Reviews by JxSxPx

Disney’s love for orphans-in-the-wild was prominent in 2016 between this remake, their second live-action Jungle Book, and a journey into Roald Dahl’s macabre world in The BFG. All of them are best when detailing the quietest moments of the wild, imaginative lives of their urchins, especially Pete’s Dragon, and at their worst when kowtowing to the demands of special-effects heavy cinema. If I told you that Pete’s Dragon ended in the destruction of a bridge, lots of fire, and children in danger, would you say I was bullshitting? I’m not, but I wish I were.

Pete’s Dragon simply cannot hold the weight of thrills and spectacles of that nature. This is essentially a boy-and-his-critter story, one comprised of silence and connection, of exploring and acute observations. Personally, I wanted director David Lowery to go all in on the art film for children vibe that large chunks of the film openly presents itself as and flirts with. The forest and its creatures, most importantly Elliott the dragon, are some of the most intriguing, elegiac, and expressive characters of the film.

Think of something along the lines of Steven Spielberg merged with Terrence Malick as Pete gets pseudo-adopted by Elliott, the fuzzy green dragon that emotes and projects better than Karl Urban and Wes Bentley get to. He’s a fully realized creation, even in the moments where his animation goes glaring artificial or rubbery, and one that invites a deep emotional connection. Try not to see a beloved pet, either current or from childhood, in his bodily movements and sense of play.

It is in these moments when Pete’s Dragon recalls The Black Stallion that it’s operating at its highest level, and then the intrusion of the outside world collapses the gentle world that Pete and Elliott have built together. These two misfits are restored to their proper societal places, often times through violence and forced removal, and this plot thread is regressive and moralistic. The magic of the fairy tale-like beginning evaporates as the ephemeral becomes solid with Urban’s sudden transformation into a villain and an engine to forcefully drive the story towards its conclusion.

I love Pete’s Dragon for its sensitivity and quietness. I love it for its lack of narrative and folksy charms, best exemplified by the fine work done by Bryce Dallas Howard and Robert Redford. I love it for watching the secret world created by Pete and Elliott, and brought to vivid life through the central performance of Oakes Fegley. Fegley often has to act opposite nothing and his final work exhibits a sense of adventure, play, and imagination that bursts through the better parts of the rest of the film. The weaker parts of Pete’s Dragon are forgiven during these bright spots. 

Five years separate the first film and this sequel, both in real-time and in the film’s continuity. And those five years have not been exactly kind to foursome, both in the film’s narrative and the final product. Ghostbusters II is a prime example of a sequel providing diminishing returns.

Sure, it has its moments, but they’re few and far between. Much of it just isn’t funny, tonally its all over the map, and several cast members are sacked with limp plots. What exactly do these films have against Ernie Hudson? Why is Sigourney Weaver sacked with a rekindled romance, single motherhood, and a creepy boss? It’s like every 80s working woman cliché rolled into one role. A romance was all they could think to give Rick Moranis and Annie Potts? At least Peter MacNicol is wandering around chewing up the scenery to provide maximum enjoyment.

Ghostbusters II feels like two different films vying for dominance and attention at the exact same time. There’s one that’s more akin to mildly vulgar, slightly juvenile original, and another that’s got kid gloves on that plays like a real-life cartoon. These two modes are never reconciled, and the film bounces back and forth between them so often you’re afraid the reels will rip themselves in half as they move towards opposing goals.

Who you gonna call? Not these guys.

The Venn diagram between would-be academics and blue-collar workers is a near perfect circle in Ghostbusters, a near fairy tale of trade jobs thwarting the paranormal. Only in New York would something like this fly. I mean, what other city would find citizens barely raising an eyebrow at the sight of Sumerian demon dogs possessing its fellow dwellers?

Here's the thing, Ghostbusters is a charming piece of (creaky) special effects with a riffing Bill Murray as its center. Everything revolves around Murray’s winking and rapid-fire snark, including an unfortunately sidelined Ernie Hudson and a part for Sigourney Weaver that breaks down to “the sexy brain.” It’s this casual misogyny, endemic to films of the 80s, that prevents from enjoying Ghostbusters more than I do. Did we really need to see Dan Aykroyd get head from a sexy ghost woman as a punchline?

