2016

Café Society

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

“First a murderer, then he becomes a Christian! What did I do to deserve this?”

—Rose Dorfman

Those who aren’t fans of late-period Woody Allen are unlikely to change their mind with Café Society, a stylish period piece set in Depression Era Hollywood. It lacks the bite of his best work; in fact, it shows him in a far more nostalgic state of mind than ever. As a summer release, though, Café Society is a competent, engaging comedy with a lot of charm.

Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) is a bright, affable, ambitious, and angsty young New Yorker. The problem is, he hasn’t got a plan—which is probably the source of his angst. With little more than good manners, a strong work ethic, and hope, he leaves Brooklyn for ostensibly greener pastures in Los Angeles, where his Uncle Phil (Steve Carell) is a big time agent to the stars. Bobby tracks down his uncle, who dodges him for a week before hiring him as his personal assistant.

Uncle Phil shows Bobby the ropes around Hollywood, promoting him to different, better positions in a short time. They kind of bond. While this is going on, Bobby gets friendly with his uncle’s secretary, Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). They hang out. A lot. She has a beau, she tells Bobby, and they’re on the D.L. because he’s married. Bobby falls for her, anyway, but she keeps him at bay. Vonnie tells Bobby only that her beau works as a reporter, and is older than she is. She also mentions the gift she gives him for their first anniversary: a picture of Rudolph Valentino.

WARNING: Potential spoilers ahead!

L.A. is sunny, but not really Bobby’s thing. He longs for New York, and decides to go back. Meanwhile, we learn that Phil is having an affair—with Vonnie. Phil vascilates about leaving his wife, decides he can’t do it, and dumps Vonnie on their first anniversary. Vonnie quits her job and dates Bobby, seriously. They plan to move to Greenwich Village and get married. Phil changes his mind, and decides he can’t live without Vonnie. He wants her back. A turn of events reveals the triangle to Bobby, and the real story begins.

Café Society deals with fame, fortune, and fidelity. The plot is nicely layered: interesting but not overly complicated. It doesn’t even take long for the “Big Reveal.” Every character is likable but hardly innocent. The sets are gorgeous. Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography is crisp and glitzy—at times, the color palette and grade resemble Lawrence of Arabia. Odd, but cool.

The cast is excellent, which for a Woody Allen film is par for the course: Jeannie Berlin, Ken Stott, Sari Lennick, Stephen Kunken, Blake Lively, Paul Schneider, even Parker Posey. Eisenberg channels Allen really well—the way he speaks, his body language and hand gestures, even his facial ticks. A hilarious exchange between Bobby and a girl-for-hire named Candy (Anna Camp) who shows up late at his apartment is nothing short of genius. As good as Eisenberg is, though, Stewart is the star, and she steals every scene she’s in: she’s cool, mean, flip, vulnerable, and ultimately a sellout. She’s also beautiful. Berlin is another scene-stealer as Bobby’s Jewish mother, Rose.

Surprisingly, Steve Carell is the weak link. I don’t buy him as an agent, a ball-busting businessman, or even a Jew. Not for a second. He’s too soft. Harmless. Cuddly, even. He comes off as Michael Scott from The Office more than anything. I’ve liked him in every role I’ve seen him in, even The 40-Year-Old Virgin. This one, however, doesn’t work.

96 minutes
Rated PG-13

(AMC River East) B

http://www.cafesocietymovie.com

The Infiltrator

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

Bryan Cranston has come a long way from his stint as Tim Whatley, Jerry Seinfeld’s dentist. He’s an excellent choice to play Robert “Bob” Mazur, a U.S. Customs agent who in 1985 went undercover as fictitious New Jersey money launderer Bob Musella to work his way into the trafficking network of Colombian drug czar Pablo Escobar. With the assistance of fellow agents Emir Abreu (John Leguizamo) and Kathy Ertz (Diane Kruger), Mazur—to use his words—“followed the money” instead of the drugs. It led to one of the biggest drug busts in American history.

Based on Mazur’s memoir The Infiltrator: My Secret Life Inside the Dirty Banks Behind Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, director Brad Furman—whose mother, Ellen Brown Furman, wrote the script—lets Cranston go absolutely apeshit with his character. It’s impossible not to draw parallels between Mazur and Breaking Bad’s Walter White; it’s glaringly obvious that both characters are essentially family guys who choose a dangerous double life that consumes them to the point of losing who they are—not to mention their lives. This plays out exquisitely in a scene where a cartel member (Simón Andreu) who knows Musella spots Mazur and his wife, Evelyn (Juliet Aubrey), having a quiet anniversary dinner at a restaurant.

