The Movie Press
  • Movie Reviews
  • Twitter News/Updates
  • News & Notes
  • DVD
  • Box Office Results
  • Contact
  • About Us

Kinder critic: Onward's quest for happy tears (and why it may be Pixar's best yet)

3/6/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
Onward, the 22nd full-length film from Pixar, is a road trip story featuring two brothers and the bottom half of their reanimated (and previously deceased) dad. My 7-year-old roommate/daughter has been given a crash course in Pixar films over the past few years. Freed from the Woody-colored glasses of nostalgia that might cloud my vision when chatting Pixar films and how this compares to the likes of Toy Story or Cars, I thought she would be the perfect person to talk about how this latest Pixar film stacks up.

We sat down (well, I sat — she sat between spells of running in circles around me and climbing on the couch) as she was still buzzing from a Caramel M&M high to chat about the film, why we cry when we’re happy, if “Onward” is too scary for younger kids, and what it says about siblings and family.

​
Warning: As anyone who’s every talked to a kid about a movie can attest, the concept of a spoiler doesn’t exist for anyone born after 2010. So heads up,  there are some light spoilers ahead — but nothing that should literally spoil the movie for you.

Read More
1 Comment

Rising Sign: 'Gemini Man'

10/11/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Disregard this if you’ve heard it before, but pop culture is eating itself. Sure, it’s like, get a new take already, but there is an inherent symbolism to Will Smith’s newest Gemini Man. When a story about making carbon copies of proven quantities is made real by crafting the young face of a current mega star over his old face so he can play opposite his current self? What’s the other reading here?! Ouroboros would choke if his dang mouth wasn’t so full. And beyond this rote assessment of pop culture, what does it mean that this movie is weird and cool and stilted and really quite enjoyable? Only time will tell, but the door is now open for a new slate of Will Smith films across the rest of human history.

Prone to uneven extremes,
Gemini Man is in moments utterly wooden followed by sudden fits of blissful Ang Lee fun. Where it is truly a mixed bag, it’s extremely watchable. It runs under two hours. Not only a total complement, there should be an award category for this noble achievement. There are some gorgeous international backdrops with hearty action sequences slathered on top. And where this could easily be an appreciation thread for costars Benedict Wong and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Will Smith carries this film. Or better yet, the film lives and dies with Smith. He’s the epicenter, and reliably, he does the work. 

Gemini Man
struggles most when moving through the beats of its wonky narrative. The character interactions pass muster, the set pieces land, but the story itself leaves something to be desired. In some ways Gemini Man does recall the star-driven action films of Will Smith’s heyday. It’s enticing to think this is some playful meta commentary on the whole enterprise, but the final product is too uninspired to believe it. There are ideas and the filmmaking know how to bring them to life, but in the end it just felt middling, even safe.  

All of Ang Lee’s favored tropes are on display. Perhaps this is a call to action, or total anathema, but they are there. The dude can still assemble a hell of a production. And the facial technology works! Well, it is certainly on the upward slope out of the uncanny valley. Will Smith plays this character pretty small, restrained and emotionless. It does fit with the character's interiors, but perhaps deliberate in order to move and emote the young face as little as possible? Who knows, but it is well crafted. You want to come up with reasons why it shouldn’t work so well.

Though, on the eve of its release—a gloomy affair according to critics and box office knowers—the impact of Gemini Man is already out of the bag. This tech may be in its infancy, but imagine the implications. As though stolen from the pages of a so-so sci-fi screenplay, what if this means never saying goodbye to Will Smith? An endless, eternal array of Will Smith(s). What does that mean about everything from celebrity to identity? Likely an overreaction, but somewhere a touring Roy Orbison hologram is being debugged. Anyway, Gemini Man is pretty fun! Definitely a casual streamer. Even though if one did make it to the theater, they wouldn’t see the film the way it was ‘meant’ to be seen. What a strange and fascinating world.

