Tom Hiddleston – Podcasting Them Softly

Kong: Skull Island

February 10, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

What’s everyone’s beef with Kong: Skull Island? Not tophat n’ coattails, high-tea cinema enough? I’m joking but I’ve waded through so much negativity surrounding this film over the years that I avoided it, and when I finally came round to watching it I found a perfectly thrilling, super entertaining monster flick that I have little to no issues with. The 70’s Viet Nam CCR aesthetic is an interesting choice for the Kong myth and I think it works, as John Goodman’s half insane journalist leads Samuel L. Jackson’s all the way insane military commander and his platoon on a voyage to fabled Skull Island, joined by Tom Hiddleston essentially playing a cross between Indiana Jones/James Bond and badass Brie Larson? How could that not be fun? Throw in and all the way insane and then some John C. Reilly as a downed WWII pilot surviving on the island and heavily channeling his Steve Brule character from Tim & Eric and I once again ask you, how could this not be fun? Then there’s Kong himself, who is an absolute unit here and way huger than I ever remember him being, measuring in at several hundred feet tall at least and fiercely protecting his kingdom from an armada of weird giant reptilian dragon things. There’s also giant water Buffalo, spooky natives and these bizarre stilt-walking arachnid nightmares that had me on edge and demonstrated some really impressive VFX. Jackson steals the show as far as human talent goes, playing a soldier who never saw enough combat in Nam to satisfy him before the war ended, is looking for a good old fashioned dust up and lives to regret being so eager before going completely, certifiably bonkers and trying to singlehandedly take down the big guy, on his own home turf no less. Throw in a solid supporting cast including Shea Wigham, Toby Kebbell, John Ortiz, Erin Moriarty and a sly cameo from Richard Jenkins and you’ve got one all star lineup, with the MVP moment going to Reilly as he hilariously delivers the film’s best line and one allowed F-bomb in true Steve Brule fashion. Kong delivers the goods too, he’s an angry, very physically lethal sonofabitch big ass monkey who doesn’t take kindly to anyone threatening his homeland, be they big scaly monsters, the US military or other. It’s also very subtly antiwar, but just enough so that it does feel preachy and still knows how to have a blast. Pulpy in the dialogue realm, brilliant red n’ orange tinged in the cinematography department, retro steampunk vibe to some of the costuming and deadly fucking fun on the giant creature mayhem side of things. While Peter Jackson’s monumental 2005 version will likely always be my favourite version of King Kong, this Skull Island iteration is a flippin’ knockout of popcorn entertainment, audacious visuals and rock em sock em jungle war-games. Great stuff.

-Nate Hill

AMC presents John Le Carré’s The Night Manager

July 18, 2019 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

John Le Carré is an interesting author, and adaptations of his work in both film and television have proved to be some of the most fascinating and top quality work, whether lush and emotional (The Constant Gardener) or cold and labyrinthine (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). He’s firmly rooted in the spy genre but has no interest in things like action, chases, stunts or needless sex like another famous but frequently hollow espionage franchise I can think of. He traffics in brilliant character development, genuine intrigue and chessboard dialogue, all of which coalesce into palpably suspenseful stories that matter.

AMC’s miniseries adaptation of his novel The Night Manager is a fantastic piece of storytelling, meticulously orchestrated, wildly exciting, laced with pathos, danger and humour that has you laughing several scenes later. Tom Hiddleston gives what has to be his best work so far as Jonathan Pine, the night manager of a Cairo hotel who meets, falls in love with and witnesses the brutal murder of a mysterious girl (Aure Atika) with ties to the Egyptian mob. He discovers that the one responsible for this act, albeit indirectly, is billionaire British arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie), who he doesn’t necessarily openly declare vengeance on, but we get that notion from his anguished eyes as he looks at her corpse. Years later he gets a chance to exact some sort of plan against Roper and his organization when a plucky rogue MI6 operative (Olivia Colman) shadow recruits him to go deep cover to finally nail this biggest of fishes. So begins a deep, devilish and diabolical game of cat, mouse and spy as he gets about as close as he can to Roper, infiltrates the inner circle and finds himself right in the eye of the arms smuggling hurricane.

Hiddleston was rumoured for Bond at one point but honestly I’m glad he opted for stuff like this, his reptilian smoulder harbours a keen intelligence that blossoms with scripts that have a bit of weight to them as opposed to one liners, one night stands and explosions. He makes Pine a creature of flesh and blood who isn’t incorruptible and struggles to keep his eyes on the endgame while getting caught up with moral distractions along the way, like the plight of Roper’s elegent beau (Elizabeth Debicki, a striking actress of immense talent and one to watch out for). Laurie makes wry, mottled work of Roper and I like the unconventional casting. He apparently had the same idea as I’ve heard they had to talk him into doing the role, but I’m glad they did because he makes deft work of this verbose, colourful international monster. Scene stealer Tom Hollander gets some priceless lines in as his right hand man, and the sensational cast includes work from Alastair Petrie, Tobias Menzies, Douglas Hodge, David Harewood and more.

I think I counted zero genuine action sequences in this, save for one that serves a very specific purpose. Much of the story is dialogue, glances, meetings, arrivals, departures, clandestine sting setups and character interaction. That might prove boring to some but really it’s the meat of any story, while action should be the sauce and not the main course. Here we care about Pine and his situation from minute one, to the point that the suspense is hair raising. Each character is vividly drawn and written, the world brought to life in dimension and detail by cast and director Suzanne Bier alike. Le Carré himself is also a champion of the end result, which is an achievement in itself. A brilliant piece of television.

-Nate Hill

Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris

April 10, 2019 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Do you ever find yourself feeling drawn to or nostalgic for another time period? Like somehow even though you’ve never been, you feel like you miss being there? Owen Wilson has a case of this in Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris, a charming, brilliant piece that comes across as a ‘small’ film but has some big and deep ideas to discuss with you, the viewer. Wilson is Gil, a hapless wannabe screenwriter who looks up to the literary giants of yesteryear as he meanders around present day Paris with his fiancée (Rachel McAdams) and her family. He keeps going on about “Paris in the 1920’s in the rain” and how lovely it would be to see, hear and feel that for real. Her head is nowhere close to the clouds as his though, she subtly resents his whimsical daydreaming and yearns for suburban sprawl once they tie the knot. Now it’s impossible to really review this film without spoiling the enchanting central premise, so here goes: as he takes dreamy walks around Paris, he discovers that every night at precisely midnight he’s able to quite literally time travel back to the 1920’s. This puts him in close contact with aforementioned writers he considers titans and soon realizes are people just like him. I don’t know much about the figures portrayed here or whether the actors embody them truthfully, but they sure do a grand job of bringing their scenes alive. Kathy Bates is a robust Gertrude Stein, Corey Stoll dryly intones Ernest Hemingway, Adrien Brody is great very briefly as Salvador Dali, Tom Hiddleston as Fitzgerald and so it goes. This could have easily been a high concept, Owen Wilson In King Arthur’s Court style time travel film where the lessons learned are never all that striking or below the surface, but Allen wants to dig deeper. What is it about nostalgia that holds so much power over us? Would it be healthy or productive to live out those fantasies for real, and how would one come out of it? Gil finds a modicum of answer to these questions when he meets restless Adriana (Marion Cotillard, wonderful as always), but there’s a certain portion of theme here that lies in mystery, especially when her side off this phenomena comes into play, a thought provoking venture that I won’t go into here. The production team has wrought such a well lit, meticulously costumed Paris of the 20’s that you almost feel like they somehow tagged along with Gil each night and just filmed the thing there, it’s that good. The story rises up to meet it, and honestly as I type I can’t think of one single thing I disliked about this film. It’s engaging, never too simplistic nor too impenetrable, the actors are all clearly having the time of their lives (check out scene stealers Kurt Fuller and Mimi Kennedy as McAdams’s kvetchy parents) and there’s just this charm over the whole thing that’s irresistible.

-Nate Hill

Taika Waititi’s Thor Ragnarok

February 8, 2018 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Taika Waititi’s Thor Ragnarok has got to be the most fun I’ve ever had watching a Marvel film. Trust Hollywood to make a sterling decision once in a blue moon, and hiring a deftly comic, renegade underdog subversive improv genius like Waititi to take the wheel is a smart, bold move. Now before I sing it’s praises to Valhalla, they don’t quite let him (he’s the Kiwi wunderkind behind the newly minted classics Hunt For The Wilderpeople and What We Do In The Shadows) go completely bonkers, which he clearly wants to do, and although he’s kind of bogged down by a generic villain and a recycled point of conflict in plot, a lot of the time he’s allowed to stage a zany, uncharacteristically weird (for the MCU, anyways) pseudo space opera that is a blast and a half. Thor finds himself, after a brief encounter with Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr. Strange, carted off to a giant garbage planet surrounded by space portals (one of which is referred to with a straight face as ‘The Devil’s Anus’, which sent me into a fit) and lorded over by a certifiably loony Jeff Goldblum as the Grand Master, a demented despot who holds intergalactic gladiator matches for his own entertainment. There Thor is forced to fight his old buddy the Hulk, and somehow find a way to escape Goldblum’s nefarious yet hilarious clutches. He’s got just south of reliable allies in his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and an exiled Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) with an attitude problem, as well as rock-armoured warrior Korg, voiced hilariously by Waititi himself as the film’s most engaging character. Meanwhile back in Asgard, trouble brews when the equally dangerous and sexy Hela (Cate Blanchett, with enough authoritative, husky smoulder to make me weak at the knees) tries to steal Odin’s throne for herself, with the help of defector Skurge (Karl Urban, who gets a mic drop of an action set piece later on). Here’s the thing about Hela: Blanchett is in top form, a commanding, dark presence… but the role is as blandly written as a number of other MCU villains, and one wonders how they’ve managed to flunk out at creating engaging antagonists a few times over now. She’s stuck in a subplot that we’ve all seen before, one that’s stale and at odds with the fresh, humorous and wonderful storyline between Thor and Banner. Their side of things is like buddy comedy crossed with screwball fare and works charming wonders, especially when they’re blundering about in Goldblum’s cluttered trash metropolis, it’s just inspired stuff. Throw in a great 80’s inspired electro pop score and a cool VHS retro vibe (I’m all about the old school) and you’ve got one of the best MCU movies to date, and most importantly one that *tries something new*, which the genre needs more of, even if it doesn’t ultimately fully commit, this is still a gem we have on our hands.

-Nate Hill

WRONG: DULL ISLAND

March 23, 2017 by Kent Hill, posted in Film Review

He’s bigger, he’s better and he’s back. He’s King Kong, and this time he is not going to be dragged off Skull Island and taken back to civilization to be paraded around till he takes exception to being someone’s meal ticket, breaks loose his chains and starts a city smashing rampage which ends with a barrage of bullets and a long fall to the asphalt below.

No folks, this time round Kong, now the size of a mountain, is hanging out and keeping the peace on his island. That is until and group of curious humans, led by an alleged Bear Grylls, Tom Hiddleston, Oscar winner Brie Larson who shifts between looking wide-eyed at things and taking photos, John Goodman who knows the truth is out there and Samuel L. Jackson. When you absolutely, positively have to kill every monkey in the room – accept no substitute. This group headlines a cast of who-gives-a-shit characters on a trip to Skull Island where everything is big. Even the ants apparently, but that’s a set piece too far.

The journey to the island is mandatory – montage and music stuff. Then we break through the perpetual storm clouds and have ourselves a bit of an Avatar moment as the crew marvel at the grandeur and beauty of this lost wilderness. Then Kong shows up and goes apeshit. He smashes up the Apocalypse Now homage and then walks off to enjoy a little calamari, ’cause they just don’t make bananas that big. So, with the cast all over the place, Tom and snap-happy Brie and their group are headed from the rendezvous point, Sam and John and that guy who played Private Wilson in Tigerland, plus the other soldiers are off to get some more guns to aid in Sam’s desire to turn the King into fried funky monkey meat.