Where Ghostbusters really shines is in its careful deployment of set pieces and specific personalities rubbing against each other in conflict and humor. It’s just as much in Annie Potts’ deadpan receptionist as it is in transformation of a ghost into vengeful harpy. You remember the smart-ass comments and the ridiculous punchlines just as much as the money shots, and how these two things frequently feed into each other. C’mon, the reveal of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is equally hilarious for something so soft becoming a kaiju as the setup involving Murray’s anxious ramblings about trying to keep his mind clear and failing to think of anything but this gooey mascot.

Remember how fun this one without the baggage of the limp sequel, unjustifiably reviled distaff remake (messy but fun), and the never-ending threat of a third proper entry? I know it’s hard, but really try to remember the vibrantly colored spiritual realms, cartoon-ish ghosts, and creepy but silly opening segment. Ghostbusters may be stiff in its joints, but there’s still charm aplenty to be found here.

Adaptation works wonders for Quentin Tarantino. Sure, he can’t help himself when it comes to populating his film with a sprawling running time and (so much) jive talking, but Jackie Brown remains his most mature, accomplished, and satisfactory work. There’s shocking bits of violence here, but much of it actually (gasp!) in service of a story and not just to foster his juvenile instincts or heavy-handed referential nature.

Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch provides a solid framework, one that forces Tarantino does diverge from not only in changing Jackie’s race from white to black but in other narrative details, but it’s also a model of great adaptation work. Leonard’s economical style and Tarantino’s maximalist don’t sound like a match made in cinematic heaven, yet there’s something incredibly juicy and vibrant about their divergent styles meeting in the middle here.

Maybe it’s the way that Leonard’s style forces Tarantino to “grow up” cinematically, but there’s honest to god human emotion and recognizable characters here. Led by a stellar Pam Grier in a performance that demanded serious awards attention and a revitalization of her career that strangely didn’t come, Jackie Brown garnishes its entangled double-crosses and crime elements with a center that’s the sweetest, most humane love story in all of Tarantino’s body of work.

Unrequited and suppressed emotions run throughout Tarantino’s films, but they usually end in a big bang of violence and artful blood splatter. Think of the Bride’s near phoenix-like origins in the Kill Bill films, of the entirety of Reservoir Dogs turning in on each other, or The Hateful Eight’s long simmering grudges erupting in prolonged scenes of carnage. Jackie Brown is the most complex examination of that emotional state, and it’s most mature.

We meet Jackie as a struggling airline stewards for the low rent Cabo Air, and we quickly learn that she doubles as a drug runner for Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson, going near Brechtian but still a joy to watch) once she’s caught by the ATF and its primary detective on the case (Michael Keaton). Her bail bondsman, Max (Robert Forster), is immediately smitten, and their connection is the core of the movie. Everything else, including Ordell’s beach bimbo girlfriend (Bridget Fonda) and thug best friend (Robert De Niro, wincing and grimacing more than acting), is part of a tangled weave to keep shoving these two back together. They are the center that holds it all together.

On paper, their affection and blossoming feelings for each other shouldn’t make much sense. Jackie is the world-weary and desperate version of any of Grier’s iconic blaxploitation heroines, while Max is the ultra-buttoned up good cop. Yet there’s visible sparks from the moment they meet, and between the actor’s clear chemistry and joy in playing off each other to the fun of just watching them sit back and talk, their connection becomes our active rooting interest.

Tarantino’s always had a strong eye for casting, but he out does himself with the performances he gets from Grier and Forster. Grier is a mesmerizing presence. She’s beautiful, she’s intelligent, she’s resourceful, and she’s got one mean poker-face. Grier’s performance is master class of small bodily movements telegraphing everything for the camera. She never goes “big” because she never has to, and her transition from honest and open communication with Max to staring down danger with an impassive face is demonstrated with a mere eyebrow raising. It’s the kind of performance that would reignite a male actor’s stock and have bigger, better opportunities, I mean, look at what happened with John Travolta before he shot himself in the foot.

