Tag: Jon Hamm

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)

Movie Review – ‘Baby Driver’ – “A Rock & Roll Fable”

Written and Directed by Edgar Wright
Cast: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Eiza González, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Jon Bernthal, CJ Jones, Flea, Lanny Joon, Sky Ferreira, Allison King, Big Boi, Killer Mike, Paul Williams, Sidney Sewell, Thurman Sewell, Jon Spencer, Walter Hill
Soundtrack: Steven Price

I love me some Edgar Wright.

From Spaced, to the Cornetto Trilogy, and even Scott Pilgrim (And have I mentioned I’m still disappointed that Marvel couldn’t work it out with him on Ant-Man? Although his fingerprints are still very much there), the man’s resume is impeccable.

Still, for some reason I couldn’t figure out, I was worried about Baby Driver (which apparently is also the title of a Simon & Garfunkel song; The More You Know).

Maybe the studio just didn’t know how to market it (I mean, this is Sony we’re talking about).  Maybe he’d changed, or I’d changed, or we’d both changed.  Maybe he was going in a new direction and I just wasn’t ready for it.  For whatever reason, something inside me kept saying, “I don’t know about this one.”

Fortunately, my fears were quickly allayed, as I realized not long into the runtime that this film is the best thing he’s done in ten years.

As you’d expect from Edgar Wright, Baby Driver consists of layers upon layers upon layers (including the spirit of Atlanta), as it’s clearly influenced by Walter Hill’s The Driver (which influenced Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive), which itself was based on Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï (which influenced many films, including Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog).

However, as wonderful and influential as those two films are (I’d personally recommend both of them), and as much as there are echoes of all of his previous works throughout, Wright’s Baby is very much its own…baby: a symphony of cars, music, and that signature kinetic energy like we’ve never quite seen before.

Tone-wise, it’s by far the most serious film Edgar has ever done, and it’s got plenty of bite to back up the bark, but that doesn’t mean it’s not without a genuine sense of humor; I’d compare it to The Nice Guys in that regard (unfortunately, the trailers are playing up the humor way too much, making the movie look borderline farcical; it didn’t even occur to me that the movie was rated-R until the second or third F-bomb).  This is both a major strength and a minor weakness, because the tonal shifts don’t always quite jibe, but, like I said, it’s a small flaw in a large masterpiece.

In terms of car action, I’m going to say this is the most visceral work I’ve seen since Mad Max: Fury Road (if you’ve got another legitimate nominee from the past two years, I’m all ears).  Edgar Wright himself said 95% of the car stuff is for real, both inside and out, and it shows.  There’s even one chase that might rival To Live and Die in L.A., which I never thought I’d ever say about any movie.  Frankly, I’m not sure it’s even worth attempting to describe the breadth of the gratuitous vehicular action; you truly must see it for yourself.

Of course, all of this might be for naught if the story and the performances weren’t up to par (down to par?), but not to worry.  I wouldn’t put every performance in the same basket, but the core of Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, and Lily James is rock solid, which is all that really matters; everybody else is free to be as much of a character (or caricature, depending on your perspective) as they want to be.

If I have any other criticisms besides the occasional odd tonal shift, it’s that the movie is sometimes just a bit too much, in that the camera is almost always moving (though at least they could afford a steadicam, unlike some people), and the soundtrack is sometimes a bit too noisy.  Maybe I’m just becoming an old man, I don’t know, but I never felt like I was having sensory overload watching Fury Road, whereas Baby Driver had it creep in a few times.

All-in-all though, there’s not much to complain about.  Some might say Baby Driver is style over substance, but sometimes the style is the substance (e.g. Guy Ritchie’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E.).  I say it’s one of the best movies of the year, and I bet I’ll still be saying that come New Year’s Eve.

Whether you’re a die-hard Edgar Wright fanatic or a new fish, if you like gunfights, car chases, and proper action (and music), this film is for you.  This was an idea that’d been brewing in his head for a long time, and we are fortunate to see it come to fruition.

Rating: ★★★★½ (out of five)