There’s a giant spider that should make Jon Peters happy. There’s the Watcher in the Water moment. The Soldier who writes to his son bites it, or gets bitten by something unusual, but we don’t get the exposition till we meet up with John C. Reilly looking like his character Gershon Gruen from The Extra Man, minus the collection of souvenirs and the no-testicle high voice. This guy though gives the film a pulse. Oh, and he was the pilot from the beginning, SPOILER! He’s been hanging out on the island with the tribe that speech forgot, waiting to come in and add some much needed comic relief. Turns out there are huge nasties that you can call whatever you want under the ground that Kong has kept from emerging to prominence and getting there own spin-off movie.

This task used to be in the hands of more Kongs, but there is a ‘big one’ of these things that lay waste to them. Now Kong is the only one left who can keep cool, sit tight and keep the creatures in there holes. Of course this film falls into the cash-cow category. They brought back Godzilla, now they make a Kong that’s to scale, in order for the pair to have a decent scrap. But sadly it is a joyless ride. Predictable, laughable, with (and I’m quoting a prior review I’ve read) cardboard cut-out characters that are simply there to fill in the time between Kong and his monster-bashing bits. Heck my son started talking at least 45 minutes out from the end. This tells me that he is board out of his mind and I was with him. But I tried to hang on. I did not fall asleep like I did after the first fifteen minutes of the Conan remake. I have since completely avoided the try-again versions of Clash of the Titans, RoboCop, Ben Hur, Point Break, Total Recall as so on and so forth.

There is a line from James Ivory’s Surviving Picasso in which Anthony Hopkins, as the title character, refers to the methods of artists who have found fame and fortune. He says they make themselves little cake-molds and bake cakes, one after the other, all the same. He then stresses to Natascha McElhone’s Francoise, not to become your own connoisseur. This is extremely relevant and typical of the modern Hollywood. There is little to no attempt at originality, and if there is, it takes place within a film that fits into the friendly confines of a pre-branded property.

But the big ape lives and walks off into the center of his jungle home. He survives his encounter with dim-witted humanity, only to go off and fortify himself for the coming sequels and, quick note on cinematography, Larry Fong gets to send a love letter to his buddy Zack Snyder with a little samurai sword in green smoke action. We have reached that point in the history of the movies dear readers, in which the dead horse has been flogged so often that they have been whipping the bones. Soon all that will be left is the dust of said bones under foot. What are we to expect then? I’m reminded of one of Kevin Costner’s lines from his summation speech in JFK, “perhaps it will become a generational thing.” Ten years goes by and it’ll be, “Well, time to drag a King Kong movie out again.”

Sam Jackson buys the farm much like he does in Deep Blue Sea, swiftly and unexpected, at least for him. I’m starting to believe Hollywood is looking at us the same way. Here we stand, full of confidence, about to witness triumph in whatever form it may appear. Then it becomes like the lead up to the first ever screening of the Phantom Menace. The audience was cheering, poised, ready for the planets to align in complete and utter harmony. The Fox logo. The Lucasfilm logo. A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. Star Wars. If you watch the documentary The People Vs. George Lucas, one interviewees describes this as perhaps one the greatest moments in cinema history, then, then the film started.

I think it is a frequent occurrence today. There is so much pomp and pageantry surrounding these tent-pole movies that more often than not bad, because to achieve the same level as the hype generated is near impossible. Mind you, there are a few that defy this convention but they are few and far between.

So my favorite Kong is still the one I grew up with, the John Guillermin 1976 version.

People tell me they hate that one too. But to each his own. Kong will most likely be back in a decade after this lot. He’ll be half the size of the planet, ripped and ready to rumble against the Independence Day giant aliens when they decide to return to the best place in the universe, Planet Earth: home and the re-imagination of the adaptation of the sequel of the remake.

He’ll take a huge crap in his mighty hand and fling it at them. Oh if only…

The Dude in the Audience