Tag Archives: George Wolf

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Come and Sea

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Avatar: The Way of Water

by George Wolf

Week after week, really good films telling solid, compelling stories have been debuting in movie theaters and sinking like streaming-bound stones. What’s it gonna take for movies not named Top Gun to move people off the couch and back into the cinema?

James Cameron thinks the answer is to provide a sensory experience you just cannot get anywhere else. And on that front, Avatar: The Way of Water is a resounding success. See it on the IMAX screen, with the 3D glasses on your face, the thumping Dolby in your earholes and the high frame rate injected in your eyeballs and you’ll be transported to a theme park-like world of technical wonder.

The storytelling, on the other hand, is all wet.

Since we last left Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) over ten years ago, he and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) have formed a happy family among the forest people of Pandora.

Their peace is shattered by a new invasion from the sky people, with a Na’vi clone of Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) out to settle an old score. To keep the Na’vi from the fight, Jake and family flee to a village of the water people (including Kate Winslet and CCH Pounder) that’s led by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis).

But just as the forest family is bonding with their new water world, Quaritch and his troops come calling for a showdown.

You know who realized they shouldn’t run, that war would follow them and put others at risk? Neytiri did, the latest in a long line of smart women in James Cameron movies who no one listens to. That’s not the only throwback to Cameron films you may notice. Aliens, The Abyss, and Titanic are all over this film, and why not? Everybody else steals from them, why not Cameron?

The problem is not that he borrows from himself, but that he repeats himself. Scenes replay the same beats again and again. There’s so much wasted narrative space in this three-plus-hour film, and yet voiceover narration explains what that space could have been used to show.

And that’s the ironic weakness that consistently keeps Avatar 2 from resonating beyond surface-level amazement. Cameron (who also co-wrote the script) shows us so many wonderful delights, but precious few of them advance any investment in character, theme or narrative. It’s not that the ideals hitching a ride with the wizardry aren’t worthy, it’s just that they’re slapped together with so much obviousness and redundancy.

As the long-promised follow-up to the all-time box office champ, and carrying a budget in the hundreds of millions with several more sequels in the pipeline, there was already plenty riding on Cameron’s new vision. But a big return for TWOW could fast track a bittersweet bargain. The days of a rising tide at the multiplex lifting all boats seem to be fading fast, and one more huge wave might not leave room for anything on the big screen that’s less than pure spectacle.

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Truth and Consequences

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Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

The latest from Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu may be uneven and frustrating at times, but do not be tardy. The first three minutes of the film, while showcasing only light, shadow and landscape, unveil the most mesmerizing opening we’ve seen in a damn long time.

And good news, it’s just an appetizer for the two and a half hours of visual delights that follow.

Crafting self-indulgence into sometimes breathtaking art, Iñárritu turns his characteristic cinematic style inward for the sorta-semi-autobiographical Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.

“If you don’t know how to fool around, you don’t deserve to be taken seriously.” So says the Iñárritu stand-in, Silverio Game (Daniel Giménez-Cacho, terrific), a journalist-turned-documentarian who yearns to show emotion rather than fact.  

Silverio’s about to be presented with a big award in L.A., which only triggers a series of introspections that attempt to reconcile an imposter complex with a need for recognition, global fame with his Mexican identity, and a general distaste for the state of his profession.

Visually, Iñárritu pulls no punches, reminding us of the fluid wonder that characterized his films from Babel to Biutiful to Birdman and The Revenant. Here those tactics conjure a dreamlike reality, simultaneously playful and bitter, ideal to reflect the reminiscences and wallowing preoccupations of an artist brooding on his accomplishments and shortcomings.

The narrative is bloated and rambling, which Silverio freely acknowledges as Iñárritu (who also co-wrote the script with frequent collaborator Nicolás Giacobone) continues indulging his self-indulgence. Giménez-Cacho finds sympathy in Silverio’s identity crisis, and it’s fascinating to feel both the push and pull of Iñárritu‘s approach. We embrace it for the shot-making but resist it while the artist tries to tell us where his artistry takes root.

