Delayed Reaction: Suite Francaise

The Pitch: There's only too many stories about WWII as long as we keep making movies about WWII.

A woman in occupied France falls for a German soldier.

There's this movie I hear about. It's a mid-level budget British period production. It's got four-time Oscar nominee and all-around delightful actress Michelle Williams. It has Oscar nominee Kristin Scott Thomas. There's familiar British actors like Ruth Wilson and Sam Riley and less familiar Western European actors like Matthias Schoienaerts. It even has Margot Robbie in a small role, before she became a known quantity. This film couldn't find a U.S. release and ended up premiering on the Lifetime network, where, despite all these credentials, it wasn't even a blip on the Emmy radar.

I didn't have high hopes for this movie, because there was probably a reason it had to premiere on Lifetime and ended up ignored (Remember, Grace of Monaco met the same fate). Still, I'm watching something with Michelle Williams and Margot Robbie. That's just how I roll. And, it was about what I expected. Decent production value. I liked some of the shifting allegiances in the village with their German captors. I didn't really buy the romance between Williams and Shcoienaerts, which I'm entirely laying the blame on Shcoienaerts because I refuse to blame Williams for anything until I absolutely must.

If you are really desperate for a period romance or WWII movie that's not about the actual war, you could do a lot worse. I'm mostly happy to see this because it means I'm only two mediocre Australian thriller movies away from seeing Margot Robbie's entire filmography.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Battle of Algiers

The Pitch: A fictional account of actual events, shot to look like actual events despite actually being staged.

The story of both sides of the Algerian battle for independence.

I don't have a point of comparison for this movie. I haven't seen than many films from the 60s, barely any foreign films from the 60s, and certainly none that tried anything like this. The idea is to shoot the film like newsreel footage. Kind of like the found footage style 30 years before The Blair Witch Project popularized it. It used mostly non-actors. And, in the greatest stroke of brilliance, it didn't align itself with either the French or Algerian side. Both the French and Algerians spill blood.

I mostly watched this movie impressed by what it was doing more than being sucked in by any specific plot point. I'm always amazed watching crowd scenes from before the era of computers. Dozens or hundreds of extras had to be hired for different scenes of complete mayhem. I'm talking about explosives and riot gear being used. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking, "OK, these can't all be paid extras. Some of these people must've been legitimately confused and terrorized by this production." I love how often my sympathies were swayed. Naturally, I wanted to side with the Algerians, who just want their freedom. Then, they coordinate bombing strikes, which I can't condone. After that, the French rule starts getting oppressive again, and I start getting pro-Algeria again. Then there's a press conference in which the leader of the French army in Algeria delivers an eloquent defense of what the French are doing there. That sways me back to the French again. I'm not even sure where I landed by the end.

The downside to the newsreel style is that I did have trouble connecting with the characters and the plot was pretty loose. I watched this as an experimental film, that I appreciated for individual aspects rather than a traditional film. That capped my outright enjoyment. As a piece of film history, it's vital. As entertainment, it's only above-average.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: It Comes at Night

The Pitch: Don't go outside. Don't worry about why.

In a post-apocalyptic world, one family invites another family into their house for shelter.

It Comes at Night got double-screwed over by advertising then word of mouth. The trailers I saw leaned heavily on the horror mystery of what's behind the red door. It's a damn effective trailer and also, not really what the movie is about. I then came across reviews and interviews that warned that the movie isn't horror at all. I got the impression from those reactions that it was something a lot more cerebral and unique. People would talk around what it actually is like it's something unfamiliar. So, I was both fooled into thinking it was a horror movie and into thinking that it wasn't a familiar genre movie.

It turns out, this is a very familiar movie. It's good but not some clever new twist on a tired formula. This is a post-apocalyptic survival movie. There are variants of things you'd find in an zombie movie, The Road, or Z for Zachariah. There are hints of things like The Thing or The Mist in the way that the horrible things are off screen. The "It" in the title isn't really explained and only matters in that it keeps everyone afraid and hiding.

The movie feels a little Sundance-y the way that the whole movie is like the first 30 minutes of another movie stretched out to 90 minutes. I like aspects of that. It allows for more character moments. I can soak in the atmosphere more and the characters don't have to constantly be talking to drive the story. I'd've appreciated it a bit more had the direction the story went in not felt like an inevitability.

