Tag Archives: George Wolf

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Murder Was Again the Case

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Death on the Nile

by George Wolf

“He accuses everyone of murder!”

“It is a problem, I admit.”

This playful admission by legendary detective Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is one of the ways Death on the Nile has some winking fun with the often used, often parodied Agatha Christie formula.

And since Christie’s source novel is one of the works that perfected that formula, it’s smart to acknowledge some inherent campiness while you’re trying to honor the genius of the original construction.

After his successful revival of Murder on the Orient Express in 2017, Branagh is back to again star, direct, and team with screenwriter Michael Green for another star-studded, claustrophobic whodunit.

This time we’re aboard a lavish cruise down the Nile in the late 1930s. Wealthy heiress Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) has just married the dashing Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer), and they’ve invited a group of friends and family (including Annette Bening, Sophie Okonedo, Russell Brand, Jennifer Saunders, Letitia Wright and no-that’s-not-Margot- Robbie-it’s Emma Mackey) to help them celebrate.

Ah, but love and money bring “conflicting lies and jealousies,” and soon Linnet proves wise in putting the world’s greatest detective on the guest list. Murder is again the case!

And when Hercule Poirot is on it – which takes a while – Branagh and Green craft a capable reminder of what makes this formula so sturdy. From the discovery of clues to the requisite red-herring accusations, it’s just fun to feel part of Poirot’s deductive process.

But while Branagh and cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos expertly utilize the confines of the ship to their advantage, the surrounding locales smack of outdated CGI and land as a disappointing stand-in for the eye-popping wonder of Orient Express.

Branagh and Green also try valiantly to weave a layer of love through the mystery. Opening with a prologue that introduces a decades-old pining (along with Poirot’s keen eye for detail and a dubious inspiration for that mustache), the film’s ambitions for this added narrative weight are worthy, but ultimately add more running time than substance.

The epilogue that checks in with Poirot six months after the cruise lets us know Branagh may have more Christie mysteries on his itinerary, and that’s not a bad thing. Death on the Nile proves that a trusty return to glamour and intrigue can still overcome some excess baggage.

Outtakes

2022 Academy Award Nominations

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by Hope Madden and George Wolf

Not a ton of surprises in this year’s Oscar nominations. Maybe we’re lucky there were so many good films to choose from, given the brief nominating window this year. Because of Covid, last year’s contenders had 14 months to find a release. To make up for that and get us back on track, the eligibility window for 2021 was just 10 months.

Still, the academy decided to go ahead and abandon their unpopular “there could be 10 best picture nominations, but probably not) to the more easily understandable “yep, 10.” And yet, still no blockbusters made the list.

But the really important question is this: what do we think?

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Nominees:

  • Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
  • Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
  • Judi Dench, Belfast
  • Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
  • Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard

Surprises and Snubs: The biggest surprise is Caitriona Balfe, who was the front runner (and reasonably so) to get recognized in this category for Belfast. We’d have swapped Balfe in and left Dench off. But for us, Ruth Negga’s turn in Passing is just as big an oversight and as much as we loved Buckley in The Lost Daughter, we’d have given her spot to Negga.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Nominees:

  • Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
  • Troy Kotsur, CODA
  • Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog
  • J.K. Simmons, Being the Ricardos
  • Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog

Surprises and Snubs: While this is a solid list, we’d leave out Simmons and Hinds in favor of Mike Faist in West Side Story, Ben Affleck in The Last Duel or Colman Domingo in Zola.

Original Score

Nominees:

  • Don’t Look Up
  • Dune
  • Encanto
  • Parallel Mothers
  • The Power of the Dog

Surprises and Snubs: For us, this is the year Jonny Greenwood should have been nominated twice (maybe three times!). Great to see his deserving nod for The Power of the Dog, but we’d have bumped him in there for Spencer as well, perhaps in leu of Nicholas Britell’s work in Don’t Look Up.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Nominees:

  • CODA
  • Drive My Car
  • Dune
  • The Lost Daughter
  • The Power of the Dog

Surprises and Snubs: We were surprised not to see Tony Kushner’s update of West Side Story get noticed, and we were sad that Rebecca Hall’s insightful reimagining of Ella Larson’s novel Passing was left off the list. Joel Coen’s streamlined The Tragedy of Macbeth also deserved a spot. We would have given them the spots filled by Dune and CODA and maybe The Lost Daughter.

