‘Burden’ Paints a Possible Path Out of Hatred

February 25, 2020

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CREDIT: 101 Studios

Starring: Garrett Hedlund, Forest Whitaker, Andrea Riseborough, Tom Wilkinson, Crystal R. Fox, Dexter Darden, Tess Harper, Usher

Director: Andrew Heckler

Running Time: 120 Minutes

Rating: R for The Prosaic Evil of Hate Groups

Release Date: February 28, 2020 (Limited)

Reformed Ku Klux Klansman Michael Burden has the sort of name that only the hackiest of screenwriters would christen one of their fictional characters. But as an actual person, his moniker is a gift to someone crafting a based-on-a-true-story feature. For every living person in this world, a great deal of existence is about carrying burdens, and for Michael Burden, that truth is especially heavy. An orphan who was raised by Klan members from a young age, all he’s ever known is hatred. When he is finally able to pull himself away from that, he keeps buckling under the weight he has to bear: from the manipulation and emotional abuse he has endured and must still contend with, to the guilt from all the wrong he’s done and must atone for, to the general knot of anger at the pit of his soul.

Burden the film asks the question: is it worth the effort to rehabilitate someone who has left an ideology of hate? The example of Michael Burden (portrayed here by Garrett Hedlund) shows that it is possible, but where does that responsibility fall? In this case, the burden of Burden is transferred particularly hard onto his girlfriend Judy (Andrea Riseborough) and her young son, who somehow see a decent soul begging to break free, as well as the black Baptist Reverend Kennedy (Forest Whitaker), who interprets Burden’s predicament as a sign from God but risks alienating his wife and son with his offers of fellowship to a man they fundamentally do no trust. Taking on this burden leads to lives nearly getting ripped apart because of it.

Writer-director Andrew Heckler has presented us with a striking portrait of faith. Judy and Rev. Kennedy face intimidation and rationalization, but they carry through believing that their efforts are worthwhile. That faith is not simple nor is it easy. On the contrary, it is often frighteningly challenging. But something must be done to stem the intractability of discord. Burden zips through a few beats on its way to get to a fulfilling ending, but it is ultimately a valuable testament to the power of redemption and forgiveness.

Burden is Recommended If You Like: Places in the Heart, Dead Man Walking, the power of faith

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Deers

In ‘Guns Akimbo,’ Daniel Radcliffe Discovers That EVERYTHING’S Gone Akimbo

February 24, 2020

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CREDIT: Saban Films

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Samara Weaving, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Ned Dennehy, Rhys Darby

Director: Jason Lei Howden

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R for Big Booming, Bloody Effective Gunfire and An Awkward Attempt to Use the Toilet

Release Date: February 28, 2020 (Limited)

If some goons bolted a couple of huge black pistols to your hands and then forced you to fight in a live-streaming death match, what would you do? That’s the setup for writer-director Jason Lei Howden’s thought experiment/action bonanza Guns Akimbo. Presumably, for many of us, the answer to this question would be what happened to Daniel Radcliffe’s video game developer character Miles, which is to say: run around in a panic, get really stinky while struggling to put on pants and go to the bathroom, and maybe survive for a little while by relying on instinct and adrenaline. What is perhaps less likely is where Miles ultimately ends up, which is summoning all he’s got to turn the tables on the freaks running this game. Maybe most people in this predicament would wind up dying within five minutes, but that’s why this story isn’t about them.

With movies about these sorts of illicit underground sensations, I always wonder about the larger context. Is the rest of the world just carrying on normally, or this some sort of dystopia, or maybe a mini-dystopia in a town that can’t think of anything better to do than have its citizens kill each other? The game in Guns Akimbo takes place wherever its players go, so there is a vibe of massive violence occurring in plain sight. Actually, it’s not a vibe so much as an actuality. To wit, when Miles goes to his office to get one of his co-workers to help him out with something, there ends up being a massacre with plenty of collateral damage. There’s not a whole lot of context-setting, but I think we get just enough to understand that the deadly consequences are unpredictable and indiscriminate, though only a small percentage of the world is obsessed with the carnage.

Keeping Miles on his toes is his opponent Nix, played by Samara Weaving in a profoundly disaffected style that’s miles away from her wonderfully hysterical work in Ready or Not. She’s got herself constantly numbed by drugs, all the better to keep herself focused on blasting away any comers with panache and to not be overcome by the emotional scars of her tragic backstory. Eventually, she and Miles realize they have more in common than they thought, and that leads to a fairly satisfying climax. But really, the main attraction is seeing how Miles figures out how to do fairly simple tasks with huge pieces of metal blocking his hands. At one point, a homeless man played by Rhys Darby offers him a hot dog but refuses to slip it into his mouth, and you can never know how cruel that is until you see it. How Miles was not constantly fainting from the pain, we may never know. The human body’s fight to survive can be quite resilient.

Guns Akimbo is Recommended If You Like: Embracing that scuzzball lifestyle

Grade: 3 out of 5 Handguns

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 2/21/20

February 21, 2020

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CREDIT: James Minchin/AMC/Sony Pictures Television

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

Movies
–Brahms: The Boy II (Theatrically Nationwide) – Boy, I don’t know if this’ll be any good, but I’m rooting for Katie Holmes.
–The Call of the Wild (Theatrically Nationwide) – Harrison Ford + (CGI) Dog = A Good Time?
–Emma. (Limited Theatrically)

TV
–Fresh Off the Boat Series Finale (February 21 on ABC)
–Better Call Saul Season 5 Premiere (February 23 on AMC)

Music
-Best Coast, Always Tomorrow
-Grimes, Miss_Anthrop0cene

‘Emma.’ is Stylish, Bighearted, and Eager to Get Love Right

February 20, 2020

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CREDIT: Box Hill Films/Focus Features

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Bill Nighy, Mia Goth, Miranda Hart, Josh O’Connor, Callum Turner, Rupert Graves, Gemma Whelan, Amber Anderson, Tanya Reynolds, Connor Swindells

Director: Autumn de Wilde

Running Time: 124 Minutes

Rating: PG for A Butt

Release Date: February 21, 2020 (Limited)/Expands March 6, 2020

In the latest adaptation of Jane Austen’s meddling matchmaker, there are two moments that happen back to back in a pair of private quarters which really represent the power of this version. First we see Emma Woodhouse’s longtime companion and confidant George Knightley (Johnny Flynn) being dressed by his servant. The sequence begins with him stripped down to his birthday suit, giving us a quick peek at his bare behind. Once he is all set to o, it cuts to Ms. Woodhouse (Anya Taylor-Joy) receiving the final touches from her help, and while we do not get a full au naturel view of her, she does take a moment to hike up her dress and pose while placing her hands at her side. Taken together, it is marvelously striking how rarely we get to see bare legs like these in a literary English period piece, especially in one that is so otherwise bright and bold in its costume decisions, what with its feathers in caps and a mustard-yellow trench coat.

It makes sense that we get such a peek into private spaces, considering how much first-time director Autumn de Wilde has chosen to emphasize the vulnerability at the core of this story. It is no big surprise to see Flynn as Knightley cut to the emotional core of any conflict, but you might be taken aback by just how much we get to see his beloved open up as well. Emma presents herself as a know-it-all, but when she realizes that she may have screwed up, her worry about catastrophe is devastating (so much so that her nose starts bleeding at one point). Taylor-Joy and her big, expressive eyes are quite the casting coup here. There’s no way for her to fully hide what she’s feeling. When she discovers how badly she insults Miss Bates (Miranda Hart), and how wrong she’s steered her friend Harriet (Mia Goth), and how much she’s offended Knightley, the tears come flowing as she confronts the fear that she may have made herself the biggest pariah around.

One of the biggest themes of any version of Emma is the power in allowing people to fix their mistakes. In this Emma., when those re-dos occur, the characters have big smiles on their faces, and I bet you will, too. It’s a lovely adaptation, and I can’t get it out of my head. It’s a story I was already intimately familiar with, and yet it has somehow awoken previously undiscovered sections of my heart and subconscious.

Emma. is Recommended If You Like: Wit mixed with tears

Grade: 4 out of 5 Love Matches

In ‘Once Were Brothers,’ The Talking Head Documentary Comes Calling for The Band

February 18, 2020

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PHOTO CREDIT: Elliott Landy

Starring: The Band

Director: Daniel Roher

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Rating: R for Language Apparently

Release Date: February 21, 2020 (Limited)

If you want to see the story of a music group in feature film form, you’ve got plenty of rock biopics to choose from. But how many of them really capture the bands at their truest essence? Another common option to sate your musical desire is the talking head documentary, which has no illusions about its ability (or lack thereof) to recreate all those melodies and lyrics springing into being. But the oral tradition is an important one. What is passed down from storyteller to listener is transformed into something a little different in its journey from mouth to ear, but there is nevertheless quite a bit of magic in the mix, especially when you have first-hand witness accounts at the ready. Not everyone who was around when it happened was available for Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band, but there’s enough in this telling to convey the power of one of the most influential groups in rock music history.

If you’re a superfan of The Band, you might already know a fair amount of the details in Once Were Brothers, but you’ll probably enjoy getting to experience them all again anyway. If you’re a casual fan who doesn’t know a whole lot of the backstory (like myself), you’ll find plenty to engage with as you get to hear some fantastic tunes. And if you’re a bit of a Band newbie who wants to know more about inflection points in popular American music, I think you’ll find a lot to latch onto. As Bruce Springsteen claims at one point in the film, The Band’s lineup included “three of the greatest white singers in rock history.” To me, that sounds like the prelude to a story worthy of a deep-dive examination, and Once Were Brothers delivers on that promise.

Once Were Brothers is Recommended If You Like: Country rock, Roots rock, Southern rock, Folk rock

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Big Pinks

Only a Truly Demented Mind Could Adapt ‘Fantasy Island’ Into a Profoundly Inexplicable Horror Flick

February 14, 2020

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CREDIT: Columbia/Sony Pictures

Starring: Michael Peña, Maggie Q, Lucy Hale, Austin Stowell, Portia Doubleday, Jimmy O. Yang, Ryan Hansen, Michael Rooker, Parisa Fitz-Henley

Director: Jeff Wadlow

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for A Few Stabbings, a Little Bit of Gunfire, One F-Bomb

Release Date: February 14, 2020

Fantasy Island is the most unapologetically nuts movie I’ve seen in quite a while, and … I kinda loved it. It’s ostensibly based on the late 70s/early 80s TV show of the same name, which had one of those “exactly what it says on the tin” premises. Each episode, guests would arrive on an island where, for a price, they would be allowed to live out a fantasy of theirs. I have never seen an episode in its entirety, but based on clips I’ve seen, the film, which scooches the “be careful what you wish for” setup into full-on horror, feels like a very liberal adaptation. Or at least, it must be, right? Somebody surely would have told me at some point during my thirty-plus years on this Earth if the show were this unhinged. Because what we’ve got in theaters now feels like the result of an all-night bender in which some folks were like, “Hey, remember that weirdly iconic high-concept show from a few decades ago? What if it were a little more … twisted?”

Michael Peña takes over for Ricardo Montalbán as Mr. Roarke, the island’s proprietor who guides the guests through their fantasies. He welcomes a quintet of thrill-seekers: the relatively nondescript trio of Melanie (Lucy Hale), Gwen (Maggie Q), and Patrick (Austin Stowell) as well as fratty stepbrothers Brax (Ryan Hansen) and JD (Jimmy O. Yang). The latter’s fantasy is simultaneously the most enjoyable and the most stereotypically indulgent. All they want to do is lounge around by the pool with a bunch of hot babes and studs as they yell out party-hearty bromides like “Fantasy Fricking Island!” It’s so cranked up to 11 that it feels like self-parody except for the fact that Hansen and Yang are comedy vets who know how to calibrate that over-the-topness just so. This is a very silly movie.

As for the others, Melanie wants revenge on an old bully from school (Portia Doubleday), Patrick wants to live up to the example of his hero soldier father, and Gwen wants a re-do with an ex-boyfriend who proposed to her. They all assume that their experiences are something like highly sophisticated virtual reality or live-action role-playing (despite Roarke’s insistence on the legitimacy of it all), so they roll with it when dead loved ones and other impossibilities start popping up. With the just-too-perfect nature of everything, it’s clear that we’ll eventually get an explanation of how Roarke is really pulling it off. You might have a sneaking suspicion that that explanation will be deeply stupid, but (for me at least) that’s part of the fun.

So here’s the deal: if your favorite part of Lost was all the mystical mumbo-jumbo about how the island itself was basically sentient and wish that that formula could be applied to any media that takes place on a remote tropical island, then Fantasy Island is definitely for you. If you would also like a hundred twists that gradually make less and less sense piled on top of each other, you need to go see a psychologist immediately, but also, this movie is for you, and also also, you and I are kindred spirits and we should be friends. Writer-director Jeff Wadlow, I don’t know what you ingested or what exists within the core of your soul that led you to take us on this journey, but whatever it is, I salute you!

Fantasy Island is Recommended If You Like: The most fantastical elements of Lost crossed with the glossiness of modern horror and a dash of the sadism of Saw, all mixed up in a cocaine-fueled blender

Grade: 3 out of 5 Regrets

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 2/14/20

February 14, 2020

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CREDIT: Chris Johnson, Stuart Collis/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
–Fantasy Island (Theatrically Nationwide) – I must watch every horror movie no matter how ridiculous.
–The Photograph (Theatrically Nationwide)
–A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (Streaming February 14 on Netflix) – I loved the last Shaun the Sheep movie!

TV
–Duncanville Series Premiere (February 16 on FOX) – Is this the next great animated FOX show?
–Good Girls Season 3 Premiere (February 16 on NBC)
–Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Season 7 Premiere (February 16 on HBO)

Music
-Tame Impala, The Slow Rush

 

‘The Photograph’ Captures Generations of Love Blossoming and Spreading Free

February 13, 2020

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CREDIT: Universal Pictures

Starring: Issa Rae, Lakeith Stanfield, Chanté Adams, Y’lan Noel, Rob Morgan, Lil Rel Howery, Teyonah Parris, Courtney B. Vance, Chelsea Peretti, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jasmine Cephas Jones, Marsha Stephanie Blake

Director: Stella Meghie

Running Time: 106 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Some Sizzling Moments

Release Date: February 14, 2020

The ads for The Photograph have been giving off strong “Nicholas Sparks, but with black people” vibes. However, I had a hankering suspicion that it wouldn’t actually be as saccharine as that glossy presentation suggested. First and foremost, the two leads, Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield, are not exactly for taking on such gloopy material. Surely their presence would ensure that things would end up a little more left-field than this genre typically goes. Indeed that has turned out to be the case, but to be fair to the marketing team, this is not an easy movie to advertise. It has a slow-burn meditative spirit (driven along by Robert Glasper’s jazzy piano score) that does not immediately grab you in the way that trailers are meant to in a couple of minutes. But if you simmer in it for a couple hours, your heart might just grow a few sizes.

Michael (Stanfield) is a reporter working on a story that happens to involve recently deceased photographer Christina Eames (Chanté Adams). He then finds himself smitten by Christina’s daughter Mae (Rae), who is working her way through the truth bombs that her mom has left her in a pair of letters, one addressed to Mae and one to Mae’s father. Meanwhile, writer-director Stella Meghie frequently takes us back to Christina’s young adulthood in small-town Louisiana where she is unable to reconcile a possible future with the man that she loves (Y’lan Noel) and her dreams of making it big in New York City. She tends to always choose her professional goals over her loved ones, and in a case of family history rhyming, Mae and Michael find themselves worried that they are going to do the same. That struggle to find the nerve to say what you know is in your heart is deeply felt in The Photograph.

I have noticed a lot of excitement around this movie about the potential to see black love that is not also about trauma on the big screen. And if that is what you are looking for, I suspect that you will be satisfied. The blackness in The Photograph is not meant to represent all blackness, as Michael and Mae’s story is by no means a microcosm of all people of color. They are two people who happen to be black and happen to be falling in love. The details are their own, while also being part of a continuum of their lineage. It is an openhearted, generous story that I think a lot of people are going to be happy to witness.

The Photograph is Recommended If You Like: Beyond the Lights, Love & Basketball, A bottle of wine and a record player on a rainy night

Grade: 4 out of 5 Darkrooms

‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ is Awfully Silly, And That’s Okay

February 13, 2020

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CREDIT: Paramount Pictures and Sega of America

Starring: Ben Schwartz, James Marsden, Jim Carrey, Tika Sumpter, Adam Pally, Lee Majdoub, Natasha Rothwell, Frank C. Turner, Neal McDonough

Director: Jeff Fowler

Running Time: 99 Minutes

Rating: PG for Hedgehog Mischief and Mad Scientist Arrogance

Release Date: February 14, 2020

Sonic the blue video game character and Sonic the drive-in fast food chain are very different, insofar as running around loop-de-loops really fast is advisable with only one of them. But they are also similar, insofar as they are both fine and enduring examples of lowbrow culture. So the release of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie raises the question: is this a good flick to watch while chowing down on some burgers and tots? I would have to definitively say yes, and thus I am awarding the Jeff Fowler-directed Sonic the Hedgehog the first (and perhaps also last) ever Sonic Feast Stamp of Approval.

Remember that hullabaloo about Sonic’s CGI teeth needing to be reanimated to something less uncanny valley-ish after the first trailer was released? It turns out that job was taken care of thoroughly and that snafu will henceforth only be a footnote in cinematic history! Thus, we are all able to fully focus on our spiny friend’s hairy adventures. Not that we need to focus too much to understand what’s going on, as the plot follows a standard formula for kid-friendly video game creature adaptations. Sonic, voiced mostly amusingly by comedian Ben Schwartz, gets magically transported to the world of humans where he strikes up an unlikely friendship with Tom (James Marsden), a small-town guy with big-town ambitions, and runs afoul of his nemesis, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey), whose physical presence is more Earthbound than his typical video game iteration though his personality is full-on cartoonish.

Anyway, Sonic loses his bag of gold coins that he uses to transport between worlds, so he wrangles Tom in for a road trip to go find them, even though with his supersonic capabilities, he could probably do it himself in a matter of minutes. It doesn’t matter. It’s all just an excuse for Sonic to get up to shenanigans like causing a ruckus in a biker bar as Schwartz vamps, Carrey mustache-twirls, and the Olive Garden jams its way in there with some stealthy product placement. Also, Natasha Rothwell is on standby as Tom’s sister-in-law for some inexplicable running gag in which she keeps telling his wife to divorce him. It’s bright and colorful and silly, and frankly, I’m glad we live in a world in which doofy video game adaptations can still get made.

Sonic the Hedgehog is Recommended If You Like: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, Batman Forever, The Smurfs

Grade: 2.75 out of 5 Loop-De-Loops

‘Downhill’ Demonstrates the Limits of Constrained Remakes

February 12, 2020

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CREDIT: Jaap Buitendijk/Twentieth Century Fox

Starring: Will Ferrell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Miranda Otto, Zach Woods, Zoë Chao, Julian Grey, Ammon Jacob Ford

Directors: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash

Running Time: 86 Minutes

Rating: R for Bold Language That Pops Out on Vacation

Release Date: February 14, 2020

Sometimes a remake that otherwise seems pretty pointless can be useful for helping to clarify something that you may have missed in the original. That happened to me with the explosive conclusion of the Korean classic neo-noir Oldboy and Spike Lee’s 2013 remake, and now I have experienced it once again with Downhill, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s take on the 2014 Swedish cringe family comedy Force Majeure. There’s a climactic moment on a ski slope in Force Majeure that felt to me at the time meditative and ambiguous, but when I saw Downhill‘s take, the purpose of that incident was spelled out much more clearly. (Although reconciling these two as congruent requires a specific interpretation of Force Majeure.) There’s an argument to be made in favor of leaving the meaning as subtext, but I know I felt satisfied in the moment. As for the rest of this American version, let’s just say this material is very tricky to make entertaining, no matter what part of the world you’re in and no matter how many times it’s been told.

Force Majeure‘s inciting incident is an all-time doozy, and Downhill does it pretty much exactly the same. The Staunton family is on vacation at a ski resort in the Alps when a supposedly controlled avalanche looks like it is about to turn deadly. In a moment of panic, Dad Pete (Will Ferrell) runs away from his wife Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and his two sons. Ultimately nobody is hurt, but the tension remains simmering for the entire vacation. This all plays out in set pieces that are quite often lifted directly from the original. Pete’s psyche breaks down as he cannot bring himself to admit his betrayal, while Billie insists on the version of the truth that she can so clearly see is the correct version, and friends and acquaintances look on horrified, profoundly flummoxed by the impossible task of lightening the mood.

It’s not necessarily a more Americanized version of the same thing, at least no more so than a version starring American actors must necessarily be. Instead, it’s a more mature version, as Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus are more than a decade older than their counterparts, Johannes Bah Kuhnke and Lisa Loven Kongsli, were when Force Majeure came out. The original dealt with new-ish parents struggling with their evolving self-identities, while Downhill is about a middle-aged couple despairing, “It can’t be this disastrous after we’ve come so far, can it?!” That’s a theme it would have been wise to lean into more instead of relying so much on the template it had ready to go. But as it stands, it is still a fascinating dive into the panic that arises when we realize that we may never fully know who we and our loved ones really are.

Downhill is Recommended If You Like: Hard Questions

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Avalanches

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