The metaphors, symbolism and contradictions pile on, along with enough jaw-dropping framing to make you realize this could be in an unknown language with zero subtitles and it would still be worth seeing.

“Life is a brief series of senseless events,” Silverio tells us. Maybe. And though Bardo may not be brief and its sense can be confounding, there’s no denying its beauty.

Indulge yourself. See it on the big screen.

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Fry Hard

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High Heat

by George Wolf

Ana (Olga Kurylenko) is a high-end chef with a particular set of skills leftover from her past, so High Heat also offers a slice of Taken. But honestly, Die Hard is just easier to have pun with.

Okay, I’m done.

And there is some shoot-’em-up fun to be had with this film, you just have to wait for Ana’s old KGB partner to join the party.

But first, it’s opening night at the restaurant Ana co-owns with her husband (not her Dad) Ray (Don Johnson). It’s a pretty successful debut, until some mafia goons show up to burn the place down and settle Ray’s massive debt with an insurance payoff.

And before you can 86 the sea bass, Ana’s dispatching the hitmen so quickly that big boss Dom (Dallas Page) has to call in some mercenary backup.

But Ana has a friend to call, too. It’s Mimi (Kaitlin Doubleday), who’s still mad about being ghosted when Ana (or is it “Anya?”) left the Russian spy game. Mimi might be more inclined to hurt Ana than help her, but she’s on her way, along with her getting-in-touch-with-his-feeling hubby Tom (Chris Diamantopoulos) and their teenage twins (Bianca and Chiara D’Ambrosio).

And it’s that nuttily contrasting family dynamic that delivers on the promise of director Zach Golden’s breezy, stylishly throwback opening. Doubleday and Diamantopoulos supply the chemistry here, and along with Jackie Long as a mob masseuse in way over his head, give the film the jolt it needs to avoid being completely forgettable.

Even so, James Pedersen’s debut screenplay feels slight. High Heat struggles to find enough padding for even an 84 minute running time, and will probably fade from the menu pretty quickly. But when it does, maybe Golden and Pedersen will recognize the potential in their side dishes.

Re-tool this project into some cable-ready episodes starring Mimi, Tom and the twins, and you might really get something cooking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEEmIy77PYM

Fright Club

Fright Club: Best John Carpenter Horror Movies

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Our Christmas gift to ourselves this year is a walk through the career of horror master John Carpenter. Yes, we did want to include Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape from New York. But we stayed strong, because we still had to sift through so many genre classics to determine which five would rise to the top.

5. The Fog (1980)

Stevie Wayne (director John Carpenter favorite, at least while they were married, Adrienne Barbeau) does an air shift from a studio in that old lighthouse out on Antonio Bay. But the fog rolling in off the bay is just too thick tonight. It’s as if she’s entirely alone in the world. Can anyone hear her? Will someone go check on her young son?

While a lot does not work in Carpenter’s pirate leper ghost story (leper pirates?!), his first theatrical release after Halloween does hit some of the right marks. The vulnerability of a radio DJ – totally isolated while simultaneously exposed – has never been more palpable than in this film.

Jamie Lee Curtis (another Carpenter favorite) joins her mom Janet Leigh and B-horror legend Tom Atkins to fill out the pool of leper pirate bait. While the film is hardly one of Carpenter’s best, his knack for framing, his voyeuristic camera, and his ability to generate scares with a meager budget are on full display.

4. They Live (1988)

More SciFi and action than horror, still John Carpenter’s vision of an elite class using tech to mollify and control the population of the US was eerily prescient. And horrifying.

At the time, though, it was just plain entertaining in a way that married Carpenter’s own iconic Escape from New York vibe with the SciFi horror miniseries of the day, V.

