Author: Kristofer Jenson

Contributing writer to C-Ville Weekly. Associate Film Editor of DigBoston. Host of Spoilerpiece Theatre.

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Arts Culture

New York state of mind: Pete Davidson-Judd Apatow comedy hits home

As the leading man in The King of Staten Island, Pete Davidson taps into Judd Apatow's magic touch. Universal Pictures

Pete Davidson is the neighborhood kid everyone hopes will get his act together, except that neighborhood is national TV, and “everyone” is literally everyone. His appeal reminds us of the lovable bullshitter in our family who’s always ready with a joke but can’t keep a job—only Davidson’s comedy is full of hard truths instead of bullshit, and the man never stops working.

The King of Staten Island is not Davidson’s first film, but it is the most definitive statement of him as a comedic actor outside of standup. It follows his own life so closely that it can hardly be called semi-autobiographical. Instead, think of it as a glimpse into an alternate reality where Davidson never found success in comedy. His character Scott still has all of the intelligence, humor, mental illness, and childhood trauma as the actor portraying him, but where Davidson honed his craft, Scott’s is questionable. The character’s dream of a tattoo restaurant is not only a dubious idea, he doesn’t even have enough focus to become a tattooist’s apprentice. Davidson found an outlet, Scott never did.

Directed by Judd Apatow from a script by Davidson, Apatow, and “Saturday Night Live” writer Dave Sirus, The King of Staten Island is never quite as funny as it should be. It’s not as deep as it wants to be, yet for all of its 136 minutes, you can’t stop watching.

Scott lives at home with his mother Margie (Marisa Tomei) and sister Claire (Maude Apatow). His father was a firefighter who died on the job when Scott was 7. Now in his mid-20s, he’s constantly high on drugs of varying intensity with his friends. He’s a lot to handle but utterly charming, and sympathies run deep for the hardship he’s faced; so much so that no one has the heart to tell him what a weird idea a tattoo restaurant is.

When Claire graduates high school, Margie’s life is at a standstill, and she agrees to a date for the first time in years. Ray (Bill Burr) is also a fireman, and the two met when Scott attempted to tattoo Ray’s young son. Margie, with Ray’s support, insists that Scott get a job and begin looking for his own apartment. In Scott’s heart, he is aware of his problems and wants the best for his mom, but in action, he rejects the upheaval and blames Ray for sabotaging his life. To Scott, the fact that Ray is a firefighter is even more reason to resent him as an interloper who will only subject Margie to the same pain she felt all those years ago.

In some ways, The King of Staten Island is classic Apatow: A famous or up-and-coming comedian with something to prove in a story that balances lowbrow gags with surprising maturity. He turned Steve Carell and Seth Rogen into leading men with The 40-Year-Old-Virgin and Knocked Up, and showed us a new side of Adam Sandler in Funny People. Though Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck and the Knocked Up spin-off This Is 40 didn’t reach the same heights as Apatow’s other work, he has always remained too invested in his characters to let his stories succumb to pat, unearned morals. While The King of Staten Island’s ending is less satisfying than it might have been, Apatow comes by it honestly.

The film stands apart from other Apatow projects in a few notable ways. The director has often joked that the “written by” credit on his films is questionable, given the amount of improvisation on his sets, and the filmmaking reflects this, with stationary cameras and the editing based mostly around who is speaking and not what is happening. The King of Staten Island shows another side of Apatow, as a director in control of his film. There is much more attention paid to how a scene is filmed, blocked, and edited to reflect shifting attitudes and power dynamics. When Margie tells Scott about her new boyfriend and his profession, Scott instantly stands up while she remains seated, and the handheld camera captures the chaos of the moment. He is attempting to dominate the room and will prevent her from settling into her decision if it means getting his way. Later, after he’s been kicked out, he visits in an attempt to convey that he’s grown up and should be allowed back in. Margie, already day drunk and having a blast with her friend, is unfazed, calmly walking him to the door with a sympathetic tone before locking him out. In this scene, the camera and blocking is sympathetic to her, and the motion lulls us into believing she’ll have a dialogue with him, enhancing the surprise.

Any flaws in The King of Staten Island are easily forgiven for its sincerity, its good intentions, its excellent supporting cast, and the willingness of its star and director to expand their creative boundaries. Davidson portrays a version of himself, but he is not phoning it in;, he builds an interesting dynamic with his co-stars rather than dominating the scenes. Whether it’s worth more than two hours will be up to the viewer, but despite its appearances, it is not more of the same from either Davidson or Apatow.

