Reviews by JxSxPx

Ava DuVernay’s camera is one that is best when the scales are smaller, and she can obsess over the contours and textures of an actor’s face. Not only the stellar adult players in this ensemble, but Storm Reid and Deric McCabe’s surprising and pleasing central performances. It’s a shame that so much of this gets lost in the storm of CGI overload that A Wrinkle in Time gets submerged in.

Based on Madeleine L’Engle’s classic children’s novel, this story largely follows the familiar beats: bullied Meg Murray, her genius younger brother, Charles Wallace, and her friend/potential love interest, Calvin, get whisked away to far flung lands in an adventure of self-discovery and newfound maturity. There are three celestial beings, think of them as benevolent Weird Sisters, a missing father, a nebulous IT that functions as the main adversary, and a vast panorama of worlds.

You can’t fault her for ambition in bringing this story to the screen, but those ambitions are routinely undone by garish CGI vistas that look more like the actors are standing outside of them instead of being immersive. Reese Witherspoon’s transformation from celestial witch to flying leaf-like creature is a case study in rubbery, overly cartoony imagery that just doesn’t blend with its surroundings. The film goes on in this manner in practically every new environment we encounter.

A similar problem occurs with certain casting choices. Movie stars are occasionally helpful, like Oprah Winfrey’s baggage as a spiritual advisor, empathic host, and royal highness of pop culture lends itself well to Mrs. Which, but sometimes are more distracting if not utilized properly, like Zach Galifiankis’ Happy Medium that never melds with the overall vibe. It feels too much like one of his improvisations than a fully realized character.

These distractions eventually pile-up and bury any positives A Wrinkle in Time had going for it. Nothing can quite stop or diminish the power of Reid’s reading of Meg and providing a complex center for the rest of the film to revolve around. If only the rest of it had been as grounded, ironically, as her.

The Depression looms large over the lives of these showgirls – skipping the rent, desperate for employment, putting things in hock. And what a fun group of girls it is between Aline MacMahon’s acid tongue, Joan Blondell’s raw intensity, and a pre-supernova Ginger Rogers playing one of her good time gals. Oh yeah, and Ruby Keeler is there paired off with perpetually horny chipmunk Dick Powell, but they’re thankfully kept as part of an ensemble and not the major focus.

Gold Diggers of 1933 is one of the best musical films of the 30s, and probably the best of the Gold Diggers franchise. Busby Berkeley crafted some truly wondrous and memorable numbers here between the opening “We’re in the Money,” with chorus girls dripping in coins and Rogers singing a verse in Pig Latin, and “Waltz of the Shadows” where the violins were neon-tubed and arranged in his ornate geometric patterns. It’s like staring inside the kaleidoscope of queerness.

This pre-code delight features a few moments of self-awareness including a Powell proxy that makes a joke about his status as eternal romantic lead. It’s as though the backstage musical was already codifying at this early stage of development and this entry wanted to both embrace and (lovingly) mock them. It succeeds at both tasks while unspooling one hallucinatory and gorgeous number after another. (It’s always a treat to see what Hollywood imagines is possible on a Broadway stage which are always roughly the size of a hangar.)

In fact, that opening sequence is something of a meta moment as the dancing coins of “We’re in the Money” come to a grinding halt as the show is bust up for failure to pay its bills. That’s right, a sequence all about monetary stability and indulging in the capitalist dream is immediately brought to a crash. If this isn’t a commentary about the Great Depression, then what else could it be?

The gritty, street wise chorines of this film provide the larger film with a pleasingly cynical yet sisterly tone that is quite fetching. These sisters are doing it for themselves, alright, as they scheme for employment and play fast and loose in a farce-like romantic subplot. MacMahon and Blondell get some of their best work in these sections as MacMahon goes full tilt into kooky auntie territory and Blondell reveals what a dynamite performer they were sitting on waiting to get better parts. Her tear-streaked phone call promising employment feels like a dose of reality in a largely artificial, if cynical, world.

It's this tension between the fantasy of the musical sequences and the grim reality of the narrative beats that power Gold Diggers of 1933. Mervyn LeRoy, an uneven and hypermasculine director, finds the dramatics entirely within his wheelhouse while Berkeley’s fantasias of bodies, props, and ever shifting patterns makes the performance zip. Berkeley’s contributions often overwhelm LeRoy’s more static camera, but Berkeley’s films were often like this even before he took over directing them outright. This isn’t entirely a negative as several musicals in-between segments are merely excuses to get from one number to the next.