Joel Edgerton is ideal as a grizzled, paternal figure who doesn't hide that he's not always sure what the right thing to do is. Chrstopher Abbott is great at being able to look sincere and untrustworthy at the same time. I wish I had more to say about Carmen Ejogo and Riley Keough. They get a couple of good moments, but I would've liked to see them get more to do. Kelvin Harrison Jr. basically looked nervous the whole time and acted as a POV character. He didn't feel very essential.

This is a fun movie if you are into post-apocalyptic stories. It's not much of a horror movie (and isn't really trying to be one). Everything about it is pretty good. There isn't a lot that's new.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Other Dream Team

The Pitch: You know, there were other Basketball teams with an interesting back story in 1992 than the Dream Team.

A documentary about the 1992 Lithuanian Olympic basketball team, full of generational talents.

It's hard to find sport documentaries anymore that aren't tied to 30 for 30 or ESPN Films. That's not a bad thing, necessarily. In fact, I'd call 30 for 30 one of the finest contributions to television in the last decade. Still, there's something nice about watching something that hasn't been vetted by ESPN first.

I think international basketball is fascinating, not to watch, but to track (Note: I have nothing against watching it either). There are so many leagues and countries with great players. The sport's popularity is growing worldwide, so there's always a new corner of the world producing surprising talent. Spain is in the waning days of an exceptional group. Argentina came before that. Canada is looking like the next big deal. Australia is having a moment too. The late 80s and early 90s was when Lithuania (and other former Soviet countries) had an unexpected convergence of talents. Of course, the U.S., pound-for-pound still pummels them all, but the gap is shrinking. The Other Dream Team is a nice dive into what it was like to be on the 1992 Lithuanian team.

Structurally, it's pretty blase. The story is linear. The interviews are cut with footage just like you'd expect. Certain soundbites are the kind that you could write before even seeing the movie. The story itself gets interesting context, mixing this team's rise with the rise of a newly free nation. The movie is at its best when it's most specific. My favorite part was hearing the players explain how they smuggled goods back into their country for extra money and why they needed to o that. The story of how they came to be sponsored by The Grateful Dead is the kind of thing I'd expect to be the inspiration for the documentary in the first place. From a basketball nerd perspective, I love how they mixed the NBA and NBA Draft into this almost as if they were a distraction. If anything, I think the film understated how good Arvydas Sabonis was. I'd say he's the biggest non-injury "What If" in NBA history.

There's enough Lithuanian history for this to appeal to non-basketball fans. I certainly got the most entertainment from the basketball parts though.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: 8 1/2

The Pitch: "I'm not ready. Ask me again later."

A director with directors block stalls for time until he can figure out what his nearly in production film is about.

There are few cliches that don't apply to 8 1/2. It's up there with Citizen Kane and 2001: A Space Odyssey as the definitive film nerd movie. It's is certainly among the 10 most influential films ever made and a favorite for references in movies or TV shows that went right over your head. That ended up hurting my appreciation of the film. I was ready for it. I've seen the movie Nine and an opera based on the story. I've heard countless descriptions and discussions of the movie. I was watching it for the first time somehow remembering scenes before they happened. The movie ended up being more of a checklist than a movie experience for me. Still, it was nice to check it off the list. I love meta touches in a story, and this came out decades before that came in vogue. Even in optimal circumstances, there was a ceiling on how much I'd like it. I'm a bit of a literalist (at least, that's the best word I've found for it). It's why I have trouble with someone like David Lynch. So, something this avant garde and at times surreal turns me off. I can get over it, but I realize it might've been better to ease my way into Fellini with a La Strada or Nights of Cabiria first. Oh well. Good movie. Weird. Worth seeing. Don't try too hard to understand it. Just soak it in.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Rampage

Formula: San Andreas * King Kong

Rampage is a video game in which a giant ape, wolf, and sea creature destroy a large city.

Rampage is a movie in which a giant ape, wolf, and sea creature destroy a large city and the Rock has to stop them.

When it comes to delivering on its premise, few movies do a better job than Rampage. It's hard to adapt a video game into a movie, which I covered a lot for Tomb Raider last month. Rampage does pretty well by it. It helps that the game has a limited premise: three monsters destroy a city. Matching the mechanics isn't very hard.

