reviews

A Bigger Splash (2016)

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threehalfstar

Chalk up A Bigger Splash as yet another fine example of one of my favorite dramatic subgenres: The Party Out of Bounds. A wealthy, white music industry couple get away from it all on a Sicilian island only to be rudely interrupted by a loud mouth producer/ex-lover and his hungry-for-trouble daughter. At first the couple tolerates the boisterous presence of their old friend but as he continually overstays his welcome the situation turns violently sour & then breaks in half. I love bottled up dramas when folks sickened by each other feel compelled (usually by a dangerous combination of lust & alcohol) to verbally duke it out in a cramped space instead of calling off the party & sending everyone on their not-so merry way. In A Bigger Splash‘s best moments it’s a wonderfully sadistic drama in this way, cramming four stage play-ready characters into a tight space & turning their cautious love for one another into murderous hatred.

Tilda Swinton stars as David Bowie’s less ethereal stand-in, an on-hiatus rock star recovering from a vocal surgery in romantic bliss with her recovering alcoholic husband. Their serene getaway is short-lived as the party’s crashed by the hopelessly crass, self-absorbed social terrorist music producer who haunts their past. Ralph Fiennes does a fantastic job as this obnoxious catalyst, turning the pathetic sadness of reliving your glory days into a mission statement & a battle cry. Dakota Johnson rounds out the cast as the producer’s hot-to-trot daughter, a literal siren on the rocks intending to seduce the blissful couple into annihilation from the other end. This is a huge step up for Johnson, who’s coming off a hot streak of stinkers like 50 Shades of Grey & How to Be Single to put in a well-measured performance that proves she can (emotively) duke it out with the best of them. Swinton is as consistently magnetic here as always, even with the power of speech mostly removed from her arsenal. It’s Fiennes who’s given free reign to chew scenery, though, and he does a wonderfully maniacal job driving the party as far out of bounds as he can, at times recalling Ben Kingsley’s dastardly crass performance in (the far superior work) Sexy Beast.

Unfortunately, A Bigger Splash has an occasional tendency to release steam from the dramatic pressure cooker in a way that relieves the central tension a little too easily. I’m thinking particularly of the flashbacks to Swinton’s & Fiennes’s glory days as a coked-up power couple on top of the rock & roll world. There’s too much escapism in those moments, distracting from the cramped discomfort of the the mounting resentment at hand even when they refer to past conflicts. That might be a personal bias, though, as it was the exact same problem I had with Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs film last year. I also thought showing Swinton performing her rock act in these flashbacks was a mistake. The film puts so much pressure on her voice/the music to be amazing that there’s no possible way for the reality to live up to it.

Still, director Luca Guadagnino does a great job here of turning a small cast drama into an intense visual display and a powder keg of lust & hurt feelings. Every body involved is a target for sexual leering. Unusually sharp focus of food, drink, and spinning records intensifies the sensual bacchanal of the central conflict. Up-close, direct to the camera line delivery recalls the discomfort of a great Bergman monologue. Even though he makes a few missteps in turning down the heat when it should be blasted, Gudagnino gleefully searches for the Devil in the details & employs an especially game Fiennes as a romance monster hellbent on tearing the whole world down so he can start from scratch (or dry hump the ruins). Although A Bigger Splash isn’t wholly successful, it is a remarkable experience that refuses to shy away from the violent urges of romantic jealousy & party-out-of-bounds societal unraveling. It’s impressive even when it stumbles and easily could’ve been much less memorable in less capable hands.

-Brandon Ledet

The Sons of Tennessee Williams (2011)

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fourstar

In my review of the exquisite ball culture documentary Paris is Burning I mentioned that New Orleans’s queer bounce scene deserves its own myth-making documentary, especially in light of those two subcultures’ remarkable similarities. It turns out that New Orleans already has its de facto version of Paris is Burning in The Sons of Tennessee Williams (not that a “sissy bounce” doc wouldn’t’ still be an essential historical document). Chronicling 50 years of gay Mardi Gras culture in New Orleans, The Sons of Tennessee Williams is a priceless archive of an LGBTQ subculture that amazes merely by existing. To think that the footage, photography, and history detailed here was ever recorded in the first place is incredible, given the danger it would’ve put its pre-Stonewall subjects into, not to mention the successive physical damage decades of hurricanes would later pose. It’s a thorough, definitive work that makes almost any attempt to follow up on or retell its story redundant.  If you’re at all interested in gay Mardi Gras tradition in New Orleans, The Sons of Tennessee Williams is the only logical place to begin.

The film splits its time between documenting the current state of the last two remaining gay Mardi Gras krewes, The Krewe of Petronius & The Krewe of Aremeinius, and constructing an oral history of those two social clubs’ storied past. The more reflective, anthropological segments of the film fascinate in a more unique way than the up-to-date check-in. Elderly gay men describe in detail the peril of growing up queer in the American South before the civil rights movements of the 1960s. In a time where homosexual public association was explicitly illegal, Mardi Gras stood as the one day a year when gay men could legally gather in a public space. In the face of ridicule, violence, and police harassment (under the vice cops’ crackdown on “crimes against Nature”), gay men began forming their own social structures by gathering in certain French Quarter bars as safe havens.

Eventually, this subculture craved legitimacy and a break from the secretive, dangerous nature of cruising undercover and sought official, legal status of a traditional Mardi Gras krewe. This urge was likely born of the simple desire to gather in celebration and to join the pageantry of traditional Mardi Gras balls, but it also saw a marginalized group bonding together to form a strong political voice. And since the formation of The Krewe of Petronius occurred before The Stonewall Riots, the film convincingly posits gay Mardi Gras krewes as “the earliest civil rights for gays” on record. It’s a story that isn’t told as often or as loudly as it should be and this film offers the rare treat of hearing directly from the mouths of the men who lived it and survived to tell the tale.

As rough as some of its subjects’ backstory can be, The Sons of Tennessee Williams is largely a celebration. These men survived societal persecution, the AIDS crisis, and Hurricane Katrina with their numbers dwindled, but their traditions unscathed. Although the modern check-in portion of the documentary is somewhat less compelling than its central history lesson, it’s still an uplifting reassurance that gay Mardi Gras culture is still alive & intact. It’s even had enough time to grow into a venerable institution, joining the old-fashioned pageantry of other krewes’ ball traditions and inspiring straight people & politicians to beg for an invite to exclusive social events that were once considered a disgrace by “polite society”.

I do think that The Sons of Tennessee Williams is an essential historical document that should be seen by as wide of an audience as possible, but I’ll also admit that being a local made it strike a particular chord with me (as it must also have with documentarian Tim Wolff). I live down the street from The Krewe of Aremeinius’s headquarters. I’ve personally taken Polaroids of some of the costumes on display in the film on Mardi Gras Day in The French Quarter [included below]. Seeing 1940s footage of homemade costumes on Canal Street fills me with a certain hometown pride that might not translate as powerfully to outside audiences, etc. The Sons of Tennessee Williams is as much of a celebration of New Orleans culture along the lines of the classic Les Blanc doc Always for Pleasure as it is a gay culture landmark akin to Paris is Burning. It’s a thoroughly New Orleans story that deserves to be told around the world instead of the way it’s been locked away & forgotten. I urge anyone interested in gay Mardi Gras tradition to seek it out immediately.

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-Brandon Ledet

Tale of Tales (2016)

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“Every new life calls for a life to be lost. The equilibrium of the world must be maintained.”

It’s almost a cliché concept to explain at this point, but traditional fairy tales are not the saccharine Disney romances they’re often believed to be. Fairy tales are often horrifically brutal stories of otherworldly magic meant to warn real world people, often children, about the dangers of human follies like lust, greed, selfishness, or curiosity. It isn’t often that an authentic-feeling, appropriately brutal fairy tale makes to the big screen. It’s even rarer that it’d be live-action and an original property, rather than an adaptation of a Brothers Grimm or a Hans Christian Andersen tale. Tale of Tales is a once-in-a-lifetime gem in the way it not only fills this requirement, but also excels as an intricately detailed piece of high art & cinematic finery.

I didn’t expect to see a more exquisite, idiosyncratic work than Hail, Caesar! all year, but Tale of Tales might’ve blown it out of the water. It’s like The Fall, Pan’s Labyrinth, and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover all rolled into one hideous fairy tale directed by Cronenberg in his prime. It’s beautiful, morbidly funny, brutally cold, everything you could ask for from a not-all-fairy-tales-are-for-children corrective. It’s sometimes necessary to remind yourself of the immense wonder & dreamlike stupor a great movie can immerse you in and Tale of Tales does so only to stab you in the back with a harsh life lesson (or three) once you let your guard down. This is ambitious filmmaking at its most concise & successful, never wavering from its sense of purpose or attention to craft. I’d be extremely lucky to catch a better-looking, more emotionally effective work of cinematic fantasy before 2016 comes to a close. Or ever, really.

