a young daughter, a younger son with some behavior issues, and now (surprise!) a brand new baby girl.
Lucky for Marlo, she’s also got a rich brother (Mark Duplass) whose baby gift is a “night nanny” named Tully (Halt and Catch Fire‘s Mackenzie Davis – a keeper). Once Tully shows up, Marlo can get what every new parent craves…sleep.
After two winners together in Juno and the criminally ignored Young Adult, writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman make their third collaboration a wonderfully natural extension of the first two.
Cody is a gifted writer, her dialogue often insightful without preaching and timely without pandering. Here she creates two characters whose unlikely friendship speaks to the changing roles women will play throughout their lives, and the heartache those changes can sometimes bring.
That being said, it’s hard to imagine the film working as well as it does without Theron. She makes Marlo’s every emotion feel real, and the character absolutely human even when Cody’s script takes some chances not all will appreciate.
Reitman, back in form after the dreadful Men, Women & Children, also helps in that department, keeping the film grounded in a world many will recognize. This isn’t the heartwarming comedy the TV ads want you to think it is, nor is it the casual dismissal of postpartum depression that others have charged.
It is one woman’s story, with moments of humor, absurdity and truth, a bit of cliche and even some fairy tale optimism. And with all of that, there’s enough brash boundary pushing to make Tully feel like a film we haven’t seen before, and one we’re glad that’s here.
by George Wolf
From its opening shot – a slow, dizzying swirl above a patterned kitchen floor – Foxtrot commits to a cornerstone of disorientation. Through both narrative and camerawork, writer/director Samuel Maoz keeps you off balance as he constructs a deep, moving dive into one family’s struggle with loss and regret.
Jonathan (Yonaton Shiray), a soldier in the Israeli Army, is going about his mundane duties in a remote outpost when a tragic twist of fate occurs. Jonathan’s father Michael (Lior Ashkenazi delivering his usual excellence) and mother Daphna (Sarah Adler – also terrific) take the news of the accident, along with the news of a second, very unexpected development, very differently.
Maoz’s visuals, sometimes anachronistic, bold and darkly funny, are never less than fascinating. His writing is incisive and brilliantly layered, confidently moving toward a shattering finale without stopping to worry about whether you’re connecting every loose end.
Just when you may think you know where Maoz is going, you don’t. But the rug isn’t pulled by cheap gimmickry or emotional manipulation, but rather perfectly arranged pieces assembled by deeply affecting performances.
Like its namesake, a dance that will always lead you to “end up in the same place,” Foxtrot can be viewed from different angles with equal impact. You might see a sociopolitical statement on the filmmaker’s home country, a universal parable on the costs of war, or a starkly intimate take on family bonds.
Let it in, and this film will reveal layers of meaning and a lasting grip. Through Foxtrot, Maoz and his stellar performers are speaking with a stylish and bittersweet elegance.
Listen.
Great animation, very good foreign drama, better-than-expected war drama and one seriously disappointing ghost story—these are the choices. Let us help you with that.
Click the film title for the full review.
Just the one big one to talk through—with no spoilers! Maybe a little bit about superhero crushes, though. So, it’s Avengers: Infinity War as well as what’s new in home entertainment. Check out the full podcast HERE.
by Hope Madden and George Wolf
Let’s say you recently penned Captain America: Civil War, an exceedingly successful comic book franchise effort weighed down by the mushrooming of heroes. So. Many. Heroes.
And let’s say it went so well that you are now tasked with the new Avengers movie—the film that takes very nearly every hero from your last effort and tacks on, say, 7 or 8 more. You would almost have to immediately think about thinning the herd, right?
Yes.
Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (who’ve penned all three Captain America films) weave a Marvel Universe-spanning tale that asks whether or not things would work out better if we had about half as many people to deal with. That seems like writerly self-reflection right there.
Thanos (Josh Brolin, who villains it up for Deadpool 2 next) believes in balance. He’s been collecting Infinity Stones across all the different Marvel movies so he can create this Justice Friends adventure and rid the universe of half its inhabitants.
Wait, Thanos is a Guardians of the Galaxy villain, right? Does that mean Starlord’s entire rag-tag crew will join the Avengers (and Dr. Strange and Black Panther and Spiderman and on and on)? So, Chris Pratt, Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth?
Correct.
All we need to defeat Thanos is Chris Pine. No way six Infinity Stones can outshine the wattage of all the Chrisses!
The screenplay offers smart comic moments that suit individual characters (Drax! Teenaged Groot!) and never undermine the drama, of which there is plenty. And balance is clearly on the minds of the writers as well as directors Anthony and Joe Russo (who helmed the last two Captain American films and love Cleveland). The storyline divides up nicely to allow the plethora of personalities to shine, each in their own way.
Though the film runs a full 2 ½ hours with the end-of-credits stinger, it never drags. Plenty happens, all of it rooted in character and held together by Brolin, who gives the film a layered epicenter through his memorable CGI/voice performance.
The Thanos facial effects rank somewhere between Planet of the Apes and Superman’s mustache, while the outlying worlds and creatures sport satisfactory shine.
But we cannot get behind what they’re doing with Hulk. Not digging it.
The very best films in the Marvel universe excel in nuanced big thinking (Black Panther, Winter Soldier) or bullseye tonality (Spider-Man: Homecoming). Infinity War gets close on both battlegrounds, but lays up to bet on its own long game.
True, that sounds like cliched word salad, but we’re steering clear of planet spoiler.
Infinity War tackles some big ideas and makes some brave choices that may cause you to reassess the entire Marvel franchise.
Not everyone will be pleased.
But props to Markus, McFeely and the Russos, for being unmoved by the Last Jedi fanboy uproar and following an ambitious vision. And their film does entertain. There’s not a minute of bloat and there is plenty of thought-provoking story likely to make this a movie earning more respect through time and space.
Heaps of movies to veg out and watch from the couch this week. We got docs, we got historical dramas, we got cartoons, we got action flicks. We got it all, and we’ll help you sort it.
Click the film title for the full review.
Join us in the Screening Room where we discuss I Feel Pretty, Super Troopers 2, Traffik, You Were Never Really Here and everything fit to watch on home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by George Wolf
Two killers lie on a kitchen floor, gently singing along as the radio plays “I’ve Never Been to Me,” surely on of the cheesiest songs of all time. Only one of the men will get up.
It’s a fascinating sequence, one of many in Lynne Ramsay’s bloody and beautiful You Were Never Really Here.
In 2011, Ramsay turned We Need to Talk About Kevin, a spare novel that was not especially big screen friendly, into one of the most devastating yet necessary films in recent memory. Her gifts keep on giving, as here she adapts Jonathan Ames’s brisk novella into a dreamy, hypnotic fable, an in-the-moment pileup of Taxi Driver, Taken and Drive.
Joaquin Phoenix delivers an intensely powerful performance as Joe, a combat veteran who has been wounded in various ways. Joe lives with his mother in suburban New York, whetting his appetite for violence as a vigilante for hire who specializes in rescuing kidnapped girls and exacting brutal justice.
A New York senator (Alex Manette) wants his daughter’s (Ekaterina Samsonov) disappearance kept quiet, so Joe gets the call, only to find this case comes with unexpected complications.
Together, Ramsay and Phoenix ensure nearly each of the film’s 89 minutes burns with a spellbinding magnetism. While Phoenix lets you inside Joe’s battered psyche just enough to want more, Ramsay’s visual storytelling is dazzling. Buoyed by purposeful editing and stylish soundtrack choices, Ramsay’s wonderfully artful camerawork (kudos to cinematographer Thomas Townend) presents a stream of contrasts: power and weakness, brutality and compassion, celebration and degradation.
Much like Ramsay’s Kevin, YWNRH is no feel good garden party. It is darkly surreal, and ironically exacting in its impressionistic study of taking hits, and hitting back. Still, it offers a rich cinematic experience, with a filmmaker and actor working in glorious tandem to soak each frame with meaning.
by George Wolf
If you’ve been holding your breath for another Super Troopers, let’s face it, you’re long dead.
But after 17 years, the Broken Lizard gang is back with more of the same stupid gags from that doofus crew in the Vermont Highway Patrol.
Well, technically, the crew has been relieved of duty since the “Fred Savage ride-along incident,” but destiny finds them at the Canadian border. After a rare border reassessment, a small Canadian town (with a winning Rob Lowe as the local mayor/bordello owner) must begrudgingly accept that it will soon become a small American town. To ease the jurisdictional switch from Mounties to VHiPs, Captain O’Hagan (Bryan Cox) reaches out to his old cohorts with the defiant cry of “stoners assemble!”
He really doesn’t do that, but you get the idea. The guys are still stoners.
Apparently inspired by an actual border situation, the film digs in for plenty of sophomoric antics about polite Canucks, boorish Yanks, body parts, bad puns and how each side pronounces “sorry.” There are easy targets and cheese aplenty, but some laughs do get squeezed out, mostly from sheer commitment to the familiarly low bar of the original.
The writers/director/stars in the BL gang are aiming to please, and understandably so. They’re here thanks to cultish fans and a crowdfunding boost, so giving the Troopers troop what they want, including at least two inspired callbacks to that first film, is a sound strategy. It’s just not a consistently hilarious one.
The verdict is pretty simple: if you liked the first one, you’ll like Super Troopers 2.
Either way, stay for the Fred Savage thing.
