Every so often an indie comes along done just right. And yes, a disproportionate amount of those time it’ll have a Duplass name attached to it. But the prolific Duplass bros did not create this show, they just produced it and Jay directed a bunch of it. And yet, their distinct vibe is all over this quiet gem.
On a surface there isn’t much to it: a woman comes back to her hometown, something somewhere small in Kansas (suburban Chicago standing in). Devastated by her sister’s death and with nothing much anchoring her down, Sam, the protagonist , is in her 40s and unmoored. It’ll takes a few good friends to bring her out of her funk. And boy, does she make friends. Why wouldn’t she? Sam’s got an easy charm, she’s funny, and she can really sing. And so, she reconnects with Joel, someone she knew and forgot from high school who introduces her into his world of queer quirky misfit toys. Yes, apparently, they got those in Kansas. Who knew? Joel is a lovely being all around, someone who also isn’t anywhere where his visionboard takes him, but indomitably optimistic about life. Exactly the sort of friend Sam needs. Maybe exactly the sort of friend everybody needs. And then there’s Fred Rococo, a delightful monopoly man of dapper suits and purple party van fame, who balances out every gathering with a simple no-nonsense approach. There’s of course, Sam’s family to reckon with too. From her charming mountain of a father, to her alcoholic mother, to her difficult and very different from Sam sister, to her beloved teenage niece. It’s all about balance, finding and giving love where you can, but above all, this is a story of the power of friendship. As such, it is somewhat unusual. There’s virtually no romantic subplots. It’s all about meeting the right people who can buoy your spirits and help you get through this tough, tough life. From a personal perspective, it’s practically a fantasy, but objectively speaking…yes, I would like to believe in this sort of thing existing in the world – misfits misfitting together. It’s downright heartwarming, albeit not in any sort of cheesy way. It’s all so very low key, but the acting is top rate. When Sam sings her heart out, you can feel it in yours. And yes, there’s that symmetry of a person from Manhattan, Kansas playing a character from Manhattan, Kansas that surely provides some emotional punch up. The rest of the cast is from Chicago region and all over, but they mesh well, and their motley crew’s devastating disappointments and small triumphs absolutely shine. There’s realism to it, indie style. Maybe even more so. There’s only one conventionally attractive by Hollywood standards person in the entire cast. It’s quite refreshing to see real people on screen, living real lives. With a bit of sunshine now and again. It reminded me in style and energy and emotion of The Detectorists, a BBC show I’m fond off. Another quiet gem worth checking out. So yeah, there you go, with only seven short episodes, this is an easy binge and entirely worth it. Somewhere on HBO there’s something you ought to watch.
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There’s no director quite like Wes Anderson. Not only because his movies are so charmingly quirky and so pleasingly odd at their best, but also because no other movie looks like his. You can recognize his work in every single frame instantly. Each scene is so carefully crafted, so precision cut and framed and lighted, that it’s almost like a procession of designer postcards – from one of those stores that specializes in small expensive things no one ever really needs. I’m a fan, I like Anderson’s work. Royal Tenenbaums is one of my all-time favorites. This one was easily my least favorite of his. This movie is Anderson at his most indulgently precocious. The look-how-clever option. It has every single Andersonian trademark from a spectacularly talented cast to the beautiful scenery and cinematography to yes, that famous quirk and yet…there’s something peculiarly tedious about this production. I watched it in two evenings – easy enough to do since the movie is technically a triptych – and this ode to a small publisher’s coverage of Europe and all his off-beat reporters just didn’t engage me enough to care about separating a movie out like that or even be in any rush to get back to it. The writing itself is so witty and funny and magnificently droll, and there’s a certain staged outrageness to the scenarios that is also appealing, but the overall impression if so over the top, so overdone, it’s like having too much of a good thing. And we’re not talking about things like money, which one might argue there’s never too much of; we’re talking about, like, cake. You can definitely have too much cake. Wes Anderson should have rationed his more. To continue with dessert metaphors, he kind of went for a kid in a bake shop approach, grabbing this and that and never stopping. Like a form of glut. The movie can't even make up its mind about being black and white or in color, switching in between the two. It has a cast too large to properly utilize, resulting in very talented actors like Elizabeth Moss being essentially reduced to background. It has so many stories to tell that it talks over itself. And so, with this serving of Anderson’s customary nostalgia schtick…it’s cute, it’s precious, it’s different than all the other movies out there, but it’s just too busy. Maybe that’s why it’s done in thirds – so that you can regulate your cake intake. But that, of course, it’s entirely up to you. Australian outback has a terrifyingly otherworldly sort of vibe to it. It’s like Mars but with proper gravity. Vast open spaces at their most unsettling.
You don’t want to wake up in the middle of it. You certainly don’t want to do it with amnesia. But then again, without it, The Tourist would have no plot – just Christian Grey, being all rough and tumble and bearded. And with it, we have a man on a quest to regain himself. A quest that becomes more and more regrettable the further he proceeds, as it becomes clearer and clearer that he isn’t (or wasn’t) just an average sort of guy. There’s a beautiful woman who seems determined to tag along with him. Then there’s a policewoman determined to go above and beyond her limited duties to help him even if it means defying her overbearing turd of a fiancé. And then there are people actively trying to kill him, including a fantastically proportioned American cowboy played by a fantastically proportioned Icelandic giant. Seriously, the gut on this guy is legendary and he cuts a crazy silhouette which the director uses more than once. He is sent by the main boss - a perpetually LSD-high Greek dealer with an imaginary friend and a fiery temper. What did Jamie Dornan do in his past life to deserve such animosity? Well, you’re just going to have to watch it and find out. It’s only six episodes. Let’s just say sometimes a person is better off not knowing. Especially if they might be in the market for second chances. So, it looks awesome. Outback might be deadly, but it is photogenic. The acting’s great all around, although the cop played by Danielle McDonald is a real standout here. I’ve seen her before, in Skin, and didn’t care one way or another. But here she’s a revelation in vulnerability and determination and quiet easy charm. Dornan’s good too, it’s nice to see that he doesn’t just do the easy thing of relying on his good looks and dubious fame as Anastasia Steele’s spanker. And the ending is so good, so poignant, so…chose your own story. I thought it was great. Until I read that it was renewed for season too. Why? It doesn’t seem like a tv show. It has every making of a miniseries. People really need to learn to leave things alone. Not every single story needs to be exhaustively exploited and overexplained. It’s ok to let people think for themselves. It’s ok to leave some mystery. None of those are popular lines of thinking in this generally dumbed down times we live in, but it’s worthy of a mention. Windfall is a study in failed opportunities. It has all the right ingredients, but the overall result in underbaked.
It begins stylishly enough with a steady shot that harkens back to the golden age of cinema. A perfect vacation home. A man. A man goes through it but treats it with resentment and crudeness, so that you know it isn’t his. And sure enough, it isn’t. He is only there to rob it. The place belongs to a tech tycoon who promptly shows up with his trophy wife in tow just as the thief is about to slip away. And then the drama ensues. Because the thief (who remains unnamed throughout the movie) just cannot seem to leave no matter how much he tries. In some movies, villains get killed because they take too long delivering their final speech. In this one, the thief gets undone mostly by his shabby planning and his shoelaces. Yep, shoelaces. This would be a way different movie if the thief had only worn slip-ons. The eerie doppelgängerish echo of his dad and an indie darling Charlie McDowell is once again mixing business with pleasure by casting his significant other in the leading role. First it was Rooney Mara in the Discovery, now it’s Collins, who is also set to star in his next feature. Collins is sort of like a lesser version of Mara (or lesser Emilia Clarke whom McDowell has also dated albeit not long enough to make a movie with – boy, does this guy have a type), but at least she’s beginning to look her age, wherein before her slight presence was too childlike to be taken seriously. She certainly got a meaty role to play with here, but the thing is technically everyone does. There are really only three main roles. She doesn’t get to steal the show, that’s what everyone’s favorite Jesse Plemmons is for. The least likely of Hollywood leading men, the man with neither the face nor the body for it, Plemmons makes up for it with plenty of talent and a strange sort of mesmeric screen presence. In this movie, he’s a prototypical arrogant-scumbag-with-money-and-brains and he plays it up with gusto. But it is still a cliché of a role. Which is one of the downfalls of this movie. Collins plays his wife, a dissatisfied and embittered woman who is less than happy about having to sleep in the bed she made. Another cliché. Rounding it up is Jason Segel’s thief. This character is actually so underdeveloped, it barely passes for a cliché. Or a character. Segel (recycled from McDowell’s Discovery) has a sort of charming hangdog sadsack presence that he served him throughout his career fairly well, but it doesn’t do much for him either. His motivations are barely revealed, he’s almost as clueless as Plemmons is manipulative. In fact, Plemmons literally has to instruct him on how to rob him properly. Overall, though, it’s a storm in a teacup, at best. It could have been so much more – a commentary on class warfare or socioeconomic imbalance or just an expression of righteous rage at the 1%. Instead, it’s a lukewarm pot of talking that never really boils. Technically, the ending is supposed to be the boiling point, but, sadly, it’s just another cliché. Hell hath no fury and all that. The end result is a prettily shot and well-acted character drama that is woefully underwritten and underplotted and ultimately kind of pointless. It’s short enough, considerately, but it doesn’t offer much for your time. More of a might have been of a movie. Charlie McDowell’s career thus far has had a pronounced downward trajectory, from the acclaimed The One I Love to the lesser but still good Discovery to now this. The next movie he’s working on sounds great, so maybe then… Wait….so what exactly happened? Did Shawn Levy specifically set out to make two science fiction actioneers back-to-back with Reynolds, but only had the juice to make one of them good?
Mind you, Adam Project somehow got 6.8 on IMBD which is only a shared less than the far superior Free Guy, but in reality, those two movies are day and night. Also, apples and oranges. For instance, in Adam Project Reynolds has face fuzz. No wait, but seriously…Free Guy is a great movie of a blockbuster variety. A perfect popcorn entertainment. It’s fun and witty and charming and clever. It makes video games fun…and I don’t even like video games. I found Ready Player One to be hugely overrated as a book and only somewhat interesting as a movie extravaganza, but Free Guy is exactly what a movie about video games ought to be. Adam Project, on the flip side of that coin, is a movie that seems to think it IS a video game. Outside of the easy banter between Reynolds and his very well cast 12-year-old self, there’s nothing here. The depth and emotional backbone are an afterthought (and a corny one at that) as artificial as aged down Catherine Keener (the villain of the story) who in fact looks like a video game character. Adam Project has one central idea – wouldn’t it be awesome for a small nerdy picked-on kid to meet his buff and tough older self. The rest is bombastic nonsense and special effects. In fact, for its overall IQ, it’s a kids’ movie. If only they would clean up the language, it would very much be a kids’ movie. Reynolds (with his handsome mug, perfect bod, and perfect comedic timing) is always a pleasure to watch, but he doesn’t discriminate when it comes to movie roles, it seems, he just goes for volume. Some of that quantity is quality and some of it is…well, Adam Project. Free Guy - now that’s quality. It’s conceptually original, wacky, interesting. It’s funny AND has a message. Reynolds is at his best here as a lovable clueless everyday guy named, appropriately enough, Guy, who discovers his world is so much more than he ever imagined. Discovers his world is completely out of his control and proceeds to assert some control over it anyway. Free will, determinism, it’s all here, folks. Step right up and enjoy. Tons of CGI too, but in this case as a necessary assist to the story, not the main thing about it. You don’t need to be a gamer to enjoy it, though it certainly helps. It even did well at the box office and now, sure enough, the completely unnecessary sequel is in the works. So, what’s the moral here? Well, for one thing…not all Levy/Reynold collaborations are created equal. Use your discernment. And, just so you can practice that discernment, those two have more in the works. Marvel Universe, wouldn’t you know it, because sooner or later all roads lead to MU. Ok, that’s it. Go watch Free Guy now. Not since Geppetto’s expert craftsmanship brought Pinocchio to life, has a wooden by design character been animated as expertly as Peacemaker.
In Suicide Squad, he’s a jingoistic caricature, an All-American nightmare of oversized muscles willing to kill whoever it takes for peace. In his own tv show, Peacemaker is a man, a flawed man shaped by a tragic past with his abusive white supremacist father. You actually get to see (and even like) a man behind the silly suit, Chris Smith. When we meet him for the first time since the events of Suicide Squad, Peacemaker is fresh out of prison where he’s been for the past four years – plenty of time to think and reflect on his actions. The release is conditional – his skills are needed once again to protect the American way of life, this time from an alien invasion no one talks about. Peacemaker is given an uneven team, featuring an emotionless (for a reason) leader, a dyed-beard grumpy tech, an action Barbie aka kickass female warrior aka James Gunn’s main squeeze who here proves that nepotism isn’t always shite because she’s great in her role and a contract worker who is (gasp) Amanda Waller’s own daughter, completely unprepared for the work and reluctant to even be there. There’s also the self-proclaimed Peacemaker’s greatest fan and friend, The Vigilante – a wildly amusing homicidal idiot with a disproportionate sense of justice and mad fighting skills. And of course, Peacemaker’s actual best friend – an eagle named Eaglie. Who hugs. Seriously. Hugs. And now this ragtag bunch who fumble at least as often as they score might be the only thing that stands between the world and the alien (they call them Butterflies) invasion. Crazy, sure, but they’re going to give it all they got. Peacemaker isn’t a perfect show. It’s kind of an oddball, honestly. James Gunn is a master of crowd-pleasing offbeat blockbusters as known for their awesome effects as they are for their quirky humorous approach and awesome soundtracks. The show didn’t quite land for me until some episodes in. The jokes were coming in kind of flat, like almost but not quite there. But the thing is, I now realize, is that Peacemaker is simply more subtle than Gunn’s other work. When Gunn puts his foot down and revs the engines – and the man is very much in control here, having written and produced all of the episodes and directing most of them – Peacemaker is awesome. It’s bombastic but also smart, fun, and surprisingly emotionally engaging for a such a bro of a superhero show. It helps that John Cena does such a remarkable job here, working all of his face muscles. Yes, his eerie likeness to an young Schwarzenegger is disturbing (and so noticeable it’s actually remarked upon by his teammate), but Arnie never emoted like that on his best day. Cena is an absolute delight; he shifts gears from too to man so effortlessly it’s an absolute pleasure to watch. I liked everyone on his team too, especially Vigilante, but Cena is the one who carries the show on his gigantic well-muscled shoulders, and he does a great job of it. The rest? Well, it looks as great as you’d expect. It sounds as great as you’d expect. It has quite possibly the BEST opening credits sequence ever made. Seriously. I didn’t hit skip into button once. It’s just such a charmingly wacky dance routine, you gotta see if for yourself. Overall, in retrospect, this was excellent. In a way, a perfect antidote to Reacher. Both Reacher and Peacemaker are essentially gigantic muscley mountains of American justice machines, the difference is… Reacher is meant to be an optimized version of everyman, but he is such a ridiculous creation that he ends up wildly unrealistic like a comic book character (and not a very interestingly written one at that) and Peacemaker is actually a comic book character, but rendered so well that he comes across as a real and compelling and interesting person. Yey for Peacemaker. The only question remains…Do ya really wanna, do ya really wanna taste that? |
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