--Monte Monreal

0 Comments

Why so serious, 'Joker'?

10/4/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
There is an inescapable question eclipsing the intended impact of Todd Phillips’ Joker. Could you even imagine thinking such a serious film about this clown man needed to exist? Joker, no matter how unconventional an iteration, cannot be divorced from the foundational stakes. This is all idiotic fun. A film about the Joker can be taken seriously, but there is something patently absurd about the mere notion of this character in any context. Joker’s relentless push to conjure some reality to the contrary never produces a rational argument. Instead, it leaves something pretty and grim reverberating with the same question: Could you imagine? 

It’s not as though some unforgivably bad film has been made here. Joker has a lovely palette. Joaquin Phoenix hands in his usual committed performance. A couple of eyebrow-arching ideas bob to the surface. These are the standards to which comic book films are held, and usually garner more credit than their mediocre consumability warrants. But the film doesn’t hit on any level beyond its cruelty. There is no substantial satire. It’s not a compelling character piece. Its notions of social good and dissent and the "correct" order of things are hopelessly jumbled. Yet somewhere beyond all of these components there is an existential crisis traceable back to the written page.

Joker will draw a great many comparisons to Taxi Driver as well as The King of Comedy, and the film’s textures are an unmistakable paean to Scorsese’s filthiest New York. Though in the film’s brief stints of clarity it felt more like Nightcrawler: a portrait of a sociopath telling his own hero story. Like, don’t we all believe the weeping violins are for us? Or, there was potential for Joker as some radioactive dye dropped into a broken world to expose the extent of its profound flaws. In these moments, something as compelling as Joker’s visuals began to emerge. Then in an ass-showing monologue delivered at the zero hour, any potential for these readings was punted into outer space.

Phillips and company try to assemble the pieces of Joker’s oft-invoked Very Bad Day and desperately weave it into some passable semblance of reality. In doing so, the audience is left with a series of lousy turns for Arthur Fleck (the chrysalis of our soon-to-be Clown Prince of Crime), and a perverse misunderstanding of mental health crises. Where there is a reasonable argument to say, "hey, my guy, you’re thinking way too hard about this — it’s all make ‘em up!" consider this review’s foundational complaint a full-throated agreement. This is a story about a mentally ill guy in grease paint destined to fight a mentally ill billionaire in a bat costume. Oh, plus the major metropolitan area perpetually at risk because of their slap fights. Pathos? Psychodrama? A parable for these cursed times? Again, with yelling, could you even…

Though Joker is angling for this fight. Phillips not only makes repeated efforts to make his world the “real” world, he insists on inviting in our contemporary world. In doing so, the film demands to be evaluated on those merits. Joker wants to blame a failing social welfare system as part of Arthur’s problems, yet it is more generous with its depiction of the billionaire class than the downtrodden citizens pushing back. Arthur as Joker insists he’s not political, calls for civility, yet mewls that no one gets to decide what’s funny in response to his deliberately vicious non-joke. And in the greatest emblem of this film’s edgelord intellect, as perfectly captured by Glen Weld of NPR:

Arthur suffers one of his many onscreen beatings at the hands (and feet) of a bunch of Wall Street bros on the subway, who taunt him by singing "Send In The Clowns." Nearly in its entirety...we're supposed to buy that a straight finance bro would be off-book on the second and third verses of a Sondheim number?

The problem isn’t this films depiction of Arthur's descent into Joker, which I do not believe was designed to evince sympathy. The controversy is not in the baseless moral panic. The fundamental ill at the center of Joker is it’s no fun. So self-serious, flooded with caricature versions of real-world traumas, it renders itself inert. When we arrive at our pearl-strewn climax in crime alley, Joker insists we acknowledge the table which has been laid. A very serious world where Bruce Wayne — in response to the Joker uprisings of ‘81 where his dumbass dad took him to the movies in a part of town embroiled in protest — uses his inherited billions to fight social ills with extralegal vigilantism while dressed as a bat. The discourse, our cultural relationship with these characters, this sub-average film surrounded by so much bang and clamor; if Joker proves anything, we continue to insist that the joke is on us.

