by BoB Grimm
b g ri m m @ne w s re v i e w . c o m
SHORT TAKES
4
“i’m sorry that when you picked me up for our date, my dad threw a shotgun shell at you and said, ‘it’s faster after 10 p.m.’”
Teenage quiet Every decade, there’s a movie I could deem “Best Movie About Growing Up” in that 10-year span. In the ’70s, it was The Bad News Bears. In the ’80s, The Breakfast Club. The ’90s, I’ll go with Rushmore. The 2000s, probably Superbad. Here in the ’10s, or whatever the hell you call them, we have a new frontrunner: Bo Burnham’s incredibly awesome writing and directing feature debut, Eighth Grade. This movie is a masterpiece in many ways, from its perfect cast to its crafty camerawork and immersive electronic score by Anna Meredith. But, most of all, this movie is what it is for its central performances from Elsie Fisher as Kayla and Josh Hamilton as her dad. Going into this movie, I didn’t realize Fisher was already a cinematic hero of mine. As it turns out, she’s the voice of Agnes from the first two Despicable Me movies. Agnes is the “It’s so fluffy I could die!” girl. So, Fisher, in my mind, is one of the greatest voice actresses of all time, because that moment right there is legendary in the world of animation. Hell, I have it as a ringtone. In Eighth Grade, Fisher shows her talents go well beyond voice, creating a character that captures the awkwardness, joy, sorrow and virtual hell of that last year before high school when everything is just about to shift into an all-new, freaky gear. Yes, the movie captures the significance of social media and its impact on adolescents, but so much of this film is timeless and universal. It’s a storytelling triumph. Kayla is an introvert. (She wins “Most Quiet” in the final days of junior high, much to her chagrin.) But she expresses herself well on her YouTube channel featuring tips for her peers. Few of those peers actually watch her videos, a sad thing considering they are actually quite insightful and might help some of her brattier classmates to be better people. To her horror, Kayla is invited to a popular girl’s birthday party, something akin in her mind
to a swim in the river Styx. It’s in this scene that Meredith’s score truly shines as Kayla takes that dreaded walk from the house to the pool, feeling alienated among dancing partygoers as the soundtrack pounds. It’s a great moment. While the film can certainly be categorized as funny, it tackles some of the nasty sides of a girl’s childhood head on, sometimes in scary fashion. As Kayla prepares for high school, she winds up in a situation or two that takes her from joyful elation to horrified in mere seconds. It’s heartbreaking, even terrifying to watch at times, but Burnham and Fisher expertly navigate the emotional waves. Veteran actor Hamilton—who kind of resembles Monty Python’s Michael Palin—is a revelation as the dad. He’s been around and doing good work for a long time. (Heck, I watched him as the first one to “eat” in Alive the night before seeing this.) He has a fireside chat with Fisher in this film that will have you squirting tears, especially if you are a dad with a little girl. That moment alone makes him an awards contender. I’m giving early nominations for Oscars—hey, it’s my column, and I have the power to do that in my alternate reality!—to both Fisher and Hamilton for what they do together in this movie. Fisher is a legit Best Actress contender and Hamilton for Best Supporting Actor. They make for an all-time great father-daughter character pairing, right up there with this summer’s also great Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons in Hearts Beat Loud. I love this movie. It had me laughing my ass off, wide-eyed with terror, crying like a baby, and smiling from ear to ear. Congratulations to Mr. Hamilton for getting the role of his career, and congrats to Fisher, who has a nice, long, beautiful career ahead of her if she wants it. Ω
Eighth Grade
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Ant Man and the Wasp
Ant-Man and the Wasp is a fun continuation of what returning director Peyton Reed started with Ant-Man three years ago. I whined a bit about the decent original, a movie that I wanted to be more subversive, having known that Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) was supposed to direct it. I’m over it. Reed kicks some Marvel ass, and his sequel is actually better than the first. After the well done but admittedly gloomy Avengers: Infinity War earlier this year, Ant-Man and the Wasp joins the likes of Thor: Ragnarok as a fun, slightly eccentric diversion from the serious Marvel shit. This one, for the most part, just wants to have a good time, and it succeeds. As the title implies, this is no longer a one-man show for the always entertaining Paul Rudd as Ant-Man. Evangeline Lilly returns as Hope Van Dyne and gets a bigger part of the limelight as the Wasp, who has decidedly better martial arts skills than professional burglar Scott Lang. The Wasp lets the kicks fly in an early scene with a crooked businessman (Walton Goggins), and she owns every moment she’s onscreen. It simply looks like a kick from The Wasp hurts more than one from Ant-Man. Well, that would make sense. She trained him. While the stakes aren’t quite as high as the usual Marvel fare—the entire universe isn’t at risk in this one—Reed and his crew make it more than compelling. They also make it very funny, thanks mostly to Rudd, ninja master of comic timing.