The film opens with Salma Hayek & John C. Reilly sitting as the king & queen of a fantasy realm kingdom. Hayek is perfectly regal on the throne while Reilly feels plucked from an especially expensive episode of Wishbone, recalling his blissfully clueless husband role in We Need to Talk about Kevin. There’s a strain on their relationship and, thus, the kingdom as it’s revealed that the couple cannot conceive a child as a future heir. Advised by an old, wizardly fella who lives in a cave, the royal couple addresses this problem by slaying a sea beast & eating its heart after it’s cooked by a virgin. The trick works & the queen carries her pregnancy to term over the course of a single night. And that’s when things get weird.

I reveal this plot detail only to illustrate just how varied & far-reaching the territory Tale of Tales covers can be. The tale of the sea monster’s heart is just one facet of just one story that continues to spiral out from there over the course of the film. All told, there are three tales covering three adjacent kingdoms that give this film its shape. Inexplicably, the Hayek & Reilly royalty aren’t even the most interesting characters of the bunch. Tale of Tales is crawling with witches, ogres, giant insects, and the like that all make magic feel just as real and as dangerous as it does in The Witch, albeit with a lavish depiction of wealth in its costume & set design the latter can’t match in its more muted imagery. The three tales told here all stand separately strong & immaculate on their own, but also combine to teach its characters/victims (and, less harshly, its audience) about the dangers & evils of self-absorption. Each character featured here suffers a hideous fate because of their own obsessive selfishness. And if there’s any who don’t, they likely suffer at the hands of others’, especially the ones who supposedly love them.

I urge you not to watch the trailer to this film if you can avoid it. It both spoils way too much of the plot(s) that you’re better off discovering on your own and completely misreads the tone of the film as a whole. Tale of Tales fearlessly alternates between the grotesque & the beautiful, the darkly funny & the cruelly tragic. Its cinematography as well as its set & costume design will make you wonder how something so delicately pretty can be so willing to get so spiritually ugly at the drop of a hat (or a sea beast’s heart). Don’t be fooled when the film threatens to devolve into modernist showboating with its explicit gore or its exploitative lesbian make-outs in the early proceedings. It’s very much in the tradition of fairy tales in their purest form, immense beauty, cruelty, warts, and all. I highly recommend lending it your full attention & willing imagination, especially if you have the chance to watch it on the big screen. You’ll both love & loathe the places it takes you.

-Brandon Ledet

The Straight Story (1999)

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threehalfstar

I’ve been intrigued with The Straight Story for a while. It’s the only David Lynch movie to get a G rating from the MPAA and  the only one to be released by Walt Disney Pictures. It’s also based off a true story, which is interesting in its own way. I’m a big fan of the worlds Lynch creates. They’re weird, eerie, and usually unsettling. I thought maybe Disney didn’t realize what they were releasing, that maybe it’s a strange hidden jewel.

Instead, it is like the title suggests a straightforward film, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) is old. He doesn’t have a driver’s license, because he can’t see. He refuses to use a walker so he walks with two canes. He has the weight of a lifetime of memories and regrets on his shoulders. He is encumbered and refuses to admit it. His brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton) in Wisconsin has a stroke. Alvin, being a stubborn old geezer, decides that he will ride his lawn mower from Iowa to Wisconsin.

At the beginning, we’re treated to some really Twin Peaks vibes due to the soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti and the b-roll footage of grain harvesters cruising down the rows of crops. Moments like those happen throughout the film, but for the most part The Straight Story‘s a pretty normal, heartwarming family movie. It’s bizarre in its unexpected-from-Lynch lack of bizarreness. By practicing restraint, though, he makes a very intimate film.

Most of the movie is Alvin riding on the shoulder of highways, at probably 5 mph, with nothing else going on but soundtrack and scenery, fields on fields on fields. Some of the movie, however, is Alvin’s one-on-one conversations with the people he meets on the road. This movie turns a real old man’s story into a real folk legend. He encounters and soothes the people caught up in the fast busy world. He provides an open ear for concerns and worries. The thing that gets me here is that yes, it’s a movie about an old man charming people with his life lessons and by all accounts that should be Hallmark cheese, but there’s something so genuine about these moments. Farnsworth really does a great job of carrying the movie on his shoulders (or in his trailer pulled by a lawn mower). You never know whether or not this is how the real Alvin Straight was, but you really hope he was. And by the end you even kind of believe he was.

-Alli Hobbs

Daikaijû Gamera (1965)

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fourstar

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I’m far from an expert in kaiju cinema, but recently catching a couple outliers in the genre, Reptilicus & Pulgasari, has sparked my interest a great deal. I’ve sen a good number of films that feature Godzilla & King Kong, who seem to be the top brass of kaiju fare, but there are so many other giant monsters of creature feature past that I’m missing out on between those borders. You can’t only listen to The Beatles & The Stones and claim to know the totality of rock n’ roll, right? As many times I’ve seen drawings or action figures of kaiju like Gamera, Mothra, and Mechagodzilla, I don’t think I’ve ever given their originating films a solid, up-close look, which feels like a blind spot in my horror/sci-fi film education.

Daikaijû Gamera (literally translated Giant Monster Gamera and re-cut & released in the US as Gamera: The Invincible) doesn’t do much to buck the idea that once you’ve seen one kaiju film you’ve seen them all. It plays remarkably like the original Godzilla film (which was then a decade old) in terms of tone, production, and plot. The most crucial difference between the two works, of course, is the design of their titular monsters. Yes, Daikaijû Gamera is essentially a too-soon remake of Godzilla, but it’s a Godzilla remake that features a gigantic, fire-breathing turtle that can turn its shell into a flying saucer. I don’t think I need to explain any more than that to get the film’s basic appeal across. It’s a concept that pretty much sells itself.

Illegal Cold War nuclear activity in the Arctic frees an ancient beast known a The Devil’s Envoy, Gamera. Yes, The Devil’s right hand demon is a gigantic, fire-breathing turtle that once plagued the lost continent of Atlantis (according to the Eskimo tribes that witness his rebirth, at least). Scientists expect that the nuclear fallout that freed Gamera from his icy prison will be the creature’s very undoing. That is not the case. Gamera not only breathes fire. He inhales it. All weaponry, industry and nuclear destruction thrown in his path only make him stronger. Nations must put aside their potential World War III tensions to peacefully plan Gamera’s undoing, calling into question the way the unnatural power of nuclear war can loosen & anger forces of Nature like typhoons, dead aquatic life epidemics, and fire-breathing turtles the size of mountains. At one point an observer asks, “Something must really be wrong with Earth, huh?” The answer is a resounding yes and a lot of anxieties about the destructive nature of modern life is clearly on display here in the guise of giant monster mayhem.

Although Daikaijû Gamera is a direct echo of Godzilla & in many ways feels like a standard issue kaiju flick (on the sillier side of the genre), it also did a lot to establish that standard in the first place. There’s a brief scene involving a beatnik surf rock band & a major storyline about a little boy obsessed with turtles (and turtleneck sweaters, apparently) that telegraph a lot of the winking camp tone in kaiju films to come. At this stage of kaiju cinema the monsters are supposed to be majestic & terrifying, but Giant Monster Gamera hints at a future world where they function as heroes of children & monsters with a sense of humor. Godzilla may be the most looming influence over the entire spectrum of kaiju as a monster movie subgenre, but Gamera‘s impact is a lot more readily recognizable in the DNA of the genre’s goofy, 70s future in titles like (my personal favorite) Godzilla vs The Smog Monster.

Again, though, there’s really no need to sell Giant Monster Gamera as an innovator or a historical landmark to make its genre thrills feel worthwhile. You can get its basic plot in any number of 1960s kaiju movies, but where else are you going to get a giant, fire-breathing turtle that occasionally functions as a flying saucer (besides its eleven sequels)? This is a genre that survives on the strength and/or novelty of its monsters & Giant Monster Gamera did not disappoint on that end, not one  bit.

-Brandon Ledet

The Phantom Carriage (1921)

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fourhalfstar

Have you ever completely forgotten that you’ve seen a film before until you’re in the middle of watching it? I ran across a couple posts recently that compared Stanely Kubrick’s masterful horror landmark The Shining to a 1920s Swedish film named The Phantom Carriage. There was one .gif in particular that mirrored the two works’ infamous axe scenes that really caught my attention while scrolling through Tumblr posts. I made a point to bump the Criterion-restored version of The Phantom Carriage to the top of my Hulu queue only to discover about five minutes into the film that I had seen it once before, years & years ago, and already really enjoyed it.

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A silent film that combines horror & dramatic tragedy, The Phantom Carriage tells a similar story as works like It’s a Wonderful Life & A Christmas Carol with an intense focus on the supernatural aspect of that framework. In the movie’s mythology whoever dies last on the last day of the year must drive Death’s carriage for a full year. Each day feels like 100 years as the titular phantom carriage’s driver makes their rounds like a mail room clerk, collecting souls from the recently deceased on Death’s behalf. The horse & carriage are always the same, but the driver is different each year, almost like a morbid version of the Tim Allen comedy The Santa Clause.

On this particular New Year’s Eve the newest phantom carriage driver-elect is one David Holm, a boozy sinner who’s spent most of his life abusing anyone who dares to love him. Before David’s (literally) given the reins, however, he’s forced to take a remorseful journey through his own past, bearing witness to each horrifically shitty thing he’s done to his fellow man. David is forced by Death’s previous servant to watch as his past self abandons his family in favor of booze, shames the charitable for caring about his well-being, and intentionally tries to spread consumption among the innocent out of pure malice. He can barely stand to watch himself act like such a destructive ass & that discomfort is a large portion of his punishment as Death’s new servant.

Outside the obvious homage in the axe scene pictured above, there isn’t much to The Phantom Carriage‘s connection to The Shining except on a very basic thematic level. The Phantom Carriage is a ghost story about alcoholism & familial abuse in which the temporary caretaker of a supernatural, cursed establishment is driven to cruelty, so yeah, it does telegraph a lot of the basic structure of where Kubrick would take his Steven King adaptation over 50 years later. However, Kubrick is far from the first director who comes to mind while watching The Phantom Carriage, which is likely why I didn’t remember seeing the film before when prompted by those social media posts.

It’s Ingmar Bergman who pulled the most readily recognizable influence from the silent classic. As soon as Death’s servant arrives in the iconic hooded robe & sickle get-up, Bergman’s version of Death in The Seventh Seal immediately comes to mind. Before I even read this film’s Wikipedia page I could’ve told you Bergman watched The Phantom Carriage religiously and, indeed, the director claimed to have viewed it at least once a year. It’s possible to argue that The Shining would’ve been a very different work without The Phantom Carriage‘s influence, but what’s an even more immense question is just how different Bergman’s entire aesthetic would be without the seminal work. It’s crazy to think of the massive influence Bergman’s image of Death has had across pop culture, from The Last Action Hero to The Independent to Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (naming a few personal favorites), and that its seed was actually planted in the silent era.

The Phantom Carriage is well worth a watch even outside its massive influence on the likes of Kubrick & Bergman. The film was noteworthy in its time for innovations in its ghostly camera trickery and its flashback-within-a-flashback narrative structure. Those aspects still feel strikingly anachronistic & forward-thinking today, especially the gnarly phantom imagery, but you don’t have to be a film historian to appreciate what’s essentially a timeless story of brutally cold selfishness & heartbreaking remorse. I also like the movie’s gimmick of trying to make a non-Halloween holiday spooky (the film was set, plotted around, and released on New Year’s Eve), something schlock horror would do with Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and whatever else for decades to come. It’s a shame that at one point I forgot I watched The Phantom Carriage in the first place. It’s a great slice of horrific silent cinema & innovative filmmaking history.

-Brandon Ledet

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

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A body of a rich man is found on the main street of a small Mississippi town.  Bumbling local authorities luckily mistake Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) — a quick witted, sharp-dressed homicide detective from Philadelphia — for a suspect. After being taken in, he is dragged into the investigation and small town politics, butting heads with the police chief, minor rednecks, and rich good ole boys. Virgil makes his way surrounded at all times by potentially violent white supremacists, who resent him for not only being black but also for being successful, with only facts and quick reflexes as he plunges headfirst into town drama.

The setting of the South itself is as much a character as Virgil. The hot weather permeates every scene of In the Heat of the Night with its humidity. There’s squeaking air conditioners and sweat rolling off of everyone. Every backroad is dusty and treacherous. There’s fields of cotton with hunched over weather beaten pickers right before a scenic driveway to a plantation. The broken down desperation is constant. In the Heat of the Night could have simply been a crime movie (at some point I thought to myself that this movie vaguely has the same feel as a really good Columbo episode) but the setting is everything. Virgil is a successful black man in a town run by poor, angry white men. The heat is as oppressive as the prejudice and bigotry.

The setting is hostile. The people are racist. But it’s pretty satisfying to watch Sidney Poitier play a no nonsense successful detective constantly proving everyone wrong and blatantly disobeying people who order him around like a dog, calling him “boy.” One of the best moments of the movie is when a rich racist man slaps him and without hesitation he slaps back. Being from 1967, this feels like such a rallying point: that finally on film a black man can slap back.

During the opening credits, one thing I found kind of surprising is that Hal Ashby edited this film. I wasn’t aware of his editing work, so I was kind of eager to find out what the guy who directed Harold and Maude and Being There could bring to the editing table. It turns out a lot. His quick cuts and the cinematography of Haskell Wexler (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) result in a movie that’s just as moving technically as it is acting and story-wise.

In the Heat of the Night is a well paced, beautifully shot thriller. Just watching it, you can feel the humid Southern air. Poitier playing a stubborn and heroic bigotry-defying Tibbs is definitely iconic. And even if it weren’t for all of that, it would still be a good crime movie.

-Alli Hobbs

Keanu (2016)

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fourstar

It’s been a good while since I’ve seen a film in theaters and actually laughed out loud (at least for films that are actually meant to be comedies). I can’t even remember the last time I saw a comedy that would be considered a new release. I guess it would be Krampus, but Krampus is considered to be a horror-comedy and not just a straight up comedy. Recent funny films that have hit theaters would be The Boss, The Brothers Grimsby, and Meet the Blacks, just to name a few. Maybe the movie trailers and reviews didn’t do these films justice, but nothing about these films made me want to make my way to a theater and drop ten bucks to see them. Keanu was a different story. Knowing my love for cats, a friend of mine sent me the movie trailer for Keanu via text message. At first, I thought this was a silly trailer for a fake movie that was part of the Key and Peele sketch comedy show. Well, I just about exploded with joy when I found out that this was going to be a real movie. A real movie that was going to actually be in real movie theaters. A film about an adorable kitten mixed up in a drug cartel that included tunes from music legend George Michael was something I wouldn’t miss for the world. Yes, I definitely shelled out ten bucks for this one.

Keanu has a strong, action-packed start. Two assassins, known throughout the film as the Allentown Brothers (actually played by Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key), massacre a buttload of people in a drug lair housed by a church. A cute little kitten that goes by the name of Iglesias escapes the madness and ends up on the doorstep of Rell (Jordan Peele), who is going through a terrible breakup. Iglesias, renamed Keanu by Rell, brings Rell out of his depression and becomes the most important thing in his life. His world falls apart again when Keanu is kidnapped from his home. With the help of his straight-laced cousin Clarence, Rell sets out to find Keanu. The two end up going undercover as the infamous Allentown Brothers to get Keanu back with the nicknames of Tectonic (Peele) and Shark Tank (Key). Tectonic and Shark Tank join a gang with a leader that goes by the name of Cheddar (Method Man) as part of their plan to get Keanu back. The duo quickly finds themselves teaching teambuilding exercises to gang members and selling drugs to The House Bunny actress Anna Faris, among other things.

What I found to be very interesting about this film was that it was actually very violent and gory. The shooting scenes are brutal but funny at the same time. It’s a strange feeling for sure. Key and Peele really pushed the envelope by having all that violence in a comedy starring a super cute kitten. Also, one part the really stuck out to me was towards the end of the film when Clarence and Rell actually get arrested after taking down a major drug operation. It was so surprising because it was so realistic. Usually when the good guys in movies steal cars and deal drugs to ultimately take down the bad guys, they’re let off the hook and the film concludes to a silly happy ending.  In Keanu, our main comic stars go straight to jail after they save the day because, well, they actually broke a ton of laws throughout the movie.

Peele is by far the star of the show. He was absolutely hilarious consistently throughout the film, and I was laughing during just about every moment he was on the screen. He gets especially funny when he takes on the role of Techtonic. Unlike Key, he doesn’t rely on overacting and ridiculous Dane Cook-like humor to have a funny performance. I know that it sounds like I’m being harsh on Key, and I don’t really mean to be. He did bring a good bit of humor to Keanu, and he starred in one of my favorite scenes in the movie: while on a drug trip, he imagined himself in the video of George Michael’s “Faith,” tight jeans included. Clarence, like myself, is a huge George Michael fan, and there are some insanely hilarious parts in the film (other than the “Faith” drug trip) which involve his love for George Michael that I completely adored. Key’s style of comedy just doesn’t a-Peele to me as much as Peele’s, so I can’t help but compare the two.

Once the film was over, my cheekbones were sore from laughing so much, but then a more serious feeling came over me. I realized that I would probably do the same thing Rell did if my cat was in Keanu’s situation. Keanu’s adorable little kitten meow tugged at all my heart strings, and hopefully, other viewers had the same reaction. Keanu was like an Air Bud for adults. In a world filled with animal abuse and abandonment, it’s nice to see a film that promotes human/animal bonds. Give your fur babies lots of kisses and hugs and catch Keanu before it leaves theaters!

-Britnee Lombas

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

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fourhalfstar

Captain America: Civil War was a lot of fun! I went into the film expecting it to be a bit of a letdown after how much I loved Winter Soldier, and while it’s not as good as the last Cap flick, it’s certainly worthy of the positive critical reception that it has been garnering. I expected that there would be more of a backlash against it given that the negative reception of Batman v Superman was characterized by proponents of that film as being the result of a pro-Marvel bias among the blogosphere. Instead, the film’s 90% positive professional critic score and 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes reflects a generally positive reaction, and the film deserves it. While there are some detractors who are critical of the film, citing the distinct division between plot lines (one focused on the titular conflict between the different members of the Avengers and one which is devoted to following up on the plotline surrounding the Winter Soldier and his past), I’m in agreement with the general public in that I found this film a worthy successor and a great introduction to the new direction of the MCU as Phase Three revs its engine.

I’ll be saving my comparisons to other films and my discussion of the spoilery elements of the film for our Agents of S.W.A.M.P.F.L.I.X. dual review, but I’ll talk about my favorite elements here. Unlike Age of Ultron, which likewise had a large number of characters and introduced new ones, this film felt neither overstuffed nor imbalanced. There’s more of Cap than anyone else, but that’s to be expected, and every other character gets at least a few minutes of screentime that develops them as individuals and reveals something about their personal philosophy. Notable among these is Scarlet Witch, who is basically filling the Kitty Pryde role on this team as the youngest member/trainee, getting tips on superheroing from Cap and Black Widow in the field. Elizabeth Olsen plays the hell out of Wanda’s insecurities and independence, and it’s a testament to her strength as an actress that the audience fully understands her character after just a couple of films in which she plays a role that doesn’t get a lot of screen time. Although Scarlett Johannson’s role here is much more brief than her meatier presence in Winter Soldier, the Russo brothers effectively understand that her relationship with Steve would be strained by their placement on opposite sides of the Sokovia Accord issue; I won’t get into detail here, but she gets a few scenes that allow the actress to play this conflict, and ScarJo nails it despite being arguably underused. Vision also feels a lot more like Vision this time around: a weird android whose utter incomprehensibility of human social norms is both charming and unnerving at the same time. The movie also gets a lot of subtle comedy out of the character’s uncanniness; there’s something utterly surreal about a blockbuster comic book movie featuring a character whose unusual body shape is covered by the kind of sweater that your grandmother orders out of a J. Crew catalog.

I also really enjoyed that, for the first time in the MCU, we got to see a team fight another group.In most of the films, the final confrontation boils down to a one-on- one fight (Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man), the protagonist and maybe a sidekick facing off against a single villain and his attendant faceless horde (IM2, IM3, Thor 2), or a group facing off against a single villain and his attendant faceless horde (Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers 2). It’s not surprising that the only film from Phases One and Two that doesn’t fit into one of these boxes is Winter Soldier, which sees the individual members of Cap’s team in different places and fulfilling the roles that were best suited to each. This did mean that we didn’t get to see, for instance, a moment of pure four-color glory like Cap using his shield as a refractor for Iron Man’s blasts like in Avengers; what it does accomplish is raising the emotional stakes when the villains are well-developed and individual rather than being mass market Chitauri, Dark Elves, Ultron bodies, or the Sting-Winger things from Guardians. Here, it’s a full team against a full team, using their powers in new and inventive ways and showing how these personalities play off of each other, especially with regards to the more mature members of each team and their more green teammates. Ant-Man is a particular delight (despite some questionable CGI in a few scenes), with Paul Rudd effectively playing up Scott Lang’s awe at meeting Captain America; the serious affectation he puts into the line “Here’s your shield, Captain America” got the film’s biggest chuckle out of me, although Spider-Man’s sincere fascination with Bucky’s metal arm was great as well.

The fight scenes are frenetic in the best way, and they all push the plot forward rather than simply occurring at the anticipated intervals in which we’ve been conditioned to expect them. That’s not to say that this is a fun movie throughout, however. The length of the scenes featuring Holland’s precocious, quipping Spider-Man are balanced out by a conspiracy plot that reflects the darker elements of Winter Soldier. These revisitations don’t resonate as strongly this time around, but the revelations about the Winter Soldier program and one character’s motivations for wanting to bring this information to light are effective in their Manchurian qualities. This actually leads into the question that the marketing for the film has played up, one that was much more straightforward in the source material (which we’ll talk about in the Agents review): whose side are you on?

Where do I stand? There’s a great underlying throughline in this film that shows that, in a way, Tony Stark is right. It’s almost easy to write off Steve’s motivations as being too personal and lacking in professional distance; his desire to not only save but redeem Bucky may be the most ethical motivation in play, but it’s undeniable that this morality isn’t what motivates Cap. Steve Rogers’s desperate desire not to lose one of the last tenuous connections that he has to a home that no longer exists is understandable. On the other hand, it’s not hypocrisy on Cap’s part that he does not want to defer to the potentially unethical whims of a questionably impartial caucus while engaging in ambiguously unlawful activity himself to defend Bucky. It’s totally in line with what he claims is his goal: assuming personal responsibility. It’s also understandable that Tony would be the person most in favor of the accords: his ego and compulsion to take personal responsibility for protecting the entire earth led to the creation of Ultron. Of course Tony feels more of a need for oversight than Cap, who had heretofore never been on the wrong side of any moral conflict. In the end, however, the stakes become as personal for Tony as they are for Steve, leading him to act out violently using his technological advantage. Further, this conflict comes as a result of manipulation by a basic human for whom the stakes are also too personal. Supersoldier, genius inventor, and haunted family man: all give in to their worst instincts, tearing down empires and threatening worldwide political ramifications of the future because of the limited horizons of their own pain. This movie is both an embodiment of the need for accountability as made manifest in the lives of three different men, but also a demonstration of the infeasibility of the accords themselves.

Some situations require action faster than a committee can authorize it. This is a world where an alien portal can open up over New York or interdimensional monsters could appear in London and end life as we know it while some U.N. page is just trying to get enough people together to make a motion to deploy the Avengers. What if everyone was at lunch? And then, boom, humanity is enslaved to the Skrulls or consumed by Galactus because all they had to do was attack during everyone’s smoke break or a particularly nasty flu season. There really is no side that’s entirely right or wrong, which is the film’s greatest strength. There are a lot of people making comparisons to Batman v Superman and with good reason, considering that there is a weird overlap in some of the plot elements, but what really stands out to me is that BvS has what is essentially a sitcom stock plot where Character A and Character B are in conflict because they don’t communicate with each other. Then things get blown further and further out of proportion while shenanigans ensue, until they realize that, hey, being honest is important and everyone learns a lesson about teamwork and friendship. In Civil War, the conflicts are ideological and thus more rooted in the humanity of its characters. That’s the core of what makes this film work, and it’s a great start for the next wave of Marvel’s flicks.

-Mark “Boomer” Redmond

Eagle vs. Shark (2007)

/ swampflix / 2 Comments

EPSON MFP image

threehalfstar

Falling in love with Taika Waititi’s last two feature films, Boy & What We Do in the Shadows, has recently prompted me to revisit his debut, Eagle vs. Shark. It turns out that Waititi’s quirky indie romcom beginnings seemingly have improved with time. Either that or it’s become easier for me as an audience to connect with Waititi’s particular aesthetic in his first film, which felt much more generic when I first gave it a try a few years ago. Not to confuse you with too many animal species here, but Eagle vs. Shark is a total wolf in sheep’s clothing situation. What I remembered as being a straight-forward romance between two hopelessly awkward nerds is actually something much darker & more amusing in retrospect. It doesn’t sport the vibrant, unmitigated success of Waititi’s two follow-ups, but it’s a perfectly wonderful debut for a comedic director in its own nuanced way.

Released almost simultaneously with Flight of the Conchords (another Waititi creation), Eagle vs. Shark is most notable as being an early glimpse of the series’ breakout star Jemaine Clement. Clement appears here with the most horrific haircut in known existence and the poisonously boisterous personality of any Danny McBride character you could think of to match, yet still serves as an oddball sex symbol for the painfully awkward fast food worker Lily, played by Loren Taylor. There’s a twee cuteness in Lily’s attraction to Clement’s ultra-nerd caricature that could possibly be a turn-off to folks who shy away from the muted, manicured comedy of names like Wes Anderson, Jody Hill, and Jared & Jerusha Hess. What a lot of people miss when they dismiss these kinds of works is the dark soul lurking within. Clement’s self-centered man-child learns no easy lessons here. He ruthlessly breaks Lily’s heart, stranding her among strangers in a fruitless attempt to impress the world  by mirroring the footsteps of his deceased, suicidal brother (played by Waititi himself in old photographs & home videos). Instead of chumly thinking to yourself “What does she see in this guy?”, you’re instead horrified by the depths  of depravity she’ll allow him to go while still maintaining her affection. Eagle vs Shark may be dressed up like a sugary romance, but its core is thoroughly rotted & decayed.

It wouldn’t be surprising if a lot of folks brush this movie off as empty twee preciousness. Indeed, I remembered it being cute, but kinda vapid when I first watched it. I mean, the film features a stop motion music video about two apple cores falling in love to Devendra Banhart’s “The Body Breaks“. I’m getting twee overload readings on my B.S. scale just writing that down. Once you get past the handmade animal costumes, dinosaur-themed cinemas (Cinesaurus Rex, for the curious), and the very cheap Mortal Kombat knockoffs, (things I actually like, but feel very Etsy) the film is funny & sweet and great at making you feel like total shit. I think it might help to get used to Clement & Waititi’s world-class deadpan before approaching Eagle vs. Shark to fully appreciate its off-center sense of humor. Boy & What We Do in the Shadows are two unimpeachable comedies in my mind, but Waititi’s debut works well enough on its own terms as a dark, muted character study with a well-established visual eye & an unexpected mean streak. It’s a minor work compared to what he’s accomplished since, but I find it has gotten a lot better over time, despite what you might expect based on its mid-2000s twee tropes.

-Brandon Ledet