Delayed Reaction: The Midnight Sky

Premise: In a not-too-distant future, a dying scientist attempts to communicate to the crew of a space mission not to return to Earth.

 

The Midnight Sky might win the award for the 2020 film most screwed by 2020. It's a tough race. The new Bond movie was delayed after spending millions on a marketing push in March. Tenet became a symbol of studio hubris. Wonder Woman 1984 went from potentially the biggest box office earner of the year to a carrot for HBO Max subscriptions. The Midnight Sky wasn't going to be a huge box office hit, but it was meant for better things than this. First of all, it should be seen on the biggest screen possible. Parts of it were shot in IMAX and it's the kind of wide-shot, full landscape (and spacescape?) movie that should be soaked in. Instead, I didn't even watch it on my biggest TV. It's also George Clooney's first onscreen movie role in 4 years as well as his first prestige Oscar play in quite a while. Despite that, the movie was released on Netflix on 12/23 where it was almost immediately drowned out by Wonder Woman 1984, Soul, and Bridgerton. This movie didn't get a fair shake, by me or the world.

 

That said, it's not like this is an overlooked gem that people will discover for years to come and ask how we didn't appreciate it at the time. It's an uneven movie; Clooney's entry in the trend of major filmmakers and stars coming out with their space epic over the last several years (Interstellar, The Martian, Ad Astra). Ironically, it's a trend jumpstarted by another movie he's in: Gravity.

 

In a lot of ways, The Midnight Sky is two movies trying to communicate with each other. There's the spaceship story with Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, and others trying to get back to Earth and running into asteroids along the way. Then there's the battle against the elements movie with Clooney and the little girl. On paper, that's a more exciting movie than in practice. I fully get the complaints that this movie is too slow. It looks like an adventure movie, but more of it is meditative. It really would work best in a situation where you could let it wash over you. I could definitely see how I could've liked this movie if I watched it in more favorable conditions.

 

There is plenty to like in the movie. I love the cast. Clooney has an excellent beard. Between this and Tomorrowland, I'm convinced that he needs to be paired with children more. The casting of the space crew reads like a list of people Clooney wanted an excuse to work with: Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demian Bichir. They even wrote Jones' pregnancy into the movie in a way that gave it a little more heft. I don't want to call the end a twist as much as a confirmation, but it works on an emotional level really well. Clooney shows range as a director that I didn't know he had. It's his first movie in a while that doesn't feel like a Coen Brothers impression.

 

Frankly, I can't point to much to say why I didn't love the movie. The "dull" critique is lazy but feels accurate. The contemplations throughout the movie aren't quite as intriguing as they should be and, despite the exciting sequences against the cold and space, it's never as thrilling as it should be. While still being an OK movie, it just ends up rating behind of lot of the similar movies that I listed before.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Premise: A group of black musicians butt heads during a recording session in 1920s Chicago.

 

I don't have much familiarity with August Wilson's work. I've only seen the recent adaptations of Fences and now Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. I've never seen his work on stage. I've come to a few conclusions though. Great performance movies. Transfixing dialogue. And, the stories go a beat further than I need to make their point. I'm also fully aware that they were written as plays while watching the movie. I mean, I didn't actually know Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was based on a play when I started it, but I figured it out pretty quickly just by watching.

 

The stand-out performances of this film are Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman. Davis plays the eponymous Ma Rainey: the legendary blue singer. She's a force in this movie. Davis is nearly unrecognizable after putting on weight and with makeup that makes her look like she's always sweating out the drinks she had the night before. Davis won her first Oscar for the other August Wilson adaptation I've seen (Fences) and I wouldn't be surprised to see her do it again with this. Boseman plays the cocky trumpet player in Ma's band who dreams of being a star himself. His overconfidence is an overcompensation for the horrors he's seen in his life. It really is a great performance. Boseman's shocking death this summer will probably push this over the edge in the Oscar conversation, which I wouldn't be mad about, although people are getting a little performative in their praise of the performance. He's reeeeally good, but let's hold off on terms like "iconic", "towering", or "all-time" for now. Those terms mean more with some aging. It's almost a shame that Davis and Boseman are so good though, because Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo, and Michael Potts are great in less flashy roles. This really is a fun movie for watching performances bounce off one another.

