Gary Oldman As Winston Churchill = Oscar

Now playing at a art house theater near me:

DARKEST HOUR (Dir. Joe Wright, 2017)

In the case of acclaimed performances in which a famous actor plays a famous historical figure ? say, Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln, or Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles, or Ben Kinglsey as Gandhi, Meryl Streep as anybody, etc. ? it?s become a clich? to say things like that they ?disappeared into the role,? or ?at times I forgot who it was and thought I was watching the real person.?

But with Gary Oldman?s tour de force portrayal of Winston Churchill in Joe Wright?s second World War II-themed film, DARKEST HOUR (the first was ATTONEMENT), he really does completely disappear into the role, and I really did forget at times that it was him and thought I was watching Churchill.

Set in 1940 at the height of WWII, when Britain was on the verge of being invaded by Nazis, the film depicts Churchill?s intense first month as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Much of the film is seen through the eyes of Churchill?s personal secretary, Elizabeth Layton (played by Lily James best known for Downton Abbey and BABY DRIVER), as she begins to work for him shortly into the film.

Churchill assumes his role by meeting with King George VI (Ben Mendelsohn, not stammering as much as Colin Firth did in the same part in THE KING?S SPEECH), assembling his War Cabinet which includes his predecessor Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup) and Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax (Stephen Dillane), and making a big speech to Parliament in which he famously declared that they should ?wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime.?

Churchill?s refusal to talk peace with Hitler angers Halifax and Chamberlain, who want him replaced. Churchill remains adamant that they stand their ground against negotiations, and we get a different angle on the same story that Christopher Nolan?s brilliant DUNKIRK told earlier this year (Wright also memorably touched on the Dunkirk situation in a pretty stunning five-minute tracking shot in ATONEMENT).

The look of the film, shot by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS) is so grey and grim that one wonders if they considered making it in black and white. So many scenes are set in pitch darkness in cramped rooms with what spare lighting there is glowing in an Oliver Stone-ish fashion.

The tropes of period piece historical drama are unavoidable at times but Oldman?s Churchill is such a delicious characterization that I was very forgiving of some unnecessary stylish touches ? like the two shots taken from above that zoom backwards into CGI-imagery depicting the dark of fire world below.

I?ll be shocked, shocked I tells ya, if Oldman doesn?t get an Oscar nomination, and then the award itself as he?s so delightfully dead on here. For this guy, who's one of the best actors working today, to have pulled off such beyond convincing interpretations of such diverse personalities as Sid Vicious, Lee Harvey Oswald, Beethoven and now this is well worth awarding as it for sure is the most striking acting I?ve seen this year.

The supporting cast glows (literally) surrounding Oldman as Kristen Scott Thomas as Mrs. Winston Churchill, Clementine, makes the most of her worrying-wife-back-home archetype with some warm moments, Mendelsohn?s King George VI has a weary yet hopeful air about him, and James helps bring some light to the dark sets especially in an aside where she tells her boss that he?s doing the V for Victory sign the wrong way.

Anthony McCarten contributes a much sharper screenplay than his previous Oscar winner for that category, THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, and the score, by Dario Marianelli whose worked with Wright on nearly every film he?s made, is nicely understated.

But again, it?s Oldman who makes this an essential film to see this season. His performance may be a lot to take for some moviegoers as he dominates nearly every talky as hell moment, ranting as times in his trembling accent always with a glass of brandy or scotch in his hand and a long cigar sticking out of his mouth, but for me the experience is as sublime as the way the words that the real person put together rang out.

Sure, with WWII and the tried and true Greatest Generation spirit that panders to the elder voters, it?s a prime piece of Oscar-bait, but, for a considerable amount of its running time, DARKEST HOUR mightily transcends that.

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Guillermo del Toro?s Take On Gill-Man In Love

Now playing at more multiplexes than art houses in my area:

THE SHAPE OF WATER

(Dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2017)

When Guillermo del Toro turned down the chance to remake (or reboot) the CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON for Universal?s ?Dark Universe? series he definitely made the right decision.

And that?s not just because the pending franchise has gotten off to a very shaky start with last summer?s THE MUMMY flop, and is in danger of being scrapped altogether, but because there?s no way he would?ve been able to build upon the concept to make such a beautifully bizarre love story thriller as THE SHAPE OF WATER under a big studio banner.

Del Toro, co-writing with Vanessa Taylor, infringes on no copyrights here, as the amphibian man here is never referred to as ?Gill-man,? but it uses the basics as obvious jumping off points for the premise of ?what if the creature got the girl??

