Miscellaneous Movie Musings: Part XLIII

As the title suggests, so forth.

Lynch After Lynch

A strange thought came to mind the other week as I was listening to the sound of the wind whistling thru tall trees, a favourite sound of David Lynch. Is Lynch, like 1990s Tarantino, a dead-end, or, more accurately, such a singular creative explosion that while he at first might appear liberating and invite people to join him in his explorations he actually leaves a Tunguska-like blast radius around him which nobody else can ever enter. Can you make a film that has surreal elements and escape being called Lynchian? Can you use dream logic or corny dialogue mixed with extreme violence and weird sexuality and not have everyone start writing up their Lynchian comparisons? Can David Lynch even escape his own shadow at this point? I’m not comparing The Nice Guys to the work of David Lynch, but Lynch’s description of how to write a screenplay; hoard ideas like a squirrel collecting acorns, and when you have forty conceits that’s the guts of an eighty minut movie; seems to be oddly applicable to Shane Black’s screenplay.

Notes on The Predator

The Predator was the topic of discussion early this morning on Sunday Breakfast with Patrick Doyle.

Shane Black continues his writer/director sequence of one for me, one for them, but nobody’s likely to be happy with this one. The Predator is a bit of mess, but has a number of very good jokes before the vague CGI mayhem and tremendously over-egged pudding of plot take over. Indeed one surprised line on the subject of aardvarks delivered by Thomas Jane has already become part of my mental architecture in the way Ralph Fiennes did with his abandonment of a thought in The Grand Budapest Hotel. But the comedy noticeably oozes away as the film progresses, and boy does Black get sidetracked by a lot in his 100 minute running time. Holbrook, who for some reason made me continually think of the young Mel Gibson, is the gung-ho military man who is this film’s version of Arnie’s Dutch from the classic original. Except that this film suffers from the current Hollywood obsession with saving the world as the third act stakes. Sigh. So instead of suspenseful cat and mouse, the 7 foot man in a suit is dispensed with for a CGI Predator, an alien spaceship flies about the place, and hands, arms, legs, and heads are lopped off with the abandon of Starship Troopers.

Top 10 Films of 2016

(10) Arrival

Time is not linear,

how we speak is how we think,

says hard sci-fi.

(9) Maggie’s Plan

A Miller screwball comedy,

Gerwig plays all,

save Slavoj Zizek.

(8) The Daughter

Ibsen but not Ibsen,

secrets and lies in Oz,

sins of the past bite.

(7) Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Majestical Taika Waititi,

makes smart sight gags,

and smarter lines.

(6) Look Who’s Back

Borat with Hitler,

painting in Bayreuth,

and a bit with a dog too.

(5) The Neon Demon

Refn the garish provocateur,

subverts Keanu,

bloodies glitter.

(4) Queen of Earth

Two women by the lake,

one loses her mind,

the other doesn’t mind.

(3) Deadpool

Take usual plot,

discuss usual plot in the plot,

a dead shot.

(2) The Nice Guys

Laurel and Hardy fight crime,

Laurel’s daughter the brains,

but not Waltons.

(1) High-Rise

Tower block descends into anarchy,

the residents…

kind of like it.

The Nice Guys

Shane Black’s third film as writer/director sees him back in familiar R-rated crime comedy territory after his unexpected Iron Man sojourn in PG-13 comic-book land.

Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is the heavy you hire to rough up a creepy pot-dealer, or the PI who’s dogging your footsteps. The PI in question is Holland March (Ryan Gosling), ethically challenged since California introduced no-fault divorce; in that he now searches for missing husbands while their ashes are on display on their widow’s mantelpiece. But probably not ethically challenged enough to deserve what Amelia (Margaret Qualley) hires Healy to do to him. Soon after their set-to Healy is himself roughed up by two heavies (Beau Knapp and Keith David), and finds getting Holland back on Amelia’s trail a matter of some personal urgency. Holland’s 13 year old daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) helps the investigation into Amelia’s whereabouts and the related murder of porno performer Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio) actually get somewhere, but conspiracy and a Detroit hit-man lurk…

The Nice Guys may be the funniest film of 2016. Black is on top form when it comes to absurdist comic routines, there are a number of set-piece bickering arguments that would not be out of place in a Martin McDonagh script. The physicality of Crowe and Gosling quite obviously recalls Laurel & Hardy, with Gosling’s scream a particular joy, as well as his attempt to maintain his dignity in a piece of business involving awkward manoeuvres with a toilet door and a gun. This mines a similar cinematic seam to 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but replaces that film’s nods to Chandler with a tip of the hat to 1970s conspiracy thrillers; and a more amused in-camera acknowledgement of how things conveniently turn out for the best when everything looks like it’s going to hell thru our heroes’ bungling.

The juxtaposition of extreme violence and comic slapstick served up by Black and his Doc Savage co-writer Anthony Bagarozzi jars initially, but you quickly become comfortable with this imaginary 1970s universe; in which Tim Allen is gigging everywhere and pornos are omnipresent. Philippe Rousselot’s cinematography casts a 1970s haze over proceedings, to match the distrust of authority that dogs Holland and Healy as they deal with Justice Department officials Judith (Kim Basinger) and Tally (Yaya DaCosta). An unexpected carry-over from Iron Man 3 is Black’s use of younger characters to upbraid the leads. Rice gives a standout performance as the 1970s Veronica Mars driving her father around and tracking down leads, easily holding her own against Gosling and Crowe’s fine turns. Matt Bomer’s enigmatic character is a visual treat in the finale, but what you’ll remember most is the dialogue.

From a peerless Richard Nixon story, to a validation of profanity, and a refusal to give up on the possibility of romance that bends reality itself, this is delightful.

5/5

CinemaCon 2016

Burbank, CA was the location for Warner Bros. Pictures’ CinemaCon 2016, announcing developments in the studio’s wide-ranging slate. Chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara announced the headline confirmation that Ben Affleck—who will reprise his Batman in the upcoming Justice League movie—will direct, as well as star in, a new stand-alone Batman.

The WB’s presentation was illustrated by trailers and film clips—including some never-before-seen footage—and appearances by major stars and film-makers involved in the movies.  Tsujihara’s has talked about basing the WB’s future on the key franchises of DC, animated LEGO^® features, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but the current slate also encompasses dramas, action adventures, horrors, and comedies. Sue Kroll, new President of Worldwide Marketing and Distribution, and Veronika Kwan Vandenberg, new President of Worldwide Distribution, also spoke. Kroll said, “CinemaCon is always one of the high points of our year: when we get to introduce our upcoming slate to our partners in the exhibition community who are responsible for bringing our films to audiences worldwide,” while Kwan Vandenberg added, “We appreciated the enthusiastic participation of actors and filmmakers from every title, who added tremendous star power to the presentation.”

Ben Affleck and Amy Adams kicked off the presentation with a bang, introducing a reel spotlighting the studio’s ambitious slate of DC films.  The roster includes the new Justice League film, as well as stand-alone Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg features. Embattled Batman v Superman director Zack Snyder closed the reel with a greeting from the Justice League film set, surrounded by his stars. The DC preview also included a glimpse of the summer’s hotly anticipated super-villain team-up Suicide Squad before its writer/director David Ayer took the stage and introduced the main ensemble cast, led by Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, and Joel Kinnaman.  The extended version of the Suicide Squad trailer was met with loud applause and the buzz surrounding the film was palpable.

Host Mario Lopez went through the rest of the summer line-up, with advance footage from the wide range of titles, introduced by stars and filmmakers including Russell Crowe for Shane Black’s action comedy The Nice Guys, Emilia Clarke for the drama Me Before You, director James Wan and stars Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson for the supernatural thriller The Conjuring 2, Teresa Palmer and David F. Sandberg for the horror thriller Lights Out, Kevin Hart and Rawson Marshall Thurber for the action comedy Central Intelligence, Alexander Skarsgård, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson, and Christoph Waltz for the adventure The Legend of Tarzan, and director Todd Phillips and his Hangover star Bradley Cooper reuniting for the comedic drama War Dogs based on real events.

WB then unveiled films on the drawing board from the Warner Animation Group.  Chris Miller, Phil Lord, and Nicholas Stoller introduced titles in the pipeline, anchored by The LEGO^®Batman Movie, The LEGO^® Movie 2, and Ninjago.  Stoller, who co-directed the next film on the slate, Storks, was joined by fellow director Doug Sweetland and voice talents Andy Samberg and Katie Crown to present new footage from the family adventure.  The animation portion wrapped with never-before-seen footage from The LEGO^® Batman Movie, presented by producers Lord and Miller, and the voice of ‘Batman’ himself, Will Arnett. The presentation closed with a look Warner Bros. closed the presentation with a look at Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, written by Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling.  Four of the film’s stars; Eddie Redmayne, Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler and Colin Farrell; introduced the new teaser trailer and a look behind the scenes of the film.