The Infiltrator is a good movie. Despite occasionally feeling like an episode of Miami Vice, it nonetheless has an intensity that slowly comes to a boil, and when it finally does: BOOM! The moral dilemma of betraying the people not only who come to trust Musella but also welcome him into their lives adds a dramatic slant that movies like this tend to lack. I was riveted. Considering its subject matter, though, The Infiltrator doesn’t exactly move fast. It’s more of a low key character study fueled by what’s going on in Mazur’s head. Benjamin Bratt, Yul Vazquez, and even Olympia Dukakis turn in great performances. There are some dark, funny moments along with some really unsettling scenes—like a weird voodoo ritual, an out-of-nowhere drive-by, and murder on the dance floor. It remains to be seen how memorable The Infiltrator proves to be, though.

127 minutes
Rated R

(AMC River East) B

http://www.theinfiltrator.com

Home3

Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

Video posted on by moviebloke

(UK/USA 2016)

Absolutely Fabulous, one of my fave TV shows, was fresh, edgy, and bloody hilarious in its day—the dog’s bollocks, if you will. Stateside, it’s proven to be too much for prime time network television: ABC and FOX both abandoned plans to adapt it, the latter as recently as 2009 (http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2009/05/fox-rejects-ab-fab-remake.html). As executive producer Jon Plowman noted, “[t]he trouble with doing Ab Fab in America is that it will have to end with Edina and Saffy hugging, Patsy giving up drink and drugs, and them all hugging mum. It won’t work. It’ll be too nice.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/3153677/US-remake-for-Absolutely-Fabulous.html). Hold that thought.

Since the end of its original BBC run in 1995, Ab Fab’s few revivals have consistently fallen short. I was skeptical about a full-length movie 25 years on. While not the disaster I feared it would be, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie still isn’t the knees up full Monty I wanted.

Eddy (Jennifer Saunders), Patsy (Joanna Lumley), Saffy (Julia Sawalha), even Mrs. Monsoon (June Whitfield) are the same, which is great—who doesn’t love them? They each have some good lines and some bright moments. Pats hasn’t lost her signature deadpan snarl, and the animosity between her and Saffy is still very much alive. The problem, however, is that the world has changed, which is partly why Ab Fab doesn’t have the same impact. For one thing, Eddy and Patsy’s irrelevance is really irrelevant today. They’ve become anachronisms; their antics ring more tired and pathetic than funny after awhile. Worse, everything about their fashionable world is passé. A prominent figure in the plot is supermodel…Kate Moss? The many celebrity cameos—Jerry Hall, Jean Paul Gaultier, Dame Edna, and Joan Collins to name a few—are fun, but none of them are setting any fires these days. Aside from Jon Hamm and Rebel Wilson, the faded glory here is enough to book Hollywood Squares for a month solid.

The movie has as much substance as an episode, but it’s clearly stretched to fill the time; Ab Fab episodes were only 35 minutes for a good reason. Some of the character twists, particularly Bubble (Jane Horrocks) and Marshall (Christopher Ryan), don’t make sense. Eddy gets soft toward the end: she delivers a monologue about wanting to be loved all her life, telling Saffy she loves her. Ugh. Say that again, Mr. Plowman?

I didn’t hate Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie; I got some laughs out of it. I didn’t love it, though. I could have overlooked its shortcomings had it been funnier. As it stands, I prefer Ab Fab where it fits best: in the ’90s.

91 minutes
Rated R

(AMC River East) C

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/absolutelyfabulous/

http://www.absolutelyfabulousthemovie.co.uk/showtimes

Wiener-Dog

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

For someone whose best-known films have words like “welcome” and “happiness” in their titles, Todd Solondz doesn’t come across as a particularly cheery guy. His stories are never sentimental or uplifting. His characters are a motley crew of hopeless geeks, unattractive lurps, and outright assholes. He exposes the worst of humanity—pettiness, cruelty, disappointment, indifference—and makes a deranged joke out of it. To some (like me), his bleak, misanthropic perspective is wildly amusing, refreshing, and compelling. Those who dig his twisted brand of cynicism should relish Wiener-Dog, his first film in five years.

Wiener-Dog follows the life of a dachshund as she passes through a succession of masters in four vignettes: Remi (Keaton Nigel Cooke), a child cancer survivor; Dawn (Greta Gerwig), a flummoxed vet assistant who runs into a former classmate, Brandon (Kieran Culkin), at a convenience store; Schmertz (Danny DeVito), a film writing professor on the verge of a meltdown over a screenplay he can’t get his agent to read; and a dying old sourpuss (Ellen Burstyn) whose cracky granddaughter, Zoe (Zosia Mamet), pays her an unexpected visit.