Set in 1962 Baltimore, the film is told from the point of view of Sally Hawkins as Elisa, a mute cleaning lady who works the night shift at a secret government laboratory. We get a look into Elisa?s lonely world up front as we see her eat pie with her neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins), a depressed, closeted artist who loves watching old musicals on TV. Elisa and Giles live in rundown apartments above a movie palace theater, so del Toro works in his love for cinema there too.

At Elisa?s work, where she converses in sign language with her co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer, again playing the help), she learns that a aquatic creature is being held in a huge metal water tank at the facility, and that it?s being tortured by Colonel Richard Strickland (a deliciously creepy Michael Shannon) who captured it in South America.

Elisa makes friends with the amphibian man (played by actor / contortionist Doug Jones) by feeding it hard boiled eggs, and teaching him how to sign, and a romance forms. When she finds out that they?re going to dissect him, over protest by scientist Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), she plots to help him escape.

The escape sequence, among other elements, gave me flashbacks to Ron Howard?s 1984 rom com SPLASH, which had Tom Hanks falling for Daryl Hannah as a mermaid who he rescues from a secret lab, but that did nothing to hinder the spell this film so sweetly casts.

Back at Elisa?s apartment where the fish guy mostly stays in a bathtub filled with salt and some chemicals that Hoffstetler gave her, they consummate their relationship. While the movie contains much grotesque imagery concerning such things as Strickland?s bitten off fingers, and a cat being eaten, the love scenes are as tasteful and touching as scenes between amphibians and humans can possibly be.

You just may need to suspend disbelief considering such premises like that by putting towels under the door you can fill the bathroom of a crumbling apartment completely to the ceiling with water, but if you can do that you?re in for some visual treats courtesy of cinematographer Dan Laustsen.

Without speaking, Hawkins puts in a wonderfully communicative performance that shows fluid chemistry with Jones? creature, and has a great moment standing up to Shannon?s evil Strickland.

She is a large part of what makes the small, dark off-kilter fantasy THE SHAPE OF WATER del Toro?s most emotionally affecting work yet.

Maybe this means that more established filmmakers should turn down franchise work to go off on their own to make movies inspired by concepts they wouldn?t be allowed to do in those big studio entries. I mean, it sure worked for del Toro.

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MOLLY'S GAME Is Well Played By Jessica Chastain and Aaron Sorkin

Now playing:

MOLLY?S GAME (Dir. Aaron Sorkin, 2017)

Jessica Chastain is a shoo-in to get an Oscar nomination for her role as Olympic-class skier-turned-Poker-Princess, Molly Bloom, in the crackling, flashy directorial debut of Aaron Sorkin, who is likely to score a nomination (or two) as well.

The real-life Bloom, whose book, ?Molly?s Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World,? this film is based on, was a target of an FBI investigation for running an illegal underground poker ring, which Sorkin lays out here in a movie that at times feels like a busy cluster of montages all crammed together.

That is to say that Sorkin has learned (or cribbed) a lot from David Fincher and Danny Boyle, the filmmakers he collaborated with on THE SOCIAL NETWORK and STEVE JOBS, as well as Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, or pretty much any modern director known for their fast-paced, kinetic style in telling close-to-true stories that are packed to the brim with sizzling, often sordid information.

Through sharply spoken narration, Chastain?s Bloom gives us and her lawyer Charlie Jaffey (a wonderfully understated Idris Elba, who convincingly works his American accent as well as he did on The Wire) her side to how she built her secret poker empire that involved movie stars, sports stars, business titans, and, most dangerously, members of the Russian mafia.

We see how Bloom was goaded into being a hard driven perfectionist by her strict, demanding psychologist father (Kevin Costner, much more effective as a father figure here than in MAN OF STEEL), and how a skiing accident forced her to reevaluate her career goals. After a brief stint as a cocktail waitress in LA, she works an office assistant to a vulgar producer (played with just the right amount of jaded sleaziness by Jeremy Strong) who introduces her to the world of exclusive back room poker matches with extremely expensive buy-ins.

At her first game at the Cobra Lounge (read: Viper Room), Bloom meets Michael Cera as an A-list actor who?s only identified as Player X (a composite of celebrities such as Ben Affleck and Leonardo DiCaprio, among others), and becomes one of her principal players when she leaves her boss, and takes his clients to hold her own games in luxurious hotel suites staffed with former Playboy playmates.

In a dizzying array of flashbacks and flash-forwards, we watch as Bloom gets deeper and deeper into a lifestyle of debts and drugs (to help her stay awake for days), bottoming out when she?s brutally beaten up by a mob goon because she refuses the offer of protection by a couple of Italian mafiosos.

One of Sorkin?s most familiar motifs, over confident people sparing with other over confident people, is on full display here in the exchanges between Chastain and Elba, with his trademark snappy dialogue dominating every scene. Sorkin?s screenplay and direction is just as confident as his characters, and it?s a buzz seeing him put all these slick puzzle pieces together into this often exhilarating portrait. It?s also great to see Sorkin refrain from using his patented ?walks and talks,? which were a mainstay of one of his most well known works - the presidential television drama, The West Wing.

The sculpting of Sorkin?s material is excellently handled by a trio of editors - Alan Baumgarten, Elliot Graham, and Josh Schaeffer, who also deserve Academy action. It may feel like ?cut, cut, cut? at times but, dammit, they make the majority of cuts flow into one another with exciting energy while enhancing Charlotte Bruus Christensen?s crisp cinematography from shot to shot. 

The film is sprinkled with amusing supporting turns by Brian d?Arcy James as a poker player so lousy that he?s dubbed ?Bad Brad? by Bloom, Chris O?Dowd as a Irish drunkard who, like many of the players, falls in love with Bloom; a sweaty Bill Camp as a seasoned card shark, who gets in way over his head; and Graham Greene as the judge overseeing Bloom?s case.

But MOLLY?S GAME is first and foremost a showcase for the radiant Chastain and the rapidly clever Sorkin, who both well play their hands at every jazzy juncture.

Despite being two hours, and twenty minutes long the movie mostly maintains its intensity and momentum. It does get close to being bogged down with too many details, but it largely transcends its well worn rise and fall arc with its wit and stylish gusto. Some folks may walk out of it wondering what the point of all of it is, but I bet they will have been hugely entertained in the process.

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GAME NIGHT: A Fairly Funny Film For February

Opening today at a multiplex near us all:

GAME NIGHT (Dir. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, 2018)

I didn?t have very big expectations for this film, John Francis Daley and Joanthan Goldstein?s follow-up to their directorial debut, 2015?s VACATION reboot, as February has often been a dumping ground for lame comedies like FIST FIGHT, HALL PASS, IDENTITY THIEF, and lame comedy sequels like ZOOLANDER 2, and HOT TUB TIME MACHINE 2.

But GAME NIGHT is a fairly funny farce, that puts its talented cast through the manic motions of a murder mystery party that gets out of hand, and results in a considerable amount of big laughs.

It begins with the meet cute of a young couple, Max (Jason Bateman), and Annie (Rachel McAdams) at a bar?s trivia night, and a following montage shows us how their shared hyper-competitiveness thrives in game after game over the years since.

In the present day, Max and Annie meet up with their friends Kevin (Lamorne Morris), his wife Michelle (Kylie Bunbury), Ryan (Billy Magnussen), who always brings a different dumb blonde, for game nights in the suburbs (the film was shot in Marietta, Georgia, but I don?t think they ever mention where it?s set). Max and Annie don?t invite their creepy police officer neighbor (Jesse Plemmons), who used to come to the get togethers with his wife, but their divorce has made the group hold their games in secret from him.

But then Max?s more successful businessman brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler), shows up in a 1976 Corvette Stingray, which happens to be Max?s boyhood dream car, and blows their cover. Brooks announces that he wants to host the next game night at a mansion he?s rented, and promises that it?ll take the tradition ?up a notch.?

Max, Annie, Kevin, Ryan, and his date Sarah (Sharon Horgan) show up to Brooks? to find that he?s planned an elaborate staged mystery for them to solve, and the winner gets the Stingray.

Jeffrey Wright comes in as a FBI agent distributing files full of clues to the players, but gets interrupted by two armed thugs who burst in and knock him unconscious, and have a violent brawl with Brooks, which the group of friends think is part of the game.

Brooks gets abducted, and the crew, split into their respective couples, set out to investigate the clues and find him. Max and Annie track him down to a sleazy dive bar where they think the patrons are phony criminals with fake guns. Amid real gunfire, they rescue Brooks and in a high speed car chase he tells them that he?s not really an entrepreneur; he?s a smuggler who?s being hunted down for a stolen Faberg? egg, the film?s McGuffin.

While they?re running around through all the zany, and sometimes bloody twists and turns, each couple has their own premise: Max and Annie?s is that they are trying to have a baby but Max has been stressed out by his brother; Kevin and Michelle?s is that it?s revealed that she had a fling with a celebrity before they were married and Kevin obsesses over figuring out who it was; and Ryan?s dilemma is that he usually dates air-heads, but Sarah is a lot smarter than he is.

Some of this stuff is sitcom-ish, and the film has many familiar scenes ? the dive bar where Max and Annie are oblivious to being in over their heads is pretty generic feeling, and a climatic race to stop a plane from taking off is one of several overdone elements, as well as one of several fake-out endings, but the sheer amount of hilarious one-liners and gags that land doesn?t let such clich?s and convolutions get in the way of the fun.

Like in one clever stand-out set-piece has the cast throwing the Faberg? egg back and forth to one another in an unbroken shot through the hallways, and balconies of a mansion belonging to a mobster (Danny Huston).

Working from a screenplay written by Mark Perez (THE COUNTRY BEARS, ACCEPTED), Daley and Goldstein keep the pace popping with laughs interchanged with genuine thrills while the narrative keeps one guessing what?s real and what?s fake.

GAME NIGHT mostly works as a take-off of the manipulations and expected tropes of many straight-laced-folks-get-caught-up-in-dangerous-underworld scenarios, like when in a brutal fight somebody is thrown and lands on top of a glass table but it doesn?t break like in every other movie (Kevin: ?Glass tables are acting weird tonight!?).

On the scale of NIGHT movies, GAME NIGHT is a lot better than last summer?s ROUGH NIGHT, but around the same quality of 2010's DATE NIGHT.

The movie shows that Daley and Goldstein, who co-wrote the HORRIBLE BOSSES movies, and had their hands in the screenplay for SPIDER-MAN HOMECOMING (along with four other writers) are getting better at what they do, which is getting a terrific cast to play off each other in the service of a funny storyline. Well, funny enough for February that is.

More later...

Hey Kids! Funtime 2018 Oscar? Predictions!

The 90th Academy Awards? Ceremony is in two days, so it?s time for my predictions. Mind you, the last few years I got the same score: 16 out of 24, so I?m no Oscar-predicting genius here (my best score was 21 out of 24 in 2014). The only real lock this time around is that host Jimmy Kimmel will touch greatly on the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

This year is a particularly difficult roster to choose from as every other critic?s predictions are very divided especially when it comes to the big one:

1. BEST PICTURE: GET OUT

It looks like the front-runners for this category are THE SHAPE OF WATER (12 nominations), THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE OF EBBING, MISSOURI (7 nominations), and GET OUT (4 nominations). Now, if it wasn?t for that big snafu last year when LA LA LAND was mistakenly announced as the winner, when it was really MOONLIGHT that got the gold, I would probably go with THE SHAPE OF WATER. LA LA LAND seemed like such a lock, but that incident has made me rethink my pick again and again.

But I?ve settled on Jordan Peele's brilliant debut. I hesitated at first because it?s my favorite of the three, and playing favorites doesn?t always work out, but it just feels like it has the edge over its competition.

The rest of my predictions sans commentary:

2. BEST DIRECTOR: Guillermo del Toro for THE SHAPE OF WATER

3. BEST ACTOR: Gary Oldman for DARKEST HOUR

4. BEST ACTRESS: Frances McDormand for THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Sam Rockwell for THREE BILLBOARDS

6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Allison Janey for I, TONYA

7. PRODUCTION DESIGN: Paul D. Austerberry, Shane Vieau, and Jeffrey A. Melvin for THE SHAPE OF WATER

8. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Roger Deakins for BLADE RUNNER 2049

9. COSTUME DESIGN: Mark Bridges for PHANTOM THREAD

10. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: FACES PLACES

11. DOCUMENTARY SHORT: EDDIE+EDITH

12. FILM EDITING: Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos for BABY DRIVER

13. MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING: Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski, and Lucy Sibbick for DARKEST HOUR

14. VISUAL EFFECTS: Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon, and Joel Whist for WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

15. ORIGINAL SCORE: Alexandre Desplat for THE SHAPE OF WATER

16. ORIGINAL SONG: ?This Is Me? from THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (Justin Paul & Benj Pasek)

17. ANIMATED SHORT: DEAR BASKETBALL

18. LIVE ACTION SHORT: DEKALB ELEMENTARY

19. SOUND EDITING: Richard King and Alex Gibson for DUNKIRK

20. SOUND MIXING: Gregg Landaker, Gary Rizzo, and Mark Weingarten for DUNKIRK

21. ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Jordan Peele for GET OUT

22. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: James Ivory for CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

23. ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: COCO

24. BEST FOREIGN FILM: A FANTASTIC WOMAN

As I always say, tune in Monday to see how many I got wrong.

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Every Movie I?ve Ever Seen Ranked (You Won?t Believe What?s #4081!)

Sorry for the clickbaitastic headline, and as you might?ve guessed I?m not going to really rank every movie I?ve ever seen (but if you?re wondering what #4081 is ? it?s John Schlesinger?s PACIFIC HEIGHTS, pictured above, which is a solid #4081). I just wanted to call out those ever so prevalent pop culture lists that rank every Tarantino movie, or Beatles song, or Seinfeld episode from worst to best. Like these*: 

All 49 Marvel Movies Ranked, Including ?Black Panther? 

Every Best Picture Oscar Winner, Ranked: How All 90 Movies Stack Up 

Every James Bond Movie Ranked from Worst to Best (also The Best James Bond Actors, Ranked, Ranking: James Bond Theme Songs From Worst to Best, etc) 

All X-Files Episodes, Ranked Best to Worst (this one is actually from a site called ranker.com)The Complete Works: Ranking All 374 Rolling Stones Songs 

* I?m not linking to any of these, so you are are your own finding these if you want.

Now, I?m not against lists - I?ve posted plenty of them on this blog - I just don?t like it where there?s dozens and dozens of entries of whatever pop culture thing as they aren?t very useful. I mean, if you rank the Beatles? studio albums, there?s only like a dozen of them so somebody approaching their catalog might benefit from the recommendations of ?Revolver? or ?Sgt. Pepper? or whatever records are high on the list, but what good does it do anybody to know that Vulture.com thinks that ?Rocky Raccoon? from ?The While Album? is #166 out of #213? 

Now, I know some people like these lists, and find them fun enough to share and argue about, etc. but I usually skip them. The ones I do click on, I just skim them quickly and move on. I find Top 10 lists, or 20 at the most, to be more useful. 

The lists I get most annoyed by are the ones that basically say ?hey, that thing you like sucks? like these: 

12 Movies You Probably Love That Are Overrated, According To Reddit 

15 Overrated Movies Everyone Pretends To Love 

5 Recent Movies That Got Way More Praise Than They Deserved 

I particularly don?t like the word ?overrated? because to me it means: I hate this thing that everyone likes, and they?re wrong (underrated being the obvious opposite: I love this thing that everyone hates, and they?re wrong). 

Yeah, I know that the words ?overrated? and ?underrated? are ubiquitous in our culture, and aren?t going away any time soon, but I don?t use them on my blog because I find them to be meaningless.

One strong case against them is that President Trump uses the word ?overrated? a lot ? he?s used it to insult former President Barack Obama (no surprise there), Meryl Streep, Jerry Seinfeld, Megyn Kelley, the musical Hamilton, and politicians in general (again, no surprise). I don?t think he?s ever said that anything or anyone is ?underrated,? because he probably doesn?t know that word. 

Lately, I have been trying to not be on social media too much as I get really annoyed by these things, and stuff like long lists that have slideshows so they can fit in more ads, but I?m not going to get started on those. 

This concludes my rant. Stay tuned for coverage of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival that kicks off this Thursday, April 5, and for reviews of upcoming films like Wes Anderson?s * ISLE OF DOGS, and the roster of highly anticipated summer films around the corner. 

* A filmmaker who is often considered overrated.

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A Sneak Peek Of The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Opening Soon In Raleigh

Today I was among a group of local media folks who were invited to check out the new Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, which is opening later this month on New Bern Avenue, in Raleigh. 

The announcement on the invite succinctly stated, ?Alamo has a rabid cult following within the film community and Raleigh locals campaigned for years for this to be the first NC location (the 29th for the Austin, TX based company).?

Being a big film fan, and film theater fan, I?ve been very aware of the Alamo?s reputation for a long time so I was really looking forward to seeing the 11-screen complex, and it didn?t disappoint. 

Check out some pictures (click on them for larger images):

A long bar with over 40 local draft beers on tap!

Movie soundtracks on vinyl! 

Big ass replicas of VHS tape covers!

Cool VHS tape tables that play VHS tapes!

The VHS tape imagery highlights the most surprising feature of this Alamo location: Video Vortex, a video store that will rent DVDs, Blu-rays, and rare VHS titles, many of which have never made the transfer to DVD. If you don?t have a VCR, or DVD or Blu ray player, they?ll rent that to you too. And here?s the kicker: the rentals are free. 

Here?s Video Vortex manager Josh Schafer showing off some of the Alamo?s enormous VHS collection:

And here?s some of the Alamo?s vast inventory of DVDs and Blu rays (the horror section to be exact):

I chatted with Alamo founder/CEO Tim League about the idea of offering free movie rentals, and he said it was an experimental concept, and that there will still be late fees as ?half the revenue of a video store is late fees.? 

League went on to say that the video store is a ?Re-imagining of it. We?ve got the retail and the bar - I'm thinking that this would be a cool place where you?d just want to hang out - you're surrounded by movies, we've got movie fans coming in and out so maybe you'd make an impulse buy or rent.? 

We also got a treat in seeing the first by invite presentation of this Alamo's 35 mm system via a vintage trailer for SECRET OF MAGIC ISLAND, which League said was one of his all-time favorite trailers.

So that was my first visit of what I bet will be many to the Raleigh's new venue/hang out spot, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Thanks to the fine people who invited me to see it, and were so nice to meet and chat with. Oh, and the food they served us was great too. Here's a picture of some of it:

As to when exactly the theater is opening, nobody specified a date but I was told that they will be up and running when AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR comes out on April 26.

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ISLE OF DOGS: A Bit Mechanical But Not Without Its Charms

Opening this evening at an indie art house near me:

ISLE OF DOGS (Dir. Wes Anderson, 2018)

In more than one interview, Wes Anderson has specified that his latest stop motion animated film (his second following 2009?s THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX) was largely influenced by legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, and in a very Wes Andersony twist, those classic Rankin Bass Christmas specials like ?Rudolph the Red Nosed Reigndeer.?

It?s a suitably quirky combination for the suitably quirky writer/director/producer, and for the most part it works, but I couldn?t help from thinking that the execution of ISLE OF DOGS is a bit too mechanical to really take hold.

That?s not saying I didn?t enjoy a great deal of the film as it?s well made, has a rich voice cast, pleasing visuals, and some amusing ideas. And I know that the criticism ?too mechanical? is an odd one to make as the machinery of Anderson?s style has been detectable from the beginning of his career in BOTTLE ROCKET, but I still found too many beats to be predictable, too many times that gags felt forced, and too many moments that were supposed to be emotional (I think) that made me think ?meh.?

The narrative, which is set in Japan 20 years in the future, concerns a 12-year old named Atari Kobayashi (voiced by Koyu Rankin) who travels to Trash Island, where all of the country?s dogs have been banished because of a canine flu virus, to find his lost dog Spots.

Atari is helped in his quest by five mangy dogs: Rex (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Duke (Jeff Goldblum), Boss (Bill Murray, and Chief (Bryan Cranston). You see, an opening title tells us

Cranston?s Chief is the most dominant dog, and has the most interesting back story as he scoffs at the formerly domesticated others as he?s a stray saying things like ?You're talking like a bunch of housebroken?pets.?

Meanwhile, in subplot B, Greta Gerwig voices a pro-dog American exchange student Tracy Walker, who has a crush on Atari and leads a campaign against his evil uncle, Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura), whilst finding out from Assistant Scientist Yoko Ono (voiced by Yoko Ono ? that?s right) that a cure has been suppressed by the dog hating Mayor.

You got that? Well, it doesn?t matter as Anderson treats all these plot points so nonchalantly that they hold very little weight. I mean, that?s fine ? everyone hits their marks, melancholy music plays, and it?s all played for maximum cuteness. If you?re a hardcore Wes Anderson fan, I bet this will be like the cinematic equivalent of crack cocaine, but being a more casual fan (I?ve only RUSHMORE once!), it was a pleasant but unremarkable experience. It felt like a great production design, and cast looking for a great movie.

But whatever your stance ? don?t go see it for its cast. Sure, one of the most striking things in the trailers, posters, etc. is the sheer amount of its star power ? Cranston, Norton, Murray, Goldblum, Frances McDormand, Liev Schreiber, Harvey Keitel, Scarlett Johanssen, Tilda Swinton, Angelica Huston, and Fisher Stevens as Scrap (I so want that to be the new ?and Jerry Mathers as the Beaver?) ? but beyond Cranston, Gerwig, Norton and a few others, most of these famous folks don?t make much of a mark. I can?t remember a single moment that Murray owned, and I bet Johanssen recorded her lines in less than 10 minutes.

Although it felt a bit off to me, ISLE OF DOGS is not without its charms. The attention to detail (one of Anderson?s strengths) in the animation is superbly presented (despite how dire the landscape of Trash Island), and there?s some earned warmth between a few of the characters. I also loved how there were clouds of flailing limbs popping in and out when the dogs fought like in old cartoons.

It has come under some fire for criticisms of its appropriation of Japanese culture, but it never struck me as being anything but a respectful homage - except for the fact that Japanese-speaking characters aren't given subtitles while a opening disclaimer tells us that all of the dog?s ?barks have been rendered into English.?

So his second stab at stop motion animation isn?t as funny, poignant, or memorable as his first, THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX, but Anderson has yet again succeeded in making something that nobody can do as well: make another Wes Anderson film. It?ll more than do until the next one.

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DEADPOOL 2: Very Familiar Formula, But Funny Enough

Now playing at a multiplex near everybody:

DEADPOOL 2 (Dir. David Leitch, 2018) 

Ah, Deadpool. You remember Deadpool, right? C?mon, you know him ? he?s Marvel?s most meta character whose wise-cracks, crude antics, and bloody kills carry him, and us, through another familiar round of explosive action sequences.

And that?s what we?ve got in this follow-up to his 2016 debut, which I then called ?the most hilarious Marvel movie yet.? This sequel doesn?t top the original, but it stands nicely beside it as it contains roughly the same amount of genuine laughs.

Ryan Reynolds, who also co-wrote and co-executive produced, again brings his extreme snark to the quipping anti-hero - anti-hero because he ends up killing more people than he saves ? who we first become re-acquainted with as he attempts suicide via lying a top several big barrels of fuel and flicking a cigarette in the air to fall into one of them and blow himself to bits - which he does.

Of course, this being Deadpool, we know he survives this, but before we see his fate, Reynold?s Wade Willis (Deadpool?s real name - keep up!), tells us through voice-over that six weeks earlier he was on top of the world going on globe-trotting missions, and planning to have a family with his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), but (Spoiler!) she?s killed by some goon, and Deadpool loses his mojo big time.

A James Bondian credits sequence, or joke credit sequence, as no real names are displayed only lines like ?Starring somebody who obviously didn?t want to share the spotlight,? follows which amusingly features a perfectly overwrought power anthem called ?Ashes,? sung by C?line Dion (that?s right).

After that, Deadpool sulks in misery around his friends from the first one - taxi driver Dopinder (Karan Soni), and bartender Weasel (T.J. Miller), but is given a new chance by the also returning Colossus (a CGI-ed Stefan Kapicic) to become a member of the X-Men, but as a trainee as he keeps getting reminded, mostly by, again another returning character, Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), who now has a girlfriend, Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna).

On Deadool?s first day on the job, he encounters a 14-year-old boy (Julian Dennison) named Russell who calls himself ?Firefist? and is threatening to burn down his orphanage, the Essex House for Mutant Rehabilitation, because he was abused by the Headmaster (Eddie Marsan at his ghastliest). At the stand-off, Deadpool breaks the X-Men?s rule of not killing anyone, and is captured along with Russell and taken to a prison for mutants called ?The Icebox.? 

Meanwhile, in a very TERMINATOR-esque scenario, a mercenary mutant named Cable (Josh Brolin) from the future travels to the present to avenge the death of his wife and kid who he traces as being the work of Russell/Fire Fist. After a massive, chaotic prison break setpiece, Deadpool realizes his calling is to protect the kid from Cable, and, with Weasel?s help, recruits a crew to get him out of prison.

The team, which Deadpool dubs ?X-Force? despite its derivativeness, that they assemble includes Terry Crews as Bedlam, who can manipulate electrical energy; Lewis Tam as Shatterstar, a really arrogant alien; Zazie Beetz as Domino, who says her power is being lucky; Bill Skarsgard as Zeitgeist, whose super power is spewing acidic bile; Vanisher, who?s invisible so they don?t know if he?s really there or not; and Rob Delaney as Peter, who has no powers, but saw the ad and thought it?d be fun.

A big over-the-top, and all-over-the-place sequence (which sort of reminded me of MACGRUBER) involving the X-Force assaulting a prison truck, transporting Russell, and other mutants, introduces (Spoiler?) Juggernaut, a giant ogre that was first introduced in ?X-Men? comics in the ?60s. Juggernaut, who is credited as being played by ?Himself,? goes up against Colosus in the third act which takes place at the Essex House, where Deadpool bargains with Cable for 30 seconds to talk Russell out of killing the headmaster. 

Yes, a lot of these plot points, and a lot of the jokes, can be seen coming, but the film, directed by stuntman/filmmaker David Leitch who co-directed JOHN WICK, moves fast through them with a high ratio of gags that land hilariously. Of all of the many one-liners, I think I liked ?I was fighting this caped badass, until I found out that his mom is also named Martha? the best. 

Despite its satiric trappings, Reynolds actually gets to effectively flex some dramatic chops a few times in scenes involving his lost love. Brolin puts in another strong stoic performance as Cable, coming right on the heels of his stand-out work in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, which is referenced here in a Thanos joke because of course it is.

DEADPOOL 2 is another round of more of the same. More riffing on WOLVERINE, more mockery of genre conventions (?tell me they got that in slow motion?) and the competition (?So dark. Are you sure you?re not from the DC Universe??), more self-criticism (Deadpool calls out ?lazy writing? more than once), and more ironic song cues including Dolly Parton?s ?Nine to Five? and ?The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow? from ?Annie? playing during scenes of stylish violence. There?s even another jab at GREEN LANTERN, something Reynolds will likely be making fun of for the rest of his life.

But because the movie is consistently funny throughout I can let all this familiarity slide, and I bet audiences can too.

More later...

SOLO: A Passable STAR WARS STORY With No Real Surprises

Opening tonight at every multiplex from here to a galaxy far, far away:

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY

(Dir. Ron Howard, 2018) 

Now that we?re starting to get used to the idea of having a new STAR WARS movie every year, here?s the highly anticipated young Han Solo adventure which fills in the intergalactic space smuggler?s back story. 

Fans will finally get to see how Han meet Chewbacca (and give him his nickname, Chewie), how he got his treasured blaster, how he won his beloved ship, the Millenium Falcon, from Lando Calrissian; and how the hell he ran the Kessel Run, first mentioned in the original 1977 film *, in under 12 parsecs.

But the obvious question is: do fans really need to see how these things happened? Maybe they were best left as asides in movies from 40 years ago.

Anyway, Alden Ehrenreich plays the 28-year Han (we also see how he got his last name, and it?s kind of GODFATHER PART II-ish) who we first meet as a slick street thief in the lawless world of Corellia. Han and his girlfriend Qi?ra (a brunette Emilia Clarke, you know, the blonde who loves dragons from Game of Thrones) scheme to escape the drudgery of Imperial shipyard slums, but they get separated after a lightspeeder chase.

Han ends up joining the Empire to become a pilot, but because he?s Han, he gets expelled from the academy, and he meets up with a gruff as usual Woody Harrelson as Tobias Beckett, a criminal scoundrel with a crew who will give Han lessons in how to be a criminal scoundrel. One of the first lessons is, of course, trust no one.

Finnish basketball player Joonas Suotamo takes over from Peter Mayhew for Chewbacca whose first encounter with Han I won?t spoil, Westworld?s Thandie Newton plays Beckett?s lover/crime partner, and most importantly, a smooth as ice Donald Glover steps into Billy Dee Williams? shoes as the iconic Lando, stealing every scene he?s in.

With respect to not spoiling plot points, I?ll just say that the premise involves a heist (will all the STAR WARS STORIES be heist flicks?) in which Han and crew set about stealing some of the plutonium-like Coaxium (McGuffin!) from mines on the planet Kessel for the slimy yet dapper crime lord Dryden Voss (Paul Bettany), who appears to have Han?s love, Qi?ra, under his command.

All the things you?d expect in a STAR WARS movie are here from tons of blaster fights, scrapes with storm troopers, quipping robots (Lando?s droid, L3-37, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge fulfills that function), gripping space battles with TIE Fighters, etc. Well, everything, that is, except the Force.

For the first time, the Force isn?t part of the story. Nobody has it or speaks of it - I didn?t see any lightsabers - so this may be why Han doesn?t believe in it when we catch up with him in Episode IV.

SOLO is a fine sci-fi adventure that keeps moving so there is a fair amount of fun, but it was pretty much what I expected. Ron Howard, who took over from Phil Lord and Chris Miller (THE LEGO MOVIE, the 21 JUMP STREET films), assembles all the elements from the crisply coordinated set-pieces to the marks of the colorful ensemble with his well polished style, but I still would love to see what Lord and Miller would?ve done with it.

I was entertained plenty, but I still craved something more. There was nothing that I was surprised by - even a secret cameo in the third act didn?t mean much to me. Aldenreich is good in the title role, but I can?t say I really bought him as being the same character that Harrison Ford made so iconic. That?s probably because I?ve lived with Ford for forty years as the legendary scruffy headed nerfherder. A friend said that Aldenreich doesn?t look like Ford, but he looks like the character. I guess I can go with that, but it?s still hard to not think of Ford.

I can go with Glover?s Lando though ? maybe he?s the one who should?ve gotten his own movie.

So SOLO is a predictable package that?s a passable STAR WARS STORY. The way it leaves room for a sequel is also really expected - i.e. there's no Jabba the Hut and Greedo here so that could be featured in a follow-up that?ll serve as yet another prequel to the first film. It?s obvious that Lucasfilm is planning on filling every gap in the shared universe of these narratives, so that there will be nothing left to the imagination. 

Forget the other franchise of the same name, this is the real NEVERENDING STORY.

* Click to find out why I?ll never refer to the first STAR WARS as A NEW HOPE.

More later...