 

Much like Fences, this is a performers' movie at the expense of some other elements. It feels stagy, especially in the way that scenes turn into monologues. The only way it could be less subtle when it happens is if they'd turned off all the lights and place a spotlight on the person talking. The story gets a little extreme. The final act of Boseman's character works better for a stage production than a modern film. Although, I do love the final gut punch at the end when the new band is playing one of Boseman's songs. Perhaps I should credit George C. Wolfe's direction for mostly staying out of the way. The downside of adapting plays with such strong authorial voices is that it's really hard to translate them to the screen. It's hard to deliver the same line in a way that works for the last row in a theater and for a close up with a camera. In other words: Great cast. Great performances. Great topics discussed. Great music and set design. Not enough ability to calibrate it for the screen.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Wonder Woman 1984

Premise: It's 1984 and Diana finds a stone that grants wishes...at a cost.

 

It's going to be so easy to miss the forest for the trees with this movie. It's at the center of a larger discussion about how movies will be released going forward. For months, I've been more intrigued by when and how this movie would be released than if I was even excited for the movie. That's sad, because in a non-COVID world, Wonder Woman 1984 would've been the event film of the year and possibly the highest grossing. The first Wonder Woman was a massive hit and it's pretty much the only indisputable success of DC's in the last few years.

Personally, I was a little colder on Wonder Woman than the average person. I still really enjoyed it, but there were some definitely problems I had with it that didn't seem to bother other people. So, the big question for me going into WW84 was if it would clean those up and make and even better sequel.

 

I'm happy to say that WW84 is a really fun movie. There are certain things in the DNA of this franchise that just plain work. Gal Gadot is again terrific in the role. They come up with a way to bring Chris Pine back as well, which is nice. Gadot and Pine's chemistry is definitely a big part of why the first movie works so well. The film adds Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal as the new villains and shades them enough to be really interesting. The way all the cast members interact is great.

 

I was thoroughly impressed too with how the movie soaks in all the 1980's nostalgia without getting lost in it. The look and feel of the movie screams 1984, but it's not beating the audience over the head with references and winks. Also, the type of action movie was a nice throwback. Weirdly, the movie I thought the most about to compare the tone of this to was
the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie. Or maybe the Schumacher Batman movies. There was a comic book scale to it. Not campy. Perhaps earnest. It's like it's reveling in the freedom of knowing that it doesn't belong in a shared cinematic universe with anything now.

Sadly, I did have some of the same problems with this movie as with the first. Again, I didn't care for the last act at all. The turning point is when Diana utters the line "I'll never love again". Before that, I was loving virtually everything about the movie. After that, I didn't care for almost any of the decisions, which is a shame, because that's supposed to be the start of the high point of the movie. So far, I've been able to break down my problems to two points.

 

1) Too much feels reverse engineered. They decided going in that Chris Pine needed to come back, so they manufactured a way for it to happen. And the solution is literally the same as an episode of Big Bad Bettleborgs that I've been making fun of for 20 years. You see, Pine is actually in another man's body, but as soon as Diana knows it's him, she sees him as Pine so the audience sees Pine. That's...insane. Or, take Kristen Wiig's character. There is no reason for her to turn into a cat person at the end. It makes no sense, but I'm guessing there's a DC villain from the comics they wanted to turn her into*. Then there's the invisible plane. Was there any foregrounding before this that she had the power to turn things invisible? That fully felt like someone told the writers "we need the invisible plane. Figure it out". Or there's the shiny suit from the poster. It looks undeniably bitchin'. I get why they wanted to include it, but there is no reason for it. It reminded me of Michael Keaton's Batman costume in that I don't know how she could move in it. Like, I guess is helps to have the extra defense to fight Wiig's character, but it's not designed for natural-looking movement. And movement is sort of Gadot's thing as Wonder Woman.