Best Original Screenplay

Nominees:

  • Belfast
  • Don’t Look Up
  • King Richard
  • Licorice Pizza
  • The Worst Person in the World

Surprises and Snubs: We were surprised—delighted, really—to see The Worst Person in the World and Don’t Look Up recognized. We would have left King Richard off in favor of Michael Sarnoski’s Pig or Mike Mills’s C’mon C’mon, but that’s just us.

Best Original Song

Nominees:

  • Be Alive, King Richard
  • Dos Oruguitas, Encanto
  • Down to Joy, Belfast
  • No Time to Die, No Time to Die
  • Somehow You Do, Four Good Days

Surprises and Snubs: Oh, how we wanted Ariana Grande’s Just Look Up to make this list! Man that would have been fun to hear during the broadcast. We’d have given it Reba’s spot with Somehow You Do.

Best Cinematography

Nominees:

  • Dune
  • Nightmare Alley
  • The Power of the Dog
  • The Tragedy of Macbeth
  • West Side Story

Surprises and Snubs: This had to have been the toughest category. There were so many unbelievable feats of cinematography this year. Belfast and Passing were both utterly glorious, but even we are not sure who we’d bump to fit them in.

Best International Feature

Nominees:

  • Drive My Car, Japan
  • Flee, Denmark
  • Hand of God, Italy
  • Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, Bhutan
  • The Worst Person in the World, Norway

Surprises and Snubs: Here is the other stacked category for 2022. The fact that three of these films —Worst Person in the World, Flee and Drive My Car—are all nominated in other categories makes predicting a winner here very tough. But the surprise has to be Bhutan’s Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom. Since we haven’t seen it, we wouldn’t suggest that it is not deserving. The surprise is that Parallel Mothers from Pedro Almodovar is missing.

Best Documentary Feature

Nominees:

  • Ascension
  • Attica
  • Flee
  • Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  • Writing with Fire

Surprises and Snubs: Really surprised not the see The Rescue here, probably in place of Writing With Fire.

Best Animated Feature

Nominees:

  • Encanto
  • Flee
  • Luca
  • The Mitchells vs. The Machines
  • Raya and the Last Dragon

Surprises and Snubs: It would’ve been great to see Crytozoo, The Summit of the Gods or even Vivo sneak in, but this list will do.

Best Actor

Nominees:

  • Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos
  • Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
  • Andrew Garfield, Tick…Tick…Boom!
  • Will Smith, King Richard
  • Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth

Surprises and Snubs: No surprises here. We would have given Smith’s spot to Nicolas Cage for his crushing performance in Pig.

Best Actress

Nominees:

  • Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
  • Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
  • Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
  • Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
  • Kristen Stewart, Spencer

Surprises and Snubs: When Caitriona Balfe did not get a supporting actress nomination, we figured the Academy has deemed her role the lead. When she didn’t get a spot here—which we’d have given her over Kidman—we were saddened. But at least KStew made it. We were worried.

Best Director

Nominees:

  • Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
  • Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
  • Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
  • Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
  • Steven Spielberg, West Side Story

Surprises and Snubs: There are always reasons to complain, especially in this category. We have chosen not to this year. Well done.

Best Picture

Nominees:

  • Belfast
  • CODA
  • Don’t Look Up
  • Drive My Car
  • Dune
  • King Richard
  • Licorice Pizza
  • Nightmare Alley
  • The Power of the Dog
  • West Side Story

Surprises and Snubs: They went the full 10, even in a year with fewer candidates, and still, not one moneymaker? No Spider-Man: No Way Home. No No Time to Die. More importantly, though, where is The Tragedy of Macbeth? That’s the one we’d have made room for, probably in place of Dune or King Richard.

