The Irishman is undoubtedly the one to see, as Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci reunite with Martin Scorsese
I’m back with my latest batch of reviews! I’m trying to keep this rolling right along here, as I catch up with some summer/fall films, as well as go out to the theaters to see some new releases. There’s no question that The Irishman is the pick of this litter, but I’d also say Ford v. Ferrari and Official Secrets provide some considerable pleasures of their own. Enjoy!
MIDSOMMAR * * * (Dir. Ari Aster)
Enduring all manner of Swedish horrors
Ari Aster’s second film after Hereditary continues the writer-director’s fascination with cult imagery and the idea of forcing ordinary people into utterly bizarre situations. Midsommar is even more ambitious, if a bit less scary, than his first film. At two and a half hours long, it takes you on a long journey from one college student’s suffering of a terrible family tragedy (like in Hereditary) and her grief sending her on a quest for some sort of catharsis, which she finds in an utterly unexpected place. Florence Pugh stars as Dani, who, while still grieving the death of her family, tags along on a summer trip with her boyfriend (Jack Reynor) and his friends to Sweden, where their Swedish friend has invited them to Midsommar, a kind of family gathering that he describes as akin to a folk festival. But of course, that is not at all what it is. The movie is deliberately paced and slowly draws you in to what’s happening in this outlandish cult, with callbacks to British folk horror films like 1973’s The Wicker Man in particular, and saving most of the truly gruesome shenanigans for the last 30-40 minutes. But it’s never boring as you are almost mesmerized by the happenings in this remote spot, and the unique setting of this horror film which takes place almost entirely during the day, with Sweden’s long lasting hours of sunlight. You find yourself in a kind of trance, like Dani herself does after a while, but the meaning of her transformation or attraction to this cult (if that’s what she is experiencing) is a bit muddled, as Aster runs into a pacing problem and perhaps overreaches his ambitions and forgets about the intentions of his characters in the last act. Still, what works in Midsommar are the striking images and insane climactic events, and those make the movie worth watching.
THE LION KING * (Dir. Jon Favreau)
An exercise in pure, artistic soullessness
It’s hard to describe the experience of watching a movie for the first time and knowing every single scene, every line of dialogue, every musical sequence and every music cue before it happens. Knowing when it’s going to happen, knowing how it will play out, knowing how it will end. It’s not the same as a movie being predictable, it’s literally knowing ahead of time what will happen in every moment, because you’ve seen it before. It’s also not the same as a remake, because in this case, a shot for shot, scene by scene recreation of the same movie (but in CG!) is always, and will never not be, a hollow, cynical exercise. In that sense, The Lion King is the very worst of the Disney remakes, which have all been terrible and couldn’t have set a lower bar to begin with. You’ve seen this entire thing already. Jon Favreau’s CGI recreation of the cartoon classic brings nothing, maybe even less than nothing, to the table. This is not a real movie, it’s plagiarism for cash. If you want to marvel at the CG world they created (this is an entirely animated movie), that’s your prerogative, but despite being the same film, it lacks the life, the originality, the creativity and the character of the original. It is an utterly soulless, foul insult to everyone who was involved at one point, in making an original film. For those reasons, The Lion King is possibly even more banal and inherently offensive, than the god awful Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. It’s hardly worth mentioning the tweaks that were made to it-like the newly terrible voice acting performances that sound like they’re coming from somewhere offscreen and not the from the animals themselves, the padded running time which includes watching a mouse walk slowly into frame and dust move even more slowly across an entire countryside, the absolutely butchered songs from a director who clearly has no idea how to structure a musical, and the inability to tell any of the lions apart from each other when they’re all onscreen at the same time. It’s a shame that pointless garbage like this will do exactly what Disney wants it to (make a billion dollars worldwide), because it’s an affirmation of their constant insults to the intelligence of audiences. I would say we deserve better, but who knows. Maybe we don’t.
OFFICIAL SECRETS * * * (Dir. Gavin Hood)
Remembering the outrages of the Iraq War era
In 2003 a British whistleblower leaked a classified GCHQ memo to the press because she was worried that her country was being lied into what would turn out to be a disastrous war in Iraq. She was charged with violating Britain’s Official Secrets Act, and then a year later the charges were dropped, the war happened anyway, and the story was all but forgotten. Now, Gavin Hood directs this film recalling that little known scandal which briefly captured the attention of the British press but was likely never even heard by the rest of the world, including here in America. Keira Knightley plays Katherine Gunn, who was at the time a 28-year-old translator for GCHQ (the British equivalent of the NSA) and spy who was passionately against the war and alarmed when she was sent a memo from the Americans directing a coordinated effort to use the intelligence agencies dig up dirt on members of the UN Security Council. The intent was to blackmail the smaller countries into voting for a war resolution, so Katherine followed her conscience and leaked it to the press, knowingly in violation of the law but in service of her country. Official Secrets details the true life affair in three distinct parts- Katherine’s initial discovery and leak of the memo, the efforts of the press, led by a reporter at the Observer (Matt Smith) to publish the document in spite of the legal complications is arises, and finally Katherine’s confession of the crime and the government’s attempts to prosecute her for her actions. This is a stark, compelling film, with a lean, un-melodramatic approach to the material. It’s in the vein of movies like All the President’s Men and Spotlight, but with a more personal focus on the whistleblower herself, this time an ordinary British citizen who felt nothing but an intensely personal desire to follow her principles, putting herself and her Turkish immigrant husband at risk in the process. And for what? The issue with this particular story is that it really was all for naught. The war did happen, and this leak had minimal effect at best. The movie raises questions about the actions of whistleblowers and the role of the press when the government lies to the people, and it can’t help but recall current events when government propaganda and lying is so out of control it startles you to remember how angry people were in the early 00’s, when the Bush and Blair governments were doing the same thing and yet somehow now seem civil in comparison. Are we destined to repeat our mistakes forever, with consequences ever more profound? The movie is well cast and impeccably acted by Knightley, Smith, Ralph Fiennes as Katherine’s defense attorney and Rhys Ifans as a particularly angry anti-war journalist who steals his scenes with comedic urgency. It fits nicely into the political thriller genre, but you can’t help but wish Katherine Gunn’s actions had had a bigger impact.
HUSTLERS * * (Dir. Lorene Scafaria)
J-Lo struts her stuff as a badass wannabe crime lord
For anyone who’s been sorry to see Jennifer Lopez spend most of the last twenty years of her movie career in terrible projects, you’ll be happy to hear that she, and really she alone, is the reason to see Hustlers. It’s the role of her career, maybe the one she was born to play. As the world weary, cynical Ramona, professional stripper who acts as Mama Bear to the younger girls she takes under her wing, she gets to pole dance, strut around in one designer tracksuit after another with perfectly manicured nails that look most comfortable holding a cigarette or a wine glass in the middle of the afternoon as she instructs the lessers in the intricacies of her burgeoning drug business. And boy does she make it look effortless. The movie loses energy whenever she’s not onscreen as a matter of fact, which is unfortunately, a pretty good chunk of this film. The woefully untalented Constance Wu stars a Destiny, who befriends Ramona and becomes her devoted pupil as a stripper in a high end club catering specifically to rich Wall Street guys in the years before the 2008 recession. After the crash though, Destiny, Ramona and a couple of other girls (Keke Palmer and Lili Reinhart) are in desperate need of cash and develop a hustle to drug and scam their former clientele out of their money. The movie wants to be about female empowerment through sexuality and payback to men that no one feels sorry for (and you really don’t), but Lorene Scafaria directs the film like a low rent American Hustle (which was itself a low rent Goodfellas), and this third tier imitation feels tired. Its especially cheesy framing device (Destiny relays these events through interview with an overacting Julia Stiles as the reporter who wrote the New York Magazine article on which the movie is based) only emphasizes how out of her depth Wu is as the lead in a movie that strives for higher ambitions and larger meaning. The movie is entertaining in parts, but never comes together as much as it should, despite J-Lo’s dynamic screen presence.
THE IRISHMAN * * * 1/2 (Dir. Martin Scorsese)
Much of the joy of this movie is watching acting legends reunite and spar with each other
Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed established Martin Scorsese as the mafioso of the modern day mob movie, and with so many to his name, he now finishes off his oeuvre of mafia films with the last remaining vestige of one. And who better to collaborate with on a project like this than his longtime star Robert DeNiro, who plays Frank Sheeran, a ninety-something who was a hitman for the mob from the mid-fifties to the late 70’s, and the man who allegedly (according to him) killed Jimmy Hoffa. To accomplish this, Scorsese uses state of the art de-aging technology to have DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino play men from their 40s into their 80’s and beyond, a groundbreaking feat of technological advance that could open the door to actors playing themselves younger well into middle and old age. It’s an experimental film in that regard, and the affect is jarring at first and takes some getting used to (we all know what Robert DeNiro looked like as a young man, and this is not quite the same thing, and besides that, the bodies of men in their late seventies cannot help but move differently from those in their forties). But thankfully, the sharp screenplay by Steven Zaillian brings us into the story of Frank Sheeran and his life with Italian mobsters, and the performances by acting legends in these roles are incredibly skilled and honed in, regardless of the CGI at work. This is a Scorsese move through and through- the master has lost none of his touch in a vibrant, energetic look at the life of one man that spans 60 years, but this is a more melancholic, subdued version of his mobster movies of yore. Frank is a passively violent, amoral man who feels no guilt or remorse for his life of murder for hire, and DeNiro’s performance is at first indifferent but evolves into a tragic, poignant look at the lifespan of a man who eventually has nothing and no one left in it but his memories of misdeeds and violence. Joe Pesci, come out of retirement for this role, is wonderful as Frank’s longtime mentor Russ, aged to be older than his protege, but with a quiet grace that resembles nothing of Pesci’s own iconic gangster roles, and Pacino (working with Scorsese for the first time) brings his particular brand of spry, wiry scenery chewing to become a scene-stealing, hilarious Jimmy Hoffa- these are memorable comeback roles for all three acting giants, and the pleasures of watching the three of them interacting onscreen could go on well longer than the three and a half hours The Irishman lasts. Scorsese directs with such a brisk verve and Zaillian’s script is so sharp and polished, that this movie is one of the most entertaining and funny films of the year, as well as one of the most reverent. It’s likely the final word from the master of gangster films on a genre that bears his stamp in multiple areas, and a more reflective ode to the life is not likely to be found.
FORD V. FERRARI * * * (Dir. James Mangold)
Bale and Damon make a well-matched screen duo
This is the kind of movie that’s in danger of existing- an old-fashioned, big studio adult drama with big names above the marquee, and actually given a wide release in theaters across the country. For that reason alone you can’t help but want it to succeed, especially given that it was made by 20th Century Fox before it was acquired by Disney, which has no interest in releasing anything but pre-existing IP’s that can make a billion dollars at the box office. The struggle between that kind of corporate demand over the creative teams that actually make the movies, in a funny way kind of mirrors what’s going on in Ford v. Ferrari itself, which is ostensibly about who won the 1996 Le Mans, but is really about the conflict between the free thinking creatives (the driver, the car designer) versus the pressures and business demands made on them by the Ford company as they strive to build a racecar that will finally defeat the mighty Ferrari before the eyes of the world. Matt Damon and Christian Bale star as Carol Shelby, the car designer and former driver who was forced to retire due to a heart condition, and Ken Miles, whom Bale plays as a hotheaded, kind of eccentric kook from Manchester who lives in America and repairs cars at a garage, racing in his spare time. The two of them are a well matched duo, but Bale pretty much owns the screen here, bringing a live wire energy to creating a unique, oddball character who stands out in an otherwise conventional movie filled with solid, charismatic performances across the board. The movie is long (2 and a half hours) and takes its time, spending much of the first half on that conflict between Ford, led by Tracey Letts as CEO Henry Ford II, Jon Bernthal as Lee Iacocca and Josh Lucas as the particularly antagonistic Leo Beebe, head of the racing program and for some reason, self-appointed oppressor over Miles (I guess the movie felt it needed some sort of traditional movie villain). The corporate drama is less interesting as it plays out onscreen than the actual racing scenes, which are thrilling and extremely well-executed by director James Mangold. The last half of the film literally picks up speed as Miles drives Daytona and Le Mans in less than ideal conditions and you can feel your heart racing along with him as he makes the dangerous turns and gets his door stuck on the crucial first lap of the race. As a sports movie, it delivers the goods in the last half while the subject matter in the first half keeps it from being a purely conventional film, though it is told in traditional Hollywood storytelling manner (not an insult). For anyone who loves cars and parts and grease and ambitious, masculine rivalry, I can imagine the first half of this movie is just as thrilling as the last half. For those who aren’t, you can appreciate the fun and the well told nature of the movie while really gearing up for the triumphant finish. It’s a good movie, not a great one. But what’s wrong with that?
