Delayed Reaction: White God

The Pitch: Dogs take over a Hungarian town, but not in -like- a happy way.

I've started listening to the Filmspotting podcast recently and I'm still taking the temperature on their recommendations. They were right about The Handmaiden, so I decided to give White Dog a try after it ended up on someone's year-end "Best of" list. Besides, it's about dogs. I probably should've looked into this a little more though.

The movie is about a dog named Hagen. He's owned by teenage girl but is abandoned by her father and left to live on the street. He then goes through all the awful things that happen to dogs on the street that you imagine (yes, dog fighting is involved) before ultimately ending up in the pound. At the pound, he starts a revolt. Hundreds of dogs escape and terrorize the streets of the town.

...I'm not sure that I get the point of the movie. Apparently, all the dogs were shelter animals who were rescued and trained for the film. That's nice. I have a low tolerance for cruelty toward dogs, so I nearly turned this off several times. I guess there's a message about the oppressed rising up against the oppressors. Really, all I got out of it was "It's really impressive how well they trained all these dogs". The closing shot is pretty great, so, there's that.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Suburbicon

Formula: Pleasantville * Fargo

The George Clooney directed, Coen brothers co-penned crime movie Suburbicon is about an idyllic 50s suburb that is rocked when two events occur almost at the same time: a black family moves into a neighborhood and, soon after, their neighbors endure a home invasion that leaves the mother dead. As you'd expect from anything written by the Coens, the world is populated by distinct characters and the story unfolds in the nihilistic and fatal manner that they are known for. The cast is filled with Coen brothers repertory players like Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac, and Matt Damon. On paper, this couldn't be more of a blueprint of a Coen brothers movie. Because of that, the failure of Suburbicon serves as a great reminder of how irreplaceable the Coens are.

Suburbicon is not a very good movie. I have trouble even calling it moderately entertaining. The best way I can describe it is this. Let's say if when NASA was planning the moon landing*, all of their individual calculations were 1% off. None of those miscalculations on their own would ruin the mission, but the compounded effect would result in the space shuttle exploding before it even left that atmosphere. Well, that's Suburbicon. Everything feels a little off, and when everything is a little off, the whole film really misses the mark. The characters are odd without being interesting. Absurdities which would normally be really funny fall flat. The satire feels toothless. It's weird. There wasn't that much that I actually hated about the movie, but I could see how so much of it came close to working that it irritated me even more.

*Note: I know very little about how space shuttles work, but my go to analogy is exactly what happened to Suburbicon, which leaves me scrambling for non-movie examples.

Part of it is that this movie was sold all wrong in the advertising. It's not really a satire of 50s idealism. Some of that is there at the beginning. It immediately moves in some really lazy race commentary. It's the kind of over the top racism that let's people now watch it and say "Boy, racism sure was bad back then" without really shining a light on anything now. The racial unrest is going on in the background throughout the movie, but it's literally only there to create a distraction so the main story can happen unimpeded. Frankly, it's an ugly use of social commentary. Like, imagine if it turned out everything about race in GetOut was only there for a story about the danger of taking science too far.

The main story is under-cooked. Matt Damon plays a man whose house is invaded by two men one night. He, his son (Noah Jupe), his wife, and his sister-in-law (both played by Julianne Moore) are drugged, and his wife is accidentally killed. There's something more nefarious going on  that's uncovered over time, in part by Oscar Isaac, who plays an insurance claims investigator (an unexpectedly minor role). This is all seen through the eyes of the son, who is the main character. That perspective is needed in order to maintain the central mystery of the movie, but it creates more problems than it's probably worth. Namely, it leaves nothing for Matt Damon (or Julianne Moore) to play. Imagine in Fargo how useless Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) would be if the story wasn't largely from his perspective. I'm probably giving away too much of the story by making that comparison, but it's my best way to explain it. Damon doesn't get to bring anything to the role. Moore at least gets a little bit to do with Isaac.

The movie isn't very funny. I don't know if George Clooney's direction is to blame or if it's something about the script (which, for the record, was from the pile of scripts the Coens had already passed on - for good reason, it seems). Out of context - like in a trailer - a lot of moments look like they should be funny. In the context of the film, few of them are, or they just call to mind times that something similar was done much better in a Coen-directed movie.

The shadow of the Coen brothers looms large over Suburbicon and that's to its detriment. This does fit with Clooney's other directed works though. He seems to specialize in approximations of what another director has done before. Sometimes it works out great (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night, and Good Luck). Lately, it's been more underwhelming (The Monuments Men, The Ides of March). Suburbicon is an odd case of a movie that isn't unwatchable because it's bad. It's unwatchable because is so frustratingly close to being a really good movie.

Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Swiss Army Man

The Pitch: OK, but can a bunch of fart jokes fit in a story too?

I didn't know what to expect from Swiss Army Man. There's a lot of things about it on paper that were pluses. It's a Sundance movie. Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe I both like and are actors who are willing to get weird. I'm never disappointed to see Mary Elizabeth Winstead show up in a movie either. The premise is bizarre in a way that could be brilliant or could be a complete disaster. It's not a long movie, so I decided to give it a try - see if it's more than the fart jokes.

So...it's a little more than the fart jokes, but not much. Apparently, several people walked out of the Sundance screenings and I get why. There is some crude humor. Radcliffe's farting is a key component to the climax and an instigating event at the beginning. His sentient erection is used as a compass. I wasn't a fan of that element. It felt too much like an exercise to try to legitimize sophomoric humor. Don't get me wrong. I can enjoy that humor a lot - Sausage Party was one of my favorite movies last year - but you have to own up to doing it.

What actually bothered me about the movie is the ending. If you haven't seen the movie. It's about Paul Dano being trapped on a dessert island, then in a forest with a dead body, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Radcliffe's body slowly reveals special powers. See the movie if you want, but I recommend against it....Ok, the ending. That was a weird gut punch. So, Dano isn't lost, he's just a crazy guy living in the woods near a woman he's kind of stalking? Correct me if I missed something there. That alone bothered me, because it undercuts all the personal growth Dano has made throughout the film. I was fine when it turns out that he doesn't actually know Winstead. I figured Radcliffe was really dead and Dano was hallucinating all this anyway. As soon as he shows up in Winstead's backyard, I had to check out. Because, that means one of two things. 1) It's a complete coincidence that he's hiding in the forest behind her house. My one big leap was spent much earlier in the film (a couple times), so I can't forgive that coincidence. Or, 2) Dano knows she lives there and subconsciously chose to isolate himself there. That makes him a much more nefarious character and undoes a good amount of the sympathy I built up for him.

And, if all that wasn't enough, what should I make of the very end, when Radcliffe turns into a farting jet ski again in front of everyone. Again, that leaves me with two possible interpretations which are both bad. 1) That really does happen. In that case, what's the point of briefly bringing Dano back into the real world and suggesting that he's crazy? Or, 2) That's just a hallucination. In that case, I don't understand why he gets a happy ending like that. The whole point of him showing up in Winstead's backyard is to reveal that he has some serious mental problems. The jet ski ending suggests what? That he's crazy but we should be cool with that?

Please, if anyone has a different read of the last act of the film, let me know, because my interpretation is so problematic that I feel like I'm missing something.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: All Quiet on the Western Front

The Pitch: Saving Private Ryan: WWI edition

So this is where films were going before the Hays Production Code? Now I'm even more irritated by that. This is a brutal movie. More brutal than I expected for 1930. I enjoy several of the films from the 1940s and 1950s but they have the feeling of succeeding with one arm tied behind their backs. They are good despite the Hays code. Just imagine what filmmakers in that era could've done with actual freedom to make films how they wanted to. Then again, there's probably a decent argument that the Hays code made it easier to enforce the studio system, and a healthy studio system gave the film industry the steady foundation that allowed for things like the New Hollywood in the 70s and the modern independent movie scenes to exist. I haven't looked into it enough to say. All I know is that films definitely took a step back because of the code.

I had a realization while watch this that I'm having trouble explaining. I'm used to "War Movie" meaning WWII, Vietnam, or something so old that it might as well be a fantasy period film. All Quiet on the Western Front is a war movie made without knowledge of WWII. I find that fascinating. There's no threat or mention of Hitler. "The War to End All Wars" is treated like that, not like a prologue to WWII. I think WWI is the much more interesting military conflict, but WWII gets all the attention. That makes the perspective of this film fairly unique. I mean, it follows German soldiers as the protagonists without a trace of irony. That just doesn't happen anymore. There was only a small window of time between when filmmaking had come far enough to be made at this scale and when WWII sucked all the attention away.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Aileen: Life & Death of a Serial Killer

The Pitch: A look into the woman Monster is about in her final days.

Sometimes, it helps to be drunk. I don't know how else I could've gotten through this film with out that. There was no other way I could put up with Nick Broomfield's narration. It's obnoxious, and what really bothered me is that when he talked in filmed scenes, he didn't sound nearly as annoying. In other words, he puts on that voice for the narration. What the hell!?! There's some good stuff in the documentary. Broomfield has a lot of access to Aileen Wornos and she seems to trust him as much as she can trust a documentarian. Broomfield appears to be the last person holding onto the idea that she killed all these men in self-defense. He mentions his last film about Aileen so much that I'd be tempted to track it down, except he probably narrates that one too. Really, if the narration could be replaced by Keith David or, hey, Charlize Theron for the tie-in, I'd rate this very highly as an examination of a serial killer in her final days. Sorry. I wish I could look past that.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Thin Blue Line

The Pitch: So, did this guy actually kill a cop?

By my understanding, this is the documentary that defined the now familiar structure of true-crime documentaries. I haven't done enough digging to outright verify this, but it sure sounds believable. It came out in 1988 and reminds me of all the Dateline and 48 Hour Mysteries I've seen from the 90s and beyond. It's a pretty simple movie. It's just a bunch of interviews from different witnesses about what happened on the night that a cop was killed. The stories conflict in different ways and a few people are exposed as liars or, at the very least, exaggerators. It's impressive that this played a part in getting Randall Dale Adams out of prison for murder. I'd have more to say about it, but really, the remarkable thing about it isn't the content as much as the context, and I haven't studied its influence enough to do it justice.

I'm sure Burger King wasn't happy about how much it was featured in the film though...Then again, I do kind of want Burger King now.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Behind the Candelabra

The Pitch: Maybe if we get a film into Cannes, critics will stop saying HBO original movies aren't good anymore.

I don't normally start with this, but whoever did the makeup for this deserves every award. Good god. I was physically uncomfortable when Rob Lowe showed up on screen, and this film takes a darkly comedic look at plastic surgery. Michael Douglas and Matt Damon play Liberace and his longtime boyfriend Scott Thorson as authentically as anyone could. Liberace is such a showman at all times, that it's only natural that it seems like Douglas is always playing a part in this. Similarly, given Scott's situation, it makes sense how often Damon acts like an actor looking for direction. It's a tricky balance, because that could easily bleed into camp, and it doesn't. The story felt a little familiar, although making Scott the POV character rather than Liberace was a good touch. I think I would've preferred a slightly deeper dive into Liberace's public closeting.

I don't know what context to put the movie in to rate it. For an HBO Original Movie, it's a cut above what they've been making for the last decade. For a film that competed at Cannes, it's formally traditional. I think Steven Soderbergh is one of the most interesting working directors*. Before his post-Candelabra "hiatus", it's hard to find anyone who worked hard and as often as Soderbergh in as many genres.

*That is, whenever he isn't claiming to be retired. Shortly after Side Effects and Behind the Candelabra, he said he was retired from filmmaking. He spent that retirement directing the TV series The Knick, helping production of Her, and executive producing the Girlfriend Experience TV series. Oh, and he directed a film coming out this year. In other words, I'll believe these retirement claims when I see them.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: The Snowman

Formula: Gone Girl * The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Gone Girl got my hopes up. Films based on international best sellers* have always been a mixed bag. I suppose The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo really started the latest trend of crime novel adaptations. Gone Girl felt like a high point in 2014 though. Profitable. Big names. Critically loved. Then, The Girl onthe Train was the first real imitator to follow and only matched Gone Girl in tone. The Snowman takes more after TGwtDT and tries to satiate that same appetite for dark crime mysteries. It fails all around.

*An accomplishment that isn't quite as impressive as it used to be.

The crimes this movie follows involve a killer who builds snowmen in front of houses where he kills people, because it's Norway and everything they do is in snow. Michael Fassbender plays and alcoholic detective who the murderer lures into investigating his crimes. Rebecca Ferguson is another detective who joins the investigation, although she has a little more invested in the case than Fassbender at first realizes. Fassbender has an "adopted" son and an ex-girlfriend who he lets down all the time. Fassbender and Ferguson run into a variety of characters played by JK Simmons, Val Kilmer, Chloe Sevigny and others. Simmons is a billionaire creep who is trying to get the World Cup Winter Games (which, I guess, are a thing) in Oslo. Kilmer is a detective who died years ago when investigating the Snowman. Sevigny is just a woman who got an abortion at some point. 

The story is too big for the screenplay. I try not to compare movies to the book, especially if I haven't read the book. Occasionally, you can sense a fidelity to the source material is really mucking the movie up. There are a lot of moving parts in The Snowman. There's a lot of interconnectivity. Too much, in fact. Or, rather, there's little payoff to the connections that are made. I never felt any suspense because I never really knew what was going on. The killer is a criminal mastermind, capable of breaking into any building, cleaning up any crime scene, evading even being known about by the police, and accessing whatever information he needs about a victim he's stalking. It's never all that clear how. He just can, because he's a brilliant killer. However, his endgame and how it all plays out is pretty stupid, really just because the story needs it to fall apart. I'm sure the book was clever. The movie was not.

It can't be a coincidence that the last two Tomas Alfredson movies I saw in theaters (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and this) had me fighting off sleep for a good portion of them (something I rarely have a problem with). This film is deliberately slowly paced. It calls so little attention to itself that I often missed the point of a scene until about 15 seconds after it ended. I'm pretty sure I missed why the killer even used snowmen to mark his crimes. I mean, I caught a reason why, but it was so dumb that I immediately dismissed it and thought "there's gotta be something better than that". The movie likes killing characters off more than having any of them around. Fassbender looks lost throughout the movie. Everyone else has a look on their face like "why did I prepare so much for this if I'm only going to be in 3 scenes after editing?".

This movie didn't work at all for me. It's a sleepy thriller that spends most of the time straining plausibility. I didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't even care who the killer was. I couldn't find a single way to buy into the movie.

Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Only the Brave

Formula: Ladder 49 - buildings

I'm sorry. You expect me to believe that Peter Berg had nothing to do with this movie? He is the go-to director these days for "working day hero" movies. Just last year he made both PatriotsDay and Deepwater Horizon - movies about real life disasters/tragedies. A few years back, he made Lone Survivor, a film about a group of chosen brothers in hostile territory. He's happy to work in the Southwest, given his stints working Friday Night Lights, both the show and movie. Hell, Taylor Kitsch is even one of "his guys" (Lone Survivor, Battleship, Friday Night Lights). Only the Brave couldn't be more of a Peter Berg movie if it tried, yet somehow, it isn't one of his. Not even a producer credit.

Only the Brave tells the story the the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a group of wildfire-fighters in Arizona in 2012-2013. It's based on a true story, so you can research that however much you want. Given that little bit of information though, you should be able to piece together where it's going. The period of time the movie covers focuses on their attempt to get certified. I'm not really sure what that means, even after seeing the movie. What I gathered is that they are going from being local firefighters to being federal and that's a big deal. All the character archetypes are there. Eric Marsh (Josh Brolin) is the grizzled leader who is getting too old for this shit. Brendan McDonough (Miles Teller) is the newbie former addict trying to turn his life around. Chris MacKenzie (Taylor Kitsch) is the cocky jokester. Jesse Steed (James Badge Dale) is Marsh's Lt. in waiting. You've seen these characters before. You know these characters. You like these characters. That's how this works. The movie shows enough of their personal lives to care about what happens to them in the more harrowing moments. The beats of the story are familiar and effective.

The cast is great. In addition to the already-named hotshots*, Jennifer Connelly plays Marsh's wife, Jeff Bridges is Marsh's mentor - a retired former firefighter, and Andie MacDowell is Jennifer  Connelly in a decade Bridges' wife. None of the performances blew me away. Just about everyone is cast to play their to their strengths. I don't think I heard Brolin say "Goonies never say die", but it sure felt like he did. The same goes for Kitsch saying "Texas forever". Jeff Bridges hasn't been able to get all the gravel out of his mouth since his Crazy/Heart-True Grit days either. Toward the end, some actors have some big emotions to plays and they are mostly successful at it. I noticed the direction trying a little too hard to milk emotion out of a few shots, and the script has a few "shouting to the heavens" lines that are too much to pull off. But, there's nothing too egregious.

*Btw, hotshots is an official name or at least common nomenclature in the field, which is pretty bitchin'.

On a side note, I still don't understand firefighting and controlled burns and how this job doesn't have a 100% mortality rate. The movie does a decent job explaining how it all works. I can't really blame it for how completely foreign this all is to me. Really, this stuff is magic.

Only the Brave fills my occasional appetite for earnest stories about heroic people in real life situations. It doesn't hit its points harder than it needs to. I'd still take a Deepwater Horizon over it, but it's certainly on the same level as something like Everest. I can forgive it for how often it reverts to familiar tropes, because they work more often than they don't.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend