Category: Film Review

I Love You Phillip Morris is so under the radar it almost hurts. It’s a small gem, something unique and special and a film that doesn’t play by the normal rules. This movie sleighed me. The less you know about the real-life antics of Steven Russell and the plot of this darkly hilarious movie the better. This is a film containing constant surprises and frequent twists and turns. You’ll find yourself repeatedly saying “This can’t be true” or “This couldn’t have really happened,” but like the filmmakers state at the front of the film that it did. All of it. And then some (post-movie I read up online about the particulars and there’s even more that was left out of the wildly unpredictable narrative). I Love You Phillip Morris deals with Steven Russell (an amazing Jim Carrey in one of his best performances, if not THE best…), a family man living a secret life as a con-artist. Then, one day, after a life-changing moment, he finally admits to himself that he’s gay. He immediately gets a hunky boyfriend and moves down to Miami Beach, continuing the art of the con, and still maintaining a civil relationship with his wife and kids. Then, he gets pinched after a job goes awry, and he winds up in jail. And that’s when things get really complicated. Steven immediately falls in love with fellow jailbird Phillip Morris (wonderfully played by the always likable Ewan McGregor) and basically makes it his life’s goal to never be separated from him.

That’s all I am going to say. The rest is for you to discover and hopefully fall in love with. What I will allow is that there was a moment where I was in total tears, emotionally crushed by what I was watching, only to have the rug pulled out from under my feet, leaving me in a state of stunned hysterics. The film marked the directorial debut of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the duo who are best known for writing the black-heartedly brilliant Bad Santa, writing/directing the solid rom-com Crazy Stupid Love, and last year’s Hitch. They are natural born directors, with a quirky-stylish visual sensibility, while also possessing an amazing talent for mixing crude one-liners with believable and earned sentimentality which keeps their work grounded in reality, never pushing it into farce. I Love You Phillip Morris effectively juggles the tricky task of voicing multiple tones throughout the narrative, and while many sequences seem too crazy to be true, there’s always something real and honest about an individual moment or line of dialogue that brings everything back down to reality. It’s a shame that there wasn’t a wider release for this film because it’s so damn good and so surprising and enjoyable that it just goes to show you how pathetically homophobic our society really is. My assumption is that the graphic gay sex scenes/dialogue were a turn off for all of the major Hollywood studios (indie distributor Roadside Attractions handled the movie and Luc Besson’s French company Europa put up most of the production budget) because despite the name cast and accessible genre, nobody in Tinseltown wanted to deal with this film. Pretty bogus if you ask me. I Love You, Phillip Morris is the best movie you haven’t seen.

Eyes Wide Shut operates as a vivisection of a failing marriage, and is easily one of the most incisive and abrasive comments on the idea of monogamy and the modern family unit that’s ever been put up on screen. It’s also incredibly dreamy, more than a tad surreal, and highly erotic if never being truly sexy, except for the bit with Vinessa Shaw, because there’s no way that Vinessa Shaw couldn’t be sexy. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman took some serious personal and professional …risks here, with those risks and challenges cinematically paying off, if not personally. I love that Todd Field is THAT piano player. Kidman’s final line of dialogue to close the film is absolutely perfect, summing up the psychological stance of the film in two succinct words. The now infamous orgy sequence is something of a tour de force (the notorious prudes at the MPAA still be damned!), while Larry Smith’s hot-light cinematography singes the eyes while repeatedly playing with your expectations. There’s also a stilted quality to portions of the film which always make me feel like I’m watching Kubrick’s idea of a waking dream (or nightmare), with Jocelyn Pook’s sketchy piano-dominated score pecking away at your nerves. Arthur Schnitzler’s highly influential Traumnovelle served as the basis for the narrative with the film being co-written by Two For the Road screenwriter Frederic Raphael and Kubrick. This is an endlessly debatable film and was designed to be so, and in retrospect, feels like an appropriately cryptic and final piece of work to come from one of the most legendary and of filmmakers. Kubrick, who started thinking about the project in the late 60’s, died four days after screening his final cut for Warner Brothers execs, and it’s truly a shame he never lived to see the reception that the film received.

Creed is rock solid. It doesn’t wish to reinvent the wheel, but rather, grease the ones that have been riding the track for years. Michael B. Jordan was thoroughly engaging in an extremely physical performance; I’ve liked him since Friday Night Lights and he showed in both Chronicle and Fruitvale Station that he’s got major screen presence. He more than holds his own with Sylvester Stallone, who drops a poignant bomb all over this movie, especially in the second half – you’d have to sort of have no heart not to be choked up or emotionally affected, even if your Rocky knowledge is cursory at best. The fight sequences are vigorously and creatively shot by the incredible French cinematographer Maryse Alberti (The Wrestler, Black Swan) who gave each bout its own distinct rhythm and personality, with lots of long stedicam shots and frequent use of medium and wide shots, thus showing the boxing matches in all their sweaty glory. In yet another ridiculously competitive year for cinematography choices, she made a strong case for a nomination, which regrettably didn’t happen. Ludwig Göransson’s musical score is appropriately triumphant, leaning on the old school flavor of Bill Conti’s rich and bold original theme, while still injecting its own distinct personality, and the ending is satisfying and pleasantly surprising, never going over the top or feeling forced. It’s a very good movie, extremely well told, and a fitting extension of one of the more storied franchises that Hollywood has created. Jordan probably should have gotten an Oscar nomination, as stepping into such an iconic series couldn’t have been easy, and as you watch him practically carry the entire film on his absurdly chieseled shoulders, you begin to wonder what the future has in store for him as an actor. The film makes excellent use of its hardscrabble Philadelphia locations, and the backstory that co-screenwriter/director Ryan Coogler cooked up for the offspring of Apollo Creed felt believable and just organic enough. Shrewdly packaged and very entertaining, Creed feels like it could be the start of a new series of films, or a sly farewell to one of cinema’s most popular series of movies.

It’s hard to be a horror movie lover.  For many the genre is a guilty pleasure that most audiences publicly express disgust with, and to say the critical community usually sports Jason Voorhees-sized knives when crafting their cutting reviews is an understatement.  Weaned on Cronenberg, Carpenter and many others, I’ve long defended it as being every bit as probing, diverse and smart as any other category of cinematic storytelling, yet like fellow fans I find the best defenses of most horror films to amount to things like “the monster was cool even though the acting is terrible” or “that one scene is great, if you can get through the first 40 minutes and ignore the idiotic ending.”  Having a well reviewed entry come out, one that sweeps through festivals with universal praise and is immediately acknowledged as a chilling classic can be a rare treat, one the world received in 2015 with David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows.  Almost exactly one year later, Robert Eggers’ The Witch hits wide release with similar lofty goals, and it achieves them through a brutal, relentlessly dark descent.

The Witch works as something like a companion piece to Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu’s The Revenant, as early European settlers in each find constant danger in the beauty of a young America.  While the latter is concerned with man pitted against nature and indigenous inhabitants, the former throws man into the ring with pure evil itself, and the fight feels overwhelming, unfair and lost from the beginning.  We first meet William and his family as they are about to be banished from their settlement, with the patriarch making it clear that he finds this collective to lack the proper amount of faith to justify their flight from England.  He’s a deeply principled Christian who is unknowingly driving his family directly into the belly of the beast as their wagon ventures into the untamed forest for a supposedly more spiritual existence.  Soon after we are introduced to the witch herself, who bolsters her powers with a ritual that gives the audience a dreadful precedent to base our expectations on how the rest of this journey for William’s family will play out.  No friendly Wiccan here; this conception is, as promised at the beginning of the film, a folklore driven nightmare.  As is absolutely necessary in successful horror, we are fed a bitter balance between unsettling suggestion and horrid imagery, served here with stately framing and flawless natural lighting plus the requisite swelling score when things are about to go bad, which is to say regularly.  Eggers is a first time writer/director who swaggers cruelly and confidently into the job like the jaw dropping third act character cameo of the denoument, seemingly born to craft this compelling and thoroughly awful tale.

Oddly, The Witch is as much about the internal disintegration of a sympathetic family unit as it is a scare-the-audience horror film, and its success on all fronts falls both to the filmmaker and the cast.  Ralph Inseon’s William is surprisingly relatable as a man trying to do the best for his family, albeit by 1630s Calvinist standards; his wife Katherine, played by Kate Dickie, would do anything for her children, if only she knew of anything that would actually help them.  Son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) strives to please his father and live up to his ideals while trying to deal with his burgeoning sexuality in a literal and figurative wilderness, and young Mercy and Jonas, given great child actor turns by Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson, simply try to be naturally exuberant children in the midst of a barren existence that promises nothing but peril.  Then there is Thomasin, the oldest daughter of William’s family whose burgeoning womanhood, a familiar and dangerous theme in horror, forms something of a backbone to the proceedings.  Anya Taylor-Joy takes this central role and runs with it, all the way to the campfire-kissed pitch black ending.  The march toward said finale has an increasingly bloody inevitability to it.  This family simply isn’t equipped with anything approaching the tools to defend themselves; a central scene where they vainly flail about to make plans to escape and try to save one of their own exemplifies how helpless they truly are.  Apologies for being intentionally vague, but the “pleasures” of The Witch are best experienced firsthand.  This film boldly lives up to its hype, a modern horror masterpiece that will linger in your dreams like a curse.

