film

Laughing shock

Machismo and sanctioned violence of any kind get a sinister, satiric, roundhouse kick to the face in The Art of Self-Defense, the new dark comedy from writer-director Riley Stearns.

Meek accountant Casey (a totally on-point Jesse Eisenberg) is a nerdy wimp on all fronts. His coworkers can’t stand him, and French tourists mock him while he sits in a café, obliterating him with verbal shots in a foreign language. The exclamation point on his wimpy nerdiness is that he has just learned French via books on tape, so he understands all of the jabs being thrown his way due to his studiousness, and says nothing—nerdy wimp personified.

Casey runs out of dog food for his adorable dachshund and must take the long, lonely walk to the local grocer in the dark of night. A motorcyclist with a rider on back stops, asks if he has a gun, then rides away. On his way back from the store, that same motorcycle gang kicks the unholy shit out of him.

Seeking help, Casey visits a dojo where he encounters Sensei, played by veteran actor Allessandro Nivola in a star turn that might perhaps get him the sort of outstanding notices he’s always deserved. Sensei is at times helpful in Casey’s quest to become more self-assured, but Sensei also has an evil side. Be wary of the night classes, where he has no problem breaking a man’s arm in two to demonstrate one of his twisted rules for the martial arts. He’s so self- assured in his toxic masculinity that he knows such an act will produce no lawsuits.

Speaking of that toxic masculinity, it starts to spread in Casey’s system like venom after a manly snake bite during a manly man hike. He’s changing, almost like a robot now programmed to preach the Sensei’s doctrine of manly man behavior in all aspects of life, even down to denouncing the weak breed of dog sitting on his couch. Casey becomes so obsessed with karate that he has a yellow leather belt custom made so that he can wear his it all the time, even when he’s not kicking people in the face.

Imogen Poots contributes to the nastiness as Anna, a should-be black belt being subjugated by the misogynistic Sensei. Her showdown with fellow student Thomas (Steve Terada) shows that a destructive streak runs through her as well. Poots is her usual strong self here, at time as scary as anybody in the movie. David Zellner will break your heart as the friendly Henry, perhaps the only nice person in the whole film. And nice people in this movie are really out of place.

The humor in Stearn’s script is drier than burnt toast left out in the middle of the desert with a magnifying glass perched over it. The actors don’t get laughs by telling jokes. They more or less get the laughs by being so hilariously awful you can’t believe it, especially Nivola. Teeth getting knocked out of somebody’s face have never been this funny.

While Eisenberg can be a bit of a one-note performer, he plays that note well, and this is his most memorable character in many moons. Like his Zuckerberg in The Social Network, Casey is a total ass, a weaselly jerk that you love to hate. His progression from meek guy trying to make conversations in the break room at work to strangely masculine guy doing pushups in the break room at work is a lot of fun to watch.

The movie has some mystery that isn’t all that surprising, but you won’t care. The payoff is satisfying, not to mention totally insane. The Art of Self-Defense is the funniest film of the summer so far, and Nivola’s work within it counts as his career best. Ω

“i’m gonna tell you what my sensei told me before my first fight ... ‘Sweep the leg, Johnny.’”

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4Crawl Alligators get their due as nasty reptilian cinematic monsters with Crawl, the biggest surprise so far this summer when it comes to simply having a damn good time at the movies. It puts that other monster reptile movie, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, to shame. Southern Florida is getting walloped by a hurricane, and collegiate swimmer Haley (Kaya Scodelario of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) hasn’t heard from her dad (Barry Pepper) as the situation grows into a Category 5. Against foreboding radio warnings, Haley drives to her old family home in an attempt to locate her wayward poppa and put other family members’ minds at ease. With the family dog tagging along (of course), Haley ventures into the basement/crawlspace, where dad is unconscious with a suspicious wound. We’re not too far into the movie when the alligator baddies are introduced, and these toothy demons are taking the rising waters as an excuse to swim around and party on human flesh. From the first gator introduction to the final frame, Crawl aims to kick your butt with all out horror thrills, with plenty of hurricane terror mixed in for good measure. The vast majority of the film takes place in the house, and huge credit goes to director Alexandre Aja and his production team for making the basement a fun place for people to get rolled by an alligator. The alligators, mostly CGI, are terrific movie beasties, entirely convincing whether above or below water. Unlike Jaws, Aja doesn’t hide his monsters for most of the movie. They show up early on, and these bastards aren’t going away.

