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Movie review: The Insult imparts the complexities of conflict

Set in Beirut, The Insult details a minor dispute between a Lebanese Christian mechanic (Adel Karam) and a Palestinian engineer (Kamel El Basha) that lands in court and balloons into a national incident.

A dialogue of national reconciliation takes the form of a courtroom drama in Ziad Doueiri’s The Insult, one of this year’s nominees for Best Foreign Language Film. It all begins as a minor conflict between a Lebanese Christian mechanic, Tony (Adel Karam), and a Palestinian engineer living in Beirut, Yasser (Kamel El Basha). Yasser is working on the apartment complex in which Tony lives when he notices that the drain on Tony’s deck is leaking onto the street. When asked for permission to enter the apartment, Tony angrily refuses. Yasser repairs the drain anyway, which Tony destroys and demands an apology. Yasser’s refusal leads to a slur of racial insults, culminating in “I wish Ariel Sharon had wiped you all out.” Yasser punches Tony in the gut, breaking two ribs, over which Tony presses charges. Press coverage of the case boils over into a nationwide dispute, reopening wounds from the Lebanese Civil War that were never fully healed.

“This is how wars are started,” the president tells the two in a attempt to settle the dispute that threatens the country’s stability. Lebanon knows this better than most, having endured a multi-front civil war that raged for 15 years, from 1975 to 1990. Though there has been nominal peace, polarization and resentment still simmer. Tony is a member of what is referred to as the Christian Party, and frequently listens to speeches by wartime Phalangist (another word for fascist) leader Bachir Gemayel, and dodges questions about why he refuses to return to Damour, where he grew up.

The Insult
R, 114 minutes
Violet Crown Cinema

The attorney he hires, Wajid Wehbe (Camille Salameh) shares the same resentment over the perception that the Palestinian cause gets more attention than that of the Lebanese citizens. Though the film focuses on the Lebanese context, it is not a leap to connect this feeling to the white working class that supposedly helped Trump win the election through a mix of economic uncertainty and racial animosity, scapegoating immigrants and nonwhite residents for their troubles. Many of the coded words and dog whistles that Tony and Wajid use are similar to those we hear in the United States, and though Tony is clearly acting out of prejudice and revenge rather than principle, there is a much straighter line between his lived experience and his xenophobia than that of the alt-right’s.

Perhaps the bravest decision by Doueiri is making The Insult more than a simple “plague on both your houses” parable, as there is no cheaper move than to poke and prod at a hot button issue and remain noncommittal. Tony’s hatred did not appear out of thin air, but it does not apply to Yasser. Yasser, meanwhile, has lived a complicated life, wanting to defend his dignity while accepting that Palestinians will never be welcome no matter which country hosts them. Tony’s trauma is real, but his imagined persecution is not; Yasser is restricted in his rights, where he can live and pray, and what jobs he can perform, and the way he has learned to live with this reality is complex. He stands up for his personal dignity, but he would rather plead guilty in the first hearing than drag things out, and refuses to say what it was that drove him to hit Tony.

There are pacing issues and a few contrivances that would be dealbreakers in most other films, such as the fact that Wajid’s daughter defends Yasser, a fact which is revealed in court much to everyone’s surprise. It’s a solid metaphor concerning how the generation who lived through the war and those born after it differ in their priorities, but the execution is clunky. However, the honesty of The Insult’s emotional core is engaging and daring, and the performances so phenomenal, that it is well worth your time no matter your level of familiarity with the history behind it.

Playing this week

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

A Quiet Place, Basket Case, Black Panther, Blockers, The Death of Stalin, Isle of Dogs, Ready Player One, The Sandlot

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

A Quiet Place, A Wrinkle in Time, Black Panther, Blockers, Chappaquiddick, God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, I Can Only Imagine, Isle of Dogs, Love, Simon, The Miracle Season, Paul, Apostle of Christ, Ready Player One, Tomb Raider, Tyler Perry’s Acrimony

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

Black Panther, Blockers, Chappaquiddick, Distant Sky: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Live in Copenhagen, The Death of Stalin, Isle of Dogs

Categories
Arts

Movie review: Ready Player One turns brain games mindless

In Ready Player One, starring Tye Sheridan, the death of Oasis creator James Halliday spurs gunters on a virtual Easter egg hunt where pop culture riddles hold the key to the game’s ultimate prize. Courtesy Warner Bros.

Before we get into just how much Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One misses the mark, it’s worth noting that its badness has nothing to do with video games and the people who enjoy them. Critics often come down harder on movies about subcultures they disapprove of or simply haven’t taken the time to understand, which will no doubt happen here. There are good stories to be found in the world of gaming, and liking or disliking games should not be used as a defining character trait.

What kills Ready Player One is twofold. On the one hand, there are the same sorts of problems that would kill any movie: dead-end narrative, uninteresting and often unlikable hero, dangling plot and thematic threads and a pervasive feeling of who cares? that permeates every puzzle, action sequence, pop culture reference and character interaction. On the other hand is its posturing as the most mainstream representation of what games mean to those who play them, when in fact it’s not much more than a series of overwrought references and lifeless cameos from games and movies applied in a way that perpetuates the idea that there is a right way to watch movies and play games. For what is supposedly a statement of pride in gaming culture, it’s surprisingly exclusionary and paints a picture of itself that is not particularly flattering.

Ready Player One
PG-13, 139 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

The story follows Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), a kid (or teen, or adult, who’s to say?) who, like most of the people in the world at this point, spends most of his time inside a virtual universe known as the Oasis, the creation of legendary game designer James Halliday (Mark Rylance, easily the film’s highlight). After Halliday’s death, he sends out a living will in which he reveals that he has hidden an Easter egg in the Oasis, which can be found after discovering three keys, the location of which are described in mysterious riddles. Whoever finds the egg first will inherit his share of the Oasis, valued in the trillions.

Detailed dissection of the minutiae of Halliday’s life and interests becomes a worldwide obsession in order to better understand the clues, which is convenient since everybody in 2045 apparently has the same encyclopedic fixation on pop culture from the 1970s through the 1990s. Wade—in the form of his avatar, Parzival—and his friends find themselves in a race against evil corporation IOI and its CEO, Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), to solve the mystery of Halliday’s egg hunt, which all boils down to things like who knows more about The Shining.

Based on the book by Ernest Cline, who co-wrote the screenplay with Zak Penn, Spielberg’s take on the story is little more than impossibly layered references that don’t aspire to more than a grunting acknowledgment by those familiar with it. The Iron Giant is great and all, and its presence is not inherently bad, but pop culture knowledge should not be an obstacle to liking or even understanding what is going on. With so many chaotic cameos and references that have nothing to do with each other, it’s like Finnegans Wake of the game world, if James Joyce pounded Monster Energy instead of booze.

Spielberg has been on a massive hot streak for almost a decade, making some of his most interesting, thought-provoking work 40 years into an already storied career. Yet it seems that the closer he feels to the subject matter, the less empowered he feels to take it somewhere interesting. There was a dead-end Jaws joke in the appropriately forgotten 1941, which is echoed here with a Jurassic Park gag. It would still be a bad movie even if it weren’t patting itself on the back for its knowledge of what movie or game came out what year and what the best way to consume it is, but the fact that it has no idea what to do with it all makes a pointless exercise into a headache-inducing one.

Playing this week

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

A Wrinkle in Time, Black Panther, The Death of Stalin, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Labyrinth, Pacific Rim Uprising, Sherlock Gnomes

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

A Wrinkle in Time, Black Panther, God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, I Can Only Imagine, Love, Simon, Midnight Sun, Pacific Rim Uprising, Sherlock Gnomes, Tomb Raider, Tyler Perry’s Acrimony, Unsane

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

A Wrinkle in Time, Annihilation, Black Panther, The China Hustle, The Death of Stalin, Game Night, Love, Simon, Pacific Rim Uprising, Sherlock Gnomes, Tomb Raider, Unsane

Categories
Arts

Movie review: Pacific Rim Uprising stomps through subplots

The monster battle sequel Pacific Rim Uprising is flashier than its predecessor, but also boring. Courtesy Universal Pictures

Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim—like pretty much all of his films, including The Shape of Water—was a tribute to the genres he loved that lack mainstream recognition, in this case a fusion of Toho kaiju monsters and mech suit anime where there is as much drama inside the suits as there is out, most notably Gundam and “Neon Genesis Evangelion.” It was quite a lot of fun, where even the most valid complaints, like flat characterizations and rushed exposition with lore that is never fully explained were intentional and genre-appropriate. The only problem it could not escape was the frustrating decision to stage all of the fights at night in the rain, thereby obscuring the creature and mecha design and dulling what ought to have been the greatest visual treat of 2013.

Its sequel, Pacific Rim Uprising (directed by Steven S. DeKnight), has none of the nerdy charm of its predecessor, and expands the lore while cheapening its effectiveness. But at least you can see what’s happening this time. Pick your poison.

Pacific Rim Uprising
PG-13, 110 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

The story picks up 10 years after the war against the kaiju has been won. Some cities have been rebuilt, others are still lying in rubble. An underground economy has formed around the theft of tech found in the abandoned mecha, known as jagers.

Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), the son of war hero and legendary jager pilot Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba, of the previous film), lives in this world, staying one step ahead of being caught by the criminals he does business with and the authorities who tolerate him so long as he minimizes the trouble he causes. When a heist goes wrong, he encounters Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny), a teenage tech prodigy who has illegally built her own miniature jager in preparation for if the kaiju come back. The pair are caught by the authorities, and are given a deal: Go to prison, or join the fight in an official capacity, as trainer and cadet.

Many of the performances are solid despite being one-dimensional characters, but that is not something you can hold against this film any more than you can against the original. Spaeny shows tremendous promise in her ability to bring raw emotion to Amara; she is driven by revenge, but her personality is not reduced to a bundle of raw nerves. She’s a believable teenager given the way growing up in this world has shaped her. Boyega is charming as ever, though the role rests entirely on his screen presence. Scott Eastwood finally feels like he belongs in movies like this instead of being there because some super agent insisted, and Charlie Day is better utilized here than he was in the original.

Then there are the monster fights. Yep, they’re pretty dang cool and look great, but why they’re happening is far less engaging than in the first Pacific Rim, which had charm and inspiration to carry it across other flaws that might exist. It was a statement in its own right, while Uprising as a sequel is entirely conventional. It can be engaging moment- to-moment, but is instantly forgettable. And through it all is the why factor: In the first film, they need to save people from monsters. Great! Thrilling! Why is any of it really happening? Who cares? There are monsters that need punching! Here, there’s stuff about alien races, blood, rare earths and corporate conspiracies that only delay the appearance of monsters or robots, which are the entire reason you bought the ticket in the first place.

On a final note: Please, studios and filmmakers, when releasing sequels, please make the subtitle memorable in its own right. Imagine if people only said “Uprising,” would anyone know what movie you’re talking about? And it’s exhausting to cycle through, trying to remember if this one is Redemption, Revelations or Origins.

Playing this week

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

A Wrinkle in Time, Black Panther, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Game Night, Love, Simon, Nine to Five, Ready Player One, Sherlock Gnomes, Tomb Raider

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

Days in Entebbe, A Wrinkle in Time, Black Panther, The Greatest Showman, I Can Only Imagine, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Love, Simon, Midnight Sun, Paul, Apostle of Christ, Peter Rabbit, Ready Player One, Red Sparrow, Sherlock Gnomes, The Strangers: Prey at Night, Tomb Raider, Unsane

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

A Fantastic Woman, A Wrinkle in Time, Annihilation, Black Panther, Game Night, Love, Simon, The Party, Red Sparrow, Sherlock Gnomes, Tomb Raider, Unsane

Categories
Arts

Movie review: The new Tomb Raider is full of glitches

licia Vikander gives a winning performance in Tomb Raider, an otherwise clunky cinematic take on the popular video game. Courtesy Warner Bros.

You have to respect when a director clearly loves the material and subject of his movie, and when a performer is perfectly cast and goes the extra mile to give the character extra weight. You just don’t have to like it.

So it goes with Tomb Raider and critic favorite Alicia Vikander, who is finally given the starring role she deserves as Lara Croft, the hero of the blockbuster video game series. The film is a terrific showcase of Vikander’s dramatic range and phenomenal athleticism, but unfortunately not much else. Director Roar Uthaug (yes, really) recreates some of the key game elements—ledge climbing, puzzle solving, jungle navigating—with clear admiration for the source material, but with little sense of how or why a film audience should be engaged if it is not controlling it.

Tomb Raider
PG-13, 118 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

We meet Lara as a young woman in modern-day London, where she’s scraping by as a bike courier in spite of the fact that she comes from massive wealth. Her father, Richard (Dominic West), disappeared seven years earlier, and her refusal to declare him dead means she cannot claim his inheritance. She soon discovers the truth of his adventuring ways, traveling the world to collect artifacts in an effort to prove the existence of supernatural forces in our world. Her journey leads her to a forgotten island near Japan with the assistance of boat captain Lu Ren (Daniel Wu), where they must square off against Matthias Vogel (Walton Goggins) of a mysterious corporation, who is after the same potentially deadly artifact on the island.

All of the performers give their best to roles that don’t deserve this level of commitment. Vikander proves she’s a star, bringing many terrific characteristics to Lara. She has a glimmer in her eye (that never becomes an ironic wink of the Bruce Willis variety), full of humor and energy, carrying the trauma of losing her father without being defined by it or giving up her independence. Goggins is a terrific villain because he is not nefarious and has no specific evil intent; he’s lost all moral bearing, good or bad, having been trapped on that island for nearly a decade. Those are the two best performances, though it is worth noting how effectively Wu’s Lu Ren is more than a sidekick, and that West does what he can with his role.

A central failing of video game adaptations in general is that gaming is a medium based on interactivity. If a narrative doesn’t totally add up or drags in the middle, it doesn’t matter as much because the player’s chief responsibility is to keep moving, which itself is a form of dramatic engagement. A player controlling her character as she scales a difficult wall, for example, is invested in the outcome. A film with the exact same camera angles and pacing would fail because it removes the precise reason someone should care.

After the very strong start with Lara’s life in London, the film becomes bogged down in sometimes well-executed but going-nowhere jungle action sequences for a long time in what is already a lengthy movie. This is the experience from which Lara emerges as a fully-formed hero, if only it didn’t turn into a strangely specific emulation of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That could have been fun, but Uthaug has a knack for turning to exciting source material and churning out dry imitations bereft of any other reason to exist.

Tomb Raider succeeds in two things: demonstrating that Vikander has the chops to be a superstar in her own right, and making the audience want to play the video game again. Everything else, it comes up short.

Playing this week

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

A Wrinkle in Time, Annihilation, Black Panther, Game Night, Love, Simon, Nine to Five, Peter Rabbit, Thoroughbreds, Wasted! The Story of Wasted Food

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

7 Days in Entebbe, A Wrinkle in Time, Black Panther, Death Wish, The Greatest Showman, Gringo, The Hurricane Heist, I Can Only Imagine, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Love, Simon, Peter Rabbit, Red Sparrow, The Strangers: Prey at Night

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

A Fantastic Woman, A Wrinkle in Time, Annihilation, Black Panther, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Game Night, Gringo, Love, Simon, Red Sparrow, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Thoroughbreds

Categories
Arts

Movie review: Red Sparrow flutters but never quite lands

Despite an excellent performance, Jennifer Lawrence can’t save the convoluted plot of Red Sparrow. Courtesy Warne Bros.

In Red Sparrow, a fallen Russian ballerina (Jennifer Lawrence) is given an impossible choice—to sacrifice her free will and dignity for her country by becoming a “sparrow” trained in the art of exploiting the sexual vulnerabilities of her targets, or lose the apartment and medical coverage provided by the Bolshoi. That is, until the plot pivots to East-versus-West spy games in Hungary, a game of competing allegiances, leaving us not quite sure who is fooling whom. Then it’s about a mole at the top of the Russian security apparatus who goes into hiding to avoid detection. Then it’s about floppy disks, then torture, then some more torture, then a lot more torture.

These threads all come together eventually, but the experience of watching Red Sparrow is like hearing a shaggy dog story where you’ve heard the punchline but are forced to hear the whole thing out anyway. If you’ve ever seen any spy or mystery movie, you’ll guess the twist about 45 minutes before the film gets around to telling you what you already know, leaving you mystified by all this hullabaloo about bank accounts and pervy bosses that make up most of the second act but are only tangentially related to the finale.

Red Sparrow
R, 140 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

Making matters worse is the complete disconnect between how this is all set up and where it goes. What seem to be crucial story and character moments for the first hour are basically forgotten once the next plot thread starts. Dominika’s ballerina past is commented on at various points, but is basically irrelevant, and this would have been exactly the same movie without it. Her first mission sees her brutalized, essentially as a way to break down her will and agree to become a sparrow. Her sparrow training is all about seeing and utilizing people’s sexual vulnerabilities, but she mostly does regular spy stuff, like Jason Bourne with less punching, so why even go through it all? The torture scenes—yes, plural—come from nowhere, stay too long, get quite extreme in no time at all, then end with little impact on the events that follow.

Red Sparrow can be enjoyable in the moment, thanks to a very solid cast, all of whom bring their best to roles big and small (Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeremy Irons, Charlotte Rampling and a scene-stealing turn from Mary Louise Parker). Chemistry between performers is palpable, and individual scenes come alive with intrigue. The film looks terrific, and it’s refreshing to see an American film let Hungary play itself instead of acting as a cheaper stand-in for Russia. But all its qualities fade in retrospect when it becomes clear how much time director Francis Lawrence (no relation to Jennifer) wasted to go essentially nowhere, preserving an overly intricate story map that is not exciting enough to be worth all the detours.

Jennifer Lawrence is perfect in the role as Dominika, leaving us guessing as to whether she’s two steps ahead of everyone else or treading water. She and Edgerton play off of each other very well, but is it because they actually like each other or is that just what she wants him to think? This dynamic may have been worth more if the movie itself didn’t scream, “Look out, there’s a twist coming!”

Everything about Red Sparrow is 40 years too late, from its Cold War plot to putting Rampling in a state-sponsored sex camp like a 1970s European exploitation movie, to relying on dated plot twists. Too long to be worthwhile, too predictable to recommend.

Playing this week

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

Annihilation, Black Panther, Peter Rabbit, Pillow Talk

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

Annihilation, Black Panther, Death Wish, Early Man, Every Day, Fifty Shades Freed, Game Night, The Greatest Showman, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Peter Rabbit

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

Annihilation, Black Panther, Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Death Wish, Faces Places, Game Night, I, Tonya, Peter Rabbit, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Categories
Arts

Movie Review: Game Night wins with humor and tension

Game Night is a surprisingly satisfying thriller-comedy with an excellent cast that includes Rachel Adams and Jason Bateman (far right). Courtesy Warner Bros.

Game Night is a funny, exciting thriller-comedy with fun performances and a story that keeps you guessing. Who in the world saw this coming? Certainly not whoever edited the trailer, which sold it as another underwritten yarn with an on-the-nose title about insufferable schmucks who get in over their heads and shout about things seconds after they happen. But that’s not what we get from directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who had previously written hits Horrible Bosses and contributed to the Spider-Man: Homecoming script. Almost immediately, Game Night sets a strikingly unique tone and remains confident in its material not relying on vamping and excessive improvisation from a talented cast.

Game Night
R, 93 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

Game Night follows a group of friends who, you guessed it, gather for a regular game night that gets wrapped up in a vast criminal conspiracy. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams play married couple Max and Annie, whose relationship is firmly rooted in their shared competitive nature. The arrival of Max’s brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler), who Max has never been able to beat in a game, throws him off his edge mentally and physically—his stress, as it turns out, is interfering with the couple’s ability to conceive. Brooks offers to kick things up a notch, promising a murder mystery that blurs the line between reality and fiction. But when the company Brooks hired is hijacked by actual criminals, no one is certain who to trust.

That plot summary sounds predictable, right? It’s possible you may guess a twist or two but you won’t anticipate how effectively it all comes together. To pull off any of the individual genres at play here—comedy, action, crime-thriller—requires a flexible yet confident sense of style, which Game Night has. Think of the slew of action-comedies that limp into theaters every year and are instantly forgotten. The focus is in the wrong place, hoping to slide into your good grace by charisma alone. A confident director with a smart cast can turn a milquetoast gag into a hilarious moment, but the best writing in the world can’t make up for sloppy filmmaking. In Game Night, the direction and editing are taut, the action scenes are legitimately tense and inventive, and the script is hilarious even before it’s elevated by the cast.

The performers deserve special recognition, whether they play into type (Bateman) or against (McAdams, Chandler). Every character is memorable and none are wasted—Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury as a couple that’s been together since childhood (you know the ones), Billy Magnussen and Sharon Horgan as co-workers on a not-date (tough to explain but spectacular to behold) and a scene-stealing turn by Jesse Plemons as creepy neighbor Gary. As individuals they shine, as a group their interplay never gets old.

The jokes land, the action sequences are exciting, and the performers are all terrific, making Game Night the funniest movie in 2018 so far. I’m as surprised as you are.

Playing this week

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

Annihilation, Black Panther, Early Man, Fifty Shades Freed, Heathers, Peter Rabbit

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

The 15:17 to Paris, Annihilation, Black Panther, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Early Man, Every Day, Fifty Shades Freed, The Greatest Showman, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Peter Rabbit, Phantom Thread, The Post, Samson, The Shape of Water

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

2018 Oscar Nominated Shorts, The 15:17 to Paris, Annihilation, Black Panther, Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Fifty Shades Freed, I, Tonya, Peter Rabbit, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Categories
Arts

Movie review: Black Panther unites a fantastic vision

In Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Black Panther, the superhero (Chadwick Boseman) battles an outside threat to the peace and harmony of his home nation Wakanda. Courtesy Disney/Marvel

With the release of Black Panther, it’s tempting to reflect on how far the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come in 10 years, and how it has essentially reinvented the film industry and become the standard bearer for quality mass entertainment in a genre that has rarely risen above straight-to-video viability. But that would take away from the singular achievement of Ryan Coogler and crew, who have found exciting and unexplored corners of the superhero movie template while fearlessly discarding societal baggage along the way.

Perhaps the first film of this scale to feature women and people of color in such prominent roles both in front of and behind the scenes, Black Panther delivers when it comes to the political and philosophical questions raised by its story. T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), the Black Panther, leads a secretive African nation of Wakanda, which hides its highly advanced civilization behind a façade of being a so-called “third world nation.” Wakandan society is based around the use of vibranium, an ultrarare metal that is concentrated in Wakanda thanks to a meteor strike in ancient times. What followed was the uniting of previously warring tribes and the harvesting of vibranium’s power to surpass the world technologically and socially; there is no poverty, no gender inequality, and conflicts are settled immediately with a shared respect for tradition.

Black Panther
PG-13, 140 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

We first met T’Challa in Captain America: Civil War, when he witnessed the death of his father, T’Chaka, the king of Wakanda, in a terrorist attack. Black Panther picks up in the aftermath and the transition of power to T’Challa, which comes at a time of political uncertainty. Though isolated, Wakanda has spies and political operatives all over the world, and some believe that the time has come to reveal the truth and lead the world the way it ought to be led. Though never colonized, Wakandans understand its destructive past and continued effects on black populations the world over. The appearance of a mysterious American named Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), who knows more about Wakanda than an outsider should, forces the question: Do they maintain the tradition of secrecy that has kept them safe and allowed their society to flourish, or do they reveal the truth, risking their way of life for the sake of outsiders who suffer from problems they know how to resolve?

Coogler’s vision of Wakanda is the stuff of great science fiction, a civilization representing our hopes and dreams yet tormented by the suffering just out of view. Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison (Mudbound) delivers one of the smoothest-looking superhero films since Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, while production designer Hannah Beachler presents a compelling vision of a futuristic society that came to be free of European imposition.

Black Panther brings the MCU back to Earth, literally and metaphorically, by forgoing the mysticism of Dr. Strange and the space saga building elsewhere. The Shakespearean royal intrigue is less about bloodline than it is about the world and values we inherit, and when the time comes to defy those whom we previously lionized, Boseman is effortlessly charismatic with a terrific glint in his eye, indicating there is more to T’Challa than a title and a bulletproof suit. Jordan brings the same physicality to Killmonger as he did to Creed, every move he makes carrying the weight of his past experiences and demanding the world get out of his way.

The supporting cast is pitch perfect, including Lupita Nyong’o, Daniel Kaluuya, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker and a scene-stealing turn by Andy Serkis. Coogler’s central question—if paradise can exist, should it?—makes this the most intelligent MCU film since Winter Soldier, and proof that blockbuster movies need not be lowest common denominator, that they can uplift while they entertain.

Playing this week

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

The 15:17 to Paris, Early Man, Fifty Shades Freed, The Greatest Showman, Peter Rabbit, Sleepless in Seattle, Winchester

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

The 15:17 to Paris, Darkest Hour, Early Man, Fifty Shades Freed, The Greatest Showman, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Mamil, Peter Rabbit, The Post, Samson, The Shape of Water

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

2018 Oscar Nominated Shorts, The 15:17 to Paris, Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Fifty Shades Freed, I, Tonya, Peter Rabbit, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Road Movie, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Categories
Arts

Movie review: Hostiles walks a new path in the Western genre

Christian Bale stars in Hostiles, a stark rendering of brutalities incurred during expansion into the American West. Courtesy Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures

War has been a part of the human experience for all of recorded history. But what happens when the things that drive us to it are no longer a factor? Resources, borders, languages, religions; if we found ourselves in a situation where none of those things truly mattered, would we still find reasons to fight, or would we stop? Taken one step further, imagine you are in the middle of a bitter, bloody fight, heavy losses on both sides, when the stated purpose of it all suddenly ceases to be, though no formal truce or ceasefire has been announced. Would you keep up the fight simply out of spite and habit, even though the other side is no longer your enemy?

That is the question asked by Hostiles, a revisionist Western by writer-director Scott Cooper (Black Mass, Crazy Heart) that takes a different view of the classic—and one-sided—cowboys and Indians story. Set in 1892, a time when the United States’ westward expansion has resulted in the extermination or displacement of most of the Native American population, though pockets of violent resistance remain. We follow Captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale), a decorated and brutal officer responsible for imprisoning or executing those who fight back. He is a disciplined military man who alleges to take no specific pleasure in his work, yet his desire to exact revenge against those who have killed his comrades is palpable.

Hostiles
R, 133 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Violet Crown Cinemas

Just before retirement, he is charged by President Benjamin Harrison with escorting Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), who is dying of cancer, from his jail cell in New Mexico to the Cheyenne ancestral lands in Montana. Blocker vehemently resists this mission, recalling battles with Yellow Hawk and those who died at the chief’s hands, though he begrudgingly accepts.

Along the way, they encounter a rogue band of Comanche, a woman (Rosamund Pike) who lost her family and home in a raid, greedy fur traders, and a condemned criminal (Ben Foster) who once fought alongside Blocker. All of these interactions contribute to an evolution in Blocker’s mentality, particularly the honor and dignity with which Yellow Hawk and his family conduct themselves.

It would have been easy for Cooper to turn this into a plague-on-both-your-houses morality play, but his understanding of the Old West is much more sophisticated than that. The realization that there is nothing driving Blocker and Yellow Hawk against one another gradually sets in, as does the reflection on their shared history.

Blocker is not wrong to recognize the fearsome power of Yellow Hawk, but he has always viewed his past actions through the lens of duty and retaliation. Once his mission is no longer to clear territory or prosecute criminals (whose actual guilt varies), that lens becomes thinner and thinner. This progression is assisted by Master Sergeant Thomas Metz (Rory Cochrane), who once fought for the Confederacy and has known nothing except war ever since and wants it all to end, with his honor intact if possible.

No one is ever fully absolved of his sins in Hostiles, but every lead character is offered an opportunity to rise above the worst of his deeds; how they act on this opportunity depends on the individual. It is politically sharp without ever being didactic, philosophical without forgetting the purpose of its narrative. The film is certainly too long and the script would benefit from some dialogue rewrites, but Hostiles may be the most intelligent Western in recent memory.

Playing this week

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

12 Strong, The Greatest Showman, I, Tonya, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Paddington 2, Phantom Thread, The Post, Spice World, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

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

12 Strong, Den of Thieves, Darkest Hour, Forever My Girl, The Greatest Showman, Insidious: The Last Key, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Lady Bird, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Paddington 2, The Post, Proud Mary, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

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

12 Strong, Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, The Final Year, I, Tonya, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Categories
Arts

Movie review: A dazzling finale for Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread

Phantom Thread has Oscar buzz in multiple categories including Daniel Day-Lewis’ so-announced final leading role and the original score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. Courtesy Focus Features

The world of Paul Thomas Anderson is one in which the mundane, everyday lives of its characters are already riveting before something positively insane happens. Look at his most recent films—had There Will Be Blood only been about the hunt for oil against a beautifully bleak landscape, you would still have a terrific character study framed within the classic American struggle between faith and industry…but then it happens. Inherent Vice has a story that is constantly spiraling out of control, but every second is remarkable for how it carries the filmic acid trip to a crescendo; even if nothing were wrapped up, it would have been a worthwhile experience.

With Phantom Thread, Anderson explores the life of a celebrated dressmaker in 1950s London whose genius is only matched by his obstinance in maintaining his routine, though he is seemingly unaware of his own predictability. If this were four hours of making dresses and being an especially snooty kind of grumpy at breakfast, it would already be one of the best films of the year. Better yet, it has PTA’s delicate yet firm direction, Jonny Greenwood’s score that is the best of his career, and utterly genius performances by Daniel Day-Lewis (who has said this is his final film), Lesley Manville and Vicky Krieps.

Phantom Thread
R, 130 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Violet Crown Cinemas

Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, whose dresses are worn by high society. He is very sensitive and fussy, with mood shifts that are as dependable as they are impenetrable. He cycles through girlfriends who are drawn in by his charm and elegance, yet cannot handle his most difficult aspects. His sister, Cyril (Manville), has functioned as his handler and business partner for so long that she is the only one able to tolerate and guide these episodes.

Reynolds meets Alma (Krieps), a waitress, while on holiday in the country and she comes to occupy a unique place in his life, somewhere between girlfriend, muse and assistant. However, as Reynolds rotates through his attitude cycle, he is only ever ready for one.

Where it goes from there is best left unsaid, and this is where discussing Phantom Thread becomes tricky. If there were a twist, we could find a way to dance around it to leave you guessing, but there is no twist in the classic sense. It would be more accurate to say that the film carries you to places you might not expect so naturally that you don’t notice. When it gets where it’s going, you realize you’ve been headed there the whole time, and in the part of your brain that would process the shock of a twist, you’ll find only delight. Spoiler warnings don’t exactly apply, but this film is best experienced as freshly as possible.

What can be said is that every aspect of the filmmaking is done with impeccable taste and humor. It is far funnier than you might expect; every laugh in the film is earned, and never at the expense of its own integrity. Day-Lewis is dazzling and Manville is a delight, but the revelation here is Krieps as Alma. She is largely unknown outside of Europe, but the interplay between her and Day-Lewis is astonishing, appearing effortless but almost certainly was anything but.

Though we can’t exactly tell you why, Phantom Thread is one of the best films of 2017. See it now so you’re not left wondering what all the fuss is about at the Oscars.

Playing this week

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

12 Strong, Disco Godfather, The Greatest Showman, I, Tonya, Paddington 2, The Post, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

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

12 Strong, Call Me By Your Name, Coco, Den of Thieves, The Commuter, Darkest Hour, The Greatest Showman, Insidious: The Last Key, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Paddington 2, The Post, Pitch Perfect 3, Proud Mary, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

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

12 Strong, Call Me By Your Name, The Commuter, Darkest Hour, I, Tonya, The Post, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Categories
Arts

Movie review: I, Tonya looks beyond mockery in the skating scandal

I, Tonya adds dimension to the twisted true story of the 1994 Olympic skating scandal that turned Tonya Harding into a punchline and destroyed her career. Courtesy Neon

Forget everything you think you knew about Tonya Harding. While you’re at it, forget everything you’ve seen about I, Tonya, a deep dive into the infamous assault on Nancy Kerrigan leading up to the figure skating competition in the 1994 Olympics. The film is being sold partially as a tabloidy trash-watch, a Lifetime movie with a bigger budget and higher-shelf stars, when in fact it is a testament to how perspective shapes our memory, and society’s collective role in harshly punishing one of skating’s most incredible talents out of our own classism and schadenfreude. No one is exactly the good guy in this story, but that does not make everyone the villain by default, which is what we—yes, all of us who were alive at the time—did to Harding.

I, Tonya
R, 121 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

The film centers around confessional- style interviews with Tonya (Margot Robbie), her husband, Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), and her mother, LaVona Fay Golden (Allison Janney). They speak directly to the camera as they explore their roles in what happened, not only on January 4, 1994, in Detroit but in the preceding years as well.

Tonya was a skating prodigy, blessed with natural talent and incredible athleticism from a young age, but cursed with a mother who considered slapping, denigration and harsh coaching as forms of motivation. She comes to see abuse as normal and not inconsistent with a loving relationship, and the physical and emotional intimidation continues with her husband, Jeff, whom she marries at a young age.

Jeff’s brand is especially toxic; LaVona’s assaults ended when Tonya moved out, but Jeff follows her to new locations when she leaves, threatens murder-suicide and brings her into his absurd world of small-time crooks who are legendary mafiosos in their own mind, particularly Tonya’s nominal bodyguard, Shawn Eckhardt. (Shawn’s confessional moments are particularly absurd, posturing himself as both a master criminal and a counter-terrorism expert, but stay for the credits and you will see this person actually exists.)

All of this sets the stage for how the events went down from different points of view, contrasting the accounts of those who lived it with those of us who only knew what we saw on television. If the characters are to be believed, Tonya’s actual role in the assault was minimal—this was mostly the brainchild of Shawn and Jeff acting without her knowledge —but her combativeness, rough-around-the-edges style and working-class upbringing made her the perfect antagonist to all-American Nancy. Sometimes memories differ and sometimes they line up, but as director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl, The Finest Hours) illustrates, perspective is everything.

About halfway through, Tonya looks straight at the camera and declares that we, the audience, were party to her reabuse every time she was made a punchline on late-night television. Until this point, there is an ironic, Scorsese-esque lightheartedness to even the harshest moments, perhaps serving to juxtapose Tonya’s then-acceptance of abuse with its actual brutality.

When Tonya makes her declaration, the giggling stops immediately, and the film’s message becomes clear—questioning what we think we know about a person in the public eye, and the disconnect we make when participating in pile-on humiliations. This was at the dawn of the 24-hour news cycle, and 23 years later, we still participate in collective mockery and shaming, only the net is much wider with social media; people become temporarily infamous every day, experiencing meme-ification for our enjoyment but potentially ruining their lives forever.

With great performances, a solid script and tight direction, I, Tonya is an intelligent movie that treats its subject matter with appropriate seriousness, while declaring and demonstrating its message, wiping away any ambiguity for those who might still want to laugh at the misfortune of others.

Playing this week

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

Blood and Black Lace, Ferdinand, The Greatest Showman, Molly’s Game, Pitch Perfect 3, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

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

All the Money in the World, Coco, Darkest Hour, Downsizing, Father Figures, Ferdinand, The Greatest Showman, Insidious: The Last Key, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Molly’s Game, Pitch Perfect 3, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Wonder

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

All the Money in the World, The Breadwinner, Darkest Hour, Downsizing, The Greatest Showman, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Molly’s Game, Pitch Perfect 3, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri