Jeff "Jmunney" Malone's Self-Styled "Expert" Thoughts on Movies, TV, Music, and the Rest of Pop Culture
March 4, 2017
Best in Film 2016, Best of 2016, Cinema 20th Century Women, Arrival, Drive It Like You Stole It, Elle, La La Land, Nerve, No More Weapons, Nocturnal Animals, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sing Street, The Ballad of Wiener-Dog, The BFG, The Neon Demon, Toni Erdmann, Wiener-Dog, X-Men: Apocalypse 1 Comment
The Oscars were not that long ago, so I guess I better run down the best scenes of 2016.
A lot of great food scenes: dinners in Elle and 20th Century Women, plus the frobscottle feast in The BFG. Also, The Neon Demon stopped by a bar, but I don’t think they ate much.
March 2, 2017
Cinema, Movie Reviews Before I Fall, Diego Bonita, Halston Sage, Jennifer Beals, Logan Miller, Ry Russo-Young, Zoey Deutch 1 Comment
This review was originally published on News Cult in March 2017.
Starring: Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Logan Miller, Diego Bonita, Jennifer Beals
Director: Ry Russo-Young
Running Time: 99 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Teenagers Screaming at Each Other and Fatal Driving Habits
Release Date: March 3, 2017
Before I Fall is basically Groundhog Day for the YA set, which begs the question: what takes the place of “I Got You Babe.” Instead of Bill Murray being eternally roused by Sonny, Cher, and some hacky small town DJ’s, we now have Zoey Deutch (Everybody Wants Some!!, Why Him?) staring into space to the strains of Big Data ft. Joywave’s “Dangerous,” which serves as her phone alarm. It’s a great song – a giddy, pounding, kind of sensual dance number (I ranked it the 13th best of 2014), but in the context of the scene, it lacks personality. Presumably Deutch’s Samantha Kingston likes this song, whereas “Babe” was a constant bugaboo reminding Murray’s Phil Connors of his eternal prison. “Dangerous” may signal the same for Sam, but it lacks punch for her to fight against.
This is such a downbeat, unspectacular route for Before to go in, especially compared to its buoyant predecessor. But perhaps that is the point. Sam has a perfectly pleasant high school senior existence, but it could all be masking how dead she is inside. And it is not repeating the same day over and over that makes her so, though she may not realize it at first. The only problem here is that the film fails to signal its purpose until about halfway through. Before that, it’s just a bunch of basic teenagers hanging out, partying, and giving each other roses on “Cupid Day.”
The challenge that Before I Fall presents to its audience boils down to: can Deutch win us over by the end, after a first act in which she participates in a hellish display of mean girlhood? To be real, though, this is not a tall order, as this viciousness is alarmingly unnatural. These girls could not possibly be that terrible to each other, could they? A major message of the movie is how adolescence can lead us profoundly away from our true identities. And Deutch’s true colors, which she generously displays, are quite charming. The movie she is in, however, lacks the small-town specificity that makes Groundhog Day a classic, but it genuinely explores the emotional truth of young adulthood.
Before I Fall is Recommended If You Like: The Groundhog Days scenes where the old man dies, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Grade: 3 out of 5 Nth Chances
February 28, 2017
Cinema, Movie Reviews Boyd Holbrook, Dafne Keen, Hugh Jackman, James Mangold, Logan, Patrick Stewart, Professor X, Stephen Merchant, Wolverine, X-23, X-Men 1 Comment
This review was originally published on News Cult in February 2017.
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant
Director: James Mangold
Running Time: 135 Minutes
Rating: R for Relentless, Vengeful Bodily Harm and a DGAF Attitude to Language
Release Date: March 3, 2017
Logan marks the ninth time that Hugh Jackamn is donning the muttonchops and adamantium claws to play indestructible X-Man Wolverine. At this point, for general audiences and fanboys alike to care, there simply MUST be something new to offer this go-round. Both of Wolverine’s previous solo films kind of fulfilled that dictum, but 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine otherwise totally missed the mark, while 2013’s The Wolverine felt too inconsequential. Logan ain’t having any of that. Set in a semi-apocalyptic near future, the film streamlines the muddled continuity down of the X-universe to its essence and gets right down to business.
Logan and an unstable, nonagenarian Professor X (Patrick Stewart, relevant as ever) are tasked with transferring the preteen Laura (Dafne Keen) to safety. In this future, mutants have mostly died out and no new ones have been born for two decades (the reason for this is revealed in a quick bit of exposition, so keep your ears peeled), but Laura displays abilities very reminiscent of our title character, suggesting that the mutant gene may not have died out completely. What we have here is a classic Western story structure about transporting human cargo. This makeshift family treks along dusty Oklahoma highways in search of a supposed Eden, avoiding the evil scientist forces that constantly plague this world’s heroes.
In a first for the franchise, Logan is rated R, and it does not shy away from earning that rating. With Wolverine’s penchant for slicing his enemies to smithereens, this potential was always there. And this is not just bloodlust for the sake of it. Logan does not have any new powers in this iteration, but he does deploy them in unprecedented fashion. Rendered sick by the same culprit that killed off the rest of mutantkind, there is greater vulnerability to his carnage. His earlier appearances have not lacked for thrillingly hardcore action, but with his healing power, the stakes have never been as high as they are in Logan. Every thrash of his claw becomes profoundly cathartic.
Logan works primarily as an acting showcase for Jackman, Stewart, and Keen. This entry just solidifies the Aussie’s performance as one of the most iconic bits of casting in cinema history. Stewart plays the telepathic leader in a key that I would have never anticipated. I am not entirely sure it all works, but it is undoubtedly riveting, and I admire Stewart for venturing into such dangerous territory. Keen is a spitfire and a revelation. It takes a special breed of 11-year-old to go toe-to-toe with a hairy beast, and she’s got what it takes. All signs point to Jackman hanging up the claws for good after this entry, and if this means that Keen can inherit the mantle, we are in good hands.
Logan is Recommended If You Like: The berserker scene from X2, The Hateful Eight, The Nice Guys, Looper
Grade: 4 out of 5 Decapitations
February 26, 2017
Best in Film 2016, Best of 2016, Cinema, Oscars Jeff Malone Academy Awards, Oscars, The VVitch, The Witch Leave a comment
If I were in charge of unilaterally selecting the Oscars, here is who would be recognized. Nominees are listed alphabetically, winners in bold.
Best Picture
Arrival
Midnight Special
The Neon Demon
The Witch
Zootopia
Best Director
Robert Eggers, The Witch
Pablo Larraín, Jackie
Jeff Nichols, Midnight Special
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival
Nicolas Winding Refn, The Neon Demon
Lead Actor
Paul Dano, Swiss Army Man
John Goodman, 10 Cloverfield Lane
Jake Gyllenhaal, Nocturnal Animals
Sam Neill, Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Daniel Radcliffe, Swiss Army Man
Lead Actress
Mackenzie Davis, Always Shine
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Anya Taylor-Joy, The Witch
Supporting Actor
Lucas Dawson, The Witch
Oscar Isaac, X-Men: Apocalypse
Keanu Reeves, The Neon Demon
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals
Alex Wolff, Patriots Day
Supporting Actress
Khandi Alexander, Patriots Day
Ellie Grainger, The Witch
Greta Gerwig, Jackie
Alison Sudol, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Lulu Wilson, Ouija: Origin of Evil
Original Screenplay
Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou, The Lobster
Jeff Nichols, Midnight Special
Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken, and Damien Chazelle, 10 Cloverfield Lane
Robert Eggers, The Witch
Jared Bush and Phil Johnston, Zootopia
Adapted Screenplay
Eric Heiserrer, Arrival
Jon Spaihts, Scott Derrickson, and C. Robert Cargill, Doctor Strange
Luke Davies, Lion
Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney, Moonlight
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Animated Feature
Zootopia
Cinematography
Bradford Young, Arrival
Stéphane Fontaine, Jackie
Seamus McGarvey, Nocturnal Animals
Flavio Martínez Labiano, The Shallows
Newton Thomas Sigel, X-Men: Apocalypse
Costume Design
Courtney Hoffman, Captain Fantastic
Sang-gyeong Jo, The Handmaiden
Erin Benach, The Neon Demon
Kym Barrett, The Nice Guys
Arianne Phillips, Nocturnal Animals
Film Editing
Joe Walker, Arrival
Michael Aller and Kirk M. Morri, Lights Out
Jennifer Lame, Manchester by the Sea
Joan Sobel, Nocturnal Animals
Louise Ford, The Witch
Makeup and Hairstyling
Doctor Strange
The Neon Demon
Nocturnal Animals
Star Trek: Beyond
X-Men: Apocalypse
Original Score
Jóhann Jóhannsson, Arrival
Michael Giacchino, Doctor Strange
Mica Levi, Jackie
Cliff Martinez, The Neon Demon
Abel Korzeniowski, Nocturnal Animals
Original Song
“Another Day of Sun,” written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, La La Land
“City of Stars,” written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, La La Land
“Drive It Like You Stole It,” written by Gary Clark, Sing Street
“Start a Fire,” written by Justin Hurwitz and John Legend, La La Land
“Waving Goodbye,” written by Sia Furler, The Neon Demon
Production Design
Arrival
Don’t Breathe
The Handmaiden
La La Land
X-Men: Apocalypse
Sound Editing
Sylvain Bellemare, Arrival
Christopher Bonis, Don’t Breathe
Robert MacKenzie and Andy Wright, Hacksaw Ridge
Matthew Wood, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Alan Robert Murray and Bob Asman, Sully
Sound Mixing
Bernard Gariépy Strobl and Claude La Haye, Arrival
Csaba Major, Don’t Breathe
Andy Nelson, Ai-Ling Lee, and Steve A. Morrow, La La Land
Scott Harber, Nocturnal Animals
Michael B. Koff, Patriots Day
Visual Effects
Captain America: Civil War
Doctor Strange
The Jungle Book
Swiss Army Man
X-Men: Apocalypse
Documentary
Amanda Knox
I Am Not Your Negro
OJ: Made in America
Tower
Animated Short/Documentary Short/Live Action Short
I wish that shorts were more readily viewable theatrically or that these categories be seriously reconsidered.
Foreign Language Film
Elle
The Handmaiden
Toni Erdmann
February 25, 2017
Cinema, Movie Reviews Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Catherine Keener, Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out, Jordan Peele, Lil Rel Howery 6 Comments
Get Out did not have me getting out of my seat from fright, which is unsurprising because I generally don’t get too scared at horror movies. But I imagine most people will not be frightened, as its techniques are less about jump scares (though it does have those) or general dread than about mindbending. Its signature concept (“the sunken place”) is a killer example.
This is basically cultural appropriation as body horror. Knowing that it is from Jordan Peele makes it easy – and sensible – to say that this concept could have started as a comedy sketch that evolved into a fright flick. And indeed, as the reveal plays out, it is clear that this actually has been done as comedy before.
I have a slight problem with a couple of moments that are endemic to the evil genius genre, in which small mistakes inexplicably give the hero a fighting chance. But I don’t want to quibble too much, because this is a clever extreme dramatization of a real societal fear, which is what the best horror movies do.
I give Get Out 18 Awkwardly Casually Racist Remarks out of 20 Days.
February 22, 2017
Cinema, Movie Reviews Barry Pepper, Bitter Harvest, George Mendeluck, Holodomor, Max Irons, Samantha Barks, Tamer Hassan, Terence Stamp Leave a comment
This review was originally published on News Cult in February 2017.
Starring: Max Irons, Samantha Barks, Tamer Hassan, Barry Pepper, Terence Stamp
Director: George Mendeluk
Running Time: 103 Minutes
Rating: R for War Violence and Disturbing Authoritarianism
Release Date: February 24, 2017 (Limited)
A film like Bitter Harvest reminds me of cinema’s power to uncover stories that had been lost to history. Unfortunately, it does not also remind me of cinema’s power to transform my whole day into something magical.
The setting is rural Ukraine against the backdrop of the 1932-33 Soviet famine. Young artist Yuri (Max Irons) struggles against starvation to build a better life for himself and his childhood sweetheart Natalka (Samantha Barks). Circumstances conspire to drive them apart – as is typical in times of love and war – as he heads to the city and joins the resistance movement. It is a long road back to their reunion, but any happy ending will necessarily be tempered by the devastation that has wrecked their community. For such an infrequently told story, the beats of storytelling are all too familiar.
Bitter Harvest finds inspiration from earlier tales of war but also struggles to commit to anything. There is a hint at something involving a combatant taking pity on an artistic prisoner in the vein of The Pianist, but that goes nowhere. The final act is an Odyssey-style trek home, but the sub-2-hour running time prevents the epic feel that such an approach would require. There is one scene involving poison and revenge with an entertainingly hallucinatory style, but it proves to be an aberration in terms of positive takeaways.
The forced starvation of Ukrainians is up there among the greatest tragedies of the 20th century, but I doubt that it is very well-known outside Ukraine. So I appreciate that Bitter Harvest is being released so that English-speaking audiences will be exposed to it, but I wish that the actual film dramatized the story better than the epilogue does.
Bitter Harvest is Recommended If You Like: European History
Grade: 2 out of 5 Soviet Memories
February 16, 2017
Cinema, Movie Reviews Andy Lau, Jing Tian, Lu Han, Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, The Great Wall, Willem Dafoe, Zhang Yimou Leave a comment
This review was originally published on News Cult in February 2017.
Starring: Matt Damon, Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, Lu Han
Director: Zhang Yimou
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Cutting Away Right Before the Blood and Guts Spill Out
Release Date: February 17, 2017
Matt Damon’s prominence in The Great Wall’s ad campaign has caused a bit of a fuss. Is this yet another example of the White Savior complex, come to save the helpless foreigners? In the actual film, Damon is not the leader of the Chinese army that the promos seem to make him out to be. But he does save the day. Although he kind of does so accidentally. Except by the end when he knows exactly what he’s doing. So… you could aim your social justice call-to-arms against The Great Wall, but it would be an awfully silly flick to focus on.
Damon’s presence is essentially an afterthought, despite him being one of the main characters. He may have been part of the story from conception, but this smacks of a business rather than artistic decision, regardless of intention. The Great Wall is already a hit in China, and it would be nice if it could add some bank in the U.S. (and Latin America, thus Damon’s partner is played Chilean-born Pedro Pascal of Game of Thrones and Narcos).
If the white faces are there to add star power, it does not quite work out that way, perhaps because director Zhang Yimou (Hero, Raise the Red Lantern, House of Flying Daggers) does not have much experience outside of Chinese martial arts flicks. So the action is rousingly shot (Damon’s archery skills are thrillingly put on display throughout), but the English speakers find their charisma diminished. Luckily, Jing Tian, as the Commander of the Chinese Army, carries a lot of the heavy lifting of dialogue and plot progression, and she knows exactly what she is doing.
To get to the actual meat of this story, this film is concerned very little about cultural imperialism but a great deal about B-movie monsters. It posits that the Great Wall of China was built to keep out not invading Mongol hordes, but rather mythical lizard creatures that indiscriminately eat everything in their path. The character design and relentless ferociousness are fun in a schlocky, Midnight Movie Madness sort of way. (Thank you, Cinematic Gods, that they are not the umpteenth version of giant bug aliens.)
The sci-fi B-movies of the fifties and sixties represented the cultural fears of that era (particularly, nuclear holocaust and the insidious creep of communism). If we apply that same rubric to The Great Wall, then what does China fear in 2017? As it becomes a bigger and bigger player in the world economy, is there concern that the Chinese identity will be eaten up by Western hegemony? Or perhaps these monsters are the Chinese id, and this is a warning to everyone else of the Red Dragon’s Rise. Alas, they prove to have one key vulnerability that ensures their demise, just as this film ends up being a little too disposable to pay it much heed.
The Great Wall is Recommended If You Like: Godzilla, the archery scenes from Lord of the Rings, the Brood from X-Men
Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Grenades
February 15, 2017
Cinema, Movie Reviews A Cure for Wellness, Dane DeHaan, Gore Verbinski, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth Leave a comment
This review was originally published on News Cult in February 2017.
Starring: Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth
Director: Gore Verbinski
Running Time: 146 Minutes
Rating: R for Doing Everything It Can to Get Under Your Skin
Release Date: February 17, 2017
A Cure for Wellness is the type of movie I would like to rate 5/5 on the strength of its ambition and singularity of vision but that I must admit its reach exceeds its grasp. It feels like the film that director Gore Verbinski (The Ring, Rango, Pirates of the Caribbean) has been waiting his whole career to make. Verbinski has been behind enough hits to have sufficient cachet for a risk here and there, but how he ever convinced a major studio to produce something as dark, disturbing, and inscrutable as Wellness is could prove to be one of the great mysteries in the annals of cinema history.
The whole affair starts out sufficiently intriguing and easy-enough-to-follow: rising financial executive Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) has been sent to the Swiss Alps to retrieve his CEO, who seems to have lost his mind while staying at a resort with a cult-ish devotion among its clientele. He hot dogs his way into the place, expecting to be in and out in time to catch the red-eye back to New York, but a freak accident results in his unwittingly becoming a patient himself. In a way, this is a long, fantastical PSA about the importance of wearing your seat belt.
Lockhart does manage to get in touch fairly quickly with his CEO, who goes on one of those rants about how it is really the world that is sick but then violently shifts to amenability towards going home. Ultimately, though, the status quo stays in place. This elliptical encounter sets the tone for the whole plot.
A Cure for Wellness sets itself up as a classic gothic European castle mystery with a 21st century anarchic twist. There are movies that have strange elements just for strangeness’ sake, but in this case there appear to be more concrete purposes. What is the motivation of chillingly cool and collected facility director (Jason Isaacs)? Who is this girl (Mia Goth) who is so much younger than all the other residents, and why does she receive preferential treatment? What is the deal with the eels? For the most part, each of these questions is sufficiently answered, but the twists may be too unnecessarily stomach-churning for some viewers. Also, the resolution is painfully stretched out – Lockhart is given an absurd number of opportunities to dish out his revenge.
If nothing else, this exercise in ghastliness is worth it for the beautiful cinematography courtesy of Bojan Bazelli. The days are perpetually cloudy, making for a striking mix of drab, foreboding, and sublime. Tableaux are carefully, lovingly designed – an overhead view of water aerobics may be the shot of the year. This is the world in a microcosm, as argued by A Cure for Wellness: ugly, breathtaking, and irrevocably tied to the past.
A Cure for Wellness is Recommended If You Like: The pop philosophy of Fight Club, the creepy crawlies of Slither (2006), the nasty secrets of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Grade: 3 out of 5 Suspect Diagnoses
February 11, 2017
Cinema David x Elise, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Han x Leia, Hot Rod, Jacob x Queenie, Jakweenie, Pat x Tiffany, Peter x Mary Jane, Rod x Denise, Silver Linings Playbook, Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Adjustment Bureau, The Princess Bride, Valentine's Day, Westley x Buttercup Leave a comment
Right around last year’s Valentine’s Day, I declared to the world my favorite TV couples of all time. So this year, how’s about I do the same thing for movies?!
This list appears to be a little more exclusive than my TV one, perhaps because TV tends to be more intimate.
Anyway, here’s the cream of the crop:
“AS…
YOU…
WISH!”
February 8, 2017
Cinema, Movie Reviews Chad Stahelski, Common, Ian McShane, John Wick, John Wick: Chapter 2, Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ruby Rose 4 Comments
This review was originally published on News Cult in February 2017.
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Riccardo Scamarcio, Common, Ruby Rose, Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne
Director: Chad Stahelski
Running Time: 122 Minutes
Rating: R for BANG! BANG! BANG!
Release Date: February 10, 2017
The first John Wick was one of the loudest theatrical experiences I have ever endured. I did not encounter this complaint from anyone else, but I’m fairly certain I was not going insane. It’s possible that this particular auditorium’s sound mix was way out of proportion, but I am intimately familiar with that theater, so that explanation is unlikely. With Chapter 2 now on the way, I can safely say I feel vindicated about calling this franchise the most aurally assaulting around.
This hitman free-for-all kicks off with engines revving and metal crashing in an opening car chase that leaves you no opportunity to get your bearings. You might have enough time to put your hands over your ears, but barely. At least there appears to be a rhythm to the volume – a physical one, that is. In conclusion, I have spent two paragraphs explaining that my favorite part of John Wick: Chapter 2 is how great a massage it gave me, via the vibrations caused by the cacophony. I may have some moral qualms about deriving relaxation from such wanton violence, but this is a patently fantastical universe (despite its lived-in New York trappings), so we can skate around that a bit.
The concepts that the first John Wick introduced to the action genre are ones for the ages. The global hitman battle royale is like a magical underworld that exists within the shadows. Plus, the hotel serving these assassins, in which all killing is forbidden, with Concierge Lance Reddick whisking us in, is a rich setup for comic relief. But it was all undone by sloppy editing that I could not believe an otherwise sophisticated flick thought it could get away with. Maybe a new hand on the controls is just what was needed, as Evan Schiff takes over for Elísabet Ronalds, and there is a whole lot more patience in the cuts. If Keanu Reeves is going to shove a pencil in one guy’s ear and another guy’s neck, we want to be able to see it. And in Chapter 2, we see EVERYTHING.
John Wick films are less about plot and more about setup. In this edition, Wick is forced to repay his debt, but it proves to be a trick to make him vulnerable. This is all just an excuse to get to the action, and it is effective. Wick’s reputation is an almost supernaturally skilled killer, often discussed in hushed tones and referred to as “The Boogeyman.” Yet his actual name is also repeated ad infinitum. The highest compliment I can pay this movie is that the action is so relentlessly intense that that lapse in logic does not matter.
John Wick: Chapter 2 is Recommended If You Like: The first John Wick But Wish It Had Been Edited Better, Laurence Fishburne Shouting to the Heavens
Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Million Dollar Bounties
