With more and more movies being removed from the 2020 theatrical calendar (so long Bond! good-bye Dune! catch Soul on Disney + Christmas Day), at least this is one that was always going to come out this year, because it’s on Netflix. It’s been six years since director David Fincher’s last movie Gone Girl, and his return looks like catnip for movie buffs. About the making of Citizen Kane and filmed in a similar style to the famous, groundbreaking cinematography of the Orson Welles masterpiece, Gary Oldman leads an impressive cast as screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, facing obstacles to getting that film made in the early 40’s. This kind of thing is definitely up my alley, so I’m looking forward to it big time. It’ll be on Netflix Dec 4th.
Irish Director Tomm Moore Debuts 'Wolfwalkers' at Digital TIFF
Yay! Ireland’s Tomm Moore, one of the great directors of animated movies (who still champions the art, and it is art, of 2D animation) has a new movie coming out this year! It just debuted at Toronto, which is having a digital film festival right now, letting press and festival goers see the movies through temporary screener codes and some drive-in showings. It looks gorgeous and it’s getting rave reviews. If you haven’t seen his previous films The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, you need to check them out right now (Song of the Sea is one my all time favorite animated movies- it made me bawl). Apple TV is distributing this and will release it for streaming before the end of the year. Can’t wait.
A Big Ensemble Cast Brings Aaron Sorkin's 'The Trial of the Chicago 7' To Life
Netflix is releasing Aaron Sorkin’s second directorial feature on October 16th, his new legal drama based on the famous 1969 trial of 60’s activists including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden and Bobby Seale, who were charged with starting a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. This teaser doesn’t show too much, but the story sure is timely. The stellar cast includes Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Yayha Abdul-Mateen II, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mark Rylance, Michael Keaton, and Jeremy Strong.
Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya Star in a New 'Dune'
The much anticipated Dune trailer is here. As someone with zero knowledge of either the book or the old David Lynch movie from 1984, I think this looks pretty cool. I love director Denis Villenueve (Prisoners not withstanding), and he seems to have delivered on what is intended to be an epic two part saga, but who knows when we’ll get to see it. It was supposed to come out at Christmas but you’ll notice that WB did not put a release date at the end of this trailer. With the soft opening and low Cinemascore of Tenet last weekend, everything is still a bit up in the air for movies this year. I personally think they ought to invest in having new movies play at drive-ins wherever available, but I don’t think think the studios are jazzed about that idea. So we continue to writhe in uncertainty.
New Trailer for Daniel Craig's Last Bond Outing 'No Time to Die'
This movie is supposedly sticking to its November release date and with theaters now opening (for better or worse) in most parts of the U.S. I guess the movies will start coming now (again, for better or worse). This second trailer is better than the first one, as it mostly packs on the action, though I still don’t like the story continuity. Craig’s Bond movies are the ones obsessed with continuity, which I don’t need- did anyone want to see Lea Seydoux again after Spectre? What is she, the love of Bond’s life? I don’t think so. Plus we have two new Bond girls in Ana de Armas and Lashana Lynch, no need to over overcrowd things.
The must see for this week is Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, currently on VOD
Lightning Round Reviews 2020: August
The must see for this week is Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, currently on VOD
That’s right. I’m finally back with the first batch of new movies I saw this year, which is admittedly, a pretty paltry amount. Even so, there are some really good movies in this first group, and though I choose Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always as the must watch, I also highly recommend Da 5 Bloods, which is on Netflix, Emma (VOD) and Howard, currently streaming on Disney Plus. Check them out.
BIRDS OF PREY (OR THE FABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF HARLEY QUINN) * * (Dir. Cathy Yan)
Margot Robbie won’t rest until she makes this character work
Cathy Yan’s Birds of Prey has the unfortunate luck of being a sequel/spinoff to the much reviled Suicide Squad, but even though this is a more coherent, well made film in comparison (which is a pretty low bar), it’s not much to write home about in its own right. Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn, this time with the lead role, as she has recently been dumped by the Joker (Jared Leto remains unseen in the movie, only mentioned) and has to figure out how to stand on her own two feet. The movie wants to be a kind of feminist Deadpool, as the bad guy adjacent, amoral Harley narrates the movie in that god awful, inexplicably made up accent that does not sound anything like the New York one I think it’s trying to be (Robbie should have really watched some episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, where the Harley Quinn character was originally created, to see what she’s supposed to sound like). And the movie possesses a colorful, glitter filled aesthetic and some high energy action scenes, while giving Harley herself an arc that remains consistent, but in the end, this movie just doesn’t amount to anything memorable. The Birds of Prey are kind of a pointless addition to a movie that clearly wants to be about Harley Quinn, so random characters like Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Black Canary (Jurnee Smollet-Bell) and Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) are in here to add to the forced girl power dynamic, yet for what real purpose? Who cares about any of them and none have any relationship to Harley in the first place. Ewan MacGregor gives what’s quite possibly his worst performance ever as Black Mask, a villain who runs a nightclub and kills people, but MacGregor’s camp flamboyance is so over the top that it’s distracting and almost embarrassing. The movie, as many of these movies do, devolves into mindless action scenes by the climax and leaves me with some rather annoying nitpicks about how or why on earth Harley Quinn can beat up twenty guys at once with a baseball bat when last time I checked, she does NOT have superpowers or is in any way technologically equipped to do anything of the kind. She’s literally just a person in a clown outfit who’s never been trained to fight, what makes her an assassin of the highest order? That bothers me, as does Harley herself, who frankly is just irritating and annoying, not a character who’s ever possessed anything more interesting than her sad, twisted origin story and damaged psyche as the enabler of a murderer. She’s not special. And neither is this movie.
DA 5 BLOODS * * * (Dir. Spike Lee)
Journey back to the jungle goes haywire
A new Spike Lee joint is always a must-see. Even when it’s all over the place and veering in different directions (as this one does), it feels unmistakably alive, relevant and important to our current moment. He just has a handle on what feels right. This film is his Vietnam War epic, meshed with a bit of Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and as a tribute to genres like those that have mostly left out the African-American experience, it’s essential in that regard. But of course, he also wants to talk about right now. The Bloods, five Vietnam vets who vowed to reunite and return to the country to find the remains of their buried friend who died in the war (Chadwick Boseman), also plan to dig up the stolen gold they buried there along with him. The journey takes several twists and turns as the characters interact and face a myriad of surprising conflicts, from encounters with the country that no longer resembles what they experienced, to the PTSD and psychological torment of Paul (Delroy Lindo), who never got over his time in ‘Nam and has morphed into a Trump supporter (much to the horror of his friends), to shootouts with a double crosser (Jean Reno) that tosses a splash of French colonial history into the mix. Paul’s son (Jonathan Majors) comes along on for the ride, along with a French landmine defuser (Melanie Thierry), and all the while we get flashbacks to the story of what really happened in Vietnam all those years ago (with the older actors playing their younger selves, no de-aging required). Yeah, there’s a lot going on in this movie, and at 156 minutes, there’s so much that it doesn’t feel long, yet the messiness can be a bit unfocused. You get the feeling Lee wants to say a lot about a lot of things, and yet singularly memorable moments abound, from the Bloods joyously dancing in a nightclub upon their reunion, to the aforementioned over the top shootout, to Delroy Lindo’s astoundingly powerful performance as a deeply disturbed individual who commands the screen at every moment. There may be too much at play for you to know quite what to make of it when it’s over, but you’ll be thinking about it for days.
EMMA * * * (Dir. Autumn De Wilde)
Sometimes you just can’t go wrong with a luscious period romance
Jane Austen has been one of the luckiest deceased authors in the hit to miss ratio of the many, many adaptations of her work. There are countless BBC versions of any one of her novels, and classic films like 1995’s Sense and Sensibility or 2005’s Pride and Prejudice. Not to mention modern day adaptations like Bridget Jones’s Diary and Clueless, still the very best version of Emma you’ll ever see. Speaking of the latter, it also boasts a straightforward period piece starring Gwyneth Paltrow, which was in itself delightful, but this latest version, the feature debut of director Autumn de Wilde, is a lush, vibrant retelling of the story, filled with its own memorable quirks of humor and style, to at least equal, if not surpass the 1996 film. Anya Taylor-Joy makes for a confident, likable heroine in spite of Jane Austen’s famous citation that Emma Woodhouse was a character that “no one but myself will much like.” Somehow, in spite of her privilege and wealth paired with a willful wrongheadness and bluster in every direction, Emma has always been liked, from Paltrow to Alicia Silverstone and now to Taylor-Joy. She’s an innocent after all, and her intentions aren’t malicious. Of course, the presence of Mr. Knightley on her shoulder to rap her knuckles when she’s wrong doesn’t hurt either. This time around, de Wilde infuses Emma with a palpable sexuality, introducing Knightley (played by singer-songwriter Johnny Flynn) quite literally in the buff and making clear the heated physical attraction between the two buttoned up, young Brits. The movie looks simply scrumptious, with colorful cinematography and spectacular costumes evoking regency era paintings rather than the grittier, roughhewn quality of some of the lower key Austen adaptations, but Emma is a member of the upper class elite, after all. It’s fitting. The film starts shaky with bouts of idiosyncratic humor that seem to recall Wes Anderson’s dollhouse aesthetic, but improves vastly as it goes along, in no small part due to the strength of Austen’s romantic comedy master-plotting. It’s hard to screw up her best works, let’s be honest. Emma is a classic for a reason, and there will always be a new Mr. Knightley for every generation to swoon over. This one works.
NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS * * * 1/2 (Dir. Eliza Hittman)
We make it hard for life in the poor side of America
When Obvious Child came out a handful of years ago it depicted the experience of what it was for a woman to get an abortion for whom access and opportunity was not a problem, but a fact of life, no matter what your circumstance. Never Rarely Sometimes Always is its mirror image, the other side of the coin in an America where poverty, situation and circumstances collide to make it extremely difficult for someone who needs to obtain this legal procedure to get the care she needs. The impact is heartbreaking and stays with you long after the movie ends. Director Eliza Hittman films in a neo-realist, docudrama style, dropping us into the uncomfortable life of Autumn (Sidney Flanagan), a 17-year-old from a conservative small town in Pennsylvania, who needs an abortion and whose only resource, the local clinic, gives her a pregnancy test from the store and then lies to her about the sonogram and pushes her against her inclinations. We are not given the circumstances of the pregnancy, as an unhappy home, school, and work environment is hinted at and subtly observed, leaving us to surmise what may or may not have happened. Autumn and her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) eventually steal the money to take a bus to New York and find a Planned Parenthood that will help her get what she needs. The movie is a look at how abortion clinics work but also a journey with two teenagers as they objectively face a world of abuse and predatory transgressions that young girls have already, unfortunately been forced to learn how to navigate by the time they’re in high school. It’s their fact of life. Recognizable at every turn, uncomfortable but familiar, sorrowful in its quiet depiction of desperation and internal pain. The most devastating scene in the film is Autumn’s questioning by a Planned Parenthood counselor where we get a slightly bigger window into the life she’s been subjected to and feel our hearts being crushed as hers has been for so long. This is an unforgettable portrait of a girl’s life in a world that still tries to make being one as hard as possible.
MISBEHAVIOUR * * 1/2 (Dir. Philippa Lowthorpe)
Women’s lib takes off at the 1970 Miss World pageant
In a coincidence of timing, Misbehaviour is kind of a perfect companion piece to this spring’s Mrs. America, the FX miniseries about the women’s liberation movement of the 1970’s- it could literally be a prelude, as this film covers an incident from the other side of the pond that was seen as putting the movement on the map of global politics. Directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, it’s a comedy-drama of the type that British filmmakers excel at (sort of in the Full Monty vein), starring a large ensemble cast that more or less gives everyone a chance to participate. Too bad the event itself is so minor as to question whether a whole movie about it was really warranted. Based on true events, Keira Knightley stars as Sally, a divorced London mother attempting to go back to school and get her degree, who joins a branch of the movement in 1970 made up of communal feminist activists, including the working class Jessie Buckley (who shines here). The protesters decide to disrupt the annual Miss World competition, a relic of a supremely patriarchal system led by Greg Kinnear as the dinosaur himself, a sleazy Bob Hope, who uses the hosting gigs to pick up contestants under the scolding eyes of his long suffering wife (Lesley Manville). Meanwhile, the contestants themselves include Miss Grenada (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Miss “Africa South” (Loreece Harrison), who’re attempting to start their own kind of cultural revolution in becoming the first black Miss World. The movie tries to explore the intersectional feminism of the white protesters wanting to upset the sexism of the pageant itself against the desires of the black contestants striving to show black women the world over that they too can be seen as beautiful, but whatever message it wants to convey about that is never brought to a real conclusion. The movie is amusing and breezes along at an entertaining clip, but despite this pageant (which was seen by over 100 million people at the time) turning into a free for all on live television, this incident still feels small in the grand scheme of things. It’s fun, but wasn’t there something else to mark the beginning of the women’s movement that merited further exploration more than this?
HOWARD * * * (Dir. Don Hahn)
Some people are gone far, far too soon
Howard is a movie about a man whose work we all know, but whose name we probably don’t. That man is Howard Ashman, the lyricist and mastermind behind the Disney Renaissance of the late 1980’s and 90’s, without whom the stunning creative comeback of the Disney corporation would likely never have happened. He was a theater director from New York, whose off Broadway Little Shop of Horrors was a smash success and who, when he came to the floundering animation department at Disney, revitalized their ability to tell stories through music and pioneered the overwhelming success of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin after a two decade run of middling to terrible animated films. The music of course, was key, and together with his composer Alan Menken, the score and songs to those films have been absorbed into popular culture in every way imaginable- after the movies came the soundtracks, theatrical productions, and currently the live action remakes. We’re still experiencing these movies, long after the man himself succumbed to AIDS in 1991 at the age of 40. His impact on Disney cannot be overstated, where he was given creative control and compared to Walt Disney himself in terms of influence by company head Roy Disney at the time, but the tragedy of his story, just as his success was was becoming triumphant, is impossibly poignant and bittersweet. This documentary is kind of a sister film to director Don Hahn’s Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009), which tracked the ups and downs of the Disney company in the 70’s and 80’s, but is more illuminating of Ashman’s personal story, tracing his life as a stage obsessed kid in 1960’s Baltimore to his time in New York theater circles in the 1970’s. We only get to his arrival at Disney in the second half, and given the enormous amount of activity during that time, I could have watched another hour of this film, exploring in depth the making of each movie and Ashman’s creative process, which he explains in archival interview footage that Hahn has unearthed for this documentary. There’s a fascinating arc here that shows an artistic genius stolen from us far too early as the AIDS crisis swept through the gay community in the 1980’s, producing his longest lasting work in the final three years of his life, literally as he was dying. Could he have imagined the impact it would leave after he was gone? According to this movie, he could and did, as he whispered to his colleagues from his hospital bed after an early screening of Beauty and the Beast stunned test audiences. But how much more could he have given us?
Chadwick Boseman 1976-2020
Shocking and tragic news came late yesterday as it was announced that Chadwick Boseman had passed away at the age of 43 after a four year battle with colon cancer. He rose to prominence after playing Jackie Robinson in the 2013 biopic 42, and then achieved worldwide fame after Black Panther came out in 2018 and became such a smash success. He made four appearances in the Marvel Universe as King T’Challa (Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame) and had been set for a sequel. Aside from Jackie Robinson, he’d played two other historical African-American icons James Brown and Thurgood Marshall in the biopics Get On Up (2014) and Marshall (2017). His most recent appearance was in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, which came out in June. Most stunningly, every movie he made between 2016 and 2020 was done in between bouts of surgery and chemotherapy as he was fighting for his life- essentially the entire time he was involved in the Marvel Universe. Some news is simply too stunning to process. His final film will be Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, based on the August Wilson play and co-starring Viola Davis
Chadwick Boseman accepts the SAG ensemble award for Black Panther:
In honor of his death on Jackie Robinson day, here’s the trailer for 42:
Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan Fall in Love in 'Ammonite'
This is giving me flashbacks to last year’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. It also, frankly, looks somewhat drab and predictable (not to mention I don’t tend to respond to romances where the characters have a stark age difference between them). But, with a dearth of movies coming out this year (this one is scheduled to release on Nov. 13th, but who knows), this could be old-fashioned Oscar bait I guess.
'The Batman' Teaser is Here
So, yes, they’ve only shot 25-30% of the movie due to the shutdown (filming is set to resume in London next month), but we have the first teaser for Matt Reeves’s noir-inspired Batman movie anyway. Looks overly familiar to me, very much in line with Christopher Nolan’s recent trilogy, down to tone/look, everything. I kinda feel like I’ve seen this already, several times. For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that you can’t do anything different with Batman (the Burton movies, for example, were highly stylized, completely different), so I would like to see someone go in a totally new direction, but…people want what they want. This kinda looks like the Gotham show to me, but more mature. Generic, dark Batman movie. Sounds about right.
Zack Snyder Unveils Trailer for his 4 Hour 'Justice League' Cut
Okaaay. This super serious trailer for what’s apparently going to be four one-hour “parts,” (aka the “workprint” of the movie) tries to convince you that you’re going to be seeing something significantly different next year on HBO Max than what was released back in 2017. I don’t see it. The truth is it can’t be all that different, but at least they’ll have Henry Cavill minus the horrible CG’d lip. It’ll very likely be worse than what came out in theaters, unless you happened to really love Batman v. Superman, which, be honest with yourself, you did not. No one did.
Wonder Woman Meets Cheetah in New 'WW84' Trailer
DC FanDome is happening today, which means we’re finally getting some new looks at upcoming movies (even if we still don’t know when exactly we’re going to see them). WB does not want to put any of their upcoming blockbusters on VOD, so according to director Patty Jenkins, they’re waiting it out to release in theaters, no matter what. At any rate, it looks pretty good! It appears that Kristen Wiig is in fact going to be some kind of actual cheetah monster, not just a person in a cheetah print jacket, but she may look a bit too close to the Cats version of human cat people than we might like. Still- I hope we all eventually get to see it.
Jessie Buckley Stars in New Charlie Kaufman Movie 'I'm Thinking of Ending Things'
Yay, a new Charlie Kaufman movie! They’re few and far between, but they’re always unique. The writer of Eternal Sunshine, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and writer-director of Synecdoche, New York and Anomalisa is back with his latest film, a horror movie based on the 2016 novel. Looks weird and crazy and awesome, and it’s starring Jessie Buckley, who I’m starting to look forward to seeing in anything. Can’t wait.
