Film

Chew the scenery

Triple 9

God damn it, when is somebody going to ban gum chewing in movies? I’m a card-carrying, unabashed Keanu Reeves fan, but he started the whole “Gum-Chewing Action Star” thing with Speed, and it’s become such a visually distracting, cheap acting trick. Knock it off, Hollywood actors! You will never surpass the gum-chewing prowess by immortalized by Reeves in Speed. He is, Bob Grimm always has been, and shall remain the gumbgrimm@ chewing action guy king! newsreview.com The culprit this time out is Casey Affleck in Triple 9, the latest from super 3 reliable director John Hillcoat. Affleck plays Chris, a new cop in a fleet of bad cops who distinguishes himself by, you guessed it, chewing gum a lot. He doesn’t just chew that shit, either. Oh, no. He cracks it, he pops it, he moves it all over his mouth and lets the white wad stick out of the corners, and he makes sure it gets in the way of nearly every line delivery and nearly every shot in the movie. If I should ever get to helm an action cop movie, what with my budding film career and all, I’m going for the gum-chewing title. I will make sure to have my action cop guy constantly unwrapping pieces of gum and shoving them into his pie hole. I won’t stop at Wrigley’s either. Nope, I’ll get some Big Red in there, adding to the color palette. We’ll get some Bubble Yum and Bazooka for bigger, longer lasting bubbles. It’s going to make my action star so freaking tough looking. OK, so the actual movie is pretty good. Like the usual Hillcoat movies (The Road,

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The Proposition, Lawless), it’s a dark film with a bleak outlook on humanity. Nobody is happy in this flick, and they are going to let you know that for sure. Only this time, there’s a whole lot of gum chewing and some fast moving, impressive action scenes to go with all of the brooding.

All right, back on point. Affleck’s Chris finds himself rolling with Marcus (Anthony Mackie, a.k.a. the Falcon!), a bad cop running with a crew doing heists for a crime kingpin (Kate Winslet, a.k.a. Rose, sporting yet another weird accent). That crew includes Russell (Norman Reedus, a.k.a. Daryl!), his brother Gabe (Aaron Paul, a.k.a. Jesse Pinkman!), explosives expert Michael (Chiwetel Ejiofor, a.k.a. the guy from 12 Years a Slave!), and dirty cop Franco (Clifton Collins Jr., a.k.a. the guy who played the murderer in Capote and one of the Vegan Police in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World!).

The heists themselves are nicely staged, reminiscent of the epic Michael Mann heists in Heat. They make up for the fact that the plot isn’t much. In fact, it’s almost non-existent. Still, that’s a pretty impressive acting crew running around shooting at each other, and Hillcoat makes it all look good.

Affleck isn’t the only one resorting to gimmickry in this film. Woody Harrelson (a.k.a. Woody!) wears some pretty wacky teeth and smokes a lot of dope as Jeffrey, Chris’s detective brother. Or, at least, I think they are fake teeth. Woody, if those are your actual teeth, I’m totally sorry, bro. As for the weed, that stuff was probably authentic. I guess my harping on the gimmickry of gum chewing is to point out that Affleck doesn’t need that kind of bullshit. He’s a commanding actor, and his characterization of Chris is impressive and memorable enough without all the popping and cracking. It doesn’t make his character any tougher or hard-nosed. It just makes him sloppy. And it also left me concerned that he might get lockjaw.

The cast does well for the most part, although Paul is saddled with a dopey haircut (another gimmick), and Reedus is sorely lacking a crossbow (a gimmick avoided). There’s a bit involving a Ejiofor and a giftwrapped package that you will see coming a mile away, but Ejiofor sells it fine.

Triple 9 is a decent enough action thriller, and it should’ve been sponsored by Refresh Triple Mint Chiclets bubble gum! I do see the irony of constantly leaning on the gimmickry of gum chewing in a movie as a writing gimmick in and of itself. I’ll stop now. Ω

4Deadpool After a false start with the character of Wade Wilson in 2009’s uneven yet unjustly maligned X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds gets another chance at superhero—albeit unorthodox superhero—stardom. This time he scores big in this twisted film from first time director Tim Miller. The movie establishes its weirdness with scathing opening credits that poke fun at Reynolds’s stint as Green Lantern. It then becomes a consistently funny tragicomedy involving Wade, a mercenary who comes down with terminal cancer, dimming the lights on his future with girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). He submits himself to an experiment that leaves him disfigured yet superhuman, bent on revenge against the criminal who made him this way. Reynolds finally gets a really good movie to match his charms, and Deadpool gets the nasty film the character beckons for. The film gets an R-rating for many reasons, and there really was no other way to make a Deadpool film. It needed to be depraved, and it is. T.J. Miller provides nice comic support as a weary bar owner, and a couple of X-Men show up in a hilarious way. A sequel is already in the works, and this is a very good thing.

4Hail, Caesar! The latest from the Coen brothers follows a day in the life of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a studio enforcer at Capitol Pictures in the 1950s tasked with keeping stars out of trouble and assuring moving pictures stay on schedule. In the middle of filming a biblical epic, huge star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) is kidnapped by Hollywood communists, who demand ransom money. Mannix must figure out how to get his star back while dodging two gossip columnists (both played by Tilda Swinton in increasingly hilarious wardrobe), navigating the latest scandal of studio star, DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson) and comforting hot director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes), who has had a marblemouthed stunt actor named Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) forced into his romantic comedy. The plot is paper thin, but it does give the Coens a chance to do their quick interpretations of old timey movie Westerns, screwball comedies, Esther Williams pool epics, overblown Bible movies, Gene Kelly musicals, and more. The whole thing is a blast but, admittedly, will probably go over best with diehard Coen fans.

