By BoB GriMM
b g ri m m @ne w s re v i e w . c o m
fiLm CLiPS
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“Why didn’t i get Deborah Kerr?”
Life’s a gas
script and get credit for one of cinema’s most bizarre directing debuts. This one is up there when it comes to wonderfully strange directorial first timers, right alongside David Lynch and his Eraserhead. Swiss Army Man, like the dead corpse at its It’s also a keen observation on our current digital center, is a multipurpose entity. It can be a lot of age, with advances in phone and camera technology different things to the viewer. making it easier for people with problems to do stupid It can be a story about the wild things starvation things in High Definition. On top of the stunning and desperation can do to the brain, and the strange camerawork, Andy Hull and Robert McDowell of movies that play in your head when you are losing Manchester Orchestra provide one of the year’s best, it. It can be a story about how a deranged stalker most triumphant musical scores. deals with the end of his life and afterlife. It can be Dano, who shined so brightly in last year’s Love a story about how funny it would be if somebody’s & Mercy, continues to make the kind of daring role farts could propel him like a jet ski across the ocean choices Nicolas Cage used to make. (Let’s hope he and how funny it would be if his erect dick were a doesn’t end up in any remakes of The Wicker Man or compass. Ghost Rider sequels.) He makes Hank very likeable, I’ve made my choice what this movie is about, or despicable, again, based on the way you take this but you could walk away from it thinking something movie in. If you make a list of some of the more completely different. That’s the beauty of a movie like daring, eccentric films of the last 10 years (There Swiss Army Man. Will Be Blood, Ruby Sparks, Looper, Where the Wild As Hank, Paul Dano gets yet another careerThings Are), you will often find Dano involved. defining, nutty role. He’s seemAs for Radcliffe, this qualifies as ingly stranded on a desert island, a completely insane triumph. Other at the end of his rope, literally. Just actors—most notably Terry Kiser in before killing himself, a corpse Weekend at Bernie’s—have played (Daniel Radcliffe) washes up on corpses being dragged around the beach, and starts farting. It or present for a long stretch in a Director: Dan Kwan and starts farting—a lot. movie. Radcliffe brings a dimension Daniel Scheinert Before much time has passed, to corpse acting that has, quite Starring: Paul Dano, Hank is riding the corpse, dubbed honestly, never been seen before. Daniel Radcliffe Manny, across the ocean as its farts It’s a marvel of physical acting provide jet propulsion. Hank, with that unconventionally marks the the arrival of his new friend, decides actor finally transcending his Harry Potter reputation suicide is a drag, and takes Manny along with him on and doing something beyond notable. What he does a trek through the forest to find civilization. Manny here deserves some sort of special Oscar—the Oscar eventually starts having conversations with Hank, and for Playing Dead While Sort of Being Alive at Times they are both aided in the forest by Manny’s hard-on, and Delivering Massive Amounts of Body Humor in which acts as a compass. Oh, did I already say that? a Way That is Somehow Moving in Addition to Being Manny’s dick is a compass. Kind of Gross yet Awesome. Sound weird? It is. It most assuredly is. It’s also Yeah, they probably won’t create that category, strangely beautiful, deeper and richer than most but let’s just hand over that award in this here movie movies with this many farts in it, and, depending upon review. Daniel, you deserve it. the way you take the movie, super disturbing and sad. Swiss Army Man is destined for cult classic status. It also gets some high points for special effects. It’s also destined to hold some sort of record for Hank discovers multiple uses for Manny, including corpse farting and corpse erections in a movie. While water dispenser, rocket launcher, and more. All of such things are mighty prominent, don’t let them these moments are delivered convincingly by directors distract you from the powerful story at the center. It’s Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who also wrote the a true mindbender. Ω
Swiss Army Man
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07.07.16
The BFG
And with this, the startling run of Steven Spielberg duds continues. After delivering two of the dullest movies of his career (Lincoln, Bridge of Spies) Spielberg does the almost impossible; he makes Roald Dahl completely boring. Oscar-winner Mark Rylance delivers a motion-capture CGI performance as the central character, the Big Friendly Giant, that results in more yawns than smiles. His giant captures dreams and blows them into the sleeping residents of London. On one of his excursions, he kidnaps Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), and takes her to the land of giants, where most giants are meat eaters. Luckily, he’s a vegetarian, but he’s being bullied by a group of bad giants led by Jemaine Clement in the film’s most fun motion-capture performance. Despite a winning performance from Barnhill, a true star in the making, the film drags on and on, trying to get by on big special effects rather than an engaging story. Everything feels a little off for Spielberg. A visit to the Queen’s house, which should be bizarrely funny and subversive, winds up feeling awkward and uncomfortable. The whole movie seems to be playing it safe in Dahl land, as if it is E.T. in Dahl land, and it throws the tone completely off. It doesn’t help that John Williams rips off his own E.T. score. It never clicks. Nothing really works, yet again, for Spielberg, a director who seems to have momentarily lost his mojo, but if he makes stinkers for the rest of his life, he’s still one of the most amazing men to sit in the director’s chair. That said, here’s to hoping for a return to form with one of his next ventures, which allegedly include another crack at Indiana Jones.
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Central Intelligence
While it doesn’t boast much along the lines of originality, this winds up being an above average action/comedy buddy movie thanks to its stars, Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. The guys belong together. The plot feels like a bunch of parts from other movies cobbled together to make a whole. It has elements of Lethal Weapon, Grosse Pointe Blank, Just Friends and even a little Sixteen Candles, all stitched together, albeit capably, by director Rawson Marshall Thurber (We’re the Millers). It’s a well-oiled movie Frankenstein. Johnson and Hart are a strong screen duo, with Johnson actually scoring most of the laughs. Hart, who certainly chips in on the laughs front, actually delivers one of the more well rounded, warm performances of his career. He plays Calvin, the most popular guy in high school who grows up to be humdrum. Johnson plays Bob, a former obese guy who Calvin took pity on. Bob grows up to be a rogue CIA agent who looks like the Rock. The two wind up on an adventure that, of course, eventually leads to their high school reunion.
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Independence Day: Resurgence
I enjoyed the goofy, funny, balls-out alien invasion movie that was Independence Day (1996). The film was dumber than a stoned golden retriever in a Harvard calculus class, but Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum and, yes, Randy Quaid made the grandiose stupidity somewhat of a blast. Two decades after the original, Independence Day: Resurgence finally arrives, without Smith, who probably didn’t think the check was big enough. While the original was a stupid blast, the sequel is the equivalent of a nasty two-hour alien fart. Goldblum, Bill Pullman and Brent Spiner return for alien nonsense that is fast paced yet dull, and utterly void of laughs. It’s evident in the first 10 minutes that the movie will somehow manage to be lethargic even though the editing is frantic, and lots of things are exploding. Returning director Roland Emmerich is clearly not on his disaster-epic game. It’s a wasteful effort, where camp has been replaced by total ineptitude, and the performers look lost. And, let’s face it, Liam Hemsworth is no Will Smith. He’s a dud, the movie’s a dud, and the franchise needs to stop now.
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Finding Dory
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Free State of Jones
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The Neon Demon
3
The Shallows
This sequel to Finding Nemo goes a little darker than its predecessor. Ellen DeGeneres returns as Dory, the lovable fish with short-term memory loss. An event triggers a memory of family in her little brain, and she sets off on a journey to find her mom and dad (voiced by Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy). Pals Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence) join Dory on her quest, which culminates in an aquarium amusement park graced with voice announcements by the actual Sigourney Weaver. Dory winds up in a touch pond, in a bucket of dead fish, and swimming around in a lot of dark pipe work. In some ways, this is to Finding Nemo what The Empire Strikes Back was to Star Wars. It’s a darker, slightly scarier chapter, that still delivers on the heartwarming elements and laughs.
Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey), a Confederate army medic, decides he’s had enough and deserts. He returns to Mississippi where his people are being harassed by looting soldiers. He winds up in the swamps with escaped slaves where they form a pact, and eventually create a militia to rebel against the Confederacy. Based on a true story, director Gary Ross definitely delivers on the brutality and terrors of the Civil War. McConaughey is powerful in the central role, as is Mahershala Ali as Moses, leader of the escaped slaves. The film stumbles a bit in trying to do a too much. There are courtroom scenes 85 years after the Civil War’s where a relative of Knight is in a civil rights dispute. These scenes feel completely out of place, and they sort of muck up the film’s ending (things just come to an awkward stop). It’s too bad, because the movie winds up being good instead of great. The battle scenes are harrowing, the tensions are frightening and real, and there’s not a bad performance in the lot. Yet, because Ross has overstuffed the film, aspects like the rise of the KKK are almost glossed over. This project, with its dual storylines and many plot points, probably would’ve worked better as an extended series on HBO.
After the misstep that was Only God Forgives, director Nicolas Winding Refn gets things back on track with this, perhaps the most toxic and nasty film ever made about the modeling industry. Jesse (Elle Fanning) moves to L.A. to become a model. She’s underage, naïve and lost, but finds a helping hand in Ruby (Jena Malone), a makeup artist who knows what it’s like to be the new girl in town. As her career begins to take off, Jesse begins to gain confidence to a fault, and a couple of other models (Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee) develop sinister intentions to go with their envy of Jesse’s spectacular looks. Refn mesmerizes yet again—his Drive remains one of the best films of the past decade—combining stunning visuals and an excellent soundtrack to go with the outstanding performances from Fanning, Malone, Heathcote and Lee. Keanu Reeves has a small but memorable role as a sleazy hotel manager, while Alessandro Nivola is most memorable as a fashion designer who must have Jesse for his show. Refn is working in very dark, cynical satire here, with elements of horror mixed in for good measure.
Blake Lively, whose best role until now was the secretary in that SNL “Potato Chip” sketch, is terrific as Nancy, a medical school dropout who goes to a secret beach in Mexico in the wake of her mother’s death. She sets out for a day of surfing and reflection in what she thinks is a completely solitary setting (with the exception of a couple of other friendly surfers). Turns out, there’s a big-assed Great White shark, and this is its territory, and no trespassers are allowed, even if they are as pretty as Blake Lively. As shark movies go, this is a good one, with decent CGI effects, a couple of tense shark attacks, and a constant level of terror that never lets up. The only thing really keeping this from being “very good” rather than “nice and good” is the ending, which made me laugh a laugh I shouldn’t have laughed.
