Category Archives: Movies

Game Night (2018)

16 Tuesday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a list lending a mystique to something ordinary, so I wrote my own riddle, which probably isn’t very hard considering the movie’s title.)

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I spark delight in every age,
Or else I trigger tantrum rage.

I’m thought by some to be mere fun,
But some obsess until I’m done.

I may use one, but two or three
Are often a necessity.

I may take skill, I may take chance;
I thrive on zeal and happenstance.

My many forms are source of mirth,
But some derive from me their worth.
_______________________

MPAA rating: R

Comedies have always been hit or miss, but modern comedy seems to have a lot more misses for me, partly because humor is subjective, but also because all the R-rated content usually gets in the way of the fun. Game Night isn’t immune to that, but its twisty plot and dark humor were engaging enough for me to look past its faults and thoroughly enjoy it.

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Maybe my own love of games is a reason; my family has a game night every Christmas Eve, so I know the appeal of a table-top competition. I’m not quite as competitive, though, as Jason Bateman’s Max or Rachel McAdams’ Annie, whose mutual love of games brings them together. Now as a married couple trying to conceive, they host regular game nights with their friends until Max’s shady brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler, who sounds oddly like Michael Douglas in this movie) tries to spice things up with an elaborate role-playing mystery involving kidnapping and clues. But the players don’t realize soon enough that the threats and twists are actually real.

Game Night has its share of unnecessary language and crude jokes, but it’s also a lot of fun. I’m not usually drawn to dark humor, but I loved the naïveté of Max, Annie, and their friends as they believe the danger to be a game. The laughs still come, though, once things get real, and their efforts to save Max’s brother are cleverly interspersed with a rollicking soundtrack, running gags, and more mundane debates like whether to start a family. And the plot will surely keep you guessing with its many barely credible twists and lively action, especially a cool one-take chase through a house. (I love how even less ambitious movies are using tracking shots more and more.)

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The cast is also great, with McAdams at her most effortlessly attractive and Bateman brimming with dry sarcasm; Jesse Plemons also makes an impression as their creepy policeman neighbor, who acts like a serial killer most of the time. Oh, and I got a real kick out of a couple jokes about Panera Bread, since I used to work there, and I can confirm that the membership card shown in the film is totally fake. While I wish it had been brought down to PG-13 level, Game Night is a great source of fun that is worth playing over and over.

Best line: (Brooks) “We can’t go to the cops. The Bulgarian’s got a ton of moles.”
(Annie) “On his face?”
(Brooks) “No, in the police department!”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2019 S.G. Liput
626 Followers and Counting

 

VC Pick: A Few Good Men (1992)

15 Monday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a dramatic monologue, so I took inspiration from a film chock full of dramatic monologues, courtesy of Aaron Sorkin, and tried to rewrite one as a sonnet.)

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You think that you’re a match for all the threats
That deign to infiltrate the walls I guard,
But plenty live devoid of foreign frets
Because I have the nerve to keep them barred.
You think I’m cruel and callous to my core?
No, I’m the one who earns your daily chance
To vent your vapid views and blissfully ignore
The foes who’d shoot you dead at second glance!
My duty’s daily done, despite your blame,
And it does not include concern for you,
Who thinks of winning battles as a shame
Because it kills a citizen or two.
I’ve served my country thus for far too long
For you to come insinuate I’m wrong!
__________________________

MPAA rating: R (solely for a surfeit of language)

I saw A Few Good Men when I was much younger, and since then have only caught the last thirty minutes or so on TV a few times, which is the best part anyway. Over time, it’s stuck in my mind as a largely boring courtroom drama that ramps up to become truly great during those last thirty minutes. My dear Viewing Companion (VC) has tried to challenge that opinion, but only recently convinced me to watch the full movie again, and I’m glad she did.

Directed by Rob Reiner, A Few Good Men has a good case for being the greatest of military courtroom dramas. Scrappy but inexperienced Navy lawyer Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) is chosen for a case that his superiors would like to forget: the court-martial of two Guantanamo Bay Marines (Wolfgang Bodison, James Marshall) who killed one of their fellow soldiers in what many suspect to have been a “Code Red,” an illegal punishment carried out within a unit. The higher-ups, including Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, insist the Code Red isn’t true, but Kaffee, with some prodding by a fellow officer (Demi Moore), takes a chance to prove the unprovable.

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Aaron Sorkin’s first foray into scriptwriting (based on his play from three years earlier) highlights what makes him such a great writer. The dialogue is often exchanged at such a rapid pace that you may or may not grasp everything said but you certainly appreciate the refreshing eloquence and intelligence behind it. It also helps to have it delivered by someone with the charisma of a young Tom Cruise or the intensity of a surly Jack Nicholson, who got a deserving Oscar nomination.

As I said, the last thirty minutes feature some exceptional performances along with the iconic lines and courtroom fireworks, but what comes before wasn’t as dry as I recalled. I do see why I thought that. I was a kid at the time, and most of the legal and military jargon, the chain of command and such, just flew over my head. I just needed to be older to fully appreciate them.

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I’m still conflicted on my ranking, though. The truth is that legal dramas just aren’t one of my favorite genres, even one as first-rate as this. Off-hand, I can’t think of one on my Top 365 List, with the exception of To Kill a Mockingbird. (Does Kramer vs. Kramer count?) However, revisiting A Few Good Men has given me enough pause to consider it List-Worthy, for now at least. It’s always nice and all too uncommon that a film is better than you remember.

Best line: (Colonel Jessup) “You can’t handle the truth!” [I count the whole subsequent monologue too, but I won’t put it all here. Go watch it instead.]

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
626 Followers and Counting

 

Isle of Dogs (2018)

14 Sunday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem using homonyms or the confusion common to the English language, so, taking my cue from cleverly homophonic film title, I tried to apply it instead to the language of dogs.)

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The language of dogs is a curious tongue.
It cannot be written and cannot be sung.

A “ruff” isn’t “rough” or the variant “roof”;
It’s “Give me a biscuit! I’m not hunger-proof.”

A “bark” isn’t something that grows from a tree.
It’s “Take me outside or else give me a key.”

A “whine” isn’t alcohol people can pour;
It’s “Don’t look at me; it’s that cat from next door.”

A “yelp” doesn’t reference a restaurant review.
It’s “Help! I’ve run out of apparel to chew.”

And woof, yap, and yip have no clear homonym.
So when your dog says them, you’ll have to ask him.
____________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

A Wes Anderson expert I am not, but I could tell from the two films of his that I’d seen in full (Rushmore and Fantastic Mr. Fox) that he’s an acquired taste I wasn’t sure I cared to acquire. It’s hard to compare the works of this king of quirk with more traditional cinematic style, but Isle of Dogs has an enjoyably straightforward plot couched among Anderson’s typical flashbacks, symmetrical designs, and camera-facing monologues.

First of all, I love the play on words with Isle of Dogs sounding like “I love dogs” (by the way, that’s the name of an actual district in London), and indeed a love of dogs plays a big part in the movie. In a near-future Japan, an outbreak of disease has led to all dogs of Megasaki City being quarantined on a nearby island. A young boy named Atari, the ward of the dog-hating mayor, goes there in search of his own dog and journeys with a colorful band of alpha dogs, with nation-changing results.

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One thing I can definitely say for Isle of Dogs and all of Anderson’s films is that they’re clearly labors of love. Stop-motion animation takes unparalleled patience and attention to detail, and the animation quality and fluidity rival that of Laika (the gold standard studio for stop-motion, see Kubo and the Two Strings, Coraline, etc.), with set design made even more laudable by its miniature size. On top of that, the storyline, broken into chapters like a storybook, is buoyed by the bond between Atari and man’s best friend, finding surprising sweetness alongside the not-too-distracting idiosyncrasies.

Something my VC didn’t care for was how the dogs speak English but the language of the Japanese characters is not rendered in English, though it often is translated through electronic or human means. I took it as simply a creative choice, which worked best with Atari’s interactions with the dogs, since we never know how much dogs actually understand our words. Because of this, the dogs get the bulk of the dialogue, and Anderson collected an outstanding voice cast, including Bill Murray, Bryan Cranston, Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton, Scarlett Johansson, Liev Schreiber, and even a cameo from Yoko Ono.

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Isle of Dogs is a little more mature than most animated films these days, with some darker-than-expected story elements, some of which are relieved by the droll humor and a clever twist or two. But for older kids, dog lovers, and fans of stop-motion, Isle of Dogs is an unconventional treat and certainly the best Wes Anderson film I’ve seen. Maybe next he’ll do a Christmas spin-off called Yule of Dogs.

Best line: (Nutmeg) “Will you help him, the little pilot?”
(Chief) “Why should I?”
(Nutmeg) “Because he’s a twelve-year-old boy. Dogs love those.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
625 Followers and Counting

 

Annihilation (2018)

13 Saturday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a spooky and mysterious poem. Of course, I could have used either of the movies from the last two days, but this one works too, with its theme of unchecked change hopefully providing the chill factor I was going for.)

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The world is changing before my eyes,
And what a surprise
To notice mutations that God never tried
That eons would normally cover and hide.

That tree over there was not always a tree.
Nor was that creature that lurks in its shade.
Should I be afraid?
For I know what they are,
But what kind of people did they use to be?

Betrayed by their cells, too minute to resist,
They changed and exchanged what had made them exist.
What monsters are born from a change so extreme,
A mutable dream
Where men were not always the beasts that they seem?

Are questions of sanity signs that you’re sane?
Just being here mixes unease in my brain.
For I’m not immune;
My own skin’s a cocoon.
When it hatches, how much of myself will remain?
____________________

MPAA Rating: R (for some language and gruesome violence)

From the trailers, Annihilation looked like the kind of movie to follow in the footsteps of Arrival with its slow-burn, high-concept science fiction. Or maybe that’s just what I wished it was. It’s actually closer in spirit to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and while most critics considered that a point in Annihilation’s favor, it’s not for me.

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Natalie Portman plays a cellular biologist and ex-soldier named Lena, who recounts her story to a hazmat-suit-wearing Benedict Wong. After her soldier husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) disappears on a mission, he returns a year later changed and distant, and Lena soon learns where he has been: a forested region of Florida, where a shimmering, expanding wall has puzzled scientists and swallowed any team sent to investigate it. Along with a head psychologist (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a paramedic (Gina Rodriguez), a physicist (Tessa Thompson), and a geomorphologist (Tuva Novotny), Lena enters “the Shimmer” in an effort to unravel its mysteries.

I’ll admit writer-director Alex Garland’s Annihilation has the high acting and production standards that modern sci-fi deserves, and it’s a home run at least on a visual level. The set-up is superbly intriguing, and Lena’s journey into the Shimmer is buoyed by the allure of the unknown. Signals and light are unexplainably altered. Monsters and strange species lurk out of sight. The evidence they find of Kane’s mission challenges their sanity.

It’s Alien-level tension and uncertainty (or at least Prometheus-level), but all this mystery has to lead somewhere for it to be worthwhile, and Annihilation’s ending is just too ambiguous for its own good. That’s where the comparisons to 2001 ring true, with the largely wordless climax playing out like a fever dream of compelling but nebulous menace. In the end, though, its unanswered questions just left me puzzled by its enigmatic lack of resolution.

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It’s odd that this would be my gripe when I commended the ambiguity of The Endless just a couple days ago. I guess The Endless was open to interpretation in a way that suggested a complexity that was justifiably out of reach (and at least the main plot got some resolution), whereas Annihilation seemed more intentionally esoteric, like a puzzle where the writer was hiding pieces from you and chuckling at his own shrewdness. Maybe that makes no sense, and maybe others will enjoy the film’s mind-twisting, but Annihilation left me unsatisfied, just as my VC was left unsatisfied by the novel on which it was based (and by all the changes made by the filmmakers). I enjoyed the set-up, but not where it led. With its middling box office returns, they may or may not adapt the other books in the series, but either way, I’m not sure the resolution is worth caring about.

Best line: (Dr. Ventress) “Then, as a psychologist, I think you’re confusing suicide with self-destruction. Almost none of us commit suicide, and almost all of us self-destruct. In some way, in some part of our lives. We drink, or we smoke, we destabilize the good job… and a happy marriage. But these aren’t decisions, they’re… they’re impulses. In fact, you’re probably better equipped to explain this than I am.”
(Lena) “What does that mean?”
(Ventress) “You’re a biologist. Isn’t the self-destruction coded into us? Programmed into each cell?”

 

Rank: Dishonorable Mention

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
625 Followers and Counting

 

Psycho 2 (1983)

12 Friday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem about loving something dull, so I gave it a bit of a deranged spin, courtesy of Norman Bates.)

See the source imageIt’s just a wig, a ratty thing,
Gray from age and gray from dust,
And yet I cannot help but cling
To something I distrust.

It was my mother’s once, you know;
A hoary halo round her head,
And now no matter where I go,
I see it even though she’s dead.

To keep it still makes her feel close.
Morbid maybe? Yes, it’s true.
But I’m a quite obliging host,
And when I don it out of view…

Hello, Mother, how are you?
______________________________

MPAA rating: R (stronger language and violence than the original, plus brief nudity)

For those who may think that Hollywood’s resurrection of decades-old franchises for the sake of a sequel no one asked for was a recent trend, I will simply point to Psycho II, released 23 years after Hitchcock’s original (not to mention Psycho III three years later and Psycho IV four years after that). I think that the ’80s really kicked off the horror course of endless sequels, and Psycho was just one of many to get that treatment. While this long-delayed follow-up doesn’t compare with Hitchcock’s masterpiece, it’s a tight little slasher mystery in its own right.

Twenty-two years after the events of Psycho, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins reprising the role) is supposedly rehabilitated and released from an insane asylum, much to the chagrin of Lila Loomis (Vera Drake), who still despises Bates for the murder of her sister Marion Crane. Getting a job at a nearby diner, Norman returns to his motel and the house from the first film, but after befriending a beautiful young coworker (Meg Tilly), he finds himself struggling with his sanity, especially as the body count mysteriously rises.

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Psycho II really tries to humanize Norman, making him sympathetic as he wonders whether he can trust his own mind, and Anthony Perkins manages it better than any actor taking his place could have. The mystery of Psycho has become too ingrained in pop culture for it to have much shock value anymore, but Psycho II keeps the characters and audience guessing what’s real and what’s psychosis. I’m rather disappointed in how one character is changed for the sake of the plot, right down to the gruesome way they’re dispatched. Otherwise, though, the mystery has decent twists and performances and even a little dark humor, making Psycho II better than I would expect from a film cashing in on Hitchcock’s legacy.

Best line: (Norman) “Well, I’ll tell you. When I was little, I had a fight with my mother, so I put some poison in her tea, you know. But I’m all right now.”
(Mary) “You sure?”
(Norman) “Sure! Otherwise, they wouldn’t give me a job at a diner, would they?”
(Mary) “I don’t know; it takes a nut to work there.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
624 Followers and Counting

 

The Endless (2018)

11 Thursday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem of origin, so, inspired by the time loops in this film, I focused on how where we’re going might mirror where we’ve been.)

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Is darkness our friend?
They say we came from darkness.

We’ve grown up searching for the light
From friends both fickle and contrite,
From dogs that lick and dogs that bite,
And lies that distance and unite.

It feels as though our life’s a loop,
A track so many have run before,
From more to less and less to more,
And ere our ship returns to shore,
Our time is short, but we explore.

The light’s the loop,
The dark’s the end,
They say we’re headed for darkness.
Is darkness still our friend?
____________________

MPAA rating:  Not Rated (R for the language and some violence, though there’s much worse out there)

Not being a huge fan of horror, I’ll admit I’m not very familiar with the works of H.P. Lovecraft, a name I’ve noticed becoming more and more popular lately. What constitutes Lovecraftian horror is new to me, but from what I understand, it deals with terrifying cosmic powers beyond the scope of human understanding, or basically fear of the unknowable. If that’s right, The Endless might be the best example I’ve seen, a fascinating and slow-burning mystery with an undercurrent of paranoia and weirdness.

Two brothers Justin and Aaron (played by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who also directed and split work on writing, editing, and cinematography) are struggling with normal life some years after escaping from a so-called “UFO death cult” out in the desert. Aaron remembers their time there as one of stability and plenty and wishes to return, and, though Justin is dead-set against it, he agrees to briefly visit their former home after a mysterious video arrives. Strangely, very little seems to have changed, but the longer the brothers stay, the more uncanny events seem to happen, portending a great danger that might be inescapable.

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I won’t pretend to claim that I completely understood the film’s plot, but The Endless is well-acted and has intrigue to spare, with mysteries and fear piling on top of each other and most of the questions left largely unanswered by the end. Yet it’s very much a case of what you don’t see being scarier than what you do; there’s not really any nightmarish imagery, more foreboding and unease. A prime example is when the brothers are invited to pull on a rope as one of the community’s confidence exercises. The rope stretches off into the darkness as each person plays tug-of-war with something, with the chill factor coming from the lack of knowing what that something is.

As the film goes on, it enters a wilder side of science fiction, with time loops and fractured dimensions that challenge the mind and don’t provide easy answers, if any, but through it all, the brotherly bond between Justin and Aaron proves to be a strong human element to ground the craziness. I’m curious now to check out one of Benson and Moorhead’s previous films called Resolution, which apparently expands on one of the subplots from this movie, or vice versa. (Fans of theirs were no doubt happy to spot the connection.)

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Like Chronesthesia, The Endless is an example of multitasking filmmakers making the most of a limited budget and delivering a surprisingly solid product; the special effects are especially well-done for an independent film. It’s also one of those movies worth rewatching and discussing with others, if only to understand it better, though perhaps that lack of full comprehension is both the point and the appeal.

Best line: (an anonymous quote displayed at the beginning) “Friends tell each other how they feel with relative frequency. Siblings wait for a more convenient time, like their deathbeds.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
622 Followers and Counting

 

Leave No Trace (2018)

10 Wednesday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to incorporate some kind of regional weather term. Because of its potential origins in the Pacific Northwest, where this movie is set, I took inspiration from the word sunbreak, which Wikipedia defines as “a passage of sunlight in the clouds during dark, rainy winters (typical west of the Cascade Mountains.”)

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The forest floor was waterlogged
As constant raindrops pounded it,
And constant clouds obscured the sky
As verdant vines surrounded it.

The greens were muted, shadow-strewn,
Until a sunbreak was extended.
Viridescence quelled the gloom
Long after that sky-tear had mended.
__________________

MPAA rating: PG (very little objectionable)

Leave No Trace is like the antithesis of all the loud and flashy Hollywood blockbusters these days. It’s slow, quiet, melancholy, and light on dialogue. Despite boasting two excellent performances from Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie, it wasn’t visible enough to get any award love either, but it’s a slow-burn drama that’s still earned much love in cinephile circles.

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Foster plays Will, a war veteran suffering from PTSD, whose anti-social anxieties have driven him into the lush forests of an Oregon park. There he lives off the land and minimal resources (a tent, a propane stove) and hides himself and his thirteen-year-old daughter Tom (McKenzie) from the obtrusive outside world. Though more curious than her dad, Tom is a loving daughter committed to doing anything that keeps her and her dad together. Soon, though, the world intrudes on their wooded enclave and, when presented with a “normal” life, Tom’s contentment and bond with her father are tested.

Leave No Trace has no lack of realism, but its human interest, while present and touching even, is kept at arm’s length with little to no backstory on what brought Will to this point. Tom’s relationship with her father is sweet in its devotion and becomes further poignant as they both eventually realize the difference between her normal needs and wants and those of her father. It’s refreshing that she never resents her father and only raises her voice once, a sign of their mutual trust and rare familial bond even when troubled by self-doubt.

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Deliberate action and pensive silence are potently used, especially during some later scenes, and the acting is awards caliber, but this is definitely a critic’s movie. Professional reviewers will continue to adore it (100% on Rotten Tomatoes), while normal viewers will either appreciate its honest subtlety or be bored to tears. I suppose I’m somewhere in between.

Best line: (Tom, to her father) “The same thing that’s wrong with you isn’t wrong with me.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
621 Followers and Counting

 

2019 Blindspot Pick #3: Dancer in the Dark (2000)

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a list poem, so, based on this film, I wrote a list of things that make my heart ache. Try singing it to the tune of “My Favorite Things,” which was used in the movie.)

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Signs that the world is a heinous taskmaster,
Questions with answers unfair to the asker,
Innocence tainted by lack of concern:
These are the lessons it pains me to learn.

Optimists dashed and brought low for their dreaming,
Bitterness tinged by a sweetness redeeming,
Love too naïve to be wary of hate,
Promises broken or kept far too late,

When the dog dies,
When the tale ends,
When I need to grieve,
My broken heart summons the tears as it mends,
For they never truly leave.
_____________________

MPAA rating: R (more for intensity, what’s shown is closer to PG-13)

Due to his reputation for controversy, I’ve never been eager to watch the films of Lars von Trier. Yet I’ve been long curious about Dancer in the Dark, and my Blindspot series seemed like a prime chance to find out how a musical could also be considered among the most depressing movies of all time. I have a finicky regard for unapologetic downers. I love Grave of the Fireflies and The Elephant Man dearly, yet I can’t stand something like Seize the Day or The Hours. It depends on the film and the person whether it has the desired effect, and Dancer in the Dark hit me harder than I was expecting.

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I only knew of Icelandic singer Bjork for her strange style of singing, but she proves to be perfect for the role of a Czech immigrant mother struggling to provide her son with a better life. Having settled in Washington State in the 1960s, Selma Jezkova works hard in a factory with her friend Kathy (Catherine Deneuve), rents a trailer from a kind couple (David Morse, Cara Seymour), practices for a small stage production of The Sound of Music, and is slowly going blind. She’s been saving up for an operation so that her son need not bear the same affliction, which begins to impede her daily life.

Throughout the first half, the film gives every reason to love these characters, everyone sympathetic and helpful to Selma, including a would-be suitor she rebuffs (Peter Stormare). I could relate to Selma’s love of musicals and admired her commitment to her son, even if her stubbornness got in the way sometimes. Then, by believable but heartbreaking measures, one character’s selfishness and self-loathing become destructive and ruin everything that Selma has built.

Dancer in the Dark - Is Dancer in the Dark on Netflix - FlixList

Dancer in the Dark is not the kind of film I would expect to like, choppily edited and shot with a grainy, hand-held camera in a style that is apparently part of a semi-genre/movement called Dogme 95, which von Trier helped to establish. It’s an odd mixture when this style focused on realism suddenly shifts into the magical realism of Selma’s daydreams, musical segments where the sounds she hears become rhythmic as the colors brighten and friends and bystanders break into choreography.

It’s not shot like a typical musical, nor are the songs instantly catchy like something from Broadway. Bjork’s singing is even distracting at times, making the lyrics hard to understand. Yet it’s more about the feelings the songs create, and they strike deep. One revels in Selma’s love of musicals, even as it betrays her. After a horrific event, one song plays out the way Selma surely wishes it could go under better circumstances. Again, it’s a strange juxtaposition, but it works, in a way I can only compare to how humor was mixed with tragedy in Life Is Beautiful.

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The leadup to the tragic climax is probably strung out too much, but Dancer in the Dark left me haunted as few films do, and while some critics have dismissed it as shameless melodrama, it earns its heartbreak in my book. While it’s not a perfect comparison, since Selma actually commits a crime, the way the world turns on her brought to my mind the trial and suffering of Christ, a parallel strengthened by Selma’s line about her son’s operation, that it would be known “that he was paid for.”

With strong supporting work from Deneuve, Morse, and Siobhan Fallon (even a cameo from Joel Grey), Dancer in the Dark proved to be an acting powerhouse thanks to Bjork herself, who staggeringly was passed over for an Oscar nomination despite winning Best Actress at Cannes. She and the film itself may be an acquired taste and a bitter one at that, but their power is undeniable.

Best line:  (Bill Houston) “I love the movies. I just love the musicals.”
(Selma) “But isn’t it annoying when they do the last song in the films?”
(Bill) “Why?”
(Selma) “Because you just know when it goes really big… and the camera goes like out of the roof… and you just know it’s going to end. I hate that. I would leave just after the next to last song… and the film would just go on forever.”

Rank: List-Worthy

© 2019 S.G. Liput
621 Followers and Counting

The Commuter (2018)

08 Monday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to incorporate some kind of business jargon, but my limited time also limited my thought process on this one, so I skipped the prompt. Just a limerick today, with a bit of dark wordplay.)

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There once was a frazzled commuter
Who spent his whole day on computer.
They say that he snapped
After feeling too trapped
And became an acclaimed troubleshooter.
__________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

Liam Neeson just loves these late-in-life thrillers where a 65-year-old can still kick butt. I haven’t kept up with them all so I can’t rightly tell how The Commuter compares, but I for one enjoyed it a lot.

Neeson plays Michael MacCauley, an insurance agent and ex-cop, who on the day he gets laid off meets a mysterious woman (Vera Farmiga) who offers him $100,000 for him to find someone called “Prynne” on the train who doesn’t belong. It’s a vague task, and as Michael gets pulled in further, he soon finds it to be a life-and-death struggle that’s not about to let him go easily.

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Despite Neeson’s age, he fits the role like a glove, and the early scenes detailing his daily routine and commute establish him as a likable everyman. Once the action starts, he keeps up admirably, especially during a stand-out one-take fight scene with excellent camera work. The twists and turns offer a few surprises as well, even after what would normally be the final set piece for a film set on a train.

Also starring Elizabeth McGovern, Sam Neill, and Patrick Wilson (shame he had no scenes with fellow Conjuring star Farmiga), The Commuter probably isn’t the kind of movie that is likely to be remembered years from now.  But it’s a fast-paced mystery thriller (albeit with some convolutions and unanswered questions) that proves how watchable Neeson can be.

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
621 Followers and Counting

 

Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)

07 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in Movies, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was a poem about joy and gifts, so I thought of the selflessness offered to the title character of this biopic.)

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A dream is a gift on the highest of shelves,
And no one is tall enough for it.
We wonder what treasures are hidden within,
And watch other people reach theirs with chagrin.
We reach and we climb
And we strain every time;
We yearn and beseech
While it’s just out of reach.
This struggle, we hate and adore it.

But after the struggle has worn us bone thin
And made us give up on the treasures within,
For someone still taller to pluck our dream down,
Impelled by our dreaming and not for renown,
And offer it to us,
The dream that so drew us…
It questions the thought
That the world is all rot,
For kindness still lives
In the gifts that it gives.
_____________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

I didn’t realize that I’d be highlighting Meryl Streep’s lesser performances this week (Into the Woods was just a couple days ago), but it just worked out that way. I’ve long held Florence Foster Jenkins in semi-contempt ever since Streep got an Oscar nomination while Amy Adams in Arrival was snubbed. Yet I was curious to see whether her portrayal of the aspiring untalented opera singer was really undeserving or not.

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While I believe without a doubt that Streep’s Academy clout clinched the nomination, her role as Jenkins does have its strong moments, particularly when it shifts from milking her bad singing for comedy to mixing in the drama of her failing health and self-confidence. I suppose knowing from Into the Woods and Mamma Mia! that Streep can sing adds to the role’s difficulty; it takes skill to sing poorly on purpose. I can see Streep’s performance being worthy of an Oscar nom in a weak year, but I’ll take it to my grave that Amy Adams deserved it more in 2016.

Nearly overshadowing Streep is Hugh Grant as her husband/manager St. Clair Bayfield, who repeatedly swings the audience’s opinion of him; at first, he seems a faithful husband, then a cad when we realize he has a mistress, then somewhat sympathetic when the circumstances are clarified, then back to amazingly sweet and selfless husband by the end. Likewise, Simon Helberg as Cosmé McMoon, Jenkins’ self-conscious pianist, serves well as a stand-in for the audience, shocked by Jenkins’ naivete about her lack of talent but hesitantly supportive of her efforts.

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Florence Foster Jenkins is a well-written biopic I doubt anyone was clamoring for, but it’s better than its title character’s voice might indicate. While it extracts inspiration from Jenkins and her eagerness to share her passion and fulfill her dream whether the listening world likes it or not, it didn’t quite convince me whether that was a good thing or not. When someone aspires to be legitimately famous, would they really be satisfied with becoming infamous instead?

Best line: (Carlo Edwards, a ‘friend’) “Obviously I’ll do my utmost to attend the concert, but I’ll be away in Florida at some point.”   (St. Clair) “Oh, right. When?”   (Edwards) “Let me know when you’ve fixed a date.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
620 Followers and Counting