Just as good is Forster as Max, for which he received the film’s lone Oscar nomination. He deserved the damn thing as he’s the quiet, emotional heart to Jackie’s quick-thinking brain. He’s just as prone to underplaying his scenes as Grier, and his crinkled smile and hint of heartache in their final back-and-forth is a knockout of minute details and specific choices making a moment come alive on camera. It helps that Forster is something of an anonymous character actor, you know you’ve seen him when he pops up but his name frequently escapes you, because a bigger star in this part would’ve titled things out of balance. Forster’s schoolboy crush and conservative demeanor are deeply touching in his elliptical goodbye to Jackie.

It’s this kernel of romantic possibilities in the face of middle age that makes Jackie Brown so rewarding. It’s a great hangout movie, even if some of the diversions with Fonda and De Niro prove more distracting than humorous and glaring examples of the director’s fetish for women’s feet. Jackie Brown is also a towering achievement to the cinematic brickhouse that is Pam Grier, and she works hard for the money and adoration.

Maybe if this had been remade with La Diva Streisand in 1966 instead of 1976 things would be different, but that’s not the world we live in. Streisand’s version of A Star is Born, do you really think the credited writers (including Joan Didion!) and director Frank Pierson actually had a say in this vanity project?, is a towering achievement to Barbra’s ego at the expense of all else. Sure, any version of A Star is Born ultimately boils down to the two leads, but this one jettisons any and all semblance of supporting players and nearly throws out the male lead for good measure. Then again, whom would Streisand have to act against if he died too soon? Props to Kris Kristofferson’s leathery charisma and lived-in alcoholism here, he’s delivering an authentic and true performance in a notably artificial film opposite a co-star in full-on demanding diva mode. Streisand’s a solid actress normally, especially in comedy, but we’re asked to believe her as a mere mortal here, one full of moxie and soft-rock/folkie music just waiting to burst out. The whole thing is false, including Barbra’s leading turn, especially her leading turn. Glimpses of camp itch to escape but they’re buried under the rubble of Streisand’s self-mythology and iconography. The only scene that plays as truth from her is a rehearsal for a television special where she starts barking orders at the crew and says she wants it to be right. That’s the only time a real person is viewable in her Esther, and it’s quickly submerged by more flattering close-ups, including a whooper of a single tear dramatically rolling down her face. Just stick with Judy Garland’s version, that one is just as long but still manages to delivers the goods.

Is this supposed to be some kind of parody of the hysterical Christian morality plays of Tyler Perry, or some kind of running commentary/satirical take on them? Is there any way to come to Blackbird that doesn’t end in you walking away completely confounded by its flagrant and vulgar mishmash of tones and improbable storytelling?

I have no answers for these questions, and that’s why I’m asking.

Director Patrik-Ian Polk stated that he made the film because we needed more stories of gay men who weren’t white. He’s right, but what we don’t need are movies as Lifetime-esque as Blackbird. I found myself wondering if this was supposed to be taken as camp, but there’s alternately a lack of conviction and a bone-deep seriousness that kneed that theory at several points.

I mean, what else is one to make of a film where a character’s abducted sister is a mere background detail to his coming out journey? Not only does Mo’Nique’s unstable mother (she’s only as crazy as any given scene requires her to be) blame his homosexuality for her daughter’s disappearance, but when the abducted girl is returned after six years, Mo’Nique shrugs off his homosexuality and forgives it all. Just a few scenes prior she was ready to lay hands on the boy to cure him of his queerness.

Yet this still sidesteps the fact that this movie treats the abduction and return of his sister as a mere blip on its radar. It’s so staggeringly inept and offensive that it’s borderline impressive. Who thought this was a good idea? You know they’re going to eventually circle back to this point since it’s a drum beat, incredibly hard, throughout the film, but to toss it off in the last few minutes is astounding. That girl’s been through hell and back, and now she’s a mere prop for her brother’s self-discovery and journey of acceptance? That takes some serious stones.