See who takes home the hardware on Sunday, March 27 at the 94th Academy Awards on ABC and Hulu.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Jackass Forever, Sundown, Last Looks & More

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Jackass Forever, Last Looks, Sundown, Slapface, Air Doll, The Long Night, Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliche, The Wolf and the Lion, The Other Me

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Hollywood Confidential

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Last Looks

by George Wolf

“I looked up and there she was, the dame I thought I’d left behind a lifetime ago. Would she find what she came back for? Well, one thing’s for sure, getting that answer was going to hurt one of us.”

Nobody says that in Last Looks. In fact, there isn’t any leading, dramatic voiceover at all, which turns out to be a pleasant surprise for a neo noir mystery that manages to entertain in spite of its missteps.

Charlie Hunnam (also an executive producer here) stars as Charlie Waldo, a disgraced ex-cop in L.A. who has retreated to a life in the woods with a vow to not own more than one hundred things.

“And you kept that hat?” asks former flame Morena Baccarin (Deadpool‘s Lorena Nascimento). She’s tracked Charlie down with a lucrative offer to get back in the game. It seems celebrated actor Alistair Pinch (Mel Gibson) has been accused of murdering his wife, and the defense team could use Charlie’s old sleuthing skills.

Charlie declines, but when word is leaked that he actually accepted, he hops on his bicycle and heads down to Hollywood to set the record straight, which of course proves harder than he imagined.

Suddenly Morena is missing and presumed dead, and Charlie suffers repeated beat downs while studio bigwig Wilson Sikorsky (Rupert Friend) throws money at him to spend just one day with Alistair before swearing off the case entirely.

Pinch is a blackout drunk who stars as a judge in a gleefully over-the-top show called “Johnnie’s Bench,” and Gibson, like him or don’t, doesn’t waste the chance to be the highlight of the film.

Leaning into lines such as “I’ve gotten married, fathered children and taken out mortgages and not remembered” and being quick to put up dukes at the slightest umbrage, Gibson seems to relish getting cheeky with his own image, and it’s a hoot to behold.

But director Tim Kirkby (Veep, Fleabag, Brockmire) and writer Howard Michael Gould (adapting his own novel) can’t quite decide just how cheeky they want Last Looks to be.

Hunnam brings a solid and sympathetic anchor while the strong ensemble surrounds him with deliciously exaggerated performances, snappy retorts and vampy character names like “Big Jim Cuppy” and “Fontella Davis.” But just when you’re thinking The Nice Guys, Kirkby overdoes the noir shadings with a turn toward L.A. Confidential.

It never reaches either destination, going at least 20 minutes out of its way to end up somewhere in the middle. But when it lands, Last Looks carves out a throwback mystery that’s engaging enough, and – whenever Gibson’s around – even devilish fun.

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Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon

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The Worst Person in the World

by George Wolf

The older you get, four years can pass in what seems like a whirlwind weekend. But to a twentysomething like Julie (Renate Reinsve), that same slice of life can end up being monumental in shaping the course of her life.

For The Worst Person in the World (Verdens verste menneske), Norwegian writer/director Joachim Trier uses understated insight and a revelatory performance from Reinsve to effectively fuse coming-of-age sensibilities with romantic drama. 

In that pivotal 4-year time span, we see Julie move through multiple career choices and two long-term relationships. Despite a 15 year age gap with established comic book artist Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), Julie moves in with him while adamantly proclaiming she doesn’t want children.

As the relationship begins to grow stale, Julie’s head is turned by the younger, more impulsive Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), who is also in a committed relationship.

Choices will be made and harsh realities will be dealt, all in a poignant, surprisingly funny and quietly engrossing package that strikes a fine balance between finding romance and finding yourself.

Even when Julie is at her most selfish, naive or indecisive, Reinsve makes sure she’s always sympathetic and, above all, relatable. Her performance delivers a wonderfully layered reminder that most of us surely recognize this road Julie is traveling.

As one woman navigates what she wants in a career, in a relationship, and ultimately what she wants out of life, Trier and Reinsve craft small, indelible moments that bind together for a refreshingly honest look at how, as John Lennon once said, life happens when you’re busy making other plans.

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Forever Is a Long Time

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Jackass Forever

by George Wolf

Jackass.

Forever.

How does that hit you? Like a promise, or a threat?

Your answer is really all you’ll need to decide whether this sixth big screen installment of the Jackass franchise is for you.

After opening with a fairly inspired monster movie spoof that features a penis, Johnny Knoxville, his crew (Steve-O, Wee Man, Chris, Jeff, etc.) and celebrity guests (Machine Gun Kelly, Eric Andre, Tony Hawk) settle into what they do best: a parade of pranks, stunts, and hidden camera gags that also frequently involve the male nether regions and/or bodily fluids from both man and beast.

And oh, yes, some of their antics go straight to the funny bone.

One of the best, entitled Silence of the Lambs, throws some dudes into a pitch dark room with a venomous snake while giving us the Buffalo-Bill-with-heat-vision-goggle-eye view of how they react.

Hey is that a naked guy tucking his sack back? Maybe.

Other segments, like Knoxville adopting his Bad Grandpa makeup to check out a big sale on furniture, seem to wrap up just when you want them to amp up. The hits and the misses keep coming, equally likely to leave you laughing, wincing, or checking your watch.

But you can’t deny the bonds of friendship are still strong among these idiots, and after twenty-some odd years of insanity, a distinct whiff of sentimentality is in the air.

Or maybe that’s the dump someone just took in a store showroom. Hard to tell.

Fright Club

Fright Club: Best Meat Loaf Horror

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Music lost a big voice recently with the passing of Marvin Michael Meat Loaf Aday. That big voice and fascinating physical presence made itself known in a lot of movies, too. Most impressive was his performance in Fight Club, but he left a mark on horror as well.

Here we remember our favorite Meat Loaf roles in horror movies.

5. Stage Fright (2014)

Think Glee meets Wet Hot American Summer meets Phantom of the Opera meets a grisly end. Throw in some Kabuki and you have writer/director Jerome Sable’s weird wooded horror.

It doesn’t always work, the tonal shifts, in particular, leaving you dizzy. But it’s a fun watch and Meat Loaf delivers an unseemly turn as the sinister entrepreneur at the center of the misrun camp.

It’s a fun, weird one.

4. Burning Bright (2010)

He’s only in it for a minute, but Meat Loaf leaves a lasting impression in this one.

Stepdad Johnny (Garret Dillahunt channeling pure Florida white trash) wants to go Tiger King before Tiger King was cool. He buys a tiger from Mr. Loaf, whose warning to the budding zookeeper sets the stage for what’s to come.

What comes is a somewhat problematic story about a young woman’s choices. You’ll see a little bit of Aja’s Crawl, too. For its B movie trappings, though, the film boasts a number of incredibly tense scenes with this tiger – not a CGI tiger, either. This is the real, toothy deal.

3. Masters of Horror: Pelts (2006)

Dario Argento directed two shorts for the excellent Masters of Horror series. Pelts concerns itself with a fur trader with a weakness for strippers. Mr. Loaf excels in this one.

Argento rarely tapped social issues in his work, but one of the reasons this film is so unnerving is the way the kill sequences are choreographed. This is smart, jarring, horrific stuff.

But in the end, it’s Meat Loaf’s lumbering, creepy central performance that makes the whole thing work.

2. Tales from the Crypt: What’s Cookin’ (1992)

Gilberg Adler mainly wrote and produced this HBO series, but he directed a couple of episodes, including this cannibalism gem.

The cast is great: Christopher Reeve, Bess Armstrong, Judd Nelson, Art LaFleur (and, of course, that perfect voice of John Kassir as Crypt Keeper). But Meat Loaf steals the show as creepy landlord Mr. Chumley.

The performance also has a little nod to another one of the big, beefy actor’s roles…

1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Meat Loaf started played multiple roles for the LA-based Rocky Horror stage play, but for Richard O’Brien’s screen adaptation, he left a big impression in just the one role of Eddie.

He has a big song and dance number, and he gives the legendary Tim Curry so much to react to. It’s a pivotal scene and an unforgettable (if brief) performance. But like doomed Eddie, Meat Loaf’s voice haunts the entire soundtrack – one of the reasons those songs live on.

What a guy. Makes you cry. Unt I did.

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Altar Noise

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Confesssion

by George Wolf

These pandemic times have given us plenty of films with small casts and minimal settings. But add in the overly talky nature of Confession, and you’ve got a film that must have been inspired by a play, right?

Actually, no, which makes its construction that much more curious.

Writer/director David Beton’s thriller plays out in real time, starting when the bleeding, gun toting Victor Strong (True Blood‘s Stephen Moyer) stumbles into Father Peter’s (Colm Meaney) church with some sins to absolve.

They talk, and we start to learn a little about what brought Victor to this desperate moment. His wife was murdered years earlier and now, before Victor’s own imminent death, he needs his 18 year-old daughter to be set free with the truth of his past.

But Victor is a hunted man, and soon Willow (Clare-Hope Ashitey from Children of Men) joins the congregation with her gun, her badge, and a very different side of the story.

So far, so pretty good, as Beton’s pace makes time feel precious and the performances set effective hooks for tension and mystery. But once things start unraveling…things start unraveling.

You’ve got two versions of the truth to sort out, plus some secrets that Father Pete’s been keeping. But instead of simple flashbacks or a more ambitious Roshomon-style of reveal, Beton is content to just tell us things.

While that approach can work (see last year’s Mass), it undercuts the very nature of a visual medium. And when some of the excessive dialog is both unlikely and unnecessary (like someone saying “Come on, come on!” into a ringing phone even though they’re hiding), it chips away at the strength of your coming payoff.

Beton eventually does add a couple new faces and a weak flash of action at the finale, but by then the tension built early on has been wasted. Much like a troubled mark facing dwindling options and a ticking clock, Confession just ends up saying too much.

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The Story of My Life

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Flee

by George Wolf

Like so many other headlines of numbing enormity that we regularly scroll past, stories of the worldwide refugee crisis rarely come with an intimacy that makes the stakes feel palpable. Flee brings an animated face to the discussion, using one man’s incredible story to re-frame the issue with soul-stirring humanity.

Director and co-writer Jonas Poher Rasmussen identifies the man as Amin Nawabi. Amin’s on the verge on marriage, a life change that seems to compel him to reveal the secrets of his life story for the very first time. Despite happy plans for the future, the fact that the name Amin Nawabi is a pseudonym comes as a bittersweet reminder of how the past continues to haunt this soul’s present.

Amin’s earliest memories are of his native Kabul in the early 1980s when the Mujahideen took charge in Afghanistan and the dangers began. Amin’s father was deemed a “threat” and arrested. While his older brother was able to escape the bloody battles with U.S. troops, Amin and the rest of his family begin years of attempts to flee the country.

But even under such a harrowing veil, Rasmussen finds a sweet innocence to propel Amin’s coming-of-age story. Bedroom posters of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris wink back at the young Amin, as his gentle adult voice recounts an ever-present realization that he was attracted to men, and that he had one more reason to always be on guard.

A successful cross into Russia only changes the specifics of oppression, leaving Amin under constant threat of discovery, deportation and corrupt police. (One incident where Amin manages to escape their greed leaves a lasting scar on him, and on us.)

The animated wartime recollections — punctuated with scattershot live action moments — do bring the Oscar-nominated Waltz with Bashir to mind, but Rasmussen may well have preferred a completely live action narrative if he did not have an identity to protect. Using Amin’s actual voice in their conversations adds startling depth to the reenacted memories, and as our childlike comfort with animated scenes clashes with the uncomfortable scenes depicted, Flee‘s bracing resonance only intensifies.

And after all that Amin endures, as the horrors in his story gradually diminish and we see his fiancé Kaspar gently nudging Amin to accept the peace in the next stage of their lives, the full weight of the struggle emerges.

We yearn for Amin to let go of the past even as we know it is what defines him. He lives each day as a testament to those whose sacrifices enabled him to finally find something that feels like home.

What’s left is a hope that giving voice to his burdens may finally set him free, and lead to a greater understanding of the many voices yet unheard.