The King of  Staten Island

R, 136 minutes/ Streaming (Amazon Prime)

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Culture

Staggering steps: Zombie flick Blood Quantum takes on colonialism

Horror fans will find a solidly terrifying escape in the zombie feature Blood Quantum. The film has plenty of eerie parallels to the current state of societal conflict in reaction to the coronavirus. Image courtesy Elevation Pictures

Love them or hate them, zombie stories remain popular because they represent the nagging fear that the problems we allow to persist will eventually overpower us. Zombies are husks, barely recognizable as humans, possessing our shape and our need to consume but lacking morality, symbols of our collective failure as a society.

In the 52 years since Night of the Living Dead revolutionized the genre, many of those problems have remained unsolved, and are therefore frequent themes for zombie films: racism, consumerism, inequality, militarism, and a lack of faith in the institutions designed to protect humankind.

In Blood Quantum, from filmmaker Jeff Barnaby, the undead invasion parallels an even deeper, centuries-old tragedy: colonialism. A mysterious virus arrives by water and soon spreads to the entire region, confining the Mi’kmaq survivors to the Red Crow Reservation, where hordes of invaders are intent on wiping them out. (“Blood quantum” itself refers to laws first created in the Colonial era, the ratio of one’s ancestry that determines status as a Native American. The laws were often used to persecute, to facilitate extermination and forced relocation, and have been blamed for creating racism where none existed within tribes.)

Blood Quantum

R, 96 minutes

Streaming (Shudder, Amazon Prime)

The story is frighteningly prescient, not only given the current global pandemic, but as the Cheyenne River Sioux and Oglala Sioux tribes are battling with the governor of South Dakota for their right to maintain checkpoints on all roads leading in and out of their reservations due to coronavirus. Barnaby could not have predicted the specific events of today when he wrote and directed the film, which premiered at festivals last year, but it feels ripped from recent headlines.

As with many of the best horror films, Blood Quantum is scariest when it explores the plausible consequences of fantastical events. After the scramble to understand this virus, the Mi’kmaq learn that they are immune, and that the Red Crow reservation’s remote location is strategically useful in keeping out unwanted elements. But the immunity is no boon, as they are still in danger of being eaten alive, and geographic isolation means being confined behind metal walls until they die or are overtaken. The promise of staying alive is enough for some survivors, while others cannot envision a future within the fortress’ walls, succumbing to drugs, anger issues, and other destructive behaviors. Each solution only creates a new problem; reservations did not erase the ills of colonization, and the strongest walls do not protect against self-destruction.

Barnaby shows his extensive knowledge of zombie film history, and draws on those movies’ stylistic innovations to build the foundation for Blood Quantum. But even the most seasoned genre fan will be taken aback by some moments, especially in the film’s first act. In the opening scene, we see gutted fish begin to flop on dry land, and it’s disturbing, even for a genre built on shock value.

The opening credits also pack an emotional punch, revealing structures like bridges and buildings from uncomfortable angles. You might not expect the sight of a bridge at a 90-degree angle to be so jarring, but when viewed in the context of an imminent catastrophe, it’s quite effective. The structures we’ve built, whether physical or institutional, have become hollow. At best, they are simply shapes in a barren wasteland, at worst, they hasten our doom. A bridge is no longer a bridge, it is a liability. A police officer has no more authority than a hooligan. Was it always this way? Was our existence always barely contained chaos, or had we fooled ourselves into believing we’d created order?

Of the zombie tales that came before, viewers might find the most similarity with “The Walking Dead”: a character-driven story where reckoning with the past is as vital as contemplating the future. Michael Greyeyes, who portrays former officer Traylor, was even featured on “Fear the Walking Dead” as Qaletaqa Walker. Greyeyes is an excellent anchor for the film throughout; in his former life, his every action suggested a man frustrated by powerlessness, but bound by an unspoken moral obligation to try and make change. His son, Joseph (Forrest Goodluck, The Revenant and The Miseducation of Cameron Post), frequently causes trouble with Lysol (Kiowa Gordon, Twilight), and though they commit petty crimes together, when push comes to shove it’s revealed how truly different they are. There are so many characters with terrific performances that the story might have worked best as a miniseries. But as it is, Blood Quantum offers plenty to enjoy and contemplate.