Blackbird is all over the map, and it’s not helped by Julian Walker’s awkward central performance. A non-actor but one hell of a singer, Walker simply cannot handle the dramatic weight he’s been entrusted with. He’s alternately too mannered, too broad, or just plain too artificial to register as a confused teenager trying to understand and grapple with his blooming sexuality and religious upbringing. It doesn’t help that he’s surrounded by Mo’Nique, very good despite a character that never makes logical sense, Isaiah Washington as his distant father, and Kevin Allesee as his dreamy first boyfriend.

So I ask again, what the hell is going on in Blackbird? They can’t possibly mean for us to take this seriously, and yet they appear to expect just that. Parody, satire, elaborate commentary – someone’s going to have to explain just what they were trying to achieve here. I’m flabbergasted.

You know, it seems like writer/director/star Philipp Karner is working through some deeply personal stuff throughout Like You Mean It. Shame he didn’t invite the audience along for his personal journey and mea culpa. Like You Mean It is glacial and opaque, much like its main character, and we’re stranded looking for a reason to care about so selfish a person or insight to expand our view of him. No such luck. We end the movie just as confused about Karner’s character as when we started, and praying that Denver Milord’s nice, solid guy gets as far away from him as possible. It must be said that Karner and Milord deliver naturalistic performances that feel lived in and authentic. The type that frequently elevates the thin material, but there’s so long you can watch a beautiful self-destructive egotist before it becomes tiresome. There’s plenty of craft and potential on display here, just no scope beyond the main character’s solipsism.

Vampires, Neil Jordan, and Saoirse Ronan looks like a winning combination on paper, but Byzantium all style and no substance. Ronan is customarily subtle, poignant, and nuanced, and Jordan imbues the entire thing with his austerity and low-key eroticism, but there’s just not enough story to justify the length, the narrative withholding, or “surprise!” method of delivering bits of material. It’s all right in front of you, very clearly and obviously, and Byzantium thinks it’s distance and manipulations are smarter than they are.

Problem lies squarely with Gemma Arterton’s Clara, a character with a backstory, profession, and trajectory that deserves her own movie in which everything is fully fleshed out and not dripped out in-between bits of love birds and self-mythologizing narration. Vampirism in Byzantium is a gentlemen’s club and Clara’s transformation from sickly prostitute to vampire femme fatale is more drab than anything. There’s juicy, rich material with vital lifeblood flowing in the veins of that story, but Byzantium treats it as a mere afterthought or as exposition for Ronan’s Eleanor to deliver under the guise of a notebook containing their shared journey to this point.

If you’re wondering why it’s a shared journey and can’t figure out that they’re mother/daughter, then I’m not sure what to tell you. They masquerade as siblings or some other familial relation, it changes depending on what city they’ve escaped to this time around, and remain in constant vigilance and fear of discovery by the brotherhood of vampires on their trail. They’ve been chasing these two ever since their creation, some hundred-plus years ago but what’s time to an immortal, really?

The feminist uprising flirted at within Byzantium is shuttered in favor of a love story between an undead girl and a dying boy. Granted, the scenes between Ronan and Caleb Landry Jones are by far some of the best, quaking with romantic yearning and a meeting of equally doomed kindred spirits. She’s forever a sixteen-year-old vampire while he’s slowly dying from leukemia. I suppose other love stories have been built on worse premises. I’m being pithy, but the scenes between the two of them are uniformly strong, engaging, and a reminder of just how talented these two young actors are.

It’s just such a mild disappointment that Jordan essentially made an art house Twilight instead of the far more interesting girl power fable lurking around the fringes. For all of its flights of violence, slow burning eroticism (check the way Ronan plays with her victims by slowing tracing her long fingernail over their veins), or charismatic love story, Byzantium ultimately boils down to a drab piece of Masterpiece Theater.  

Fritz Lang’s first big hit, with Metropolis just a few short years away, may not be as ingenious or vital as his later works, but it’s still fascinating to watch as a primer on the earliest parts of his career. It’s something of a morality play/parable between a young woman who has recently lost her lover and the embodiment of death, strangely sympathetic and kind here, but it occasionally plays as a bit of a slog. None of this mean it’s still not a noteworthy rediscovery, and one that you should seek out.

Destiny finds Lang telling a triptych of doomed lovers stories, each of them populated by the same core of actors playing dress-up both in elaborate costuming and in racial makeup, wrapped around a “present day,” for 1921, story. A young couple wanders into a small town where Death has bought a large property, walled it up, and ushers in his captives through supernatural means. The young man dies, and the young woman begs with Death for his return to the land of the living. Feeling strangely empathetic to her plight, comparatively to the wider array of cold and clinical portrayals of death in cinema, he offers her a challenge: he will send her to three different locations, if she can save her lover in any of them, he will restore the pair to the living.

Death’s lair is a glorious cinematic vision, like a catholic church turned up to eleven. There’s candles everywhere of varying sizes, each light representing someone living, and the souls of the dead appear in his hands as glowing orbs before becoming a person. In this particular case, it’s a small infant, and we’re quickly shown the grieving mother bending over the child. Death’s weariness in his task is evident, and he seems particularly troubled by the babe’s demise. Bernhard Goetzke’s physical appearance and finely calibrated performance should place him in the pantheon of great silent monsters and fantasy figures in due time. He makes for a rich, mysterious, complicated character, but he’s not the main attraction.

That would be Lil Dagover’s questing lover. She’s adequate but a mere sketch of a thing, and her romance is expository. We get no sense of her true loss or the scope of her passions before being told about them and her gaining this quest/chance. While Goetzke feels relatively modern in his minimalist acting, Dagover is pure silent cinema mugging and too broad pantomime.

Luckily, Lang buries her in sophisticated cinematic magic and an enigmatic atmosphere. It doesn’t entirely compensate for the weaknesses, but it does a fair job of trying to level the field. Destiny transports us from fable-like visions of ancient China and the Middle East to a 15^th century Venice where the doomed lovers will continually lose each other death’s predestination. The Chinese segment is the strongest of the three, there’s a magic carpet and some interesting visuals to try to distract from the ick factor of the yellow face and grab-bag of Oriental clichés. Try as Dagover may to change fate, she continually comes up at a loss.

The portent of gloom and decay looms over Destiny, and the eventual reunion of the lovers is a twisted happy ending. Lang’s film is a reminder of the dream-like quality and power of silent film. This one’s not quite a nightmare, but more an unnerving, deeply eerie glimpse into the inevitability of greater forces striking us down.  

Between this and Argo, boy has American cinema turned an endlessly complicated event into a two-dimensional construct. Historical context or a decent grasp on the complexities at play? Don’t look here. Compelling and multi-layered characters? Nope, try again. But at least you get an international cast playing at accents. (Yeah, I mean you, Adrien Brody!) Well, except for Salma Hayek.

Septembers of Shiraz, or Enemy Territory depending on the location, follows a wealthy Iranian Jewish family as the revolution erupts around them. Do they support or oppose the revolution? I couldn’t tell you, but it isn’t long until Brody’s patriarch is imprisoned, tortured, and vainly trying to plead for mercy and escape. Hayek keeps the home fire burning, tries to get information on where her husband is and his alleged crimes, all the while sparring with the longtime housekeeper (Shohreh Aghdashloo, once again too good for the material handed to her). That’s it, that’s the entire movie.

If you’re wondering if there’s a happy ending and a reunion, there is. The myopic view of a fraught time demands a simplistic ending, just as it demands simplistic heroes and villains. The elites are poor victims of an ungrateful lower class, the revolutionaries are greedy thieves, and very little is made of the political and religious ideologies at play. What do you get? Another generic pseudo-history from Hollywood that’s too narrow-minded to develop anything beyond totems and slogans.