5Midsommar Two films in, and it’s safe to declare writer-director Ari Aster a master of horror. His Midsommar, the sophomore effort following his masterpiece Hereditary, is two and a half hours of nerve-fraying terror staged mostly in broad daylight, and it is a thing of demented beauty. Dani (dynamite Florence Pugh) and Christian (excellent Jack Reynor) are having relationship issues. Dani is super dependent on Christian during a major time of need, as her sister is constantly bombarding her with dark mood swing modern correspondence (translation: toxic emails). Then, tragedy strikes Dani’s family, and it’s time for Christian to step up for his part of this committed relationship. His solution? Take Dani along on what was supposed to be a bro trip to Sweden for a traditional family summer festival. He sort of asks her to go, she sort of says yes, and, before you know it, Dani is on a plane to Sweden with Christian and his friends. Shortly after arrival, Dani and friends ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms. The weirdness kicks in immediately, and the movie comes off as a really bad trip. Pugh, so good in this year’s Fighting with My Family, makes a grand statement with this movie. She’s an acting force that puts her in the upper echelon. She throws everything out on the table, and it all pays off in a performance that will surely be one of the year’s most memorable. One of the pleasures of Aster’s latest is that it’s obvious where things are going. It’s a mystery that puts a ton of clues right in front of your face in vividly visible fashion as the sun shines brightly. While the movie is a deliberately paced slow burn, it’s nearly two and a half hours pass by pretty quickly. Aster never loses the sense of dread, so while you could call his movie predictable in some ways, it’s not even close to being a letdown. It’s a movie that constantly delivers on the dread it promises in every frame.

3Spider-Man: Far from Home Tom Holland cements his status as best-ever Spider-Man with what amounts to the goofiest, but still major fun, Spider-Man movie yet. Jon Watts once again directs as Peter Parker looks to vacation with his friends after the events of Endgame, traveling to Europe and leaving his superhero responsibilities behind. When a strange breed of elemental monsters start striking the planet, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) interrupts Peter’s sojourn and gets him back into the swing of things. Jake Gyllenhaal gets into the shenanigans as Mysterio, a crime fighter from another dimension that slides right into the Tony Stark mentor role. Holland is good fun as Spidey, giving him a nice, youthful effervescence to go with his comic timing. Zendaya rules as MJ, Jon Favreau gets a lot more screen time—it’s a good thing!—as Happy, and the film doesn’t have nearly enough Marisa Tomei. It’s a bit lightheaded at times, but it’s the sort of breezy affair that the Marvel universe needed to get things revved up again. Hopefully, this is just the beginning for Holland and he has a bunch of these in his future, because he’s perfect for the role.

4Stranger Things 3 The third season is the best yet for the Duffer Brothers’ ’80s throwback series. Much of the action, including a final showdown with the Mind Flayer monster from the Upside Down, takes place in the Starcourt Mall, a mighty authentic wonder of art direction. (Sam Goody and The Ground Round make notable appearances.) The Russians now play a prominent part as Hopper (David Harbour) tries to protect his adopted daughter, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), from the Reds, demons and, most notoriously, her new boyfriend, Mike (Finn Wolfhard), who likes to kiss way too much. Steve (Joe Harrington) has his best season yet, working in an ice cream store with new cast member and major standout Maya Hawke (daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman) as his co-scooper. The special effects this time are top-notch, with nice nods to, once again, John Carpenter, Stephen King and The Blob. Harbour gets a little goofier in this round, and it’s a lot of fun watching his Hopper trying to date Joyce (Winona Ryder). The finale provides some major cliffhangers for the inevitable season four, which could actually wind up in a completely different series. It’s good to see the show make a comeback after a middling season 2; it’s a total blast, and it features a nice ode to The Neverending Story. (Streaming on Netflix.)

1Yesterday Danny Boyle (127 Hours, 28 Days Later) directs the straining saga of Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), a wannabe musician working part-time in a grocery store while also busking on street corners and playing small solo gigs with his trusty guitar. Jack’s burgeoning music career is managed by Ellie (Lily James), who is fostering a decades-old crush on Jack while getting him gigs at closing hotels and side tents at music festivals. Riding his bike home from a gig, the world suffers a solar flare and a worldwide power loss, and Jack gets hit by a bus, knocking out a couple of his teeth and sending him to the hospital. Post-accident, Ellie and some friends give Jack a new guitar and suggest he bust out a song for them. He goes with “Yesterday” by the Beatles, and the group is moved, as if hearing the song for the first time. That’s because they are hearing it for the first time. A quick Google check by Jack confirms the impossible: Somehow, someway, Jack now lives in a parallel world where John, Paul, George and Ringo never came together to make music. So what does Jack do? Why, he plagiarizes the entire Beatles catalog, of course. Rather than exploring the dark side of plagiarism in a comedic way, Boyle’s movie begs you to love Jack— and to sympathize with him while he tries to figure out his romantic interest in Ellie. Rather than crafting a film that seriously addresses a world without the Beatles, the movie becomes scared of itself and becomes nothing but a lame rom-com.