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Culture

Trust science: New documentary profiles pioneering immunologist

The documentary Jim Allison: Breakthrough premieres April 27 on PBS. "All the things thatprobably you wish you could see working in solving COVID right now … Jim embodiesall that," says filmmaker Bill Haney. Photo by LeAnn Mueller

No one could have predicted the global pandemic of COVID-19 when production began on Jim Allison: Breakthrough, but its foundational message is so resonant that there might not be a more perfect time for it to reach audiences. Chronicling the life and scientific research of Nobel laureate and trailblazing immunologist James Allison, whose work with T cells revolutionized treatment for immunodeficiencies and some types of cancer, the film is the opposite of the escapist binging that occupies many people’s queues in this moment.

There is no fantasy or fatalism in Allison’s tale. Instead, director Bill Haney navigates the harsh realities of devastation wrought by cancer (including one patient whose life was saved directly by Allison’s research) and the small-thinking minds that stand in scientists’ way, while maintaining a fundamental optimism that an answer can be found.

“When I was a little boy and I was late for dinner,” says Haney. “My mother would say to me, ‘What were you, out curing cancer? Get in here and sit down,’ because that was the impossible dream. Nobody would ever be out curing cancer. But Jim Allison, for 20 percent of the patients, and 20 percent of the tumors, did. And he did it by personal charisma, scientific insight, persistence, resilience, humor, warmth, teamwork. All the things that probably you wish you could see working in solving COVID right now…Jim embodies all that.”

Born in Alice, Texas, Allison’s extraordinary life was forged by early struggles. Losing his mother at a young age to lymphoma, and later losing a brother to melanoma, Allison deeply understood the human impact of his work. A bright student, he butted heads with the head of his school’s science department who blocked all discussion of evolution in the classroom, and gained confidence to confront those who stand in the way of progress. Whether he is determined or stubborn will be up to the viewer to decide, but his work ethic is an inspiring blend of long-term dedication and impatience with problems he knows can be resolved.

“There’s something magical about Jim,” says Haney. “None of us do everything the right way, but he’s trying to do the right things for the right reasons.”

An immunologist and blues harmonica player, Jim Allison sits in with Willie Nelson on occasion.

There is a careful balance filmmakers must strike when chronicling scientific breakthroughs and the trailblazers who made them happen. If they focus too much on the technical details, they run the risk of losing the audience. If they go too broad with metaphors and framing devices, the importance of hard work and scientific rigor is glossed over. On top of that, who knows how the world will look when the film finally premieres? Will new research negate the findings presented in the film? 

Breakthrough sets the standard for how films about scientists can do justice to their subject’s work, their personality, and those around them. Allison is a lifelong blues harmonica player who has shared the stage with Willie Nelson. A detail like this might have been treated as a comical sidenote or postscript in other documentaries, but his zeal for life and his need to create are intrinsically linked.

Regarding the role of Allison’s creativity in his scientific work, Haney believes that “it’s central, absolutely central. And by the way, part of creativity is the willingness to follow the music wherever she takes you,” he says. “And if he had to ignore the convention and ignore the existing papers and change the way the FDA thought [about]  it and persuade them, then that’s what he was going to do.”

“The next adult you speak to, ask them to name for you five or 10 creative Americans,” Haney says. “And they will name, I promise, musicians and poets and playwrights and novelists and actors and directors. How many will name a scientist? I think almost no one, and yet they are the people who invent the devices that become our daily lives, the folks who are reimagining life right now. …If you’re a 12-year-old girl and want to have a creative, soulful life, even if you just say creative, how many of those are going to think that that’s an engineer or a biologist? I’m afraid that it’s shockingly small. To their loss and ours.”

Though the film was completed before the novel coronavirus began to spread, it is not a far jump from watching Allison at work to being interested in the work of scientists on the front lines of the search for a COVID-19 vaccine. We have to follow facts, not leaders with conflicting interests. We have to challenge conventional wisdom about what problems are insurmountable, not succumb to them. A great film about a compelling man, Breakthrough may be the antidote to hopelessness in our current pandemic.

The documentary Jim Allison: Breakthrough premieres April 27 on PBS’ “Independent Lens.”

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Culture

High tension cinema: What to stream while you wait it out

What to watch now is whatever helps you get through this with your sanity and humanity intact. Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb brought dark humor to the threat of nuclear destruction during the Cold War. Image courtesy Columbia Pictures

The spread of COVID-19 across the globe has left no part of our lives untouched, not the least of which is our viewing habits. Streaming services have gone from content delivery platforms to public services as we discover that self-quarantining can result in lots of time to finally whittle down our watchlists.

Everyone’s viewing needs differ at a time like this. Some escape to sci-fi and fantasy, or the comfort of a romantic comedy. Others find catharsis by leaning in with films like Contagion, The Omega Man, or even 28 Days Later. Perhaps now is the time to binge those shows you keep hearing about but never committed to, like “Justified” or “Atlanta.” 

Roger Ebert called films “machines that generate empathy,” and it’s in that capacity that we might find comfort in movies that depict hardship, or taken one step further, were created or exhibited during times of national distress. In viewing, we are not celebrating or finding entertainment value in suffering. If you’re feeling trapped, pessimistic, or paranoid, discovering a film that captures those negative emotions can be calming. These films can serve as reminders that even during the worst events in history, there were people who inherited the world left for them. Cinema is one of the greatest ways we have to pass our experiences to future generations and to connect with generations past. 

It was less than a year after the end of World War II before Italian filmmakers tried to reconcile their experience with fascism. Though escapist cinema was initially popular, Roberto Rossini’s Rome, Open City set the stage for a new era of Italian filmmaking. It follows the lives of people in the dwindling days of the war, including a pregnant mother, a resistance fighter, a cabaret performer, and a bumbling but ultimately noble Catholic priest. Production began in 1945, months after the Germans withdrew from Italy, and it was released the same year. The nation’s infrastructure had not been rebuilt, and the film industry had yet to reestablish itself after a period of no money and no resources, yet the movie had the artistry of a film with 10 times its budget. The roughness in its production value only contributes to its beauty; there is always love, hope, and humanity in the world, even in the darkest of times. Other films that use the devastation from WWII as settings include Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, also set in Rome, and Carol Reed’s The Third Man, set in Austria. 

Filmed in the middle of the Iraq War, the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad follows Iraqi heavy metal band Acrassicauda, as its members attempt to stay creative and stay alive amidst the destruction. Formed in 2000, during the regime of Saddam Hussein, Acrassicauda always faced an uphill battle to be heard and understood. The band was featured in Vice magazine, and in 2006, Vice returned to Baghdad to see how the band was faring following the ouster of Hussein. The situation was grim and only getting worse; the Iraqi insurgency became a civil war, and the band’s mission to gain an audience became a struggle to survive. The chaos of destruction and the risk of death lurks around every corner, as Acrassicauda rehearses in bombed-out spaces and gives interviews in front of collapsed buildings. 

The film shows that the need to create is not optional. Art is not a luxury, it is a coping mechanism, and a crucial component of life. (Acrassicauda eventually fled to Syria, then settled in Richmond, Virginia, before relocating to Brooklyn. Its EP Only the Dead See the End of the War was produced by Alex Skolnick of Testament, and the band released its full-length album Gilgamesh in 2015.)

Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is known as a classic satire of the Cold War era. As a glimpse into another time, it is both a riotous comedy and an effective political thriller, with Peter Sellers at his best in each of his three roles. What modern audiences might not realize is just how tense the moment was in which it was produced. 

The film began as an adaptation of Peter George’s Red Alert, originally titled Two Hours to Doom. George’s novel is serious in its treatment of the subject matter and does not feature the titular character. While working on the screenplay, Kubrick began to see the idea of mutually assured destruction as absurd, and referred to his adaptation as a “nightmare comedy.” 

The first cut of the film ended in a pie fight (this scene is lost to history, but a few stills remain), and features the line “Gentlemen! Our gallant young president has been struck down in his prime!”—which would have been seen by the first test audience, if that screening were not scheduled for November 22, 1964, the day President John Kennedy was assassinated. The film is a masterpiece as it is, but it is worth remembering how necessary it was. The ballooning arms race needed popping, and who better than a clown to do it.

For many, direct confrontation of anxiety through art is the perfect cure for jittery nerves, like caffeine before a nap. But it’s just fine if this sort of film experience is not what you’re looking for right now—and don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. Do what you need to do, enjoy what you like, and stay safe out there. When this is all over, we’ll see you at the movies.

 

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Culture

Good to see: The Invisible Man benefits from studio reshuffling

A modern adaptation of The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells finds Elisabeth Moss on the run from her abusive, mad scientist husband. Universal Pictures

From the opening moments of The Invisible Man, writer-director Leigh Whannell sets the stakes for the journey to come. Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) is enacting an escape plan from her abusive boyfriend, Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). His house is a shrine to his pathological need to control while giving the illusion of freedom: walls made entirely of glass on the outside, omnipresent security cameras on the inside. She’s drugged his water to keep him asleep, and then repositions or disables every security camera in the building, by going into a mysterious control room. When Cecilia’s sister meets her outside the compound walls to drive her to safety, we get a glimpse of what makes Adrian dangerous, as he smashes through the passenger window with his fist.

This opening scene is noticeably longer than in similar movies, and it is vital to our emotional investment. Though we don’t yet know many of the narrative details, we know that Adrian is as wealthy as he is obsessive, with unfathomable financial and technological resources. We know that his abuse was frightening enough that Cecilia couldn’t simply leave, she needed to escape. And because the film is called The Invisible Man, we know that the subsequent stalking and gaslighting by an unseen force are not her imagination. Her fear of going outside is more than a trauma response. She figures out Adrian’s plan long before she can explain it to those who might help, but even then she is powerless to fight back. The suspense is not in what is happening, but in how to stop it.

The Invisible Man

R, 125 minutes

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

Whannell’s depiction of an abuse victim is notable for its sensitivity and honesty toward the subject. Great genre and horror films succeed by literalizing our most extreme, intangible fears in the form of monsters; the effects of abuse linger after the apparent threat is over, and many victims do not come forward because they think they won’t be believed, or that support will be inadequate. The worst films are voyeuristic, where it feels like the director is secretly enjoying the abuse hurled primarily at women. The former is a cathartic meditation, the latter is a misanthropic fantasy. The Invisible Man is very much the former, bolstered by another bravura performance by Moss, as well as Whannell’s exceptional knack for pacing, which is alternately lingering and explosive depending on the needs of the scene.

The Invisible Man is the first film to come from Universal’s reshuffling of its Dark Universe project following the spectacular failure of 2017’s The Mummy. The focus has moved from interconnectedness to standalone stories, enlisting producer Jason Blum of Blumhouse to do what he does best: low-cost movies that give storytellers freedom. Between this and recent entries in the DC Extended Universe that are much more grounded (relatively speaking), the move away from bloated tentpoles has been a positive one. Even if you’re on the fence about The Invisible Man, it’s worth supporting so that big studios will continue this reorientation, raising the overall quality of their output and diversifying the sorts of stories that get a green light.

Local theater listings

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 375 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056.

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213.

Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000.

See it again

King Kong

G, 150 minutes

March 15, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

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Arts

Beacon of hope: The Assistant sheds light on the horrors of the casting couch

As The Assistant, Julia Garner delivers a stunning performance, as well coffee and lunch, while shielding her boss’ illicit behaviors. Bleeker Street.

The greatest horrors of the movie world are creatures pulled straight from our nightmares, abominations that mutate from our most irrational fears. It is cathartic and emotionally healthy to confront the monsters that scare us, in order to realize that they have no power over us.

The monsters of the real world are far more insidious. They look like us, they talk like us. We know their names. We inhabit the same spaces they do. We can look them in the eye and still not fully grasp the lengths they would go to control, degrade, and abuse, then try to get away with it by turning the world against their victims. What’s worse is that these monsters do have real power: economic, political, social. They have platforms, well-honed PR machines, and plenty of experience tamping down anyone who might stand up to them. They’ll do it until it’s easier to accept or crack jokes than to fight back. The tide is turning against the Harvey Weinsteins of the world, but sexual abuse in the film industry goes beyond its worst offenders.

The Assistant

R, 87 minutes

Violet Crown Cinema

Filmmaker Kitty Green depicts this struggle in The Assistant from a place of sober realism, imbued with empathy: for the victims, and for the people who want to do what’s right but don’t know how, and for viewers who have found themselves in a similar situation. The film follows Jane (Julia Garner), a recent college graduate and aspiring producer who works at an influential New York film production company. (While the film is presented as fiction, it parallels the Weinstein/Miramax story.) She’s the first one in and last one out. She’s vital yet invisible, arranging flights, cleaning messes, making copies, filling refrigerators, and intercepting angry calls from her boss’ wife.

Gradually, she finds clues of illicit activities. An earring in the morning, a very young new hire being put up in a fancy hotel where her boss (who is never seen, only heard) spends most of his day, wisecracks about “don’t sit on that couch” in his office, indications of roles promised in exchange for sex. She goes to the head of HR (Matthew Macfadyen), who all but admits her worst fears but does so in the form of a threat, promising a full career if she cooperates. It is one of the most harrowing scenes of mindfuck in recent memory, made all the more effective by its realism.

Most of the film follows the minutiae of Jane’s day, with almost no score outside of the sounds of an office and the dehumanizing light of neon bulbs. This underscores powerlessness, which extends beyond her attempt to fight back. She lives it every day, when an executive’s grunt means “Get out,” or a thrown piece of paper means “Do this for me.” When she does stand up, she has no leverage beyond a sense of moral duty, but that’s not enough to make a difference.

The Assistant is an unforgiving film, and though its protagonist has lost hope, Green has not. The credits thank those who shared their stories. The strength of #MeToo is in solidarity, power in numbers, and The Assistant shows how important that is by depicting a person who fights in isolation. There is no Hollywood ending here, but there is the satisfaction of knowing that people with a good heart, like Jane, exist in the real world, and men like Jane’s boss are on the run because of them.

Local theater listings

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 375 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056.

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213.

Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000.

SEE IT AGAIN

Spartacus

PG-13, 184 minutes

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, March 1

Categories
Arts

Artistic inspiration: Portrait of a Lady on Fire beautifully illustrates the intangible

Portrait of a Lady on Fire slowly but confidently establishes itself as one of the best depictions of how vital the form and function of art is to the human experience. NEON.

How wonderful it is to see a film about art that treats the creative process as an essential part of the human experience, free of the fetishization of suffering, or the detachment of genius worship. The narrative of Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire centers on the relationship between a painter and her subject, but it examines the miracle and tragedy of human creation of all kinds, including music, storytelling, recreation, and especially love.

Marianne (Noémie Merlant), a portrait artist and art instructor, is commissioned to paint Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) without her knowledge, at the insistence of her countess mother (Valeria Golino). Héloïse is engaged to a man she does not know, and had refused to sit for a previous painter following her sister’s suicide. Marianne is introduced under the guise of a walking companion, stealing glimpses of her features when she can. When the first painting is complete, Héloïse rejects the work as made without true emotion. She then agrees to sit for a new painting while the countess is away, and in this time alone, the hints of attraction boil over. The painting of Héloïse’s portrait becomes a time and space for the two women to express themselves. What was compulsory becomes voluntary, what was technical becomes emotional, and with the burden of expectation removed, they discover new levels of freedom not allowed by their stations in life.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

R, 119 minutes

Violet Crown Cinema

Sciamma’s minimalistic direction brings out dimensions of the story that might have been lost in a more conventional film. The only music is diegetic, coming from a harpsichord, an orchestra, or a group of women around a fire. There is no villain, there are no twists, and no on-screen violence. There is sex, but the eroticism exists in all things: glances and stares, shapes, sounds, and silence. The only struggle is to find the best way to express emotions that have been suffocated, entombed by fear, sadness, past experiences, societal expectation. It is a simple love story told with elegance, sophistication, and masterful craftsmanship.

The creative process is often inadequately captured in film not because it is ineffable, but because it is so tangible. It is a great labor to have a film about an artist that is made with the same attention to detail that its subject demonstrates. Many filmmakers fall victim to the temptation of portraying an artist’s life as a series of anecdotal struggles that culminate in the spark of creation, resulting in a great masterpiece. Artistic inspiration can come from anywhere and might be indescribable, but the act of creation, the form and technique used to create, and the feelings that creation evokes are as foundational to us as the process leading up to it. We don’t memorialize ourselves and our emotions out of vanity. We do it out of necessity.

Local theater listings

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 375 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056.

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213.

Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000.

See it again 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Color Purple

PG-13, 200 minutes

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, February 23

Categories
Arts

Flight of fancy: DC Extended Universe ascends with Birds of Prey

Margot Robbie shines as the outrageous and engaging Harley Quinn in DC Extended Universe’s Birds of Prey. WARNER BrOS.

There’s a funny kind of freedom that’s recently emerged in the DC Extended Universe. After a series of colossal failures, each one worse than the last, the powers that be decided not to cancel the whole project, but to bring in fresh blood with new ideas, then empowered them to do whatever the hell they want. It’s an exciting change of pace to have no idea what might happen next in a big-budget superhero movie. Marvel may be much steadier in the quality of its output, but its best and worst movies mostly follow the same formula. DC is now living up to the legacy of The Dark Knight’s Joker: anarchic, unpredictable, and totally engrossing.

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) marks the latest and most definitive break with the grim, dreary, glossy yet visually exhausting world of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Justice League, and Suicide Squad. Perhaps we owe those disasters some gratitude. If they were better, Warner Bros. might not have blown up the formula as dramatically as it did. Instead, DCEU is doing everything it can to make audiences forget any of that ever happened. The franchise is, like Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey, emancipated from the figures that once defined its style, and free to blaze a new trail.

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

R, 104 minutes

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

Birds of Prey takes place after the events of Suicide Squad. Between the two movies, Harley (Margot Robbie) and Joker have broken up, and she’s lost the protection that came with him. Once word gets out, everyone she’s ever robbed, beaten, or cheated is out to get her, chief among them Roman Sionis, otherwise known as the Black Mask (Ewan McGregor), and his henchman Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina). To stay alive in her newfound freedom, she needs to team up with three other women who might have been adversaries had they not each been wronged by powerful people: Dinah/Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), Detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), and Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Together, they have to save the life of teenage pickpocket Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) before Sionis gets to her.

Robbie showed us she was born to play this part in Suicide Squad, and now she has a movie that lives up to her performance. Birds of Prey is a fun, colorful, exciting adventure with engaging characters, outrageous villains, terrific design, and riveting action sequences. Director Cathy Yan nails the tone, keeping things silly while always raising the dramatic stakes. Writer Christina Hodson reinvigorates the flagging film universe just as she did with Bumblebee. Every performer shines, every character is perfectly realized, and the theme of emerging from another person’s shadow elevates this from just another comic flick to a statement on the vitality and relatability of Harley Quinn’s character.

The taboo of R-rated comic book movies has been broken, between Watchmen, Logan, Deadpool, and Joker. Birds of Prey earns its R rating with violence and language, but it stands apart in one interesting respect. Those other films were either standalone or adjacent to their film universes. Logan was the end of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and Deadpool has yet to be fully integrated into the larger Marvel/X-Men films (whatever form they take after Disney’s acquisition of Fox). Birds of Prey, meanwhile, is a direct sequel, and it shows just how cowardly the sanitized, PG-13 violence of the DCEU was. All of the combat was devoid of blood, crunch, and, most of all, consequences. Without consequences, the violence became hollow, meaningless, and routine. Unlike the supposed tough guys of those movies, Harley knows what she’s doing and is not afraid to get her hands dirty.

Local theater listings

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 375 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213

Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000

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Casablanca

PG, 102 minutes

February 14, The Paramount Theater

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Arts

Missing the action: The Rhythm Section falls flat and out of sync

Blake Lively stars in The Rhythm Section, a not-so-action-packed thriller with a weak message. Image courtesy Paramount Pictures

The Rhythm Section’s title refers to the parts of the body an assassin must keep steady in order to be most effective: heartbeat and breathing. Everything else is tactical and depends on the specifics of the situation, but those are what truly matter. And in this film, those are the only parts that are any good.

It would be one thing if these moments, full of effective sound design, clever editing, and solid acting, reflected the adversity Stephanie (Blake Lively) overcame to become a highly effective assassin, succeeding where other intelligence agencies failed. Traumatized by the murder of her family by an international terrorist, she’s hit rock bottom and has nothing left to lose. If only Stephanie could then exact justice, go where others won’t, see what others can’t, suppress her hatred, and channel her rage—now that would be a movie. Too bad it’s not this movie.

The Rhythm Section

R, 109 minutes

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

The first problem is, she never gets very good at this assassin stuff. In one hit, she loses a fight then waits as the guy dies of a preexisting condition. In another, she hesitates and quits, leaving her trainer/handler (Jude Law) to execute plan B, which is way messier and more intolerable than if she’d done things the stealthy way. The climax is yet another failure upwards, and while I won’t spoil it, an unintroduced character does something unmotivated for Stephanie’s sake, and it’s treated like a victory. What’s all this focus for if she just waits for someone else to figure it out? For someone who says she’ll do whatever it takes, she has a knack for doing less than the bare minimum.

If this were a tale of a person out of her depth, realizing that doing what’s right is politically and morally murkier than it should be, by all means, leave the dirty work to the jaded vets. That’d be a spy tale with a dramatic core worth exploring. What we get instead is a paint-by-numbers thriller.

There’s one known bad guy and another whose identity is still a mystery. Here’s a pro tip from Roger Ebert: Find the A-list actor whose part seems too small. Boom, that’s the secret bad guy. The reveal is less of a surprise than the assumption that you didn’t know who the villain was.

What remains in The Rhythm Section is weak, noncommittal geopolitical commentary on defeating terror. Maybe that would work, if it had anything interesting to say about the state of the world. Its insights end at noting that some Middle Eastern people are terrorists and some Middle Eastern people are not terrorists. They’re either totally good or totally evil. We know more about the humanity of white people who show up for one scene and get killed than the people around whom the plot revolves.

Director Reed Morano has done her best work in television, and if this story had any legs to begin with, The Rhythm Section might have been best developed for the small screen. It’s certainly episodic enough. Instead, it’s an international spy thriller with no intrigue, and the only parts that show any craft are the occasional breathing sequences. So if you hate action, don’t know anything about the world, and love watching bad assassins breathe, your new favorite movie has finally arrived.

Local theater listings

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 375 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056.

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213.

Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000.

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Green Book

PG-13, 130 minutes

Feb. 9, The Paramount Theater

Categories
Arts

Cinéma réaliste: Les Misérables is a compelling exploration of modern strife

Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables is a multi-faceted, socio-political thriller set in suburban Paris. The film won the Jury Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Image courtesy Amazon studios

Despite its name, Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables is not a retelling of Victor Hugo’s famous novel. But there are many ways it closely resembles its namesake. Within the confines of a tight thriller and a runtime of less than two hours, Ly explores questions of justice, crime, redemption, rebellion, collective and individual responsibility, and the socio-political role of architecture in modern-day Paris—including in the same suburb that inspired Hugo’s novel. The particular issues of today are different than the 1832 June Rebellion, but the underlying questions facing humanity remain the same. If an insurrection is morally justified but destined to fail, should it be quashed before it begins? Should we punish lawbreakers or maintain stability? If society is a pot about to boil over, should we struggle to keep the lid on and risk building more pressure, or let it happen and face the consequences?

Though the title invites comparisons, Ly’s Les Misérables is very much its own film, a bold societal and stylistic statement on par with City of God and Do the Right Thing. It’s an incredible mix of crime thriller, day-in-the-life police procedural, and social realist commentary with spectacular flourish, and would be an easy favorite to win Best International Feature Film if Parasite were not also nominated.

Les Misérables

R, 102 minutes

Violet Crown Cinema

The film follows the SCU, a team dedicated to monitoring lower-income, predominantly immigrant communities in Paris led by Chris (Alexis Manenti), whose methods wouldn’t be out of place in the Old West; depending on how you look at it, he’s either highly effective or completely reckless. His partner is Gwada (Djibril Zonga), an officer of African descent who is prepared for the worst but favors containment and cooperation over confrontation. Joining them is Stéphane (Damien Bonnard), nicknamed “Pento” or “Greaser.” During their regular patrol, they must address tensions after a boy named Issa (Issa Perica) steals a lion cub from Roma zookeepers. To stop an all-out confrontation, the SCU has to find Issa and return the cub, but the distrust they’ve created in the past complicates the present, particularly when a series of mistakes by the police threatens Issa’s life.

What follows is best left unspoiled, but is a masterstroke of stylistic and thematic escalation. A situation arises that could have been avoided, but once it arrives, it cannot be defused. The characters can only hope to navigate these events with their lives and their values intact. Some may not appreciate the ending, calling it a cliffhanger, but it is the only honest way to complete the emotional arc of this film. Issa is left with a choice: stand up for himself and risk everything, including the lives around him, or stand down and continue in his unsustainable life. This is where we are as a society: We can either act now to avoid this unwinnable game, or be prepared to lose everything in the blink of an eye, the pull of a trigger, the lighting of a Molotov cocktail.

As a film, Les Misérables is top-to-bottom perfection. The direction is nimble yet grounded, always focused even as the events of the story spiral out of control. The tension stays at a low hum, the characters are deep no matter how secondary to the narrative, and it has a compelling moral core even if it has no definitive answers; attempting to wrap everything up would have been dishonest and manipulative. At the start of the movie, Issa and his friends sing “La Marseillaise” in celebration of a soccer victory, and like that anthem, Les Misérables is a call to fight for what’s right, but also a warning that the solution is not as simple as taking up arms.

Local theater listings

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 375 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056.

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213.

Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000.

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Groundhog Day

PG, 103 minutes

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, February 1 and 2