3Kung Fu Panda 3 Jack Black returns as the voice of Po in this decent second sequel in the saga of the Panda warrior and his warrior cronies. This time out, Po encounters his long lost dad, Li (the warm growl of Bryan Cranston), who takes him to the land of the pandas so that he can learn the powers of his chi. Such an advancement in his warrior techniques is absolutely essential for the lands are being threatened by a spirit realm warrior named Kai (J.K. Simmons voicing what I think is some sort of super muscular yak-type thing). The stuff with Po and Li is cute, with the added element of Po’s adopted dad (James Hong) being a little jealous. There’s a cool psychedelic look at times, and the animated series continues to impress on artistic levels. The story feels a bit like a repeat of the previous two. That’s OK, but doesn’t necessarily place this chapter high on the originality scale.

4The Last Man on the Moon You hear a lot about the first landing on the moon with Neil Armstrong, but surprisingly little about Apollo 17, the last manned flight to the moon and Gene Cernan, the last man to set foot on the lunar surface. This is the documentary the man deserves, replete with his total cooperation. Cernan sits down for extensive interviews, taking you through his entire experience from the NASA training program, until that legendary walk. There’s plenty of amazing footage and photos, including Cernan’s failed spacewalk before Apollo 17, and his driving the lunar lander on the moonscape. It’s incredible stuff. Before we had our smart phones and internet, there was a guy up there scratching his daughter’s initials into the moon’s surface. This film touches upon plenty, including Cernan’s marital woes and personal struggles as a product of the space program. What this man overcame to eventually take that moonwalk is mind-boggling, and the troubles he experienced afterward totally make sense. There’s an incredible moment near the film’s end when Cernan stands by the actual capsule where it rests today and ponders the mannequin now sitting in his seat. He wonders about the notion of whether or not anybody will ever visit the moon again and actually gets a little frustrated. Then the movie simply cuts to Cernan fishing with his dog, trying to relax. He has most certainly earned many a fishing trip. This guy was, is, and shall be a total badass. (Available for rent on iTunes, Amazon.com and On Demand during a limited theatrical run.)

5The Revenant For the second year in a row, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has delivered the year’s best film. The best movie of 2015 is The Revenant, an eye-popping Western thriller that gives Leonardo DiCaprio, the winner of the Golden Globe for Best Actor, the role that should finally score him that first Oscar. DiCaprio gives it everything he’s got as Hugh Glass, a scout working with fur traders on the American frontier in the early nineteenth century. Glass, while doing his job, gets a little too close to a couple of bear cubs, and Mama Grizzly is not all too happy about such an occurrence. What follows is a lengthy and vicious bear attack where Glass tangles with the nasty mother not once, but twice. Inarritu, DiCaprio and some amazing visual technicians put you in the middle of that bear attack, minus the searing pain of actually having a bear’s claws and teeth rip through your flesh. Trust me when I tell you, it’s an unforgettably visceral moment when that bear steps on DiCaprio’s head. DiCaprio is incredible here, as are Tom Hardy as a villainous fur trapper who wants to leave Glass behind, Domhnall Gleeson as the commander forced to make horrible decisions, and Will Poulter as the compassionate man who makes a big mistake. It’s a revenge tale amazingly told.

2Where to Invade Next What starts as a fairly interesting film about how foreign countries feed and teach their children goes off the rails and loses any sense of focus in this, the latest junk food documentary from goofball Michael Moore. The premise for this one has a flag-toting Moore representing America “invading” other countries and threatening to steal ideas like great school cafeterias and free tuition. Moore has a way of presenting scintillating factoids only to cloud their presentation with dopey and gimmicky showboating. The bit where he plants American flags and says he’s claiming shit for America is lame the first time, and incredibly mundane the tenth. There’s just something about this guy when he gets all sad and somber and scary with his narrations that makes me want to throw a small car at the movie screen. As usual, Moore presents some facts about other great countries while demonizing the one we live in. Sure, we have room for improvement, but so do the countries Moore visits in the movie. Oddly enough, we only see the really good stuff other countries have to offer with only mere small mentions of any problems they might be having. Moore has a history of twisting and playing with the facts to match up with his agenda, and this movie is no exception. Plus, it just isn’t very well made. It’s sloppy and lazy documentary filmmaking.

5The Witch Unlike The Blair Witch Project, this Sundance award-winning directorial debut— and total masterpiece—from Robert Eggers, who also wrote the script, actually has a witch in it. She makes her first appearance very early on in the film, and she’s doing a bad thing. A really, really, horribly disturbing, oh-that’s-how-thismovie-is-really-going-to-start bad thing. Set in 1630s New England with an exceptional attention to detail, there are plenty of ways to interpret the events and themes of The Witch—the mark of a good, heady horror film. Eggers has made a horror movie with some major meat on the bone that stands in league with such classics as The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby. And, oh lordy, is this film creepy. The sense of dread kicks in immediately after William (Ralph Ineson) is banished from his New England settlement for getting a little too over-the-top with his religious beliefs. He, his wife Katherine (Kate Dickie), their little baby, their oldest daughter, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), and creepy twins Mercy and Jonas (Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson) must head out into the gray forests and fields to make a life away from government and society. What follows are hellish encounters with different incarnations of the witch, talking goats, possessed kids, and a bunch of other stuff that will unsettle you. Eggers has made a great movie that can be interpreted many different ways. If it doesn’t scare you, you are far braver than me.