Movie Review: Gina Rodriguez Enlivens the Otherwise By-the-Numbers ‘Miss Bala’

January 31, 2019

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CREDIT: Columbia Pictures

Starring: Gina Rodriguez, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Anthony Mackie, Aislinn Derbez, Matt Lauria, Cristina Rodlo, Ricardo Abarca, Thomas Dekker

Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Drug Trafficking, Violence Shot Far Enough Away That You Don’t See the Worst of It, and Nudity Covered Up by Towels and Shower Steam

Release Date: February 1, 2019

What if you found yourself embroiled in a series of criminal activities because some bad actors forced you to do their bidding, and you somehow made it out alive? Would you think that this is a sign that you should transform yourself into a full-time badass? Would you maybe even suspect that the whole thing was engineered as a training exercise? This is the ringer that Gloria Meyer (Gina Rodriguez) goes through, and anyone watching Miss Bala (a remake of the 2011 Mexican film of the same name) cannot possibly be anything but impressed by her resourcefulness and gumption.

Gloria is a makeup artist living in Los Angeles who heads south of the border to Tijuana to make her friend Suzu’s (Cristina Rodlo) face a work of art to help her win a beauty pageant. But then a trip to the nightclub leads to a disorienting succession of gunfire, kidnapping, and irreversible new life paths. As Gloria attempts to find Suzu after the two get separated, a drug cartel grabs a hold of her and forces her to do their dirty work. Then the DEA gets their paws on her as well, offering a potential chance to escape this predicament, though the price will not exactly be cheap. She quickly realizes that within the arena of the drug war, nobody really has her back. But as this is a star vehicle for Rodriguez, you know that Gloria will some way, somehow, emerge alive and on top. By the end, you might wonder if this was all a simulation designed to test her mettle, but that conclusion would ignore how chaotic the whole ordeal is, and the filmmaking makes it clear that her survival is never a guarantee.

Miss Bala hits hard as a character study, but it is fairly standard-issue as an action film. Gloria’s psychological development is abundantly present all over the screen, and there are few actors who can combine steely commitment and vulnerability the way that Rodriguez does. Director Catherine Hardwicke has a knack for getting her actors exactly where they need to be, but when it comes to the particular demands of the genre, she plays it safe. That means a standard-issue rough-and-tumble (though thankfully not too frenetic) editing style and a thrum-thrum-thrum score that sounds like it came from the stock music catalogue. So Miss Bala hardly reinvents the wheel, but it’s worth it to see Rodriguez’s face light up when she realizes that she’s a winner, baby.

Miss Bala is Recommended If You Like: Jane the Virgin but wish it had more drug trafficking storylines

Grade: 3 out of 5 Survival Tactics

Movie Review: ‘Arctic’ Strands Mads Mikkelsen in a Survival Story Stripped to Its Barest Essence

January 28, 2019

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CREDIT: Helen Sloan SMPSP/Bleecker Street

Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, María Thelma Smáradóttir

Director: Joe Penna

Running Time: 97 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Bloody Accident Images and the Effects of Extreme Cold

Release Date: February 1, 2019 (Limited)

Arctic is like a cinematic version of The Oregon Trail, that old computer game standby, insofar as it’s all about getting from point A to point B, with lots of deadly peril along the way. It also resembles many-generations-ago gaming in its decidedly no-frills nature. Mads Mikkelsen plays Overgård, a man who has been stranded alone in the title tundra for an unspecified period of time. There is hardly any dialogue because the only other credited character is a woman (María Thelma Smáradóttir) in a helicopter crash who is barely, if at all, conscious for most of the running time. The video game comparison does not track completely, as you never really got to know anyone in your Oregon Trail party, beyond all the diseases and snake bites they succumbed to. Arctic, on the other hand, does allow you to spend plenty of time getting up close and personal with Mikkelsen, but in fact you don’t get to know him that well, because he’s too busy just surviving.

Your appreciation of Arctic will depend a great deal on whether or not you believe minimalism is the best approach for this type of story. It certainly has its advantages, as the sheer imposing scope of the setting ensures that director and co-writer Joe Penna does not have to do anything fancy to convey the truth of Overgård’s situation. I enjoyed watching Arctic about as much as an afternoon spent playing The Oregon Trail. But I appreciated it much more deeply for its technical astuteness and efficiency. And it’s also now perfectly clear, if it wasn’t already, that Mads Mikkelsen is ideal company no matter what the occasion.

Arctic is Recommended If You Like: Survival Stories, Snow, Minimalism

Grade: 3 out of 5 SOS’s

SNL Love It/Keep It/Leave It: James McAvoy/Meek Mill

January 27, 2019

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CREDIT: Will Heath/NBC

Jeffrey Malone watches every new episode of Saturday Night Live and then organizes the sketches into the following categories: “Love It” (potentially Best of the Season-worthy), “Keep It” (perfectly adequate), or “Leave It” (in need of a rewrite, to say the least). Then he concludes with assessments of the host and musical guest.

Love It

No “Love It” sketches this week, although there are some moments that I love.

Keep It

Air Traffic Control – “Difficult-to-understand air traffic controller” is a fruitful sketch comedy premise, and SNL pulled off perhaps the best example of it ever back in the nineties with the mumbling Suel Forrester, a.k.a. Chris Kattan’s best recurring character. This edition is pretty good, too, and a satisfying utilization of McAvoy’s natural accent. But it would have been even better if there were moments when we could actually understand the Scottish folks. The key to these types of scenes working is that the confused people are given just enough rope to think that they might be able to crack the code of the strange speakers. At least the random detail of the plane’s passengers being Kylie Jenner’s brand integration team (but not Kylie herself) is a nice touch.

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This Is a Movie Review: A Dog’s Way Home

January 25, 2019

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CREDIT: James Dittiger/Sony Pictures

A Dog Way’s Home is about a mutt who would probably make it home a lot faster if she would just slow down and let someone help her. In fairness, not everyone Bella (voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard) encounters is particularly helpful, but she has a stubborn streak that ensures she is going to finish her journey on her own terms. But when she causes multiple accidents and gets herself hurt while trotting across six lanes of highway traffic, and then just walks off without anyone chasing after her (or is somehow able to outrun everybody), it starts to strain a little credulity. When movies like this slightly anthropomorphize dogs by giving them a human narrator, they come off as a mix of highly capable but also pitiable that feels somewhat uncanny valley-ish. That can be offset by leaning into goofiness, but A Dog’s Way Home is so earnest that it leaves me in a weird and unsettled emotional state, as opposed to a preferable combo of relieved and heartwarmed.

I give A Dog’s Way Home 2.5 Missing Dog Tags out of 5 Questionable Pit Bull Classifications.

Movie Review: ‘The Image Book’ is Jean-Luc Godard as Unclassifiable as Ever

January 24, 2019

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CREDIT: Kino Lorber

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Running Time: 84 Minutes

Rating: Unrated, But I Would Peg it at PG-13, Mostly Because I Don’t Think Young Kids Would Know What to Make of It

Release Date: January 25, 2019 (New York)/February 15, 2019 (Los Angeles)

At 88 years old, Jean-Luc Godard is still hard at work redefining what constitutes a film. His latest experiment is The Image Book, which can prosaically be described as an avant-garde cinematic essay that ties together various pre-existing films, paintings, and some original footage into one feature-length montage. But a more truth-seeking, poetic way to put it is that this is probably Godard’s attempt to capture his dreams on screen. That’s probably what he’s been doing his whole career, really. I think that’s what most, if not all, directors are doing, in fact. Godard is just more conscious about it than most. The question now is: was it worth it for Godard to share this particular dream with us? I certainly won’t complain about the time I spent watching it, but I doubt that it will have much of a lasting imprint on my subconscious, or my waking life for that matter.

One of the most useful pieces of film criticism I have ever heard (courtesy of Roger Ebert, I think) is that a good film teaches you how to watch it. With something as nontraditional as The Image Book, one would very much hope that is the case. But unfortunately, it is not successful, or at least the lesson did not take with me. Maybe Godard had a very clear purpose in mind when assembling his pieces, but it did not hit me with an overall strong punch. There is a mix of disorientation, cleverness, and inscrutability to the whole montage. The volume spikes up and down, or drops out entirely, and the cuts between various footage make perfect sense or no sense at all. I can imagine that it is pretty much the same experience whether you pay perfectly close attention or slip in and out, but it’s fun enough if you know what you’re getting into.

The Image Book is Recommended If You Like: Koyaanisqatsi, maybe?, Godard Completism

Grade: 3 out of 5 Trains

This Is a Movie Review: Replicas

January 20, 2019

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CREDIT: Replicas Holdings, LLC

As Replicas moves closer and closer to its climax, it becomes more and more aware that it must grapple with the consequences of its premise, or else there will be hell to pay. Keanu Reeves is attempting to clone his recently deceased wife and kids, and he’s pretty good at it, too. But he doesn’t want them to know that they’re clones, which presents problems upon problems upon problems. If he attempts to keep up the charade, that would make his character not just hubristic, but also profoundly cruel, and maybe even a little evil. So instead he chooses to be honest, and that’s when Replicas starts to click into gear. It all leads to a surprisingly happy ending that maybe does not grapple with bioethics as carefully as it should, but you know what? It’s a relief that a speculative sci-fi film like this one can offer some hope instead of total despair. If only the rest of Replica were not weighed down by a generic score and too many shots of Keanu wearing a funny helmet and waving his hands around a floating screen.

I give Replicas 3 Cloning Pods out of 5 Corporately Owned Subjects.

SNL Love It/Keep It/Leave It: Rachel Brosnahan/Greta Van Fleet

January 20, 2019

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CREDIT: Will Heath/NBC

Jeffrey Malone watches every new episode of Saturday Night Live and then organizes the sketches into the following categories: “Love It” (potentially Best of the Season-worthy), “Keep It” (perfectly adequate), or “Leave It” (in need of a rewrite, to say the least). Then he concludes with assessments of the host and musical guest.

Love It

Ken Instagram – This redux is not quite as masterful as the Barbie Instagram bit from the Donald Glover episode, which was my pick for the best sketch of last season. Luckily, it’s different enough to stand on its own and still be quite hilarious, thanks to Pete Davidson and Heidi Gardner’s daffy suggestions and Rachel Brosnahan’s unique darkness. Alas, it is also different in a couple of bad ways, as the timing isn’t always perfect and the ominous piano is unnecessary. But that’s just evidence of how difficult it is to capture magic in a bottle more than once. In this case, I’ll settle for almost-magic.

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This Is a Movie Review: ‘Glass’ is an Off-Kilter But Rewarding Examination of Superpowered Beings

January 15, 2019

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CREDIT: Jessica Kourkounis/Universal Pictures

This review was originally published on News Cult in January 2019.

Starring: James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Paulson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard, Luke Kirby, Adam David Thompson

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Running Time: 128 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Popping Veins, Sharp Objects, and Bodies Thrown Violently

Release Date: January 18, 2019

With Glass, M. Night Shyamalan is attempting a sort of Grand Unified Theory of Superheroes. According to this particular model, the stories told in comic books are based on the exploits of real people. We only think they are myths because they have had to live in the shadows. I’m pretty sure that Shyamalan does not actually believe that there are superheroes and supervillains in the real world, but the wonder that infuses those stories is very real. It is what drives us to understand the unbelievable. It is also what drives Shyamalan to deconstruct the entire superhero genre at its most atomic level.

Picking up nearly two decades after the events of Unbreakable and soon after those of Split, Glass kicks off with Bruce Willis’ super-strong guardian David Dunn tracking down James McAvoy’s ravenous multi-personality villain Kevin Wendell Crumb. They are both subdued by Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), a psychiatrist who specializes in patients with delusions that they are superpowered, a condition that she assures us many people are suffering from. They end up at the same institution that has been housing Sam Jackson’s Elijah Price, a.k.a. Mr. Glass, the man who engineered a series of terrorist attacks to uncover a superhuman like David. Also returning are Spencer Treat Clark as David’s son Joseph, Charlayne Woodard as Elijah’s mother, and Anya Taylor-Joy as Casey, Kevin’s surviving kidnapped victim. Oddly enough, most of the film takes place within the institution, making this mainly a battle of wits between Dr. Ellie and her charges. It is a surprisingly talky approach to what is ostensibly an action film, but it is profoundly part and parcel of what Shyamalan is doing.

As Glass reveals what it is all about, much of the dialogue turns into language that only ever appears in comic books. That is to say, it is the language of comic book narration, of the variety that goes “the bad guys are teaming up” and “this is an origin story, but not for the character you thought.” Not only do real people not talk like this, neither do movie characters, and neither do comic book characters. The only actor who manages to deliver any of it with any gravitas is Jackson. Clark, Woodard, and Taylor-Joy, on the other hand, sound as unnatural as possible. However, as disorienting as all that is, I am not eager to write this element off as a failure.

The film’s structure also leads me to question some things, particularly the revelation of Dr. Ellie’s true nature. I did not find it to be a huge shock, and I wonder if Shyamalan would have benefited from revealing it to the audience earlier to really explore the consequences of what her character represents. But even with the reveal at the end, that point can retroactively click into gear. And as for all the unnatural acting, I could say that maybe that is the point, and that this is a highly affected world, or at least these are highly affected people. That would be generous, though, especially considering that Clark, Woodard, and Taylor-Joy sounded like much more typical humans in Unbreakable and Split. But even if I choose to have the least generous interpretation of every questionable element, I remain utterly fascinated by Glass. This is not Shyamalan at his most straightforwardly powerful, but it is also not him at his most insufferable. He is on a cloud of thinking that most people would never think to go to, but he has found insights there that I am very happy we now have.

Glass is Recommended If You Like: The Village, The Happening, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Grade: 4 out of 5 Origin Stories

This Is a Movie Review: ‘The Kid Who Would Be King’ is a Goofy and Honorable Rendition of the King Arthur Legend

January 14, 2019

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CREDIT: Kerry Brown/Twentieth Century Fox

This review was originally published on News Cult in January 2019.

Starring: Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Dean Chaumoo, Angus Imrie, Patrick Stewart, Rebecca Ferguson, Tom Taylor, Rhianna Doris, Denise Gough

Director: Joe Cornish

Running Time: 132 Minutes

Rating: PG for Some Creepy Dark Magic and Middle School Bullying

Release Date: January 25, 2019

In the course of human history, it is always the children’s time to inherit the Earth. Thus, if all is right, then every generation gets the re-telling of the Arthurian legend it deserves. Not only does The Kid Who Would Be King deliver on this front as entertainment, but it is also about how young people, however modest their origins, can rise up to prove themselves and be upright, inspiring leaders. Middle schooler Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) randomly stumbles upon a sword at a construction site, so he pulls it out of a stone and takes it home, totally unaware that it is the legendary Excalibur. He soon finds himself embroiled in a generations-long fight against Arthur’s sister Morgana le Fay (Rebecca Ferguson) as she uses dark magic to take over the world. He teams up with his best friend Bedders (Dean Chaumoo) and converts some school bullies into allies, rendering the whole affair a lot more noble than you might expect a kid-friendly version of this story to be.

The biggest, and certainly showiest, highlight (as is the case in so many King Arthur stories) is Merlin (Angus Imrie), who here takes the form of a skinny young lad, as he is a wizard with a bit of a reputation for aging backwards. (Patrick Stewart occasionally pops in to play his older version, partly to look the part to anyone who doubts he is an actual ancient wizard.) There are some fish-out-of-water gags that really hit the spot, as Merlin disguises himself as a new schoolmate of Alex’s, declaring himself a “normal, contemporary British schoolboy.” Then there is the mesmerizing way he conjures spells, which is a basically a series of combinations of jazz hands and finger snaps. Imrie must be some sort of champion finger-snapper. Basically, if you like your Excalibur stories to feature jokes about how fast food consists of beetle blood, crushed animal bones, and beaver urine as well as lessons about living according to a code of honor, decency, and bravery, then The Kid Who Would Be King is just what you need.

The Kid Who Would Be King is Recommended If You Like: A Kid in King Arthur’s Court, The Goonies, Thor

Grade: 3 out of 5 Finger Snaps

 

Entertainment Essentials: January 11, 2019

January 11, 2019

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CREDIT: Entertainment Studios; Netflix; TBS

This post was originally published on News Cult on January 11, 2019.

1. Movie: Replicas (Theatrically Nationwide) – Keanu Reeves stars as a neuroscientist who loses his wife and kids in a car accident and then attempts to “resurrect” them in the form of androids. You can imagine how that goes. This is the type of original sci-fi movie that tends to fly under the radar, and that is a shame, even if it turns out to be horrible. So let’s all go see Replicas to declare to the big studios that we want to see more unique and challenging concepts on screen! Also, Silicon Valley‘s Thomas Middleditch co-stars as Reeves’ friend and colleague, which should add to the intrigue.

2. TV: Sex Education (January 11 on Netflix) – Gillian Anderson stars in this Netflix dramedy in the role that is pretty much perfect for her at this point in her career: a sex therapist who tends to overshare a bit too much with her teenage son. That teenage son is an awkward virgin played by Asa Butterfield who sets up a clinic at his high school to help his fellow classmates deal with their range of sexual problems. For my money, it is always a boon to have a show that is open-minded and sensitive on the topic of sex.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o308rJlWKUc

3. TV: Angie Tribeca Season 4 (Premiered December 29 on TBS) – Starring Rashida Jones as the titular detective who does things her own way, Angie Tribeca is a delightful spoof in the vein of Airplane! and The Naked Gun. Not every gag lands, but the joke-per-minute ratio is higher than any show currently airing, and it is all played so deadly serious, making it hard to get mad at any joke that falls flat. Even if you’re a fan of the show, you might not have any idea that a new season just arrived, as all ten episodes debuted the weekend before New Year’s with basically no promotion. Luckily, if you missed it, you can head over to the TBS website or app. In this batch of episodes, Bobby Cannavale joins the team as Tribeca’s long-lost son (it makes sense in context, sort of), and there is also the usual plethora of guest stars, including Anjelica Huston, Gillian Jacobs, and Jim Rash.

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