Tag Archives: Kerry Washington

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Bully Pulpit

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Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

by George Wolf

We may be early in awards season, but the slam dunk winner for Best Use of a Church Organ in an Ensemble Whodunnit has arrived.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery brings that LOL moment and many other deadly delights, as writer/director Rian Johnson again shows a wonderful grasp on giving the Agatha Christie blueprint his own wickedly fun stamp.

There’s been a murder at a small Catholic church in upstate New York. Just as young priest Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) is learning his way around Monsignor Jefferson Wick’s (Josh Brolin) iron-fisted control of his flock at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, Wicks turns up with a literal knife in his back.

Jud has some violence in his checkered past – and he found the body – but the pews are filled with suspects. There’s lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington), her adopted son Cy (Daryl McCormack), writer Lee (Andrew Scott), Dr. Nat (Jeremy Renner), newcomer Simone (Cailee Spaeny), groundskeeper Samson (Thomas Haden Church) or maybe even devoted church secretary Martha (Glenn Close).

That much sleuthing is a bit overwhelming for Chief Scott (Mila Kunis) and her officers, so WGD (World’s Great Detective) Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is on the case, albeit reluctantly.

In fact, Blanc is loath to even set foot inside a church, a feeling detailed in his breathtaking introductory speech, the opening salvo in Johnson’s assault on demagoguery and the quest for power via radicalization.

That assault is far from subtle, but man it’s a treat to get caught up in.

Brolin continues his stellar year with a masterclass of egotistic bullying, and O’Connor is the perfect counterpoint. Fresh-faced and mop-haired, Father Jud is committed to being a force for good in the world, and to honoring Christ’s mission to heal the world. That mission seems lost amid Wick and his parishioners, and each member of this sublime ensemble understands Johnson’s assignment to skewer such commonplace self-righteous hypocrisy.

Craig is letter-perfect once again, dialing back the giddy flamboyance that drove 2022’s Glass Onion with darker shades in line with the film’s tone. Blanc is troubled and stumped about more than just the facts of the case, and Craig continues to craft him as an endlessly fascinating figure.

Wake Up Dead Man is less of an outright comedy than the last mystery, though some solid laughs do land (like the church organ gag). And just like last time, it will not be hard to guess who Johnson has his knives out for. What you won’t guess is who done it, or how they done it.

But it sure is a kick to try.

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Appointed Rounds

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The Six Triple Eight

by George Wolf

“Where there is no mail there is low morale.”

For a time during the height of WWII, there was no mail. Battalion 6888 – the only all-black outfit in the Women’s Army Corp to see overseas duty – was given six months to sort through a backlog of 17 million letters between soldiers and their loved ones back home.

If they succeeded, the women would restore hope to families and morale to the troops. If they didn’t, bigots throughout the military would use the failure as proof of inferiority.

Netflix’s The Six Triple Eight tells a lesser-known story of unsung heroes who deserve the acclaim, but the best intentions of writer/director Tyler Perry are often hamstrung by his broad brush and heavy-handed approach to telling it.

Our window into history is Lena Derriecott (Emily Obsidian of TV’s Sistas), who enlists after her high school love Abram (Gregg Sulkin) is shot down and killed in action. Captain (later Major) Charity Adams (Kerry Washington) whips Lena and the rest of the women into shape, and longs for marching orders that her superiors have no intention of providing.

But when President Roosevelt (Sam Waterston), First Lady Eleanor (Susan Sarandon) and National Council of Negro Women founder Mary McLeod Bethune (Oprah Winfrey) learn of the interruption of mail service, openly racist officers such as General Halt (Dean Norris) have to begrudgingly deploy the 6888th.

Perry adapts Kevin Hymel’s 2019 article “Fighting a Two-Front War” with a well-deserved respect for the mission, but a lack of depth that often reduces the timelines to little beyond sanitized set pieces and expositionary dialog. The ensemble consistently over-emotes, while even reliable talents such as Washington and Norris seem coached to push the dramatics and facial reactions.

The history lesson here – which includes the Army’s attempt to sabotage the 6888th – doesn’t need that hard sell. What these women accomplished was truly heroic, and Perry works best when he’s letting us in on the meticulous methods they found to connect the more hard-to-decipher addresses with their rightful owners.

Even the finale – when we get the expected (and welcome) archival footage featuring the real women involved – comes equipped with an extended retelling of the plot points we just watched unfold. From start to finish, The Six Triple Eight seems engineered for the distracted attentions of streaming audiences. So while the film’s limited theatrical run is appreciated, it also feels a bit outside the post code.

Outtakes, Slider

Five More Remakes in Need of an All Female Cast

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Rumors of an all-female Ghostbusting team got us A) excited for the reboot, and B) thinking of other movies we’d love to see reimagined with women in the lead. Here are the 5 films we think could benefit from some gender-retooling, along with our dream casts.

Jaws

Steven Spielberg’s 1975 great white classic benefitted from one of the best buddy trios in cinema with Roy Scheider’s reluctant shipmate Sheriff Brody, Richard Dreyfuss’s on-board scientist, and salty sea dog Quint played to perfection by Robert Shaw.

Who has the gravy to run nails down a chalkboard, frighten the locals and bark that she’ll find the shark for $3000, but “catch him, and kill him, for 10”? Nobody but Jessica Lange. We’d flank her with Anne Hathaway as the transplanted cop who wants a bigger boat and Emily Blunt as the oceanographer willing to take the risk when the cage goes in the water.

Easy Rider

How fun would this be? Let’s rework the classic American outlaw motorcycle ride! Who’s the laid back badass looking for an unsoiled America? We’d put the great Viola Davis in Peter Fonda’s role. For the thoughtful square up for an adventure, we swap Amy Adams in for Jack Nicholson. And who could fill legendary wacko Dennis Hopper’s motorcycle boots? We want Melissa McCarthy. (Come to think of it, she’d give Blue Velvet an interesting new take as well.)

Glengarry Glen Ross

Who on this earth could take the place of Alec Baldwin with perhaps the greatest venomous monologue in film history? Jennifer Lawrence – can you see it? We really, really want to see a movie with JLaw chewing up and spitting out this much perfectly penned hatred.

“Put that coffee down!”

And at whom should she spew? The wondrous Meryl Streep should take Jack Lemmon’s spot as loser Shelley Levine. We’d put Kate Winslet in Pacino’s slick winner Ricky Roma role and Kristin Scott Thomas in Ed Harris’s shadowy Dave Moss spot. Then we’d pull it all together with the magnificent Tilda Swinton in the weasely role worn so well by Kevin Spacey.

Predator

We knew we needed an action film, but who could be the new Schwarzenegger? Our vote: Michelle Rodriguez. We then put the ever formidable Helen Mirren in the Carl Weathers boss role. Obviously. The ragtag group of soldiers sent to, one by one, to be skinned alive? Scarlett Johansson, Kerry Washington and Gina Carano. Done.

Reservoir Dogs

Picture it:

Ms. Orange (Tim Roth): Rosamund Pike

Ms. White (Harvey Keitel): Julianne Moore

Ms. Blond (Michael Madsen): Charlize Theron (Cannot wait to see her get her crazy on.)

Ms. Pink (Steve Buscemi): Lupita Nyongo

Ms. Brown (Tarantino): Shailene Woodley

Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn): Cate Blanchett

Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney): Kathy Bates

 

All right, Hollywood. We’ve done the hard part. Now get on it! All we ask is executive producer status and points on the back end.





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For Your Queue: Who’s the smoothest, baddest mutha to ever hit the big screen?

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Django Unchained releases this week. Woo hoo! Quentin Tarantino’s first Oscar winning screenplay since Pulp Fiction unleashes a giddy bloodbath that’s one part blaxploitation, two parts spaghetti Western, and all parts awesome. Astonishing performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and Oscar winner Christoph Waltz might keep you from noticing the excellent turns from Sam Jackson, Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington. That’s why you’ll need to see it again. Lucky for you it’s available on DVD today!

For an homage with a more comical edge, we recommend 2009’s Black Dynamite, a hilarious send-up of the blaxploitation films of the 1970s. Co-writer Michael Jai White is perfect as the titular hero who is out to avenge his brother’s death at the hands of..who else?…The Man. With character names such as Tasty Freeze and Cream Corn, and B.D. seducing the ladies with “you can hit the sheets or you can hit the streets, ” you can bet you’re last money this flick is superbad, honey.