It is a keen irony that the WB is currently taking flak for launching the Cinematic DC Universe with the humourless dourness of Batman v Superman, while the TV DC Universe is universally beloved for its lightness of touch, almost as if two prime directives are colliding. The need to maintain the WB’s vaunted position as a home for cinematic artists that respects directorial vision – whether that be Kubrick, Nolan, or Affleck – becomes self-defeating when the artist in question is Zack Snyder, and when an entirely less sombre vision, exemplified by writer/producer Greg Berlanti’s roster of Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl, is available free to air weeknights.

2016: Hopes

Midnight Special

Mud writer/director Jeff Nichols makes his studio debut on April 15^th with this tale he places roughly in the territory of John Carpenter’s Starman and De Palma’s The Fury. Nichols regular Michael Shannon plays a father forced to go on the run with his son after discovering the kid has special powers, and the FBI is interested in them… Sam Shepard also recurs, as does cinematographer Adam Stone, while Adam Driver, Kirsten Dunst, and Joel Edgerton join the Nichols stable. It’s hard to imagine a genre tale from Nichols, but perhaps an unusually heart-felt Stephen King captures it.

Everybody Wants Some

April 15^th sees Richard Linklater release a ‘spiritual sequel’ to both Dazed and Confused and Boyhood. Little is known for sure about Everybody Wants Some, other than it’s a comedy-drama about college baseball players during the 1980s, that follows a boy entering college, meeting a girl, and a new band of male friends. The cast features Blake Jenner, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Wyatt Russell, and Zoey Deutch, so in retrospect may be as star-studded as his 1993 exploration of the end of high school. Hopefully it’s as archetypal and poignant as that as regards the college experience.

 

Love & Friendship

On April 27^th almost exactly four years since Damsels in Distress the urbane Whit Stillman returns with another tale of female friendship, with a little help in the scripting department from Jane Austen. His Last Days of Disco stars Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny reunite for this adaptation of Austen’s ‘Lady Susan’ novella shot in Ireland. Stephen Fry, Jemma Redgrave, and Xavier Samuel are the supporting players as Beckinsale tries to marry off her daughter (Morfydd Clark) but the real attraction is Stillman, poet of dry wit and elite social rituals, adapting an author with similar preoccupations.

The Nice Guys

Shane Black’s third directorial effort, out on May 20^th, sees him back on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang territory. Get ready for Ryan Gosling to Bogart his way thru the seedy side of the City of Angels as Holland March, PI. March partners up with a rookie cop (Matt Bomer) to investigate the apparent suicide of a porn star. But standing in his way is an LA Confidential reunion: Kim Basinger as femme fatale, Russell Crowe as Det. Jackson Healy. It’s hard not to be excited at the prospect of terrific dialogue carrying some hysterically self-aware genre deconstruction.

Queen of Earth

We can expect writer/director Alex Ross Perry’s latest movie to hit Irish cinemas sometime in June. Listen Up Philip star Elisabeth Moss takes centre-stage here alongside Inherent Vice’s Katherine Waterston as two old friends who retreat to a lake house only to discover that they have grown very far apart with the passage of time. Keegan DeWitt scores his second movie for ARP not with jazz but a dissonance appropriate to the unusual close-ups, that have invited comparison with Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, as a spiky Waterston hurts an emotionally wounded Moss in all the old familiar places.

Independence Day: Resurgence

Roland Emmerich, the maestro of bombastic action that is actually mocking its audience, returns on June 24^th (for some reason) with a belated sequel in which the aliens come back. Jeff Goldblum has led a 20 year scramble to harness alien tech to strengthen earth’s defences but will those efforts (and Liam Hemsworth’s mad piloting skills) be enough against an even more imposing armada? Sela Ward is the POTUS, Bill Pullman’s POTUS has grown a beard, his daughter has morphed from Mae Whitman into Maika Monroe, and the indefatigable Judd Hirsch returns to snark about these changes.

La La Land

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling team up again on July 15^th for an original musical from Whiplash writer/director Damien Chazelle. Gosling is a jazz musician in LA who falls in love with Stone’s aspiring actress, and that’s all you need for plot. Stone did an acclaimed turn as Sally Bowles in Cabaret on Broadway, but whether Gosling or JK Simmons (!!) can hold a tune is unknown. The real question is will it be half-embarrassed to be a musical (Chicago), attempt unwise grittiness (New York, New York), or be as mental as aMoulin Rouge! with original songs?

Suicide Squad

And on August 5^th we finally get to see what Fury auteur David Ayer has done with Batman’s Rogues’ Gallery. The latest trailer has amped up the nonsense quotient considerably, and this now looks like The Dirty Dozen scripted by Grant Morrison. Joel Kinnaman’s long-suffering Rick Flagg has to lead into combat the assassin Deadshot (Will Smith), angry mercenary Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), witch Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), half-man half-crocodile Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and the psycho in psychotherapy, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie). All eyes are on Robbie’s take on Harley, well until Jared Leto’s Mistah J turns up…

Sausage Party

August 12^th sees the release of probably the most ridiculous film you will see all year, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have scripted an adult animation about a sausage in a grocery store on a quest to discover the truth of his existence. Apart from Jay Baruchel, all the voices you’d expect are present and correct: James Franco, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Paul Rudd, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, David Krumholtz, as well as Kristen Wiig, Edward Norton, and Salma Hayek. But given how Green Hornet failed can R-rated semi-improvised comedy and animation go hand in hand?

War on Everyone

The Guard in New Mexico! Okay, maybe not quite, but in that wheelhouse. In late August John Michael McDonagh makes his American bow with a blackly comic thriller about two renegade cops (Alexander Skarsgaard and Michael Pena) who have devoted themselves to blackmailing and framing every criminal who crosses their path. And then they come across that somebody they shouldn’t have messed with… McDonagh’s two previous outings as writer/director have been very distinctive, visually, philosophically, and verbally, but you wonder if he’ll have to endlessly self-censor his take no prisoners comedy for ‘liberal’ American sensibilities. Hopefully not.

The Girl on the Train

Following Gone Girl another book of the moment thriller gets rapidly filmed on October 7^th when Emily Blunt becomes the titular voyeur. From her commuter train seat she witnesses the interactions of perfect couple Haley Bennett and Luke Evans as she slows down at a station on the way to London. Then one day she sees something she shouldn’t have, and decides to investigate… The impressive supporting cast includes Rebecca Ferguson, Laura Prepon, Allison Janney, and Justin Theroux, but it’s not clear if Secretary screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson has relocated the action to New York.

The Great Wall

November 23^rd sees Chinese director Zhang Yimou embrace Hollywood, with an English-language story about the construction of the Great Wall of China scripted by Max Brooks and Tony Gilroy. Zhang has assembled an impressive international cast including Matt Damon, Andy Lau, Willem Dafoe, Jing Tian, Zhang Hanyu, and Mackenzie Foy for this sci-fi fantasy of the Wall’s completion. Little is known about the actual plot, but Zhang’s recent movies about the Cultural Revolution have been a drastic change of pace from the highly stylised colourful martial arts epics of Imperial China he’s known for in the West.

The Founder

Michael Keaton cements his leading man comeback on November 25^th with a blackly comic biopic of Ray Kroc. Who is Ray Kroc you ask? The Founder of … McDonald’s. Yes the McDonald brothers did own a hamburger store, but it wasn’t them that expanded into a national and then global, brand. That was all Kroc, who bought them out, and then forgot to pay them royalties; one of several incidents of what people might call either unethical behaviour or recurrent amnesia. Supporting players include Nick Offerman, Laura Dern, and Patrick Wilson, so this tale might be quite tasty.

Story of Your Life

Denis Villeneuve gears up for directing Blade Runner 2 with an original sci-fi movie that should arrive late in 2016. A first contact story, adapted by Eric Heisserer from Ted Chiang’s short story, it follows Amy Adams’ Dr. Louise Banks, a linguistics expert recruited by the U.S. military. Her job is to decipher an alien race’s communications, but her close encounter with ET causes vivid flashbacks to events from her life. Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, and Michael Stuhlbarg are physicists and spooks trying to figure out what her unnerving experiences mean for rest of the humanity.

Passengers

Stomping on Rogue One with a December 21^st release date is the dream team of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. Poor Keanu Reeves spent years trying to make this sci-fi rom-com happen but as soon as these two expressed interest Jon Spaihts’ long-circling script got permission to land. Pratt wakes from cryo-sleep 90 years too early, so wakes up another passenger to relieve his loneliness on the somnambulant spaceship. Michael Sheen is a robot, but the potential for delight is offset by worthy director Morten Tyldum and the high probability of the contrivance of every other rom-com being used.

Assassin’s Creed

‘One for the studio, One for ourselves’. As it were. December 21^st sees the acclaimed Macbeth trio of Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, and director Justin Kurzel reunite for a blockbuster based on the all-conquering game. Ubisoft Motion Pictures (yes, that’s really a thing now) and New Regency have opted not to adapt the story of Desmond Miles, or Ezio Auditore; perhaps in case this bombs. Fassbender plays original character Callum Lynch who can commune with his ancestor Aguilar, also played by Fassbender; presumably with a devilish grin as he battles the Spanish Inquisition. Fingers crossed that this works.