Tag Archives: Matt Weiner

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A Not So Simple Plan

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The Third Murder

by Matt Weiner

“He changes his story every time.”

This early warning might be the only straightforward point made in The Third Murder, a new film from Hirokazu Kore-eda that goes from courtroom procedural to riveting thriller to heady exploration of truth and objectivity in rapid succession.

Defense lawyer Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama) takes the lead in re-investigating a murder committed by Takashi Misumi (Kôji Yakusho), with an eye toward helping his client avoid the death penalty. A few small tugs at loose ends cause the official description of the case to unravel, presenting an entirely new take on the crime—and Misumi’s motivations in particular.

Kore-eda’s austere settings and still, unflinching direction for the legal proceedings suggest an air of impartiality at first. But the deeper Shigemori delves into what happened, and the more everyone’s stories start to come into conflict, it becomes clear that Kore-eda’s setup has been as misleading as the characters within it.

Balancing Shigemori’s dogged pursuit for the truth are his fellow lawyers, including his world-weary older boss and a bright-eyed new lawyer. The team reaches out to the family of Misumi’s victims, while also trying to learn more about their unhelpful client.

As with a typical legal thriller, the ideals of truth and justice are on trial along with the crime itself. Unlike lesser genre entries, however, Kore-eda’s characters are cursed with a hyperawareness that the parts they are playing are bigger than the justice system.

For all the lofty discussions of capital-T truth, the actors all keep their monologues from drifting into melodrama. As Misumi, Yakusho is especially compelling as a cipher for much of the movie (or “vessel,” as his lawyers might say). The inconsistent narratives only work if they’re believable, and frustration is rarely as delightful as watching everyone try to get a straight answer out of Misumi.

Learning that the legal system isn’t there to get people to tell the truth is punishing enough for even the most jaded lawyers in The Third Murder. Kore-eda’s methodical prodding offers a glimmer of hope that while easy resolutions might forever escape us, there’s a moral victory to be had in the examination, however pyrrhic.

 

 

For Your Queue

I Don’t Want to Go Out—Week of August 6

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What’s your pleasure? Loads and loads of new releases to peruse at home this week. There’s one powerful cowboy movie and a whole slew of badass women. Let us help you sort it out.

Click the film title for the full review.

The Rider

Revenge

On Chesil Beach

Life of the Party

Breaking In

Book Club

For Your Queue

I Don’t Want to Go Out—Week of July 16

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Damn, there is a lot of good stuff coming home this week! A fair amount of middling stuff and a handful of full-on garbage, too, so your best bet is to let us walk you through your options.

Click the movie title for the full review.

You Were Never Really Here

Disobedience

Isle of Dogs

Super Troopers 2

Traffik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyHVAe3BDtM

I Feel Pretty

Rampage

Truth or Dare

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The Long F*cking Goodbye

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Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town

by Matt Weiner

For a character who’s supposed to have trouble holding down a steady job, Izzy is putting in some serious work: Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town is a road trip movie that never leaves its first city, a shaggy dog celebration of Los Angeles with characters who could rival those in any LA noir. But more than anything it’s a sharp inversion of the manic pixie dream girl and the role she inhabits.

Written and directed by Christian Papierniak, Izzy GTFAT is disjointed by design. Mackenzie Davis (Tully) holds everything together as Izzy, a once-promising musician who is now too strung out to keep a catering job, let alone the man of her dreams. When she finds out that her ex-boyfriend Roger (Alex Russell) is getting engaged, she sets off across Los Angeles to make it to the big party and win him back.

At each stop in her journey, Izzy gets help from a standout supporting cast. Lakeith Stanfield, Haley Joel Osment, Alia Shawkat and Annie Potts run the gamut from wistful and strange to funny and strange to… well, strange and strange. These vignettes have the feel of early Richard Linklater, so while the structure of Izzy’s Odyssean journey gets repetitive midway through, the actors keep it interesting.

Papierniak gets the film back on track with Izzy’s major confrontations: first a bittersweet reunion with her sister (Carrie Coon), which hints at a lifetime of backstory in just a few tender minutes. And then finally with what has been teased all along: Roger’s engagement party.

Without giving too much away, the confrontation and aftermath go in a remarkable direction, serving up an altar of clichés only to mercilessly destroy them—a sacrifice to Izzy’s rebirth. She has spent the entire film careening from one manic pixie trope to the next in her desperate attempt to be the catalyst in somebody else’s story. So it’s pure delight to watch the way in which Izzy takes control after spending her adult life in thrall to her own fantasies, failures and dreams deferred.

There could easily be a version of this movie from Roger’s perspective. And ten years ago, we would all be expected to care about what happens to that bearded thumb and be happy for him. It’s probably the reality Izzy would have been happy with at that point in her life, too.

But times change. People change. Slowly, unevenly. And maybe not in ways we always hoped, but hopefully still, in some small way, for the better.

 

 

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A for Effort

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Life of the Party

by Matt Weiner

One of these days we’ll finally get a Melissa McCarthy movie that deserves her talents and doesn’t just desperately depend on them. Even though Life of the Party is written by McCarthy along with husband and frequent collaborator Ben Falcone… well, the wait isn’t over quite yet.

McCarthy stars as Deanna Miles, a woman whose life is upended by a sudden divorce with her husband Dan (Matt Walsh). Realizing that she spent her adult life meekly going along with other people’s wishes, Deanna decides to finish her abandoned senior year of college. It’s a positive message, as far as mid-life crises go.

This brings her into embarrassingly close contact with her daughter Maddie (Molly Gordon), who is also finishing her senior year at school, as well as Maddie’s sorority sisters. (All standard “not actually that weird” movie misfits, except for Gillian Jacobs, who injects some actual off-kilter menace as Helen.)

The idea of a former student getting into classes immediately (apparently without the need to re-take additional core requirements), and paying to live on campus despite living 20 minutes away raises some logistical questions. But McCarthy’s comedic gifts have saved staler setups. She turns Deanna into a woman to root for, not pity, as she completes her degree, relives her youth and gets over her spineless ex-husband.

Not that the film’s cringe comedy with a heart comes without a cost: the gentle nudges toward empowerment and inclusivity make for a welcoming message. But the steady laughs are all a bit defanged, especially for a setup about a woman whose husband has just divorced her after decades of building a life together (and who apparently still controls their finances in a way that makes her life materially difficult).

Given how much the story invests in the contrived college setup, the real missed opportunity feels like the uninhibited adult comedy nipping at the outer edges of what ended up on screen. Maya Rudolph is wickedly good as Christine, the best friend living vicariously through Deanna. And Walsh can tease out more notes than should be possible when given the room to work his sad sack variations.

It doesn’t really seem like the film is trying to connect with a younger audience anyway. The film is more homage to the triumphant ‘80s teen movies that McCarthy and Falcone would have eaten up as teens, with a “Save Deanna” finale and all.

This is a good thing when it comes to the sexual politics. (Have you re-watched Revenge of the Nerds lately?) But the predictable setup makes Life of the Party diverting yet wholly forgettable.

It’s a passing grade, but just barely.

 

 

For Your Queue

I Don’t Want to Go Out—Week of May 7

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Wow, some very different films available for home entertainment this week. On one hand, artist Ai Weiwei’s utterly breathtaking documentary on displacement and refugees. On the other, the last and worst of the Fifty Shades films. Our guess is that either one or the other may interest you, not likely both.

Guess which one we like better. Click the link to read the full review.

Human Flow

Fifty Shades Freed

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The Badness of King George

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Rampage

by Matt Weiner

Here’s something I never thought I’d say: I miss the cohesive vision of Battleship, a movie that is no longer the dullest adaptation of a game. That’s because Rampage exists, the latest video game adaptation to suggest that Hollywood is intentionally tanking these things to convince audiences that movies are a superior medium.

To be fair, there are far worse adaptations out there. Rampage reunites director Brad Peyton with disasters, Dwayne Johnson and green screen destruction, last seen together in San Andreas (2015). Peyton knows how to keep the action moving along, and Johnson is extremely adept by now at oozing charm no matter how nonsensical the material.

Johnson plays primatologist Davis Okoye, whose beloved gorilla George is one of three beasts who fall victim to rogue genetic engineering and cut a destructive path through the country as they all converge on the company responsible for their mutation.

Because some tension is needed to pad out the sparse story, Okoye is joined by genetic engineer Dr. Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris) and government agent Harvey Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who all have reservations teaming up at first but come to learn that they have more in common than not. For example, they are the only three people involved in the relief effort who think maybe it’s not a good idea to level a major American city.

Sure, the plot is inane and the dialogue breaks new ground in expository heights—especially from the film’s human antagonists, corporate baddies Claire and Brett Wyden (Malin Åckerman and Jake Lacy, who do about as much as possible for being tasked with Explaining Things We Just Saw a Minute Ago).

Rampage’s script-by-committee strives to meet some golden ratio of one-liners and world-ending peril. And the cast is game, plainly knowing what they’ve signed onto. But something still feels off, and it’s a fatal problem for a movie like this when the biggest tension isn’t onscreen but rather a nagging conflict between millions of dollars and who knows how many studio honchos never quite committing to whether this should be a serious property or a popcorn flick.

While the Rampage video game series managed to pay tribute to its monster movie conventions as much as it tore them down, all of that gets ignored for something so by-the-numbers that the number of people credited for the screenplay is the only thing less believable than the movie’s treatment of genetics. (Also physics.)

And as if Rampage needed any more off-screen problems, Warner Bros. isn’t doing themselves any favors by reminding people of King Kong and Godzilla at a time when the studio’s “MonsterVerse” is giving those properties insightful, visually distinct and even daring reboots.

If you’re under the age of 13 and might enjoy seeing The Rock swap crude jokes with a CGI gorilla—or if you’re over the age of 30 and have an inexplicably intense connection to a niche video game series—then there’s a chance Rampage is for you.

Otherwise, it’s a muddled genre substitute for the real thing. Save your quarters.

 

 

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Get the Guests

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The Party

by Matt Weiner

Sally Potter’s jet-black comedy The Party mostly succeeds as social satire examining the savagery churning just below the surface of the polite and prosperous. Where it definitely succeeds, in ways that must seem truly unfair to every single other actor alive today, is crowning Patricia Clarkson as a national treasure.

Not that the rest of the tight ensemble is full of slouches. Clarkson plays April, one of five guests attending a party for Janet (the almost equally superb Kristin Scott Thomas), who is celebrating a political promotion.

Janet’s guests fall into broadly recognizable personalities who are practically begging to have their worlds turned inside out: from the New Age life coach Gottfried (Bruno Ganz) to the supercilious professor Martha (Cherry Jones, also—and you might be sensing a theme here—outstanding).

Timothy Spall plays Bill, Janet’s husband and a literal odd man out: he is nearly catatonic when the guests arrive. When he finally reveals why, it sets off a series of violent delights, both verbal and physical.

The cast might actually be too good for the material (written by Potter). That’s an envious problem for a movie to have, but it’s still a real one. The repartee is shocking and funny in turn. Just about every single line delivery from Clarkson, Scott Thomas and Spall is perfectly measured—so much so that the barbs feel like they’re cutting a lot deeper than they really are.

And Emily Mortimer provides a welcome degree of grounding as Jinny, Martha’s partner and the only party guest who seems recognizably human rather than an outsized target ripe for mockery.

But for all the wicked pleasures to be had from watching this masterclass in verbal sparring, there’s a nagging superficiality to it all. The rapid-fire pace distracts from the reality that nobody besides maybe Jinny ends up discovering some deeper personal meaning about themselves other than rank hypocrisy. And a gimmicky twist at the end doesn’t help.

And yet. It’s easy to forgive The Party’s shortcomings after you’ve heard Clarkson tell someone “You are surpassing yourself” or “You could consider murder” in tones so deadpan that we really ought to invent a new adjective.

It’s a strange, perfectly flawed bunch Potter has thrown together. And I could have stayed with them for hours more.

 

 

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You Can’t Punish in Here. This is the Red Room of Pain!

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Fifty Shades Freed

by Matt Weiner

Boiling down the Fifty Shades movies into a capsule summary has always felt a bit like playing Mad Libs with a head injury, and Fifty Shades Freed gleefully continues the trend.

Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey (Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, each blinking out Morse code to their agents throughout the franchise) are now married. Christian’s dominant side causes fresh problems for Ana at work, but not as much as her ex-boss (Eric Johnson) returning to stalk the entire Grey family for reasons both mysterious and incredibly obvious.

Having watched the entire series, it’s hard not to feel like additional complaining is punching down, so here are some nice things about Fifty Shades Freed:

• This is the first film in the franchise that earns intentional laughs, an incredible improvement all on its own.
• All the shots, while filmed so perfunctorily that you forget what you’ve just seen nearly in real-time, are in focus.
• There is what amounts to a five-minute Audi commercial, which is helpful if you are considering buying or leasing a new Audi.
• According to the credits, Marcia Gay Harden and Danny Elfman received paychecks from this, and although you can hardly feel their presence on screen or in the score, I cherish them both and I hope they buy nice houses from this because they deserve it.

But the other major improvement in the franchise can’t be separated from the movie’s biggest flaw. The good news: with Ana and Christian having settled into betrothed BDSM bliss, the film (written by Niall Leonard and directed by James Foley) devotes less time to their tepid romance and more time allowing the characters to simply be themselves as they get caught up in a sordid thriller.

Here’s the bad news. Allowing these characters to be themselves suffers from one crucial flaw: every single character in the series is boring to an extent that’s almost an achievement in its own right.

And just like in the first two films, the sexual chemistry between Ana and Christian never clicks on screen. Although since Freed revolves more around the couple’s marital gamesmanship than their “erotic” courtship, the tension occasionally works this time. And even produces some real laughs.

While the movie wraps things up neatly for Ana and Christian—albeit in a comically abrupt way I guess is a clever callback to the bizarre pacing of the previous films—it doesn’t answer the question of exactly who this movie is for.

There’s plenty of nudity, but it’s clinically divorced from any recognizable human emotion. Such short shrift is given to character development that I can’t imagine fans of the lengthy books have been satisfied. There’s a mystery plot, sort of, but nothing you couldn’t get from a made-for-TV movie and save the cash.

But if you’ve made it this far through the series, Fifty Shades Freed is the most competent of the bunch. And at least this one can be watched with a clear conscience knowing that the actors are as freed from contractual obligations as their characters are rid of emotional baggage.

 

 

For Your Queue

I Don’t Want to Go Out – Week of January 22

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There are so many movies being made available for our pajama-wearing asses this week, it’s as if the fates are begging us to be lazy. So let’s do it! We’ll help you decide what to view.

Click the title below for the full review.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (DVD)

The Final Year

My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea

Thank You For Your Service

Goodbye Christopher Robin

Jigsaw