Month: July 2016

Sinister 2 (2015)

Sinister 2 (2015)

(On Cable TV, July 2016) I should know better by now than to expect horror sequels to be any good. Too often, the magic spark of the successful original is either never recaptured or beaten to a pulp, the gimmicks (i.e.; death sequences) taking over the particularity of the predecessor. So it is that Sinister 2 focuses on the wrong aspects (such as the home videos of families being killed, the Bughuul myth, the jump-scare from the screen) while being unable to re-create whatever worked in the original. The atmosphere that was such an integral part of the first Sinister feels rote, and the plot, while trying to be fresh, doesn’t offer much satisfaction. Entire swaths of the film pass unnoticed and unremarkable on the way to an ending that doesn’t manage to raise itself above mediocrity. There is still a bit of achieved potential in how the kids become the antagonist’s instruments of execution, and in the manner in which they figure out how to get rid of the evil in the end. James Ransone does his best as the protagonist, and Shannyn Sossamon is a welcome presence even years after leaving the mainstream path. Still, much of Sinister 2 feels like an imposed exercise, running through the motions in the hopes of striking fire again. It is far too well executed to be a bad horror movie, but it’s not much of an achievement either.

Our Brand is Crisis (2015)

Our Brand is Crisis (2015)

(On Cable TV, July 2016) As a political junkie (with acute flare-ups in election years like this one), I’m perhaps more enthusiastic than most at the thought of movies seeing political operatives as heroes. Our Brand is Crisis (adapted from a true story) follows a group of American consultants as they are hired to help during a Bolivian election pitting a few bad choices against each other. But it’s not just candidates battling it out when the operatives have their own grudges to nurse against each other. In South American politics, nearly all tricks are allowed, and so much of the movie is spent following the twists and turns of the campaign as the consultants try to outwit each other. It sounds fun, it should have been hilarious and somehow … isn’t. Too contemplative to deserve a full “black comedy” qualification, Our Brand is Crisis falls short of the potential it had set up for itself. It’s also remarkably pat, as if it didn’t know about the audience’s political sophistication. Oh, so your candidate lies, cheats, won’t hold his promises and is widely disliked? Well, start with that rather than lead up to it, or be shocked when it happens. Otherwise, there seems to be a distinct lack of energy in David Gordon Green’s execution of the material, or maybe a dearth of substance itself. Sticking too close to the true story may have been a mistake. At least Sandra Bullock is enjoyable as a genius-level political consultant reluctantly dragged into the mud of a campaign once again. (She’s particularly funny early on, not so much afterwards.) Billy Bob Thornton gives her capable repartee as a longtime rival, while Anthony Mackie, Zoe Kazan (captivating in a woefully underdeveloped character) and Joaquim de Almeida are serviceable supporting players. Still, Our Brand is Crisis doesn’t reach its full potential and mishandles its ending by being far too falsely outraged after its own shenanigans. Just as there have been plenty of movies about political consultants, others are sure to follow. But it may be a good moment for newer and fresher narratives than “protagonists discover that their candidate is terrible” and “protagonists contemplate the damage they’ve done to democracy” because those have been done enough times already.

The Big Short, Michael Lewis

WW Norton, 2010, 320 pages, 36.95$C hc, ISBN 978-0393-07223-5

At the height of the 2008 financial crisis, the old saw “if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention” came back as a preface to nearly any explanation of the situation. A systematic accumulation of greed had created a ludicrous situation that was destined to fail and when it went, even the so-called smart guys of Wall Street seemed oblivious to the problem facing them. When Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers disappeared, the cause of their problem seems obvious enough—financial speculation based on risky loans. But why did that problem become such a problem? Didn’t anyone see it coming?

As it turned out, plenty of people saw it coming. Many people involved in real estate in the mid-2000s realized that there was an unsustainable bubble going on, fuelled by ridiculously generous mortgages given to people who couldn’t possibly repay them. A much smaller number of people, however, actively bet on the collapse of those mortgages and associated speculative instruments, and it’s their story that Michael Lewis tackles in The Big Short.

The book revolves around four characters—and “characters” is the right word to describe people such as Michael Burry, a mildly autistic medical doctor turned investment managers who pieced together the coming crisis from his own painstaking research. Or Greg Lippmann, who heard about the crisis and became determined to make a profit from it. Or Steve Eisman, a morally righteous crusader who saw in the coming collapse of the housing market both a vindication of his own cynical views and the ghastly realization that he was still an idealist at heart. Or Charlie Geller, a boutique investor specializing in speculative pessimism, who made even-crazier bets against the fundamental values of the American economy. (Notably absent are any extended mentions of the rather most famous John Paulson, most likely in the interest of allowing four lesser-known stories to be told.)

As a lens through which to see the 2008 financial crisis, adopting the viewpoint of those who actually benefited from the events, The Big Short takes an ironic stance toward the usual triumphalism of business stories. Sure, our heroes made money … but at the expense of whom? As they themselves agonize over their gains, the book ends on an unusually glum note. (Although one character’s interest in drinking water portends far worse to come.)

Most readers will now come to the book from the movie adaptation, and so it’s noteworthy to point out that much of the book is, indeed, quite faithful to the details of the book. That “zero!” hand gesture at a Las Vegas conference, followed by “a call from my wife”? It happened. That stripper with five houses? It happened (in Vegas rather than Florida, but still). While the film does a magnificent job at adapting the specifics of the book into a cinematic narrative, adding extra layers of visual irony along the way, it remains surprisingly faithful to its material, which is remarkable given the complexity and seriousness of the topic and Hollywood’s tendency to dumb down as many things as it can. Strong source material can be lauded for inspiring strong adaptations, and that’s what we have here.

The Big Short is, in other words, a really good book. It’s infuriating, enlightening, funny and gripping at once. The ironic tone is almost the only sane response to an insane situation … and it back up a powerful message that greed is powerful enough that it snares the smart and the dumb alike. No greater ingenuity exists than what is required to convince ourselves of our righteousness.

A Time to Kill (1996)

A Time to Kill (1996)

(On TV, July 2016) There was a time, before the McConnaissance, before the Decade of Rom-Coms, when Matthew McConaughey was hailed as a promising young actor, and A Time to Kill (alongside Contact, Amistad and Lone Star) was part of the evidence. Watching it today is like unearthing vintage McConaughey, made even better by the calibre of the cast surrounding him. Samuel L. Jackson in a genuinely unsettling angry father role? Kevin Spacey as a slimy prosecutor? Sandra Bullock as the brilliant girl who comes to save the day? Ashley Judd, Kiefer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland, Oliver Platt, Chris Cooper as part of the scenery? Not bad at all. While director Joel Schumacher lets the film run long, he knows what he’s doing in giving it a sweaty high-polish gloss. (Do I need to highlight once more the disappearance of the big-budget standalone thriller in today’s Hollywood industry?) The story is adapted reasonably faithfully from the John Grisham novel, including the uncomfortable considerations of vigilantism. In fact, the movie may be a bit more upsetting in the way it squarely places its sympathies with the justice-seeker and conflating it with a victory for the oppressed (as in; racists are bad, so they get what they deserve and never mind the judicial process.) There’s unpleasant stuff going just under the glossy surface of the story, and it’s not clear whether this is entirely intentional from either Grisham or the screenwriter. Still, A Time to Kill can coast a long time on the charm and persona of its stars. In the end, it’s a film best seen for its cast and execution than for moral questions left untouched.

Dumb and Dumber To (2014)

Dumb and Dumber To (2014)

(On Cable TV, July 2016) There are many things I don’t like about stupid humour, and one of them is the way it curdles the older its practitioners are. Watching Jim Carrey and Jeff Bridges goof off in 1994 when they were in their thirties is bad enough, but seeing them act like big doofuses in 2014 when they’re in their fifties is adding a substantial layer of melancholy on something that’s already pretty sad. It gets worse considering how Dumb and Dumber To tries to bring in issues of fatherhood (flirting far too long with the stomach-churning idea of a character having designs on the other one’s daughter) in-between wasting one’s life on dumb jokes. The film starts badly, builds setpieces that aren’t as funny as the screenwriters think and sort of peters out at some point before the end. There are a few high notes, although one of them (the brief return of the iconic dog van) is notable in how quickly it speeds by. As in the original, dumb humour abounds, but very little of it has the kind of panache that made the first film so memorable and grudgingly funny. It doesn’t help that, in twenty years, the comedy zeitgeist has moved away from the original’s model. Carrey can’t very well return to the same kind of humour he did twenty years ago without looking ridiculous in unintended ways, while Bridges doesn’t completely abase himself. In that chaos of dumb taste, only Kathleen Turner emerges gracefully, although having one of the most level-headed characters in the film helps a lot. After so many modest efforts and all-out misfires, you’d think that the Farrelly Brothers would stop making movies at some point, but clearly the box office results show that I’m wrong and my opinions on the matter don’t mean anything. In the meantime, Dumb and Dumber To exists, and you only have yourself the blame if you end up watching it.

Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

(In French, on Cable TV, July 2016) As an entry in Martin Scorsese’s filmography, Bringing Out the Dead is often forgotten alongside his classic movies. Which is weird, considering that it’s a drama featuring Nicolas Cage as a paramedic at the height of the New York City crime epidemic of the early nineties. Directed with some of Scorsese’s flamboyance, it portrays NYC nights as barely repressed war zones in which paramedics are helpless to help their dying charges. Crime, drugs, heart attacks and accidents kill scores of victims, while Cage’s character goes crazy knowing that he hasn’t saved anyone in ages. As a Cage performance, it’s a rare blend between his Oscar-winning dramatic intensity and his borderline-insane grandiosity. The overall nightmarish atmosphere of the film seems just as unhinged as its lead actor, with the film taking place nearly entirely at night, in-between a hospital where everybody’s is shouting and bleeding, and the streets where the only people they meet are doing badly. Cage’s paramedic colleagues (the pretty good trio of John Goodman, Ving Rhames and Tom Sizemore) are even more screwed up than he is and what’s more, he can’t quit even when he asks. Stripped of its showy hallucinatory sequences (including a flipping ambulance that should have been held in reserve for later during the film) Bringing Out the Dead isn’t much more than the story of a protagonist undergoing a nervous breakdown and picking himself up thanks to romance and a few ironic epiphanies. Set to Scorsese’s own rhythm, it’s a bit more than that, even though the pacing of the story severely slows down at times. It’s worth noting that the film was written by Paul Schrader, and fits squarely in the rest of his filmography as well. Scorsese’s affection for his city is obvious even when he’s portraying it as its lowest (and who doesn’t have a soft spot for the hellish NYC of the 1970s?), and it’s that kind of pairing (alongside Scorsese/Cage and Cage-the-actor/Cage-the-scenery-chomper) that makes Bringing Out the Dead interesting to watch even fifteen years later, perhaps as a time capsule yet unseen by many.

Hyena Road (2015)

Hyena Road (2015)

(On Cable TV, July 2016) The Canadian film industry is so cash-strapped and the country so reluctant to military intervention that the idea of a Canadian war epic seems almost impossible. But considering the near-mythology that has sprung from the Canadian intervention in Afghanistan and the zeal with which writer/director/actor Paul Gross has pursued Canadian myth-making throughout his career, it was inevitable that the two would meet. The result in Hyena Road, an attempt to portray the Canadian Afghanistan war experience on the big screen à la Hollywood. Much of the film is by-the-numbers war-movie stuff: the band of heroes, the heroic sacrifices, the forbidden romance, the shootouts… Unfortunately, Gross can’t help but reach for a tragic ending in an attempt to heighten the impact of his story. Too bad we can see it coming from far away, along with the double-crosses, tangled allegiances and “what are we even doing here?” musings. On a certain level, it’s a wholly average film even in the way it frustrates its audience and really wants them to cry at the end. On another level, it’s hard to be Canadian and not feel at least a frisson of national pride at the result. Consider: the Big Mission of the film is building the eponymous Hyena Road. That’s right: infrastructure building as a national priority in foreign intervention! Still, much of the film actually works just well enough: screenwriter/director Gross leaves the young-sniper hero role to Rossif Sutherland, keeping for himself the far more interesting character of an intelligence officer trying to navigate the dangerous Afghan politics and history, while being the voice of cold hard experience for his protégé. The action sequences are well handled and the production values are convincing (especially on the film’s modest budget). As much Hyena Road’s ending smacks of melodrama, it is remarkably far, far less self-important as Gross’s previous Passchendale. That may take away some of the mythic grandeur of the previous film, but it makes the result more palatable. As Canada reflects upon its afghan experience in the coming decades, I expect more war dramas to make it to the big screen—but as a first attempt, Hyena Road is a modest success.

The Secret Life of Pets (2016)

The Secret Life of Pets (2016)

(In French, in 3D, In theatres, July 2016) There’s little doubt that The Secret Life of Pets often feels like a derivative of other, better-animated movies. Cute pets being revealed as sentient then going on an adventure? Not much of a stretch for a computer-animated feature. But there’s some charm and fun in the execution of the premise, as we get a look at New York from a pet’s eye view. Fast and funny direction by Illumination Entertainment (best known for the Minion franchise) makes the film easy and entertaining to watch. While the plotting can get sloppy at times (such as a gratuitously dramatic interlude about a pet’s master’s death, intercut soon after a gloriously funny sausage factory fantasy), it does introduce a quirky group of characters, move the pieces effectively around the board and, perhaps more importantly, provide a solid emotional conclusion. (The effectiveness of the “masters coming home to their pets” sequence may depend on whether you are yourself a pet owner.) The Secret Life of Pets amounts to a film that should please entire families: funny and frantic for the kids, not entirely objectionable for parents and hopefully leading to treats for the family pet. A sequel is inevitable.

Precious Cargo (2016)

Precious Cargo (2016)

(Video on Demand, July 2016) It’s been increasingly difficult not to notice that Bruce Willis shows up in a lot of straight-to-video movies lately. He usually shows up playing the chief bad guy, mumbles aimlessly for a few scenes, then is dispatched by the hero and goes back home to collect what I presume must be a substantial and much-needed paycheck. His performance in Precious Cargo is up to his newest standards. Fortunately, he’s only a small part of a film that focuses on a professional thief (Mark-Paul Gosselaar, wisecracking merrily) who gets recruited by an ex-lover (Claire Forlani, who seems to have belatedly gotten Angelina Jolie’s looks from non-natural means) to get herself out of some trouble. For a low-budget film (and the key to appreciating Precious Cargo is half in remembering the film’s limited means), Precious Cargo does a few things well: there are a few good action highlights (including a boat chase that looks as if it cost half the film’s budget), the characterization and wisecracking elevates the film from many other similar thrillers, and for all of its sins, it doesn’t try to be dour or downbeat. As the ending plays, everything is fine and thieves get their money. Roll the credits, don’t expect much more and the result is just good enough to warrant a viewing when you’re all out of other options. I’ve seen worse.

Misery (1990)

Misery (1990)

(In French, On TV, July 2016) Stephen King’s Misery is a memorable novel (even and especially now, touching upon the themes of fannish entitlement that have grown so tediously familiar latterly), and its movie adaptation (partially thanks to screenwriter William Goldman) manages to be as good, in its own way, as the original book. James Caan ably plays a best-selling author who, thanks to an accident, comes to rest in an isolated farmhouse under the supervision of his self-professed “number one fan” (a terrifying Kathy Bates in a career-best performance) who turns out to be completely crazy in dangerous ways. What follows is so slickly done as to transform King’s writer-centric thriller into a horrifying experience for everyone. Director Rob Reiner is able to leave his comedic background behind in order to deliver a slick thrill ride, gradually closing off the protagonist’s options even as it becomes clear that he’s up against a formidable opponent. While the film does soften a few of the book’s most disturbing or gory moments, it does not lack for its own unbearable scenes. A solid, competent thriller, Misery easily ranks near the top of King’s numerous adaptations, and remains just as good today as it was a quarter of a century ago.

Pan (2015)

Pan (2015)

(On Cable TV, July 2016) We did not need Pan. Not now, when Hollywood studios addicted to the mirage of guaranteed profits are busy trying to take a hundred years of pop culture and hammering it into their three-act paradigm. Here we have Peter Pan reimagined (gag, spit, eye roll) in a sequel in which nothing of particular importance happens except remind us of other better takes on the same story. Director Joe Wright is too much of a professional to make an entirely boring film, and so the poor souls forced to watch the film will be able to, at least, enjoy a Spitfire-versus-galleon fight (don’t ask), colourful visuals and a tribal rendition of Nirvana’s “Smell Like Teen Spirit” that is so misguided and out-of-place as to defy any reason. I highlight this as one of Pan’s better moments because by the end of the film, it’s obvious that bad is better than boring. The script tortures the Peter Pan myth until it can be treated like one of so many disposable fantasy films, dispensing colourful visuals over a story so familiar as to inspire annoyance. Known actors such as Hugh Jackman, Amanda Seyfried and Rooney Mara do their best with badly written characters, to no avail. Pan was a box-office failure and a critical disappointment, and it’s not hard to see why: far from being colourful and original, it feels incoherent and disjointed, rushing through the motions of a CGI-heavy fantasy adventure while never having anything of its own to bring forward. It’s more tedious than anything else, and it’s depressing to wonder what other movie could have been green-lit for this amount of money.

Brooklyn (2015)

Brooklyn (2015)

(On Cable TV, July 2016) “Slightly less dull than I expected” isn’t exactly the kind of blurb that’s reprinted on DVD boxes, but that’s probably the nicest thing I have to say about Brooklyn. The story of an Irish girl who comes to America to find love and fortune, then returns home and is confronted with either staying or leaving, Brooklyn is thoroughly familiar material, albeit executed with some degree of competence. There’s a decent amount of wistfulness to the protagonist’s final realization that she has grown up, and the production values of the film are high enough to convincingly plunge us into 1950s New York and Ireland. Saoirse Ronan is very good as the protagonist, with Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson playing romantic foils. What Brooklyn doesn’t have (nor may need) is energy, originality or even sustained wit: it seems perfectly content playing things safe, with polished but forgettable dialogue, scenes and emotional stakes. It does aspire to be the kind of movie that your grandmother will find “nice”, so I suppose that there’s no real reason to begrudge its success if it manages exactly that. At another time in cinema’s history, Brooklyn would have been a significant studio release, a star vehicle, a popular film and a critical hit. In today’s blockbuster driven environment, it’s merely a good solid independent film that got some critical attention. No shame, no shame. Plus, it is indeed slightly less dull than I expected.

A Few Good Men (1992)

A Few Good Men (1992)

(On TV, July 2016) Nearly everyone can quote Jack Nicholson’s furious “You can’t handle the truth!” but watching A Few Good Men highlights how that line works best as a culmination rather than a standalone quote. A somewhat sombre judicial drama in which a hotshot lawyer (Tom Cruise, remarkably good) takes on the US Marines establishment in an effort to discover what happened to a dead soldier, A Few Good Men is the kind of slick mainstream drama that has almost disappeared from the box-office top-ten. Slickly made with a roster of good actors, it has the means to present its story as effectively as possible. The result is a good comfortable film, handled with old-school care. It may not be all that efficient (the opening act is notably slow, and missteps in initially focusing on a character who’s not the real protagonist) but it’s competent and slowly makes its way to a conclusion heavy on shouting and courtroom excitement. Jack Nicholson is good in a surprisingly small role (it looks as if he showed up for a few days of work), Kiefer Sutherland pops up as a soldier, while Demi Moore doesn’t impress all that much in a fairly conventional role that leaves far too much glory to Tom Cruise’s character.

Approaching the Unknown (2016)

Approaching the Unknown (2016)

(Video on Demand, July 2016) At first glance, Approaching the Unknown has a kernel of potential. The trailer promises a somewhat introspective look at space exploration, alongside an astronaut travelling alone to Mars. There’s been a recent mini-boom in space-exploration films, and while no-one expected this low-budget production to match Interstellar, it could have found a place alongside Europa Report. But even after a few minutes, it becomes horribly clear that Approaching the Unknown is a big heap of nonsense choked in pseudo-profound meandering and then smothered in interminable pacing. I don’t often fall asleep during boring movies, but Approaching the Unknown got me, and it got me good: I actually had to go back and re-watch the second half, which made it even worse given how the film disintegrates even further in its second half. It’s a multifaceted failure, from nonsense science (I could give you a list of ten things from the movie that are actually dumber than the Transformers series) to meaningless musings to a direction job that kills any interest the film may have held. It’s just a terrible movie-watching experience that I wouldn’t wish on anyone else. It even made me think less of Mark Strong for choosing the role, as well as Sanaa Lathan and Luke Wilson for showing up in supporting roles. I get that the film is meant as a meditative character piece about sanity, exploration and self-discovery, but as the old SF truism goes, if the literal level doesn’t work, the metaphorical level can’t either. I don’t particularly like to dismiss low-budget passion projects, but Approaching the Unknown is a damning debut for writer/director Mark Elijah Rosenberg and I hope he’ll be able to do better the next time around. (I’ll at least acknowledge that the film may be best suited to people who liked Under the Skin.)

Room (2015)

Room (2015)

(On Cable TV, July 2016) One of the most curious facets of a developing movie critic’s mind is the ability to recognize competence and detach it from enjoyment. For various reasons, I find Room’s subject matter almost unbearable and I do not ever want to watch it ever again. It is, after all, the story of a young boy, result of years of abuse between a sexual psychopath and his captive subject—his world at the beginning of the film is solely limited to the room in which he and his mom are held captive. This is the kind of thing nightmares are made of, and if Room hadn’t come to cable TV channels with its “Oscar winning” distinction (and assorted armful of critical attention), there is no way I would have watched it. But it has won a boatload of awards, and watching the film underscores why: For one thing, it takes a terrible story and filters it through the innocent perspective of a young boy, making it less aggressive but more disturbing in its implications. The protagonist of the story arguably isn’t the viewpoint character (much of the third act is about the mom, even in absentia), and the antagonist disappears surprisingly quickly from the film. The script, interestingly enough, is written by Emma Donoghue, the author of the novel on which it is based. Room benefits greatly from a handful of good performances, the best of which (with apologies to the Oscar-winning Brie Larson) has to be Jacob Tremblay’s performance in the lead role. It’s also fiendishly clever in its cinematography, in showing the Room as its own expansive universe, and then revisiting it later to show its true oppressive confinement. But it’s also a story in which people get better, overcome terrible adversity and manage to move forward. For a small movie shot in suburban Toronto, it packs quite an emotional punch, even if it’s one that few will strictly enjoy. So there we go: A few reasons why Room is worth seeing at least once … even though you, too, may never want to see it again.