Movie Review: ‘Dumbo’ Takes Flight on the Strength of Some Truly Captivating CGI

March 27, 2019

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CREDIT: Disney Enterprises

Starring: Colin Farrell, Danny DeVito, Nico Parker, Finley Hobbins, Michael Keaton, Eva Green, Alan Arkin

Director: Tim Burton

Running Time: 112 Minutes

Rating: PG for Steampunk-Style Circus-Based Peril and Implied PTSD

Release Date: March 29, 2019

CGI has become so commonplace in modern big-budget filmmaking that it is hard to be impressed anymore, even when there is clearly hundreds of millions of dollars worth of coding and manpower up on the screen. Correspondingly, the possibility of feeling a genuine connection with a computer-generated character often feels generally impossible. I would not expect that hurdle to be cleared by Disney’s live-action remake factory or late-era Tim Burton. But incredibly, the title baby pachyderm in Dumbo is one of the best CGI creations in a while. Ever, even. It usually seems that practical effects are necessary to create a spirit-filled non-human character, but this is something unique that could really only be achieved with digital technology. And it is amazingly quite soulful.

From the moment that Dumbo emerged from a pile of hay and looked up at everyone around him with his wonder-filled baby blues, I was enthralled. The magical floppy ears are just a bonus. But oh, what a bonus they are. Every single time that Dumbo took flight rendered me immediately choked up and awestruck. But as joyous as those moments are, I would have been won over by this little guy even he couldn’t fly. I loved seeing his eyes light up at the circus amusements (it’s the same thrill I get from watching YouTube videos of dogs who think that they’re people), especially the homage to the originals “Pink Elephants on Parade” done entirely through bubble form.

As for the human characters, and there are plenty of them, they mostly fill their roles admirably, but none are as unforgettable as Dumbo. Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins are delightful as a young brother-sister pair who have the closest connection to the beast, while Colin Farrell reliably pulls off the right emotional beats as their widowed father who lost an arm in World War I. Danny DeVito is right in his wheelhouse as a small-time circus ringmaster and owner who finds his full fatherly-protector spirit once he starts drawing in crowds like he’s never seen. He matches ambitions with Michael Keaton’s rival showman who wants to exploit Dumbo for his full wealth-generating potential. The message about the dehumanizing effects of capitalism is clear and welcome, though there could have been more room to explore a more complicated take on that theme. But ultimately, you can get away with a few minor disappointments if the main attraction is undeniably flying high.

Dumbo is Recommended If You Like: The original Dumbo, Cute animal videos, Batman Returns, A cameo from Michael Buffer (the “Let’s get ready to rumble!” guy)

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Feathers

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 3/22/19

March 22, 2019

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CREDIT: John P. Johnson/FX Networks

Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.

Movies
–Us (Theatrically Nationwide)

TV
–Happy! Season 2 Premiere (March 27 on SyFy)
–Jane the Virgin Season 5 Premiere (March 27 on The CW) – Final season of one of TV’s best shows!
–What We Do in the Shadows Series Premiere (March 27 on FX)

Movie Review: Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’ is a Landmark Achievement in Doppelgänger-Based Horror

March 21, 2019

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CREDIT: Claudette Barius/Universal Pictures

Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Evan Alex, Shahadi Wright, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Anna Diop

Director: Jordan Peele

Running Time: 116 Minutes

Rating: R for Scissor-Based Bloody Violence and Semi-Euphemistic Drug Talk

Release Date: March 22, 2019

The appeal of Get Out, Jordan Peele’s first film, had a lot to do with its underlying social message, which declared: this is the horror of what it’s like to be a black person in America. Now his follow-up Us is luring crowds primarily on the promise of its scare tactics, which are based on the fundamentally unnerving premise of a family terrorized by a group of people who look exactly like them. There is another social metaphor wrapped up in this package, and there is a good chance that you will figure it out by the end, or that someone will point it out to you. It’s clear enough, without being thuddingly obvious. Other reviews might reveal that subtext, but I’ll leave it unsaid, because there is satisfaction to be had in going in cold and having it click for you.

While Peele’s films are driven by an urge to convince people to look deeper at the world around them, they also work confidently on a surface level. Us is a striking triumph of the marriage of craft and performance. It would have to be for us to accept a world in which a group of doppelgängers, known as “the Tethered,” speak in a mixture of indefinably accented English, clicks, and blood-curdling screams. Occasionally, there is a chaotic mix of horror and comedy butting up against each other not exactly comfortably, with the tension breaking perhaps one too many times. But Peele is working in such unprecedented territory that I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. The acting is impressive across the board, especially in terms of a risk-taking appetite. A great deal is asked of Lupita Nyong’o, as the mother of the main family and the leader of the Tethered. She gives the sort of performance that is some unholy mix of ridiculous and brilliant – it might be a great folly, or the best of the year, or both.

CREDIT: Claudette Barius/Universal Pictures

The conclusion explains the rise of the Tethered with a twist that at first struck me as nonsensical. My instinct was to scramble back and fill in some extra-textual details that would fix what seemed like a glaring mistake. But now that I have had time to reflect, I am choosing to embrace the absurdity. It fits with a world in which people are often irrational and not fully paying attention to all that is around them. There are so many opportunities for reflection within Us, and you may be surprised, and perhaps invigorated, by what you see.

Us is Recommended If You Like: Get Out, Funny Games, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Grade: 4 out of 5 Scissors

Movie Review: ‘Hotel Mumbai’ Dramatizes a Massive Tragedy Unflinchingly But With Only Fleeting Insight

March 20, 2019

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CREDIT: Mark Rogers/Bleecker Street

Starring: Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, Anupam Kher, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Jason Isaacs, Amandeep Singh

Director: Anthony Maras

Running Time: 125 Minutes

Rating: R for Constant Deadly Gunfire and Plenty of Profanity

Release Date: March 22, 2019 (Limited)

A lot of real-life historical tragedies have been dramatized on screen, but rarely has it felt as exploitative as it does in Hotel Mumbai. Part of that is due to the deadly nature of the attacks, in which hundreds of people were killed or injured by explosives and gunfire, often at close range. It is also attributable to director Anthony Maras’ decision to show so many of the deaths in graphic, bloody detail. The 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks that culminated at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel were indeed quite terrifying, but what does this dramatization illuminate besides reminding us that tragedies like this one have happened and that they are often fueled by religious extremism?

If there is to be anything valuable on offer here, it would presumably be about forging some sort of connection with the characters. And on that score, there are people that I care about and are rooting to make it out alive, but their stories are not especially unique. Among those with the most fully fleshed-out arcs, there is the guest (Armie Hammer) who is trying to protect his family, the hotel employee (Dev Patel) who is trying to make it home to his family, and the head chef (Anupam Kher) who rises up as a leader and comforter. These roles are well-acted, and some (if not all) are surely based on real people, but their stories do not say much beyond, “This is how certain people react to trauma.” But among the perpetrators (all young men who look to be in their early twenties) there is Imran (Amandeep Singh), who starts to question what he is fighting for as the mission drags on. That is where the real, complicated story is at, but alas, his personal crisis only gets a handful of moments, leaving Hotel Mumbai an endurance test without much to mentally grapple with after making it through.

Hotel Mumbai is Recommended If You Like: Witnessing trauma

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Casualties

Movie Review: ‘Girl’ is a Decently Compelling Movie That is Not Quite as Upsetting as the Corresponding Controversy Would Suggest

March 19, 2019

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CREDIT: Netflix

Starring: Victor Polster, Arieh Worthalter, Katelijne Damen, Valentijn Dhaenens

Director: Lukas Dhont

Running Time: 106 Minutes

Rating: R for Fairly Graphically Portrayed Self-Harm

Release Date: March 15, 2019 (Streaming on Netflix)

It’s been a bit of a contentious trip for Girl from the festival circuit to Netflix. It received a lot of positive notices, including a handful of awards at Cannes, but then it was met with a backlash from trans and queer writers, who objected to the story of a transgender teenage girl directed by a cis man (Lukas Dhont) and starring a cis teen boy (Victor Polster) in the lead role. As a cis straight man myself, I cannot offer first-hand experience regarding Girl‘s accuracy, but as a devoted film viewer, let me say these two things. First of all, film is a collaborative medium, and in the best cases, voices besides the director’s and the lead actor’s also play major parts in a film’s message. And second of all, no single critic’s pronunciation about any film should be viewed as gospel. If you are someone who cares enough about cinema to read reviews, then I encourage you to follow a variety of critics with diverse opinions and diverse backgrounds, and also to think deeply yourself about the movies that you watch. No two people see the same movie the exact same way, and we can benefit by discovering from someone else what we might have missed otherwise.

The ire that often forms around trans stories is partly due to their relative scarcity, making each single one unduly representative of all trans stories. This particular story is that of Lara, whose life revolves around ballet and hormone replacement therapy in preparation for sex reassignment surgery. It was inspired by the life of Nora Monsecour, a Belgian dancer and trans woman. It is worth noting that Monsecour served as a consultant and has defended Polster’s casting. When Girl is judged on the merits of this one particular story and not how it fits within trans narratives as a whole, I think it works empathetically. Its scenes of self-mutilation are rough to watch, but they do not strike me as dangerous, because the message behind them is rather ambiguous (beyond conveying Lara’s impatience). Ultimately, this is a movie that is not as contentious as the discourse surrounding it. Fundamentally, it is a story about a supportive family trying to get by in this crazy world, just like the rest of us. On that score, it is fairly compelling on an emotional level, though not exactly groundbreaking.

Grade: 3 out of 5 Puberty Blockers

Mini-Movie Review: Aliens Take Over a Very Gray Chicago in the Intermittently Promising ‘Captive State’

March 17, 2019

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CREDIT: Parrish Lewis/Focus Features

Starring: Ashton Sanders, John Goodman, James Ransone, Jonathan Majors, Machine Gun Kelly, Vera Farmiga, Alan Ruck, Kevin Dunn, David J. Height, Madeline Brewer, Ben Daniels, D.B. Sweeney, Kevin J. O’Connor, KiKi Layne, Marc Grapey

Director: Rupert Wyatt

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Occasional Explosions and Minorly Disturbing Sci-Fi Flourishes

Release Date: March 15, 2019

Captive State reminds me of 2010’s Skyline, a pretty awful movie that was at least fascinating for how it attempted to craft a genuinely compelling alien invasion with a fairly small budget. Captive State is a little more competent, but it has that same vibe of a director who is burning with a unique vision that he simply must deliver to the world no matter what the handicaps. That director is Rupert Wyatt, and his vision is a version of Chicago enslaved by aliens who want humans to pretend that this is actually an arrangement of unity. There’s clearly some commentary about conformism at play here, which in past instances in this genre has been about the likes of communism and consumerism. But in this case, it is not clear what the target is. (Maybe blind patriotism?) And that really sums up Captive State as a whole. You can feel that there is a plentiful mix of ideas, and even an admirably ambitious combination of genres (chase-filled actioner, paranoid thriller, even a bit of a heist flick), and the surprisingly robust cast is here to give it what they’ve got. But alas, the overall effort never quite coalesces into something with a fully fleshed-out overarching purpose.

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Implant Trackers

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 3/15/19

March 15, 2019

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CREDIT: Saeed Adyani/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 Mustang

TV
–Arrested Development Season 5 Part 2 (Premieres March 15 on Netflix) – The final (?) episodes!
–Shrill Season 1 (Premieres March 15 on Hulu) – Starring Aidy Bryant!
–Turn Up Charlie Season 1 (Premieres March 15 on Netflix)

Comedy
–Amy Schumer Growing (Premieres March 19 on Netflix)

Sports on TV
-March Madness (March 19-April 8 on CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV)

Movie Review: ‘Five Feet Apart’ Wrangles Cystic Fibrosis Into the Young-People-With-Terminal-Diseases-Find-Love Genre

March 14, 2019

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CREDIT: Alfonso Bresciani

Starring: Haley Lu Richardson, Cole Sprouse, Moises Arias, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Parminder Nagra, Claire Forlani, Emily Baldoni, Cynthia Evans, Gary Weeks, Sophia Bernard, Cecilia Leal

Director: Justin Baldoni

Running Time: 116 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Medical Minutiae and Sensuality

Release Date: March 15, 2019

I have a sharply adverse physiological reaction to needles, so I am not especially excited about the prospect of a movie set entirely in a hospital. Five Feet Apart does indeed remain ensconced in a medical facility, but it is actually rather merciful, for the most part, in its depiction of medical equipment inserted into bodies. But that does not mean it is without its icky moments. It focuses on a group of young people with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder that primarily affects the lungs and as such leads to a lot of discharged mucus. As someone who is pretty much constantly congested, I am quite familiar with mucus and in fact have been able to find amusement in its expulsion. But it is a little harder to bear in Five Feet Apart, in which every mucus-filled cough sounds like it could be deadly.

While director Justin Baldoni (best known as Rafael on Jane the Virgin) brings us down into the muck, he knows, as we all do, that the real reason for a movie about terminally ill young people is an overwrought love story. It’s a classic opposites-attract pairing, holding close to the stereotypes to an excruciating degree, despite the actors’ most charming efforts. Stella Grant’s (Haley Lu Richardson) CF diagnosis has led her to become a control freak, which means that she makes it her mission to ensure that the devil-may-care Will Newman (Cole Sprouse) will stick to his medical regimen.

The twist that superficially separates Five Feet Apart from any other entry in this genre is that Stella and Will are not supposed to stand closer than six feet apart from each other, lest they catch each other’s infections. Their resolution to take one foot back (hence the title) comes across more as foolhardy than as romantic. I appreciate promulgating the idea that anyone, even those with terminal diseases, can fall in love and express that love (one scene in which Stella and Will strip down to their skivvies and show off their scars is a beautiful moment of vulnerability), but if it’s going to play out on the big screen, it could really use some more crackling dialogue than what we have here.

Five Feet Apart is Recommended If You Like: The Fault in Our Stars, Midnight Sun, Everything, Everything

Grade: 2 out of 5 Pill Cocktails

Movie Review: ‘The Hummingbird Project’ Wrings Some Meaning Out of a Story That Few, If Any, People Were Clamoring to Hear

March 13, 2019

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CREDIT: The Orchard

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Alexander Skarsgård, Michael Mando, Salma Hayek, Sarah Goldberg

Director: Kim Nguyen

Running Time: 111 Minutes

Rating: R for The Profanity of High-Stakes Finance

Release Date: March 15, 2019 (Limited)

The Hummingbird Project has one of the most stunningly esoteric premises of any theatrically released movie I have ever come across. So it’s a bit of a small miracle that it actually manages to be halfway compelling. It helps that the execution is straightforward, but that is also what holds it back from being truly memorable. Vincent Zaleski (Jesse Eisenberg) is a high-frequency trader whose dream is to build a fiber-optic cable line between Kansas and New Jersey that is efficient enough to decrease the time that information currently travels over that distance by one millisecond. But is that really his dream? Is that really anyone’s dream? His cousin and partner Anton (Alexander Skarsgård) is just as committed to the goal, but he essentially has a healthier perspective, treating it as a game or a code to crack. For Vincent, this is really about proving to the world that the little guy can come out on top, but his obsession has led him to turn the meaning of this highly specialized thing into the thing itself, when it actually represents normal human desires.

I imagine that many viewers will have the same reaction to Vincent and Anton that I did, which is to want to assure them that one millisecond cannot possibly be that important, no matter how many millions it will make them over the long run. Their pursuit is fundamentally maddening, though Eisenberg and Skarsgård make it palatable by tuning their performances to a sensitive enough key. It also helps that the script underlines how much they are doing this for a better family life. Vincent keeps reminding Anton that this job will ultimately lead to a charming, country mansion. Their desires are simple, really, as Vincent also promises that he will take Anton’s daughters out for ice cream once they return home.

Unsurprisingly, then, for a number of reasons, it turns out that Vincent is doing this all for his father, a Russian immigrant who was shaken down by government types on suspicion of being a communist spy. That led Vincent to learn that he needs to be so good at what he does that the people in charge cannot possibly deny it. This is a fairly unique version of the trope of attempting to please your parents after they’ve died, but it is not reason enough for Vincent to practically kill himself with his single-mindedness. It is a bit of a marvel how much relatable meaning can come out of this premise, but is still so esoteric as to have been seemingly made for one very specific theoretical viewer, and that viewer is not me.

The Hummingbird Project is Recommended If You Like: The specifics of laying down fiber-optic cable

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Milliseconds

Movie Review: ‘The Mustang’ is a Quietly Beautiful Tale of a Convict Finding Redemption Through Horse Training

March 11, 2019

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CREDIT: Focus Features

Starring: Matthias Schoenaerts, Jason Mitchell, Gideon Adlon, Connie Britton, Bruce Dern

Director: Laure de Clermont-Tennerre

Running Time: 96 Minutes

Rating: R for Horse-on-Human and Human-on-Horse Violence and Prison Profanity

Release Date: March 15, 2019 (Limited)

Is it possible to forgive yourself and move forward from the worst, most destructive mistake you’ve ever made in your life? That’s the question at the heart of The Mustang, the feature directorial debut of French actress Laure de Clermont-Tennerre. Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenarts) is in prison for assaulting his wife, but you don’t know that’s his crime until about halfway through, because he’s so tightly coiled that he barely conveys any information vocally beyond acknowledging people’s presence and asking them to go away. You get the sense that he wasn’t always this way, or at least that it wasn’t always this extreme. A key scene is a group therapy session in which the therapist (Connie Britton) asks Roman and the other convicts, “How long from the thought of the crime to the actual crime?” For most of them it was a matter of seconds, a moment of passion that instantly, dramatically altered their lives and self-perception.

For Roman, he cannot see a way back to himself or a version of his life in which he could ever again be comfortable spending time with his pregnant teenage daughter (Gideon Adlon). But despite the personal hell he is stuck in, a chance for redemption comes through via, of all things, a program for convicts to break and train wild horses (run by a no-nonsense Bruce Dern, charming in a crotchety sort of way). You don’t have to think too deeply to see the symbolism of Roman as a broken animal and to know that’s how they form such an empathetic bond after a violently unpromising introduction (Roman pounds the horse’s chest out of frustration in an early training session). Thankfully, De Clermont-Tennerre wisely underplays just about every moment, allowing Schoenaerts’ quiet intensity to do its job and speak every message that needs to be conveyed. This is a movie about hope emerging from a profoundly hopeless situation. That always has currency in cinema, and life itself.

The Mustang is Recommended If You Like: The Rider but with a lot more quietly intense masculinity with hidden sensitivity, The Shawshank Redemption

Grade: 4 out of 5 Wild Horses

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