I’ve long been a fan of the work of Nancy Meyers. She knows exactly how to make her brand of films – they look fabulous, have top notch actors, splendid production values, and they favor character based stories in an effort to create something overtly entertaining with a minimal of fuss. Her films aren’t game-changers, but rather, comfortable pieces of storytelling that frequently delve into the sentimental and the romantic. She’s also interested in older protagonists, and is one of the only filmmakers consistently telling stories at the studio level about the 60+ set. And despite the fact that she’s a populist filmmaker, you can enjoy her films without feeling stupid afterwards (fine, she does tend to delve into sitcom-y territory every now and again). Her latest film, The Intern, is an extremely solid piece of craftsmanship, with a sensitive and highly effective performance from Robert De Niro at its center, with Anne Hathaway doing very strong work in one of her more engaging roles (she also looks great). Without overcomplicating matters with manufactured drama or unnecessary side developments, Meyers sticks to her core story, that of a 70 year old widower (De Niro) getting an internship at an e-commerce clothing company run by hot shot boss Hathaway, and allows her thoughtful screenplay to rightfully poke at the declining standards of the modern American male in ways that seem appropriately cutting and observant. Gorgeously shot by the great cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt (Meyers ALWAYS hires a premiere director of photography, just check the IMDB), The Intern is an optimistic film, with zero cynicism running through its warmhearted veins, and its central message is a strong one: Don’t forget about the past and the people who helped to shape the future.

There’s no contrived villain or lame plot device in the last act, but rather, Meyers allows her story to organically unfold, and while she’s always been prone to the neat and tidy ending, she allows for plenty of moments that reflect life’s messy possibilities; the worst character in this film is still operating from a believable and somewhat understandable position. Meyers has had an absurdly successful and prolific career as a screenwriter, producer and director; films that sport her name in some capacity include It’s Complicated, Something’s Gotta Give, What Women Want, The Holiday, The Parent Trap, Father of the Bride and its sequel, Baby Boom, Private Benjamin, Irreconcilable Differences, Protocol, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, and Once Upon a Crime. Her confidence as a filmmaker is never in question, and because she values a classical sense of mise en scene with shots that last more than seven seconds each, her films feel like throwbacks that still have modern touches; she can’t help but include a shot of hanging copper kitchen cooking pots and pans in each one of her directorial efforts. A $100,000 kitchen is her filmic signature in the way that a helicopter flying at sunset is the visual trademark of Michael Bay. And not that it should be any surprise, but De Niro is really damn good in The Intern, showing a gentle side without any forced or cheap mugging, playing the well intentioned guy who you just want to see come out on top. There’s a sense of professionalism every time you sit down to watch one of Meyers’ films, and with the Intern, she’s done some of her best work in a while. I’m not surprised that it quietly legged its way to $75 million domestic and close to $200 million worldwide during last holiday season, as it’s the sort of movie that people find in time, and one that many will enjoy.

The 1982 film The Border, starring Jack Nicholson, Harvey Keitel, Warren Oates, and Miss Tessmacher, oops, I mean Valerie Perrine, feels like it could have been released last month, still as topical and as vital as it was upon first release. Directed by Tony Richardson (Blue Sky, The Hotel New Hampshire) and written by Deric Washburn (Silent Running, The Deer Hunter, Extreme Prejudice), Walon Green (The Wild Bunch, Sorcerer), and David Freeman (Street Smart), The Border is a slow moving and purposefully solemn film, one of grave consequences and ultimately desperate actions. Nicholson plays a tired and demoralized Texas border patrolman, who after years of viewing corruption of all forms from all around him in various posts, decides to do something good for someone else. He’s tasked with nighttime shifts looking for illegal immigrants trying to pass into the United States, and unfortunately, he’s allowed a front row seat to tragedy, dishonesty, and sadness all around him. The plot kicks into gear when the baby of a young Mexican girl is kidnapped with the intentions of being sold/adopted, and Nicholson decides to take a stand against his emotionally and spiritually bankrupt superiors, going up against them with the best of intentions but possibly not the best amount of resources.

Nicholson is constantly at odds with his bimbo wife (Perrine, perfectly annoying) and his morally corrupt coworker (Keitel, practically baby-faced here), and while there’s a simmering rage boiling from within the heart of his multi-layered character, he never goes over the top, letting everything come to him as opposed to attacking it with overt bravado. This is one of Nicholson’s more effective and unsung performances, and from what I’ve read, he’s long considered it one of his best contributions to cinema. And while he’s certainly gripping in an unusually low-key way all throughout The Border, I’m not exactly sure if everything about the film works, and I suspect that the ending went thru various discussions and versions, because it doesn’t necessarily play out as one would expect. The spirit of 70’s cinema is still very much in tact all throughout The Border, but the ending feels a bit soft for some reason. Richardson’s dry filmmaking style doesn’t bring a lot of visual spice to the proceedings, but I guess the dourness of the material suits the simple aesthetic. This is an angry, outraged film, with brutal violence during the climax, and it paints an ugly portrait of the harsh realities that await people of less fortunate status, and how people have more than likely continuously abused the faulty immigration system that’s been set in place for the last 30 years in America to maximize their own personal bottom line.