Film

“Why didn’t i get Deborah Kerr?”

Life’s a gas

Swiss Army Man, like the dead corpse at its center, is a multipurpose entity. It can be a lot of different things to the viewer.

It can be a story about the wild things starvation and desperation can do to the brain, and the strange movies that play in your head when you are losing it. It can be a story about how a deranged stalker deals with the end of his life and afterlife. It can be a story about how funny it would be if somebody’s farts could propel him like a jet ski across the ocean and how funny it would be if his erect dick were a compass.

I’ve made my choice what this movie is about, but you could walk away from it thinking something completely different. That’s the beauty of a movie like Swiss Army Man. Will Be Blood, Ruby Sparks, Looper, Where the Wild

As Hank, Paul Dano gets yet another careerdefining, nutty role. He’s seemingly stranded on a desert island, at the end of his rope, literally. Just before killing himself, a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) washes up on the beach, and starts farting. It starts farting—a lot.

Before much time has passed, Hank is riding the corpse, dubbed Manny, across the ocean as its farts provide jet propulsion. Hank, with the arrival of his new friend, decides suicide is a drag, and takes Manny along with him on a trek through the forest to find civilization. Manny eventually starts having conversations with Hank, and they are both aided in the forest by Manny’s hard-on, which acts as a compass. Oh, did I already say that? Manny’s dick is a compass.

Sound weird? It is. It most assuredly is. It’s also strangely beautiful, deeper and richer than most movies with this many farts in it, and, depending upon the way you take the movie, super disturbing and sad.

It also gets some high points for special effects. Hank discovers multiple uses for Manny, including water dispenser, rocket launcher, and more. All of these moments are delivered convincingly by directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who also wrote the

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. It’s also a keen observation on our current digital age, with advances in phone and camera technology making it easier for people with problems to do stupid things in High Definition. On top of the stunning camerawork, Andy Hull and Robert McDowell of Manchester Orchestra provide one of the year’s best, most triumphant musical scores. Dano, who shined so brightly in last year’s Love & Mercy, continues to make the kind of daring role choices Nicolas Cage used to make. (Let’s hope he doesn’t end up in any remakes of The Wicker Man or Ghost Rider sequels.) He makes Hank very likeable, or despicable, again, based on the way you take this movie in. If you make a list of some of the more daring, eccentric films of the last 10 years (There Things Are), you will often find Dano involved. As for Radcliffe, this qualifies as Swiss Army Man a completely insane triumph. Other actors—most notably Terry Kiser in 12345 Weekend at Bernie’s—have played corpses being dragged around or present for a long stretch in a Director: Dan Kwan and movie. Radcliffe brings a dimension Daniel Scheinert to corpse acting that has, quite Starring: Paul Dano, honestly, never been seen before. Daniel Radcliffe It’s a marvel of physical acting that unconventionally marks the actor finally transcending his Harry Potter reputation and doing something beyond notable. What he does here deserves some sort of special Oscar—the Oscar for Playing Dead While Sort of Being Alive at Times and Delivering Massive Amounts of Body Humor in a Way That is Somehow Moving in Addition to Being Kind of Gross yet Awesome. Yeah, they probably won’t create that category, but let’s just hand over that award in this here movie review. Daniel, you deserve it. Swiss Army Man is destined for cult classic status. It’s also destined to hold some sort of record for corpse farting and corpse erections in a movie. While such things are mighty prominent, don’t let them distract you from the powerful story at the center. It’s a true mindbender. Ω

1The BFG And with this, the startling run of Steven Spielberg duds continues. After delivering two of the dullest movies of his career (Lincoln, BridgeofSpies) 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 IndianaJones.

3Central 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 LethalWeapon, GrossePointeBlank, JustFriendsand even a little SixteenCandles, all stitched together, albeit capably, by director Rawson Marshall Thurber (We’retheMillers). 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.

1Independence Day: Resurgence I enjoyed the goofy, funny, balls-out alien invasion movie that was IndependenceDay(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, IndependenceDay: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. 3 Finding Dory This sequel to FindingNemogoes 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 FindingNemowhat TheEmpireStrikesBack was to StarWars. It’s a darker, slightly scarier chapter, that still delivers on the heartwarming elements and laughs.

3Free State of Jones 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.

4The Neon Demon After the misstep that was OnlyGod 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 Driveremains 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.

3The Shallows 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.