Bryan Cranston – People Talking

Quick Thoughts – March Mega-Post – ‘Isle of Dogs’ ‘The Death of Stalin’ ‘Unsane’ ‘Red Sparrow’ ‘Thoroughbreds’

Isle of Dogs (2018)

Some people will probably call me crazy (in addition to “rich, white, and bored”) for giving this movie a perfect score, but, what can I say? I enjoyed it from end to end and will probably go see it again to pick out things I missed the first time (and maybe again after that).

I was a bit skeptical that Isle of Dogs would be worth the wait (the four years since The Grand Budapest Hotel is the longest gap between Wes Anderson features), but that notion was quickly put to bed. Every frame of the film is a rich feast for the eyes (which is logical given the time intensity of stop-motion animation), and every performance is a joy to listen to (regardless of your ability to understand all of them at all times).

It’s a simple enough story about a boy and his dog, and whatever influences it has are certainly worn on its sleeve, but somehow the movie still manages to feel original.

I’m on record as saying that I don’t get hyped up for the Oscars anymore, which is still true, but, I will say that if Isle of Dogs doesn’t win Best Animated Feature next year, it’ll be a travesty (although, if I’m being really honest, I’d like to see it as a Best Picture nominee, but then again I don’t really care about the Oscars).

It’s heartfelt, it’s funny, but, mostly, it’s pure movie magic if I’ve ever seen it.

Rating: ★★★★★

The Death of Stalin (2017)

As you might guess by its title, The Death of Stalin (based on the French graphic novel of the same name) is about…the death of Stalin, and the power struggle in the immediate aftermath. What you might not guess is that it’s not some hoity toity political drama, but rather every major player is portrayed to be petty and foolish, if not downright stupid.

This is all thanks to writer/director Armando Iannucci (don’t be fooled by the name, kids; he’s Scottish, like Peter Capaldi), whose work I’m vaguely familiar with. I’ve seen In the Loop and an episode or two of Veep, so I know his political-satire-as-dark-comedy style. You might not think it would work for Soviet Russia, but I thought it was fantastic.

One of the greater purposes of humor is that it allows us to process the unpalatable in a way that leaves us with our sanity intact, which is precisely what this film does. It uses satire and farcical comedy to demonstrate the extreme absurdity of the totalitarian regime of Stalin and his cohorts. Certain critics have found this clash to be in poor taste, or simply unfunny, but I think this film makes its point rather eloquently, and the performances from Steve Buscemi and Simon Russell Beale in particular help bolster it even more so.

Honestly, the only element I’m really taking points off for is some digital night shooting that took me out of the movie, and a few bits of humor didn’t quite work for me (that’ll happen in a comedy), but other than that, it’s hard to ask for more than what The Death of Stalin delivered.

Rating: ★★★★½

Unsane (2018)

Right off the bat, I’ll say this is a great example of a 21st Century Hitchcockian Thriller.

The story is horrifyingly plausible (credit to screenwriters Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer), the performances are believable (kudos to Claire Foy and Jay Pharaoh), and the movie fills you with an utter sense of dread that would make Brian De Palma proud.

There’s really just one problem. The film was shot on an iPhone.

I don’t know if this was done purely as an experiment, or strictly to keep production costs down, or what, but I can tell you that it doesn’t appear to be a thematic choice.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like the whole movie is ruined because of this, I just think it would be to the movie’s benefit to look (and sound) like a movie, and there are moments when you are painfully aware that this was done on a phone and not something more substantial.

It’s a fine film, I’ll be happy to watch it again in the future, but it’s difficult for me to say it’s a must-see on the big screen, and I wish that wasn’t the case.

Rating: ★★★½

Red Sparrow (2018)

There’s a fairly popular notion regarding espionage these days that we don’t even need spies anymore because everything can be done by computer, and the response to this in media has largely been to equip fictional spies (both regular and super) with more and more technology, regardless of how cartoonish it seems.

The major reason why I enjoyed Red Sparrow so much is that it completely ignores this erroneous line of thinking, and brings spycraft back to the same old game it’s always been: psychology.

In short, Red Sparrow feels like a throwback in the best way, without feeling obsolete (definitely le Carré-esque, if you were wondering). Apparently some people have found some of the more “adult” elements to be rather shocking (which is kind of shocking to me because I didn’t think people were shocked by anything anymore, at least when it comes to movies), but I didn’t feel that it was exploitative relative to the story being told.

This film is a slow burner with some action, but no action for action’s sake, which may not be enough for some people, but I appreciated how grounded it was.

Not for everyone, but it’s not the trash you may have heard it is.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Thoroughbreds (2017)

Of all the movies in this post, this was probably the one I was the most let down by, and that’s not even saying it’s bad.

Thoroughbreds is a fine film on every level, but it’s tough for me to say there’s anything particularly special about it (which is kind of sad given that it’s Anton Yelchin’s final film performance, but what are you going to do?).

Of the two leads, I give the edge to Olivia Cooke in terms of her performance, and the story at least feels somewhat original, but in the end I’m left feeling like the movie is in the shallows rather than the deep end where it should be.

Worth seeing once, but far from a must-see.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Thanksgiving Smörgåsbord: ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ – ‘Roman J. Israel, Esq.’ – ‘Last Flag Flying’ – ‘Lady Bird’

Four auteured films.

No superheroes.
No space battles.
No remakes.

Let’s get it on.

Written and Directed by Martin McDonagh
Cast: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, John Hawkes, Peter Dinklage, Caleb Landry Jones, Kerry Condon, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges, Zeljko Ivanek, Amanda Warren, Malaya Rivera Drew, Sandy Martin, Christopher Berry, Jerry Winsett, Kathryn Newton, Samara Weaving, Clarke Peters, Nick Searcy
Soundtrack: Carter Burwell

Whether it was ever his intention or not, it’s completely fair to refer to Martin McDonagh as the British Isles’ answer to the Coen Brothers.

I mean, all three of his films (In Bruges, Seven Psycopaths, and now Three Billboards) have been crime-related dark comedies, all scored by Carter Burwell, and now he’s finally recruited Frances McDormand as his leading lady.

Not that I’m at all complaining, or throwing shade, or saying he’s ripping anyone off. He’s not. His stories are original, his characters are unique, and his films ultimately stick with you, Three Billboards most especially.

I rarely delve into plot, but I’m not spoiling anything by saying that the movie in a nutshell is about a mother’s search for justice for her slain daughter, in a rather messy and definitely confrontational way, weaving a tangled web involving everyone around her.

Three Billboards is fiery, brash, foul-mouthed, and not afraid to go to some dark places, yet somehow, in a very twisted, Martin McDonagh way, it has genuine heart and humanity, which is maybe the most surprising thing about it.

Of course, the movie would not be nearly as noteworthy without quality performances, which you get from almost everybody you need to get them from (I wouldn’t be surprised to see McDormand get some awards season buzz). The only one who threw me was Abbie Cornish, because I thought she had an American accent early on, but then at one point she slipped into an English accent and kept it for the rest of the movie; I’m still confused as to why.

All-in-all though, Three Billboards, not unexpectedly, is one of the best of the year.

Rating: ★★★★½ (out of five)

Written and Directed by Dan Gilroy
Cast: Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo, Lynda Gravatt, Amanda Warren, Hugo Armstrong, Sam Gilroy, Tony Plana, DeRon Horton, Amari Cheatom, Vince Cefalu, Nazneen Contractor, Robert Prescott, Shelley Hennig, Annie Sertich, Esperanza Spalding, Jessica Camacho, Ajgie Kirkland, Ludwig Manukian, Joseph David-Jones, Pej Vahdat, Henry G. Sanders, Miles Heizer
Soundtrack: James Newton Howard

Dan Gilroy’s directorial debut was Nightcrawler, which was one of the best films of 2014, and is still one of the best L.A. movies of recent vintage.

It’s a harsh standard to live up to, but Roman J. Israel, Esq. is no Nightcrawler.

Not that I’m going to compare and contrast them to death, because they are ultimately different, but they do both revolve around eccentric characters who come out of their shells a bit and take massive risks for the sake of sizable financial gain.

In the case of Nightcrawler, you’re glued to the screen from start to finish, and the third act in particular is unrelentingly thrilling.

Israel, on the other hand, is very muddled.

Denzel Washington’s performance in the titular role is compelling to watch, and is generally on par with any of the great performances of his career. The problem is that there’s not much else around him (Colin Farrell in particular feels a little directionless), and in the end I’m left wondering if the movie is trying to be profound and failing, or attempting to be meaningless as a statement, but it’s not clear to me either way, leaving me feeling just a bit empty.

If you’re a huge Denzel fan, Roman J. Israel, Esq. is maybe worth a rental down the road, but that’s about it.

Rating: ★★½ (out of five)

Directed by Richard Linklater
Written by Richard Linklater & Darryl Ponicsan, based on his novel of the same name
Cast: Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, J. Quinton Johnson, Deanna Reed-Foster, Yul Vazquez, Cicely Tyson
Soundtrack: Graham Reynolds

To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a particularly high opinion of Richard Linklater as a filmmaker, but I was willing to put that aside for a movie that appears to have a great cast, and a story that serves as a spiritual sequel to 1973’s The Last Detail (which is also based on a Darryl Ponicsan novel and is a movie I would recommend).

Linklater admittedly specializes in films where not a whole lot actually happens, and sometimes such movies can work really well, but Last Flag Flying is not one of them.

In terms of the core (Corps?) performances, Steve Carell is great, Laurence Fishburne is fine, and Bryan Cranston is sub-par.

I know that’s a heretical statement, because he’s everyone’s favorite actor because Breaking Bad is the greatest (he’s one of mine, too), but Bryan Cranston is not beyond a turkey of a performance from time to time; I’ve seen it happen before. And I don’t necessarily blame him, because if this is the performance he brought or the performance he was directed to, and nobody told him it wasn’t great, that’s not his fault.

Anyway, it’s not like he’s the only problem.

The movie overall (especially in the dialogue) feels like a college film (not to mention its an early 2000s period piece that sometimes cares about the details and sometimes doesn’t care at all). Whether Linklater or Ponicsan is more at fault for the lackluster script, I don’t know, but since this was Linklater’s baby, I’m going to leave the blame on his doorstep.

To put it the most simply, this is a movie that needs to feel real and just doesn’t. The most egregious example is the mildly antagonistic Marine colonel, who is made-up and lit to look like a pale vampire, as if it’s not already painfully obvious that we are supposed to dislike him.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Last Flag Flying perfectly portrays the dynamic of three old military buddies getting together after forty years, but it mostly just strikes me as off-base.

Definitely check out The Last Detail though, if you’ve not already seen it.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Written and Directed by Greta Gerwig
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, Stephen Henderson, Lois Smith, Odeya Rush, Kathryn Newton, Jake McDorman, Bayne Gibby, Laura Marano, Andy Buckley, Jordan Rodrigues, Kristen Cloke, Daniel Zovatto, Bob Stephenson, Marielle Scott, Myra Turley, Richard Jin, Ithamar Enriquez, Carla Valentine
Soundtrack: Jon Brion

Talk about a surprise.

I really only saw this movie because I needed to kill time before something else, so perhaps it benefits from my complete lack of expectation, but I am honestly at a loss to find much fault with Lady Bird.

I don’t know too much about Greta Gerwig, other than she appears in movies I don’t see because I have no interest in them, but she really knocked it out of the park with this one. If the “teen girl coming-of-age” sub-genre hasn’t been done to death by now, it’s definitely in a stale place, and yet everything about Lady Bird feels fresh (and it’s an early 2000s period piece that actually cares the whole time, unlike certain other movies).

One of the major reasons why the film works so well is that it’s short, sweet, and to the point, because it covers pretty much a whole year in our main character’s life in ninety minutes, paradoxically using the whole cow and trimming all the fat at the same time.

It’s a fairly familiar story: Senior-itis, young love, teen rebellion, trying to be cool, applying to colleges, etc., but everything feels pretty spot on and earnest, unlike other similar movies where characters often feel like caricatures more so than real people.

Much like Three Billboards (if not to a larger extent), everyone who needs to turn in a quality performance in Lady Bird does so (Tracy Letts in particular stuck out to me in his supporting role as the dad). Saoirse Ronan is the star, to be sure, but this is ensemble casting at its finest.

It might not be quite appropriate for actual teenagers (and, given that it takes place in a time before they were born, I don’t know that they’d get out of it what a thirty-something audience would), but it definitely belongs in the pantheon of the genre, and it’s for sure one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.

Surprisingly.

Rating: ★★★★½ (out of five)

Twofer Movie Review: ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ and ‘Godzilla’ (2014) – Why So Boring?

I never anticipated that I’d be formally reviewing these two movies, as I’m trying to stick to ground less traveled here, but I had the…experience…of seeing both this past week, and they coaxed almost the exact same reaction out of me: disappointment.

X-Men: Days of Future Past and the new Godzilla are the latest members of a growing and increasingly wearisome club of “big” summer movies whose trailers make them look fantastic, but the movies themselves leave much to be desired (perhaps the most notable example of this from 2013 is Man of Steel, though at least the first half is worth watching). I understand movies are a business, but at this point I’m just tired of all the lies.

So, here I am, reviewing these films that many, many people have seen already, but I want to warn others while they’re still at risk of wasting their time and money.

Directed by Bryan Singer
Written by Simon Kinberg (Screenplay and Story), Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn (Story)
Cast: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Nicholas Hoult, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Shawn Ashmore, Omar Sy, Evan Peters, Josh Helman, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Lucas Till, Daniel Cudmore, Booboo Stewart, Michael Lerner
Soundtrack: John Ottman

I had such high hopes…

Before I get too ahead of myself here, I will point out two scenes in this movie that are quite well done, without spoiling too much (not that it really matters):
1. An action scene that takes place in a famous government building where our heroes have to break someone out. It is the best scene in the film (though not worth the price of admission), and makes great use of Quicksilver (Marvel’s version of The Flash, if you don’t know).
2. A more poignant scene where the two Xaviers (past and future) are talking to one another. It’s the only scene that really connects on an emotional level to any significant degree.

That’s about it. Two scenes.

The basic premise of this movie (we need to fix the past in order to save the future) is interesting enough to keep you going for the lengthy running time; I was never so bored that I just wanted to go to sleep, but there’s a substantial gap between being passively interested and actively invested, and this movie consistently fails to fill it. If I was so inclined, I could complain about lots of things like plot holes, anachronisms, and various other X-Men problems that I know nothing about, but even before all of that, this movie constantly fails to be compelling. I was expecting Days of Future Past to be big and emotional; it is neither of those.

Whatever needs to happen to advance the story happens in short order, leaving very little room for dramatic tension. We need to find the professor? We find the professor. We need to find Eric? We find Eric. We need them to reconcile? They reconcile in two minutes (even though “they’ve never been further apart”). And so on and so forth. Not only that, but they couldn’t seem to figure out an interesting way of delivering mass exposition, which leads to more tedium as a viewer.

Now, again, I know very little about X-Men, and I’ve certainly never read the Days of Future Past storyline in the comics, so I can’t tell you how good of an adaptation the movie is, but, you know what? I know very little about Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D., and I really enjoyed The Winter Soldier. I know very little about Iron Man, and all three of those movies are fantastic (Iron Man 2 is actually my favorite of the trilogy). All four of the movies I just mentioned work as movies first and worry about the other comic book stuff later, therefore I recommend all of them, but I cannot recommend this new X-Men film (outside of a Netflix/Redbox sort of viewing if you’re that curious). X-Men: First Class had its problems, and I did not recommend seeing it in a theater when it came out, but there are at least some compelling storylines and interesting cinematic goings-on to get you moderately invested; it’s not a total flop. I can’t say the same for Days of Future Past. Ordinarily I’d offer up some sort of suggestion on how to improve the film, but I honestly don’t know about this one outside of having a completely different creative team leading the charge.

Frankly, and this will sound harsh, I think Bryan Singer himself might be the biggest problem here. Now, he did write and direct the first two X-Men films, and they’re solid, I guess (it’s been a while since I’ve watched them), but on the whole I think his career path is much closer to M. Night Shyamalan than his hero, Richard Donner. I suppose based on his original X-Men work he was able to wrangle a lot of creative control for Superman Returns, and that movie suffers many of the same problems as Days of Future Past. Granted, I really enjoyed it when I first saw it in theaters, but I was a younger man, and highly nostalgic for Superman I and II; watching it again though, that movie’s a mess (Lex Luthor wants real estate again, really?), and a good chunk of the running time simply isn’t compelling. I can understand the studio’s desire to return to the guy that put X-Men on the cinematic map, but, at this point, it seems that Bryan Singer is damaged goods, at least for superhero movies.

★★☆☆☆

Directed by Gareth Edwards
Written by Max Borenstein (Screenplay), Dave Callaham (Story)
Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, CJ Adams, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, Richard T. Jones, Victor Rasuk, Jared Keeso
Soundtrack: Alexandre Desplat

The most common comment (and I uttered it myself many a time) I heard in anticipation of Godzilla was, “Bryan Cranston’s in it,” and that is a true statement; Bryan Cranston is in the new Godzilla, and he’s really good in it when he’s in it, but he’s not in it nearly enough to save it.

This movie started off with a lot of promise. In the first 15 minutes or so, we see that Bryan Cranston plays an engineer at a nuclear power plant in Japan who’s concerned about a repeating pattern of seismic tremors (whose origins we as the audience already know something about) that might cause his plant some trouble. Sure enough, he’s right, and the plant suffers a terrible accident as a result of a mysterious earthquake, and, of course, this comes at a great personal cost to our beloved engineer.

BOOM. That’s a great intro, and a great way to get your audience invested into your movie. BUT, they then proceed to almost immediately scrap that for a shift in perspective to a different character. Bryan Cranston’s engineer comes back for a little bit, and you find out what he’s been doing for the past 15 years and it leads to the next plot point, but after that he’s done. See ya never.

This is my first big problem with this film. They get you emotionally invested, but then throw it away and give you characters that you just don’t care about; you can’t care about them, at least not in the same way. The engineer’s character’s arc coulda/shoulda/woulda made up the whole movie, or at least the first half of it. But jettisoning it so quickly into the run time (no matter who was playing him, really) was a huge mistake in the writing; and replacing him with such boring other characters compounds the problem further. Let him hang around a lot longer, and you’ve instantly got a better movie; hands down.

My second big issue is creature design; not so much for Godzilla, he looks alright, I guess, but the other creatures (this is not a spoiler; they’re in the trailer if you look close). They just look so generic, like they got focus-grouped to death or something. I don’t know, they just don’t look interesting or very creative. This is where maybe a little more liaising with Toho would have reaped huge benefits. I mean I know this is a ‘murican Godzilla movie, and I appreciate that they moved the story along more so than a standard reboot, but when your film features giant monsters, those monsters need to be engaging, and they almost completely failed in that respect.

My third and final problematic issue with Godzilla is too much tease and not enough payoff. Say what you want about Pacific Rim (I’m not that high on it myself, but it’s okay), but you can’t deny that they went all out when it came to showing you the monsters. Now I’m not saying Godzilla has to be that explicit, but the title of the movie is GODZILLA. A Godzilla movie should have the payoff of seeing Godzilla doing Godzilla things, and he does, eventually, but even when it’s an all-out brawl, they still cut away and tease you in the midst of it. It doesn’t come as a fully-satisfying payoff; it’s just more frustration at the end of an already frustrating movie.

What’s also frustrating is that they gave this movie to a promising young director, Gareth Edwards (not to be confused with Gareth Evans, who’s making the fantastic Raid series), whose first feature was also a monster movie called Monsters that appears to be much more worthwhile than Godzilla.

Now, is Godzilla a better movie than X-Men: Days of Future Past? Yes. It at least gives you an initial emotional connection, and though you’re largely waiting for something to happen, it does draw you back in a couple of times with legitimate suspense (something X-Men particularly fails to do); not to mention the visuals are much better on the whole. But it’s not good enough to warrant a better rating, unfortunately.

★★☆☆☆