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Grandma

Lily Tomlin moves right to the top of my 2015 best actress list with Grandma, a film that should put her in strong contention for an Oscar nomination nearly 40 years after she got a nom for her first movie role in Nashville. As Elle Reid, a grandma who will kick your boyfriend in the dick rather than offer up tea and cookies, Tomlin delivers a performance that runs the gamut of emotions on top of being consistently funny. Her every line delivery feels organic and natural, as if the role was created and written with her in mind. Writer-director Paul Weitz, who worked with Tomlin a couple of years ago on Admission, did, in fact, write the role of Elle for Tomlin. It’s a role that the legendary comedian richly deserves. It’s nothing short of a total blast watching Tomlin let loose in the sort of spotlight role that has evaded her for too many years. Grandma is her best role since playing Ben Stiller’s druggie mom in Flirting with Disaster nearly 20 years ago. Elle breaks up with Olivia (Judy Greer), her younger girlfriend, and then Sage (Julia Garner), Elle’s granddaughter, shows up at the door with an age-old problem: She’s pregnant, she’s scheduled for an abortion in a few hours, and she’s flat broke. Elle, a wellknown writer, would seem a good candidate to have some cash on hand. Unfortunately, she has just used all of her cash to pay off credit card debts, and she cut up those credit cards to make some nice wind chimes for the front porch. The two jump in Elle’s old 1955 Dodge Royal (a car actually owned by Tomlin) and set out to find some quick cash before Sage’s appointment at the clinic. Their travels include a stop at a café for bad coffee. (There’s a good cameo from John Cho, a.k.a. the new Sulu, also a.k.a Harold from Harold & Kumar.) They eventually wind up at Sage’s boyfriend’s house, where said boyfriend (Nat

Wolff) gets a hockey stick to the nuts courtesy of Elle, who thinks her granddaughter can do better. Elle and Sage meet a lot of people along the way to the clinic, and each encounter gives Tomlin a chance to just blow up the screen. There’s nothing stereotypical about this grandmother, a potentially cantankerous by Bob Grimm woman with a good heart behind all of her sarcasm and staged coldness. bgrimm@ Coming out of nowhere with what might newsreview.com just be his best career performance is Sam Elliott as Karl, one of Elle’s past lovers. Elle 4 and Sage drop by his house in their quest for monetary assistance, and Karl’s reaction to their visit goes from pleasant to confusion to utter disgust. Elliott only has one scene in the film, but it’s so powerful, he could find himself in Oscar contention for best supporting actor. He’s that good. Past Oscar-winner Marcia Gay Harden arrives late in the film as Judy, Elle’s daughter and Sage’s mom, a career-driven woman who has a treadmill set up at her workstation. Harden puts another charge into a movie that is already high-octane, managing to find the humanity in a woman who’s a bit neglectful as a mom, but can perhaps come through in the clutch. Harden, like Tomlin, finds some stinging laughs in Weitz’s script, and it’s her best work in many years. The late Elizabeth Pena, in one of her last performances, makes a memorable appearance as a former friend of Elle’s who lowballs her on some first edition books she attempts to pawn. The film eventually wraps after a series of character resolutions that are completely satisfying and devoid of schmaltz. It’ll be a shocker if Tomlin doesn’t attend the Oscars with a shot at gold next year. Elle is the kind of role that wins awards, or at least earns you a seat next to Brangelina for the show. Tomlin, who has received an Emmy nomination for Grace and Frankie, a Netflix series co-starring her 9 to 5 partnerin-crime Jane Fonda, is back in top form with a vengeance. Ω

Honestly, she doesn't look much older than she did in the 1970s.

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3American Ultra Jesse Eisenberg, having himself a great summer with his career best performance in The End of the Tour, spreads his wings as a stoner with a secret in this sporadically fun film from director Nima Nourizadeh (Project X) and writer Max Landis (Chronicle). While enjoying a fine cup of soup, convenience store clerk Mike Howell (Eisenberg) notices some dudes monkeying with his car. Seconds later, he’s killing people with a spoon. Mike’s girlfriend Phoebe (Kristen Stewart, kicking mortal ass) is concerned about her beau, who has suddenly attained the ability to wipe out people with robot precision. I will not tell you why. You have to see the movie to find out why. The film has a great premise, and could’ve been a classic dark comedy. Unfortunately, it leans a little too heavy towards the dark side in its second half and goes light on the laughs. Eisenberg and Stewart rise above any of the tonal problems and story lags to make the movie something worth seeing. Stewart just gets better with every movie she shows up in. I think her Bella-Lag is wearing off for sure. Eisenberg plays his part like an ignorant, coiled rattlesnake, and he’s actually appropriately scary at times. Again, a fun film for most of its running time, but it could’ve been something really special.

3Black Mass Johnny Depp breaks his slump with a riveting performance as James “Whitey” Bulger, the notorious Boston crime lord who also acted as informant to the FBI while killing people and destroying lives. Depp goes under some heavy makeup, including some gross teeth, to play the infamous brother of William “Billy” Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch) and pal of FBI Agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton). The movie examines the strange dynamic that occurs between one of the worst criminals in Boston history, his high-ranking brother, and his meat-headed FBI friend. All three are very good in a film that, alas, feels like it was supposed to be a lot longer. (I suspect there’s a four-hour cut of this movie somewhere in director Scott Cooper’s basement.) Depp is scary good, yet his work feels strangely abbreviated, making him feel like more of a supporting player. Edgerton’s Connolly feels a little more well rounded, and this continues a fine year for the actor after The Gift. Peter Sarsgaard, Kevin Bacon and Dakota Johnson are all good in supporting roles. As mobster movies go, this is a good one, but it should’ve been a great one. If anything, it’s good to see Depp truly digging into something rather than acting like a goofball for a paycheck.

4Everest Director Baltasar Kormakur makes a grueling testament to the hell that is climbing the world’s tallest mountain in a production that demands to be seen on an IMAX screen. Jason Clarke does his best work since Zero Dark Thirty as Rob Hall, who co-led an ascent of Everest that resulted in the deaths of eight people in 1996. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Scott Fischer, another of the expedition’s leaders and legendary for his ability to scale the mountain without the aid of oxygen. Josh Brolin is on hand as Beck Weathers, the brash Texan who has perhaps bitten off a little more than he can chew, and John Hawkes chimes in as Doug Hansen, an ambitious climber returning after a failed ascent the year before. Yes, some of these real people have been written a tad stereotypically and thin, but you won’t care once the snow hits the mountain. Kormakur has crafted a movie that puts you right in the middle of things—genuinely uncomfortable things. The effects are very good, and there’s a nice attention to detail when it comes to the perils of climbing. Supporting cast also includes Emily Watson as the mother hen at base camp, Keira Knightley as the worried wife, and a solid Sam Worthington as climber Guy Cotter. This expedition is the one Jon Krakauer based his book on. He was on the expedition and he’s in the movie, played well by Michael Kelly.

3Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation Tom Cruise is back as Ethan Hunt. This time around, he’s hanging from airplanes, performing overly long tasks underwater, and riding a motorcycle again. Everything he does is in service of a convoluted plot involving some sort of evil syndicate of international agents. All sorts of nationalities are in on the evil, but the United Kingdom is especially nasty in this one, giving the whole thing a James Bond vibe. Simon Pegg’s role is increased this time out, his computer analyst guy becoming Hunt’s sidekick. Newcomer to the series Alec Baldwin gets a couple of good scenes as the CIA guy trying to eradicate Hunt’s agency. Rebecca Ferguson is impressive as an English agent who may or may not be a villain. Jeremy Renner is around to crack wise as he messes with Baldwin’s character, while Ving Rhames still gets to collect a paycheck. As for Emilio Estevez, sadly, he’s still dead after his elevator accident in the first film. This is my least favorite M:I yet, but it’s still a good film.

4Straight Outta Compton I watched the entirety of this thrilling new N.W.A. biopic, not knowing that Ice Cube’s son was playing Ice Cube. It’s not like the guy is named Ice Cube, Jr. He’s actually named O’Shea Jackson Jr., his dad’s birth name with a Jr. tacked on to the end. Jackson, Jr. is the No. 1 reason to see Compton, a blast of a film that chronicles the rise of rap group N.W.A., the eventual infighting, and the birth of some gigantic solo careers and record labels. Along with Jackson Jr., Jason Mitchell is a revelation as Eazy-E, and Corey Hawkins provides a nice anchor as Dr. Dre. The film works best when covering the early days and the creation of the legendary album that shares the movie’s title. It also spends plenty of time on the band’s management problems with Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti in a moderately distracting wig), and Eazy-E’s eventual death from AIDS. At a running time of 180 minutes, plenty of ground gets covered, and covered in a way that never gets boring. This is a solid cinematic time capsule that gives some deserved glory to an influential group that forever changed the landscape of hip-hop and brought much needed attention to a very troubled part of the world. It does the band, and the biopic genre in general, proud.

3Trainwreck The hilarious Amy Schumer gets her first starring vehicle with a screenplay she wrote under the directorial tutelage of Judd Apatow and costarring Bill Hader. I would say this movie signals the arrival of Schumer as a cinematic force to be reckoned with. She plays Amy, a magazine writer playing the field in New York and doing it rather sloppily. When she’s assigned a story covering a sports medicine doctor (Hader), she unexpectedly falls for the guy, which puts into flux her whole plan to just fool around with a lot of people. Schumer has crafted a pretty run-of-the-mill romantic comedy plotline with her screenplay, peppered with sometimes beautifully shocking profanity. She shows that she has the ability to nail the laughs, but she can also bring the emotional stuff, too. She has a funeral scene that is, dare I say, sublime. Hader is his always-terrific self as the shell-shocked boyfriend just trying to bring some stability into Amy’s life, and Colin Quinn is terrific as her retirement home-dwelling father. The story is a little weak and predictable, but Schumer and Hader are awesome together, so that makes this very much worthwhile.

2The Visit M. Night Shyamalan makes another bad movie, but this one actually shows a little bit of promise after a rancid run of films that includes The Village, The Happening, The Last Airbender and After Earth. Becca and Tyler (Olivia LeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) have never met their grandma. When Mom (Kathryn Hahn) decides to go on a cruise with her boyfriend, she leaves them with her parents, even though they have been estranged for many years. Becca and Tyler are game to meet their Nana, so they board a train to Pennsylvania and meet her and their granddad at the station. Things get weird fast on the farm. Nana (a delightfully strange Deanna Dunagan) is prone to sleep walking and projectile vomiting, sometimes naked, after 10:30 p.m., while Pop Pop (creepy Peter McRobbie) has a tendency to stick shotguns in his mouth and pile his used adult diapers in strange places. There are a couple of good scares, but Shyamalan (who wrote the script and directed) opts for the stupid found-footage gimmick, which does nothing but trip up his narrative. The film doesn’t need the found-footage angle, and it suffers for it. Still, Dunagan is a creepy movie monster, and Shyamalan shows that maybe he still has some creativity left in the tank. With him, it seems simpler is better, but still not that good.

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