Tag Archives: Hope Madden

New In Theaters

Happy Holidays, Ya Filthy Animals

Leave a comment

Zootopia 2

by Hope Madden

It’s been a decade since Disney rewrote their longstanding history of rocking no boats when the delightfully fearless Zootopia asked its audience to confront our own biases and recognize the way we are programmed to fear the weak to benefit the powerful.

Animators Jared Bush and Byron Howard maybe looked around and noticed certain themes trending again. Zootopia 2, which both direct and Bush writes solo this time, benefits from the same fantastic casting, same visual splendor, same wit as their 2016 Oscar winner. But Bush’s writing burns a little more brightly with anger this time, however charmingly packaged.

Bunny cop Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her fox partner, Nick Wilde (Jason Batemen), will not content themselves to sitting on the sidelines as rookies when there are real crimes to investigate. Judy believes the weird material she found at the scene of a smuggling crime is actually the shed skin of a snake—and reptiles are banned from Zootopia! They’re weird and dangerous! Just ask the powerful land baron heirs of generational wealth, the Lynxleys!

Do you know how to immediately convince children and adults alike that Gary the heat-sensitive pit viper is, indeed, no threat all? Besides naming him Gary? Cast Ke Huy Quan, whose performance, even when it’s only vocal, sings of harmlessness.

Is Gary being framed? Can conspiracy-seeking podcasting beaver Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster, hilarious) help in the investigation? Can Judy and Nick’s friendship survive another big case? Is any of this worth dying for?

Boy, that last one’s a big question for a kid’s movie, but Zootopia 2 is committed to asking big questions. It’s equally committed to hilarious sight gags (Hungry Hungry Hippo and Ratatoullie were battling for my favorite, but then they brought out the hedge maze). So it’s a good balance.

Bush’s plot is a little complicated for the youngest viewers, and the film takes a while to really find its groove. But it’s also shockingly relevant and sometimes powerfully emotional. Plus, Patrick Warburton as a vainglorious blond show horse movie star turned mayor is a hoot.

It’s great to see a family film that reminds kids (and adults) that bullies are often the people with the most money, and that the bully is always the problem. Zootopia 2 may not be the utter revelation of the original, but it is an excellent sequel and a tale worth telling.

New In Theaters

A Murder of Crows

Leave a comment

The Thing with Feathers

by Hope Madden

Novelist Max Porter puts readers into headspaces we might just as well not want to visit, but he creates a territory that’s slyly hopeful. In Shy, beautifully adapted as Steve for Netflix by Tim Mielants with Cillian Murphy, Porter explores form to help us think as a troubled boy.

Porter’s first novel, 2015’s Grief Is a Thing with Feathers, likewise experiments to mimic the overwhelming despair of grief as it visits a man (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his two young sons (Richard and Henry Boxall) in the form of a huge, unsympathetic crow (voice by David Thewlis with Eric Lampaert inside the suit).

That’s right, there is a suit. It’s designed with menacing beauty by Nicola Hicks, and the physical presence, along with the echoing caw and inky shadows in the art design, heighten the chaotic despair haunting writer/director Dylan Southern’s film.

Dad is unable to get past his wife’s sudden death. In fact, he doesn’t want to “come to terms” with anything, can’t even imagine what the terms in this situation could be. He wants her back, and in the face of that impossibility, he just wants to feel the absence as keenly and entirely as possible. Which is wildly irresponsible and selfish for a dad.

So, Crow—terrifying, comforting, confrontational, riotous—settles in with the family to make things worse. Or better. Depends who you ask.

The always reliable Cumberbatch digs deep for this one, offering an unadorned performance that aches with authenticity. A film so darkly fanciful needed this level of unvarnished vulnerability at its core, and what Cumberbatch delivers is fearless and beautiful.

Both boys are likewise beautiful, and Southerland’s dreamy direction waltzes easily in perspective from child to man to crow without losing the melancholy music the film develops.

The plot lacks structure, though, and Cumberbatch’s performance is not anchor enough. In place of beats and form, Southerland inserts poetic analogy, some of which border on cliché.

It’s a funny balance, not dark enough to be folk horror, not story-driven enough to be a satisfying drama. But The Thing with Feathers boasts a darkly beautiful imagination and enough transfixing performances to make it worth a look.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Wicked: For Good, Sisu: Road to Revenge, Rental Family, Jay Kelly & More

Leave a comment

Hope & George review this week’s new releases: Wicked: For Good, Sisu: Road to Revenge, Jay Kelly, Rental Family, Sentimental Value, Peter Hujar’s Day, Reawakening, Altered, and Time Travel Is Dangerous. Plus, movie news & notes from The Schlocketeer Daniel Baldwin!

New In Theaters

Historical Portrait

Leave a comment

Peter Hujar’s Day

by Hope Madden

Linda Rosenkranz blurred lines between fiction and nonfiction, turning conversation into a microcosm of Chelsea Hotel-orbiting 1970s society. Peter Hujar—one artist in that orbit—provided photographic evidence of the same.

Writer/director Ira Sachs attempts to trap that same lightning on screen with Peter Hujar’s Day. Sachs adapts a transcript, part of a planned book by Rosenkrantz in which her artist friends simply dictated, in detail, every event of the previous day. We catch Peter Hujar on December 18, 1974.

Ben Whishaw is Hujar, dutifully detailing his previous day to a prodding, intimate Rosenkranz (Rebecca Hall). Theirs are the only faces you see, the only voices you hear, for the film’s brisk 75-minute run time.

The two fall into a delightfully familiar chemistry, Linda a little protective, Peter a tad vulnerable, but certainly committed. Every detail—from sleeping through his alarm and being awakened by a phone call, through all the phone calls, naps, liverwurst sandwiches, right up until being awakened in the middle of the night by the prostitutes talking business under his window—is recounted.

Faithful to the tone of Rosenkranz’s body of work, Sachs spotlights the fiction structuring the nonfiction, blurring lines while drawing attention to them. The banality of the exercise—forcing himself to remember every forgettable detail of a day—strips the conversation of ego or pretention, unveiling introspection and struggle.

Whishaw is exceptional, the rote and self-consciousness at the beginning of the conversation evolving into self-effacing humor and, eventually, raw bursts of personal reflection touched by lilting melancholy.

Hall is a gift in this role, the personification of the absolute joy in simply giving your attention, listening and being with a person.

Set design and cinematography befit not just the time period but the portraiture Hujar is known for. Sachs captures kindship and camaraderie among artists.

Peter Hujar’s Day is a peek inside a lost and treasured time, an era of punk rock artistic and literary revolution. It’s also a bittersweet dance with an artist underappreciated in his time, whose work and words pack a punch 50 years on.

New In Theaters

Which Witch

Leave a comment

Wicked: For Good

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

The lights are flickering, intermission is over, and Wicked: For Good brings us all back to that good problem Glinda and Elphaba have always had.

How do you match the high from part one?

Well, director Jon M. Chu and his magical cast return to do much of what they just did, for a grand, satisfying conclusion that comes about as close to last year’s Wicked as the material allows.

Did I say grand? Make that Grande.

As Glinda, Ariana takes more of the lead this time, in another pitch perfect turn that leans on the wonderful harmony with Cynthia Erivo’s amazing Elphaba.

After embracing the black hat and broom, Elphie is now on the run. The Wizard (Jeff Goldbum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) have opened the yellow brick road and ratcheted up their propaganda campaign, convincing the Ozzians of Elphie’s wickedness and the need to crack down on both animals and munchkins.

Glinda has become an official goodwill ambassador, putting on fake displays of magic and prepping the kingdom for her lavish upcoming wedding to Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Baily).

But Glinda and Fiyero know Elphie is not evil. If they help broker a truce and bring her home, can The Wizard be trusted?

The layers of state-sponsored disinformation, discrimination and cruelty are – surprise! – even more relevant this time, but become less of a focus. A promised romance finally emerges, along with the need to connect the narrative with legendary story beats from The Wizard of Oz.

Baily doesn’t squander his limited screen time. And while the romance has always been secondary to the friendship in jeopardy, it’s still fun to see Elphie decide there’s something to enjoy in being wicked.

Nathan Crowleys’s production design, Paul Tazewell’s costuming and the cinematography from Alice Brooks continue to dazzle, each environment and ensemble styled to emphasize the individuals Elphie and Glinda are becoming. Erivo embraces Elphaba’s maturity and resolve, and she’s never sounded better.

But Grande is the belle of this ball. Glinda trades in her rose colored glasses for clarity, and Grande wields the character’s vulnerability in ways that make the transformation heartbreakingly lovely.

Chu’s commitment to the source material—both the stage musical and Gregory Maguire’s novel—again delivers a compelling, resonant spectacle. But, as was true with the stage production, “Defying Gravity” is the high point of this show. Despite two original tunes, this second half contains fewer truly memorable songs, and ties to the events of The Wizard of Oz feel a bit forced.

And though Chu and returning writers Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox make some course corrections along this yellow brick road, the subtext and emotional depth of storytelling fall just a clock tick below the sublime fantasy of part one.

That’s really been the case since the original show’s opening night. The first half is just stronger, and there is no shame at all in this second place. Far from it. Wicked: For Good is thrilling, impeccably crafted and wonderfully performed. And after all these years and impossibly high expectations, for the complete adaptation of Wicked to be this satisfying may be the most impressive gravity-defying feat of them all.

Fright Club

Fright Club: Kidnapping Horror

Leave a comment

The idea of being kidnapped is one of those primal fears, one of the first worries we have as children. No doubt those fears have inspired many of these horror movies, and our own connection to those same anxieties the reason why so many of them hit home. From Hounds of Love to Split, Don’t Breathe to Misery, Last House on the Left to Prisoners and so many more, movies centered on kidnapping can leave you breathless and scarred. That must be why we had such a tough time landing on our five favorites. But here they are, live from the Gateway Film Center on Ohio State University campus.

5. The Woman (2011)

There’s something not quite right about Chris Cleese (an unsettlingly cherubic Sean Bridgers), and his family’s uber-wholesomeness is clearly suspect. This becomes evident once Chris hunts down a feral woman (an awesome Pollyanna McIntosh), chains her, and invites the family to help him “civilize” her.

The film rethinks family – well, patriarchy, anyway. You know from the opening, sunshiny segment that nothing is as lovely as it seems, but what lurks underneath this wholesome facade begins with some obvious ugliness—abuse, incest—but where it leads is diabolical.

Nothing happens in this film by accident – not even the innocent seeming baking of cookies – nor does it ever happen solely to titillate. It’s a dark and disturbing adventure that finds something unsavory in our primal nature and even worse in our quest to civilize. Don’t even ask about what it finds in the dog pen.

4. The Loved Ones (2009)

Writer/director/Tasmanian Sean Byrne upends high school clichés and deftly maneuvers between gritty drama and glittery carnage in a story that borrows from other horror flicks but absolutely tells its own story.

Brent (Xavier Samuel) is dealing with guilt and tragedy in his own way, and his girlfriend Holly tries to be patient with him. Oblivious to all this, Lola (a gloriously wrong-minded Robin McLeavy) asks Brent to the end of school dance. He politely declines, which proves to be probably a poor decision.

Inside Lola’s house, we’re privy to the weirdest, darkest image of a spoiled princess and her daddy. The daddy/daughter bonding over power tool related tasks is – well – I’m not sure touching is the right word for it.

The Loved Ones is a cleverly written, unique piece of filmmaking that benefits from McLeavy’s inspired performance as much as it does its filmmaker’s sly handling of subject matter.

3. I’m Not Scared (2003)

Director Gabriele Salvatores (Mediterraneo) crafts a perfect, gripping, breathless thriller with his Italian period piece. In a tiny Southern Italian town, kids run through lushly photographed fields on the hottest day of the year. They’re playing, and also establishing a hierarchy, and with their game Salvatores introduces a tension that will not let up until the last gasping breaths of his film.

Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano) sees a boy down a deep hole on a neighboring farm. The boy, Filippo (Mattia Di Pierro), believes he is dead and Michele is an angel. But the truth is far more sinister. I’m Not Scared is a masterpiece of a thriller.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUI09lqnelQ

2. Oldboy (2003)

A guy passes out after a hard night of drinking. It’s his daughter’s birthday, and that helps us see that this guy is a dick. He wakes up a prisoner in a weird, apartment-like cell. Here he stays for years and years.

The guy is Dae-su Oh (Min-sik Choi). The film is Oldboy, director Chan-wook Park’s masterpiece of subversive brutality and serious wrongdoing.

Choi is unforgettable as the film’s anti-hero, and his disheveled explosion of emotion is perfectly balanced by the elegantly evil Ji-tae Yu.

Choi takes you with him through a brutal, original, startling and difficult to watch mystery. You will want to look away, but don’t do it! What you witness will no doubt shake and disturb you, but missing it would be the bigger mistake.

1. The Vanishing (Spoorloos) (1988)

Back in ’88, filmmaker George Sluizer and novelist Tim Krabbe adapted his novel about curiosity killing a cat. The result is a spare, grim mystery that works the nerves.

An unnervingly convincing Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu takes us through the steps, the embarrassing trial and error, of executing his plan. His Raymond is a simple person, really, and one fully aware of who he is: a psychopath and a claustrophobe.

Three years ago, Raymond abducted Saskia (Johanna ter Steege), and her boyfriend Rex (Gene Bervoets) has gone a bit mad with the mystery of what happened to her. So mad, in fact, that when Raymond offers to clue him in as long as he’s willing to suffer the same fate, Rex bites. Do not make the mistake of watching Sluizer’s neutered 1993 American remake.

New In Theaters

Keeping Secrets

Leave a comment

Keeper

by Hope Madden

Osgood Perkins is the gift that keeps on giving. In just 16 months he’s turned out three wildly different gems and a fourth is filming now. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves because we’d run the risk of under appreciating his latest, Keeper.

Tatiana Maslany (She-Hulk) is Liz, a New York City artist anxiously headed to her first ever cabin in the woods style excursion. She’s not really a country person, and she thinks maybe the fact that her soft-spoken doctor boyfriend Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) gifted her a beige cardigan for their first big trip together might be a red flag. She’s afraid he’s married and she’s a side piece.

There’s something melancholy and broken and beautiful in the way these two actors play characters playing roles. Malcolm hangs Liz’s painting in his home and cooks and behaves romantically while looking as if he’s crushed under some sorrowful weight. Meanwhile Liz’s words and expressions never match, one cheerful while the other is tearful or vice versa. It’s an exquisite performance of two people pretending to be a happy couple when, indeed, perhaps their romance is a fraud.

This doleful charade nurtures an atmosphere of paranoia gorgeously amplified by Perkins’s hypnotically creepy aesthetic. The architecture of dark magic recalls his underseen Gretel & Hansel and show-don’t-tell exposition occasionally conjures I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House.

Perkins did not write Keeper, and there are times when his unsettling direction can’t quite overcome screenwriter Nick Lepard’s haphazard mythology. There’s a disquieting relationship analogy at work that does work, much thanks to Maslany’s gripping turn. Her commitment to this character’s experience elevates scenes that could otherwise have nearly felt unintentionally funny. But you never doubt Liz.

Keeper turns monster movie perhaps too abruptly and not as convincingly as it might have. For that and a couple of other reasons, the third act feels a bit cheap after such a trippy lead up. But it’s a gorgeous exercise in isolated horror and reason enough to remain excited for Perkins’s next movie.

New In Theaters

Strange Magic

Leave a comment

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

by Hope Madden

I remember so clearly, back in 2016 when Now You See Me 2 came out, thinking—hold the phone, Now You See Me made enough money to merit a sequel?

Imagine my surprise a decade on finding that apparently there’s interest enough for a third episode, Now You See Me, Now You Don’t.

Is there reason to hope the third Magician Robin Hood film will be at least a fun spectacle?

Ruben Fleischer directs, which seems fitting because it was on his zom-com masterstroke Zombieland that NYSM co-stars Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson first teamed up. Both actors return to their tricky ways as egotistical control freak Atlas (Eisenberg) and amiable mentalist Merritt (Harrelson), working this time from a script co-written by Zombieland (and Deadpool) scribe Rhett Reese.

That all looks promising, but magic is nothing if not sleight of hand.

A lot of familiar faces from NYSM 1 & 2, plus three scrappy new magicians—Bosco (Dominic Sessa), Charlie (Justice Smith), and June (Ariana Greenblatt)—join forces to defeat diabolical South African diamond heiress, Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike).

Pike is perfect, effortlessly cutting the ideal figure as the elegant, narcissistic, ultra-wealthy villain. Smith once again charms as a self-deprecating nerd. Eisenberg seems like he might be in literal pain delivering this dialog.

And there’s a lot! At least 25% of Eisenberg’s lines are delivered as voiceover, while his character explains everything the viewer may not know about the last two episodes, the characters in the current episode, missing characters, the plan for the heist, the mysterious details even he doesn’t understand. If magic or moviemaking is about show over tell, Fleischer doesn’t know it.

What is a Now You See Me movie, really? It’s a heist flick plus magic plus social justice. At least one of those three elements is likely to please any viewer. But Reese’s script, co-written with Seth Grahame-Smith and Michael Lesslie, is nothing but exposition. Worse, Fleischer’s direction (and all that dialog) drains the wonder from every scene.

The film plays more like a Super Friends episode from the 1970s: lots of very colorful, one-dimensional characters and over-the-top villainy lazily packaged for mass consumption. Maybe I’d have enjoyed it more with a big bowl of Sugar Corn Pops.

Outtakes

Exit Light, Enter Night

Leave a comment

In Your Dreams

by Hope Madden

The delightfully juvenile humor that propels much of the new Dreamworks animated film In Your Dreams entertains. It also amplifies the tension between tween big sister Stevie (Jolie Hoant-Rappaport) and little brother, Elliot (Elias Janssen).

If the perfectionist eldest sibling is going to somehow get her parents to stay together, the last thing she needs is Elliot and his foul-smelling stuffed animal Baloney Tony (Craig Robinson) getting in the way.

But naturally, when Stevie makes a wish to find Sandman and make her dream of a happy family come true, somehow Elliot gets himself involved. Now Stevie can’t make her way through dreamland to find the Sandman without her pesky little brother.

In that way, In Your Dreams is sort of the Predator: Badlands of the grade school set.

Though the computer-generated animation is sometimes disappointing, the movie’s chaotic energy and humor while our heroes work toward finding the Sandman—plus a fun, splashy bit of hand drawn animation— are a blast. It’s during these dream montages that co-writers/directors Erik Benson and Alexander Woo (who write with Stanely Moore) are most inspired. It’s also where we get to spend the most time with Baloney Tony, easily the film’s funniest character.

As dreams of life among happily animated breakfast foods turn rancid under the influence of Nightmara (Gia Carides), In Your Dreams runs through a fun, funny, and often insightful set of dream sequences set to appropriate and fun needle drops.

The film’s themes are compelling and often insightfully rendered, and the storyline itself bears originality sometimes lost in family films. But once we finally reach the Sandman, the look, feel, humor and imagination seem to disappear. We build and build to Sandman, but he and his castle are bland and forgettable.

In Your Dreams never fully recovers, most of Act 3 feeling like a quick and easy escape route from the otherwise clever conceits in the plot. There are definitely laughs and fun sequences, but you may forget this one as quickly as last night’s dream.