Jeff "Jmunney" Malone's Self-Styled "Expert" Thoughts on Movies, TV, Music, and the Rest of Pop Culture
November 15, 2019
Cinema, Entertainment To-Do List, Television Ford v Ferrari, Klaus, Mr. Pickles, The Good Liar, The Report Leave a comment
CREDIT: Netflix
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–The Good Liar (Theatrically Nationwide)
–Ford v Ferrari (Theatrically Nationwide)
–Klaus (Streaming on Netflix) – I’ve actually been hearing good things about this one.
–The Report (Limited Theatrically) – Service journalism cinema.
TV
–Mr. Pickles Season 4 Premiere (November 17 on Adult Swim)
November 13, 2019
Cinema, Movie Reviews Bill Condon, Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen, Jim Carter, Russell Tovey, The Good Liar 1 Comment
CREDIT: Warner Bros.
Starring: Ian McKellen, Helen Mirren, Russell Tovey, Jim Carter
Director: Bill Condon
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Rating: R for Shocking Old Person-on-Old Person Violence and a Quick Walk Through a Strip Club
Release Date: November 15, 2019
As Ian McKellen meets up with Helen Mirren for a first date and they complain about the “computer service” and its supposed reputation for “mismatching the delusional with the hopeless,” it’s a good bet that The Good Liar isn’t just a simple septua/octogenarian rom-com. Even if you didn’t know going in that this was a thriller, the smoking hot, fine-tuned wit would tip you off that something deeper and more sinister, is going on. And sure enough, as Ray Courtnay (McKellen) and Betty McLeish (Mirren) continue going out together, Ray is also busy with his business partner Vincent (Jim Carter) on a grift worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. You very quickly get the sense that pretty much everyone in Ray’s life is a target of his cons, and each act in the film gives a new clue of the lifelong layers of his false identities. All of this should seemingly have us very worried for Betty.
But if you are like me, you were never seriously concerned that she would be the ultimate victim, considering that she is played by the indomitable Helen Mirren and con artist films so often turn on a reversal of fortune. So the fact that Betty pulls one over on the most frighteningly masterful deceiver should come as no shock. The joy is in the details of beholding her playing her part so perfectly and the final revelation of just why she is the one who would want to turn the tables (a date to see Inglourious Basterds is an early hint). No punches are pulled as we learn the truth, which transcends just Ray and Betty’s story and touches upon all of Europe reckoning with its violent past. Ray is the kind of man who doesn’t think twice about killing someone to protect himself and then slip away undetected. Betty’s story is about ensuring that all-too-common terrible legacy finally catches up to him.
And as one last important note, I must mention the tablets that Ray and Vincent use to transfer funds in the deployment of their grifts. These things are hilariously bulky, looking more like giant calculators (with conveniently large-print text for the senior set) instead of any familiar twenty-first century gizmo. Perhaps these really are what people with bank accounts worth millions of dollars actually do use to make convenient transfers at home and on the go. And it’s not like there was ever any way to make pushing buttons on these tablets look particularly cinematic. Honestly, though, I’m not complaining. It’s not like these moments demand to be visually seamless. These tablets certainly aren’t part of the mental picture I have for big-time con artists, but I often enjoy it when my expectations are confounded.
The Good Liar is Recommended If You Like: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Remains of the Day, The Debt
Grade: 3.75 out of 5 False Identities
November 12, 2019
Cinema, Movie Reviews Charlie's Angels, Djimon Hounsou, Elizabeth Banks, Ella Balinska, Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Nat Faxon, Noah Centineo, Patrick Stewart, Sam Claflin 1 Comment
CREDIT: Chiabella James/Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska, Elizabeth Banks, Patrick Stewart, Djimon Hounsou, Sam Claflin, Noah Centineo, Nat Faxon
Director: Elizabeth Banks
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Deafening Explosions and a Lot of Flexible Legwork
Release Date: November 15, 2019
Globetrotting in 2019: who needs it? I, for one, cannot say I find it particularly necessary after watching the 2019 edition of Charlie’s Angels. As three gadget-toting, butt-kicking, espionage-deploying young women chase a McGuffin around multiple continents, what do they, or any person of any age for that matter, have to offer us that we haven’t been offered before? Maybe something new is theoretically out there somewhere, but what I see are mostly a bunch of competently (and frequently goofily) staged action scenes. I’ve never previously seen any Charlie’s Angels TV episode or movie in its entirety, but the main feeling this one gave me was a nagging sense of “been there, done that.” (Although, it is worth noting, there is nary a whiff of the “three little girls” paternalistic energy of the original.)
Despite that shortcoming, I suspect that Elizabeth Banks, who wrote and directed and also stars as Bosley (or rather, one of the Bosleys), is not necessarily too worried by the plot being overly paint-by-numbers. As long as our new batch of Angels (Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Sabinska) get to show off some personality, there can be a feature-length rasion d’être. For the most part, they just go where the story demands that they go, but occasionally there are flashes of extreme goofball energy. Naomi Scott wears a fantastic red dress because why not? K-Stew makes “beep boop” noises while cracking a safe just for the hell of it. And then during the credits there is an onslaught of cameos: a few make obvious sense for this movie, but most of them are breathtakingly, delightfully random. So at least there’s a little bit of fun to get these angels flying.
Charlie’s Angels is Recommended If You Like: Flirting with Noah Centineo, Original pop soundtracks
Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Bosleys
November 11, 2019
Cinema, Movie Reviews Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Ben McKenzie, Corey Stoll, Daniel J. Jones, Dominic Fumusa, Jake Silberman, Jennifer Morrison, Jon Hamm, Matthew Rhys, Maura Tierney, Michael C. Hall, Scott Z. Burns, Ted Levine, The Report, Tim Blake Nelson 2 Comments
CREDIT: Atsushi Nishijima/Amazon Studios
Starring: Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Morrison, Tim Blake Nelson, Ben McKenzie, Jake Silberman, Matthew Rhys, Ted Levine, Michael C. Hall, Maura Tierney, Dominic Fumusa, Corey Stoll
Director: Scott Z. Burns
Running Time: 118 Minutes
Rating: R for Depictions of Torture
Release Date: November 15, 2019 (Limited)
There’s a moment in The Report that might be what most viewers remember it for, in which the 2012 hunt-for-Osama bin Laden thriller Zero Dark Thirty is called out and basically scoffed at for implying that torture led to valuable intel in the war on terrorism. Despite this apparent antagonism, The Report and Zero Dark Thirty work well as companion pieces, offering somewhat parallel stories in the defining geopolitical conflict of the twenty-first century. I believe that the message of Zero Dark regarding the efficacy of torture is more complicated than any binary interpretation, and I actually think that the people behind The Report would agree, at least in terms of the existence of complications in the world. When a narrative is about a real-life group of people poring over thousands of government documents for months on end, you tend to find that the answers aren’t always quite so straightforward. But two things remain clear: torture is bad, and the people deserve to know that it happened.
The primary document sifter is Daniel Jones (Adam Driver), who was working as a Senate staffer for California Senator Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening) while he investigated the CIA’s systematic use of torture in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The job is thuddingly labor-intensive, but Daniel is fully devoted to the task, and besides, the real challenge for him is getting this information out to the public over the protests of the forces who would prefer it be as redacted as possible or just completely hidden. The Report serves the entertainment value of presenting someone doing his job supremely competently, but it is also a bit of a slog. It is not exactly fun to spend so much time in windowless basements with Daniel, and his co-workers let him know that it’s not so great for him either. But for the good of mankind, this information needed to get out one way or the other. And if this story needed to be jazzed up into a big-screen adventure for people to become more aware of this miscarriage of decency, then The Report ought to be considered a succcess at least on that score.
The Report is Recommended If You Like: The truth being made public
Grade: 3000 of 5000 Documents
November 11, 2019
Cinema 1999, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, The Blair Witch Project, The Matrix, The Sixth Sense 1 Comment
CREDIT (Clockwise from top left): Artisan, Warner Bros., Lucasfilm, Buena Vista
Can we go back to 1999? It’s not just Charli XCX who’s feeling that way. Pretty much every movie studio would like to turn back the clocks 20 years. That annum deserves its iconic status, and that’s partly thanks to a quartet of box office successes that reached the level of phenomenon. Any film executive would kill to have one hit that fully enraptures the culture the way that The Matrix, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, The Blair Witch Project, and The Sixth Sense did, and somehow we got all four of those in one year (within five months of each other, no less). Their success stories are unique within the industry, and unique from each other. Is there any way that they could possibly be repeated now in a very different theatrical landscape? Let’s investigate!
November 8, 2019
Cinema, Entertainment To-Do List, Television Disney+, Doctor Sleep, Forky Asks a Question, Jeff Goldblum, Last Christmas, Noelle, Pixar IRL, Rick and Morty, The Mandalorian, The World According to Jeff Goldblum Leave a comment
CREDIT: Adult Swim
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Doctor Sleep (Theatrically Nationwide)
–Last Christmas (Theatrically Nationwide)
–Noelle (Streaming November 12 on Disney+)
TV
–Rick and Morty Season 4 Premiere (November 10 on Adult Swim) – The show with perhaps the best episode titles finally returns. (“Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat” kicks us off.)
Disney+ Launch Alert!
–Forky Asks a Question Series Premiere (November 12 on Disney+)
–The Mandalorian Series Premiere (November 12 on Disney+)
–Pixar IRL Series Premiere (November 12 on Disney+)
–The World According to Jeff Goldblum Series Premiere (November 12 on Disney+)
November 7, 2019
Cinema, Movie Reviews Bruce Greenwood, Carel Struycken, Carl Lumbly, Cliff Curtis, Doctor Sleep, Emily Alyn Lind, Ewan McGregor, Henry Thomas, Jacob Tremblay, Jocelin Donahue, Kyleigh Curran, Mike Flanagan, Rebecca Ferguson, Stephen King, The Shining, Zackary Momoh, Zahn McClarnon 1 Comment
CREDIT: Warner Bros.
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyleigh Curran, Cliff Curtis, Carl Lumbly, Zahn McClarnon, Emily Alyn Lind, Bruce Greenwood, Zackary Momoh, Jocelin Donahue
Director: Mike Flanagan
Running Time: 152 Minutes
Rating: R for Creepy Nudity, Shotguns Fired at Supernatural Villains, and an Overall Generally Disturbing Vibe
Release Date: November 8, 2019
The end of 1980’s The Shining did not promise that all would be well for little Danny Torrance. But the opening act of Doctor Sleep is much more encouraging. Danny and his mom Wendy have made it out of the Overlook Hotel, but they haven’t quite escaped it. Danny is still being harassed by the spectral residents, but thanks to a few words of advice from the ghost of Dick Halloran (Carl Lumbly taking over for the late Scatman Crothers), he is able to firmly close the door on them and keep them at bay. But cut to thirty years later, and Dan (now played by Ewan McGregor) isn’t looking so good anymore. We meet him anew as an alcoholic getting brutally beaten up at a bar and stealing money during a one-night stand from a single mom after she stole money from him to buy cocaine.
I am not an alcoholic myself, so I do not know what it feels like to deal live with that disease. But now that I have seen Doctor Sleep, I imagine that alcoholism must resemble the experience of being constantly surrounded by relentless supernatural villainy. Or at least I imagine that’s what it feels like for Stephen King, who has been public about his struggles with the bottle and has used it for inspiration in his own work. How else to explain the prologue to Doctor Sleep, which feels like a happy ending, but is instead a red herring that leads into more than two hours of evil letting us know that it’s not done with us? It must be agony to endure all that pain when intellectually you know, as Danny does, how to fight it off but you just cannot bring yourself to do it.
But perhaps that understanding of the darkness is ultimately where Danny is able to draw his strength from. He certainly needs all of it, as there is a new threat in the form of Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), who leads a band of vagabonds who are basically energy vampires. They are not quite immortal, but they have lived for centuries by feeding off the life force of people with remarkable abilities. They have their sights set on thirteen-year-old Abra Stone (Kyleigh Curran), who exceeds perhaps even Danny with her mastery of the shining (which is basically a combination of telepathy and clairvoyance, as well as something akin to astral projection).
One of the biggest pleasures of the film version of The Shining was how it left so many of its striking images ambiguous, often cutting away before we had a chance to make sense of what was happening or even where we were spatially or temporally. Doctor Sleep is at its strongest when it follows this approach, and there are plenty of opportunities to do so as Danny and Abra commune via the shining. Even moments of revisiting specific settings from The Shining do not play as fan service, but rather, they have an ominous sort of “we shouldn’t be here, we’re playing with fire” vibe. The only major misstep is when writer/director Mike Flanagan’s script over-explains what is happening. I haven’t read the Stephen King novel that the film is based on, but King has a reputation of being a little wordy, and that seeps into the film a bit. But otherwise, Doctor Sleep is a solid frightener about how the darkness within human brains can be quite demandingly resilient.
Doctor Sleep is Recommended If You Like: The Shining, But the Stephen King Element More Than the Stanley Kubrick Element
Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Mind Tombs
November 6, 2019
Cinema, Movie Reviews Boris Isakovic, Emilia Clarke, Emma Thompson, George Michael, Henry Golding, Last Christmas, Lydia Leonard, Michelle Yeoh, Paul Feig, Peter Mygind 1 Comment
CREDIT: Jonathan Prime/Universal Pictures
Starring: Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Emma Thompson, Lydia Leonard, Boris Isakovic, Peter Mygind
Director: Paul Feig
Running Time: 103 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Young Adults Getting Themselves Into Hot Mess Situations
Release Date: November 8, 2019
If you’re the type who likes to speculate before going to see a movie, then you may have surmised that a twist is afoot in Last Christmas. And it’s probably pretty close to (if not exactly) the twist you think it is, especially if you’ve noticed that in the trailer, nobody interacts with Henry Golding’s Tom besides Emilia Clarke’s Kate and if you’ve remembered the lyrics to the Wham! song that serves as this film’s namesake and inspired the plot. It’s not as if Emma Thompson and Bryony Kimmings’ script or Paul Feig’s direction is trying too hard to hide the reveal, as early scenes feature Tom using goofy evasive maneuvers (that nobody but Kate seems to notice) to avoid bumping into passing pedestrians. The success of Last Christmas does not hinge on the twist, thankfully, though I do wonder what it would have been like if it had showed its more hand earlier. The choice to keep things under wraps does make sense considering the story’s perspective, at least, and either way, the message about finding the inner strength to re-discover our best selves shines through.
The other big hook of Last Christmas is that Kate is in long-term recovery mode following a health scare a year earlier that necessitated a heart transplant. Physically, she seems to be doing just fine now, but mentally it’s another story. She appears to be suffering from undiagnosed depression, which is leading to a pattern of poor decisions: hooking up with a series of one-night stands, causing general destruction while couch surfing at her friends’ apartments, neglecting to lock up for the night while leaving work. Her current inability to fulfill the personality requirements of her job as a department store elf (under the employ of a shop owner who calls herself “Santa,” no less) could not be starker. Meanwhile, she’s also got plenty of stress emanating from her family, thanks to an overbearing mother (Thompson) who won’t stop calling her, a sister (Lydia Leonard) keeping her sexuality a secret from their parents, a father (Boris Isakovic) who systematically avoids conflict, and the long-term trauma of having grown up in the war-torn former Yugoslavia.
Thus, with everything so heavy in Kate’s life, I didn’t bat an eye at Tom’s saintly perfection, as this was exactly what she needed, and while skepticism can be healthy, it’s foolish to complain about something definitively good. He may suddenly show up without warning, but he knows exactly what to say to get Kate feeling like herself again. On top of that, he somehow manages to get by in this modern digitized world without carrying his phone around all the time and he (what else?) volunteers at a homeless shelter. His only shortcoming is that he has a habit of disappearing for days on end, only returning by some unpredictable whim. When he’s present, he provides the sort of emotional support that is essential for Kate right now and that we all require to get by as human beings. When he’s gone, it’s a test for her to learn that maybe she has that support within herself to get by on her own.
Last Christmas ends with Kate,, the full picture of health and 100% in the Christmas mood, putting on a little show in support of the homeless shelter. All her loved ones new and old are there to support her, and if that sounds a little too perfect, well, it probably is. We have at least seen Kate get to this point of fulfillment, so her triumph isn’t frustrating. But we haven’t quite spent the same time with her family to know that they’ve also been able to work through all their burdens. Maybe, though, we can assume that they too have had their own mysterious visitors who have helped them along, and then we can go on and sing some happy carols.
Last Christmas is Recommended If You Like: George Michael music, Some sort of combination of Love Actually, Fleabag, and BoJack Horseman
Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Comical Eastern European Accents
November 4, 2019
Cinema, Movie Reviews Alma Har'el, FKA Twigs, Honey Boy, Lucas Hedges, Maika Monroe, Martin Starr, Natasha Lyonne, Noah Jupe, Shia LaBeouf Leave a comment
CREDIT: Amazon Studios
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Noah Jupe, Lucas Hedges, FKA Twigs, Maika Monroe, Martin Starr, Natasha Lyonne (but only on the phone)
Director: Alma Har’el
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Rating: R for A Dad and a Young Son Using Way Too Much Profanity with Each Other
Release Date: November 8, 2019 (Limited)
Honey Boy is an almost-biopic, based on Shia LaBeouf’s preteen days as a child actor with a pushy, erratic father. I had not read any synopsis ahead of time, so I was unaware of this fact until the credits started to roll, so for me it was a nice little bonus that put everything into clearer focus. And we needed that perspective, because it’s exhausting to spend so much time in a motel with Shia stand-in Otis Lort (Noah Jupe) being emotionally abused the same way over and over by his balding, pot-bellied father James (LaBeouf doing a riff on his own dad). At least the rehab scenes with an older Otis (Lucas Hedges) offer some opportunities for a breakthrough. A particular highlight is his tête-à-tête with an as-stone-faced-as-usual Martin Starr about the nature of acting and sincerity (Otis, and presumably the real Shia, believes that day-to-day-living is just another form of acting).
While I found much of Honey Boy too unpleasant to fully embrace, its nakedly autobiographical nature is fascinating. It reminded me in particular of the Community Season 1 episode “Introduction to Film,” wherein aspiring filmmaker Abed makes a short documentary-fiction hybrid in which he covertly casts his friends as his divorced parents. Its experimental nature flat-out confounds his study buddies, but it leaves his usually cold father in a puddle of tears. So similarly, while I found Honey Boy off-putting, I can imagine that for LaBeouf and those close to him, this is exactly the sort of therapy they need. When he shows it to his dad, maybe it will prove to be the spark that leads to their relationship being healthier than it’s ever been.
Honey Boy is Recommended If You Like: Artists working through their familial demons in their art, That time when Shia LaBeouf watched his own movies
Grade: 3 out of 5 Cheap Motels
November 3, 2019
Saturday Night Live, SNL Weekly Recaps, Television Coldplay, Kristen Stewart, Saturday Night Live, Saturday Night Live Season 45, SNL, SNL Season 45 Leave a comment
CREDIT: Rosalind O’Connor/NBC
Hello world, it’s time for me to post my review of the fifth episode of the forty-fifth season of Saturday Night Live. Kristen Stewart is hosting for the second time ever. I thought she was promoting Seberg, which is looking like it’ll be a pretty small release, even as far as small releases go. But then I remembered that she’s also going to be in the latest edition of Charlie’s Angels, which comes out soon. And Coldplay (the coldest of bands? certainly not the most playful) is the musical guest for, wow, the sixth time. That’ll have you thinking about the passage of time.
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