Screening Room: The Northman, Massive Talent, The Bad Guys & More
Tag Archives: George Wolf
Platinum Status
Stanleyville
by George Wolf
Every once in a while, a film comes along that has no hope of fitting inside those “every once in a while” constraints.
Because if you’re looking to sum up Stanleyville in such generic terms, good luck to you.
It’s a weird movie. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
In his feature debut, director and co-writer Maxwell McCabe-Lokos serves up an offbeat comedy that is equal parts exaggerated and restrained, one that’s anchored by the quiet existential dread of Maria (Susanne Wuest from Goodnight Mommy).
Startled by a hawk flying into her office window – and the lack of a reaction from her co-worker – Maria walks off away from her job, her family and the few material things she’s carrying with her. Slumped and staring blankly ahead from a massage chair at the local mall, Maria’s approached by older gentleman in an ill-fitting suit. Oh, and his name is Homunculus (Julian Richings).
What’s this? Maria’s been chosen from among “hundred of millions of candidates” to compete in a contest. And not just any contest, a “platinum level exclusive contest!”
The prize: a brand new habanero-orange compact SUV.
Maria’s in, and she reports for duty to find four other contestants (with names like Bofill Pancreas and Manny Jumpcannon) ready to battle for that sweet habanero ride. As Homunculus explains the ten rounds of competition (“Uh, there’s only eight up there.”), check that – eight rounds of competition, contrasts are drawn between Maria and her opponents.
She’s up against a hedge fund d-bag, a muscle bound jock, the fame whore and the badass bitch. McCabe-Lokos fits all four into clearly purposeful stereotypes, while Maria is reserved and harder to read.
The eight rounds are bizarre and abstract, with the microcosm of society breaking down along familiar lines as desperation grows to get the grand prize, along with the validation of conquering “the very essence of mind-body articulation.”
The brand of satire is indeed fascinating and ambitious, it’s just never more than dryly clever. Even at barely 90 minutes, a sense of drag seeps into the film, and though McCabe-Lokos shows definite promise for the future, Stanleyville hits the final bell more of a curiosity than a champion.
Pleased to Meet Me
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
by George Wolf
It’s not just that it’s the role he was born to play. It’s also that it feels like precisely the right moment for him to be playing it, as if the cosmos themselves are aligning to deliver us some rockin’ good news.
How good? Well, for starters, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent gives him about a minute and a half just to name check himself as “Nic f’innnnnnnnnnggggggggow!WoahCage!”
It’s a film that nails a joyously off the rails tone early and often, as Nic goes after the role of a lifetime with a public rage reading for David Gordon Green, but comes up short. The letdown has Nic considering walking away from the business altogether, until his agent (Neil Patrick Harris) calls with an attention-getting offer.
Attend one birthday party for a superfan, collect one million dollars.
So it’s off to Spain and the lavish compound of Javi (Pedro Pascal), where Nic is blindsided by two federal agents (Tiffany Haddish, Ike Barinholtz) staking out the place. Seems Javi is actually a drug kingpin who’s holding a young girl hostage in an effort to influence an upcoming election.
Sounds funny, right?
Not really. Which makes it even more of a kick when there’s no defense against giving in to the gleefully meta madness.
Director and co-writer Tom Gormican (That Awkward Moment) taps into the cult of Cage by both exploiting the myth and honoring how it took root. There are multiple, non-judgemental callbacks to the Cage filmography, while the young Nic (via hit or miss de-aging) drops in to remind his older self just who the F they are!
And while we’re loving all manner of Cage, here comes Pedro! More natural and endearing than he’s ever been, Pascal starts by channeling the fan in all of us, and then deftly becomes the film’s surprising heart. Yes, there are nods to Hollywood pretension, but they’re never self-serving, and the film is more than content to lean all the way in to a madcap adventure buddy comedy spoof.
Would it shock anyone if we eventually get a tell-all book revealing that Cage actually was a CIA operative? Or that he won Employee of Every Month? Nope, and Massive Talent is a fun, funny salute to a guy who’s improved a host of movies by never forgetting who he is.
WoahCage!
Fright Club: Best Horror Movies of the 1930s
We dig deep into the history of horror to pay tribute to some of the true cinematic breakthroughs – films that defined horror and are still imitated and adored today.
5. Dracula (1931)
Oh, Bela. When Lugosi took the screen in 1931, no one was yet tired of Dracula. It was still a literary property only made once into a film, albeit illegally and under a different title by F.W. Murnau. (If you haven’t seen the masterpiece that is Nosferatu, please do.)
Bela, alongside director Tod Browning, got to create the image that would forever define the most mimicked, reworked, revamped – if you will – monster in cinema.
4. The Black Cat (1934)
Rocky Horror owes a tremendous debt to Edgar G. Ulmer’s bizarre horror show. The film – clearly precode – boasts torture, tales of cannibalism, and more than the hint of necromancy.
Plus Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff?! What is not to love? It looks great, as does Karloff, whose lisp is put to the most glorious use. What a weird, weird movie. So good!
3. Vampyr (1932)
The well-groomed if aimless dreamer wanders with what appears to be a fishnet to a secluded little inn. But trouble’s afoot.
And dig those crazy shadows!
The great Carl Theodor Dreyer co-wrote and directed this gorgeous black and white fantasy. The painterly quality of Dreyer’s frames and the bizarre character behavior give the film a surreal atmosphere you can’t shake. His decision to limit dialog to a minimum and craft the movie with traditional silent film gimmicks benefitted the dreamscape atmosphere.
2. Freaks (1932)
Short and sweet, like most of its performers, Tod Browning’s controversial film Freaks is one of those movies you will never forget. Populated almost entirely by unusual actors – midgets, amputees, the physically deformed, and an honest to god set of conjoined twins (Daisy and Violet Hilton) – Freaks makes you wonder whether you should be watching it at all. This, of course, is an underlying tension in most horror films, but with Freaks, it’s right up front. Is what Browning does with the film empathetic or exploitative, or both? And, of course, am I a bad person for watching this film?
Well, that’s not for us to say. We suspect you may be a bad person, perhaps even a serial killer. Or maybe that’s Hope. What we can tell you for sure is that this film is unsettling, and the final, rainy act of vengeance is truly creepy to watch.
1. Frankenstein (1931)/Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
James Whale’s brilliant take on Mary Shelley’s novel looked at Frankenstein’s monster and saw the cruelty humanity was capable of committing. For him, the monster was the central and most interesting figure. Unlike Shelley’s antihero, Whale’s creature was utterly sympathetic, an oversized child unable to control himself, making him simultaneously innocent and dangerous.
Barons and aristocracy, the European setting – the film distrusts scientists and public officials as fools unable to reign in their own ambitions no matter the dire consequences.
Four years later, James Whale and Boris Karloff – with tag along make-up man Jack Pierce – returned to Castle Frankenstein for another tale of horror. What makes this one a stronger picture is the dark humor and subversive attitude, mostly animated by Frankenstein’s colleague Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger).
The sequel casts off the earnestness of the original, presenting a darker film that’s far funnier, often outrageous for its time, with a fuller story. Karloff again combines tenderness and menace, and Elsa Lanchester becomes the greatest goth goddess of all film history as his Bride.
Screening Room: Fantastic Beasts 3, Father Stu, Dual, Paris 13th District & More
Days Of Our Lives
Dual
by George Wolf
We’ve been grappling with the falseness of our social media identities long enough now that we should have expected this attack of the movie clones. Dual takes the premise of last year’s Swan Song and filters it through the high concept lens of The Lobster for an absurdist comedy that – as my grandpa used to say – is as black as the inside of your hat.
Karen Gillan is Sarah, who coughs up a great amount of blood and learns she is going to die. Sarah is told what she has is “painless…but killing you,” as writer/director Riley Stearns begins taking direct aim at our current state of anxiety.
To save her boyfriend (Beulah Koale) and mother (Maija Paunio) from the pain of losing her, Sarah signs up for clone replacement. But as Sarah2 arrives and starts the assimilation process, the original Sarah’s diagnosis is reversed, and now we have a problem.
“We can’t have two of you walking around forever. That would be ridiculous.”
Sarah2 has been in the world long enough to invoke her right to request a “stay,” which means that in one year’s time, a duel to the death will leave only one Sarah bathing in the cheers from both a stadium and broadcast audience.
So Sarah1 gets to work, in an effort to prove to her battle trainer Trent (Aaron Paul) that she really wants to live, and win back her mom and her man who already like Sarah2 better.
Stearns trades his thriller vibe from 2019’s The Art of Self-Defense for a near-future sci-fi landscape and finds delightfully organic ways to bring us up to speed on the rules of the game. And with Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers and Jumanji franchises), Stearns has the perfect partner to set the humor level on deadpan and never budge. The laughs come with a cynical, satirical bite, and while some may be a bit obvious, Stearns scatters other hilarious breadcrumbs just out of focus (don’t miss the title of the video Sarah is watching early on).
Dual doesn’t shy away from the absurdity of navigating a culture of death and winning Instagram posts. In fact, that’s where it lives, fully committed to finding out who really believes laughter is the best medicine.
Offer It Up
Father Stu
by George Wolf
It shouldn’t be surprising to hear Mark Wahlberg was so committed to bringing the story of Father Stu to the screen that he funded much of it himself. Wahlberg’s own rough-and-tumble, sometimes unsavory past is hardly a secret. But now, as a devout Catholic, Wahlberg seems drawn to these stories of restless souls finding their way to the straight and narrow.
Stuart Long was a Montana native from a dysfunctional family who found some success as a Golden Gloves boxer in the mid 1980s before he decided California was the place he ought to be. Stu’s quest for movie stardom never got beyond a few commercials and bit parts, but his quest to win over a girlfriend (here named Carmen) got him a Catholic baptism and a surprising calling.
In her feature debut, writer/director Rosalind Ross frames Stu’s journey around the tenet that suffering brings one closer to God. Grief and disappointment have turned his father (Mel Gibson, effectively dialing down the SOB cartoonishness) into a bitter drunk and his mother (Jacki Weaver, always a pleasure) into a woman too afraid to be hopeful.
Wahlberg is natural and affecting as the Stu who responds to it all by forging ahead, always looking for the next angle to work or the next person to charm with an R-rated quip. As committed as he is though, Wahlberg has more trouble making Stu’s conversion feel like a true change of heart, instead of just his latest obsession.
Stu’s journey to the priesthood is interrupted by a tragic medical diagnosis, but the setback never lands as forcefully as it should. And while Ross rightly doesn’t shy away from Stu’s moral conflicts, his rivalry with a fellow seminarian (Cody Fern) often feels forced and manipulative.
Too profane to land in the “faith-based” stable, the film’s treatment of the sacred nonetheless manages moments that are nuanced and sincere. Ross juxtaposes Stu’s baptism with a wonderfully ironic soundtrack choice, while bringing a layered tenderness to the moments when Stu breaks the news to Carmen (Teresa Ruiz, terrific) that he will leave her behind for the priesthood.
The true story of Stuart Long is indeed a compelling one, and there are stretches of Father Stu that do him justice. But even with its embellished treatment, the film feels dramatically slight. It’s a sturdy and proficient testament to faith, but short of truly rousing.
Screening Room: Everything Everywhere All at Once, Ambulance, Sonic 2, All the Old Knives, Cow & More
Whack a Mole
All the Old Knives
by George Wolf
Blending a modern worldview with a slow-burn vibe, All the Old Knives reveals itself as a well-constructed thriller that often recalls those classic espionage yarns from the 70s.
The underrated Chris Pine gives another standout performance as Henry Pelham, a CIA vet who’s directed by his boss (Laurence Fishburne) to reopen a painful case from the past.
Back in 2012, they both were stationed in Vienna when counter-terrorism efforts to thwart a hijacking went tragically wrong. But new information has emerged that suggests the terrorists had help from a fellow agent, so Henry must revisit members of the team – including his old flame Celia (Thandiwe Newton) – to root out the mole.
Based on the best seller by Olen Steinhauer (who also pens the script), the film is admittedly heavy on dialog, but director Janus Metz (Borg vs. McEnroe, True Directive, Armadillo) proves masterfully adept at fleshing out important contrasts in past and present.
His camera remains purposefully static for the modern settings, while a more free-flowing approach to the flashbacks helps to offset all the descriptive recollections by pulling us into crisply detailed reenactments.
The ensemble (which also includes the great Jonathan Pryce) is top notch. Each actor digs in to the intelligent wordplay, picturesque locales and shadows of doubt on the way to crafting complex humans with something to lose.
The third act may bog down just a touch, with a hand that’s tipped perhaps a beat or two early, but none of that keeps the film from sticking its landing. There’s plenty of blame to go around in the often nasty business of global politics, and All the Old Knives makes that history lesson personal.
Livin’ on the Hedge
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
by George Wolf
I apologize in advance if I slip and call him Crash Bandicoot. I know it’s Sonic – Sonic the Hedgehog, but I’ve got limited first hand experience with any game after Frogger and sometimes get careless.
I do have experience with the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie from two years ago, so more of that same broadly-drawn, kid-friendly eye candy was not a surprise. What I wasn’t expecting was so much more of it, and those 30 extra minutes turn a harmlessly forgettable romp into a real test of patience.
Most of the gang returns from part one, including Ben Schwartz as the voice of Sonic, that speedy little alien who runs around Seattle looking for opportunities to earn the heroic moniker of “Blue Justice!”
But his human “dad” Tom (James Marsden) cautions Sonic of the need to grow up and remember that the moments that make a hero are not for him to choose.
Sonic will get those chances to prove himself, thanks to the return Dr. Robotnik aka “Eggman” (Jim Carrey) and a new, not blue meanie from space.
The ginger-maned Knuckles (voiced by Idris Elba) is a skilled Echidna warrior with an old score to settle against the hedgehog. That means Sonic and his buttcopter-powered pal Tails (voiced by Colleen O’Shaughnessey) will have to fight harder than ever to make sure the all-powerful Master Emerald does not fall into evil hands.
Director Jeff Fowler again shows a good feel for letting the effects department do some flexing, and the mixing of live action with animation is admittedly impressive.
But like the first film, the storytelling here is so exaggerated that even Carrey’s cartoonish mugging doesn’t seem that much over the top. Screenwriters Pat Casey and Josh Miller get an assist this time from John Whittington (The Lego Batman Movie), but are still committed to putting big, obvious eyebrows on nearly everything.
The welcome exception is Knuckles, and Elba’s perfectly authoritative delivery makes his character’s humorless interactions that much more humorous. It’s the one aspect of the film that doesn’t seem geared to keep the attention of easily distracted children.
But hey, kids, how do you like dance offs? Sonic 2 sets the needle drop and move busting level to unnecessary, pushing the run time to nearly two hours, even before the obligatory mid-credits peek at part three.
And all this time I thought speed was Sonic’s superpower.
Or maybe that’s Crash.
