by BoB Grimm
b g ri m m @ne w s re v i e w . c o m
SHORT TAKES
4
20th Century Women
Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig and Billy Crudup shine in Mike Mills’ ode to his unusual mother, who raised him in the late ’70s and tried to like punk music as much as she could. Bening is terrific as Dorothea, perhaps the best work of her career. She represents the late ’70s woman, still cool but perhaps slowing down a bit due to too many cigarettes and a general disillusionment with certain aspects of the changing culture. Mills uses Dorothea as a sort of narrator from the future who talks about the events of the film while observing from a perch in years ahead. It’s an interesting technique, and Bening’s performance is a career milestone. Gerwig and Fanning are great as two different women who hang around Dorothea’s apartment, both with their own interesting subplots. Cruddup chimes in capably as a local handyman who will sleep with you if you ask him to. I love the way this film uses music on its soundtrack, from Talking Heads to the Buzzcocks.
“So, this brings a whole new meaning to ‘23 and me,’ right?”
Go crazy
memorable dance scene, a welcomed funny break in the movie. McAvoy even saves what could have been a hokey finale moment by fully committing to some The key to M. Night Shyamalan’s recent success Shyamalan lines that represent the screenwriter at his seems to be putting a severe limit on the amount of most obvious. McAvoy delivers his final major monomoney he’s allowed to throw around. logue with such ferocious and fully invested energy After working with sizable budgets on big we just buy into it. projects like The Last Airbender, After Earth, The In short, McAvoy’s work here should go into Happening, Lady in the Water and The Village—all the annals of great psycho performances alongside of which sucked major ass—Shyamalan almost made Anthony Perkins in Psycho, Jack Nicholson in The a good movie in 2015 with The Visit. Shining, and Kathy Bates in Misery. Now, gosh darn it, he’s finally made his first good The last act of the movie is truly scary, and movie since Signs (2002) with Split, a down-to-theShyamalan takes things into strange monster movie basics, creepy thriller propelled by excellent perforterritory. No more secrets getting given away in this mances from James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy. review. Go see the movie, and have some fun with The film reminds us that Shyamalan can be quite the it. Well, fun might not be the right word. It’s pretty capable director and writer when he isn’t getting too freaking bleak. carried away. Quickly becoming a new kind Taylor-Joy, so good in last of “scream queen,” Taylor-Joy year’s horror masterpiece The Witch, has now anchored two masterful plays Casey, an introverted, outcast horror films within a year of each high school student attending a other. She has an amazing array birthday party for Claire (Haley Lu of expressions, and Shyamalan Richardson) only because she got a Director: M. Night Shyamalan takes advantage of this. Rather “mercy invite.” Casey’s stuck after Starring: James McAvoy, than shrieking her face off as Anya Taylor-Joy the party, so Claire’s dad offers her the terrorized often do in horror and another friend, Marcia (Jessica movies, Taylor-Joy is a restrained, Sula), a ride home. That ride never conflicted kind of horrified. What she lacks in gets out of the parking lot because a strange, angry volume she makes up in major intensity. man (McAvoy) winds up in the driver’s seat and Following up her terrific performance in The Edge sprays the girls with a chemical. They wake up of Seventeen, a solid Richardson takes the normally together in a prison cell. vain “popular” character in horror films, and gives her It’s no big reveal to let you know that McAvoy’s a lot of depth and smarts. Betty Buckley does equally character is suffering from a form of split personality well as a therapist—basically this film’s Dr. Loomis, disorder. In addition to the man who kidnaps them, although less crazed—trying to help the McAvoy he’s a stately, mannered woman, a 9-year-old child characters handle their afflictions. Shyamalan himself and, well, a few others. One of those other personshows up for a fun cameo, and stick around for the alities plays a big part in taking the film into other credits, which include a pretty powerful Easter egg. realms beyond psychological thriller. So, given the current trajectory, Shyamalan could McAvoy is bonechillingly good here, seamlessly be one or two films away from giving us another segueing into each personality, and giving each one masterpiece along the lines of Signs. Split is one of his an original vocal and physical spin. In ways, this best, and proof that we weren’t all crazy back in the plays out like a modern day Psycho, with a few day when we figured he could do great things behind more personalities thrown in and minus the shower a camera. Ω scene. While in the Hedwig persona, McAvoy has a
Split
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3
The Founder
Michael Keaton is flat-out great as Ray Kroc, the sorta-kinda founder of McDonald’s. Director John Lee Hancock’s film tells the story from when Kroc was selling milk shake mixers door-to-door up through his wife-stealing days as the head of the McDonald’s corporation. Hancock’s movie desperately wants you to like Kroc, but maybe we shouldn’t? After all, he swept in and took the name of McDonald’s from the McDonald brothers (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch), effectively cutting them out of most profits and leaving them in his dust. The film is at its best when it is in old-time, Americana mode. It’s a beautiful looking movie that captures the essence of those old timey fast food joints that replaced the traditional drive-in diners. It slows down a bit and gets a little muddled when it tries to depict Kroc as some sort of commerce hero. I suppose if they went into details about how his co-creating McDonald’s has contributed to worldwide obesity and environmental concerns, McDonald’s themselves would’ve mounted up the lawyers and put the kibosh on the whole thing. Offerman is great as the well-meaning, high-standards McDonald brother who regrets the day he met Kroc.
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
4
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
2
Silence
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.
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.
Martin Scorsese’s Silence, or, How to Torture a Jesuit Priest Until He Says, “Ah, Screw It!” and Looks for Another Gig, is the auteur’s most inconsistent offering since his misguided and sloppy Casino. It’s clear that Scorsese has poured his heart into the passion project, which makes it all the more sad that it doesn’t live up to his usual standard. The movie is far too long, and repetitive to the point where it becomes laughable rather than having the desired effect of moving the viewer. Based on the Shusaku Endo book, and a project Scorsese had been trying to mount since the ’80s, it’s nothing but a colossal waste of a great director’s time. Bored to death is not what I expect to be during a Scorsese offering, but that’s what I was watching Silence. Two Jesuit priests, Rodrigues and Garrpe (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver), head to Japan in search of their mentor priest, Ferreira (Liam Neeson). Ferreira went missing during a prior mission years ago and is rumored to have gone into hiding as a civilian with a wife. The whole setup feels a bit like Apocalypse Now, minus the excitement, capable storytelling and fat Brando. There’s a lot of violence as Japanese Christians and the priests are tortured for their beliefs. There’s also a lot of snoring as the proceedings carry on way too long.