But mainly, it’s Rowdy Roddy Piper chewing bubble gum, and the 6 1/2 minute fight scene between Piper and undeniable badass Keith David that make this film as fun to watch today as it was when it was released.

3. In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

Sutter Cane may be awfully close to Stephen King, but John Carpenter’s cosmic horror is even more preoccupied by Lovecraft. The great Sam Neill leads a fun cast in a tale of madness as created by the written world.

What if those horror novels you read became reality? What if that sketchy writer with the maybe-too-vivid imagination was not just got to his own page, but god for real? This movie tackles that ripe premise while ladling love for both of the horror novelists who made New England the creepiest section of America.

2. Halloween (1978)

No film is more responsible for the explosion of teen slashers than John Carpenter’s babysitter butchering classic.

From the creepy opening piano notes to the disappearing body ending, this low budget surprise changed everything. Carpenter develops anxiety like nobody else, and plants it right in a wholesome Midwestern neighborhood. You don’t have to go camping or take a road trip or do anything at all – the boogeyman is right there at home.

Michael Myers – that hulking, unstoppable, blank menace – is scary. Pair that with the down-to-earth charm of lead Jamie Lee Curtis, who brought a little class and talent to the genre, and add the bellowing melodrama of horror veteran Donald Pleasance, and you’ve hit all the important notes. Just add John Carpenter’s spare score to ratchet up the anxiety. Perfect.

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

1.  The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter’s remake of the 1951 SciFi flick The Thing from Another World concocts a thoroughly spectacular tale of icy isolation, contamination, and mutation.

A beard-tastic cast portrays a team of scientists on expedition in the Arctic who take in a dog. The dog is not a dog, though. Not really. And soon, in an isolated wasteland with barely enough interior room to hold all the facial hair, folks are getting jumpy because there’s no knowing who’s not really himself anymore.

This is an amped up body snatcher movie benefitting from some of Carpenter’s most cinema-fluent and crafty direction: wide shots when we need to see the vastness of the unruly wilds; tight shots to remind us of the close quarters with parasitic death inside.

The story remains taut, beginning to end, and there’s rarely any telling just who is and who is not infected by the last reel. You’re as baffled and confined as the scientists.

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On With the Show

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Empire of Light

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

There are certain actors – you know the ones – who seem to put out a film every year right at awards season. The people who somehow never have a straight-to-VOD indie or a summer romp, just yearly Oscar vehicles.

For at least one of these people it is a welcome return visit, year after year.

Hello, Olivia Colman.

Seriously, is there anyone who does not love her? Any filmmaker, any actor, any moviegoer? Her performances are shamelessly, giddily human, authentic to a chilling degree. Her force of nature in Sam Mendes’s ode to the cinema, Empire of Light, is no different.

Mendes’s 2019 epic 1917 showed him a master of pacing, understated emotion and visceral thrill. Back in 2012, he made an almost Shakespearean Bond film, easily the strongest in the entire franchise with Skyfall. For Empire of Light, the filmmaker ­– who also wrote the script ­ – returns to the more sentimental content of his earlier career.

Colman is Hilary, the troubled, often melancholy manager of a coastal England cinema in the very early 1980s. A wonderful supporting cast – from the kindly Toby Jones to the prickly Colin Firth, the tender Michael Ward to surprising Tom Brooke ­– surrounds Colman with sparring partners up to the challenge.

Mendes’s tale, at its heart, revels not just in the magic of the movies, but of the movie house itself. Most of the patrons seem to come to the screenings alone, looking to escape the loneliness, the mundane, or the rising tide of extremism right outside those glass doors.

And though the crowds aren’t as large as they once were, the theater still has something to offer – as does Hilary. Her dutiful existence is shaken by the younger Stephen (Ward, outstanding) joining the crew, and together they start exploring some forgotten areas of the once majestic cinema.

The metaphor isn’t subtle, and the film’s tone is overtly nostalgic, but because Colman’s character is anything but typical, Mendes punctures his own sentimentality before it can become overbearing. Gorgeous framing from the great Roger Deakins doesn’t hurt, bathing it all in a grand beauty that reinforces what power can come from that certain beam of light.

The pandemic has drawn out no shortage of filmmakers who’ve been understandably inspired to assess their life’s work. With Empire of Light, Mendes is wearing his heart on his cupholder, imploring us to value what the theater has to offer.

This film can offer the exquisite Colman and a stellar ensemble, and that’s just enough. Through them, Mendes finds impact in his sweetness, rising above the moments that seem engineered for an ad that runs right before the one telling you not to talk or text.

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Cruel Yule

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Violent Night

by George Wolf

Maybe director Tommy Wirkola was kicking back with writers Pat Casey and John Miller one night, arguing about whether Die Hard was a Christmas movie. A few cold pops later, they’d swapped out John McClane for Santa Claus, added Die Hard 2 and Home Alone to the guest list, and Violent Night was born.

David Harbour is a hoot as a hard drinking Claus who’s not very jolly anymore. Kids are all greedy “little shits” these days, nobody believes, and maybe it’s time to hang up the sleigh.

But when he’s dropping off toys for bona fide nice list member Trudy Lightstone (Leah Brady, a cutie) on Christmas Eve, Santa becomes the monkey in the wrench.

Trudy’s grandmother Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo, nice to see you) is obscenely wealthy, so the evil “Scrooge” (John Leguizamo) and his gang have invaded the festivities at the Lightstone compound. They want the millions hiding in the family vault, but they hadn’t planned on a red-suited party crasher and a little kid’s booby traps.

Santa’s not barefoot, but Wirkola (the Dead Snow films) and the Casey/Miller team (The Sonic the Hedgehog films) are not shy about re-creating sequences straight from the Die Hards and Home Alone. They do at least name check both films, and once the season’s beatings begin the film takes on a self-aware, R-rated vibe that’s plenty of ornery fun.

But what Trudy wants most this year is for her Mom (Alexis Louder, so good in Copshop) and Dad (Alex Hassell, The Tragedy of Macbeth) to get back together, and Violent Night can’t help undercutting its subversive streak with a nice, safe glass of milk and cookies.

The film backs away just when it could have been decking the halls with some raunchy hilarity, and that’s disappointing. This Santa likes his snacks with some “pre-War” brandy, and his hammers of the sledge variety. And when Violent Night is reaching into that brand new blood-soaked bag, it’s boughs of whiplash smiles.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Violent Night, Eternal Daughter, The Inspection, A Wounded Fawn, Salvatore & More

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Violent Night, The Eternal Daughter, The Inspection, Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams, Nanny, The Harbinger, Amigo, A Wounded Fawn, Hunt, Four Samosas

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Sole Man

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Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams

by George Wolf

Have you ever seen a high-end shoe being assembled?

Director Luca Guadagnino makes it an oddly transfixing experience in the opening moments of Salvatore, Shoemaker of Dreams. We watch the construction silently, priming us for Salvatore Farragamo’s proud admission.

“I love feet, they talk to me.”

Guadagnino (Bones and All, Call Me By Your Name, Suspiria) may not have much audio or video of the celebrated shoemaker to help tell his story, but what he has is used wisely. Hearing from the actual Salvatore provides the needed personal insight to support the remembrances from family and friends, still photos, and narration from Michael Stuhlbarg.

And even if don’t share Salvatore’s skill as a foot whisperer, his is a truly compelling story of determination, celebrity and arch support.

Salvatore opened his first shop in his native Italy at the age of 12. He came to the U.S. as a teenager in 1915, settled in Santa Barbara, California and soon was outfitting the most famous feet in silent films. When the film business moved to Hollywood, so did Salvatore, also finding time to study anatomy at USC so he might understand how shoes could be made more comfortable.

“Fashion with comfort, that’s what I give.”

He applied for thousands of patents, got rich, went bankrupt and got rich again, forever changing society’s expectations of footwear style and comfort in the process.

Guadagnino’s inclusion of Martin Scorsese in the interview parade only underscores how Salvatore’s journey unveils like a classic American drama. It becomes a sprawling family legacy built on immigration, dreams and a solemn vow to never give up.

Shoemaker of Dreams is a fitting tribute to the fascinating life of a man ahead of his time. And while the focus on the earlier part of Salvatore’s story is more inherently interesting, Guadagnino crafts a sweet warmth for the film’s final act, complete with a surprise chef’s kiss.

The closing moments find Guadagnino collaborating with stop-motion animator Pes for a mesmerizing “shoe ballet” that sits perfectly poles apart from the no-frills intro.

These dancing shoes rival the synchronized shopping in White Noise for can’t-look-away sequence of the year, so keep your own feet right where they and don’t miss it.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Glass Onion, Fabelmans, Strange World, Bones & All, White Noise, Devotion, Blood Relatives

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Glass Onion, The Fabelmans, Strange World, Bones and All, Devotion, White Noise, Blood Relatives

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How Much I Peel

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

by George Wolf

A good set of knives is always welcome around the holiday season. And while the new set from Rian Johnson is not quite as pointed, it’s still sharp, just as much fun, and even a good bit funnier.

2019’s Knives Out showed Johnson to be a new master of the whodunit. He skewered the 1% with wonderfully wry humor as he kept us engrossed in the deconstruction of a twisty murder mystery led by the fascinating Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig).

Craig is back as the world’s greatest detective, one who’s suffering from a pandemic funk. The 2020 lockdown has Blanc itching for a new challenge. A strange puzzle box delivered to his door is the first step toward a satisfying scratch.

It’s an invite to the private Greek island of tech wizard Miles Bron (Edward Norton, a perfect billionaire man baby). Musk – er, I mean Miles – has gathered his old gang of buddies, who call themselves “The Disruptors,” for a lavish murder party. Can anyone hope to solve the mystery the brilliant Miles has concocted?

Blanc probably can. So why was he invited?

Good question. But the real joy of Glass Onion isn’t just finding the answers, it’s Johnson’s skill at peeling back all the layers of doubt and suspicion along the way.

But there’s another party guest who’s even more of a surprise. Andi (Janelle Monáe) had a serious falling out with Miles years ago, so the financial ties that bind the rest of The Disrupters to his ego-driven whims no longer apply.

But for fashion model Birdie (Kate Hudson), politician Claire (Kathryn Hahn), “alpha bro” blogger Duke (Dave Bautista) and scientist Lionel (Leslie Odom, Jr.), kissing Miles’s ring has long been part of the job description.

And that allows Johnson plenty of space to sink his blades into some perfect poster children for the vapid, self-important, privileged and clueless class. Admittedly, Glass Onion‘s fruit seems to hang a little lower than the original film, but the fun is still contagious.

Some well-placed cameos (including sweet farewells to both Stephen Sondheim and Angela Lansbury), obnoxious name-dropping (“Jeremy Renner’s small batch hot sauce!”) and one “I’m not here” live-in slacker named Derol (Noah Segan) add to the madcap zest. Craig puts all of it in his expertly tailored breast pocket while he steals the whole show.

Blanc is more flamboyant and fascinating this time, and Craig doesn’t waste one delicious chance to sell it. Blanc’s growing disgust with the worship of ignorant dickishness may not be especially original but it is tremendously rewarding to watch – almost as much as the case solving itself.

And man, Johnson has mad mystery skills. His script is funny, smart and intricate, always staying one step ahead of your questions while he builds the layers of whos and dunnits, only to tear them down and build anew.

No one’s claiming he invented this genre, but two mysteries down, you could say he’s well on his way to perfecting it.

Who is? Rian Johnson or Benoit Blanc?

Yes.