—Monte Monreal 
 

1 Comment

Don't 'Hustle' out to see this movie

5/10/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
I’m going to spend about as much time thinking about the new movie The Hustle as the screenwriters, producers, and everyone else with the project did: not much.

I’ll admit, I was skeptical about The Hustle (which is essentially a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) from the get go. 

The film is billed as follows:

 “In the hilarious new comedy THE HUSTLE, Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson star as female scam artists, one low rent and the other high class, who team up to take down the dirty rotten men who have wronged them.”

First, I’m going to let you guess -- between Hathaway and Wilson – which one is “low rent” and which is “high class.” If you guessed Wilson is the high class scammer then congratulations – you’re not as pessimistic about Hollywood’s treatment of “unconventional” women as I am. No, Wilson is the “low rent” chubby girl whose whole M.O. is to steal money from men who don’t find her attractive. The slender Hathaway is a dignified British woman with links to the royal family who speaks many languages, struts constantly, and has men falling for her left and right. Color me shocked.

Next, the description identifies Wilson and Hathaway as “female scam artists.” (WHAT?! BRUH! ARE YOU TELLING ME WOMEN CAN BE CON ARTISTS, TOO?! MIND BLOWN!) The qualifier clearly bothered me. For a movie that seemingly wants to be about women’s empowerment (I think?!?!) having to clarify that, yes – women can lie, and manipulate, and cheat just as easily as men can (maybe better) – seems completely tone deaf. (Lest we forget the age-old story of Eve getting poor innocent, rib-sharing Adam kicked out of the Garden of Eden for convincing him to eat the forbidden fruit… but I digress.)

The movie tries (and fails) to make a bigger point about gender roles. Hathaway’s character at one point gives a speech to Wilson, explaining that women make for successful con artists precisely because they are so frequently underestimated by men, but that’s pretty much where the film’s girl power moments begin and end. Throughout most of the film the women are in constant competition with each other.  Even the premise of the one scheme where they do work together (which is about as bizarre to watch as a crashing SNL sketch) is centered around the idea that Hathaway’s character is desirable and Wilson’s is abhorrent.  Could we not do better, writers?

Both Hathaway and Wilson deliver good performances. Wilson’s comic talents are hard to shine block, and Hathaway’s acting range is on full display as she rotates through a carousel of different accents and emotions in service of her various schemes. But it’s everything around them – from the marketing of the film, to the writing and directing – that sank it. Maybe there’s an alternate timeline where everything comes together and this movie works, but I’m not in it. 

--Kelsey Robinson

0 Comments

This review is for all the people who have yet to get on the Pokémon bandwagon

5/10/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Friends, hello. I was once like you. And proud to be. In fact there’s footage out there of a 12-year-old me seated in front of my parents’ camcorder, presenting a fake newscast in which I warned my fellow classmates about the dangers of becoming addicted to Pokémon cards. Oh how disappointed my pre-teen self would be if she could see me today.
​
I’m here to confess that the first live-action movie based in the Pokémon universe --  Detective Pikachu – is pretty great and fun experience from top to bottom.  The internet is already awash in far better reviews of this film than anything I’m going to write here, so let me instead make the case for Detective Pickachu to the Pokémon skeptics.

Yes it’s a kid’s movie. Yes it’s a noir. And yes it’s has magical animal creatures who humans train to battle each other but somehow it’s not exploitative. It doesn’t seem like those things should go together, and yet in Detective Pikachu, they all harmoniously do.

Some of the credit goes to the special effects team. The rendering of the creatures is a true delight. It doesn’t feel like you’re watching humans interacting with CGI creations. Pikachus and Psyducks and Cuebones interact and live seamlessly next to their human costars. Even if you’re not emotionally connected to or familiar with any of the characters from the Pokémon universe, it’s a real joy to see all of these quirky characters – some cute, some odd, some scary – come together and do their thing.

And the writing is not terrible! There are predictable moments for sure, but there are also some unexpected twists and turns, and sweet moments, and suspenseful ones, and this one scene with a mime that I am absolutely going to watch again on Youtube. The underlining message is nothing profound, but it doesn’t need to be, and that’s part of the fun.

Finally, I’m going to give it up for Justice Smith, who plays Tim (the film’s protagonist) and Ryan Reynolds, who plays Pikachu, also put on great performances. Reynolds packs a lot of cute charisma into that little yellow mousy critter – who manages to be a little edgy, but not a jerk, and gets to deliver the majority of the film’s punchlines (which, also, pretty good). And Smith fully immerses himself in the this Pokémon universe -- so honest, and sincere, and committed to truly learning to understand and care for this little Pikachu, and to get to the bottom of the film’s core mystery.  It feels good to root for him.

So if you’re impressed by visuals that are at the top of their game, good writing and engaging performances, treat yourself to some Pikachu. You don’t have to know of or have any interest in the Pokémon backstory to have a good time. 

--Kelsey Robinson

0 Comments

Triumph or trash? A Marvel first-timer’s spoiler-free take on "Avengers: Endgame"

4/24/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Avengers: Endgame brings an 11-year narrative arc started with Iron Man to a supremely satisfying close full of nods and crowd-giddying payoffs to the 21 movies that have led up to this point. Given you probably already know if you’re going to see this, I won’t spoil anything or dwell too much on my thoughts. (You can find more reviews for Avengers: Endgame than there are characters crammed into its bladder-testing three hours.) Instead, I wanted to know: What would someone with zero knowledge of and no emotional investment in the Marvel universe think of Avengers: Endgame?

What if you’ve missed a few films here and there but still want in on the fun? Or what if you’re a total newcomer who wants to arm themselves for some Monday morning water cooler chit-chat? After all, this super-sized saga send-off may be the closest thing to a Return of the Jedi-caliber pop-culture event many movie-goers have ever experienced. To get an idea of how well Endgame plays out (or doesn’t) for the uninitiated, I sought a viewing partner who could go in clueless and report back on their Avengers experience.

Finding someone who’s been absent from this decade-long journey proved challenging. Most of the people I could assemble from my contacts list had seen most of the films (a testament either to how widely viewed these films are or how nerdy my friends are — your choice). But at the final hour, a new hero approached — a conveniently solution-shaped key to my Marvel-movie problem, a Captain Marvel-like deus ex machina to save the day: Kevin.

Kevin, my Marvel-ignorant
Endgame-viewing guinea pig of a partner, has managed to avoid almost all Avengers-related adventures. He thinks he’s seen the first Avengers flick and caught parts of The Incredible Hulk on a wall of TVs at Best Buy years ago. Armed with no context and a bag of popcorn, Kevin suited up and joined me for Avengers: Endgame.


Read More
0 Comments

"Penguins" are cute. What more do you need to know?

4/16/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
It’s hard to believe March of the Penguins and Happy Feet – two highly rated (and high grossing) penguin-heavy films came out over a decade ago. So I suppose it was inevitable that we were due for another round of penguin rich content.

This time it is the aptly named Penguins. The new film from Disneynature follows the story of a young Adélie penguin named Steve as he endeavors to find a mate and raise a family in the harsh Antarctic environment.
Because the penguin sojourn has been captured so ubiquitously on camera -- through documentaries like the aforementioned March of the Penguins and the wildly popular Planet Earth series – there isn’t much content here that will surprise the penguin savvy viewer.  Likewise, the anthropomorphic “plot” follows your typical Cute Animal Documentary formula: cute animal appears on screen, captures hearts, confronts obstacles, emerges victorious. The film chronicles the trials and tribulations of the penguin experience without confronting too closely the dog-eat-dog (or in this case, sea lion-eat-penguin) chaos that exists in the natural world, which makes Penguins a safe and trauma-free bet for families viewing with young children.  The voice work by Ed Helms (of The Office and The Hangover fame) strikes a tender balance of kid-friendly humor (yes there are barf jokes) and rich, informative storytelling that will keep a wide range of ages engaged. The comedic relief for Penguins’ more mature viewers is primarily rooted in the documentary’s soundtrack. Ever wondered what it would be like to watch two penguins fall in love over REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t fight this feeling”?  Well, Penguins will scratch that itch for you.

The real star of Penguins (besides, well, the penguins) is the cinematography. Whether it is the dramatic, sweeping shots of the Antarctic mountain ranges, gripping underwater chase scenes, or tender moments captured between Steve and his doting companion Adeline – viewers are sure to leave the theater with a deep appreciation for the years of hard work, dedication and patience that the film’s videographers undoubtedly poured into this visually impactful film.

Despite its Earth Day release, what viewers won’t get from Penguins is any kind of reference to climate change. I’m sure it was an intentional choice by the filmmakers to honor the sacred separation of penguins and politics, but it seems like a missed opportunity to educate young viewers about the impacts of our changing environment. After all, NASA studies have estimated that climate change could cause the Adélie penguin population to drop 60% by the end of the century. Regardless, a portion of the proceeds will go toward the Wildlife Conservation Network, which will hopefully help keep the penguin content coming for the next generation of moviegoers. 


--Kelsey Robinson

0 Comments

A six-year-old's take on the slapstick stop-motion magic of "Missing Link"

4/12/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
What do kids think? My presumptions are probably about as spot on as my guess of what a dog has going on behind the eyes. To get a better idea of what a child might think of Missing Link, the latest stop-motion animated bit of eye candy from Laikia, I sat down for a couple of cheeseburgers and a convo with one of my younger roommates (my six-year-old daughter) to see what she thought of the movie, which I forced her along for. (She’s more of a My Little Pony person.)

Spoiler warning: Six-year-olds don’t care about the concept of spoilers, which is just one of the ways they’re superior to adults. But that’s a subject for another time. Just know that some things she calls out are from the last half of the film, but I steer her away from anything that would likely ruin your spoiler-sensitive viewing experience.

What did you think of the movie?
What movie?

The movie we saw today.
Lost Link?

Missing Link.
Yeah! Missing Link!

Right. What did you think of that movie? What would you tell people about it?
That was the scariest movie, so don’t you dare go to that!

Really? That’s a quote for a movie poster if I’ve ever heard one.
Well, it was a little scary, but really exciting. And I think it’s good. I think that the ending is really nice, but the first part of it is kind of scary. The second part’s really nice, so I think actually … It’s a good movie, and I think other people should watch it.

That might be a bit too long for a poster quote.
What?

Let’s talk about what Missing Link is about.
So this Yaki person wanted to go and…

Wait. What?
What?

What’s a “Yaki”?
The Yaki guy — Link.

I think “Yeti” is what you mean, but he was actually a Sasquat--
This Yaki guy wanted to go to his cousins because he thought they were his cousins. And a girl and a boy decided to come with him and they … [cheeseburger chewing] … they kind of went far away and they got trapped in an area, but they came out because the Yaki throwed the boy up and he crashed, and then he throwed the girl up and she went over it and she climbed on and she got something to get out of the place because they were trapping them for the Yetis they thought were … and then they like ... Oh! [very excited now] They went across the bridge and the bad guys were waiting and they destroyed the bridge and…

Whoa, kid. Let’s leave some points of the plot untouched.
The good guys were safe and they went back home.

Or not.
In the very end, they got like a mermaid-dinosaur picture or something.

A fossil. You’re just really going for it, huh?
And the man I was talking about, he was so excited. And it was the end, and it was really good. The end.

Let’s talk about how the movie looked. Most cartoons you watch are made with computers now. And they use them here, for sure, but this one is also made with little models, like toys they pose made out of Play-Doh. That won’t matter to some people — likely the same savages who see no difference between Keuring and a real cup of coffee. The people at Laika go the extremely hard-to-brew animation route, prioritizing art and tradition over convenience. And it gives all their movies such a beautiful and unique look.
I liked it.

I find that stuff super inspiring, both from a creative and a work ethic standpoint. It’s that JFK-going-to-the-moon pep talk — doing it not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard. Not that it’s even remotely similar, but I recently started using paper for my to-do list and am amazed how often I hear “Why? Just use your phone.” I mean, why should I do anything other than everything on my phone, huh? Just plop a rib-eye in my smart microwave and listen to an algorithm-created playlist while I mindlessly swipe through pictures on my phone. That’s totally the future I dreamed of.
Are you mad, Dad?

No. What did you think when you get a time-lapse glimpse of the work the crew did on one scene in the closing credits? Wasn’t that cool? These people have a surgical attention to detail and such patience. I can barely be bothered to re-read this blog post for simple speling mistaks.
Yeah … Remember when that guy ate cow poop! Hahahahaha!

Yeah, he thought they were cookies. Classic.
Cause the girl said don’t talk about the chicken.

Yeah, because the old woman didn’t realize she had a chicken on her head.
She never knowed? Then she realized? Did she ever realize?

Read More
0 Comments

Shazam!: Magic in the Machine

4/7/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
I loathe the way we now talk about movies. Like a bunch of dang suits, average film fans—myself included—talk about box office returns and market trends and in-universe implications. Yes, filmmaking is commerce, but what a grim climate when fandom feels justified by box office success. So, instead of cultivating a healthy distrust of the money havers and industry knowers, we’ve adopted their perversity. Perhaps I’m just some tragic cusp Gen-X’er come Old Millennial, but I recall an era when we wanted to pick our teeth with the bones of the rich. Now, we gleefully play along. #BigCinematicUniverse slaps a DC or Marvel logo on literally anything, and fans do the rest, ginning up existential import around meaningless brand turf wars. And if this lowly dingus were pressed, he’d tell you it’s the antithesis of what makes movies magical.


Magic, the root of Shazam’s power, is in some sense why we are here. No, this is not a pitch for you to join the DSA, there is an actual Shazam! review in here somewhere, I swears it. But I think it is important to explore the curious baggage so many of us now carry into these movies. Can DC make a good movie? How will Marvel pivot after Endgame? What minutia do I need to keep in mind as I insert film ‘X’ into the landscape of this cinematic universe? Ew. No. Gross. But, to counter with the least provocative, yet most telling take, I participate in all of the above. And therein lies Shazam!’s unique positioning as it hits screens nationwide.  


Shazam!, no foolin’, is actually pretty good. Like really actually pretty good. It’s a passion of mine to trade in cliché, and I laughed! I cried! Thrills! Chills! The whole smorgasbord of movie going fun, and Shazam! was an able buffet table. In some way—and here goes that cynical language again—DC adopted the Marvel model. They took a character with no baggage, with few emotional attachments, and where some complete asshole is gonna try so hard to pass themselves off as a longsuffering Shazam! stan, no one gives a fuck about that character. And it’s liberating! It is free of the strictures and cache of a Batman or Superman! Though, in one of the cleverer wrinkles, the Bat and the Big Blue Boy Scout are omnipresent through the film, almost oppressive. Shazam! knows it can’t escape the long shadow of DC lore, but it also tweaks the machine as the film play-acts its little part in the larger scheme.


Every inch the stock-in-trade origin story, Shazam! embraces the only good kind of a superhero, a fun teenager. Fun teenagers, not to be confused with moody teenagers, are equipped to handle super powers. Super powers are dope! And a little exploitable. And maybe kind of a pain in the ass from an overall responsibility stand point. Like, who wants to be good all the time? This idea frames the question at the core of Shazam; what does a pure heart look like? Maybe sometimes it’s screwing with the cops, other times it can be trying to save the day. In one of the films very good lines this sentiment is given a nice shape, “not everyone feels like a hero inside all of the time.” Superman is just, like, what, good because…why exactly? And Batman is a trust fund weirdo who maybe we should not trust? Our Shazam, at least in this film, is a foster kid who has these powers foisted on him.


In this dynamic, Shazam does its best work. Billy Batson—a kid who has been bounced around the foster system largely due to a determination to find his real mother—is ostensibly our main character, but this film is almost about the disillusion of the hero mythos. I may just be feeling very 36 today, but as Shazam’s powers dictate, and in a flash of light Billy is transformed from 14-year-old boy to hulking adult, it reminds me that the certainty of aging does not always track with the check list of “adulthood.” Fumbling towards adulthood is consistently marked by our heroes being stripped down to something painfully real. Whether those heroes are the ones we believe to be inside of ourselves, or the individuals we set on the pedestal, Shazam! gets that we’re all making it up as we go along. It takes a tapestry of personal growth and trust and family (chosen or otherwise), just to stand. Beyond that, true heroism is a lofty ambition. Though, if a pure heart is the hero’s requirement, perhaps that isn’t a flawless heart, but simply an open one.

Where the above, a great cast, and an overall tight script work to Shazam!’s credit, you already know yer boy is gonna quibble. The third act is a little tedious once we’ve firmly squared our larger thematic elements. The film is also not as cinematic as I’d hoped. There wasn’t a sequence that really stuck to my ribs. But let’s be real, that dude Mark Strong is going to spackle over lots of flaws with a killer performance, and his Dr. Thaddeus Sivana is a delight.

Now, for my final trick, let’s dovetail this conclusion into the intro paragraph! Because *checks notes* magic is the throughline. And in all sincerity, Shazam! stoked in me that old movie magic feeling. The audience freaking cheered at a climactic moment! It’s has a joy and silliness and sweetness that is irrepressible, and in the face of the cinematic universe superstructure, that is a momentous accomplishment. Shazam! cannot avoid paying its dues to the tyranny of franchise, but they skewer as much as they celebrate. Not in the snarky way a Deadpool might tackle this obligation, but in a bit more subtle way, like a scrappy little kid trying to find their light amongst siblings who are titans. And where I did carry so much of the thoroughly documented baggage into the theater—ready to harrumph my way through another comic book film--Shazam! harnesses a kind of magic capable of peeling back all the white noise, and revealing a truly fun film able to stand on its own.
​--Monte Monreal



0 Comments

Hot and Bothered

7/9/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Stick to the script. Therein lies the moral problem at the center of Boots Riley’s baadasssss new film Sorry to Bother You. The idea is not applied with a light touch, but this is not a film of half measures. The film’s brazen absurdity and searing furor are what makes it such a deftly applied polemic. The frame is engineered to be outsized, outrageous even, but when used to examine current conditions—the debased American laborer, race relations, stupefying wealth in the hands of so few—this funhouse mirror merely distorts the subject, but does not change its core composition.
 
The plot is ultra economical. Cassius Green is hired at a telemarketing company. Cassius, a young black man who learns to don his white phone voice, becomes a star while his struggling coworkers try to unionize. From there, Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You mines its premise of free market woe to such profound depths it unearths something so despicable, so absurd, that the plausibility is impossible to deny.
 
The film will undoubtedly draw comparisons to other pieces of radical cinema like Putney Swope or even Melvin Van Peebles’s lone studio foray Watermelon Man, but Sorry to Bother You finds a strong spiritual companion in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Gilliam wanted to make Nineteen Eighty-Four for the year 1984 (ugh...why didn’t he name it 1984 ½?!). In kind, Boots Riley has his finger on the pulse of the gathering tech bro messiah robber baron dystopia.
 
Both films drift from madcap comedy to jarring chaos while never losing the thread, but where Gilliam’s world has already gone off its head, Riley reminds us that dystopia doesn’t happen in a day. As described in one of the film’s many incisive bits of commentary, sometimes you see a problem so big you don’t know how to fix it, so instead of fixing it, you just get used to it.
 
Among Sorry to Bother You’s many accomplishments, the standout is the film’s strong sense of self. A psychedelic swirl of humor and dread, everything from screenplay to visual identity is fully realized. Even the yipping, shimmering soundtrack by Riley (or his long time rap group The Coup) and tUnE-yArDs isn’t a kind of buried add-on, but another supremely confident key component of the whole. The film is so completely actualized, it is confounding to think this is Riley’s directorial debut. And so it becomes clear,Sorry to Bother You is beyond a passion project, but something focused, dauntless, and urgent.
 
To further compliment the stellar job handed in by Riley, Lakeith Stanfield is emerging as the scion of our current crisis. Between his fascinating portrayal of Cassius Green and Atlanta’s hustler prophet Darius—not to mention his unforgettable turn in Get Out—Stanfield has an eye for good projects and the chops to make them his own. Side by side with Stanfield is the incandescent Tessa Thompson who plays the role of Detroit, an activist, artist, and generally swashbuckling agitator.
 
Noticing a trend? Cassius Green, or Cash is Green. Detroit, both racial code word and symbol of American promise gutted by the erosion of labor rights. A corporate yes woman and true believer named Diana DeBauchery. The billionaire silicon valley ringmaster named Steve Lift. The message is not masked, this is meant to be a cinematic provocation. Even the title—where it signals the disingenuous manners foisted on phone bank workers everywhere—is the film’s mordant opening salvo. Though instead of a telemarketer looking to hawk encyclopedias, Riley invokes the familiar phrase to ask; have you pondered any meaningful questions about the structures of class and economy lately?
 
Where this may seem like a wholesale indictment of the ruling class (and it is), Riley shines a light on many parts of the body politic which have entrenched their position. Viral notoriety, shitty rap music, the VIP room, code switching, it’s all under scrutiny. He asks questions about the efficacy of art as protest. The poor who would cheer their demise as they play banner men to the ultra rich. And when exactly did Italians become white? Funny, infuriating, and fully designed to get under your skin, Sorry to Bother You may not be the best film this year, but it is the film that feels the most like 2018.

Stick to the script. Follow it line by line and you’re rewarded, derivate and you only hurt yourself. A script, a set of rules, a system of law, a hierarchical structure, all born from the same notion of compliance but complicity. Sorry to Bother You knows we’re all culpable, but it wants you to ask acute questions about how far you’ll let it go. Is the looming hellscape telegraphed by Sorry to Bother You really so ludicrous? Competent satire teases out an idea to its most logical extreme, and if a world where corporations have court protected personhood and first amendment rights seems laughable, well, sorry to bother you, but it’s already here.

​—Monte Monreal

0 Comments
<<Previous

    Archives

    October 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    July 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009
    March 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009
    December 2008
    November 2008
    October 2008
    September 2008
    August 2008

    Categories

    All
    Austin Film Festival
    Darcie Duttweiler Reviews
    Derrick Mitcham Reviews
    Eric Harrelson Reviews
    Eric Pulsifer Reviews
    Eric Pulsifer Reviews
    Fantastic Fest
    Greg Maclennan Reviews
    Greg Wilson Reviews
    Jessica Hixson Reviews
    Mark Collins Reviews
    Monte Monreal Reviews
    Reviews
    Rob Heidrick Reviews
    Rob Heidrick Reviews
    Sxsw

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.