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Tag Archives: George Wolf
Screening Room: Snow White, Alto Knights, Locked, Assessment & More
Princess Problem Solver
Snow White
by George Wolf
Death, taxes…Disney live action remakes?
We may not be there quite yet, but the train keeps rolling with Snow White, an update that’s consistently appealing enough to rise above an unsteady opening and one unfortunate choice.
Much of that winning appeal comes from a terrific Rachel Zegler, who commands the title role with confidence and zest. Pairing Zegler with a well-cast Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, the film dives into their royal power struggle and finds a nice sweet spot between honoring a classic and nudging it toward new sensibilities.
That new attitude starts right from the “Once Upon a Time” prologue, where we get a new inspiration for the name Show White, and a quick look inside a wholesome upbringing that focused on the common good.
Her stepmother’s attitude toward power is especially timely, and the Magic Mirror (in great voice thanks to Patrick Page) is quick to point out that beauty can be more than what’s seen in a simple reflection.
Once Snow White is grown, with her royal father out of sight and her wicked stepmother on the throne, Director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer, The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2) and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary, Chloe, The Girl on the Train) give us a princess who is still in peril, but is not content to wait around for a handsome prince to save her and her kingdom.
In fact, there’s no handsome prince in sight. Oh, sure, she’s attracted to the rouge-ish peasant Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), but this Snow White’s not about to stay home with the dwarfs while he does all the heroic adventuring.
We’ll get to those dwarfs in a minute.
Songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul provide original tunes, and while the style they brought to The Greatest Showman, Spirited, and Dear Evan Hansen will be instantly familiar, the songs here showcase the talent, bolster the narrative, and add a little new Disney magic.
Zegler soars on “Waiting on a Wish,” and Gadot – in her best turn since Wonder Woman – seems positively giddy to vamp it up on “All Is Fair,” the Evil Queen’s defiant ode to evildoing. Burnap and Zegler both have fun with “Princess Problems,” a tongue-in-cheek framing of privilege and stereotypes, but their audience of dwarfs only calls more attention the film’s nagging question.
This is a live action remake, correct? So why are the dwarfs not played by live actors? The CGI results seem to point to an attempt at making them look as much like the original cartoon characters as possible, which is curious at best. Much of the film is committed to a new vision, how did this tired one get through?
The CGI animals I get – they’re cute – but man these dwarfs become such an albatross it’s even more impressive that Snow White manages to charm despite them, and the few too many opening minutes spent on exposition.
But it does, and Disney’s live action scorecard earns one in the ‘plus’ column.
Unstable for Days
Locked
by George Wolf
The first English language remake (third overall) of the 2019 Argentinian thriller 4×4, Locked streamlines the vigilante festivities for a fairly generic teaming of one veteran trope and one new favorite.
Tech cautionary tales are all the rage, and thrillers have been car-centric back to at least Duel and Race With the Devil in the 70s. So, when the desperate Eddie (Bill Skarsgård) breaks into a luxury sedan, he quickly finds himself at the mercy of one vengeful Dr. William (Anthony Hopkins) and the latest in auto security gadgets.
Director David Yarovesky and screenwriter Michael Arlen Ross soften Eddie’s edges from the start. Yes, he’s a f*&kup, but he’s got a cute young daughter and really wants to do better for her, right?
William isn’t moved. He’s got his own agenda, and it starts with giving Eddie a painful tour around his pimped-out ride. Eddie’s locked into the steel reinforced frame, the car is soundproofed and polarized, the seats are equipped with tasers, the glass is bulletproof, the heat and AC can be pushed to lethal levels, all while William probes and taunts Eddie via a call on the in-dash display.
The conversations tell us much about William and Eddie, and a little too much about the film’s message of classism and wealth inequality. What’s worse, when William disconnects, and Eddie is free to explore the car for weaknesses, he conveniently talks to himself so we can be let in on his thought process.
Yarovesky (Brightburn) has some success making the single setting visually interesting, faring better with the action opportunities that come from William deciding the put the car in “drive” and enact some vehicular justice against any suspected criminals.
Skarsgård tries his best to give Eddie some needed depth, and Hopkins seems delighted to get cartoonishly villainous. But Locked can never develop the psychological engagement of 2013’s auto mystery Locke or the clever thrills of Trunk: Locked In from just two years ago.
And most surprisingly, it pulls punches from its own source material, settling for a surface level morality play without the shades of grey that almost always leave a more lasting impression.
Fright Club: Best Appalachian Horror
How many great horror films are set in Appalachia? So many that we had to leave these off the top 5 list: Wrong Turn, Evil Dead, Jugface, The Mothman Prophesies, The Descent, even Silence of the Lambs!
Because what were we looking for? Something that really dug into the landscape, the people of the area. Films that couldn’t have been set anywhere else. It was a tough cull, but we think we landed on the best.
5. Tucker and Dale v Evil (2010) (West Virginia)
Horror cinema’s most common and terrifying villain may not be the vampire or even the zombie, but the hillbilly. The generous, giddy Tucker and Dale vs. Evil lampoons that dread with good natured humor and a couple of rubes you can root for.
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.
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.
T&DVE offers enough spirit and charm to overcome any weakness. Inspired performances and sharp writing make it certainly the most fun participant in the You Got a Purty Mouth class of film.
2. The Blair Witch Project (1999) (Maryland)
A master class in minimalism, Blair Witch scared the hell out of a lot of people back in the day. This is the kind of forest adventure that I assume happens all the time: you go in, but no matter how you try to get out – follow a stream, use a map, follow the stars – you just keep crossing the same goddamn log.
One of several truly genius ideas behind Blair Witch is that filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez made the audience believe that the film they were watching was nothing more than the unearthed footage left behind by three disappeared young people. Between that and the wise use of online marketing (then in its infancy) buoyed this minimalistic, naturalistic home movie about three bickering buddies who venture into the Maryland woods to document the urban legend of The Blair Witch. Twig dolls, late night noises, jumpy cameras, unknown actors and not much else blended into an honestly frightening flick that played upon primal fears.
3. Devil to Pay (2019) (Georgia)
The tale is anchored with a quietly ferocious turn by Danielle Deadwyler (who also produces) as Lemon, a hardscrabble farmer trying to keep things up and wondering where her husband has been these past days.
One of the most tightly written thrillers in recent memory, The Devil to Pay peoples those hills with true characters, not a forgettable villain or cliched rube among them. The sense of danger is palpable and Deadwyler’s commitment to communicating Lemon’s low-key tenacity is a thing of beauty.
Hell, the whole film is beautiful, Sherman Johnson’s camera catching not just the forbidding nature of Appalachia, but also its lush glory.
2. The Night fo the Hunter (1955) (West Virginia)
Robert F. Mitchum. This may be the coolest guy there ever was, with an air of nonchalance about him that made him magnetic onscreen. His world-wizened baritone and moseying way gave him the appearance of a man who knew everything, could do anything, but couldn’t care less. And perhaps his greatest role in definitely his best film is as serial killer/preacher Harry Powell in the classic Night of the Hunter.
The iconic film noir sees Mitchum as a con man who cashed in on lonely widows’ fortunes before knocking them off. He’s set his sights on Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), whose bank robber husband had been a cell mate before his execution.
What unravels is a gorgeously filmed, tremendously tense story of Depression-era Appalachian terror as Powell seduces the widow and her entire town, but not her stubborn son. Many of the performances have that stilted, pre-Method tinge to them, but both Winters and Mitchum bring something more authentic and unseemly to their roles. The conflict in styles actually enhances an off-kilter feel director Charles Laughton emphasizes with over-the-top shadows and staging. It gives the whole film a nightmarish quality that, along with Mitchum’s unforgettable performance, makes Night of the Hunter among the best films of its era.
1. Deliverance (1972) (Georgia)
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.
Screening Room: Black Bag, Novocaine, Looney Tuns and more!
Spy vs. Spy
Black Bag
by George Wolf
What is more diabolical: enacting a global plan for widespread destruction, or pursuing a selfish agenda in your relationship, ready to twist the knife precisely where it hurts your partner the most?
Black Bag has a satchel full of fun weighing the two options, as director Steven Soderbergh and a crackling ensemble contrast the power plays in both love connections and spy games.
Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett (already sounds good, right?) are downright delicious as Londoners George Woodhouse and Kathryn St. Jean, master spies and devoted spouses. He’s emotionless and tidy, an expert cook, and a dogged sleuth with a hatred of dishonesty. She’s cool, calculating and seductive, with a wry sense of humor, a prescription for anxiety meds and a sudden cloud of suspicion around her.
Could Kathryn really be the mole who has stolen a lethal malware program and is shopping it to Soviet extremists? And can George be trusted with the job of investigating his own wife? The agency director (Pierce Brosnan) doesn’t hold back his distaste for the predicament.
While hosting a dinner party for two other couples who also mix business and pleasure – Freddie (Tom Burke)/Clarissa (Marisa Abela, so good as Amy Winehouse in Back to Black) and James (Regé-Jean Page)/Zoe (Naomie Harris) – George spots the first clue that Kathyrn’s allegiances may be compromised.
So the game is on.
Veteran screenwriter David Koepp follows his minimalist winner Presence with a smart and twisty throwback drama, relying less on action and more on dialog and plot, often staying a step ahead of your questions about internal logic. There’s a good bit of dry British humor here, too, which these stellar performers dig into with understandable relish.
From the opening prologue – an extended take that winds through the cityscape with purpose – Soderbergh seems perfectly at home with this self-assured style . The aesthetic is lush and sometimes showy, but in a relaxed manner of somebody who knows his audience is going to appreciate it.
They should. Black Bag is an adult-centric drama that offers bona fide movie stars, glamour and romance, challenges, surprises and humor. And it gets it all done in 90 minutes. Throw in a fine meal beforehand, and you’ve got a damn fine date night that just might put you in a pretty friendly mood when you get home.
Don’t waste it.
Screening Room: Mickey 17, Rule of Jenny Pen, 7 Veils, Plankton & More!
Art Imitating Life Imitating Opera
Seven Veils
by George Wolf
Real-life creative roadblocks pushed filmmaker Atom Egoyan to channel his frustrations into a new project. Seven Veils is the result, an impressively crafted and consistently compelling psychological drama of life imitating art imitating opera.
A few years back, Egoyan was set to re-mount his vision of Richard Strauss’s Salome with the Canadian Opera Company. Producers blocked some of Egoyan’s proposed changes, which led him to create the character of Jeanine.
Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried) is a young theatre director given the reins to a re-mount of Salome, which was the crown jewel in the resume of her mentor, Charles. Producers would no doubt prefer someone more seasoned at the helm, but it was Charles’s dying wish for Jeanine to direct, and she dives into the project with earnest ambition and a complicated past.
Repressed trauma begins to influence Jeanine’s edits to the production, and her ideas are met with a resistance that leads to mockery.
Egoyan (Chloe, The Sweet Hereafter) was able to incorporate the set of his own staging of Salome into the Seven Veils production, giving the film’s fictional opera a sumptuous, authentic visual pull that helps to seamlessly blur the narrative lines.
Because whether these characters are on stage or off, Egoyan funnels every thread through the act of spectating. Jeanine watches rehearsals. Cast and crew watch Jeanine. Jeanine has face-time conversations with her mother and her estranged husband, while production artist Clea’s (Rebecca Liddiard, an ensemble standout) BTS vlogs fuel some desperate backstage deal-making.
And as Jeanine complains about the effect of an intimacy coordinator on her plans for more overt sexuality onstage, persistent flashbacks foreshadow the film’s third act turn toward melodrama. It’s Seyfried’s committed performance that keeps the series of reveals from collapsing under pulpy self-indulgence.
Jeanine is clearly working through some things, and Seyfried makes it worthwhile to labor along with her. Instead of overwrought hysterics, Seyfried brings a slowly unraveling intensity to Jeanine, allowing the unease that inspired Egoyan’s Seven Veils to play out as a fascinating peek behind the creative curtain.
Screening Room: Last Breath, My Dead Friend Zoe, Riff Raff, Invader & More