 

*I looked it up. Yes, she's playing Cheetah. This is no reason she needs to be playing Cheetah. She was plenty fine as a villain before the digital fur.

 

2) This feels a little petty, but I don't love the way Patty Jenkins depicts all of Diana's powers. When the movie requires Diana to just be a badass warrior with a whip, it's great. There's a fight against a convoy in this that's wonderful. The fight against Wiig in the White House is terrific. When she's really showing off the superhero powers though, it just looks weird. The flying looks silly. The crazy jumping and sliding don’t look natural. For whatever reason, my inability to buy into the physics of this really takes me out of the action sequences in these movies.

 

I'm really torn on WW84. The first 2/3rds or so of the movie is as much fun as I've had watching a superhero movie in a while. I was really digging it. Then it just falls so dramatically at the end. I was not prepared for how quickly I fell out of love with it. Perhaps someone needs to explain the end for me. Did everyone in the world have to renounce their wish? Am I supposed to believe that everyone in the world really did that? And, am I supposed to believe that Pascal's love for his son, who has only been presented as a nuisance to him until that point, is what ultimately gets him to reverse his wish? Am I a bad person for thinking that merely having a child isn't enough evidence to believe that a character cares about their child above everything else? And how are all the wishes able to be reversed without causing severe long-term damage for years if not decades? That's economy-defining destruction. Sorry, I'm nitpicking. I just really don't get so much of the end of this movie. Perhaps, like with the first movie, after some time and a second viewing, it won't bother me as much. But I sure am coming out of this movie on a strikingly low note given how high I was on it 90 minutes in.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Lost Girls

Premise: After her escort daughter goes missing and evidence of a serial killer is found in the area she went missing, a mother works tirelessly to get the police and media to care about what happened to her daughter.

 

So, this is Zodiac Lite. Same basic story at half the runtime. However, like a Lite beer, no matter what the advertising says, something is missing out when you take that much out, even if it more or less gets you to the same place. Like Zodiac, Lost Girls is about a real serial killer investigation that is also unresolved still. That's really where the comparisons should stop though. The Zodiac killer was a phenomenon. Whoever that guy was, he was as savvy with the media as any serial killer - especially one who didn't get caught - has been. The Long Island Serial Killer covered in Lost Girls tried to remain hidden, only getting discovered by mistake. Zodiac focuses on the reporters and police investigating. Lost Girls looks at the family of the dead or missing women. Zodiac was an expensive movie, made by an established filmmaker with the clout to get his exact vision released by a major studio. Lost Girls is a small Sundance release from an established documentary filmmaker taking her first stab are narrative filmmaking...So, yeah. I'm going to stop talking about Zodiac now. Otherwise, this'll just be about me saying you should watch that movie instead.

 

Lost Girls has a nice cast for a Sundance-sized movie. Amy Ryan tries to get back some of her Oscar-nominated Gone Baby Gone mojo. Fresh off JoJo Rabbit, Thomasin McKenzie continues to impress as one of Ryan's other daughters. I liked LoLa Kirke, Dean Winters, and Gabriel Byrne in this too. It's Ryan's movie though. I doubt it's the Oscar play she probably hoped it would be, but it's a nice "driven mother" performance with a lot of regret in her past. The movie does a solid job pointing out how differently the media and police treat the case since the victims were "just" sex workers. They still have families that care about them and their safety as well, which gets lost in these narratives so often.

 

The movie does have a curiosity problem though. You can make a movie about the Black Dahlia or the Zodiac killer, because there's a lot of public curiosity about them. There's a fever to solving the case that's interesting to track. So, even if the conclusion doesn't end with finding identity of the killer, the journey seems worth it. Lost Girls though is about a serial killer that no one seems to care about; how the families have to struggle to get people to even raise an eyebrow. So, the focus of the movie is movie about why people don't care rather than about the investigation into who did it. When it ends without answers, the movie feels more empty than other unsolved cases. Or, to put it more simply:

• Zodiac Killer. Everyone cares. Still can't find the killer. That's interesting, because you'd think with that much attention, they could’ve figured it out.
• Long Island Serial Killer. No one cares. Can't find the killer. That's not interesting, because if no one cares, then it's not surprising that they never identified the killer.

This movie does what it can to raise the intrigue, but the facts of the case just don't make for an interesting enough movie, and, probably because the filmmaker has worked in documentaries for so long, the movie isn't willing to go out on more of a limb to add narrative intrigue.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Prom

Premise: A group of Broadway performers head to a small Indiana town to protest the school board's unwillingness to allow a lesbian couple attend their prom.

 

Leading up to the release of Ryan Murphy's adaptation of the Broadway show, The Prom, I heard a lot of negative takes. I heard people complain about James Corden getting cast as a gay man. People critiqued casting Meryl Streep in a role that requires a belter. I even heard technical comments about how this is another musical that doesn't understand the importance of longer shots and showing the performers' feet during the dance numbers. I just wish someone would've warned me about the material in the actual story too, because that's the worst thing about it.

 

You see, this movie is about some narcissistic Broadway performers looking to improve their public image. So, they find a cause to help with to earn some good press. They choose the story of an Indiana town where the school board refuses to allow a gay couple to attend. The performers descend on this town to enlighten the small-minded townsfolk. Of course, this group of vain performers is full of people who have lived in their liberal bubble too long and have no idea how to talk to "regular people". And, I guess, comedy ensues from this contrast until everyone can get on the same page.

 

I realize that some of the fun of Broadway musicals is the heightened nature of them. In a world where people break into song to make their points, one has the paint in broad strokes. Even still, I couldn't believe the "coastal" vs. "heartland" discourse of this movie. It's ironic that the movie is about hapless "coastal saviors" coming to educate some midwestern simpletons, and the movie itself is actually made by "coastal saviors" trying to educate midwestern simpletons. I mean, there's a song in this that's all about pointing out inconsistencies in the Bible. How is that still a thing? Aren't we decades past the idea that the reason some religious folks are against gay people is because they don't realize the Bible is inconsistent? While they're at it, they might as well say that bullies are only picking on someone because they are jealous. I was flabbergasted that the movie didn't end with someone in PTA opposition didn't come out as closeted (because, you know, all people who dislike gay people are secretly gay themselves).

 

There are so many story beats like that in this. I could ignore one individually, but collectively they were so unbelievable that I could never get around to connecting with the message of the movie. You know, even in the Midwest, there are gay communities. Big ones. Vibrant ones. Vocal ones. Tolerant allies too. I think this movie really needs to hear that. The idea that Emma (Jo Ellen Pellmen) is a local pariah in her moderately-sized town is laughable. When the entire school keeps her in the dark about this alternate prom, my response wasn't, "oh no, that's awful". No, I just thought "bullshit". For that to happen, I'm supposed to believe she has no friends and no allies in that entire town. And it's not like the town is some Bible-thumping Footloose town. Emma's grandmother accepts her. The principal (Keegan-Michael Key) is able to keep his job despite siding with Emma.

 

Look, I really hate when people talk about "coastal elites" or "flyover states" as derogative. It's a foolish and false dichotomy that creates a really dumb "us vs. them" mentality. There are really progressive people in the South and Midwest. There are really conservative people on the coast, in the biggest cities. This kind of movie pisses me off because it makes the broad assumption that New York people are more enlightened than people in Indiana. In fact, I'm really tired of Indiana being the only Midwestern state that writers seem to know about. Seriously, why does it always have to be Indiana? How about setting something in Iowa or non-Chicago Illinois?

 

OK, I'm getting on a rant that moves beyond the movie now. Needless to say, the premise and execution of the story in The Prom are unbelievable to the point of negating any connection I had to the characters or message. The central quartet of Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and Andrew Rannells are decent and have fun playing a heightened Broadway type that they are familiar with. There's a lot of good inside-Broadway humor that I think would've played amazingly on stage. Jo Ellen Pellman is pretty great in her movie debut. I don't love any of the music. It's fine, but it's not a sound track I need to hear again. The dance numbers play more like a really impressive Glee routine than a showstopping routine from a classic musical. I do think this movie highlights how important the fact that Glee was a series was to its success. By spending more than two hours with the characters, there's time to add nuance to the cartoonish setting. I can't believe I'm saying this but, skip The Prom. Just watch Glee instead.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: David Byrne's American Utopia

Premise: A concert documentary of a David Byrne show.

 

Damn, David Byrne knows how to put on a show. I'm not much of a Talking Heads fan. I don't dislike the music, but I've never felt compelled to put anything in a playlist either. Yet, Byrne and/or the Talking Heads are 2 for 2 with concert docs that totally rule. Two different filmmakers even for the two docs. Granted, two different Oscar-winning filmmakers. Stop Making Sense is one of the all-time great concert docs. Every number in that felt unique and Byrne has a way of making even the most mundane ideas riveting. Is there any reason why that lamp dance should be so enthralling? And the same energy is in American Utopia. The best way I can describe it is "precise mobile chaos". Byrne makes a point to mention how his band is wireless and free to move around. There also are no backing tracks, so the music is live. The band and dancers are always moving around and doing some nicely choreographed stuff. Byrne doesn't quite have the moves that he used to, but everything he does is amplified by the dancers behind him. The music is lively and great. Similar to Stop Making Sense, I came out of it thinking "why don't I have a greatest hits album of them?"

 

The interstitial bits between songs when Byrne explains something about the song or just muses about something are pretty entertaining too. They feel a little canned, which is fine. He's a musician, not a comedian, so I'd expect him to be a lot better at making the songs sound fresh than the dialogue. I guess I could see it all coming off as a little preachy, but I didn't mind, because it was always quick to get to another banger of a song/performance. I'm sure I need to be directing more love to Spike Lee's direction, but in a good concert doc, the best thing I can say is that the direction was pretty invisible. I feel like I got the same experience as really being there.

 

Even if you don't specifically like Byrne's music or the Talking Heads, I'd still recommend checking out Stop Making Sense then American Utopia. A good time was had by all.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Ava

Premise: Jessica Chastain is an assassin with a conscience who get burned by her agency.

 

Expectations make or break a movie. It's not fair. It's not rational. But it's true. If 20 people tell me a movie is a masterpiece before I see it, I'm going to approach it differently than a movie that was quietly released that I haven't heard of. Similarly, I'll use factors like budget, cast, method of release, and genre to build a baseline expectation in my head. I like to think that I remain pretty objective and open to being wrong and to adjusting on the fly. But I'm definitely kinder to a movie when I understand its level right away.

 

Ava is a pretty typical assassin movie. It's built in that John Wick/Atomic Blonde image. It's an overqualified star (Jessica Chastain) looking flawless and ruthlessly killing people with efficiency and often effortlessness. I sized this movie up immediately, and because of that, I enjoyed what worked in it and ignored what didn't.

 

Jessica Chastain is really great in "not a hair out of place" roles. She has the right face for that look, I guess. And, she's a great actress, so she can expose the cracks in the facade nicely too. Best of all, she looks competent at everything she does, so it's not hard to believe that she's a skilled assassin. They assemble a pretty nice cast of talented people who, yeah, I can also imagine were available to pick up and easy pay check. While I could never imagine young John Malkovich as an elite assassin, I do believe old John Malkovich as a retired assassin and mentor. Collin Farrell is a nice heel. I sort of feel like we're due a 'Farrell-aisance' in the next couple years that ends with him earning an Oscar. I don't get enough Geena Davis in my life, and she's good casting as Chastain's mother. Because of John Wick, I kept waiting for Common to turn out to be an assassin. The big disappointment was that Diana Silvers didn't turn out to be an assassin wunderkind. She still looks so young (she's actually 23), but I was hoping for a fight scene with her that would have me wondering when she'd be cast in Barely Lethal 2 or a D.E.B.S. reboot.

