Hey, it’s October! The big money winners start rolling out this week. The season kicks off with the first real Oscar contender. Is A Star Is Born as good as the hype? Yes! We also have the next big comic book movie, Tom Hardy’s Venom. Is it as bad as they’re saying? No!
Plus, we share a rundown on all that’s new in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by Christie Robb
Emotional, entitled, white men seem omnipresent these days. They’re on the news. They’re on social media. They’re on the big screen. At least with the biopic Colette, they are confined to an historical period safely a century behind us.
Colette gives us the origin story of French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (Keira Knightley), a Madonna-like figure of the early 1900s who emerged from a small provincial village to become the toast of Paris, reinventing herself over the years as a novelist, mime, actress and journalist.
She wrote frankly about women’s independence, sexuality and aging. She sparked a riot at the Moulin Rouge in 1907 when she performed a lesbian love scene in a pantomime. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. She wrote the book Gigi, which was adapted for the stage where she personally selected a then-unknown Audrey Hepburn for the leading role in 1951. The book then became an MGM musical that won nine Academy Awards in 1958 (including Best Picture). When she died, Colette was the first woman in France to be given a state funeral.
But before all that, Colette married a bully named Willy (Dominic West). Over a decade her senior, Willy was a popular writer who put out music reviews, stories and novels. Quite a bit were written by other people in a factory system where Willy provided the brand, but others produced the work. He compelled his wife to join the team, asking her to mine her childhood experiences so he could publish them under his name. Once the Claudine books became popular, he would lock Colette in a room until he was satisfied she had written enough.
The movie tells the story of Colette’s time with Willy and traces an arc from her awkward introduction into Paris salon society to an eventual break with the abusive hack and first steps toward an independent life.
Knightly is masterful inhabiting the multifaceted Colette, using her eyes to hint at the hurt she’s experiencing while wielding a bold bravado as a shield in her constant verbal fencing matches with her husband. West presents as a believable blowhard—initially charming, then volatile, narcissistic, abusive, and ultimately self-pitying, sniveling and weak.
Given the breadth of Colette’s life and its many acts, it makes sense that director Wash Westmoreland would focus on a distinct part of it. However, because of his desire to give screen time to so many of the big Personalities of the Belle Époque and to keep the focus squarely on the time period of the Colette/Willy relationship, the movie seems simultaneously thinly-sketched and agonizingly long. With so much of the movie involving Colette being shit on, the movie verges on indignity porn. How much can this woman take, before she snaps?
But when she snaps…it’s so good. Oscar-bait good.
Given this week, I’d have vastly preferred it if more of the movie had focused on the glorious and adventurous life Colette led after she dumped Willy and struck out on her own. But, even so, it’s a story of liberation and the claiming of a woman’s power. Something that’s needed.
I just hope there’s a sequel.
by George Wolf
A few weeks ago, for homework, I revisited the 3 previous versions of A Star Is Born. A friend later asked me which one was best.
I have a different answer now.
Director/co-writer/co-star Bradley Cooper brings a new depth of storytelling to the warhorse, with a greater commitment to character and the blazing star power of Lady Gaga.
Cooper is Jackson Maine, a booze-swilling, pill-popping rock star who wanders into a random bar post-gig and catches Ally (Gaga) belting out “La Vie en Rose.” Jack’s entranced, and begins coaxing Ally to sing her own songs instead of covers. Everyone’s got a talent, he tells her, the real gift is having something to say.
Each previous film version represented its era well, but with the rock music setting and several recognizable homages, it’s clear Cooper has a fondness for the Streisand/Kristofferson take from ’76. His new vision carries a raw authenticity that eclipses them all.
The battered star’s instant infatuation with the young talent has never felt more understandable, the undeniable chemistry between Cooper and Gaga fueling the feeling that in Ally, Jack sees a better version of himself.
Cooper, with a lower-range speaking voice and the musical talent from nearly 2 years of tutelage, is every bit the weathered rocker, on a misplaced search for redemption. Watch him when Jack is not the focus of a scene to see a character become complete.
But then, another outstanding acting performance from Bradley Cooper is not a surprise. His remarkably instinctual directing debut here, though, must now place him among the premier talents in film.
Nearly every scene, from stadium rock concert to intimate conversation, is framed for maximum impact. His camera can be stylish but not showy, with seamless scene transitions fueling a forward momentum that will not let the film drag.
The melodramatic story has been stripped of pretense and buoyed by more layers of humanity, and not just between the two leads. Jack’s brother (Sam Elliot), his boyhood friend (Dave Chappelle) and Ally’s father (Andrew Dice Clay) emerge as important characters despite limited screen time.
And then there’s Gaga.
The voice is, well, it’s a force of nature, and the songs (some co-written with Cooper) are memorable. But if a star already shining can be born, welcome Gaga the movie star. She is electric, taking Ally from wide-eyed stage fright to SNL headliner with both tenderness and ferocity, giving this character the strength and nuance she has never had before.
This film has talent everywhere, but it also has stirring things to say about love and sacrifice, about art and commerce, ambition and fame.
I’ll say this: A Star is Born is among the very best of the year.
Big week, people. Huge new flicks in theaters, awesome array of choices in home entertainment. Looking for horror? Independent gems that flew sadly under the radar while they were in theaters? Mildly disappointing blockbusters? We have them all! Here’s the skinny:
by Matt Weiner
So a screenwriter, the president of France and a spy walk into a café… have you heard this one? If so, you might have read the book La Douleur (War: A Memoir for the English translation), an autobiography by Marguerite Duras based on diaries she allegedly wrote during World War II.
Duras rose to fame as a writer, garnering a screenplay nomination for the Alain Resnais-directed Hiroshima mon amour. That film’s novel treatment of memory and chronology echoes throughout Memoir of War, adapted from Duras’s book and directed by Emmanuel Finkiel.
Mélanie Thierry plays the film version of Marguerite, whose recollections span the waning days of Vichy France through the Liberation of Paris, the end of the war and the immediate aftermath of Europe reckoning with news of the Holocaust.
If this sounds like a lot of history to cover for one movie, it would be—except Marguerite’s reflections are unconcerned with straightforward chronology. Her diaries and narration compress time and memory into one long, all-consuming reverie for her captured husband, Robert (Emmanuel Bourdieu).
It makes for a deliberately disorienting experience, one that Finkiel pulls out a few tricks to heighten: there’s the nauseatingly atonal strings of the soundtrack, as oppressive as a horror score. But most effective is the way Marguerite’s memories of these monumental years unfold so frequently in claustrophobic interiors.
We get the entire moral arc of world war by way of smoky Parisian rooms. As the war winds down and Robert’s fate seems more and more dire, Marguerite retreats both mentally and physically. And we experience the two most triumphant moments—the Liberation of Paris and what should be another happy occasion after the war—through Marguerite’s furtive glances out the window, like gossamer filters keeping the reality of the world at large a step removed from ever being something she can attain herself.
It’s a demanding role, and it rests almost entirely on Thierry to hold everything together even as her character seems to slip in and out of time. She pulls off resolve with gusto, and even tempers it with a haunted uncertainty that feels completely natural as the enormity of the Holocaust becomes clear.
Memoir of War is a difficult film to get a handle on. The Resistance intrigue is discarded as quickly as it starts to take shape. The historical romance is mostly MacGuffin. And the war barely leaves the cafés, let alone the city.
The slipperiness is apt though. Marguerite’s memories are their own fog of war, and the author’s real-life diaries play coy with authenticity vs. artistic liberty. Finkiel pieces together a fitting adaptation, and if the parts never hold together long enough to say some cohesive whole, at least he can say he makes us feel something Marguerite would recognize.
by Hope Madden
Hell Fest is not the first film to point out that it would be really dangerous if any of the masked meanies inside a Halloween haunt were, indeed, a murder-happy maniac. It’s not a bad premise, just not a new one.
In keeping with the not-so-fresh theme, this film is a straight-up, unapologetic slasher. Not a nostalgia-seeped, homage-laden satire or meta-commentary. Nope. Hell Fest is an unironic slasher. Six nubile youths drink some shots and head into a situation that should be fun but does, of course, hold the potential for serious danger. But they’re young, they’re immortal, they’re so hot and horny.
Why so much groping, by the way? They aren’t that drunk, they have homes, none of them just got out of prison. That’s the thing about slashers: we’ve seen so, so, so many of them over the years that the cracks in the formula are gaping holes by this point.
Nevertheless, Hell Fest stays its by-the-numbers course. Director Gregory Plotkin (Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension) manages to keep the energy high, even as the story weaves tediously through an amusement park.
The script, penned by a committee of five, doesn’t burden itself with much in the way of backstory or the need for character arc. Of the six, Natalie (Amy Forsyth) is the smartest and least slutty. She is, therefore, the target of our slow-moving, weirdly strong, masked marauder.
Her friends are mainly over-the-top caricatures of humans, but there’s an almost believable camaraderie among them. Forsyth fares best, clumsily flirting with the equally awkward Gavin (Roby Attal) as their overdressed friends drink from flasks and tell us how very excited they are.
While a couple of the attractions are fun, the main problem with Hell Fest is that it is not scary. Not for a minute. Nor is it gory—for a film with an R rating, there’s almost no blood, absolutely no nudity and very few F-bombs. It’s as if they hoped for a PG13 rating, didn’t get one and now they’re stuck with a movie that can’t entertain the wee ones and won’t entertain adults.
They do have Tony Todd, though. When has that ever been a bad idea?
I know, October is basically here and you just want to find some new scary movies to put you in the mood. Dude, seriously, Halloween comes out in two weeks. Just hold your horses.
by Hope Madden
The endlessly likeable Kevin Hart and the undeniably talented Tiffany Haddish join forces, which sounds like a solid plan except that Night School is a Kevin Hart movie, and when was the last time one of those was any good?
Sure, Jumanji had some laughs. In fact, Hart’s films almost always boast a few chuckles, mainly because of the actor’s infectious energy and self-deprecating humor. But they’re not good.
Neither is Night School which, even with Haddish and a handful of other proven comic talents, isn’t funny, either.
Hart plays Ted, a good-hearted hustler, talking big and spending bigger, pretending to be more than he is to compensate for his own insecurities. Of course he is, it’s a Kevin Hart movie.
Haddish is Carol, the overworked, underpaid night school teacher here to believe in Ted and the collection of losers in her class. It’s tough love, though, because Haddish is funnier when she’s mean.
What the film does well could have been packaged into an enjoyable 15-minute short. Hart gets off a few laughs working for a Christian fast food chicken joint, and the camaraderie among his late blooming classmates sometimes draws a giggle.
The actors portraying those night school chums work hard to establish memorable, funny characters with limited screen time and an even more limited script. Still, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Rob Riggle, Al Madrigal, Anne Winters and especially Romany Malco work wonders. Taran Killam amuses on occasion as the uptight principal with a grudge.
But there’s only so much they can do. Director Malcolm D. Lee (Girls Trip) drags every gag out about 8 minutes longer than necessary. The script, penned by Hart and five other writers, does Lee no favors. Even Haddish struggles to be funny with flat dialog and pointless, contrived physical comedy bits.
While you’re not laughing you might notice that Night School does make a few surprising choices. Its comedy is good hearted. This is a film that likes all its characters—the females, the losers, those with success and even the parents whose coddling and/or verbal abuse may or may not be to blame for the whole night school problem.
Those are small successes in a film that squanders a lot of talent and all of our time.
by Rachel Willis
Imaginative Jonah is the focal point of director Jeremiah Zagar’s family drama, We the Animals. Based on Justin Torres’s novel of the same name, Zagar and co-writer Daniel Kitrosser successfully enter the realm of adolescent boys.
The youngest of three brothers, Jonah is the film’s narrator. His quiet observations allow him to remain nearly invisible to the adults around him. He sees things others might miss, and with an artist’s eye, he renders his observations into illustrations that jump off the page.
With his two older brothers, Manny and Joel, Jonah navigates his parents’ volatile relationship. Though there is love between his Paps and Ma, there are also moments of violence.
While the time period of the film is never explicitly stated, based on a few clues it’s likely the mid-1980’s. It’s a time when kids ran wild outdoors without cell phones or tablets in hand. The cinematography captures the sunny summer days when aimless kids roamed far and wide. It perfectly evokes the innocence and curiosity of young children.
As Joel and Manny enter into adolescence and leave childhood behind, Jonah falls further into his own world. The three brothers, at first inseparable, start to drift apart. While Joel and Manny seek to become men just like their father, Jonah tries to carve out his own identity. It puts him at odds not only with his siblings, but his parents as well.
There’s a dream-like quality to the movie reminiscent of films such as Beasts of the Southern Wild and Pan’s Labyrinth. Though Zagar’s approach is slightly less fantastic than either film, there is still a lovable, magnetic child at the center. As Jonah, Evan Rosado joins the ranks of child actors whose talent belies their age.
Zagar proves his mettle as both writer and director. His previous works include a number of solid documentaries (Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart, In a Dream), but as his first feature film We the Animals is a marvelous addition to his body of work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fghaoNoQcRU
by Rachel Willis
One year back in high school, my school decided participation in the science fair would be compulsory. I resented this since the last thing I wanted to do was “science.”
Watching the teenagers profiled in documentarians Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster’s film Science Fair, I start to understand the appeal of sincere participation in regional, national and international science fairs. If I had seen film the year I participated, I might have taken it more seriously.
What these kids invent, build and research makes my greenhouse in a shoe box look prosaic. From research into ways to prevent Zika transmission to monitoring and testing for arsenic in groundwater, these kids are smart, ambitious, and driven.
The crème de la crème of science fairs is the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). To qualify for participation in ISEF, first these students must win their area science fairs, which can be state-wide or regional competitions. However they make it to ISEF, the teenagers who qualify have already faced stiff challenges from their fellow science enthusiasts.
To help the viewer understand the pressure these kids face, former ISEF winner Jack Andraka sheds light on the stress of presenting to judges. Projects that students have worked on for months, even an entire year, must be broken down into ten minute presentations to a handful of judges who will decide if their project is worth the prestigious Gordon E. Moore Award.
It’s hard to pick a favorite. All of the teenagers profiled are charming and their desire to win is infectious. You wish they could all win.
Science Fair follows the familiar structure of other films depicting students engaged in fierce competition – First Position, Spellbound, and Make Believe. We’re given time to get to know the students profiled, to watch them hard at work on their craft, and then we follow them through the competitions as they fight their way to the finish line.
Costantini and Foster make a point to profile students from varied backgrounds. Some of the kids attend private schools especially focused on STEM education. Others attend public schools so focused on athletics that science achievements are completely ignored. The directors want to make a point that science is for everyone and anyone can achieve the level of success that these students find.
In a country that frequently devalues science and scientists, this documentary reminds us that these kids are our future.
That future is very bright.
I know you didn’t really dig Solo, but if you’re on the fence (or you skipped it), maybe give it a second look. Definitely no need to see Uncle Drew, but if you missed Izzy as she got the F across town, now is the time to rectify that situation. Here’s the low down on what’s new in home entertainment.
Click the film title to read the full review:
