Tag: Jeff Bridges

New & Old Twofer – ‘Hal’ and ‘Coming Home’

Hal

Directed by Amy Scott
Interviewees: Allison Anders, Judd Apatow, Rosanna Arquette, Beau Bridges, Jeff Bridges, Lisa Cholodenko, Caleb Deschanel, Pablo Ferro, Jane Fonda, Louis Gossett Jr., Lee Grant, Grif Griffis, Norman Jewison, Robert C. Jones, Adam McKay, Charles Mulvehill, Alexander Payne, David O. Russell, Cat Stevens, Robert Towne, Jon Voight, Haskell Wexler, Jeff Wexler, and Ben Foster as the voice of Hal Ashby
Soundtrack: Heather McIntosh

Most people know the influential American directors of the Seventies: Spielberg, Coppola, Lumet, Lucas, Friedkin, Altman, Kubrick, Scorsese, even Brian De Palma is finally getting some due, but Hal Ashby tends to get overlooked; and, to be sure, his films don’t necessarily have the same level of name recognition as the others, but, make no mistake, the filmmakers of today know his work.

I wasn’t a total newbie to Ashby, the old dope-smoking, music-loving beatnik-turned-master auteur, before seeing this documentary.  I’d seen a couple of his directorial efforts (The Last Detail and Being There) in my lifetime; and I’d seen a couple of his editorial collaborations with Norman Jewison (The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! and In The Heat of the Night, which he won the Best Editing Oscar for), but it’s fair to say I was relatively unfamiliar with the man himself.

He was born to humble means in Ogden, Utah (though never a Mormon), made his way to Hollywood, and worked on films for William Wyler and George Stevens (among others) before meeting Norman Jewison, who essentially gave him a promotion to editor in the late-Sixties before finally striking out on his own as a full-fledged director.

As a documentary, I found Hal entertaining, it’s definitely much more slickly made than others in the genre, but at the same time I was expecting more content.  To put it another way, I’m not sure it goes much deeper than its trailer (which is also basically the introduction to the film).  It’s still a fun ride, and certainly a good primer for the uninitiated, and I don’t want to downplay the labor of love aspect, but, I struggle to give it a theatrical recommendation.

Rating: ★★★½ (out of five)

 

Coming Home

Original Release Date: February 15, 1978
Directed by Hal Ashby
Written by Waldo Salt and Robert C. Jones (screenplay), Nancy Dowd (story)
Cast: Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, Bruce Dern, Penelope Milford, Robert Carradine, Robert Ginty, Mary Gregory, Kathleen Miller, Beeson Carroll, Willie Tyler, Lou Carello, Charles Cyphers, Olivia Cole, Tresa Hughes, Bruce French, Jonathan Banks, Marc McClure

I know Coming Home got a whole bunch of awards season love at the time, and it’s a fine film, and I’m not even mad about its politics (after all, I love All Quiet on the Western Front), but, forty years on, it seems clear that much of the love was politically motivated (it’s not even the best Hal Ashby movie I’ve seen), which is nothing new, it still happens, and that’s all I’ll say about that.

It’s a heavy film, to be sure, and (something I feel like I’ve been saying a lot lately) on the whole it might be more interesting than good, but it’s worth a watch if only for the strong performances (especially Jon Voight) and unconventional use of music.  We’ve become accustomed to “needle-drop” movies that use portions of songs, usually cutting in time to the music, but Coming Home utilizes licensed songs more like John Carpenter uses his score, like “wallpaper”.  I honestly can’t think of another movie that does this and it made for quite the unique experience.

Still, there’s something missing that I can’t quite put my finger on.  Perhaps it’s because the story and characterization are over-simplistic in places, and, personally, I wish the movie established itself more as the period piece it is, but, ultimately, it does get its message across, and there’s something to be said for that.

Rating: ★★★½ (out of five)

New and Old Twofer – ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ and Larry Cohen’s ‘Special Effects’ – A Bundle of Meh

Bad Times at the El Royale

Written and Directed by Drew Goddard
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, Chris Hemsworth, Manny Jacinto, Jim O’Heir, Alvina August, Nick Offerman, Mark O’Brien, Xavier Dolan
Soundtrack: Michael Giacchino

Bad Times at the El Royale is not the worst movie ever, nor would I even say, “It sucks.”  However, it’s not nearly as clever as it thinks it is (or as most people seem to think it is).

The biggest and most glaring issue is that for a film that’s nearly two-and-a-half hours long, the amount of information you receive is borderline shockingly low, which I could abide if it was super-stylized (a la Mandy, or something more Tarantino-esque like Inglourious Basterds), but it’s really not.  It’s more plot-driven than character-driven, and dare I say neither the characters nor the performances are all that special.

It’s a shame because I like Drew Goddard for his work on The Cabin in the Woods and The Martian, but something just didn’t quite jell here.  Maybe trimming some of the fat to reduce the runtime and quicken the pace would have been an improvement unto itself, but I’m really just spit-balling here; who knows what would have worked?

Again, I didn’t hate it, and if you’re still really curious it might be worth a Redbox rental down the line, but that’s about as much of a recommendation as I can give it.

Rating: ★★½ (out of five)

 

Special Effects

Original Release Date: November 16, 1984
Written and Directed by Larry Cohen
Cast: Zoë Lund, Eric Bogosian, Brad Rijn, Kevin O’Connor, Bill Oland, H. Richard Greene, Steven Pudenz
Soundtrack: Michael Minard

In our [hopefully continuing] little series on the life and works of Larry Cohen, Special Effects has decidedly been the biggest disappointment.

Much like Bad Times at the El Royale, I didn’t hate it.  It at least has the trademark Larry Cohen (and vintage New York City) energy to keep you going, but it suffers from a lack of a strong lead performance (or supporting performance for that matter), and a lack of just plain old verisimilitude.  As talented a screenwriter as he is, and as much as I appreciate the influences from, say, Vertigo, there’s an uncanny valley effect to the story here that not even Cohen can overcome, and it’s difficult to not realize how insane and unrealistic it all is.

Again, it’s a shame, because obviously I like Larry Cohen, and I don’t think Zoë Lund and Eric Bogosian are untalented, but the film is a misfire, plain and simple.

Rating: ★★½ (out of five)

Twofer Movie Review – ‘Only The Brave’ and ‘The Snowman’ – Fire and Ice

Ordinarily I can find some kind of connection when reviewing two films at once, but I’m at a loss here, other than these two having the same release date.

Only The Brave

Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Written by Ken Nolan and Eric Warren Singer, based on the GQ article “No Exit” by Sean Flynn
Cast: Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jeff Bridges, James Badge Dale, Taylor Kitsch, Jennifer Connelly, Andie MacDowell, Geoff Stults, Alex Russell, Thad Luckinbill, Ben Hardy, Scott Haze, Jake Picking, Ryan Jason Cook
Soundtrack: Joseph Trapanese

A few weeks ago I woodshedded a pair of “based on a true story” films and I was not eager to do the same thing again this week.

Fortunately, I don’t have to.

I hesitate to call it great, but Only The Brave is very good.  A bit uneven perhaps, but it’s a fitting and deeply heartfelt tribute to a group of men who battled not flesh and blood, but rather the fierceness of nature itself.

In a word: wildfires.

If you’re unfamiliar with the world of wildfire firefighting, don’t worry, the movie gives you a pretty clear picture, so much so that I won’t even bother to provide a primer, but suffice it to say it’s not the sort of work for the faint of heart, to say nothing of the physical demands.

It sounds like the most obvious thing in the world, but Only The Brave has realism on its side.  I don’t know all the true life facts, I know for sure there’s some timeline shifting, but, on the whole, you don’t get the impression that there’s a lot of Hollywood-ing going on, which is nice for this sort of movie; and, outside of a few dream sequences for Josh Brolin’s character, nothing is even shot in a way that would seem unrealistic.

Speaking of Josh Brolin, this movie has a great cast (including Jennifer Connelly, who’s still as captivating as ever, and James Badge Dale, who’s probably my favorite actor who’s not yet a household name), and they all do solid work, though because it’s a feature film and not a miniseries, not a lot of people get much to do (there are twenty guys on the hotshot crew alone, let alone the other supporting characters, so screen time is at a premium for just about everybody).  It’s hard for me to be critical because maybe everyone is portraying their real-life counterpart perfectly, but if there’s one performance I found puzzling at times, it’s from Taylor Kitsch, but, again, I don’t know.

Given that I didn’t know the story going in, I’ll assume most people won’t know the story going in either, so I’ll leave that to be discovered, but it’s most certainly a story worth telling, and I think Only The Brave tells it well.

It may feel a bit by the numbers at times (I mean, Peter Berg has had a near-monopoly on this kind of film the past few years), but I’d say it’s a movie absolutely worth seeing theatrically.

Just make sure you bring some tissues.

Rating: ★★★★☆

 

The Snowman

Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Written by Peter Straughan, Hossein Amini, and Søren Sveistrup, based on the novel Snømannen by Jo Nesbø
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Val Kilmer, J.K. Simmons, Ronan Vibert, Toby Jones, Genevieve O’Reilly, James D’Arcy, Adrian Dunbar, Chloë Sevigny, Anne Reid, Jamie Michie, Alec Newman, Jamie Clayton
Soundtrack: Marco Beltrami

Boy, was this a disappointment.

The Snowman has pretty much all of the elements you need for a pulpy crime thriller: based on a novel (one book in an expansive series; if they were planning on a movie series, that ship has now sailed), a drunkard detective, a murderer with a gimmick, intrigue, flashbacks, and, perhaps most importantly, an A-list cast devoting themselves to B-level material (somebody even plays twins).

This could have been so-good-it’s-good, so-bad-it’s-good, or, at the very least, just some trashy fun, but the execution was totally lacking (and, if recent rumors are to be believed, so was 10-15% of the script).

Right off the bat, there’s a lethargy to this film that it never quite shakes, and I don’t know that it could be fixed purely with editing.  I was never so bored that I completely checked out, but, make no mistake, this was a bit of a chore to watch.

In contrast to Only The Brave, The Snowman thoroughly wastes its tremendous cast.  Honestly, there’s not one standout performance in the whole bunch, at least not in a good way.  Val Kilmer has a strange role that’s made doubly stranger by some truly awful dubbing, which I have zero explanation for, but that’s about it.

None of this really matters, however, because, in the end, this movie isn’t worth seeing or talking about any further.

I questioned whether it would be worth full price, but it’s not even worth a matinee.

Shame.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Movie Review – ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ – Bigger and Bigger

Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Written by Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn, based on the comic book The Secret Service created by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons
Cast: Taron Egerton, Julianne Moore, Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry, Channing Tatum, Pedro Pascal, Mark Strong, Sophie Cookson, Colin Firth, Elton John, Hanna Alström, Edward Holcroft, Michael Gambon, Bruce Greenwood, Emily Watson, Mark Arnold, Tobi Bakare, Samantha Womack
Soundtrack: Henry Jackman & Matthew Margeson

Right, then; break’s over.

I suppose it’s fitting that, after a month’s hiatus, I’m doing something I’ve never done before, which is reviewing a sequel to a film that I reviewed at the time of its actual release.

Kingsman: The Secret Service was definitively my favorite spy movie in a year that was chock full of good ones (not that there weren’t disappointments).  It embraced the more outlandish and fun elements of the James Bond franchise (particularly attributable to the era of the now late, great Roger Moore) while putting its own harder-edged spin on things, and I expected nothing less from its sequel (if not…Moore?).

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is definitely bigger, but is it better?

I say no.  I think it’s a bit overstuffed and a bit long for what it is, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t recommend it theatrically (especially if you’re a fan of the first one).  It is absolutely worth your movie dollars, so much so that there’s extremely little I’m willing to give away, so this’ll be a short review.

First of all, as in the original, you’ve got a great top-to-bottom cast (though very few get all that much to do), and everyone is clearly having fun with what they’re doing; which is to say this movie is like Octopussy-on-steroids in terms of the camp factor, though I will say there were at least a couple of moments that actually made me emotional, which was a genuine surprise.

Speaking of genuine surprises, I couldn’t believe how many story elements I legitimately didn’t see coming.  Sure, the main plot is just a bit predictable, but don’t tell me you were able to guess everything from the marketing.

As for the action, Golden Circle is very much in the same style as Secret Service.  No single scene offers a one-to-one comparison to the famous church sequence from the original, but it’s all executed, shot, and edited very similarly, if not actually better.

All-in-all, Kingsman: The Golden Circle is pretty much exactly what I thought it would be: a fun romp that goes too far in a few places.  It’s bonkers and it knows it, it’s got fun nods (both with and without twists) to the first movie (and what I think is a super deep cut Bond reference), and it’s got a great, young, charismatic actor in the lead.

If you’re a fan of the first one, you’ll probably really enjoy this one, as I did.  If not, I doubt there’s anything here that’ll win you over.

Not much else I can say without spoiling anything, but I recommend it heartily.

Rating: ★★★★☆

P.S.
There’s no stinger of any kind, probably because this movie is long and they respect that people need to relieve themselves, so, once the credits roll, you’re…Golden?

P.P.S.
Naturally, and as usual, thanks to Alamo Drafthouse for going all-out with the delicious specials and incredible glassware.