1
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
This is a big dummy dino joke of a movie. It’s nothing but a brainless, sloppy rehash of Steven Spielberg’s original Jurassic Park sequel, The Lost World, with a lame militaristic angle thrown in (again!). Yes, the dinosaurs look cool, and things get off to an awesome start. The prologue is scary, looks great, is well directed, and seems to be setting the tone for a film that recalls the grim tone of Michael Crichton’s original. Sadly, things degenerate badly after the title credits pop up. When a volcanic eruption on the isle of dinosaurs threatens their genetically engineered lives, Congress holds hearings on whether or not to save them. These hearings involve the return of the one and only Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm. Rather than having Goldblum around for his trademark psycho rambling and dark wit, his character just groans a couple of lines about how we shouldn’t have made the dinosaurs because it goes against nature and they have really big teeth and might bite you. Then he goes away. Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) return to the island to save Blue, the adorable velociraptor who wants you to pet him. Eventually, the action winds up in a large mansion in the states, where a nefarious businessman is keeping dinosaurs in the basement in order to auction them off in what amounts to a dinosaur fashion show for evil countries that want to weaponize them.
4
Mission: Impossible—Fallout
Tom Cruise is his maniac self in Mission: Impossible—Fallout, the sixth installment in his steady franchise and proof that the actor is spectacularly certifiable. The movie is one “Wow!” moment after another—and proof that the guy shows no signs of slowing down more than half way through his sixth decade. The movie stacks stunt after stunt featuring Cruise doing everything from jumping out of airplanes to scaling cliffs to piloting his own helicopter. It also features Cruise leaping from one rooftop to another and breaking his ankle against a building. That stunt shut down production for weeks but remains in the film in all its bone-breaking glory. Thankfully, the plot is the sort of fun, twisted story that has become the hallmark of this series, so you’ll be interested even when Cruise isn’t risking his life. Yes, there are a lot of “Hey, haven’t I seen that before?” moments—lots of masks being ripped off—but the labyrinthian hijinks still feel fresh overall. Henry Cavill ups his stock worth with a great performance as an agent sent along to shadow Cruise’s Ethan Hunt; Cavill finally gets a chance to really show what
he’s made of as an action star. Cruise is sick in the head for a myriad of reasons. Thankfully, one part of his sickness provides for movie stunts like the ones mentioned above. Cruise, in re-teaming with frequent Cruise director Christopher McQuarrie, now the only director to have helmed two M:I films, pulls off his most spectacular cinematic feats yet.
4
Sorry to Bother You
First-time writer-director Boots Riley, leader of musical group the Coup, creates one of the craziest movies you will see this—or any—year with Sorry to Bother You, a hilarious, nasty and even scary showcase for the talents of Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson. Stated simply, there are tons of “what the fuck?” moments in this movie. Cassius Green (Stanfield) is living in his uncle’s (Terry Crews) garage, looking for a better life and a job. His performance-artist girlfriend, Detroit (Thompson), encourages him to pursue whatever but not to lose his sense of self. After procuring a job at a telemarketing agency, Cassius finds himself striking out call after call. It’s here that Riley employs an ingenious visual trick, with Cassius physically showing up in the lives of the people he interrupts with his telemarketing nonsense, dropping his desk into one situation after another (people having sex, people mourning, etc.). This does a solid job of conveying the intrusiveness of that particular sales tactic. Thanks to a seasoned coworker (Danny Glover), Cassius is advised to use his white man voice (supplied by the great, and very white, David Cross). This brings immediate success and catapults Cassius up the ladder to the hallowed upstairs office where the “power callers” reside. The road to success involves him becoming more of a douchebag and, ultimately, a revolutionary.
1
Skyscraper
I’m all for giving Dwayne Johnson a chance to really act and emote. I think he can do more than just run around and raise that eyebrow. (I loved him in Pain & Gain.) But asking him to be solemn and humorless in a movie about a crazy skyscraper catching fire, Towering Inferno-style, is a massive mistake. This movie sucks the life out of Johnson as he plays Will, a high-dollar security man who lost a leg in his prior occupation. He takes a job in Hong Kong as head of security in the world’s tallest building. Shortly after getting the gig, an evil crime lord sets the building on fire, a building that is largely unoccupied save for its owner (Chin Haun), his entourage, some nasty European criminals, and Will’s wife (Neve Campbell) and children. Will, outside of the building, races to save his family’s life, which leads up to that already infamous, hilariously silly jump from a crane into the burning building. Why? Why take a serious approach to this subject matter? Why not have Johnson do his usual shtick and make this more fun?
4
Three Identical Strangers
A young man shows up for a first year at college and gets greeted as if he’s been there before. Eventually, someone figures out he’s the identical twin of a former student and brings about a reunion of the two siblings. It becomes a big story in the newspaper, and another young man sees the boys, and instantly notices a resemblance. Boom … the three identical brothers, all adopted by different families, find themselves as young adults. I lived in Long Island, New York, when the story broke about these guys—three young men who looked and acted exactly alike. They became a sensation, showing up on talk shows and even opening their own restaurant. Sadly, as Tim Wardle’s documentary shows, when the boys find out the real reason for their separation at birth, things take a sad and ultimately tragic turn. The documentary is set up in a way that, even if you remember this story, what happens will surprise you in the end. The now grown men sit for interviews, and the stories they tell are captivating, entertaining and maddening at the same time.
08.09.18
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