The Pitch: You know, these film noirs are really catching on.
I'm not sure why I added this to my Netflix queue. I don't recognize the director or any of the stars. It wasn't an Oscar juggernaut either. It made it into the National Film Registry, but that hardly every sways me. Regardless, it's been in my queue for a long time now, and since I organize my queue by year, it's been staring me down the whole time.
I don't have much to say about it. The plot is fun and twisty, like a good noir should be. In fact, it's almost absurdly twisty. The woman playing Laura and all the men in her life play off each other well. I want to look up more of director Otto Perminger's movies. They look interesting.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
The Pitch: It's like American Pie, only bad (or worse, depending on your opinion of American Pie).
This is a bad movie and that's all I should say about it. However, when has that stopped me before from going on for a couple hundred words? I watched this as part of my ongoing quest to figure out if Zoey Deutch is talented or just pretty. So far, the evidence suggests that she's only being cast to be pretty so far. The jury is still out on whether she's simply not being given the opportunities.
So, this screenplay was on the Hollywood blacklist at some point. I want to know how? Did they have to change everything about it to get the movie made, because this was shit*. This wants to be a raucous comedy. American Pie really is the best example of what it aspires to be. The characters just weren't any good. I stopped caring about Deutch's character as soon as I realized they were playing the "no one realizes she's hot" card. I also had trouble sympathizing with Andy's problems, given that they amount to 1) his tennis pro/prostitute for cougars job gives him a yeast infection**, 2) his "clearly an internet scam" girlfriend turns out to be completely real and super into him, and 3) his childhood friend who he's in love with turns out to look like Zoey Deutch. And there's a certain laziness to the schools they all get into: MIT, Harvard, Stanford. C'mon. At least Superbad went a little off book and chose Dartmouth. It made me sad to see people like Ashley Judd and Demian Bichir in this.
*Ok, I did like the joke at the beginning in the flashback which I'm pretty sure was a Stand By Me reference (and if it wasn't, then that was stupid too).
**By the way, just give him an STD. Yeast infection sounds like such a compromise.
There are signs of what could've made this a good movie. With a softer touch, Mateo Arias' shenanigans could've been pretty entertaining - more or less the Fitz of this movie. Iseal Brossard could have had some moments too. I like that his character was the one in the group being left out of the craziness. Perhaps a director with a softer touch could've found a better balance.
I've devoted too many words to this. Don't watch it unless you are certain that a 30%-as-good American Pie (Think: Cougar Club) is something you'd enjoy.
Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend
The Pitch: A remake of a movie that is basically a Seven Samurai clone already.
They had to lay a lot of pipe for this one. It's slow at the beginning, which I assume is leftover from the structure of the 1963 original. Once it moved to the big battle at the end, it's hard to complain. The action is sustained for a long time. It shifts between the characters well. The stuntwork is great. I have no complaints about the second half.
And some of my issues with the first half are my own fault. I couldn't keep track of the names and some the the details about the shogun and the traditions of the time lost me. Still, 13 characters is a lot to juggle. Seven Samurai has trouble giving personality to half the number of characters in double the amount of time.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
The Pitch: Tell me if you've heard this one before. A man moves from the big city, back to his home town in the Midwest to find himself after relationship/career problems.
I think there needs to be a term for this kind of movie since it's so prevalent. Can we call it "Hometown drama" or "Midwest Suburb Porn"? Whatever it is, there needs to be less of it. In the Land of Women came out in 2007, before the more recent explosion of this type of movie (it's hardly a new idea though), so I'll forgive it a little for being the dozenth type of this story I've come across lately. The movie has nearly every suburban trope imaginable. (Of course Meg Ryan has cancer and her spouse is cheating on her. Might as well have both). I was really bothered by the fact that the movie teased Meg Ryan shaving her head. One of the unwritten rules of movies is that you are only allowed to have a scene with a character, in a moment of reclaiming control of her life, shaving her head in the bathroom, if the actress actually shaves her head. You can't shave a strand then wrap the head in a shawl for the rest of the movie. That's cheating. I did appreciate that Kristen Stewart is in the cool clique. I would've bet money going into this that they would treat her as a loner, reject. She certainly thinks she's that in the movie, but she's also dating the QB of the football team.
I normally find the phrase lazy, but this really is a "white people problems" movie. The thing is, I like Adam Brody enough that I found it pretty watchable. Little bits like when he was giving notes on his soft-core porn script tickled me just enough to keep going.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
The Pitch: How to make a thriller with no money.
It was only a matter of time before I got to this. It is the only Christopher Nolan movie I hadn't seen. It's really hard to see everything an actor has done, even if you exclude TV work, because most actors build up a body of work with bad parts or fill in gaps in their schedule with small parts in tiny movies. So, even if I go out of my way to see Anna Kendrick in Camp and Elsewhere, there's still The Company You Keep and The Marc Pease Experience to find. With directors, it's pretty easy. It's hard to churn one out in less than a year or two. Without trying I can accidentally almost all of an Edward Zwick's work, for example*. Since I already took care of Insomnia a while ago, that just left Nolan's debut feature - the super-independent Following - to complete the list.
*Seriously, I saw 2/3s of his movies before ever learning his name. Now, I'm tempted to see About Last Night..., Leaving Normal, Blood Diamond, and Pawn Sacrifice for the hell of it.
It's a fine movie. The lo-fi aesthetic naturally reminded me of Primer and Clerks. The story gives a clear creative through line to Memento. The actors are limited, which is probably why none of them have become the Bruce Campbell to Nolan's Sam Rami, showing up in all his movies. The structure is interesting and the twists are pretty fun. Nolan's direction is really the star, which makes sense. It's short too. I like that.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
Formula: Beauty and the Beast * Into the Woods
Disney, more than any other movie studio relies on its legacy for its success. It's as image-conscious a company as you will find. There's this catalog of films [mostly animated] that will keep the studio afloat no matter what. This was literally the case for years. Theatrical re-issues of classic films were about the only thing Disney had going for it from the mid 1970s to mid 1980s. It's really not a surprise that they are now using the same animated movies for a new revenue stream in the form of live-action remakes. It began with Alice in Wonderland in 2010: basically a sequel to the animated movie. Since then, there's been remakes of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and now, the first remake from the Disney Renaissance: Beauty and the Beast.
It's very easy to be cynical about Disney and this strategy in particular of repackaging the same stories. I'm a fan of it though because they keep looking for new ways to tell the stories. Alice in Wonderland, for all its faults, paired well with Tim Burton's sensibility to make something distinctive. Maleficent told the Sleeping Beauty story from the villain's perspective. Cinderella grounded the story in an intriguing way. The Jungle Book was a visual effects feast. The Beauty and the Beast remake doesn't have anything like that. It's as slavish a retelling of the story as Disney has done so far. It's hard to blame them. The 1991 film can rightly be called one of their masterpieces*. Director Bill Condon has no incentive to start tampering.
*Btw, I won't be going into a plot summary in this Reaction, because the story is the same and if you haven't seen the animated movie before, shame on you.
Before I get into picking at a pretty good movie, I'd like to focus on everything it does right. First and foremost is the casting. Emma Watson is the best choice for Belle that I can think of. It sounded right as soon as I heard about it over a year ago and that hasn't changed. Hearing her sing throughout this film has increased my "what if" curiosity about if she had actually been cast in La La Land instead of Emma Stone*. Dan Stevens is a good Beast. I only know him from Legion currently, but I'm sure he'd feel like an even more natural fit had I seen him in Downton Abbey as well. Luke Evans eases into the Gaston role without missing a beat. Josh Gad is an obvious [in a good way] pick for LeFou. Kevin Kline is an almost counter-intuitive choice for Belle's father Maurice. Either that, or I just haven't accepted that Kevin Kline has aged into "old man" roles. I love the voice cast of the furniture in the castle. Emma Thompson (Mrs. Potts) is wonderful always in everything she does, and if you disagree with me you are wrong. She's one of the few actresses who I could accept taking over for Angela Lansbury. Ewan McGreggor (Lumiere) and Ian McKellen (Cogsworth) bicker with each other well. Even Audra McDonald (Madame Garderobe) and Stanley Tucci (Maestro Cadenza) get to play big in entertaining ways. And Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Plumette). I love Gugu Mbatha-Raw. I have nothing but good things to say about the casting.
*For the record, I'd've loved either choice.
There are certain moments in the movie that are spot on. If you don't get anything out of the ballroom scene, you might be dead inside. The same goes for when everyone in the castle gets transformed back. The music that you know and love is still there. I was most impressed with "Something There". I believe there's only one new song and it's fine. The production design does a good job bringing the animated structures to life. Both the village and castle look familiar in the right ways.
There's a reason why all the previous live-action remakes have tried to do something different than the animated originals: a reason other than avoiding self-plagiarizing. What works in an animated movie doesn't always work in live-action. In this film, "Be Our Guest" was nice, but it doesn't match the spectacle of its animated counterpart. The ballroom scene doesn't feel quite as grand nor "The Mob Song" as menacing. There's a scale that this could never match. Too often, it felt like Emma Watson was responding to a more impressive scene than she was in. Almost like she was green-screened in like Mowgli in The Jungle Book last year. Many scenes or bits of dialogue felt required rather than natural.
While the production design was a good interpretation of the animated film, it revealed how impractical it all was. The castle doesn't make much sense. The village set seemed small. Impressively built, but small. The same angles kept being used which gave me the impression that it was a limited set. For a $2 million indie, I'd forgive that a lot more readily than a $160 million blockbuster with major studio backing.
The few attempts to expand the story fell flat. In all honesty, Beauty and the Beast works better the less you have to think about it. The curse itself is confusing. How Belle ends up in the castle is forced. The movie basically glorifies Stockholm Syndrome. The attempts to explain things further or try to place this story in the real world (so much talk of Paris and the plague) highlight how silly it all is.
Beauty and the Beast isn't as good as the original film. That's unquestionable. How good does it need to be to be a success though? Would you enjoy a version that is 50% as good? Does it need to be at least 80% as good for it to still have an effect? Whatever that bar is for me, the Beauty and the Beast clears it just barely. It's a good film, more comparable with Into the Woods than the 1991 original. Bill Condon, for better or worse, has made the best replication possible, with a cast good enough to make me want to revisit it despite the flaws. It's not brilliant. It's good. Mileage may vary.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
The Pitch: Superman is pretty popular. I think he might appeal to a wide audience.
Occasionally, I come by a movie that even I'm shocked that I haven't seen yet. By now, you can tell by my Reaction selection that I don't see a lot of World cinema. I kind of check out the art house cinema. I'm getting better about seeing the true classics. But, a major super hero movie that blew up in the box office, collected Oscar nominations, and was the most expensive film ever made at the time? I'm not sure how I haven't seen Superman until now. In fact, of the Christopher Reeves movies, I've only seen the Richard Pryor one, randomly (Superman III, right? It was a while ago).
I get why this is so highly regarded. Christopher Reeve is a great Superman and Clark Kent. I'm not sure if he was right for any other role in other movies (a theory confirmed by a look at his other credits on IMDB), but he was for this one. The rest of the cast is fun too. Margot Kidder and Gene Hackman do well by Lois Lane and Lex Luthor. There's a sincerity to the film that I appreciate. It's not quite pulp, but it's not naturalistic either. It's sort of the world needed for this to work.
This is one of those movies that has a great Wikipedia read. The number of writers and directors this project went through is crazy. Marlon Brando's excessive conditions to accept his small role. Filming having to relocate from Italy to England because of an outstanding warrant for Brando in Italy. I assume that the production process is just as wacky these days, just better concealed (or not). You can see the seeds of the modern Hollywood business model in this. Things like planning to film the first two movies back to back and the interference by the studio/producers. This is a big budget fantasy done right. Sure, some effects look dated, but charmingly so.
Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend
The Pitch: A woman breaks herself from her alcoholic ways.
Damn, Mary Elizabeth Winstead! I've had this in my queue for a while simply because of how often I heard in 2012 that she was robbed of [at least] an Oscar nomination. And, yeah, that is very true. I've liked Winstead for a while. She was very good in 10 Cloverfield Lane last year. She almost made the The Thing remake work. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Sky High. She has a history of showing up a lot. Even with the warning though, I was very impressed by her performance in Smashed. If nothing else, it's hard to play drunk convincingly. Beyond that, she adds so much nuance to the role. I just can't say enough good things about her. Fantastic work.
The rest of the movie - meh. It's a vehicle for Winstead and designed as such. It's not even 90 minutes long and it still has some unneeded detours like Nick Offerman making an ass of himself. The pregnancy mix-up is one of those cases of farce for the sake of farce. I don't believe she would've let it go on for so long, even if she was more concerned at the time with being sober. Aaron Paul gets to be rather heartbreaking, but it was just a little too similar to Jesse Pinkman to be impressed by it. I also appreciated that the movie didn't have anything too horrible happen to Winstead's character. I was ready for a rape or the Requiem for a Dream treatment. Instead, it was just a build-up of warning signs leading her to sobriety.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
The Pitch: Some 20-somethings on their way to Coachella get killed when they dabble in satanic rituals.
It worries me whenever the movie I watch doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Here's what I knew about this movie going in:
-It stars Sarah Hyland.
-It's a scary movie.
-It's about young people going to Coachella but making a pit stop to visit famous death locations in Los Angeles first.
I don't try to hide the fact that I'll watch a movie if someone I think is attractive is in it (Please see my Delayed Reaction of Geek Charming). What helps is if the movie is under 90 minutes, I'm already drunk, and it's going to include the line "We should've gone to Coachella". So, the movie wasn't great. It featured a recurring joke about seeing a Two & a Half Men taping, which wasn't even on the air by then*. I'm fairly certain they filmed this on the set of American Horror Story: Hotel while the crew was on their union lunch break. There's a line in the movie when Sarah Hyland comments that a girl looks like she's barely 18, which reminded me of the pot calling the kettle black. Finding out that this group of 20-somethings was from Boulder was the least surprising thing in the movie. I'm not sure what the point of the girl in the window at the beginning turning out to be Sarah Hyland was other than a chance for the screenwriters to have someone call them clever. If you can't tell by now, I am just typing up the notes I jotted down while watching this. I won't pretend the movie needs any great analysis. It's a capable scary movie. Sarah Hyland gets to do something different than playing Haley Dunphy. Clara Mamet gets to remind me that Zosia Mamet has a sister and David Mamet has more than one daughter. I'm super excited that Justin Chon is also the kid who goes missing in 21 & Over, because it means that I'm not being casually racist for thinking that was him.
*To their credit, they do have someone point out that the show isn't on
anymore, but that doesn't slow down the references to it.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
Formula: (King Kong + King Kong + Jurassic World + Godzilla) / (Apocalypse Now + Platoon + Full Metal Jacket)
You can't kill King Kong. He always comes back. That's become one of the great truths of cinema. It is hard to find a movie/character that has been remade or revisited as much as Kong that owes its creation to cinema. Characters that have gone through many iterations like Robin Hood and Dracula have literary inspirations. Not King Kong. He was made for movies and keeps coming back. Only a dozen years since Peter Jackson spent his Lord of the Rings clout on his King Kong, the giant ape is back in Kong: Skull Island as part of Warner Brother's and Legendary's monster movie universe, and it's exactly what I expected.
Skull Island has a lot of setup work to do early on. In 1973, during the waning days of the Vietnam War, Bill Randa (John Goodman), using a paper published by a geologist (Corey Hawkins), convinces the U.S. government to go on a research mission to an uncharted island in the Pacific: Skull Island. They have another scientist (Tian Jing) with them. To escort them on this mission, Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) and his special ops team - including Jason Mitchell, Thomas Mann, Shea Whigham, Eugene Cordero, and others - take on this last mission instead of returning home from Vietnam. James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) is a famous tracker that Packard hires for assistance. Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) is a famous photographer who joins for the thrill of going somewhere new. John Ortiz and Marc Evan Jackson are additional researchers. Once they all get to Skull Island and run into Kong, they learn about Kong and the island from Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly), a WWII pilot who has been stuck on the island for 28 years. This group has three days to get to a rendezvous point on the island in order to get rescued. But, Packard becomes obsessed with killing Kong despite there being much more dangerous creatures on the island.
Ok, I wrote that last paragraph to make a point. Did you notice how hard it was to keep track of all those name? There are too many damn characters in this movie. There's a reason for this. A lot of people die. The problem is that with so many characters, there's not a chance to connect with any of them. The many credited screenwriters would've been smart to take a page of out the horror handbook. In a slasher movie, there's only about a half dozen people in the core group. That's a manageable number that still leaves room for people to get picked off. Or maybe Cloverfield is a better example of this. With so many cast members to juggle, Skull Island ends up being filled with caricatures not characters. I left the movie with only a surface-level understanding of any character, and when you assemble a cast this good, that's a shame.
However, Kong himself doesn't disappoint. Toby Kebbell has just about usurped Andy Serkis as the preeminent motion-capture performer in Hollywood. He kicks ass as Kong. The animation of Kong looks great. The film never goes too long without a big fight scene. Three years ago, Godzilla patiently waited to reveal the beast until as late as it possibly could. Skull Island is very much the opposite. Kong is front and center as early and often as possible. And let's be honest, that's what I bought my ticket for.
It's funny how similar director Jordan Vogt-Roberts' work in this is to Colin Trevorrow's in Jurassic World. Both directors went from making small indie films (The Kings of Summer for Vogt-Roberts and Safety Not Guaranteed for Trevorrow) to these massive blockbusters with no films in between and, both share the same reckless abandon. Skull Island looks like it was directed by an immensely talented 10 year old. There is no restraint in the direction. Nearly every shot looks like it was approached with the thought "What would be the coolest way to do this?". Slow motion, sunsets, and close-ups of Kong's or others' eyes are in healthy supply. It's distracting more than it is bad. When everything is shot so big, it dilutes the effect for the actual big moments.
I don't like to play soundtrack police. I'm not very good at it. Song selection is not something I notice all that often. When I do, that's normally a problem. The songs that Skull Island uses aren't bad. They just aren't very interesting. It's basically "Vietnam: The Soundtrack". There's plenty of CCR and Black Sabbath. The Chambers Brother, the Stooges, Jefferson Airplane. It's like every needle drop - and they love showing a needle drop in this movie - is there to remind you that it's 1973. No one tried very hard to choose a non-obvious song from the era. Not every song needs to be from an artist's Greatest Hits collection.
I'm going after Skull Island harder than I meant to. It's a fine movie. It's just a busy one. Too busy. All I really need is Kong fighting monsters and a couple human characters for a POV. Skull Island has that and much more. Kong's fights are fun to watch. Tom Hiddleston gets some good "movie star" moments. A lot of things explode. The direction is never dull. If you are hoping to appreciate the movie as anything more than a monster/disaster movie, you'll be disappointed. The movie is as good as it needs to be and nothing more.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
