The Red Sea Diving Resort

Twenty-for-Seven #20 (Day7)
2019, d. Gideon Raff - Netflix

I'm out of movie-watching shape.  Trying to cram 20 movies into 7 days was actually kind of exhausting (I had to give up on the idea of actually writing up reviews as I went).  While I have a list of things I want to watch, most of them are on the list for academic reasons, which often require access to other films that aren't on streaming services I'm subscribed to..I pay enough for these that paying for one-off rentals isn't going to happen...as such I've become a slave to these services.  On each of these services I have lists, largely unmaintained, of things that caught my eye when doing one of those brain dead meanders through what they offer.  It's a mind numbing experience trying to select a film to watch.  There's too much choice, which often leads to indecision.

I watched most of the 20-4-7 on my own, the wife had a game night out one night, and was down with a bad cold one of the others, and often she was in bed sleeping while I was up in the wee hours of the morning cramming in another picture or two.  So I think of the first 19, she watched 5 1/2 with me (she went to bed during Dolemite as the cold was knocking her out).  So with #20, I let it be her choice (so kind, I know), as I had hit the wall and couldn't make a decision.  She wanted a Chris Evans fix, so The Red Sea Diving Resort became #20.

This is a film "based on true events", a statement that I think needs to be retired from filmmaking altogether.  The moment anything is "based on a true story", I think the viewer starts picking at the logic of a film, starts looking for inaccuracies or discrepancies or questioning how certain situations could have possibly played out or be known to have happened.  It just opens up a quagmire of questions or concerns about veracity, and I think it ruins films, and ruins one's experience with a film.

Anything that wants to be based on a true story, or true events, shouldn't mention such a thing until the end of a film, if at all.  Starting your film with that caption is, to me, the worst way to ope any movie that isn't a documentary.

With The Red Seas Diving Resort, I went in knowing nothing about the movie...except my vague memory of the trailer which seemed to scream "white savior narrative" to me, one of my least favourite genres.

Evans plays Ari Levinson, a Mossad agent who has been working with Kadebe Bimro (Michael Kenneth Williams) to evacuate targeted Ethiopian Jews and bring them to safe harbor in Israel.  Levinson is intrinsically invested in his mission, so when he's recalled due to the increasing dangers in the region, he diligently works to find some other way to carry on with his mission.  He comes up with using the cover of a resort in neighboring Sudan (which has been taking in the refugees) to help smuggle the Ethiopians out to Israel, and upon securing funding and approval, he puts together a team.

Now the corrupt Sudanese government of the film want to increase tourism so, despite never actually wanting to actually operate the resort, the government pushes tourism towards them and they find it actually helps with their cover.

There are tensions as the Sudanese military start to catch on to the dwindling numbers in various refugee camps, (which impacts the refugee aide they receive from the world stage), so the team starts operating under high alert, before ultimately having to pull out, but not before making one last export with the help of US officials.

This honestly wasn't as intense of distressing as I had thought it might be.  The film seems to diminish the severity of the cause by focusing more on the Mossad agents than the people in need.  Williams is almost a non-presence throughout most of the middle act (despite the poster's inference that "one partnership saved thousands of lives", that partnership isn't really given much weight on screen).

The "white savior" criticism of the film, I think, is diminished by the fact that it's Israeli agents working to save marginalized Jewish Ethiopians...it's more about the religion than race.  But that's not to say the film still doesn't have it's problems, like placing non-Israeli, or at least non-Jewish actors in some of these roles, and also not giving more point-of-view to Kadebe Bimro's story. 

It's also particularly upsetting finding out that the Sudanese government and secret police weren't actually adversaries in this operation, but actually secretly aided in the migration (until word started getting out to the larger Muslim region).  This is another problem I have with "based on true events", the inference to the audience is that the events are true, when the probability is the entire story is a made up script base of the concept of what happened in reality. 

The film has its entertainment value (and Evans without his shirt), but it doesn't feel like one with modern sensibilities.

Can You Ever Forgive Me

Twenty-for-Seven #19 (Day7)
2018, d. Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood) - Crave

The wife and I had intentions to go see this film in the theatres back in 2018, but just never made it out.  As it usually happens, if it's not a big blockbuster Marvel or Star Wars film, we have a much harder time making the effort to get out of the house for an evening.  After seeing it garner a whole host of award nominations, it remained fairly high on the "to watch" list, but even once we had access to it, finding the right time to watch meant we put off watching it for months. 

This is a great movie about a genuine curmudgeon and gifted writer Lee Israel who famously had forged over 400 celebrity letters, written in their voice, and sold them to book shops and memorabilia stores around New York.  Writers and performers would save their showmanship for their writing and the stage, so their communications with friends and acquaintances were likely a lot drier than people would have hoped.   So Lee's ability to find the voice, especially the tone of humour, meant she was providing people more of what they wanted out of such treasures than what they usually got with the more authentic items.

The film is a wonderful profile that doesn't just examine Lee Israels' crime, but her desperation, her insecurity, her depression, and most of all, her talent.  Her sardonic nature may be difficult to engage with face-to-face but from an outside perspective she's absolutely hilarious.  Comedy loves a curmudgeon.

In the time that she started forging letters, she also formed a friendship with Jack Hock, a post-middle-aged gay man, surviving life on the streets with fabulous energy and vigor.  Lee generally has a hard time connecting with people, but Jack is so her speed.  His energy seems contageous and he is just as quick with a barb as Lee.  Plus they like their drink.

But forging letters, especially at the pace Lee seemed to be doing, it was only a matter of time before suspicions were raised.  Things fall apart for Lee and Jack, both with their duplicitous gig and with their friendship. 

Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant both deliver award-worthy performances here, real captivating, fully inhabited chararacters.  Both won many critics awards (as did the screenplay) and despite high praise and Oscar Nominations, it made little to no impact at the box office (barely making its budget back).  It's a terrific film that will no doubt grow in reputation and appreciation as time rolls on.

Crazy Rich Asians

Twenty-for-Seven #18 (Day7)
2018, d. John M Chu - Crave

I can't believe there only ONE poster
for this megablockbuster movie.  That's
crazy!

I like a good romcom, that's been established.  Part of the 20 movies in 7 days project was to administer an antidote to all the terrible romance/romcoms I subjected myself to over the Hallmarkidays.  Crazy Rich Asians was an absolutely necessary watch as part of that rehabilitation.  Afterall, it's a highly successful, well regarded rom com that I've had every intention of watching for well over a year but just hadn't gotten to it.... which was the other point of 20-4-7, to watch some of those films I had been meaning to watch.

I freaking loved this movie. 

I've known Constance Wu from years of watching Fresh Off The Boat, and it always takes a few minutes to get her out of "mom" mode in my head (and to hear her speak without the accent she employs on that show), but she's a gifted, versatile actress and very likeable here as a romantic lead.  She plays Rachel, a NYU economics professor (a prestigious, well-regarded gig), and daughter of a single mother who immigrated to America and became a self-made woman in the world of real estate.  Neither are rich, but both have done very well for themselves.  She's been dating Nick (handsomely handsome Henry Golding) for some time, and they're genuinely in love with each other.  Nick thinks it's time for Rachel to meet his family and invites her to Singapore to attend his cousin's wedding. The moment they board the plane and are guided into the first class suite on the plane, Rachel knows something is up, and Nick confesses that his family is super rich, but that he always considered it their money.