However, Rampage works very hard to get to that premise. The plot is stupid, but it fits. There's an evil company, Energyrne, run by the sister-brother pair of Claire and Brett Wyden (Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy). They are doing genetic experiments that increase growth and aggression in animals. Those experimental chemicals find their way to an ape, and wolf, and an alligator. The Wydens set up a homing beacon for animals in the middle of Chicago, and - boom - there you have it: giant monsters attacking a city. To give it more of a linear narrative, Dwayne Johnson is introduced as an ape whisperer who works with the eventually giant ape, George. George is given a personality to make the whole thing feel a little less anonymous. Naomie Harris shows up to deliver some exposition as the scientist who developed the technology. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is there as the point man for a shadow government agency in charge of monitoring weird science experiments. They successfully streamline and populate the story enough to work like any other disaster movie. Despite its video game origins, Rampage most reminded me of Battleship in how hard it sets up the game's structure. It's a little less strained in Rampage but no less transparent. 

I don't know how to describe the tone of this movie. It's the kind of movie in which the CEO of the evil corporation has a Rampage arcade game in her office that's never mentioned. It's not quite camp, but it sure has a lot of strange levity. Both Akerman and Lacy are taken care of in darkly comedic ways. Joe Manganiello is set up as the evil special ops counterpart to The Rock's character, but he's wiped out at cameo speed. George is given the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy. The Rock might as well be the fourth monster in the movie. He treats things like gunshot wounds and ziptied hands like minor inconveniences. At one point, he and George go 2-on-2 against the wolf and alligator. Mind you, this is after entire army platoons have been wiped out by them. It's all treated serious the whole time, but it also embraces how over the top it all is. 

Not all of it works. The first hour is built entirely on contrivance. The humor is a little broad and inserted clunkily a lot of places. Since George communicates through sign language, too much of the movie is The Rock translating the signing so the movie doesn't have to use subtitles. I can't decide if I liked the video game physics of all the fighting. It was a weird feeling seeing major Chicago landmarks toppling. I think I'm still in the early 2000s mentality of collapsing skyscrapers as the third rail of action movies.

Dwayne Johnson is hitting peak Wesley Snipes level of swagger but without losing his likability. It seems like every movie he's in now has to include a scene in which a woman is swooning over him and he's unaffected by it. It turns out that he is to animal rescue what Liam Nesson in Taken is to international hostage rescue. He really has built his brand so than nothing seems too superhuman for him to accomplish, and that's a lot of fun in a movie like this. Naomie Harris doesn't get a lot to do, but she carries herself like she belongs in the world of the film. She isn't quite a love interest, but it's nevertheless nice to see Johnson paired with someone his own age rather than a 20-something. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is having an absolute blast in this. He takes on a cowboy in a business suit character and plays up every bit of it. I'd like to see him show up as a frenemy in more of Johnson's movies. Akerman and Lacy do exactly what is asked of them. Akerman is a token, evil, CEO mastermind. Lacy is her panicky sidekick. It's not a highlight of either of their careers. It's not like someone else could've improved on the roles though.

Look, Rampage isn't a great movie, and it doesn't try to be one. It's The Rock fighting monsters. If that's what you are in the mood for, this doesn't disappoint. If that isn't what you want to see, then this obviously isn't something you need to track down.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Shane

The Pitch: A guy is gonna spend the whole movie being, like, "I don't want to have a gunfight", then at the end, he has a gunfight anyway. And there will be this kid who's kind of annoying but gets an iconic moment.

A laconic stranger, looking to put a violent past behind him, gets pulled back in to help some homesteaders.

You can thank Logan for this one. In general, I'm trying to see more Westerns, but Shane shot up the list because of that X-Men movie. As a rule, if I movie is pulling so much from another movie that it outright uses a clip from it, then you can assume that filmmaker believes there's something to be gained by watching it. Shane reminded me a lot of High Noon in how most of the movie is just stalling until it gets to the climax. I think I preferred the conceit of High Noon a bit more. In Shane, it was so obvious where this was all headed, and lacking a literal ticking clock, there was little need to delay it. Shane more than makes up for it with a terrific ending. The kid yelling "Shane! Come back!" as the injured Shane rides away: that's good stuff.

This is a pretty movie too. Is there a Blu-ray for it? I'm sure there is. I would've liked to see that instead of DVD quality.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: High Noon

The Pitch: A real-time countdown to a shoot out.

A town Marshall in the wild west tries to gather support from the townsfolk when he realize that a gang is on their way to kill him.

How has High Noon not been remade a dozen times? It's a simple, compelling concept that sounds like it would be easy enough to pull off. It's basically one action sequence and a bunch of talking for the 80 minutes before it. That sounds like a low-budget dream for a filmmaker trying to prove his/her mettle before taking over the next Jurassic Park movie. I suppose the Rio Bravo slant is a bit more straightforward and has been remade a lot. I don't see a lot of High Noon imitations. I don't even see the "in real time" trick used much.

High Noon's reputation precedes it a bit too much. It's pretty good. I certainly like the idea of it more than the actual thing. The early scenes when Gary Cooper is trying and failing to get support are nicely anti-"Hollywood", but I don't feel the tension rising that much. Perhaps that's just because I was so certain that Cooper would get out of it fine in the end. The final shootout was nicely under-produced. It wasn't quite big enough to justify the build though.

I think Cooper is terrific. It's smart that the villain was almost entirely developed through second-hand stories. He's more of a boogey-man than a man. The age gap between Cooper and Grace Kelly was a little too stark to ignore.

I'll admit, this is a movie I'm feeling bad that I didn't like it a lot more. I don't know if this is a bias again older movies at play or if I'm just not acclimated to the pacing of a movie of this ilk. I just can't find a lot of excitement for it.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

The Pitch: Like Toys, but good.

A young woman takes over a magical toy store handed down to her by its eccentric owner.

I don't always feel the need to explain myself for what movies I decide to see. Most of the really inexplicable choices are Club 50* picks. A few are completely indefensible and I regret immediately. Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium I have a little history with. First of all, it's Zach Helm's only other major screen credit other than Stranger Than Fiction. I was compelled to check it out eventually to see if Stranger Than Fiction was a fluke. I also remember working at Target when this movie was released. They had a big push of toys inspired by the movie. That was the saddest toy aisle I've ever seen. No one bought those toys. They couldn't clearance those items enough to convince people to buy a Rubix cube in funny packaging or repackaged slinky. I specifically remember a group of the sock monkeys sitting on a clearance shelf for a depressingly long amount of time. And, of course, the gag about the movie from the "Granite State" episode of Breaking Bad sealed the deal to decide that I needed to track it down. I would've seen it earlier too except it was next up in my Netflix queue with a "Very Long Wait" for over a year. I'd given up hope entirely.

*Fun fact: I hated the name "Club 50" when I first came up with it and I like it even less now. I've been calling it that for so long though, that I can't imagine ever changing it.

Spoiler alert! It wasn't worth the wait. Sure, Natalie Portman is charming, still growing back her hair after V for Vendetta. Jason Bateman had a surprisingly sweet role. I kind of like that the structure was a little different than I'd expect, and there's a charming innocence to the whole thing. I'm not sure what to do with Dustin Hoffman's performance though. Has there ever been a case of giving a character a lisp that didn't come off as at least a little insulting? While I appreciate that the story is paced a little differently, the chosen pace didn't work. The stakes were always low or not clear (It turns out that when the store dies, it can be brought back to life pretty easily). I couldn't figure out if this store was supposed to exist in the real world or not. Some people seemed to accept the magic, while others were baffled by it. This is very targeted to young children, not all ages. I don't want to belabor what's wrong with the movie too much, because it's not egregious enough to bother. Nothing offended my sensibilities too much, and that's all I can ask for sometimes.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Great Dictator

The Pitch: Hitler sucks, and more people should realize that.

A satire of Nazi Germany, involving mistaken identity with a Jewish barber who looks exactly like Not Hitler.

Timing is everything.

It's hard to believe when this movie was made. WWII was still going on. The US hadn't even joined the fight yet. I tend to forget that even though people didn't know the full extent of the Jewish holocaust, Hitler was pretty disliked well before that. I can't say there's a lot I loved about the film. I'm not a huge fan of the Chaplin films I've seen so far. This one has a clumsier balance of slapstick and self-seriousness. I get why the movie is important though.

Remember when The Interview came out just a couple years ago? That movie caused a legitimate shitstorm. There was that Sony hack because of it and genuine concerns about North Korea's response. And that was for a stupid Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy in modern times, when people make movies about any topic pretty freely. I can't imagine Charlie Chaplin trying to make The Great Dictator in the same era that had restrictions on showing a couple share the same bed. That it got made, that it was so merciless in its attack of Hitler, and that it became a massive hit is incredible.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Beirut

Formula: 1/2 * Argo

What the hell are we supposed to do with Jon Hamm? Eight seasons as Don Draper on Mad Men more than proved his dramatic chops, delivering one of the iconic TV performances of all time. He can deliver a powerful speech just as well as he can convey a range of emotions silently. He is a steely leading-man, possibly out of a different generation. He's also one of the most likable figures in Hollywood. He's willing to show up in just about anything. He's such a frequent cameo performer, that some have taken to calling those bit parts "Hammeos". He's game for whatever is asked from him. He'll be silly. He'll be stoic. He'll be charming. He'll be repugnant. I love that there is a Jon Hamm out there. I just don't know what the best way to use him is.

The downside of having an iconic role is that you aren't likely to find a better role after it's over. It's different from typecasting. Unlike typecasting, Hamm gets a variety of roles and doesn't look out of place in them. Whatever he does though, he can't escape the fact that we all know he's been better elsewhere. Something like his role in Baby Driver gives me hope that he'll find some success as a character actor in a lot of great, weird, fun movies. However, I get the feeling that his more natural fit as a leading man is going to lead to a lot more movies like Million Dollar Arm or, his latest, Beirut.

At the beginning of the film, Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm) is a promising U.S. diplomat living it up in Beirut in 1972. He has a lovely wife, good friends, and even a 13 year old boy he has nearly adopted. It turns out that the boy has a brother who is a known terrorist. This leads to a tragic event that leaves his wife dead and his career ruined. A decade later, Mason is an alcoholic working as a negotiator in minor labor disputes. Out of the blue, he's offered a lot of money to deliver a speech at American University in Beirut. Despite vowing never to return there, the money and his own curiosity convince him to go. There, it's revealed that he's at the center of a hostage negotiation. A group of terrorists have taken a high level CIA agent, an old friend of Mason's, and they are requesting Mason by name to handle he negotiations.

Just about everything in Beirut feels familiar. It's telling that when I mentioned I was seeing it to a friend, he assumed I meant 7 Days in Entebbe. Argo, 7 Days in Entebbe, American Hustle, and Beirut are all cut from the same cloth. Even something more modern like Safe House feels oddly similar. There really is nothing about Beirut that feels fresh.

That's not to say it's bad. Hamm is good at this kind of role. Mason has a lot of latter-day Don Draper in him. Rosamund Pike plays one of Mason's handlers in Beirut. She really should be getting better roles than this, but it's not the film's fault that she's overqualified for the role. Character actors like Mark Pellegrino, Dean Norris (with hair!), Shea Whigham, and Douglas Hodge fit well in this world too. They all feel like the Charlie Wilson's War alternates. The most impressive part of the movie is how it shows all the competing forces in Beirut. There's factions within the US government with different priorities, there's ethnic groups that are at odds with one another, and there's governments and rebels who are fundamentally opposed. And they all have some part of the negotiations. It really feeling like Hamm and company are trying to play 3 dimensional chess.

Besides the all-around generic feel of the movie, what I had the most trouble with is that I didn't buy Mason as a master negotiator. The movie works hard to establish that he is. There's a scene or two where he verbalizes all the tactics someone is using, which proves that he knows every trick in the book. There's a scene in which he correctly predicts each of the other side's next steps. There just weren't any "oh damn" moments: moments that made me grin because I was watching a master finally getting his mojo back. It's the difference between knowing the book and writing the book, if that makes any sense. Perhaps I'm using all the time Don Draper wowed me with pitches unfairly against this movie.

I was hoping that Beirut would be my April surprise, like Free Fire last year or Eye in the Sky the year before. Instead, it's exactly what I expected. No bad. Not great. Just watchable, especially if you like Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend