Tag Archives: Peter Dinklage

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Don’t Wanna Grow Up

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Roofman

by Hope Madden

It’s been nine years since Derek Cianfrance directed a feature, but he’s still drawn to beautifully impossible tenderness and insurmountable longing. This time, though, the story is true.

Roofman, which Cianfrance co-wrote with Kirk Gunn, tells the somehow delightful story of Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum). In 2000, Manchester was convicted of breaking into a series of McDonald’s locations by drilling through the roof. Like the gentlemanly true-life bandit of Old Man and the Gun, Manchester is remembered by his victims exclusively as a good guy.

That didn’t lighten his sentence, but no matter, because by the beginning of Act 2, the real story begins with Manchester on the run and living inside a Toys-r-Us.

Cianfrance and Gunn keep pretty close to the real details of the case, perhaps because the story’s nutty enough as is, or maybe because it’s not the story beats they’re looking to explore. Roofman is a film more fascinated by the human than the criminal, and Tatum’s characterization brims with humanity.

Channing Tatum can be hit or miss, but his strongest performances are those that allow him to find both vulnerability and humor in a character. He’s never been better than in Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice, where he tinged his techbro narcissist with just enough amiable doofus to be truly terrifying. But his turn in Fly Me to the Moon sank because he was the handsome, brilliant straight man—not funny, not dumb, not broken.

Luckily, Cianfrance understands Tatum’s strengths and Roofman offers the actor ample opportunity to be all three of those things. The result is an affable, broken sweetheart of a crook you can’t help but root for, even though you know he’ll probably shoot himself in the foot.

Tatum’s not alone. Kirsten Dunst is steal-the-show wonderful as Leigh, the Toys-r-Us employee Jeffrey falls for. Peter Dinklage is a ton of fun as Mitch, unfeeling store manager with a weakness for No Doubt. Ben Mendelsohn turns up in a small but entertainingly off-brand character. And as Jeffrey’s army buddy Steve, LaKeith Stanfield’s weary, wiry performance offsets Tatum’s lovable dumbassedness as a stark reminder of the type of person who can survive as a criminal.

Like Blue Valentine and A Place Beyond the Pines, Roofman is another romantic look at good dads who make bad decisions. Cianfrance may be preoccupied with one story, but he does tell it well.

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Some Dude with a Mop

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The Toxic Avenger

by Hope Madden

My friend has photographed Lloyd Kaufman’s testicles. That means that in a game of Six Degrees of Lloyd Kaufman’s Testicles, I would win.

In other news, a bunch of talented, funny humans have rebooted Kaufman’s iconic 1984 Troma classic, The Toxic Avenger. There are few films I have more impatiently anticipated than this, plagued as it was by a two-year delay in distribution. But now you can see writer/director Macon Blair’s reboot in all its goopy, corrosive, violent, hilarious glory.

Though the story’s changed, much remains the same (including Easter eggs a plenty!).

Winston (Peter Dinklage), single stepfather to Wade (Jacob Tremblay) and janitor at a factory that makes wellness and beauty supplements, finds that he’s dying and his platinum insurance doesn’t cover the treatment that could save his life. Attempting to steal the money to cover the treatment, he saves a whistleblower (Taylour Paige) from a group of horror core hip hop parkour assassins but winds up in a pool of toxic sludge.

Let’s pause for a second to marvel at this cast. Dinklage is one of the most talented actors working today, and as Winston he is effortlessly heartbreaking and tender. He’s also really funny, and this is not necessarily the kind of humor every serious actor can pull off.

Paige, who has impressed in Zola and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, among other film, also seems built for Blair’s particular brand of Troma comedy. And Tremblay, beloved since his excruciatingly perfect turn in Room as a small boy, gives the film its angsty heartbeat.

Plus, Kevin Bacon as the narcissistic weasel owner of the wellness and beauty empire killing the planet. He hates to be called Bozo (IYKYK).

Blair made his directorial debut with 2017’s underseen treasure, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, though he’s better known as the lynchpin performer in many of Jeremy Saulnier’s films (Blue Ruin, Green Room, Murder Party). He and Kaufman both deliver laughs in small roles, but he impresses most as the mind behind the mayhem.