WARNING: Potential spoilers ahead!

Side note: the aforementioned Dawn is Dawn Wiener—whose classmates’ mean nickname for her provides the title here—from Welcome to the Dollhouse. I was apprehensive about the idea of resurrecting her and Brandon, but it works on its own without coming off as a desperate attempt at piggybacking a successful past project or playing on nostalgia.

Wiener-Dog is all Solondz, and he’s focused on mortality: sickness and death color each sketch. He starts at childhood and moves through adulthood, getting progressively glum as he leads us to a grave of sorts. Even Weiner-Dog’s name, which changes with each master, hints at where this is all going: Wiener-Dog, Doodie (as in poop), and Cancer—if DeVito’s character named her, I missed it. With just a few exceptions, everyone is terrible. This film is loaded with wonderfully sad, absurd dialogue. Remi’s father (Tracy Lett) explains the importance of breaking a dog’s will, ending the discussion on a bizarre contradictory note. In a hilarious philosophical colloquy, Remi’s mother (Julia Delphy) explains why Wiener-Dog needs to be spayed, inadvertently bringing him to the conclusion that “death is a good thing.” Brandon tells his brother (Connor Long), who has Down’s Syndrome, that their father just died from drinking, even though he said he quit a long time ago. An admissions committee interviews an applicant (Devin Druid) about why he wants to go to film school, and he can’t answer a single question. A school administrator (Sharon Washington) confronts DeVito about his negativity. Zoe explains how rare the ostrich egg she just gave her grandmother is while her grandmother’s unimpressed nurse, Yvette (Marcella Lowery), takes it away to dispose of it. In a dream sequence, Ellen Burstyn’s character has a weird conversation with multiple alternate versions of herself (Melo Ludwig) that chose to be nicer during life.

And then there’s the ending—abrupt and jarring, I literally jumped in my seat and sat there frozen for a few moments. True to form, Solondz makes it clear that no one is important in life’s grand scheme.

Solondz called Wiener-Dog one of his “sunnier” films, and it actually is. To expect a schlocky tale highlighting the joy a pet brings is stupid considering the man behind it. Nonetheless, Solondz gets as sweet as I’ve ever seen him, especially with Dawn and Brandon. The scene where Zoe confides to her grandmother that she suspects her boyfriend, Fantasy (Michael Shaw), is running around behind her back is also touching. The “intermission” is dumb but cute, and the songs are fun. Wiener-Dog has a good life unlike those around her—she isn’t mistreated, and she achieves something none of the other characters do: immortality.

Screening followed by a live Q and A with Todd Solondz.

93 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) B+

http://www.wienerdogmovie.com

 

Director’s Cut

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

Yeah…this. Hmmm. Herbert Blount (Penn Jillette) is a weird crowdfunding stalker obsessed with actress Missi Pyle, playing herself, who costars in a low budget crime-gore “movie” with Harry Hamlin and a guy named Reed (Hayes MacArthur). Blount, who is given behind-the-scenes access because he used his PayPal account to donate a large sum of money to the project, is seduced by the artistic process and secretly hijacks the film to make his own version: he wants Pyle front and center. He undermines the director (Adam Rifken), steals footage, and kidnaps Pyle to shoot new scenes with her in his basement.

A movie within a fake movie (Knocked Off), Director’s Cut is a satire of the film industry, celebrity, and the changing role of the audience. Directed for real by Rifken, it exhibits some competent technical handiwork: Knocked Off, little more than a CSI episode, looks professional right down to its angles, cuts, and color grade. A slew of cameos—some, like Jillette, former contestants of Celebrity Apprentice (Gilbert Godfrey, Lisa Rinna)—adds a smart lighthearted touch. Jillette’s longtime partner in magic, Raymond Joseph Teller, makes a fun though not exactly unexpected appearance. Pyle’s diva tantrums “off screen” are amusing. The film makes interesting and timely points about the dangers of giving artistic input and access to the general public and obsessed fans: even in an era where the tools of the trade are readily available to virtually anyone, not everyone can (or should attempt to) make a movie.

Director’s Cut just doesn’t cut it. Sadly, Jillette himself is the most disappointing thing about it. He doesn’t pull off creepy; his gentle, dulcet voice bantering lame “commentary”—like in a bonus feature of a DVD (get it?)—undermines that. Worse, his terrible “acting,” the oddly tame scenes he stages with Pyle, and his crude homemade edits of his version of the film paint him as a harmless grandfatherly dolt more than anything. The gimmick here wears out before the movie is even half over. Director’s Cut has good ideas, but it’s just not funny.

83 minutes
Not rated

(Gene Siskel Film Center) D-

https://makepennbad.com

Buddymoon

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

Former child star David Zara (David Giuntoli) just got dumped—days before his wedding, apparently. His ex-fiancée, Frankie (Jeanne Syquia), left him an empty apartment with nothing but a lifetime supply of rosé for the reception and a bunch of hiking gear for what would have been their honeymoon in the Oregon wilderness. Enter best bud and best man Flula (Flula Borg) to pull David out of his depression: he suggests—no, insists—that the two of them take the honeymoon. What are friends for? The honeymoon didn’t sound all that romantic, anyway.

Giuntoli gives a solid performance; he plays a wounded bird forging a brave face quite well, even turning on the waterworks a couple times. It doesn’t hurt that he’s easy on the eyes. YouTube personality Borg plays his character, a “human puzzle” as David calls him, with a simple, childlike innocence and excitement (“Focus your face on this, nature!”). Like a German Einar Orn in the background of a Sugarcubes song, he banters on dramatically about mundane things while he walks around the forest recording sounds for what he says will be “the greatest song of all time, ever.”

As the title makes clear, this is a buddy movie. Director Alex Simmons, who cowrote the script with Giuntoli and Borg, keeps the mood light, focusing on the guys while they walk, talk, prank, and inevitably annoy each other. There’s a good bit of funny dialogue (Borg’s confusion with American history and culture provides much of the humor) and some bright scenes—like an encounter with a survivalist hiker (Brian T. Finney), an overnight with a group of campers led by a total babe (Claire Coffee), and a run-in with a wolf while doing mushrooms. The parallel to Lewis and Clark is mildly interesting, and the story is cute. However, Buddymoon doesn’t really soar: it’s ultimately a chick flick with guys.

80 minutes
Not rated

(Facets) C

BUDDYMOON MOVIE

Swiss Army Man

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

The premise of Swiss Army Man is bizarre: Hank (Paul Dano), starving and bored, is stranded on a tiny deserted island. Just as he is about to off himself, he sees a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) in a suit wash up on the beach. It moves. It squirts water out of its butt. It talks! It has strange powers. Hank names it Manny, and the two set off to find their way home. The previews sold me, so I saw it the night it opened in Chicago.

Swiss Army Man is a strange and perplexing film. Never mind that one of the main characters is a decomposing stiff with a raging boner, a leaky ass, and a fucked up eye—as if that’s not disturbing enough. It’s impossible to discern what’s happening in reality and what’s happening in Hank’s head. The whole thing is a cross between a kid’s story and a hallucination; director Dan Kwan is so vague and hazy that even after a week mulling it over, I have no idea what happened let alone what the film is about. A girl named Sarah (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is involved, a grizzly bear makes an appearance, and the guys bond. Hank can’t masturbate because it makes him remember his dead mother, and his father (Richard Gross) is indifferent to him. Mmmkay.

Somewhere amid the references to Jurassic Park and all the fart, poop, and dick jokes is a point. Friendship saves? Know yourself? Take risks and live life? I honsetly don’t know.

97 minutes
Rated R

(ArcLight) C+

http://swissarmyman.com

The Nice Guys

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

Last year’s Inherent Vice disappointed me; I dug its ’70s Venice Beach vibe, but I found the story choppy and its execution ultimately lackluster—unforgivable for a film with arguably the best all-star cast in years. Little did I know walking into the theater that Shane Black’s The Nice Guys is exactly what I hoped for with Inherent Vice: an unapologetically dippy and fun action retro-comedy with stylish sets, cool clothes, and a rad soundtrack. Shallow? Maybe. But I enjoyed The Nice Guys a lot more; like old MTV, it’s a fluffy guilty pleasure.

Los Angeles, 1977: Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is a detective—the world’s worst, by his own admission—down on his luck. Amid jobs like the senile widow looking for her missing husband—his ashes are in an urn on the mantle—March is hired by the aunt (Lois Smith) of a dead porn actress, Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio); she claims her niece just visited her, and she wants him to find her. After a run-in with thug-for-hire Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) and a trail that leads to a girl named Amelia (Margaret Qualley) and an “experimental” skin flick called How Do You Like My Car, Big Boy, March joins forces with Healy to solve a mystery that brings them right to the heart of the porn and auto industries.

The Nice Guys is a treat all around. No one thing carries this film; it’s a successful combination of multiple elements. The story and tone—a mix of the aforementioned Inherent Vice, Lethal Weapon (also by Black), and Boogie Nights with a whiff of Scooby Doo—is surprisingly cohesive, absorbing, and entertaining. Where Lethal Weapon‘s Martin and Roger are buddies, March and Healy are “frienemies:” the former is as drunkenly and sweetly inept as the latter is soberly and brutally efficient. It works; Gosling and Crowe, who looks like John Goodman these days, have a solid chemistry. It’s fun to see them both in something light, and they seem to have a good time here. I never thought of Gosling as a comedic actor, but his timing is great—my favorite scene is Healy busting into the men’s room stall on him. March gets by thanks in large part to his teenaged daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice), who serves as a voice of reason even as he corrects her grammar. Matt Bomer makes a brief, creepy, and violent cameo as John Boy, a hitman with a big mole on his face—anyone familiar with The Waltons no doubt will get the reference right away. Kim Basinger is a welcome surprise as a hard, all-business federal agent. The whole thing ends in a crazy choreograped sequence involving a film canister.

Philippe Rousselot’s cinematography is snappy, with vivid colors that shine though even during the night scenes. The Nice Guys depicts a sleazy era of Los Angeles in a cheeky, over-the-top way—a time I would have loved to have seen it. This is not a film that takes itself seriously—it seems to revel in its frivolity. Seeing it over Memorial Day weekend was a great way to kick off the summer movie season. Indulge, I say.

116 minutes
Rated R

(ArcLight) B-

http://www.theniceguysmovie.com

Midnight Special

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

Midnight Special was hyped quite a bit. The previews were promising, so naturally my expectations were high.

A take on E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and an apparent tribute to Steven Spielberg, the story is enthralling: a father (Michael Shannon) on the run with his eight-year-old son, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), comes to the realization that his son is either the messiah or an alien—and perhaps both. Whatever the deal is, Alton’s best interests clearly are not aligned with those of his father and mother (Kirsten Dunst). What’s in store when Alton gets them to their destination in a few days—if they even make it there?

Midnight Special has its moments. The acting is good all around; but Adam Driver as Paul Sevier, a federal agent, adds a nice and much needed touch of goofy, earthy warmth to the mix. Screenwriter/director Jeff Nichols maintains a steady pace and builds momentum with a suspenseful intensity that lasts until about two-thirds of the way through, but then it all grinds to a halt. The film ultimately fizzles because it goes on too long to sustain what it starts. It doesn’t help that Lieberher turns up the creepy factor a notch higher than necessary.

Midnight Special falls short: at heart, it’s a sappy movie about parenting and learning to let go. OK, I guess, but…meh. Not my thing.

111 minutes
Rated PG-13

(ArcLight) C

http://www.midnightspecialmovie.com

10 Cloverfield Lane

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

I don’t see that many thrillers. This year, though, it seems I’ve somehow seen more in a short span of time than ever. Apparently, 10 Cloverfield Lane is a sort of sequel to Cloverfield, a low budget indie I never saw let alone heard of that sounds like Blair Witch Project. I had to find out what the buzz is about.

After breaking up with her boyfriend, Ben (the voice of Bradley Cooper), Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) wakes up chained to a bed in a spartan cellar. Erratic weirdo Howard (John Goodman) put her there, and he informs her that he rescued her from the car accident she had as well as the alien apocolypse that started while she was out cold. He stresses to her that she can’t leave the underground mini compound they share with Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.), another basement refugee Howard saved.

Director Dan Trachtenberg builds the plot entirely on psychological tension, and his pace and intensity are great. Even Tommy James and the Shondells’ peppy “I Think We’re Alone Now” comes off as eldritch. Howard is creepy, and he gives Michelle—and the viewer—ample reason to doubt him. Goodman is brilliant and he steals every scene, but Winstead definitely stands on her own. We don’t know until the end whether Howard is a sincere albeit odd guy or a fucking maniac.

I enjoyed 10 Cloverfield Lane all the way to the finale, but it totally lost me there. The wrap up is too long, too Hollywood, and completely unnecessary. I would have found it more satisfying had the story ended at a specific point and left what happens next to my imagination; not knowing whether Howard is telling the truth holds all the dramatic power. Removing that doubt is a mistake. As is, it’s a disappointingly cheesy end to such a nailbiter.

Overall, 10 Cloverfield Lane kept my attention, but time will have to tell whether it made a big impression on me. I understand the buzz now. I hated the ending, though.

(AMC River East) B+

http://www.10cloverfieldlane.com