Tag Archives: Janelle Monae

How Much I Peel

November 23, 2022 maddwolf Leave a comment

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.

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Make America Great Again

September 17, 2020 maddwolf Leave a comment

Antebellum

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

The past is not dead. It’s not even past.

That Faulkner quote gets a lot of action in writers/directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz’s social nightmare Antebellum.

The titular term describes the period in American history just prior to the Civil War. That’s where this thriller finds its horror, and where a prominent, present day African American sociologist/activist/author wakes up to find herself trapped.

Janelle Monáe crafts an impressive lead as Veronica, a PhD beaten, branded and forced to accept a slave name in a film that plays out like a disturbingly relevant Twilight Zone episode.

Enslaved on a reformer plantation, “Eden” works to stay alive long enough to plan an escape and outsmart two Confederate officers (Eric Lange, Jack Huston) and the mysterious mansion mistress (Jena Malone).

The hideous rise of white nationalism is the true nightmare here – fertile and bloody ground for horror. From Godzilla to Get Out, horror has always brimmed with social commentary and anxiety, so it should come as no surprise that a genre film tackles America’s racist shame this directly.

And while this approach certainly grabs your attention with its boldness, Bush and Renz can get too caught up in obviousness and speech-making. The second act suffers most from these heavy hands. The modern day shenanigans with Veronica and two friends (Gabourey Sidibe, Lily Cowles) push too hard, last too long and say very little.

But as much as Spike Lee has recently connected the past and present of racism with layered nuance, Bush and Renz go right upside our heads. Pulpy exploitation? It goes there. It’s a horror movie.

Horror movies exist so we can look at the nightmare, examine it from a distance, and come out the other side, unscathed ourselves. Antebellum is acknowledgment and catharsis, and not only because all those Black people being terrorized on the screen are fictional, instead of real victims in another cell phone crime scene. The film’s true catharsis – a highly charged and emotional payoff – lies in Act 3: comeuppance.

And it is glorious.

There are stumbles getting to the fireworks, but for sheer heroic tit for tat, Antebellum delivers the goods.

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Hello Dolly

May 2, 2019 maddwolf Leave a comment

UglyDolls

by Hope Madden

We open on what is essentially the Island of Misfit Toys. This is the moment when the adults in the UglyDolls audience need to make a choice: accept these notions stolen from far superior toy-related children’s fare as homages, or bristle at inferior product skating by on copy-catting.

It’s your choice, but your kids will mainly see a perfectly sweet, upbeat and unimaginative tale of an ugly duckling. Even better, an ugly duckling who doesn’t need to become a swan to be happy.

That duck, or that blobby pink thing, is Moxy (voiced by Kelly Clarkson). And she lives happily in Uglyville with other merrily misshapen beasties (Wanda Sykes, Blake Shelton, Pitbull, Leehom Wang, Gabriel Iglesias). But Moxie yearns for more.

On a songtastic adventure to fulfill her dream, Moxy and gang run afoul of the pretty dolls, whose leader, Lou (Nick Jonas) intends to keep them from finding the boy or girl who will love them.

Will that stop Moxy? No! She yearns for her very own Andy.

I feel safe in saying that because there’s no question director Kelly Asbury (Shrek 2) and screenwriter Alison Peck (working with characters created by Su-min Kim and David Horvath) have seen Toy Story.

Man, that was a good movie, eh? The whole series, actually. In fact, there’s one scene in Toy Story 3 that made me cry harder than any scene in any film ever. It obviously made an impact on Asbury and Peck as well, because it is lifted shamelessly for the emotional climax of UglyDolls.

When it’s not distracting you with its borderline plagiarism, UglyDolls is sledgehammering its theme. Janelle Monáe voices Mandy, a pretty doll who might be ugly deep down (a good thing). She helps beat the point home that we do not need to conform to be happy. Which is a great theme, and one that a well-made film (like, say, Shrek) can deliver without losing sight of storytelling.

The big screen leap for these critters amounts to a sweetly mediocre marketing strategy for some unattractive (but lovable!) toys.

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Calculating Ladies

January 4, 2017 maddwolf Leave a comment

Hidden Figures

by George Wolf

When you learn whose story is being told by Hidden Figures -three African American women who were instrumental to the success of America’s space program – no one could blame you for fearing the “white savior.”

Thankfully, director Theodore Melfi (St. Vincent) avoids that pitfall…for the most part, anyway.

In the 1960s, mathematicians Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) were working in segregated areas of Langley Research Center in Virginia. As pressure mounted for the U.S. to catch up in the “space race,” Johnson (a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient in 2015) was promoted to calculating launch and flight data for Project Mercury, while Vaughan and Jackson blazed similar trails in computer programming and engineering, respectively.

It is an inspiring piece of history, one that is overdue for a big screen tribute, and Melfi -who also helped adapt the script from Margot Lee Shetterly’s book-gives it as much respect as he can without fully committing to the heroines themselves.

That’s not to say this is patronizing fodder on the order of The Blind Side or even The Help, far from it. But some moments of achievement from these African American women are framed as if the credit should go to the white people (mostly men) for realizing the ills of segregation and courageously allowing these geniuses to contribute.

When NASA director Al Harrison (a fictional composite played by Kevin Costner) reverses Langley’s segregated restroom policy, he does it in the most grandstanding, heroic way possible as the music swells to self-congratulatory crescendos. Dramatic? Oh yes. Pandering? You bet, and unnecessary.

A late exchange between Vaughan and a supervisor (Kirsten Dunst) has the subtle bite that shows Melfi content to merely knock on a door that needed opening.

The three principal actors are terrific, Costner, Dunst and the rest of the ensemble (including Mahershala Ali and Jim Parsons) provide fine support, the film is competently written and judiciously paced.

Hidden Figures has all the parts for what could have been a more meaningful sum, if it was a bit less concerned with playing it safe. And considering the subject matter, that’s ironic.

You might even call it a miscalculation.

Maddwolf