 

My big disappointment with the movie is that there wasn't a standout set piece. I figure they didn't have the budget for a Mission: Impossible sequence, and it's not fair to expect they'd have the stunt coordination of a John Wick, but I was hoping for at least one big shootout with an explosion and a bunch of screaming extras. Instead, everything felt rather small. The big fight was Chastain and Farrell in a hotel room. It felt small. And, I don't get the sense that Chastain learned Tae Kwon Do for 6 months in preparation for the role or anything like that.

 

Still, I had fun watching a B-movie story executed by A-list talent in just over 90 minutes. Sure, it would've been nice to get a John Wick or even a The Old Guard, but sometimes a Shoot Em' Up is plenty. That said, while I was reasonably pleased with the movie, there are a few too many similar movies that I'd rather watch over this one.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Nocturne

Premise: A student at a classical music academy finds the music book of a student who recently committed suicide which helps her to succeed in ways she never has before.

 

This movie is basically Black Swan with an easy out. Both movies are about young women who are pathologically committed to their craft and how that slowly unravels them. Black Swan expertly depicts this as a descent into madness. There's something supernatural about the movie but it's not explicit. Nocturne uses an easier horror movie out by tying it all to this book that Sydney Sweeney finds. She's driven, but the book is really to blame. To be fair, the filmmakers and actors in this movie aren't at a Black Swan level (nor is the budget), so they do the best they can. I'm a big Sydney Sweeney fan apparently. I think she's been great in really eclectic mix of shows (Everything Sucks, The Handmaid's Tale, Sharp Object, Euphoria), but she is overwhelmed by this material. The movie makes her really passive. The things from the book just happen. She doesn't actually do that much. That's sort of the point, but it's tough to make passivity look interesting.

 

The scoring/music does a lot of heavy lifting in this. The movie occasionally and abruptly switched to this loud music that reminded me of people scream-moaning. It's effective at making me uncomfortable, but it often was more than what was actually happening on screen needed. I would've loved to see the movie that needed that music.

 

There's something a little funny about how much everyone in the movie notes the pointlessness of all this. They talk about how no one really listens to classical music anymore. No matter how well Sweeney plays, it doesn't matter, because her Julliard tryout already came and went. Her new instructor explains that if she was truly gifted, she wouldn't need a school to teach her at all. I appreciate how candid the movie is. Maybe it's a commentary on how obsession doesn't have to make sense, but for me, it undercut the stakes of the movie a bit too much. It doesn't help that Sweeney's suicide felt inevitable, since she wasn't doing much of anything to stop it.

 

Side thought: The director’s name is Zu Quirke. That's an awesome name. I hope they make more movies, just so I can see it in more credits.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Sound of Metal

Premise: The drummer for a metal band abruptly goes deaf and has to adjust to his new life.

 

As far as ways to get me interested go, casting Riz Ahmed and Olivia Cooke in the lead roles of anything is a good way to go. I've been a fan of Cooke's since Me & Earl & The Dying Girl, and even though I really liked her when I caught up on Bates Motel, it was Thoroughbreds that really solidified her as someone I'll watch be sarcastic and withdrawn in nearly anything. Ahmed I first saw in his underappreciated role in Nightcrawler, where didn't get steamrolled by Jake Gyllenhaal's gonzo energy, which is tougher than it looked. Since then, he's showed up in a bunch of things I've liked. Unsurprisingly, both actors were great in Sound of Metal. Especially Ahmed. Cooke has more of a supporting role and disappears for a long stretch of the movie. I don't fully buy her as a metal singer, but I'm willing to go with it. This is Ahmed's movie and he's tremendous in it. This is a cup stacking performance that keeps adding to his degree of difficulty. On top of playing a recovering addict, he spent months learning how to play the drums convincingly and learned American Sign Language. And he apparently worked out like crazy the whole time based on the look of him in this. Oh, I shouldn't forget that he's British playing an American. They might as well have given him a limp too so he could complete the "Thing Actors Do To Win Oscars" Bingo card. I don't think this well be an Oscar nominated performance, but it probably should be. Whenever I think I know what kind of performance Ahmed is giving, it changes. He's angry, stubborn, likable, friendly, lonely, impulsive, and driven.

 

The sound on this movie is wild. They use a lot of tricks to show the audience how the world sounds to Ahmed's character, and it messed with me. You know what feeling when the picture is a little fuzzy on a TV or computer screen, and even though you could easily look at anything else and realize your vision is fine, you start to worry that something is wrong with your eyes? (No? Just me) That's how this movie is with sound. Even though I was still hearing everything else in my apartment fine, there were a couple moments in the movie where I got nervous about my own hearing. Granted, it means I'm a little too neurotic for my own good, but I think I should credit some of that to the movie.

 

The movie did lose me a little in the third act. It's needed for the story, of course, to show that change is permanent and there's no magic "fix" for his deafness. It just feels like he's stepped into someone else's movie at that point. I want to know more about Olivia Cooke's story while there. It didn't feel like a satisfying end to Ahmed's arc. I very well could be complaining that the movie ends with the exact effect the filmmakers wanted. The end point just seems wrong though. Like they should've ended it a little earlier or a few minutes later.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Call of the Wild

Premise: A dog named Buck is taken from his California home and brought North to work as a sled dog where he eventually awakens his true wild nature within.

 

It's funny the way our minds remember things. My first thought when I think about this movie is nostalgia for the "before times". It's a 2020 movie but from before COVID shut everything down. I actually looked at this movie the other day before I watched it and thought "We were so young then". Which, what the hell does that even mean?! How am I waxing nostalgic about The Call of the Wild? That's the effect of some of these big world events though. Certain things get coupled to that time. I'll always remember how Glitter and Donnie Darko were tanked by 9/11, for example. The Call of the Wild has its own weird legacy. It's going to be a top 10 movie of 2020 in the box office, because it came out just early enough in the year to make a little money. But. its release date, Feb 21, was right as we were all starting to hear about this Corona thing, so it sits in a sort of limbo in my brain. I'm going through my top 2020 movies list right now, and it's insane to me to think that this counts toward the same year that I saw Tenet in an empty movie theater, Mulan on Disney+ for a fee, and Wonder Woman: 1984, Christmas day from home.

 

This isn't a very good movie, but it is the movie the filmmakers intended to make. I don't know the novel well, but the movie's story matches it in the broad strokes. It aims to make Buck to dog very playful. The CGI Buck never looks real but he does fit in the world of the movie, which always looks slightly too picturesque. It really is a nice bit of animation. I can't tell you how many of the other sled dogs were real or how often, so that's a feather in their cap. The cast is weirdly stacked. Bradley Whitford early on. Dan Stevens as a heel. Karen Gillan spent 90% of her role sitting on a dog sled. I have no idea why Harrison Ford opted to do this. That man's filmography for the last 2 decades is truly bizarre.

 

I think the big, but perhaps necessary, mistake of the movie is that it made Buck too fun and playful. To make him an engaging central character, they had to humanize him, which directly conflicts with a story about a dog answering the call of the wild. So, by the end, I didn't really believe where the journey of the movie took him. I'm also just a softy with dogs, so I was really sad that he wasn't able to get back home to California, where he lived a life of luxury and warmth.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Mank

Premise: Herman Mankiewicz reflects on 1930s Hollywood as he works on his draft of Citizen Kane.

 

I've gotta say, I'm feeling uncomfortably targeted by this movie. I'm a big fan of old Hollywood stories. I love the You Must Remember This podcast. I got a kick out of the Bette vs. Joan season of Feud. I even love the fake old Hollywood of something like Hail, Caesar! There's something so fun about that old studio system when everyone was still figuring out the rules. I'm a huge fan of Citizen Kane. It's one of my favorite movies, much to my surprise. I used to roll my eyes at it topping the AFI list, because it seemed like a pretentious pick. Then I watched the movie and I totally get it. Mank is directed by David Fincher who snuck up on me as one of my favorite filmmakers. I've pretty much always known him due to 90s output like Se7en, The Game, and Fight Club. His more recent movies have snuck up on me too though. Gone Girl is one of the movies I've watched the most since it came out. I rewatched Zodiac and The Social Network in the last year and found a new appreciation for them. Hell, Mank even has Lily Collins, who I've proven I'll see in just about anything. Finally, I'm a sucker for movies about the writing process. I mean, my favorite movie is Stranger Than Fiction and I still ardently defend something as mediocre as Alex & Emma.