It all culminates in “My Forgotten Man,” a musical number that combines the gritty realities of the backstage stuff and the unreality of the musical numbers collide in sublime friction. The sight of these dames and guys acting out the bread lines and destitution ends with a musical swell and a “The End” that catches us by surprise. In the end, Gold Diggers of 1933 is about what it takes to survive the zeitgeist at any given moment.

Quick – what did Sir Carol Reed win his Oscar for? If you answered The Third Man, The Fallen Idol, or any of his acknowledged masterpieces you’d be wrong. In fact, Reed didn’t win his Oscar until late in his career during the height of the Academy’s obsession with two different things: musicals and all things British.

Enter into that atmosphere Oliver! An all-singing, all-dancing version of Charles Dickens’ well-known story of a street urchin finding a happy ending. The 60s were a busy period of Hollywood snatching Broadway productions and recreating them to a zealously faithful degree.

Not only did we get My Fair Lady, West Side Story, and The Sound of Music as transplants and Best Picture winners, but The Music Man, Funny Girl, and Hello, Dolly! as nominees. Musicals were a beloved institution by this point and some of those films managed to emerge from the pack as some of the best of the best while others have found their luster diminish with time.

Oliver!, a bit like The Music Man, occupies a nebulous grey zone between these twin poles. Sure, West Side Story and My Fair Lady are acknowledged classics, but Oliver! felt alternately grim for the movie musical and behind the times for 1968. It’s well-made, mostly well-acted, and filled with memorable songs and sequences but there’s a hole in the center of the movie.

Not to pick on a child actor, but that’s exactly what I’m about to do. Mark Lester is such a blank that he can’t manage to compete or even hold his own against Jack Wild’s Artful Dodger, Ron Moody’s Fagin, or Oliver Reed’s Bill Sikes. He feels like a cinematic creation from an entirely different era, like the wide-eyed stiffs that populate MGM films from the 30s. His voice is obviously dubbed, and his performance is so saintly and bland that Oliver Twist barely registers as a character. He’s merely a cipher for the various nefarious characters to react against and move the plot forward.

While Oliver Reed is clearly no musical star himself, they wisely jettisoned Sikes few songs and let Reed project a potent combination of sexuality and dark charisma in his role. You understand why Shani Wallis’ Nancy seems enthralled and hypnotized by his magnetic pull, and why the street urchins and Fagin find him a scarily volatile presence that must be gingerly interacted with. Its performances like his and Moody’s charming loser take on Fagin and Wild’s charismatic and adorable pickpocket.

Actually, Oliver! is at its best when our attention is redirected towards Wild and Moody almost exclusively as a never-to-be redeemed father/son-like pair. If only we had ended the movie there! All things considered, Oliver! is a near-masterpiece that survived the (often) adaptation process better than numerous other works. It’s a well oiled machined that features plenty of playful whistling past the graveyard.

The original Clash of the Titans is no cinematic masterpiece, but it is an enjoyable matinee-styled romp through Greek mythology replete with some of the greatest creations of Ray Harryhausen’s estimable career. This remake turns everything up to eleven as a starting point and seems rolled off the same semitruck that delivers Michael Bay’s bloated, imbecilic blockbusters. Despite knowing the story from a childhood spent watching Harryhausen films and reading mythology, I struggle to remember much about this version of the story.

Remember that brief moment post-Avatar when Sam Worthington was being foisted as a new leading man? Thank god that’s over as he has an anti-charisma and blandness that renders a hole in the center of the film. The entire cast has accent work that’s all over the map, but they’re at least playing up the material as high-camp and giving some semblance of energy to the proceedings. Not Worthington who is an unbelievably lazy actor that manages to make a high-energy action spectacular an endurance test in watching paint dry.

For all the scenery chewing of Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, and Mads Mikkelson, and the frenetic battles between the humans and various monstrosities (Medusa comes out the best even if that heavy metal score is laughable) are a lot of fun, but Clash of the Titans is a generic mess. A misfire of gorgon-like blockbuster super-movie clichés, I doubt this one will be as fondly remember as the original.  

While out promoting Atomic Blonde in 2017, Charlize Theron mentioned Æon Flux and her ultimate disappointment with the movie. She remarked that while she never had complete faith in the project, she wanted to trust in director Karyn Kusama but acknowledged that they “fucked it all up” because they couldn’t execute the concept. A startling and honest acknowledgement for a film that deserved the punch, even if it did come twelve years late.

Creator Peter Chung decried his unhappiness with the script routinely, and while creator gripes with adaptations of their material can occasionally play like sour grapes this was a case where it was warranted. He even went so far as to proclaim that “Ms. Flux does not actually appear in the movie.” The lynchpin of his criticism, that someone involved didn’t trust the audience to go with the source material enough and watered it down into something bland and unrecognizable, is essentially the crux of my argument as well.

Æon Flux stinks of studio interference as there’s plenty of ideas and set designs that sparkle with a better, more imaginative work struggling against notes and mandates. For all the biomechanical fauna and weird world beat interior design, the camera drinks in Theron’s cat suited rebel with a lasciviousness that makes you wonder if a woman was really behind the camera. And the less said about the choice to give Sophie Okonedo’s character hands for feet the better as it tips into some imagery that is racially loaded and deeply uncomfortable. You can see the film Kusama was trying to make and the one that the studio engineered and neither of one is particularly good.

A six-issue independent comic book baked in hyperviolence about a group of (largely Aryan) secretive agents that use any means necessary to hide the existence of the supernatural from the public at large gets remade into a popcorn entertainment that’s a lively buddy cop movie. If that sounds like a backhanded compliment, then it hit with the correct intention. The remodel of Men in Black softens the overall tone for a more playful one that largely works as some of Will Smith’s shtick has aged poorly.

Will Smith is a member of the NYPD that gets recruited by Tommy Lee Jones’ Agent Kay to join the titular organization. They’re after a McGuffin in the form of a galaxy attached to a cat’s collar while fighting off a roach-like alien that’s taken Vincent D’Onofrio’s skin as a disguise. That’s the basic premise of the film as it provides ample wiggle room for Smith to mug for the camera and deliver rapid-fire bits of humor in contracts of Jones’ superior, flinty straight man form.

There’s a weirder, grosser, more morbid film flitting around the edges of the popcorn entertainment and these flashes keep the energy up and your attention engaged. A talking pug is cute, a tiny alien housed in someone’s robotic head is funny, and Tony Shaloub’s ability to regrow his head is Cronenbergian body horror played as slapstick. These moments give some personality and flavor to what is otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable but generic buddy cop movie.

But the real MVP of the film is D’Onofrio’s committed and completely grotesque performance as Edgar. Or maybe it is Rick Baker’s creation designs, stunning makeup, and humoresque, lively puppetry. Or maybe it’s the zippy pacing and structurally foolproof screenplay that keeps things moving and developing at an organic, playful, occasionally macabre world for its actors to play in. However you look at it, Men in Black holds up surprisingly well given its age, moderate overreliance on special effects, and mid-90s flourishes (god, that terrible Smith rap).

Ever watch something that was so clearly kitsch try to take itself too seriously? If not, then behold Logan’s Run, another adaptation of a grim novel that jettisons everything but the most skeletal basics. There’s a compelling idea there but it’s buried under poor acting (from normally solid actors), questionable writing, and environments that have aged poorly since 1976.

Logan’s Run keeps the central premise of the novel: the utopian ideal of this hermetic future world is built upon a disturbing secret – everyone must die by a certain age to maintain societal equilibrium. There’s also a large section where Logan 5 (Michael York) goes on the run with a sexy sidekick/love interest (Jenny Agutter), and that’s about where the novel and movie converge. The rest of the movie gives way to additions, much of it added by Stanley R. Greenburg, the screenwriter of Soylent Green, another grim novel that went misshapen in its transition to the screen.

The entire thing looks like what would happen if The Jetsons got revamped with a disco groove – lots of curved, clean lines and spaces occupied by shag haircuts, neon lights, and a “Me generation” sense of entitlement. There’s a wealth of good material to explore here (ageism, hedonism, technology run amuck, overpopulation), but a lot of it seems like pearl-clutching reactionary measures from an older generation to the waning countercultural movement. Consider it a case of frustrated ambitions.

Much of the film’s emotional journey hinges on Logan’s journey from cog in the machinery to individual stating that is more important that the people be free to live and be. A little bit of flower power, for sure, but not an inherently incorrect assumption as at least parts of this utopia seem nicely progressive. (Homophobia appears to be a thing of the past.) Although, much of Agutter’s Jessica journey is away from liberation and into something resembling heteronormative complacency. Agutter and Farah Fawcett essentially exist to provide jiggly cheesecake in skimpy gowns that barely close or contain much fabric.

Sure, the world of Logan’s Run resembles that of a shopping mall in feather-haired shagginess and mini-skirted glory, but there’s still times when the sense of camp and fun overpowers the awkwardness. Things do seem to improve when we move beyond the city and into the wild world of the rebels, including Peter Ustinov going full ham in his minor role. The entire thing plays a bit like Solid Gold: Armageddon. Make of that what you will.

The human anatomy, both from horror and sexual perspectives, and a major distrust of technology and societal permissiveness runs throughout David Cronenberg’s body of work. 1975’s Shivers was Cronenberg’s first feature-length film, and a preview of his oeuvre. Following the, uh, we’ll call them misadventures of a phallic-looking parasite that’s responsible for transforming an entire luxury apartment community, if not all of Canada, into a satirical vision of 70s high life and free love. Free love isn’t free and Cronenberg argues that it’s as strict an ideology and movement as what it was reacting against. With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from the all-consuming infection, there’s only one way this could end: an orgy in the swimming pool that’s as much about sexual fluids as it is about blood and viscera. Shivers is basked in dingy colors and an ugliness that’s hard to shake as it goes straight to the core of the film. It’s fascinating if low budget with the seams showing, but also a unique look for an artist laying bare their future obsessions and themes. You can see the groundwork for later masterpieces like Videodrome, The Fly, and A Dangerous Method, even if it’s not quite the equal of those works. 

A cult dystopian vision that takes the “boy and his dog” and wraps it up in black humor and crotch-minded salaciousness. I’m not sure if I enjoyed it, hated it, found it charming, or more quixotic in my estimation, but I know A Boy and His Dog is unlike anything else I’ve seen. Don Johnson is a perpetually horny wanderer in a bombed-out wasteland where canned goods are the new currency and ultraviolence is the way of the land. Did I mention he’s also capable of telepathically communicating with his pet dog? And that he uses his dog’s ability to sniff out potential sexual partners? It’s a wild little movie that’s much better in the first half than it is in the second. The second finds our hero stumbling onto an underground society and things quickly unravel in it as the savage wasteland is cast aside. The underground society is a bit of a mishmash and not well thought out. A Boy and His Dog, at least for a time, does offer a potent weirdness that is damn near intoxicating for its lunacy and even the bad ideas, at times, are (almost) redeemable by their peculiarities.

If Rollerball is the intellectual vision of “blood sport as opiate for the masses,” then Death Race 2000 is the loopy grindhouse inversion of it. Not directed by Roger Corman but shepherded by him, Death Race 2000 is a vision of American life at its most nihilistic. Whatever political framework we once had has long since fallen away, given rise to a Mr. President that presides from overseas, and provided an outlet for the collective sense of anger in a yearly drag race that encourages random acts of violence.

Not just encourages but rewards them with a system that places various values on human life. Eventually the curtain drops, and the death race is revealed as an elaborate political machinery with its poster boy driver a blank vessel that’s been inhabited by various performers. Throw in an underground rebellion that wants to destroy the race and restore the state and dissolve the autocracy that has taken over. Did I mention the leader of the rebellion was named Thomasina Paine? No one could accuse this movie of being subtle in its political commentary.

There’s a trash-art brilliance at play here. Any movie that gives Sylvester Stallone, pre-Rocky, a part as supersized gangster, Mary Woronov as a cowgirl with steer horns on her car, and David Carradine as a Frankenstein monster that functions as a symbol of the state has something wonderful going for it. Or maybe it’s something terrible but I was just in the mood for something big, loud, and dumb? I don’t know, but Death Race 2000 worked on some puerile level for me.