‘The Batman’ for The Birthday

March 10, 2022

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The Batman (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell

Director: Matt Reeves

Running Time: 176 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: March 4, 2022 (Theaters)

The Batman was my Cinematic Birthday Viewing of 2022. So I got a little festive and chowed down a little more than usual. The star of the lineup was a matcha chocolate milkshake garnished with a sesame seed cookie and boozed up with some ginger liqueur (though I hardly noticed the booze), while I also dabbled in some popcorn, loaded fries, and even pizza. (Not to mention I had an Impossible burger for dinner beforehand.) So now you know what state of mind (and state of stomach) I was in.

Anyway, as plenty of moviegoers have already noticed, this is a version of the Dark Knight that really emphasized the detective aspect. That made for a lot of Pattinson-Batman and Geoffrey Wright-Commissioner Gordon looking all confused at all those dang riddles! And when they realized that they might have made a major mistake with their deciphering, you could really tell how much they felt like chumps. I appreciated that vulnerability!

I also appreciated that Colin Farrell was both unrecognizable and indelible, and that Peter Sarsgaard was very recognizable (even though I spent the whole time thinking he was Corey Stoll).

In conclusion, would I ever like to be The Batman myself? Hardly! But I’m pretty sure I’ve now fully realized the value of having new versions always waiting for me as the world turns.

Grade: Gimme All Your Cyphers

This Is a Movie Review: Jackie

December 4, 2016

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jackie_natalie_portman_red_dress

This review was originally published on News Cult in December 2016.

Starring: Natalie Portman, Billy Crudup, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, John Hurt

Director: Pablo Larraín

Running Time: 99 Minutes

Rating: R for an Alarming Recreation

Release Date: December 2, 2016 (Limited)

The strongest biopics often take the most intimate approaches, and it does not get much more intimate than Jackie. In terms of chronology, cinematography, music, dialogue, and everything else, Pablo Larraín’s portrait of the iconic Mrs. Kennedy is razor sharp in focus. The opening shot, and essentially every shot thereafter, is a tight close-up of Natalie Portman as the First Lady. She is told, in the wake of her husband’s assassination, “the world has gone mad.” But this has been so ever since she has taken residence in the White House. The relentless gaze she endures in such an existence makes it so.

Jackie is constructed around four key relationships. The framing device is an interview conducted by a persistent, but plainly frustrated Billy Crudup (supposedly playing historian Theodore H. White, but credited only as “The Journalist”). Jackie welcomes him into her home, but insists that he is prohibited from printing basically everything she reveals to him. He seeks truth, whereas she only offers stories. Yet, her film is filled with details, and in the wake of tragedy, she latches onto them for some semblance of survival.

Bobby Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard) is in full-on family mode, as he attempts to anchor his sister-in-law back to reality. Does our knowledge of the tragic fate that awaits him suggest that her buzzing, restless psyche is the better response to all this madness? Social Secretary Nancy Tuckerman (Greta Gerwig) is a constant, near-silent presence, practically a friendly neighborhood specter propping up Jackie’s decorum and fabulousness. And then there is a priest (John Hurt), who only offers answers wrapped in ambiguity. (Or is it the other way around?)

The teams on sound and design assemble it all to give you the front-row seat that is almost too disturbing to bear. Indeed, its boldness in key moments may in fact be too much for some audiences to handle. Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine understands that the medium is the message. His Super 16 photography is a mix of grainy distortion/clarity and that old soap opera-style intimacy. Mica Levi’s avant-garde score is unnerving, yet somehow comforting, and therefore unnerving to think that such a tragedy could ever be comforting. A constant string phrase sounds like the THX theme being drained of life. Like all of Jackie, it is indelible.

Jackie is Recommended If You Like: The Tree of Life, Under the Skin, Black Swan

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Bloodstains That Are Hard to Wash Off

 

This Is a Movie Review: The Magnificent Seven

October 1, 2016

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magnificent-seven-2016-cast

If you’re looking for some sustenance from the new Magnificent Seven beyond good ol’ horse-riding, pistol-wielding fun, then you’ll probably find it in the motivation of the villains and the diversity of the title crew. Ruthless industrialist Bartholomew Bogue is high on the drug of capitalism; indeed Peter Sarsgaard plays him like he’s perpetually intoxicated. Taking a last stand against him is a team that includes a black warrant officer (Denzel Washington), an Asian cowboy assassin (Byung-hun Lee), a Comanche warrior (Martin Sensmeier), a Mexican outlaw (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and some other nuts (Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio).

The Magnificent Seven does not explicitly underscore the angle of a melting pot of heroes defending decent hardworking Americans from a rapacious white man. But if you are sensitive to that theme, it’s hard to miss. This film hardly attempts to be the definitive voice on the subject, though it is nice enough that it is there to chew on. Instead, it focuses on what it does best, which is “a fun time at the movies.” As it rouses itself to the climax of the final siege and defense, it demonstrates crisply edited classic Western-style action, the consistent movie-star appeal of Denzel, and some kooky performances from Sarsgaard and an unstoppable D’Onofrio.

I give The Magnificent Seven 7 Horses Out of 10 Explosions.