[10 for 10 12 for 12, that's 10 12 movies which we give ourselves 10 12 minutes
apiece to write about. Part of our problem is we don't often have the
spare hour or two to give to writing a big long review for every movie
or TV show we watch. How about a 10 12-minute non-review full of
half-remembered scattershot thoughts? Surely that's doable? ]
You would think that stuck in quarantine I would have nothing better to do than trade reviews with Toasty every day. To be honest, nothing would be better than that. Alas. I still have job. I still have kids. I still have family. I still have life to attend to even though life seems to have shut down for many. I'm lucky, I suppose, to be so busy, but downtime would be good. Escape would be good. Some of these films provided a modicum of escape, some felt like a prison themselves.
In this [extended] edition:
- Aladdin (2019) Disney+
-
Sword of Trust (2019) Netflix
- Uncut Gems (2019) Netflix
- Starfish (2019) Amazonprime
-
The Phantom Thread (2017) Netflix
-
Dark Phoenix (2019) Crave
-
The Art of Self-Defense (2019) Crave
-
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) Crave
-
The Kid Who Would Be King (2019) Crave
-
Sleeping Beauty (1959) Disney+
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Tangled (2010) Disney+
-
My Spy (2020) AmazonPrime
....und... gehen!
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I wasn't a big fan of Disney's animated rebirth in the 90's. It all seemed like cutesy, sing-songy, little girl shit to my edgy, nerdy teenage self at the time. By the time I graduated to adulthood, I'd met enough women who lurrrved those films that I changed my tune, of only for their sakes. Honestly, I still never watched them. I think I had The Little Mermaid thrust upon me and that was quite enough. So the original Aladdin (which I *thought* I recently covered but turns out I neglected to write about) held no special place for me. Therefore there was no true fanboy disdain for any kind of live-action remake, but also there was absolutely zero enthusiasm. If I gave this a shot, it's because I was once a big fan of both Will Smith and Guy Ritchie so, you know, why not. Plus the actor playing the titular character (Mena Massoud) is a good Canadian boy, so why not show a little pride. Plus, it's Disney+...I'm already paying for it, might as well make the best of it, right?
Anyway. It's fine. Will Smith as the genie, well, he's no Robin Williams, but that's probably a good thing. Watching the animated Aladdin was kind of horrifying, with Williams pulling out one dusty old pop-culture reference after another. I mean, even the parents of kids watching that film in the 90's would find those corny ass impersonations/references dated, right? For some reason, people gave Williams a free pass for this kind of crap, because his manic energy would move so fast through these "jokes" that there wasn't time to register the corniness. Smith, on the other hand, plays it charming, if a bit goofy, but still with heart and smoothness. The man is still a star, and the screen really does shine brightly with him on it.
Massoud and Naomi Scott are both really, really good in their roles. They have great chemistry and strong voices. In fact the whole cast acquits themselves nicely bringing a cartoon to live action, grounding it with a more reality-based focus, while still playing with a heightened, animated (probably more theatrical) zip. I would have enjoyed it far more if it wasn't a downright ghastly CGI mess. Good lord it's an ugly, ugly, ugly film. The costuming is nice, the tangible sets, not bad at all, the fake world surrounding it was headache inducing-nightmare stuff.
[12:54]
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As I write this I just learned earlier in the day that this film's director, Lynn Shelton, tragically passed away. It should have no bearing on what I have to say about the movie, but I find myself tremendously sad. Shelton was a talented writer/director on a number of small-budget films (I'm not sure if they're classified as "mumblecore" or not) as well as episodes of great shows like The Good Place, GLOW, and Mad Men.
Sword of Trust came to my attention via Marc Maron, whose podcast, WTF I have been listening to almost since its inception about a decade ago. Maron has become a favourite comedian of mine since taking up the podcast, and his personal journey from junkie asshole to top-tier comedian/rehabilitated not-that-bad-a-guy has been a thoroughly enjoyable redemption story in real life. Maron having developed a likeable on-screen persona as well in his own sitcom Maron, as well as on GLOW has made him someone I actively root for to succeed, because I know he appreciates the success and he works hard for it.
Sword of Trust is a largely improvised movie with Maron as its co-lead with Michaela Watkins and Jillian Bell. Watkins and Bell are a couple who inherit a sword, which they learn is a piece of...let's say...alt-right alt-history. There's a whole underground (percolating above ground these days) reality of alt-right, alt-history that this film is exploring, that dangerous world of Civil War deniers and just, you know, flagrant racists and MAGA turds. This sword they bring to Maron's pawn shop and the three of them, along with Maron's hapless assistant (Jon Bass) attempt to negotiate this distasteful and ugly underbelly to profit off their own stupidity. It's a farcical romp that at times hits the heights you hope it hits, but often sits just a shade or two below mellow too often. The third act is a real comedic gem of genuine twists and turns that make for a truly entertaining picture.
It seems that Maron and Shelton started a relationship as a result of this film and I've enjoyed hearing Maron talk about his life experiences with Shelton on the show in the past year. They sound like two middle-age people who found a good groove with each other and were really digging it. In the film, Shelton plays Maron's ex, a junkie who still tries to worm her way into his life, and it's perhaps my favourite part of the film, the goddamn heart that Maron's character shows, even though he knows how painful life with this woman is. It's a great performance drawn from a director whose work I should've paid more attention to, but will rectify.
[28:42]
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There are people who worship the ground the Safdie Brothers, directors of Uncut Gems, walk on. I get it, they are undeniably talented. I could not watch this film.
I have difficulty with characters who can't see themselves for who they are, and as a result just continually dig deeper and deeper holes for themselves, eventually collapsing the ground around them, threatening to suck everyone around them in the hole with them. Howard Ratner is such a person. He's a jeweler in New York City catering to a high-end crowd with a sort of low-end disposition. He's also a gambling junkie. And I mean junkie. He can't help himself and that the film even contemplates having us ride along with him on his journey to finding redemption with a successful bet, rather than any form of acknowledgement of his issues makes for unbearable watching.
We come into Howard's life with it already out of control. He's fending off collection agents (the kind who bust up body parts), while wheeling and dealing famous basketball player Kevin Garnett in his office. He has this specific uncut gem which he believes will solve all his problems, but the problem is how unaware of his problems he really is.
Navigating Howard's life is one shit-show after another, awkward and intense to the point that I had to fast forward through entire scenes to release the tension. The Safdie Bros. certainly know what they're doing in this regard, and they draw one hell of a performance out of Adam Sandler, he's in practically every frame of the film. But as remarkable as it all is, it's brutally difficult to watch and even more difficult to enjoy. I admire it, certainly, it's expertly crafted, but woof, not a ride I ever want to get on again.
[38:40]
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I wish I could remember Starfish more than I do, because the impression I have was that I liked it. The reality is I don't really recall what happens in the film. It's a low-budget, indie end-of-the-world type story but the specifics are almost all gone from my brain. Off to wikipedia for a refresher, to see if that sparks some memories (of course, it also eats into my 12 minutes of review time).
Okay, no entry on wikipedia, but here's what IMDB had to tell me about the film: "A unique, intimate portrayal of a girl grieving for the loss of her best
friend, which just so happens to take place on the day the world ends."
If I remember correctly, it's a real mood piece, with Virginia Gardner (Marvel's Runaways) having broken into her best friend's apartment over a restaurant following the funeral. While there she discovers a few disconcerting things she didn't know about her friend, like a rather elaborate radio set-up and a series of cassette tapes that seem pointedly directed towards her.
The next morning she awakens to find the streets deserted, save for one person who issues a warning, and then she sees... something... a savage blur that horrifies her. The cassettes and the radio lead her to a deeper understanding of her situation, both her literal and metaphorical situation.
The film is full of tones and noise in place of an instrumental soundtrack, and it's a surreal mood piece for sure. It's effective and evocative but, obviously, not quite memorable enough. The style of the film was probably my favourite part. It seemed modern day, but small town, stuck in the 1980's modern day... a world where the world passed it by. It's an effective way to create surreality for sure, when the TV is an old picture tube and cassettes are still very much at its core.
I may want to watch this again some time. Maybe let it sink in more. I know it's a metaphor for grief, but I'm not quite sure exactly what it's saying about it...or at least I don't remember if I got it.
[50:07]
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I was big into Paul Thomas Anderson, particularly in the 90's as one of my formative directors, and I was with him up until There Would Be Blood. After that, I just fell behind. Apparently The Master is another masterpiece but Inherent Vice is impenetrable. Both seem like difficult films to sit through. I sat on The Phantom Thread for a couple years as well, not knowing when I would be in the mood for... well, whatever it was about. I never was clear on the fact. For some directors, you should just trust them and see what they present. Obviously I have issues with trusting Anderson.
But I shouldn't. The Phantom Thread is a curious slow burn of a movie, about a respectable, well established fashion designer in (I want to say) mid-50's London. The British-y named Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a man focused almost exclusively on his craft. He takes on lovers, but they eventually leave (or rather, are dismissed) once they want more than to just fit into his routine... his very specific and established routine. It seems like a common, and comfortable cycle for him, his romantic muses, easily discarded, until Alma (Vicky Crieps). He meets her upcountry, a waitress, not stand-out attractive nor at all glamorous, but something strikes him very specifically about her and he woos her. She allows herself to be wooed.
But Reynold's need for control over every aspect of his life (and that which he doesn't have control of he defers to his sister/manager Cyril - an amazing Lesley Manville) doesn't suit Alma at all, and as she begins to assert some ownership over their relationship, it causes immense strife in Reynold's life... he cannot create, he cannot function as normal. It gets to a point where he just needs this obstruction out of his life. But she won't go, and how it plays out is twisted, poetic, kind of funny, in a weird way just, but also a little evil.
I had forgotten how subtly warped Anderson's work can be, and Day-Lewis laps up this kind of material like a cat at a milk bowl. Crieps goes toe-to-toe with Day-Lewis, and even then, Manville still upstages them both. These are remarkable performances.
Honestly, this feels like a film that sits right in between The Lobster and The Favourite, two films from director Yorgos Lanthanimos. I don't know if that means Lanthanimos is cribbing hard from Anderson, or if Anderson, watching Dogtooth and the like is taking new inspiration from one of the best new(ish) directors in the game. Either way, it's all welcome. Time to see The Master methinks.
[1:05:07]
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 |
This poster...literally 10x cooler
than anything in the film
|
(Okay losing time, gotta speed this up)
What a fucking nothing film Dark Phoenix is. The final film in Fox's X-Men franchise before being acquired by Disney did nothing to redeem the series after the disaster that was both X-Men: Apocalypse and the last shitty retelling of the Dark Pheonix saga in X-Men: The Last Stand.
There's something inherently broken in these X-Men movies, yet they somehow have managed to squeak out about four or five very entertaining movies and even one watershed superhero film in Logan (I acknowledge its place in the superhero pantheon even if I don't love it because I'm not *that* invested in Wolverine). I think it has to do with 1) needing to have either Wolverine or Magneto or both in every film and 2) catering to the star power of the actors involved. X-Men come an go, there's no need to keep Mystique around for a 4th FILM! As An X-Man! AS THE LEADER OF THE X-MEN!!! What is happening?
Anyway, this film find Jean Grey (Sophie Turner getting a spotlight she *could* hold if this film knew who it's central character was) infested with the Phoenix Force. It's done bad things, and it's now doing more bad things and Jean is out of her mind. There's some aliens, led by Jessica Chastain, who seemingly have no stakes-raising purpose but they're here, causing trouble and manipulating Jean. I'm still not quite clear why...whether it's revenge or to harness her power, or both?
And then Magneto for some reason has to be involved. And the X-Men kids who were introduced in the last film, some of them anyway...Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Storm, they're all chasing after Jean but we have no real emotional investment in these people. What does this movie want to tell us, how does it want us to feel. It's telling a story, but for who and why?
It looks fine, everyone performs well, but it serves almost no purpose. It's not trying to correct any mistakes from Apocalypse (except not having Bryan Singer back) and it's not propelling the X-Men forward in any logical way. It just seems like it's biding time...and if you have time to bide, this will help you bide it, if you want. Just don't expect to care, like, at all.
[1:17:01]
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We all have those actors who we just don't like for whatever reason. Maybe it was something they did in their personal life, or personally to you, or a story you heard second hand, or maybe it's just the way they act, or perhaps something about them just annoys you. Jesse Eisenberg is easily in my top 5, perhaps even number 1 on my list of actors I can't stand to watch in movies* (*not an actual list I maintain). It's maybe better said that he's an actor that's actively a deterrent for me to see a film.
Just something about that guy. The way his nervous energy controls his performances in some films, but then becomes shaky smarminess in others, they're flip sides of an unpleasant coin. But I must acknowledge he's good at those things. He really is. He's built more for the former than the latter, but he's good at both. I just don't like watching it.
And yet, The Art of Self-Defense is fantastic! I loved this film, and Eisenberg was a big part of what I loved about it. I mean the film is kind of ridiculous but Eisenberg's anxious nature totally grounds the ridiculousness, and is absolutely essential for its success.
The crux is Eisenberg plays Casey, a Jesse Eisenberg-type character who gets pushed around everywhere he goes. One night he gets mugged. Not just mugged but the absolute shit kicked out of him by a motorcycle/dirtbike/moped gang. After recovering he's an even bigger wreck than before, but he finds karate, run by an alpha aggro zen master (yes, very oxymoronic) who takes a shining to him and entices him into the fold. Over a few weeks, Casey begins to establish some self confidence (you know, like the normal type a regular person would have) but he's still a bit of a dork around everyone. Then he's brought into the night classes and things start to spiral in very unexpected ways.
Correction. The way they spiral out is totally expected, predictable for the most part, except if it wasn't Eisenberg. You keep thinking this guy is way in over his head, he's never going to get out. That's what he brings, a grounded sensibility so that the absurd remains a surprise even if expected.
This is the second feature for Riley Stearns and he shows definite control over every aspect of storytelling, from pacing and framing, to aesthetic and style. It's so expertly crafted. It's a strange beast, not exactly funny, but too off kilter to be dramatic. It's kind of Charlie Kaufman-esque but more controlled in how esoteric it gets... it never quite goes too far. I kind of loved it, in spite of myself. And now Eisenberg has Vivarium out which looks right up my ally...I may have to reconsider my stance.
[1:33:53]
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I was SO ready for Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Taking what Gareth Edwards gave us in the first film, with more worldbuilding teases from Kong: Skull Island, and the promise of MONSTER FIGHTS GALORE! I was ready. Big budget Godzilla here we come! There's no way this could be a let down.
Except.
Jesus.
What the hell happened here? We're introduced at the start to
Vera Farmiga (ugh, she's in the top 5 list mentioned previously) and her daughter (
Millie Bobbie Brown) at an isolated research station where she's studying the giant
monsters, the kaiju, and has developed a sonar that seems to interact with them. Then
Charles Dance shows up and kidnaps them. We don't see them again for a good long while.
Instead we meet Kyle Chandler, her estranged husband who takes photos of nature, and he's been recruited by the Monarch Group (a great assortment of actors - including Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkings, Bradley Whitford and even Thomas Middleditch) none of whom we give a crap about because the film doesn't know how to use them for anything other than exposition or speechifying. There's so much speechifying in this damn movie. For a film about giant monsters fighting, it's awfully tedious.
The film tries to hard to be more than what it needs to be. It delivers the monster fights, but it doesn't know how to use them properly. It continues to deliver us bullshit deviations from the monster fight to whatever personal human stakes there are for characters we haven' t had any reason to care about.
It's a notably expensive looking movie, and the concepts should work, but they're executed so poorly. Monarch should be an awesome, exciting organization that we as the audience want to be a part of, that we want to be inside of, but most of the time we just want to get to the monsters because we're given nothing of interest in that world. There's a group out to further the destruction of humanity,
but they're given no real gravitas. In the face of Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah and Rodan, who cares about some eco terrorists? Well, we should but the film just expects us to hate them but we know them only about as well as the good guys.
There's an attempt at world/universe building but it comes at the expense of good characterization. Hell, this film has O'Shea Jackson Jr. and he's treated like a glorified extra. What a bummer of a film. I only hope they have their shit together for Kong vs Godzilla next year (and if it is good, it's the saving grace that the studio didn't even bother to wait for the crummy box office returns and bad reviews of this one before it pushed ahead with the big crossover).
Love those Japanese posters though.
[1:48:24]
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I was really rooting for Joe Cornish to really storm the scene with his second directorial feature. Attack the Block was such a tremendous homage to 80's sci-fi monster horror, while also being exceptionally modern, funny, and, in its own way, magical. Add to that his predecessor work on screenplays with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright that really showed his understanding of how to play with genre that both advances it and respects its roots, and I was certain his sophomoric effort was going to be gold. Even after the fine but not glowing reviews for The Kid Who Would Be King came out I still hoped that there was magic that people just weren't seeing laying within.
Turns out, no, it's pretty much what was being said. It's charming, but slight. It's playing with Arthurian legends and transposing them into a modern setting, and it's been tried a dozen times and never ever works. Something about Arthurian legend just seems to be box office poison no matter who is cast or how much money you throw behind it.
This one, at least, has some winning elements, with a young cast that acquits itself very very nicely. Young Louis Ashborne Serkis (he looks like Andy Serkis's kid because he is Andy Serkis' kid) holds the lead here as Alex, a nerdy, bullied kid who is suddenly called upon by Merlin (co-played by Patrick Stewart and the marvelous Angus Imrie) to be the champion the world needs now. Alex has a whole fantasy story about what his life should be, and about the father he never knew. Merlin's narrative plays into this, and his quest to save the world seems aligned with his quest to find his father.
The story meanders a bit here or there and never ramps up to the grand scale adventure it really wants to be. Cornish seems to be once again trying for an 80's genre here, a mix of "neon fantasy" and "kids adventure", like Krull mashed with The Goonies... he gets about 70% of the way there, but it just never seems to gel. Perhaps I'm too old, or perhaps storytelling has just changed, or perhaps it's just subject matter. If anything I think Cornish needed to add more style to the mix, something visual or maybe even audio to the whole thing to pep it up a bit.
It's resoundingly solid kids entertainment as is, but I feel like it should be one step beyond that coming from Cornish.
[2:04:37]
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The classic Disney animated Sleeping Beauty. What can you say about a classic like this. It's stunning. It's beautiful. The animation, isn't timeless, it's of it's time and it's perfection, the epitome of the best of its era.
And it's dreadfully boring.
My daughter and I both fell asleep watching this fairy tale bide its time as it tries to pad out 20 minutes worth of story over its 75 minutes by way of long drawn-out sequences that lead nowhere and provide nothing but visual stimuli accompanied by the most conventional of scores.
The singing (I hesitate to even call them "songs") are anachronistic even for 1959. It's warbling crooning that was already on the outs with kids (not that I think a Chuck Berry song would have fit any better), but it's all so lilting and stilted.
I liked some of the comedic asides, like the war over a blue or pink dress, or the king and the father of the prince his daughter is to marry having a playful duel of words that turns sour, then friendly again. I'm not so sure about the repeated turns to the drunkard, although that kind of humour certainly had its place in Vaudeville and depression-era comedy, but it seems aberrant for '59.
I dunno man. My daughter says that Maleficent is better than this. But this is a classic, right? And yet, I find myself thinking that, well, she's kind of right. The animation is still stunning, but it's not enough. There's zero character or relationship building here to cling to.
[2:14:37]
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Tangled is another "classic" Disney animated movie I hadn't previously seen, because I remember that at the time it was released I was wondering why Disney was stubbing its toe on CGI animation when Pixar was already killing it. Basically I dismissed Tangled as an also-ran.
Because it is.
But it's also very entertaining.
Had this been a Pixar release, especially coming on the heels of WALL-E and Up, I would have been tremendously disappointed. But in a post Cars 2/Brave/Good Dinosaur world, Pixar isn't the infallible entertainment beast it once was, and Disney's original animation arm has given us Zootopia, Wreck-It Ralph and Big Hero 6 among others that are perhaps not equal to Pixar's upper tier, but certainly second-level goodness. Tangled for sure fits on that shelf alongside them.
In fact, Tangled feels like a classic Disney princess tale for the modern (erm, previous) decade. It's the princess Rapunzel kidnapped as a baby, kept secluded in a tower so that her wicked (and very passive agressive) mother figure can use her magic hair to keep her young. Meanwhile the roguish thief Flynn Ryder is on the run having stolen the royal crown, when he encounters Rapunzel. Their dynamic is fiery and feisty, with Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi bringing a delightful jauntiness to the proceedings.
There's romance, a bit of action, and a simple but worthy bit of emotional manipulation as well as a kind of great character in Maximus, a guard's horse who seems more competent and determined in the pursuit of Flynn than any human. It's certainly got its charms and I find it far more palatable than most of the Disney princess oeuvre.
[2:23:07]
---
I'm not sold on Dave Bautista as the "charismatic leading man", even though I've been quite accepting of him as a charismatic supporting player. He just doesn't command a
scene as well as he can interrupt one.
In My Spy, Bautista plays a badass CIA agent who, well, isn't doing his job properly when he's acting all badass. He's on thin ice, in fact, in jeopardy of losing his job. He's given a fairly simple assignment and given a dorky tech partner (Kristen Schaal) who is just professionally enamored with him. He's bored and out of his element spying on a single mom and her daughter, anticipating her dead husband's brother, the bad guy, will be reaching out to her. Schaal wants him to train her while they're doing little but observing and reporting but he has no respect for her.
Chloe Coleman is the little girl, probably 10-ish, and an outcast at the school she's only just started attending. She's whip-smart and finds out that there are two CIA spies watching her. So she starts manipulating them into helping her. Inevitably they bond, Bautista the loner and this latchkey kid. As well, she starts attempting to set Bautista up with her mother and they both falling for it. Yes, it's pretty much paint by numbers plotting with the only "new" being the personalities involved.
Young Coleman and Schaal basically take command of
most scenes in the film. Bautista isn't uncomfortable, but he's definitely leaning on them to keep things from falling flat.
It's almost a kid's movie but revels in violence and
swearing is soooo casual that it seems like it's only accidentally a
kid's movie. Mostly it's fine. There's a few little chuckles, just as many eye rolls, and one tiny little feel, but it's also wildly unmemorable and certainly inessential viewing.
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