From that moment on Rachel is thrust into the world of south Asia's uber-elite, the ultra rich, and their insanely decadent lifestyle.  When she first takes time out to visit Peik Lin (Awkwafina), a friend from her college days, she gets a taste of the rich lifestyle, but her family informs Rachel that Nick's family is so far beyond their wealth, there's no way to prepare her for it.

From there Rachel takes a journey through Nick's reality, a life of luxury and decadence, but also of family bonds and cultural traditions that she's for sure going to be viewed as an outsider.  Nick, in the larger cultural landscape, is like royalty, so there's an undue amount of attention put on him by the debutantes of the upper crust, and any woman he winds up with would face a shitstorm, but an American outsider with no connection to wealth is even more disdainful.

There are the expected cast of villains in this, as well as the unexpected, where people put on a polite face, but ultimately have their own prejudices that they can't get past.  Rachel collects a delightful support stable (alongside Nick ALWAYS being on her side), which includes Peik Lin and her family, Astrid (Gemma Chan) who's Nick's cousin and an absolute sweetheart despite her fashionista status and grand wealth, and Oliver (Nico Santos), Nick's very out second cousin.  They're all in her corner, people who certainly embrace their wealth but recognize that being a decent person is necessary alongside it.

One of my favourite all-time actresses Michelle Yeoh is probably Rachel's greatest nemesis in the film, playing Nick's mother Eleanor.  She's so used to both controlling Nick and getting her way that it's kind of beyond her to let Nick make his own choices or to let someone of lower status potentially influence the family image she's so carefully cultivated.  There are some cultural elements of sacrifice in Eleanor's back story which tell us why she is this way, but as Oliver explains to Rachel, you need to stand up to her and earn her respect if they're ever going to get past her issues.

There is a side plot with Astrid that feels unfortunately thin, or rather could hold a film of its own, with her husband, another "commoner like Rachel" who is having an affair, unable to get over his own discomfort with her level of wealth.  I wish there was more to this story, but it's just underserved as a distracted B-plot. 

The film is decadent and outrageous, frequently funny and at times upsetting.  The culture shock is far more the "crazy rich" than the "asian" part of the film, and the film lives within its traditions, playing to an audience familiar with them but also not excluding an audience that isn't.  It's a bloody delight and I had a blast with it.  I loved the characters, how distinctly drawn each of them was, some playing in stereotype, some playing with stereotype, but most definitely way outside stereotype.  The cast is uniformly excellent, and it's just an utterly entertaining film from start to finish.

I freaking loved this movie.  Suck it Hallmark.

Disney's Tarzan

Twenty-for-Seven #17 (Day7)
1999, d. Kevin Lima (Enchanted) and Chris Buck (Frozen) - Disney+

I wasn't into the Disney Renaissance era of movies.  I had just become a teenager when The Little Mermaid hit theatres in '89 and was far, far more interested in Tim Burton's Batman than a singing water princess.  By the time the Renaissance era closed, with Disney's Tarzan, I had only seen The Lion King and was highly disinterested in the animated-musical style and princess-centricness of these films...and the Matrix just came out.  Plus Pixar had changed the game completely in both animation and family-centric storytelling.  The standard Disney Animated offerings, even those Renaissance era ones, seemed like relics.

As the last two decades rolled on, I still haven't warmed to those renaissance era films.  Aladdin is okay, the Lion King is pretty good, the rest...I still don't care.  So why Tarzan? Why now?

Well, Tarzan, because it's on the list of unwatched movies in my All Superhero Movies Ranked post, so I guess I should have intention of watching it some day.  That day was New Years Day 2020 because I had another 4 films I needed to watch for my 20 films in 7 days challenge, and I was looking at things I needed a push to watch.  Oh, and I was feeling like I needed to get *SOMETHING* else out of Disney+ besides just watching The Mandalorian over and over.  (I would've been perfectly happy to spend the same amount of time rewatching The Mandalorian instead of all the 20-4-7 movies, but I need to push myself out of my nerd-dome once in a while).

To say I immediately regretted putting on Tarzan would not be inaccurate.  The film launches into a Phil Collins song and an extended montage of Tarzan's parents having a shipwreck, landing on an island, establishing a home, and then getting (inferred) killed by a tiger, all intercut with a montage of a gorilla losing her baby to the same tiger and being sad.  To be fair, Collins' song is actually very well timed with the imagery, a few pauses taken here and there, that by minute three some emotional resonance between song and imagery really comes through...but I don't really care for Phil Collins and I found the whole thing tedious and a bit painful.

The montage prologue leads to the gorilla mom (Glenn Close) rescuing the baby, adopting it as her own, naming it Tarzan, raising it to childhood where he is seen kind of as an outcast, but not really bullied as much as you would think.  The alpha gorilla (Lance Henricksen), ostensibly his foster father, doesn't care much for him.  He grows up again and becomes a very sturdy man with no body or facial hair for some reason (with the voice of Tony Goldwyn).  He's got a gift of mimicry (which for some reason doesn't really come into play as a useful skill) and an agility, dexterity and fearlessness that's above human but also somehow beyond ape.  He also does this sliding-along-branches thing that just drives me fucking nuts, because it makes no sense.  Tree branches are not slick and feet are not smooth...how on earth is he sliding so extensively throughout the forest?  It's such an aggravating conceit that's meant to just be a cool talent he has, lending nicely to tracking shots through the jungle.

Anyway, it's Tarzan.  Of course, Jane (Minnie Driver) and her dad (Nigel Hawthorne), animal researchers, show up with a trigger happy guide (Brian Blessed) leading them through the jungle.  Tarzan and Jane form a bond, but Tarzan's gorilla-dad is afraid of them... with reason.  His encounter with the humans eventually gets him killed, and it's all Tarzan's fault.  Way to go, Tarzan! But he eventually saves the day and Jane and her dad come to live with the apes in the jungle, all happily ever after like.

I didn't mention the sidekicks, Tarzan's gorilla BFF Terk (Rosie O'Donnell) and elephant sidekick Tantor (Wayne Night), because they are the useless Timon and Pumba side story comic relief here that serve no purpose in the main narrative.  They're inconsequential and the film spends way too much time with them.  They get a particularly tedious Stomp-like found-sound rhythmic number that I just fast forwarded through.

There is some very nice animation in the film (I particularly like the thoughtfulness in Tarzan's physicality), but I just had a hard time connecting with the material.  It's Tarzan.  I never cared for Tarzan.  The most interesting part of Tarzan should be his savageness but that's the part Disney diluted the most.  He's mostly plain whitebread here, a handsome prince for a lost princess in the jungle to find.  Ugh, that Disney Renaissance formula.

Somehow, even though I had never watched the film before, I knew the Phil Collins songs with extensive familiarity (perhaps not every word, but certainly I knew all the songs well enough to hum along were I so inspired [I was not]).  I don't hate it but it just reminds me about what I don't like about that era of Disney.

Ad Astra

2019, James Gray (The Lost City of Z) -- download

I understood what Gray was trying to give us, a movie of emotion held back and emotion released, one that explored the relationship between a  not-young man and the father he never felt truly connected to, yet not able to truly let go of. It wanted to attach this core to a scifi story that spoke of the near future, of attainable space travel, and of what we as humans want from our next stage in space exploration. It was understanding that, in that I gave the movie a pass even before seeing it, after hearing all the mixed reviews and the words "boring" tossed out.

I am OK with boring, as long as I am given some awe of the production values or the setting or the performances. I am not OK with being bored while in the midst of a sloppy story full of nonsensical, barely scifi elements that are trying to be grounded in real science. The movie opens with Roy McBride (Brad Pitt, Twelve Monkeys) working on a giant space structure in low orbit. McBride's work is interrupted by bright flash in the collective sky which causes overloads to the space station cum giant antenna cum space elevator. Things explode and McBride parachutes back to Earth, from orbit. Thus begins the lead-head-to-side-and-say-really grasp on science the movie maintains.

The flash has come from somewhere deep in space, likely related to McBride's father who was lost on a mission 16 years earlier. He is asked by Space Command (established by Trump?) to head to Mars where a very very strong communications array exists -- it can send a message from Young(ish) McBride to Old McBride, to find out what the fuck he is doing. Apparently these surges, generated by a man-made machine could lead to the end of all life on Earth. Somehow. Getting to Mars involves moon pirates and angry baboons.

As we experience the world Young McBride lives in, we are exposed to him, his mental state, one that is tightly connected to his memories of his father and his extreme desire to keep all emotions in check. He is known for always keeping his heart rate low. We are supposed to see him as completely in control, but I only saw him as always on the delicate edge, always able to fake the computer moderated psyche evals, and always just about to crack. This is supposed to strike us, emotionally, but forgive me for just sighing and not being moved by his daddy issues.

As for the rest, the science fiction was not fantastical enough to be overlooked nor strict enough to be marveled at. And there were just so many moments I shook my head as to why. Sure, the moon buggy chase scene looked good out of context, but the context they provided was so thin it seemed added so there would be some action, i.e. Space Pirates!! As well, the baboons. I can accept the Mars flight being diverted to a random space station sending out a mayday -- there cannot be that many safe flight paths from the Moon to Mars, but once McBride loses a man to a mad monkey, he just runs away, back to the ship and onto Mars, one man down. Again, why even show the scene? Why?!?!

McBride is led to his inevitable confrontation with his father (Tommy Lee Jones, Volcano) on the never-really-lost deep space expedition. Yes, their technology is sending out the flashes that move very fast and are causing lots of damage on Earth. Why does this exist? Why can't it be turned off? Why can't he just tell people "oops" and get assistance? All because he has lost it emotionally, having the crux of his journey into deep space (find evidence of alien life) failed and thus lost his will to accept human reality. Dude, space is big, REALLY big. Just because you cannot find it doesn't mean its not out there. Young McBride finally has to really, truly let go of his father and this emotional catharsis is also supposed to save the human race. But, by this time, I really didn't care.

The whole movie seemed to be about the emotional indulgence of aging men. Maybe that was the point, to show what a creator could get so wrapped up in. That his own reflections and extravagances of the movie could really amount to nothing but .... nothing.

Clue

Twenty-for-Seven #16 (Day6)
1985, d. Jonathan Lynn (My Cousin Vinny)

Clue was weirdly a very popular movie among people my age back in the 1980s.  It seemed to smack that 10-13 year-old group right in the face with its cheekiness, it's morbid humour and its overtly comedic sensibilities.  I know I watched it a few times in my youth, and likely on video with each of the alternate endings tacked on.  That alone was quite the marvel, providing a bit of outre-ness to a very mainstream, very commercial, very capitalistic offering.

I haven't watched Clue in likely 30 years, yet it was still remarkably familiar.  I didn't remember everything, but certain jokes I could tell were coming, certain scenes I was anticipating, and some quotes and happenings I was recalling as they happened.  It was a nostalgia trip rewatching it, to be sure.

The film has its devotees, a little cult of like-aged people to myself who hold it with very weird esteem.  And honestly, I get it.  By today's standards, it's a bit light on comedy, effects, set dressing, and such (it has very much the tellings of a debut picture), but even still it's a very entertaining movie (if honestly still a little bit confusing with it's rapid, running-around pacing) with a delightfully goofball cast.

I remember Entertainment Tonight segments marveling at the audacity of a film to be based on a board game in 1985.  It seemed an impossible thing to make a workable film out of something that had no pre-existing narrative.  How to make those names like Col. Mustard and Prof. Plum work in any believable way...?  How to incorporate all the aspects of the game and yet actually make a coherent story...?

The answer was quite simple in making it a comedy as well as a murder mystery.  Revel in the deaths, with each murder more hilarious than the last, and wrap it all up with one of the greatest gimmicks in cinema history (three different endings, dispersed to different theatres during its initial run).  It didn't make for the most successful film, as I think the general populace was still dubious (we didn't wind up seeing  slew of other board games immediately) but it struck a chord with a certain population of youth and comedy lovers.

As a murder mystery, it's pretty dodgy (being open ended enough to have multiple murderers revealed will do that) and as a comedy it's a bit slow, but mixed together and it's an entirely unique thing, a grand farce that's part Agatha Christie and part Benny Hill.

The cast is a great who's who of comedic acting talent from the era: Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry, Martin Mull, Michael McKean, Leslie Ann Warren, and Madeline Kahn all putting in exceptionally game performances.  It holds up surprisingly well.  It's certainly an artifact of its time, but I think it would still delight youger viewers today.

Funeral In Berlin

Twenty-for-Seven #15 (Day6)
1966, d. Guy Hamilton (many James Bond pictures) - AmazonPrime

I like a good espionage story, especially a retro one.  The James Bond movies aren't really espionage, they're more action built on the trappings of spy stories.  I like those too, but I dig things like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (and others in the Le Carre oeuvre) or The Sandbaggers tv show, real nitty gritty, no frills espionage.

Len Deighton wrote a series of spy novels about an unnamed spy in the 1960s, sort of as a counterpoint to the flash-bang James Bond mania, and it was these novels that became the "Harry Palmer" trilogy starring Michael Caine.  It's been almost three years since I watched the first in the series, The Ipcress File, which I loved, apparently, but barely remember at this point.

Like most spy stories, there's no continuing narrative, just new missions.  Harry Palmer is a workaday spy.  He's committed to a job that pays very little and supports him even less.  He's often being tempted by foreign agents but never wavers in his commitment.  In Funeral In Berlin, at least, we get no real explanation as to what Palmer's motivations are, other than severe commitment to service, and some sort of moral high ground.

In this second of the series (which could easily be watched on its own) Palmer is tasked to go to Berlin and support the defection of a high ranking Russian official.  Berlin, still cleft in twain, East and West, is a more and more fascinating setting the further we get from the 1990 reunification.  It's otherworldly at this point, a very distinct world.  Even at this stage of the mid-'60's the prosperity of the western side stands stark in comparison to the communist-run East.

Palmer needs to vet the Russian offical (despite already being cleared to support his extraction) and then he's tasked with finding a very explicit resource to do the extraction.  All of this of course is in addition to a "chance" encounter with a sandy blonde model by the name of Sam Steele who woos him and beds him.  Palmer, of course, realizes something's up when a beautiful woman is this quickly taken with him, and it's not long before he learns her secret.  The different threads start weaving together before becoming inextricably entangled, leading to a tense, yet largely action free finale.

Director Hamilton was fresh off of Goldfinger, the quintessential Bond, when he took up this one, so it's remarkable how little of that Bond feel spilled over.  Where the 007 lifestyle feels glamorous, Harry Palmer's life feels dirty, lowly, pauperish.  He doesn't get along with the boss, and is routinely trying to stick it to the man. Bond humour is more pithy, Palmer's barbs are cutting.

Caine is a remarkable leading man and handles this role like he's living in the skin of the character, feeling the cold chill in Berlin's damp air and the warmth of the whiskey he's sipping with a woman beyond his reach.  He effectively undersells his intuitiveness at every turn to disarm both the audience, his allies and the enemy when his competence rears its head.

It's methodically paced, but not at all boring.  I'm keen for round three, Billion Dollar Brain

Life (2017)

Twenty-for-Seven #14 (Day6)
2017, d. Daniel Espinosa - Netflix

I had zero interest in seeing Life in 2017.  I was tired of the "trapped in space" genre at that time and wasn't sure if I could tolerate more Ryan Reynolds.  Plus, there weren't so many raves and it kind of tanked at the box office.

Two years later I started hearing on podcasts and other sources (like Toast's review) that perhaps Life was underappreciated, that perhaps it was actually a pretty good modern-day Alien riff, that perhaps I might like to check it out if I'm into such things.

It's most definitely a modern-day Alien riff.  But it's also a film that is way too pleased with itself and its technical capabilities.  It spends its first few minutes following floating people around and then lovingly continues to follow floating people around for the remainder of the film, the camera very in love with the technique they're using to get people floating around.  The way the camera tracks the floating people does give us a 360 degrees of workable space, and I'm sure technically there's something very innovative going on here, but as a viewer trying to engage with the characters and story, I found it very, very wanting.

A Mars probe returns to a space station orbiting Earth with samples of the red planet's land.  Within the samples, a dormant micro-organism is found.  The organism is resuscitated and starts to grow.  It begins to exhibit signs of intelligent behaviour, and it's not too long before it becomes aggressive and wants to break free of its captive state and start feeding off the cooling systems and people on the space station.  It breaks free and does what it intends to do.

Nicknamed "Calvin", the martian entity is a neat and formidable foe for the crew, who not only have to deal with the immediate personal threat the entity poses but also the residual threat from all the damage it's accidentally causing to the station's systems.

The problem this film has, almost entirely, is in its characters.  There are great performers here in Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Ariyon Bakare, but knowing the set-up in advance, none of their characters ever feel like anything more than fodder for the creature to kill.  Gyllenhaal's pilot character, most especially, feels like a non-presence in the film.  Even though he's part of the main finale sequence, it feels like it could be anyone and it wouldn't make a difference.

It's true, the effects are very well done here, and the film looks pretty great, I just had a real problem connecting with it.  I think the film wanted to feel as scientific as possible perhaps in an attempt to ground it for the audience, but in giving us a fantastical killing machine, it actually had latitude to be able to push the limits of its sci-fi setup.

I liked it's dire finale tremendously, but I don't think it did well enough to present a sequel. 

The Little Hours

Twenty-for-Seven #13 (Day 6)
2017, d. Jeff Baena (Joshy) - Netflix

I don't get it.

I don't get how writer/director Jeff Baena managed to get this cast together for a film this underwhelming.  Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Kate Micucci, Dave Franco, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Nick Offerman, Fred Armisen, Paul Reiser, Adam Pally, Lauren Weedman and more.  This is a seriously stacked-full-of-comedic-talent film...so why is it so... lacking?  But then again, I thought much the same about Baena's Joshy, so should I be that surprised?

Backdrop of this film is it's comprised of tales taken from the 14th Century story collection The Decameron by Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, but unscripted and left to the gifted cast of performers to improvise their way through.  As such it's a tale set largely in period-appropriate convent but with performers acting with very modern language and sensibilities.

The film finds the young nuns of the convent (Brie, Plaza, Micucci) feeling a bit of cabin fever with hormonal urges.  An attractive young man (Franco), fleeing from his lord after having an adulterous affair with his wife, finds refuge at the convent, pretending to be a deaf-mute, where he attracts the eyes and urges of the nuns.

The film's attempt to play the farce are undercut by the improvised nature, and the improvised nature is undercut by the demands of the farce.  There are definitely some laughs and bold performances (Micucci does some audacious, ridiculous and hysterical work in the nude in the third act), but I can't help but wonder if it needed a more assured directorial hand or a script with more of a foundation for the actors to riff off of. 

Some of the editing and pacing is strange and seems to impact the comedic timing of certain scenes as well as any character or relationship development, which is a shame as there's a lot of good set-up in the mix (Shannon is particularly underutilized).  It feels like this was done quickly and cheaply, that there wasn't time to hone any given scene comedically or visually.  It's by no means unwatchable, but  I want so much better out of this film than I got, and given the performers involved, there should be so much more amusement.

3 Short Paragraphs: Code 8

2019, Jeff Chan (Grace: The Possession) -- download

Are we in the post-superhero phase of cinema yet? After more than ten years of the successful Marvel Cinematic Universe and a few years of the lopsided DC Universe, are we over superheroes? Do we want to be? Or do we, and by we I mean those of us that read superhero comics, want to see something else from the genre we so love? I am OK if the mainstream audience fade away, back into the corners of bio-pics and tragic small town life. Leave us to explore what is like to have superpowers.

Connor (Robbie Amell, Arq) is a Level 5 Electric, where 5s are the top of the metre. His world is one where people with powers are considered dangerous (true) and are registered and kept from using their powers. They live on the fringes of life, feared by "normal" humans and are often below the poverty line. I am sure Trump would have them in camps, or at least behind walls. But Connor's mother is dying from an unknown condition, one that leaves her without control of her powers, brief moments where she freezes anything she touches. Its likely fatal, not that they could afford health care. So, what is Connor left with but the wrong side of the law?

Garret (Stephen Amell, Arrow) is a mid-level thug working for a mid-level drug dealer, with a gang of powered cohorts. They have a big score in the works and need an Electric; thus comes Connor. Code 8 is another built on a well done, well cast short, but like Kin is one that doesn't live up to the source material. Don't get me wrong; its a solid, decently done indie flick with some flair and great performances. But it doesn't rise above its electric or telekinetic flares. The short set up a premise, and gave us the beginning of a chase movie. I think this would have served the genre better instead of the low-level crime thriller we got.

Dolemite Is My Name

Twenty-for-Seven #12 (Day 5)
2019, d. Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow) - Netflix

The Tarantino effect on my movie watching was rather huge.  My obsession with Pulp Fiction in the mid-90s drove me to seek out all sorts of different genres of music and movies I hadn't previously been exposed to, including blacksploitation.  I watched most of the big name pictures - Shaft, Truck Turner, Cleopatra Jones, Black Belt Jones, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and more of the smaller ones - and was explicitly aware of both Rudy Ray Moore and Dolemite by name but I completely mistook what I heard about it as a celebration, rather than satire, of pimp culture.  It's so nice to be re-educated.

Dolemite Is My Name is half biopic on Rudy Ray Moore and half behind-the-scenes on the production of Dolemite.  It's also a very, very strong reminder of what a charismatic performer Eddie Murphy can be, and makes one wish he chose his projects more judiciously to be in higher standard efforts like this.

Rudy Ray Moore had tried it all, with unsuccessful records and comedy albums behind him.  In his mid-40's working at a record store  he desperately wanted to be an entertainer and showman of note, but by the 1970s the type of singing/dancing/comedy performers Moore was emulating had started to vanish.  Comedy clubs has started forming and performers like Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor started working blue, and Moore's outdated stylings were gaining him no traction.  Around this time he caught on to the local legend of "Dolemite", a figure of tall tales the homeless and addicted would tell each other for amusement.  Moore started refining the stories with dirtier, more comedic punchlines and then started inhabiting the character on stage.  After very successfully self-printing and selling records, he joined up with a label to greater success.

But there was still more opportunity he foresaw, especially at the movies.  He self financed (including a series of loans) production of a movie based around the Dolemite character.  It's not something that should have worked, really but his intuition served him well, finding the right crew of people to work with, and the right motivation for making it all happen.

The film serves Moore very well, presenting him as an up-front, honest, and decent man whose desires were to entertain and to make a name for himself doing so.  He shrewdly saw a need in a market and filled the void, multiple times.  The act of doing Dolemite may not have been his preferred way to becoming a star, but he was dedicated to performing, whatever it took.

Murphy is downright excellent in the role, disappearing into a personality that obviously means a lot to him.  There's a real sense of love and affection to the portrayal of Moore, almost as if Murphy is trying to say "this is how I'd like to be remembered some day".

The cast is excellent, with Wesley Snipes delivering an unflattering but hilarious performance as coked out, vainglorious actor/director D'Urville Martin (Martin in real life would have been 35 at the time of shooting Dolemite, and died at age 45 in 1984... Snipes is now 57).  Da'vine Joy Randolph is incredible as Lady Reed, who has a very close friendship with Moore, one that the film treasures without ever insinuating is leading towards a romantic one.  It's rather beautiful aspect of the film. Other supporting cast are rounded out by comedy stalwarts Keegan Michael Key, Craig Robinson, Titus Burgess, Mike Epps with some guest shots from Chris Rock, Bob Odenkirk, Snoop Dogg, and Ron Cephas Jones.

Dolemite Is My Name is a fun time and clearly made with an affinity towards the source and what it meant in its time.  It certainly made me curious about this overlooked blacksploitation parody on my part.  Black Dynamite is one of my favourite all-time movies and Dolemite seems to have been a clear influence on it.

Logan Lucky

Twenty-for-Seven #11 (Day 5)
2017, d. Steven Soderbergh - Netflix

I wish I had seen Logan Lucky before I saw the season 4 Rick and Morty episode ""One Crew over the Crewcoo's Morty", wherein Rick get out all his frustrations with (or really, vehement hatred of) the heist genre of films.  The episode takes a very satirical look at the overused cliches of the genre, and then drums them into the ground so effectively that one may wish to never see them again.

I didn't really know that's what Logan Lucky was about when I chose to watch it.  I remembered the advertising from back when it came out and it had an almost Coen Bros. vibe to it.  With some star players putting on a thick southern drawl, I was perhaps hoping for a Carolina's-based Fargo-type story.  Alas, it's another heist movie.  Soderbergh loves his heist movies.

Logan Lucky walks a fine line between mocking and sympathizing the North Carolinians in his picture. He at once upholds dumb southerner stereotypes while also allowing for the fact that the accent can undersell one's intelligence, even perhaps manipulating the audience into thinking all the characters are rubes or idiots, when it may well be that Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) is somewhat of a genius, and a few of his accomplices have their own deep competencies.

His crew consists of his hairdresser sister Millie (Riley Keough), his one-armed veteran brother Clyde (Adam Driver), explosives expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) and Joe's cousins Sam and Fish Bang (Brian Gleeson and Jack Quaid), with the latter two really inhabiting the bumpkin cliche.  The plan is to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway in a crime of opportunity.  Jimmy has devised a plan based on some inside knowledge he gained while working construction to repair sinkholes.  The one catch is there's a particular safe style that they need a particular skill set to bust open, that being Joe Bang, who, unfortunately, is currently incarcerated and the window to getting things done is fast closing.  Thus the plan also entails Clyde getting arrested and then busting Joe Bang out of prison, and returning him after the job, without anyone being the wiser.

There's the usual fake-outs and deceits along the way but the job goes off with complications, and then the feds get involved.

There's some side-plotting featuring Seth McFarlane as a rich energy drink mogul and Sebastian Stan as a NASCAR driver sponsored by said energy drink, as well as dealing with Jimmy's custody issues surrounding his daughter with his ex-wife (Katie Holmes).  The daughter stuff seems important to Jimmy's character but the NASCAR side story is tangential, until it isn't.

By the end we get the "look how clever" montage and perhaps the hint of a not so happy ending afterall.  It's light and fun, but it's saying next to nothing.  It has no real cultural statement, no commentary on racing, or southern culture, or American culture or crime.  It seems to revel intentionally in drinking and fighting and children's pageantry and racing and crime... as if Soderbergh truly wanted an Oceans 13 for the redneck set.

I had never really thought about how repetitious heist films are until Rick and Morty and while I don't have quite the fervent disdain for them as Rick does, I certainly understand the apathy towards them now.

The Oath

Twenty-for-Seven #10 (Day 4)
2018, d. Ike Barinholtz - Netflix

The world is not a great place right now.  Insidious agents Russian, American and otherwise have managed to create such an extreme level of divisiveness that people are continually angry at everyone about everything.  Everything is the result of an agenda causing people to be on one side or the other...there's no longer a concept of "common ground".  This brewing pot of division has been a decades long process, one that's been permitted to happen and has culminated in political contrasts that have allowed some truly horrendous people to rise to the upper reaches of power.  One of those is a certain toe-headed, orange-faced, totalitarian blowhard to the south who feels he is flawless, above the law and demands respect and fealty with no reciprocation.

About 150 scandals ago, the orange tyrant was heard to have requested loyalty oaths from the people working for him in the government, promising to serve his best interests, not the people of the country.  This film, from comedian/writer/actor/director Ike Barinholtz, takes it one step further and has the fictional president of the United States asking its people to sign a loyalty oath, noting that it's "completely voluntary" except that it's increasingly clear through news reports that there are repercussions for not signing it.

The deadline for signing the Oath is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, so the film leads into this time, as families start to gather and prepare food and argue over differences in political opinion.  Barinholtz play Chris, a stern opposer to the Oath and a bit of a cable news junkie.  Tiffany Haddish plays Kai, his wife, who suffers through Chris' rants and outrage and new obsession, agreeing halfheartedly, but mostly just hoping for it to end.  They have a great relationship otherwise, but it's clear Chris' news fixation is a problem.

At this stage all Chris can talk about is The Oath, but he's promised to let go of it for Thanksgiving, since his right-leaning parents are coming (Nora Dunn and Chris Ellis), as is his far right-wing brother (Barinholtz's actual brother, Jon) and his new, alt-right propaganda-spewing girlfriend (Meredith Hagner).  Chris' sister (Carrie Brownstein) seems to be the only other bastion of liberalism in the family so he's elated when she finally shows up (her husband [Jay Duplass] in tow, but down and out with the flu).

The Oath keeps simmering to the surface, no matter how hard everyone tries to surpress it, and even when it's not a topic, Chris can't help but clash with the more extreme right-wing members of his family.  After a particularly tragic Thanksgiving, the family is visited by a pair of, essentially, Oath enforcers, one very reasonable (John Cho), the other a clearly unstable, aggressive zealot (Billy Magnusson).

Up to this stage in the film it's a very tense, sporadically funny, mostly uncomfortable and perhaps upsetting film that earnestly looks at people's inability to find middle ground or common sense.  Regurgitation of talking points and an utter inability to see any other viewpoint but one's own (regardless of what side you're on) shows how rigidly divided people have become, even (or perhaps especially) families.

But once the government agents turn up, the proceedings turn from political satire to outright farce.  If things were uncomfortable before, wait until things get hilariously violent, and more that a few mistakes are made, including a bit of light assault and kidnapping.

The film is an effectively dark comedy for its first hour, the performances all quite excellent, but it excels far more in its farcical final act.  It just takes too long to get there.  The film doesn't necessarily villainize the right wing as much as I think it would like to, but it certainly highlights the fact that there are extremes that the right wing falls into that make them utterly impossible to connect with, particularly when challenging them so vehemently.

The first two acts are good but uneasy watching, and the subject matter is too depressing to really enjoy it in any way, but the third act is gold.  Barinholtz ratchets up the comedic tension expertly and doesn't over-extend the moment beyond the audience's breaking point (certainly well past the characters' breaking points however).  It's a very assured first directorial feature from him.  The film ends with a major deus ex machina, but it's also quite satisfying in its resolution, a little promise that cooler heads will prevail.

Difficult, but likeable.

You Were Never Really Here

Twenty-for-Seven #9 (Day 4)
2017, d. Lynne Ramsay - AmazonPrime

I've been putting off watching this as I had heard this was difficult and ultraviolent.  I think my brain concocts far worse imagery with such a suggestion than with what actually appears on film.  But then I'm pretty desensitized to violence at this point.  You Were Never Really Here is quite violent to be sure, as our protagonist's preferred weapon is a ball peen hammer and his deep seeded rage.

Jaoquin Phoenix stars as Joe, who spends his time caring for his mother, contemplating suicide and finding missing children.  Though it's never explicitly stated it's inferred through background images that Joe has both history in the military and FBI, and that his mental health is likely what sidelined him.  Flashbacks reveal he was abused as a child by his father (who also used a ball peen hammer), and now he takes care of his elderly mother in the same home he grew up in.  He also clearly has a mission to save abused children, but through black market/under-the-table means, and uses this path to get out his anger.

The title is the only real reference to how Joe operates, despite the trail of destruction he leaves he seems to disappear from any real consequences, until his latest mission, rescuing a senator's aide's daughter from a child sex ring, which has connections much higher than anyone suspected.  The blowback on Joe and his very small circle of family and acquaintances, is brutal.

While film is crisp, brisk and action heavy (but in a very minimal way) it's also very subtle in its portrayal of Joe and Ramsay has a very deliberate hand in how and when she reveals information about him.  Are some acts that would appear suicidal just comforting to him?  It's hard to know what is what with Joe.

Phoenix is always an actor who invests in the roles he performs, and here he's living the part of a grizzled, traumatized veteran who knows his purpose but still has to fight himself to carry on.  It's wholly believable, and a little upsetting.  He seems relatively nice but you can tell there's something very dark living underneath.

Johnny Greenwood provides an ominous soundtrack to the picture which reinforces it's art-house action movie vibe, certainly elevating it as well.  After watching uber-stylized ultra-violence with two John Wick movies back-to-back, it's surprising to see something much simpler in composition be just as effective, if not even more impactful.

Enemy

Twenty-for-Seven #8 (Day 4)
2013, d. Denis Villeneuve - AmazonPrime

(I was hoping to do a trilogy of doppleganger movie reviews, but 2013's The Double, directed by Richard Ayoade, is unavailable on the streaming services I have, so for now it's just a duo, which is more thematic anyway)

Jakey G has Toronto and spiders on his mind

In the Letterboxd app's decade in review, Denis Villeneuve topped the list of top 100 directors.  Now, I admit, I'm very late to the game on appreciating Villeneuve.  There are many of his films I've wanted to see over the years, and very few I have actually seen.  I was years behind on Arrival and certainly many months behind on Blade Runner 2049.  Both of these films impressed me greatly yet I spent no effort to review his back catalog, so I became quite surprised to recently find that Incendies, Prisoners, Sicario and Enemy (all films on my "to watch" list) were all Villeneuve films.  I see the connective tissue between Arrival, Blade Runner and (forthcoming) Dune, but none of these seem to fit together as a "type".  But then I haven't watched all of them yet.

Enemy I was curious about years ago, mainly because I like the idea of discovering a doppleganger and then tracking them down.  I had forgotten that the film is set in Toronto... and not "Toronto posing as X" as it so often does.  It's exciting to see Jake Gyllenhaal jump on the 504 King Streetcar or to look up an address in Mississauga and actually go out to Mississauga (and see those salt and pepper shaker apartment complexes in the background).  Toronto never plays Toronto, so this is an added thrill.

Beyond that, the film is very curious in the way the lead character Adam gets so worked up over discovering his visual double, Anthony, after seeing him as a background performer while watching a video.  It becomes obsessive for him, and once they finally meet, Anthony is absurdly angry about the whole situation.

What we learn is Anthony is quite an asshole.  He's a member of some weird sex club, he cheats on his pregnant wife and seems completely self-involved.  Adam meanwhile is demure and reticent.  He has a fuck buddy but they don't seem very intimate or close.  Gyllenhaal does remarkable work differentiating these two in both demeanor and physicality.

The accompanying soundtrack by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans infers something very sinister, while the heavy shadows and yellowish hue Villeneuve applies provides and overbearing gloominess and weight to the world Adam lives in.  There's a repeating motif of arachnids, which seem to be weighing on both Adam and Anthony's minds, a web of deceit spun that they both get caught in.

The end of the film is a puzzle, one that I had to look up other reviews to make sense of.  This is a film about duplicity and deception, the lies we create and then fall victim to ourselves.  Adam and Anthony, you see, are the same person, and with this understanding the film becomes much less literal and far more metaphorical.  There isn't a twist ending, that reveals this, it's all still undercover and inferred.  I'm not sure if it helps going into the film knowing this, or if it's better to discover it after, but I think the film works in either situation.   In effect, Anthony has created a whole other life in order to conduct his extramarital affairs, so segregated that he's effectively bifurcated his personality into two distinct characters.

It's quite brilliant in its execution, but I needed that extra outside nudge to get the message.  I've been thinking and parsing out the film a lot since watching it, and I'll defintely need to watch it again. I see how Villeneuve went from Enemy to Arrival from here, if only in style.

(Toast's take circa 2014)

Us

Twenty-for-Seven #7 (Day 3)
2019, d. Jordan Peele - Crave

Jordan Peele returns with another retro-styled creep fest, about a family terrorized by, seemingly, other-dimensional doppelgangers.

We begin in the mid-80's at a Californian boardwalk carnival.  A young girl, Adelaide, wanders off from her arguing parents into an isolated fun house.  In the room of mirrors she encounters herself and is traumatized for a very long time.

In present day Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) and her family have come to California to that same carnival, only for Adelaide to experience a creeping unease upon being in the area.  Later that night at the vacation cottage, they spy quartet standing at the end of their driveway.  Peele teases out nothing, and in no time this family of red jumpsuits have descended upon the house and overtaken their prey.   These people are visually identical, but mostly mute, except for Adelaide's double who speaks with a pained rasp.

But the family, bruised and battered, manage to escape, only to find the world has started to become overrun by red jumpsuits.  The immediate world has descended into chaos, with each doppleganger's mission seeming to be to murder their opposite then join a "Hands Across America"-like lineup.  Escape seems impossible.

Eventually Adelaide winds up in the Fun House again, discovering a deep dark tunnel which reveals the truth about the reality of the dopplegangers, and the entire film falls apart.  Peele reaches for a grounded, science-gone-wrong explanation which makes the conceit so much harder to believe than had it been an alternate reality/mirror universe that these people came from.  It's tonally only a soundtrack spin and a few punch ups away from being an extended Key and Peele comedy sketch.

The performances in this are delightful, with Clark Duke, Elizabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker and all the younger actors putting in entertaining turns as both the normal character and their oddball doubles.  But it's not enough to save the film from a very nonsensical reveal.  Peele seemed to lose his touch for tension-building in this one, as I didn't find it frightening, creepy, or intense.  I found it more silly and amusing, lacking any cultural narrative or bite like Get Out had.

(Toast's take)

Marriage Story

Twenty-for-Seven #6 (Day 2)
2019, d. Noah Baumbach - Netflix


At this stage in life I'm not much of a drama guy. I'm too aware of drama in the world (it's ever-present), at work, and of course all the drama family life can bring with it.  I want as little drama as possible, so when I want to watch TV or a movie, something classified as "drama", especially something approximating real life, is the last thing I want. 

Baumbach's early work traded in heightened drama, punching up the dramatic elements to the point that it's so awkward and uncomfortable that it borders on satirical, comedic even.  But looking closer, especially at the past 10 years of his work, he seems to be settling into a Woody Allen-esque light/comedy-drama phase.  There's more character-based comedy rather than social awkwardness, and the drama seems to be tempered so that the characters, less so the audience, bear the brunt of it. 

The writer-director seems to have found an effective way to draw the audience, and invest in the character but in an outside observer, 3rd person narrative kind of way, not in a first-person, this-is-me way.  This slight sense of detachment allows the comedy to filter through much easier, and the more dramatic elements to slide off. 

With Marriage Story, I was expecting more of a return to the The Squid and the Whale type discomfort, but was pleased to find it was a lot more forgiving than that. 

In reality, Marriage Story is "Divorce Story" as we meet theatre director Charlie (Adam Driver) and actress Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) at couples counseling as they navigate the first stage of their separation.  This counseling starts in the form of a montage with each character narrating what they like or love about the other character.  It sets the tone immediately that these two were clearly in love with each other at one time and still retain a great deal of respect and admiration. 

Nicole is moving to L.A. with their son, Henry -- an adaptable, whip-smart kid who isn't afraid to speak his own mind -- while Charlie brings his play to broadway.  The divorce proceedings start out civil until the lawyers become involved and the film presents a definitely satirical look at how the legal side of things has become an industry, and not necessarily anything to benefit any party in the relationship.

The film decides to focus more on Charlie's experience with this, rather than Nicole's, which shows Baumbach's bias in the script (as it was inspired by his own divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh).  But it mercifully doesn't portray Nicole in a bad light in any way, more just the family law's bias against the fathers in custody battles.   The larger satire mainly falls in the fact that Charlie and Nicole want to come to a reasonable understanding with their divorce, but it's the lawyers who, so used to having to engage combative participants, spur on this kind of challenging, mud-slinging atmosphere that gets things dirty.  Once out of reach of the lawyers, Charlie and Nicole still have very healthy communication, but with percolating resentment that wasn't there before.

Marriage Story is quite wry, and not as nerve-racking as I was expecting.  I found all the characters very entertaining (Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Mickey Sumner, Julie Hagerty, Ray Liotta all in great supporting roles) and their dynamics with each other was impeccable.  The film so rarely ratchets up any tension, that when Charlie and Nicole finally explode on each other, it's more a result of frustration at the process than any real disdain for each other.  It's cathartic, but immediately regretted, and thing become uneasy for a while.  But the film wants both characters to find comfort, and the audience as well.  It makes it through okay, but also makes you wish for a better path.

If anything, Marriage Story, wants to let you know that communication is key to relationships if they're to work, but it takes work, and clarity.  Nicole and Charlie communicated well, but not well enough for their relationship to survive, and not well enough to make their divorce a smooth one.  And still it seems to have worked out so much better than most divorces tend to.

This is the type of drama I can handle any day.  Two people who may have conflict but are still able to find the civility in it, and the observant third party who can find the humour amidst all of it. 

The Aeronauts

Twenty-for-Seven #5 (Day 2)

2019, d. Tom Harper - AmazonPrime

Here's that origin story of the science of weather forecasting that absolutely nobody was asking for.

Seriously, that's ultimately what this tale is, the remarkable, probably-not-even-close-to-accurate adventure partaken by a female balloonist and a male scientist as they ventured into the upper atmosphere of the earth.

Real-life scientist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) is laughed at by one of those big assemblies of old white men ("royal society of whatever") about his thoughts on meteorological studies, that there was any science at all to predicting the weather.  He set out to hire a balloonist to take him up high in the sky to advance his studies but nobody would take him on, at least in this story.

Enter Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones), a fictional construct still pained and traumatized by the loss of her husband in a ballooning accident the year or so previous.  It takes much convincing on Glaisher's part but he manages to secure the funding and gets her to agree to pilot him. 

After some crown appeasement they take to the sky and venture up, up, up.  In their 80 minute journey they face storm clouds, butterflies, freezing cold, thinning air, and much worse on the way down.

The film is told inter-cutting the voyage with the history of how the adventure came to be, and the odd (likely to pad out the run-time) look at people on the ground waiting in anticipation for news of the journey (or looking through spyglasses). 

There are some real and CGI vistas which are both quite gorgeous but it's not enough to sustain the film.  Moments of action and excitement seem largely manufactured, and are more eye-rolling than thrilling.

In real life, Glaisher was much older than Redmayne when he made his first of many trips into the sky, and he was accompanied by a male pilot, not a female one.  I find that "based on a true story" is the biggest burden to any film as it then sets the viewer on a mental path to validating the events as portrayed in the film, and much of what happens here seems unlikely.  One or two lesser intense mishaps perhaps, but so much going wrong in one short flight seems unlikely.

Redmayne and Jones have worked together before, thus they have an easy, established chemistry.  The film takes admirable pains not to put them into any sort of romantic entanglements (that would have been unbearable).  They seem like professional colleagues who don't necessarily trust each other at first but have to come to rely upon each other for survival. 

It's passable entertainment but I needed to be doing something else (a puzzle, actually) while watching it.

John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum

Twenty-for-Seven #4 (Day 2):

2019, d. Chad Stahelski - AmazonPrime

Man, they do great poster designs for these films

When we left John Wick at the end of Chapter 2, he had just killed a dude inside the Continental.  One of the main rules of this universe is there is no "business" to be conducted on Continental grounds.  John has a preexisting relationship with the manager (Ian McShane) so he was given one hour to get his shit together before he was to be pronounced "excommunicated" and a $14million bounty is put on his head.  You can't kill a member of the High Table without repercussions.

Let's pause here:
Parabellum, as defined by the Free Dictionary, means :  

Latin for "prepare for war," from the phrase, Si vis pacem, para bellum, meaning "If you want peace, prepare for war"

It also has various intonations around firearm rounds or cartridges, which obviously tie into John Wick's motif.

Excommunicated, again as defined by the Free Dictionary, means:

To exclude by or as if by decree from membership or participation in a group.

Just so we're clear.

The opening of John Wick Chapter 3 is a bloody mess... in that it is both bloody, and messy.  John is running in the rain, still battered and wounded from all the fighting in Chapter 2.  His unnamed dog is running by his side.  He's being tracked by every hitmanperson and gang in town.  The administrative bureau of this whole underworld (consisting entirely of Hot Topic aficionados -- so many tattoos, piercings, angular haircuts and dye jobs) is counting down the hour before John is considered excommunicated, announcing it over their loudspeaker.  The first ten minutes or so jump between John on the run and these announcements of how much time is left, and it's really, really, really stupid, as if the film thinks we'd be unaware of the time pressure John is facing unless we're constantly reminded.  John is very wounded and needs some patching up.  He finds friendly support in his waning minutes before excommunication... but time runs out and he has to patch himself up.  The doc is worried he will be found out as helping someone excommunicado and forces John to shoot him, twice to infer he was pressured into service.

John retrieves some personal items from a library and then uses a family totum to call in a favour with the Belarus mafia in NY (led by Angelica Huston), since he is a child of their clan...or whatever the deal is there, it wasn't very clear.  He is reluctantly provided with passage to Casablanca where he uses he connections to get into the Continental there, and uses a blood oath coin to get Halle Berry to reluctantly put him in contact with the head of the underworld mint.  There John learns of the Elder of the High Table who can, possibly, absolve John of his sins, but he needs to wander the desert to do so.  Of course, a high body count is collected along this whole route.

Meanwhile, an Adjudicator for the High Table is running through New York with a gang of ninjas in tow advising that everyone who helped John in any way, including the Bowery King (Lawrence Fishbourne), Angelica Huston, and Ian McShane.  They broke the rules and must be punished.  But New Yorkers have an attitude and they don't take kindly to the High Table inflicting their unmediated judgement upon them.

John meets with the Elder, who asks why John wants to live so badly.  He states it's to remember his wife.  He's asked for a sacrifice, and John slices off his ring finger.  Then he asks John to kill the Manager of the New York Continental, since he's proving to be difficult in the Adjudication process.

John agree, but chooses to side with his friend, and he, the Manager and the Concierge stave off an attack from the Adjudicator's ninjas and the High Table's barrage of armored enforcers.  The film ends with the Manager seemingly turning on John and killing him (but his body being collected by the Bowery King's legion) and staving off being a target of the high council but also having his Continental being deconsecrated, and everyone in NYC preparing to war against the high table.

I know I'm just reiterating the plot above, but it's necessary to highlight the point I wanted to make... the team kind of shit the bed on this one.  The first two chapters of John Wick set up a world of organized rules and policies that everyone's to operate in or they face consequences.  But in this third chapter, the consequences, and enforcement thereof, seem entirely arbitrary.  The film acts as if John Wick were the first to ever break the rules and they have no precedent, which seems kind of silly, to think that this one man is just *that* special.

The point is, John calls in all sorts of favours, which people like Angelica Huston and Halle Berry seem honour-bound to obey (just as John was in Chapter 2 when his blood oath was called in).  But if you're forced to obey a blood oath, how can you be punished for obeying it? And yet people are punished severely for it (including John).  But if you're not supposed to fulfil your honour-bound oaths and whatnot for someone who is excommunicated then why on earth would Angelica or Halle actually help him.  This world, their rules, no longer makes sense.

I found some enjoyment in Chapter 3; it's a good-looking film with some amazing stunt choreography, yet, for the most part I found it frustrating to watch.  The inner logic of this world fell totally apart.  Plus it seems like half the population of the globe is part of this underworld, which seems insane to me.

I've noticed along the way John has not killed certain people outright, like Common in Chapter 2 or the Minter and a couple of the ninja goons who were fanboying out when fighting him.  It's a "professional courtesy" he seems to be extending to them, so my assumption is that he will be receiving some sort of reciprocation down the line... as was the case with the Bowery King in Chapter 2.  I'll still be in for Chapters 4 & 5 (and maybe that crossover with Atomic Blonde that was hinted at), but they need to work harder to solidify their world and how it operates.

(Toast's take on Parabellum)

Late Night

twenty-for-seven: #3 (Day1)

2019, d. Nisha Ganatra - AmazonPrime

I was a fan of The Mindy Project, the Mindy Kaling-created, starring, and show-run rom-com sitcom.  I likewise found Kaling's humour collections and early sitcom very funny.  I'm a fan, I think she's pretty great.  So I had high hopes for Late Night, her first major screenplay, about a female late night talk show host facing obsolescence.

This is an intriguing premise because, in the world of late night tv, we have never had a female host at a major network, at least not of any duration. Chelsea Handler had a late night show on E!, which was as close as it's been.  There's such potential to explore the reality of this situation, the sexism within the industry and the struggles that maybe such a position would face.

But the film seems disinterested in such a topic.  Emma Thompson plays the lead role, a celebrated television icon, winner of dozens of awards over a 27 year run.  There's no actual question about her place in the comedy sphere or on late night television.  So rather than any institutionalized conflict around gender biases, she is instead facing something different, declining ratings and cultural irrelevance.

Her writing staff, comprised entirely of middle-aged white males, is phoning it in, and its here where the institutionalized sexism (and racism) is flagged as a problem.  The show's producer is tasked with finding a diversity hire, which brings Kaling into the fold.  She has minimal standup experience, few writing samples and no history in the business.  But she makes the producer laugh with a sharply observed joke in their interview and gets hired, much to the suspicion of the hegemony in the writers room.

Kaling shakes things up, in good and bad ways and the film alternates between her trials by fire and Thompson's struggles at finding new relevance, and their mutual impact on each other. 

The structure and story progression is so predictable that I found myself screaming for something original to happen.  It would be more forgivable if the film were funnier, but it's actually more of a light drama than comedy.

It's remarkable that Amazon paid such a large sum (14million) on this expecting a massive breakthrough hit.  This is a small film with a solid, charming cast (Thompson, Kaling, John Lithgow, Hugh Dancy), but it doesn't make any daring choices, and seems to avoid higher stakes commentary.

Overall, disappointing. 

High Life

Twenty-for-Seven: #2 (day 1)

2018, d. Claire Denis - AmazonPrime

The film opens on Monte (Robert Pattinson) making repairs on the exterior of a spacecraft while he talks with the baby inside, contained in a makeshift pen, with monitors displaying a variety of old earth programming.  They are alone, but we don't know why.  As the first act progresses, we get flashes of, presumably, Monte's youth on Earth...walking in the woods, a dog, a friend, the friend standing over the dog's body in a stream, the friend dead herself.  The flashes are so brief as to tease a puzzle. Two concurrent puzzles. 

We catch Monte's life and routine on the space ship, caring for an infant, working through his own depression, inputting reports into an automated system every 24 hours to sustain the life support systems. and disposing of bodies out of the air vent (but with delicate care).

Act two jumps back in time, revealing that this started out as ship full of convicts, sent out into deep space in an experiment to reach a black hole and "capture its rotation" (a "class 1 suicide ride" they describe it as).  The group of prisoners includes a doctor obsessed with reproduction, and is performing insemination experiments on the prisoners, but the radiation is killing the babies.  The crew is an uneasy mix, and a lot of weird shit happens on this ship, leading to murders and suicides.

The third act moves forward about 15 years in the future, to find Monte and his daughter Willow working the rounds on the ship.  They have been long out of communication from earth and isolated with only each other's company.  They encounter another experimental transport, only to discover things went even more wrong there, before reaching the black hole and venturing into it together.

High Life is a fascinating and meditative science fiction tale.  I'm not certain the moral or message after this initial viewing.  I had assumed initially it was an exploration of depression, but the second act toils so much in the dire circumstances of the crew, reveling in its ugly primalness and desperation, that it seems the point.  The third act finds its own level of solace, comfort and resignation, rather than the earlier depression and despair.  It leaves an impression regardless.

There's a retro cheapness to the production, giving it a 70's aesthetic with some more modern touches, and yet there's almost too many modern touches that will, in the future, date this film as part of its time.  It all seems intentional, as if Denis was looking at 70's sci-fi films and wanting to replicate their outdated timelessness.  The cheapness, perhaps of the set or ship (the ship exterior looks like a wood-paneled cargo container, strangely boxy) or costume design is masqued by effective direction and editing, the performances and mood leading the film.

This fits in the Silent Running/Solaris mold of pensive spacefaring that we don't get enough of, or at least rarely do modern versions of this type of story manage to do it so effectively.