His vision for this film couldn’t be more spot-on. Joyous, silly, juvenile, insanely violent, hateful of the bully, in love with the underdog—Blair’s Toxic Avenger retains the best of Troma, rejects the worst, and crafts something delirious and wonderful.

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Battle In Battle Creek

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Unfrosted

by George Wolf

Boy, Jerry Seinfeld knows how to get clicks before a new movie drop, doesn’t he?

In case you missed his recent impression of Grandpa Simpson yelling at a cloud, Seinfeld has taken his talents from the stifling confines of sitcoms to Netflix for Unfrosted, his debut as a feature director.

Also writing the script with regular contributors from both Seinfeld and Bee Movie, Jerry returns to the familiar ground of cereal for a silly and star-studded riff on the 1960s space race.

Jerry plays Bob Cabana, top exec at Kellogg’s during their reign as the kings of breakfast. But Bob and his boss Edsel Kellogg III (Jim Gaffigan) are worried about what Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer) and her crew are suddenly cooking up: a breakfast pastry.

As quickly as Jerry can say “xanthan gum!” exactly like “Newman!,” Bob is back together with old partner Donna Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) for a mission to launch their own handheld breakfast innovation (“Fruit Magoos”? “Heat ’em and Eat Ums?”) before Post can.

Some snappy production design adds to the inspired concept of this Battle Creek, Michigan battleground, which takes off on a Forrest Gump-like history lesson littered with famous faces and absurd antics.

One of the best is Hugh Grant playing Thurl Ravenscroft (voice of Tony the Tiger) as a snobbish master thespian ready to lead his fellow mascots in revolt. But there’s also Christian Slater and Peter Dinklage as members of an “organized milk” syndicate, a group of Taste Pilots that includes Chef Boyardee (Bobby Moynihan) and Jack LaLanne (James Marsden), and a visit from two very well-known TV characters that is better left unspoiled.

And somehow, a couple of dumpster-diving pre teens (Bailey Sheetz and Eleanor Sweeney) nearly steal the whole show.

The Boomer-centric nuttiness comes fast and furious (yes, that is Toucan Sam singing “Ave Maria” at a funeral with Full Cereal honors), and, as you might guess, not all of it lands.

As an actor, Jerry’s still playing Jerry. And as a director, he seems most comfortable with sitcom pacing that’s well-suited for streaming. But Jerry takes a rule that Seinfeld perfected – surround your star with a group of more memorable characters – and pops it in a toaster set to ten. What doesn’t work is quickly erased by another absurd opportunity, and then wrapped with a full song-and-dance finale.

I wouldn’t call it well-rounded, healthy or even balanced, but Unfrosted is eventually able to serve up just enough real laughs for a satisfying plate of silly.

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Snooze

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American Dreamer

by Hope Madden

I was looking forward to American Dreamer, the comedy/drama that pairs Peter Dinklage and Shirley MacLaine as odd couple tenant/homeowner in a comment on the American dream.

And then I found out Matt Dillon and Danny Glover are in it, which appealed as well.

And then I wondered what on earth compelled any of the four of them to take this gig.

Paul Dektor’s film follows Dr. Phil Loder (Dinklage), an adjunct professor of social economics who is very down on his luck. Not sure how he got here? No worries, because a bartender will explain all of it to Loder, who one assumes must already know his own backstory. But this is how bad writing shows itself. And it won’t be the last time.

Loder dreams of home ownership, but he lives in a crappy apartment, drives a 30-year-old Saab, and makes (the bartender explains) less than 50k a year. But then he finds the deal of a lifetime in his price range. He just has to pay now, hold out in the stinky servant’s quarters and wait until the current owner (MacLaine) dies. Then  his dream house is all his!

That’s convoluted and contrived enough, but wait, there’s more!

Mainly there’s a lot of sloppy, needless plot devices that do not entertain but do disjoint the overall film. One of these writers (Theodore Melfi) has an Oscar nomination for Hidden Figures. Go figure.

Not that the direction’s any better. Dektor can’t decide if American Dreamer is a slapstick comedy, a sex comedy, or a social diatribe aimed at capitalism. Choosing none of these, he winds up creating an inarticulate mishmash.

Everything that happens outside the relationship between Dinklage and MacLaine feels extraneous, but the focus is almost never on the two leads. Worse still, the actual relationship—what we see of it—is silly and superficial. Because of this, Loder’s arc is unearned.

It’s great to see Dinklage in a lead and in a comedy. Too bad it’s this one.

MacLaine is even more ill-used, and Dillon’s realtor character is unfathomable. You spend the whole time waiting for some revelation, like that he and Loder are boyhood friends or brothers—anything to explain their contemptuous yet close bond.

Maybe I should ask the bartender. I bet he knows.

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Forever In Your Favor

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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

by Hope Madden

If I’m honest, I didn’t need another Hunger Games. While I recognize that the history of the games, the political upheaval that pushed society toward this level of privileged inhumanity, was certainly rife with possibility. But I couldn’t muster any interest, certainly not 2 ½ hours worth.

That’s saying something, because two of my all-time favorite actors – Viola Davis and Peter Dinklage – co-star. And Davis plays a mad scientist of sorts, which is inarguably intriguing. And Dinklage plays the actual creator of the hunger games themselves, so both villains? OK, I’m not made of stone. I’m in.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes – while too long and cumbersome for a single film – delivers a scathing and pointed reflection of modern society with more precision and bite than any of its predecessors.

Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blythe) would one day rule the Hunger Games and all of Panem (played in the previous four films by Donald Sutherland), but today, he’s just trying to finish prep school and win the coveted Plinth scholarship to the university. But this year, there’s a catch. To win the scholarship, you need to mentor a tribute. They don’t have to win, they just have to make enough of an impression to draw viewers.

Again taken from a dystopian YA novel by Suzanne Collins, the latest Hunger Games holds a mirror up to society and sees power and privilege – and the lust to keep them – as cataclysmic to humanity. Collins is not wrong. And she’s not in a forgiving mood, bless her.

Davis and Dinklage are characteristically wonderful, Davis a particular delight in a weirdly sinister role while Dinklage offers a mournful, broken soul for the film.

Blythe’s arc is long and tough, and he convinces with a very human turn that’s all the more chilling for its understatement. Rachel Zegler plays the tribute in question, Lucy Gray, stealing scenes with a rebellious fire and f- you attitude. Jason Schwartzman is weatherman/amateur magician and Hunger Games host Lucky Flickerman, injecting the film with humor that’s equal parts flashy and cynical.

Francis Lawrence returns to direct, after helming all but the 2012 original. While his previous efforts balanced flash with action, the latest installment loses footing as it travels from one grim reality to another. But when a protagonist’s future is not in question, it can be tough to generate real empathy, interest or tension. Lawrence, thanks to a game cast and a go-for-blood script, manages to do it.

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Tongue Tied & Twisted

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Cyrano

by Hope Madden

Filmmaker Joe Wright hits and misses, but always with panache, which is why I look forward to each of his films. His take on Cyrano was especially appealing because Peter Dinklage plays the titular poet, and he never misses.

If your only experience with this material is Steve Martin’s 1987 rom-com Roxanne, prepare yourself. Wright’s reimagining is a musical version of Edmond Rostand’s 19th Century play, with an adaptation courtesy of Dinklage’s wife, Erica Schmidt. And it’s definitely not funny.

Originally, Cyrano de Bergerac was a man with a massive nose. Too ugly for his beloved Roxanne, he agrees to feed brilliant lines to the dim-witted Christian so that he may instead woo the lovely lady.

Molding the tale to fit Dinklage is the film’s greatest accomplishment. The brash, angry romantic has never been so heartbreaking or sympathetic, with every flash of pain, indignation and outrage playing across Dinklage’s face. Plus, he can sing!

Wright’s staging sometimes beguiles, sometimes bores. One musical number boasts intoxicating theatricality, the next resembles a seasonal fragrance ad. Still, the set design is astonishing throughout, and there is no denying this cast.

Haley Bennett’s sumptuous Roxanne cannot help but seduce you, while Ben Mendelsohn’s unseemly De Guiche drips with villainy. Kelvin Harrison Jr. brings sincere tenderness to the role of Christian, and the infamous scene where Cyrano speaks for Christian, winning him the first exquisite kiss, takes on a beautiful tenderness thanks to Harrison Jr.’s chemistry with Dinklage.

Schmidt’s script streamlines wisely enough, but something feels unbalanced in the material. The result is unwieldy and messy, though Wright captures a number of remarkable sequences. Every moment between Cyrano and Roxanne is exquisite, and the balance of the cast wrings emotion from each interaction.

Aside from one, the songs by Aaron and Bryce Dressner of The National are forgettable, and the one that does hit feels contextually tangential—as if they had a great song that had little to do with the story, but they wedged it in, anyway.  

This new Cyrano is another hit and miss for Wright, but Peter Dinklage retains his crown as the most endlessly fascinating and watchable actor on the screen. He’s reason enough not to miss this movie. 

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Search for Tomorrow

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The Croods: A New Age

by George Wolf

At least two things have happened since we met The Croods seven years ago. One, we’ve forgotten about the Croods, and two, Dreamworks has plotted their return.

A New Age gets the caveman clan back together with some talented new voices and a hipper approach for a sequel that easily ups the fun factor from part one.

The orphaned Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) has become part of pack Crood, which is fine with everyone except papa Grug (Nicolas Cage), who isn’t wild about the teen hormones raging between Guy and Eep (Emma Stone).

The nomadic gang is continuing their search for the elusive “tomorrow” when they stumble onto the Stone Age paradise of Phil and Hope Betterman (Peter Dinklage and Leslie Mann, both priceless). The Betterman’s lifestyle puts the “New Age” in this tale, and they hatch a plan to send the barbaric Croods on their way while keeping Guy for their daughter Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran).

But a funny thing happens along the way. Check that, many things happen, and plenty of them funny, in a film that nearly gets derailed by the sheer number of characters and convolutions it throws at us.

The new writing team of Kevin Hageman, Dan Hageman and Paul Fisher keeps the adventure consistently madcap with some frequent LOLs (those Punch Monkeys are a riot) and even topical lessons on conservation, individuality and girl power.

Or maybe that should read Granny Power, since it is Gran’s (Cloris Leachman) warrior past that inspires the ladies to don facepaint, take nicknames and crank up a theme song from Haim as they take a stand against some imposing marauders.

Director Joel Crawford – an animation vet – keeps his feature debut fast moving and stylish, drawing performances from his talented cast (which also includes Catherine Keener and Clark Duke) that consistently remind you how important the “acting” can be in voice acting.

By the time Tenacious D drops in to see what condition the Partridge Family’s “I Think I Love You” is in, the whole affair starts to feel like some sort of animated head trip.

Yeah, a little sharper focus wouldn’t hurt, but A New Age delivers the good time you forgot to remember to wonder where it’s been.

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In the Name of the Son

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Three Christs

by Hope Madden

“Three grown men who believe they are Jesus Christ—it’s almost comical,” reads Bradley Whitford’s Clyde, a Ypsilanti mental patient who happens to be one of those three men. There is something bittersweet and meta about his reading that particular line from Dr. Stone’s (Richard Gere) report on the experimental procedure the doctor is undertaking with his three chosen patients.

On its surface, Three Christs itself seems almost comical. Whitford, Walton Goggins and Peter Dinklage play real life patients institutionalized in Michigan in the 1960s, each of whom believed they were Jesus. Just below the surface is a sad, lonesome story of a medical system ill-equipped and unwilling to treat the individual, and of the peculiar, touching struggles of three souls lost within that system.

Director Jon Avnet, writing with Eric Nazarian, adapts social psychologist Milton Rokeach’s nonfiction book on his own study, “The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.”

Whitford’s performance is fine, but he’s somewhat out of his league when compared to Dinklage and Goggins. Dinklage is the film’s heartbeat and he conveys something simultaneously vulnerable and superior in his behavior. He’s wonderful as always, but it’s Goggins who steals this film.

Walton Goggins continues to be an undervalued and under-recognized talent. He can play anything from comic relief to sadistic villainy to nuanced dramatic lead (check out his turn in Them That Follow for proof of the latter). Here the rage that roils barely beneath the surface speaks to the loneliness and pain of constantly misunderstanding and being misunderstood that has marked his character’s entire life.

Gere is the weakest spot in the film. He charms, and his rare scenes with Juliana Margulies, playing Stone’s wife Ruth, are vibrant and enjoyable. But in his responses to his patients and in his struggles against the system (mainly embodied by Stephen Root and Kevin Pollak), he falls back on headshakes, sighs and bitter chuckles.

Aside from two of the three Christs’ performances, Avent’s film looks good but lacks in focus, failing to hold together especially well. The point of the extraordinary treatment method is never very clear, nor is its progress. Stone’s arc is also weak, which again muddies the point of the film.

Three Christs misses more opportunities than it grabs, which is unfortunate because both Dinklage and especially Goggins deliver performances worth seeing.

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Truth in Advertising

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

by George Wolf

In any form, great writing is a joy to behold. On the movie screen, pair it with skilled actors and you’re more than halfway home to a memorable experience.

Three Billboards… gets all the way home.

Writer/director Martin McDonagh provides his stellar ensemble with smart, insightful dialog that crackles with bite, poignancy and scattershot hilarity. His tale is offbeat but urgent and welcome, speaking as it does to grief, compassion, and navigating the contrasts between the good and evil in our flawed selves.

Frances McDormand is sensational as Mildred, a woman still haunted by the unsolved murder of her daughter seven months earlier. Passing by a series of abandoned billboards on her rural drive home one evening, Mildred decides to rent them, publicly asking Sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson, capping off a year of multiple great performances) why there have been no arrests.

This is not a popular move, not with the Sheriff, his violent deputy (Sam Rockwell – fantastic), Mildred’s abusive ex-husband (John Hawkes), her embarrassed son (Lucas Hedges) or…who else ya got?

Only an enthusiastic co-worker (Amanda Warren) and a hopeful suitor (Peter Dinklage) offer support, leaving Mildred as a small-town pariah.

She is unmoved, and McDormand crafts Mildred with meaningful layers, as a foul-mouthed firebrand lashing out at injustice and sorrow with a defiant lack of concern for consequence. She is absolutely award-worthy, as are Rockwell and Harrelson, and as their character arcs take unexpected detours, the film displays its relevant social conscience through both subtlety and aggression.

McDonagh (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths) compliments his usual knack for piercing wordplay with well-paced visual storytelling and some downright shocking tonal shifts. We are constantly engaged but never quite at ease, as McDonagh demands our attention through brutality and dark humor, holding the moments of humanity until they will be most deeply satisfying.

Behind Three Billboards..are performers able to create rich, indelible characters and a bold filmmaker whose vision and instincts have never been more on point.





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Anger Mismanagement

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The Angry Birds Movie

by Rachel Willis

There have been a number of movies based on video games. From 1993’s Super Mario Brothers to the upcoming Tomb Raider movie, Hollywood has not shied away from mining video games as source material for film.

One of the latest in the video game to movie genre is The Angry Birds Movie, a film that seeks to explain why those birds who love to launch themselves at green pigs with enormous slingshots are so angry.

The focal character of the movie is Red, voiced by Jason Sudekis, an already angry bird living in a community of happy birds. Red’s anger gets him in trouble and he finds himself placed in anger management where he meets Bomb, Chuck, and Terence.

The arrival of a large number of green pigs to the birds’ island sets off warning bells for Red, but the other birds are happy to welcome the newcomers and chastise Red for his quickness to antagonism.

The major problem with Angry Birds is the lack of story. At 97 minutes, the movie has a lot of time to fill, and in the first half, the audience has to sit through quite a few montage sequences that are boring even for the youngest viewer. It isn’t until the second half of the movie, when the pigs reveal their true motives for landing on the birds’ island, that the movie starts to pick up. Where the first 45 minutes of the movie drag, the second 45 minutes make up for it with the action we know and love from the video game. The plot comes together, and children and their parents can both find something to enjoy.

The voice actors are myriad and lend their talents well to the film. Danny McBride as Bomb, and Peter Dinklage as Mighty Eagle, both stand out in their roles, providing much needed humor throughout. Jason Sudekis manages to carry a lot on his shoulders as the leading angry bird, but far too often the jokes he’s given to work with fall flat.

It’s unfortunate that the film isn’t 20 minutes shorter, as it might have been more appealing to both young and old had the screenwriters recognized the limitations of their source material.

Verdict-2-5-Stars