 

So, I must say, I'm very surprised that my opinion of Mank is a full throated "meh".

That's not a negative "meh". It's an undecided "meh" if anything. On paper, it's a movie I should've come away from raving, and I do think I liked it. I just haven't found a strong opinion about it. Not yet.

 

The movie is very watchable. Anyone with a decent familiarity of old Hollywood will be thoroughly entertained by all the famous figures who show up. In addition to the obvious people like Herman Mankiewicz, Orson Welles, and William Randolph Hearst, other big names like Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg, and even Marion Davies play prominent roles. Savvy film historians will surely pick out a dozen more names easily. The movie zips through the 1930s Los Angeles nicely, using Mank tucked away at a remote ranch writing his draft of Citizen Kane in 1940 as a framing device. In flashbacks, Mank reflects on his many interactions with William Randolph Hearst, who inspired much of Citizen Kane. It spends a lot of time on the 1934 California gubernatorial election in which Hollywood studios helped a smear campaign to prevent Upton Sinclair from getting elected. Not a lot really happens in the movie, so I can understand why some people have called the movie dull. I could feel the length of the movie, but I also wasn't bored at any point. I think engagement was in spite of the story though.

 

I'm not a very technical movie watcher. I can't talk lenses or cinematography. I can say that this movie was nice to look at and full of visual references to Citizen Kane in particular. I think shooting in black and white is almost always a stunt these days, but it works for Mank. I think part of that has to do with the fact that it's not trying to bring old Hollywood back to life like a Hail, Caesar! It wants to live in how that era was seen by movie watchers, not the people who actually lived it. I know this is a lazy compliment, but I hardly noticed it was black and white by the end. The only times I did notice was because of how great certain shots looked. Like, there's a circus themed party at Hearst's estate late in the movie where Amanda Seyfried looked striking in a way that color would've ruined.

 

Speaking of Amanda Seyfried. I've liked her ever since Mean Girls. She's been just present enough ever since in movies like the Mama Mias, Jennifer's Body, and Les Miserables that she's remained a known quantity. This is the first time I'd say she's undeniably in Oscar consideration though. She plays actress Marion Davies, who was Hearst's mistress for years and had a particularly ugly counterpart in Citizen Kane. She's friends with Mank in this and the movie really comes alive every time she's on screen. Her ease and confidence make this my runaway favorite performance in the movie, and I kind of wish it could be a movie about her instead. Everyone else is pretty good too. Gary Oldman, while not passing for 43, sure gets all the performance aspects right about the intellectual, elitist, self-sabotaging writer. Charles Dance is quite good as William Randolph Hearst. He captures Hearst's master of the universe stature. He likes that everyone walks on eggshells around him, even though he's thick skinned enough to handle it if they didn't. The reason he's so bemused by Mank is that he's the one guy who doesn't seem to care about how powerful he is. Tom Burke does a really solid Orson Welles impression, although it's a pretty small role in the movie. Lily Collins' role is mostly perfunctory. She's there to give Mank someone to disapprove of him in 1940. She sure fits into this era perfectly though. No doubt that's why she's also been in The Last Tycoon and Rules Don't Apply before this. Also. credit to Tuppence Middleton as Mank's wife who plays up her weariness so much that I almost didn't notice the 29-year age gap between her and Oldman.

 

I clearly have a lot to say about the movie. I think over time, it will grow on me. I do wonder if this is too much of an inside Hollywood movie though. If I wasn't a person who's listened to a hundred episodes of You Must Remember This and has gone on Wikipedia dives about old Hollywood, would I really be that invested in what's going on in Mank? Would I even know what's going on? I'll have to let someone else answer that. I know I liked the movie but thought I should've loved it, which concerns me. I hope other people have success finding a stronger take on this movie than I've found.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend