by BoB Grimm
b g ri m m @ne w s re v i e w . c o m
SHORT TAKES
2
A Monster Calls
This is a well-meaning movie with good heart, but it was better when it was called The Iron Giant. J.A. Bayona’s film of the Patrick Ness book tells the tale of Conor (Lewis MacDougall), a young boy whose mother (Felicity Jones) is dying. Conor is, understandably, having issues, not just with the impending loss of his mother, but bullies at school and a domineering grandma (Sigourney Weaver) he doesn’t quite understand. When things come to a boil, a tree monster (voice of Liam Neeson) shows up to offer guidance and tough love. MacDougall gives a respectable performance, as do Jones and Weaver, but the film never really works as a whole. The relationship between the boy and the imaginative monster never makes much sense, so the human interactions wind up being far more interesting. Problem is, this movie is called A Monster Calls, and much of the film leans on the effectiveness of the monster scenes.
“Lord, Lord, why hast thou forsaken our script?”
Lost temptation
by what amounts to the film’s Judas, a guide named Kichijiro (Yosuke Kubozuka). Kichijiro screws Rodrigues over repeatedly, constantly asking for confession, even getting paid in silver at one point. His actions almost feel like a running gag. The film does get better in its final act, when Rodrigues finally crosses paths with Ferreira. Neeson Martin Scorsese’s Silence, or, How to Torture a is so good in his scenes, you’ll wish he had shown Jesuit Priest Until He Says, “Ah, Screw It!” and up a little sooner. As for Garfield, for every scene Looks for Another Gig, is the auteur’s most inconsiswhere he’s powerful, there are others where he’s tent offering since his misguided and sloppy Casino. overwrought and feels slightly miscast. Driver is It’s clear that Scorsese has poured his heart into excellent, and the film might’ve benefited from him the passion project, which makes it all the more sad and Garfield switching roles. that it doesn’t live up to his usual standard. The movie isn’t without the typically great The movie is far too long, and repetitive to the Scorsese flourishes. A scene where three men are tied point where it becomes laughable rather than having to crosses in the ocean, continuously being pummeled the desired effect of moving the viewer. Based on the by waves, is an absolute marvel. Rodrigues’ interrogaShusaku Endo book, and a project Scorsese had been tion at the hands of an evil feudal Samurai governor trying to mount since the ’80s, it’s (a creepy Issey Ogata) is mesmernothing but a colossal waste of a izing. Had Scorsese and longtime great director’s time. editor Thelma Schoonmaker Bored to death is not what I taken a pair of scissors to the expect to be during a Scorsese film and brought it in under two offering, but that’s what I was hours, it might’ve done the movie Director: Martin Scorsese watching Silence. Two Jesuit a big favor. Starring: Andrew Garfield, priests, Rodrigues and Garrpe Let me take this moment to Adam Driver, Liam Neeson (Andrew Garfield and Adam point out that I will sit through a Driver), head to Japan in search of five-hour movie if it is well done. their mentor priest, Ferreira (Liam Neeson). Ferreira Let me also point out that many movies that are 90 went missing during a prior mission years ago and is minutes long feel interminable and stretched out. rumored to have gone into hiding as a civilian with Praise to the sound crew and camera work—as with a wife. The whole setup feels a bit like Apocalypse all Scorsese films, they are exemplary. Now, minus the excitement, capable storytelling and Scorsese grapples with faith and religion often fat Brando. in his films, most notably with the great The Last After the two priests split up on the search, the Temptation of Christ and the very good Kundun. film basically becomes a series of scenes where Silence feels like a film with no limits set upon itself. Rodrigues witnesses atrocities against Japanese Coupled with Steven Spielberg’s The BFG, Christians being tortured by samurai trying to Silence represents the second movie of 2016 by one of cleanse the country of Christianity. He watches men my very favorite directors to disappoint. (Silence is a and women getting drowned, hung upside down, 2016 release. It had a limited December run to qualify beheaded, etc. To Scorsese’s credit, the violence, for awards.) It’s just another reason to hate 2016. while horrifying, is never gratuitous. With all the bad things I could say about Silence, Garfield’s character is essentially a Christ I could also say good ones. I didn’t like the movie figure reminiscent of Willem DaFoe in The Last overall, but I feel like I should have and could have. Temptation of Christ. He’s being followed around Scorsese needed to rein himself in on this one. Ω
Silence
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4
Hidden Figures
Katherine Johnson was part of a segregated division at NASA in the ’50s, a wing of mathematicians who did the work that computers do today. Hidden Figures depicts the humiliation she and two other historical African-American figures, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, went through while solving equations that helped put men safely into space. The women had to put up with a lot of racist bullshit, and the film shows their hardships, albeit in PG fashion. Taraji P. Henson plays Johnson, the “smart one” astronaut John Glenn personally demanded check the coordinates before his historical flight launched. Octavia Spencer is her usual great self as Vaughan, doing the work of a supervisor without the title and curious about that new IBM thing they just installed down the hall. Vaughan would become crucial to the implementation of computers at NASA, as well as being the agency’s first African-American supervisor. As Jackson, NASA’s first female African-American aeronautical engineer, singer Janelle Monae is so good, it’s easy to forget that this is just her second movie role. As a composite, fictional character named Al Harrison, Kevin Costner does some of his best acting in years.
