Michael Bay Lets His ‘Ambulance’ Loose on an Unsuspecting Los Angeles

April 7, 2022

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Ambulance (CREDIT: Andrew Cooper/Universal Pictures)

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza González, Garret Dillahunt, Keir O’Donnell, Jackson White, Olivia Stambouliah, Moses Ingram, Colin Woodell, Cedric Sanders, A Martinez, Wale Folarin, Jesse Garcia, Jose Pablo Cantillo

Director: Michael Bay

Running Time: 136 Minutes

Rating: R for Explosions Coming Out of Guns and Mouths

Release Date: April 8, 2022 (Theaters)

I’m not entirely sure what to make of my instinctive reaction to Ambulance. In short, it distressed me. But I suspect that may have been intentional. Even if it was intentional, it may have gone a little overboard. That’s hardly surprising, as going overboard is Michael Bay’s whole m.o. So of course I knew what I was in for. It’s just a matter of discerning: did we find the sweet spot, or did we tip the scales? And my verdict is: Ambulance is way too much for this viewer to handle, but I appreciate the spectacle.

The premise is tailor-made for a lean, nasty thriller. Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is a desperate man. Insurance won’t cover his wife’s surgery, so he turns to his adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal, matching Bay’s maximalism note for note), who’s about to pull off a massive bank heist. It’s supposed to be a simple in-and-out job, but a beat cop (Jackson White) just had to choose this day to ask out the bank teller he has a crush on. So Will and Danny are forced to take him hostage as they commandeer the ambulance of EMT Cam Thompson (Eiza González). If this had all been wrapped up in a cathartic hour and a half, I imagine I would have emerged from the theater reinvigorated and ready to crush everything on my bucket list. But instead, it’s a plodding 136 minutes that left me wondering if I would ever be able to feel like myself ever again.

The whole thing made me sick. Part of that has to do with the lengthy, surprisingly graphic abdominal surgery scene. Let’s just say my physiology is not optimally designed to handle the sight of that much blood. That could have been alleviated if this were a friendlier world, which it just isn’t. There are a few characters who are more or less pure, or at least gold-hearted despite their bad decisions. But every villain is surprisingly brutish, especially Danny, who’s one of the most frightening characters I’ve seen on screen in quite a while. He promises you loyalty and protection, but he’s really just an agent of chaos, much more violent and manipulative than you expect him to be.

But as distressed as I was, it’s hard to call Ambulance a failure. This is basically an extended metaphor for how L.A. traffic can turn your entire day into an Adventure Through Hell. And Bay’s clearly having himself a blast, what with the references to some of his earlier iconic films and the unbound use of drone cinematography. Oh, the drones! Have I mentioned the drones? If you need B-roll from every possible angle, there’s a new way to do it, and Ambulance works best as a how-to guide for pulling it off. Just order a drone, stick a camera on it, inject it with the mechanical equivalent of methamphetamine, and conquer the skies!

Ambulance is Recommended If You Like: Adults playing with their toys, New authority figures pulling up to take over the operation, The L.A. River

Grade: 3 out of 5 Drone Cameras

‘¡Viva Maestro!’ Review: Get to Know Gustavo Dudamel!

April 6, 2022

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¡Viva Maestro! (CREDIT: Greenwich Entertainment/Screenshot)

Starring: Gustavo Dudamel

Director: Theodore Braun

Running Time: 99 Minutes

Rating: Unrated (But It Would’ve Been a G or PG)

Release Date: April 8, 2022 (Theaters)

I’m not much of a patron of classical music performances, but I do love going to the movies (obviously). Which is to say, despite not being in his target audience, I am familiar with Gustavo Dudamel, as his conducting of the L.A. Philharmonic was featured in a “One Night Only” event broadcast to cinemas several years ago. And I saw the pre-show ad for that performance a lot. Even in that one 30-second snippet, it was clear just how preternaturally charismatic he was, even considering the baseline of gesticulation in his line of work. So when I found out that I would be going to see a documentary about him, I figured it wouldn’t take much to make him compelling. Suffice it to say, ¡Viva Maestro! doesn’t get in the way of itself.

When making a documentary about a living person, one central question is (or at least should be): Why now? What about this particular moment in time is so significant to this particular person’s life? Considering the inherently difficult and mercurial nature of filmmaking, I imagine that the main reason is that this just happened to be when director Theodore Braun was finally able to put together everything he needed. But whether it was planned or serendipitous, ¡Viva Maestro! captures Dudamel at a crossroads, as political strife in his native Venezuela prevents him from being able to return home while he’s in the middle of an international tour. Ultimately, that is more of a backdrop than anything else. Dudamel has always been reluctant to publicly share his political views, and ¡Viva Maestro! doesn’t press him much on that matter.

Thus what we have here is a mostly straightforward portrait of what it’s like to be one of the most famous and acclaimed conductors in the world today. I found the most compelling scenes to be Dudamel’s rehearsals with his orchestra. The word to describe them is “exacting.” Every note has to be played correctly to the exact right fraction of a second. That might sound like something out of Whiplash, but there’s also warmth at the core of Dudamel’s instructions to mitigate the intensity. This isn’t the life for me, but it is the life for people who have dedicated themselves to playing an instrument. People flock to this guy; ¡Viva Maestro! keys right in on his loyalty and dedication.

¡Viva Maestro! is Recommended If You Like: Holding your arms at perpendicular angles

Grade: 3 out of 5 Batons

‘Aline’ is 90% Normal Biopic, 10% Really Weird

April 5, 2022

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Aline (CREDIT: Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films)

Starring: Valérie Lemercier, Sylvain Marcel, Danielle Fichaud, Roc LaFortune, Antoine Vézina, Jean-Noël Brouté

Director: Valérie Lemercier

Running Time: 126 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Some Colorful Language About Bodies and Body Parts

Release Date: April 8, 2022 (Theaters)

I don’t think I’m fully immersed in all the necessary context to fully enjoy Aline, although I’m at least aware enough of the basics to understand what’s happening. It’s not a Céline Dion biopic, except that it very much is a Céline Dion biopic. Sure, the main character is named “Aline Dieu,” but the broad outline of her fictional story is pretty much exactly the same as Dion’s real life journey. And perhaps the name changes allow the Aline team more leeway to take artistic license, but it’s not as if more official biopics don’t also feature fictionalized scenes.

Then there’s the matter of 58-year-old director Valérie Lemercier playing Aline throughout the entire film, from five-year-old sensation to superstar mother of three. I’ve gleaned that Lemercier is popular enough in her native France that this sort of thing is pretty much expected from her. Meanwhile, for the rest of us who don’t know her beyond Aline, the shock value wears off fairly quickly and turns into something else. Specifically, it looks like young Aline has something like Benjamin Button Syndrome, and her family has just accepted that. Besides, the narrative cuts ahead to adult Aline’s portion of the story soon enough that any potential cognitive dissonance more or less disappears.

Ultimately, despite the name change and the age-blind casting, Aline mostly comes off as one of the most straightforward biopics I’ve ever seen. That is to say, it attempts to cram everything significant about one person’s life in a two-hour package, and there are some highlights here and there. Maybe the sight of an adult Lemercier playing a teenager falling in love with her much-older manager/future husband is supposed to be a commentary about how Dion’s relationship with René Angélil transcended (or didn’t transcend?) the bounds of age. But that’s hardly underscored. Maybe this really is just as right-down-the-middle as it feels like it is. And yet, I feel like if I could dig around Lemercier’s subconscious for a little bit, wonders would be uncovered.

Aline is Recommended If You Like: Forced perspective cinematography, Sudden hard cuts skipping years at a time, Lip synced cover songs

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Shoes

I Saw ‘Mothering Sunday’: Here’s What I Saw

March 31, 2022

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Mothering Sunday (CREDIT: Sony Pictures Classics/Screenshot)

Starring: Odessa Young, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Olivia Colman, Sope Dirisu, Patsy Ferran, Glenda Jackson

Director: Eva Husson

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: March 25, 2022 (Theaters)

For a good stretch of Mothering Sunday, Odessa Young walks around a big English country estate while totally naked. She’s by herself, just exploring the place, luxuriating in her own body. There’s a few moments when it cuts to some other characters and you think she’s about to be discovered, but that’s just misleading editing, because they’re in some other time and/or place. Anyway, it’s the most long-lasting incidental nudity I can ever remember seeing in a movie, and it had me thinking, “Well, I guess she’s comfortable.” Anyway, her character starts out as a maid and eventually becomes a highly acclaimed writer. Not a bad way for a life to turn out. Elsewhere, Colin Firth and Olivia Colman play characters who get very emotional.

Grade: 3 Typewriters out of No Clothes

‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’: Accurate

March 31, 2022

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Everything Everywhere All at Once (CREDIT: Allyson Riggs/A24)

Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr.

Directors: Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Running Time: 139 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: March 25, 2022 (Theaters)

Everything Everywhere All at Once captures how I feel all the time. I’m not always an outwardly emotional person, but inside I’m perpetually cooking in much the same way that the multiverse is constantly bumping up against itself in the Daniels’ vision. (Damn, Daniels.) Basically, so many of my daily thoughts are something along the lines of, “What do I have to do to make my life a recreation/mashup of The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Rick and Morty, In the Mood for Love, 2001, Kill Bill, Ratatouille, and that SNL sketch about googly eyes with Christopher Walken?” And now some folks actually went ahead and did it!

Grade: Everything out of Everything!

‘Apollo 10½’ Sends a Kid to the Moon But Also Keeps Him Earthbound

March 30, 2022

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Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (CREDIT: Netflix)

Starring: Milo Coy, Jack Black, Josh Wiggins, Lee Eddy, Bill Wise, Natalie L’Amoreaux, Jessica Brynn Cohen, Sam Chipman, Danielle Guilbot, Glen Powell, Zachary Levi

Director: Richard Linklater

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Some Mildly Adult Moments

Release Date: April 1, 2022 (Netflix)

Isn’t it cool when kids do something that only adults are supposed to do? Well, maybe not all the time, at least not in the real world. Sure, a toddler dressing up like a doctor is so gosh darn cute, but that same toddler performing surgery is probably not the best idea. But we’re talking about fictional worlds right now! And that means that children can hold down dangerous jobs, and perform them quite admirably to boot. That brings me to the Richard Linklater-directed Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood, a rotoscope-animated adventure in which a boy named Stanley (Milo Coy) is recruited by NASA to participate in the Apollo 11 mission. Now that’s some historical revisionism I can get behind.

In this alterna-vision of the 1960s, finding fresh astronauts is akin to the modern practice of college scouts traversing through middle schools to find the next big football or basketball phenom. A couple of NASA officials (Glen Powell, Zachary Levi) are hanging around a recess kickball game because one of the lunar modules is too small for adults and they’re hoping to find someone here who can fit in it. So they key right in on Stanley, and I’m all ready to go for some astronaut training montages. But not so quick, as that’s not exactly what Linklater has in mind. Instead, this is mostly a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale about growing up in a big family in 1960s Texas, with the Space Race serving mostly as a background event. An important background event that sets the tone, but not the main event no matter how you slice it.

If Apollo 10½ had focused more on the child astronaut conceit, it would’ve been a lot more unique than what we actually ended up with. Instead, it’s a familiar piece of coming-of-age nostalgia from an oft-explored era. A well-made piece of familiar nostalgia, with compelling narration from Linklater vet Jack Black as adult Stanley, but decidedly familiar nonetheless. So just keep your expectations in check about the potential for freshness, and you should be able to find something to enjoy here.

Apollo 10½ is Recommended If You Like: 1960s fashion, 1960s TV shows, 1960 music

Grade: 3 out of 5 Lunar Modules

‘You Won’t Be Alone’ is a Witchy, Bloody Fairy Tale

March 29, 2022

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You Won’t Be Alone (CREDIT: Branko Starcevic/Focus Features)

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud, Sara Klimoska

Director: Goran Stolevski

Running Time: 108 Minutes

Rating: R for Violence, Blood, and Sexaul Content – All Involving Witches

Release Date: April 1, 2022 (Theaters)

You Won’t Be Alone is the type of movie that will make you feel like your mind has been altered if you look away for just a minute. And honestly, that’s a big part of the gnarly appeal. Time jumps ahead without any hand holding, while major characters shapeshift all over the place. Not to mention it’s in a language I’m unfamiliar with, though I’d be surprised if any native Macedonian speakers find it straightforward. So go ahead and watch You Won’t Be Alone while you’re fighting insomnia or in the middle of a bleary-eyed food coma. Or if you’re a recreational drug user, consider this an ideal opportunity to indulge. But even if you’re fully awake and 100% sober, the odds are still high that your brain will be squeezed into another dimension.

For a description a little more straightforward, here’s the logline from the film’s PR team:

“Set in an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, YOU WON’T BE ALONE follows a young girl who is kidnapped and then transformed into a witch by an ancient spirit. Curious about life as a human, the young witch accidentally kills a peasant in the nearby village and then takes her victim’s shape to live life in her skin. Her curiosity ignited, she continues to wield this horrific power in order to understand what it means to be human.”

My response to reading that after watching the movie is, “Oh. I guess that’s what happened.” If I were pitching it, I would personally probably keep it a little simpler and say something like: the hallucinogenic cultural subconscious of fairy tales spills out phantasmagorically across the European woodlands. The bottom line is, Macedonian-Australian writer-director Goran Stolevski is throwing together a wide array of influences here that are bound to satisfy widescreen-loving cineastes, as well as English majors who tend toward the sylvan supernatural.

If it sounds like I’m being vague about what actually happens in this movie, well, that’s because I’m a little wary of describing anything concretely for fear of totally misinterpreting everything. But don’t let that scare you away! Sometimes it’s okay to let a film confound you, and it’s also totally okay to ask someone else what happened. And if your buddies don’t know either, you can try to figure it out together! After all, you shouldn’t have to feel alone while watching You Won’t Be Alone.

You Won’t Be Alone is Recommended If You Like: Midsommar, The Witch, Grimm fairy tales, Terrence Malick

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Witches

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 3/25/22

March 25, 2022

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Moon Knight (CREDIT: Csaba Aknay/©Marvel Studios 2022)

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

Movies
–Everything Everywhere All at Once (Theaters)
–Mothering Sunday (Theaters)

TV
-94th Academy Awards (March 27 on ABC) – Da moviesh.
–Name That Tune Season Premiere (March 29 on FOX) – Celebrity contestants this time around.
–Moon Knight Series Premiere (March 30 on Disney+) – Oscar Isaac joins the MCU.
–How We Roll Series Premiere (March 31 on CBS) – Pete Holmes goes bowling.

And You May Ask Yourself: What Awaits Us in ‘The Lost City’?

March 22, 2022

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The Lost City (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures)

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Patti Harrison, Oscar Nuñez, Brad Pitt, Raymond Lee, Bowen Yang

Directors: Aaron and Adam Nee

Running Time: 112 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for A Few Bursts of Violence and Strategically Shot Nudity

Release Date: March 25, 2022 (Limited)

Should The Lost City be discovered, or should it remain lost? That is the question. Or maybe it’s not really the question, but I’ll nevertheless go ahead and ask it because I’d like to have something to focus this review around. And by bringing up the topic of focus, I don’t mean to imply that this film lacks focus. Far from it, in fact! You heard it here first, folks: this is a movie with a straightforward plot that’s easy to follow. Sandra Bullock plays Loretta Sage, a novelist who gets kidnapped and taken to a legendary location from her latest book, while Channing Tatum plays the ditzy cover model who attempts to rescue her, and eventually they make their way out the other end. It’s globe-trotting, high-stakes fun that’s designed to be oohed, ahhed, and laughed at. And I imagine that pretty dang close to 100% of audiences will know exactly when to provide those gasps and chuckles.

So if I have one big criticism about The Lost City, it’s that it’s perhaps a little too straightforward. I hoped for some charming repartee between Bullock and Tatum, as well as a full course of comic relief supporting performances from the likes of Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Patti Harrison, and Bowen Yang. And that’s exactly what I got! But not much more. There’s one surprising development early on involving one of the biggest stars, but afterwards I was left with a sense of, “Yes, that was an adventure.” Here’s the deal: if you’re going to cast Daniel Radcliffe as an eccentric billionaire villain, things should probably get unabashedly weird. Instead, they only get kind of weird. Who knows, maybe I was just infected by the malaise that Loretta was giving off by resenting her career and audience.

But here’s what stuck with me in a welcome way, and why The Lost City might just be worth tracking down. A showcase scene involves Bullock peeling leeches off Tatum after a jungle river swim, which necessitates him dropping trou to make sure she checks every crack and crevice. They keep it PG-13, but this is a classic case of survival-minded lack of modesty that keeps things rolling along. And then there’s an unforgettable performance from Oscar Nuñez (aka Oscar from The Office) as a guy who has a plane and a goat. It makes sense in context, or at least part of it does. And the rest that remained nonsensical is where I derived most of my joy from. So I guess my answer is: I’d like to find this titular city while still feeling like I’m at a loss.

The Lost City is Recommended If You Like: Sandra Bullock unexpectedly witnessing her male co-stars in the buff

Grade: 3 out of 5 Cover Models

‘X’ and ‘Umma’: Short Titles, Ambitious Scares

March 17, 2022

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Umma (CREDIT: Saeed Adyani/Sony Pictures); X (CREDIT: Christopher Moss/A24)

Umma:

Starring: Sandra Oh, Fivel Stewart, Dermot Mulroney, Odeya Rush, MeeWha Alana Lee, Tom Yi

Director: Iris K. Shim

Running Time: 83 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Terrifying Memories and a Terrifying Present

Release Date: March 18, 2022 (Theaters)

X:

Starring: Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow, Scott Mescudi, Owen Campbell, Stephen Ure, James Gaylyn

Director: Ti West

Running Time: 105 Minutes

Rating: R for Plenty of Sex and Violence

Release Date: March 18, 2022 (Theaters)

This week, we’ve got a couple of new horror releases arriving with pithy, vague titles. They pair well as a potential double feature, so I decided to go ahead and review them together. They’re also both operating in familiar subgenres with their own unique flourishes that you may or may not see coming. Let’s dig in.

First off, we’ll take a look at Umma, which to English speakers might sound like baby-talk. In a way it kind of is, but anyone who knows Korean will surely clock what’s in store. Starring Sandra Oh as a single mother named Amanda who lives alone with her daughter (Fivel Stewart) in an electricity-free home, this is one of those supernatural tales in which a ghost attaches to a person’s soul and just won’t let go. The East Asian pedigree suggests a throwback to the early 2000s when The Ring and The Grudge inaugurated a wave of J- and K-horror. But while those influences are certainly noticeable, a story of what we owe and inherit from our mothers resonates across cultures.

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