5
La La Land
This is an all new, original musical from director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) that’s surprisingly low on melodrama while full of vibrancy, beautiful tunes, outstanding set pieces and a stunning sense of realism for a movie where the characters bust out singing. It’s the best original movie musical ever made. The story follows wannabe actress Mia (Emma Stone) and jazz composer Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) as they try to make it in crazy Los Angeles. They meet, they don’t like each other much at first, but then they fall in love, which provides Chazelle and his performers ample opportunities for musical numbers that surprise at every turn. This solidifies Gosling as one of the best actors of his generation. He can wow you with insightful indies and carry big-budget blockbusters. Now, with La La Land, he takes his game to a new level. He proves he can pretty much do anything when it comes to movie characters. He can sing and dance with the best of them. Stone doesn’t just make her mark with a beautiful voice and expert footwork—she embodies the character with the honest and almost tragic drive to “make it” in the business.
2
Live By Night
Director Ben Affleck’s latest is a period piece/costume drama that looks like a lot of work went into it but never feels like a cohesive picture. Affleck also stars as Joe Coughlin, one of those gangsters you just gotta love, fighting the gangster fight during Prohibition in sunny Florida. Joe rises to the top of the gangster field, despite being the son of a cop (Brendan Gleeson), and despite basically being an all-around good guy. The problem here is that Affleck fails to give his central character a true identity and emotional toolbox. The character feels stilted, and the movie around him feels like a costume party. It’s as if Affleck
is afraid to make him the truly bad guy he should be. The fedoras and sweet suits all look good, but it’s in the service of a story that has been told before in far more powerful fashion. Sienna Miller is good as Joe’s early love, and Elle Fanning, who had a great year with The Neon Demon and 20th Century Women, is also good as a disgraced actress who finds a new career in preaching. Again, the movie looks good, and Affleck’s performance is OK, but the story feels like a rehash of every gangster movie ever made.
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Passengers
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Patriots Day
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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Two of Hollywood’s biggest, most lovable stars labor away in the pretty but dumb Passengers, a movie that doesn’t have the guts to be as ugly as it should be. Chris Pratt plays Jim Preston, a mechanic dedicated to starting a life on a distant planet. He and 5,000 other passengers are in suspended animation aboard a ship taking a 125-year journey. That ship has an unfortunate encounter with a meteor shower, and Jim’s sleeping pod awakens him … with 90 years to go on the trip. What to do, what to do, what to do? Jim gets it into his mind to do a very bad thing, and that’s when Jennifer Lawrence’s character comes into play. The movie is good-looking for sure, and I really liked the design of the ship. That’s essentially what’s keeping Passengers from getting my lowest rating. That, and the fact that Jennifer Lawrence really can act, even when she’s in a junk-food movie. Passengers won’t frustrate you so much for what it is, as for what it could have been. Imagine if somebody like Stanley Kubrick got ahold of this premise. Oh man, that would’ve been a movie to be reckoned with. This could’ve been one of the sickest science fiction epics since Alien.
The latest collaboration between director Peter Berg and actor Mark Wahlberg, Patriots Day, stands as not only a valuable tribute to the victims and heroes of the Boston Marathon bombings, but a solid, meaningful, gritty look at what it took to take down the terrorist Tsarnaev brothers. Wahlberg plays Sgt. Tommy Saunders, another one of those fictional composite characters that often show up in historical dramas. You may forgive this kind of artistic license, because the goal of Patriots Day is to take you through the entire drama, from the bombing itself, through to the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff) inside a boat in somebody’s backyard. There probably wasn’t a single person who was at all of the events leading to the ultimate capture of the final living suspect in the bombings. It’s best to just view the Wahlberg character as a partial representation of the heroism and diligence that led to that arrest. This is the second of two Berg/Wahlberg collaborations in 2016, and it’s a good one. The film is about heroes, the heroes who worked to find the perpetrators, and the selfless, persevering heroes who were standing close to an explosive device when it went off.
There was a quick little moment in the very first Star Wars (now known as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) where a character mentions rebels possibly obtaining vulnerability secrets regarding the Death Star. That group of people actually gets their own movie in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, a Star Wars spinoff that’s technically another prequel. In fact, it tells a story that leads right up to where A New Hope begins. It’s also a little different from your typical Star Wars movie in that it doesn’t mainly deal with the Skywalker saga—although a couple of them make notable appearances—and doesn’t prominently feature the John Williams score (although that makes some appearances, as well). Director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) goes for something a little different here, a tonal shift that reminds of the big change The Empire Strikes Back brought to the saga. Felicity Jones is terrific as Jyn, a woman who finds herself with strange ties to the Death Star, and becomes part of the effort to destroy it.
01.19.17
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RN&R
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