Unforgettable

Year: 2017
Genre: Drama
Directed: Denise Di Novi
Stars: Rosario Dawson, Katherine Heigl, Geoff Stults, Cheryl Ladd, Whitney Cummings, Robert Wisdom, Isabella Kai Rice, Simon Kassianides, Jayson Blair, Alex Quijano, Marissa Morgan
Production: DiNovi Pictures

Unforgettable nips at the heels of an inconceivable yet still surprisingly common movie tradition. Movies like this seem to come out like clockwork every spring and fall, selling trashy love triangles, campy plot contrivances and flavorless counterfeit emotions masquerading as insights into the human psyche. I'm half tempted to keep this review as general as possible just so I can plug it in in perpetuity every time an Obsessed (2009) or a When the Bough Breaks (2016) or a The Perfect Guy (2015) rears its haughty, contemptuous head.

At least this one doesn't have Morris Chestnut in it!

But no, I will play nice, on the off chance that maybe someday one of these overwhelmingly crappy movies actually manages to reach the high bar set by Fatal Attraction (1987) - my God, Fatal Attraction is the high bar! And as much as I would like to say Unforgettable inches closer than most to being a passable dunderotica thriller, the fact is this movie may just be the worst of the bunch.

Rosario Dawson plays free spirit Julia Banks whose relationship with a former Investment banker turned California Brewer is high-and-away the best thing she has going for her. She has a job as a writer/editor I think but its obvious that's just an excuse for her to take lone baths in the middle of the day when the lights better. The only kink in her new relationship with...Mike, I wanna say it's Mike (Stults) is he constantly has to interact with his ex-wife, Tessa (Heigl) on account of their prissy little daughter (Rice). As the relationship gets more serious, Tessa sets out to make Julia's new life a living hell with the partial help of Julia's tumultuous past and a hacked iPhone.

I'm not crazy and neither am I!

The focus of our attention switches quixotically between the two women forcing the audience to choose sympathies between one character's milk-and-water niceness and the other's eye-twitching fastidiousness. Yet because of the laughable dialogue, the forced backstory and the awkward mish-mash of leering camera angles and lazy editing; having to choose between the two is like asking whether would would like to be bitten by a poisonous asp or smothered with a pillow.

Moments of Heigl plotting with the intensity of the nitrates in her wine flirt the line between reality and parody. She is hands down the best part of this movie mostly because the meta-text of her blubbering about being loved hints to the actresses own fall from grace, which (unfairly) pitted her against the Apatow frat-pack and the whole of entertainment media.

I'll show you "hard to deal with..."

This movie is unlikely to help her image, especially when the story forces her and Dawson to go from blandly cordial to Jerry Springer, "Hands-off-my-man-b***h," level craziness with the power of a single cut. It's all so painfully contrived too as literally every major plot-point can be undone if anyone bothered to confirm suspicions instead of letting them lie. I suppose if it helps the story, normal human interactions can be sacrificed, especially when the source of this love triangle has a penchant for excusing anyone's concerns with a hand-wave. Ex-wife gives the "how well do you really know her" speech; don't sweat it. Child gets a haircut as punishment; seems like normal behavior. girlfriend's abusive ex-lover winds up bloody on the kitchen floor; let's wait until we hear from all sides.

Seriously, this guy is not worth it!

Unforgettable's bogus lack of thrills, astonishingly idiotic characters and clumsily threaded plot-points are as basic and unnecessary as a Unicorn Frappuccino. All hopes for a stupidly sweet retooling of familiar cliches are dashed in favor of a sour monstrosity that basically announces you wasted your money. If a lesson can be learned here, its to never make your smartphone's password your birth-date; that and to never trust a woman who won't drink your own brewed beer.

And instead drinks this s**t

Final Grade: F

The Void

Year: 2016
Genre: Horror
Directed: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski
Stars: Aaron Poole, Kenneth Welsh, Daniel Fathers, Kathleen Munroe, Ellen Wong, Mik Byskov, Art Hindle, Stephanie Belding, James Millington, Evan Stern, Grace Munro, Matthew Kennedy, David Scott
Production: Cave Painting Pictures

The Void is not a very good movie, though to be honest the film has every conceivable handicap inherited from the trappings of its genre. It's cheaply made, independently produced, terribly acted and starts with a pretty straightforward slasher plot that pits the occupants of a small town hospital against a swath of knife-wielding wackos. The fact that The Void was also crowdfunded only cements the idea that the film will eventually be the butt of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988-Present) episode; if not forgotten outright.

Welcome back guys!

Yet I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss this amateurish ode to Lovecraftian horror. As decidedly terrible as it is, the direction and cinematography hints there's someone at home. The moments of suspense are for the most part genuine, as is the all-permeating feeling of bleakness and dread. There are some truly create set-pieces that effectively hide the cheapness of the movie as well as some literate flourishes akin to Kenneth Anger's celluloid abstractions and H.R. Giger's feral body horror.

So this is a thing that happens...

The sustained doom and gloom of the film is complimented admirably by The Void's ghastly third act, which all but gives up on its mundane plot to give us something new. Well, maybe not new, but definitely something mainstream audiences haven't seen since Silent Hill (2006) and haven't seen done well since Hellraiser (1987). If you can forgive all its faults and brush off the film's additional misplaced pretension you may find something worth salvaging here.

But of course for every competent tableaux of occult mythos, spooling across the screen there's about a dozen or so moments of eye-rolling stupidity. The group dynamic between this crop of expendables never seems to coalesce or even make sense. There are a few woeful moments of bad character decisions that never seem practical, expedient or in any way reasonable and, as if to draw attention to it's laziness, one character straight-up idiot lectures every piece of our protagonist's (Poole) backstory like he's his biographer. I mean good God, I've seen bad exposition dumps before but this is Village (2004)-level excruciating.

The Void is a bad movie. But it's a bad movie the same way Bad Taste (1987) or The Last House on the Left (1972) are bad movies. There are huge problems that could have been solved with a little more money, little more organization, a little more rewrites etc. Yet when it comes to the composite parts (makeup, lighting, art direction) as well as the film's overall vision, co-directors Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski do seem to be headed in the right direction.

FYI: These are the guys who made Last House on the Left and Bad Taste

Final Grade: F

The Fate of the Furious

Year: 2017
Genre: Action
Directed: F. Gary Gray
Stars: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Charlize Theron, Kurt Russell, Nathalie Emmanuel, Scott Eastwood, Luke Evans, Elsa Pataky, Kristofer Hivju
Production: Universal Pictures

The Fast and the Furious franchise (2001-Present) has been a bit of a sticking point for me over the years. In many ways I admire it for being an outright parody of itself while still maintaining its stone-face veneer - fronted of course by Vin Diesel: the least interesting action hero since Rick Hill. Yet every time I see Dominic "Famaly" Torreto jump head first out of a speeding car and onto concrete and live, I can't help but long for the days when these character archetypes were nothing more than Point Break (1991) riffs with faster cars.

Seriously, can you give this guy some keys to play with?

To be honest, I do not like this series. I don't like that it has taken all the, by comparison, harmless sex, cars and chauvinism of the first three movies and calibrated those elements into a super concise, soulless and  frightfully cynical machine shucking materialism and bling-bling tribalism. At the center of this beast is not the need to tell an interesting story - to be honest it's not even about giving audiences high quality action either. This series now exists as a means to its own end. It exists because Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez and Tyrese "I do absolutely nothing of consequence" Gibson need it to.

Keep in mind when that stick comes out there's no telling how much bulls**t is coming

But for the sake of audiences who don't know or care that their being duped, I won't go into nit-picky details on Fate of the Furious's questionable physics. I won't call out the plot which at eight movies in is starting to resemble Swiss Cheese with the amount of plot holes. I won't question the bad acting, the terrible character choices, the dubious themes nor will I continue to point out that being able to drive cars good, is not a good enough reason to recruit an aggressively diverse group of pseudo-criminals for a world-saving challenge. I will graciously take that big, wide stick I got up my a** and try to meet this movie half way.

Fate of the Furious takes place shortly after the events of Furious 7: Furious and Furiouser (2015), just as Dom and a recovered amnesiac Letty (Rodriguez) are getting the hang of their hip Cuban honeymoon. After the obligatory street race through Havana, Dom rendezvous with notorious super-hacker and three movie retcon Cypher (Theron) who turns him against his "famirlehr" for the sake of global domination (and something about a crocodile). Mr. Nobody (Russell) then retools Dom's team - adding 7th movie baddy Deckard Shaw (Statham) because of reasons - so they can all hunt him down and find out what Cypher is really up to.

For immediate, unbiased cultural comparison, Fate of the Furious is not as good as Fast Five (2011) but not as bad as Tokyo Drift (2006) (which to me is like asking which poison I'd prefer drinking but, whatever). The action sequences are unique and bombastic enough to sustain regular fans of the series while being just on the cusp of unbelievably and super-unbelievably for causal fans to not say, "did The Rock just Dr. Strangelove (1964) a f***ing torpedo?" The supposed zombie-cars that Cypher conscripts is an especially nice techno-phobic touch allowing audiences to easily enjoy the film's signature scene while still playing with their iPhone during the movie - completely unaware of the irony.

Seriously, she looks like she swallowed a goldfish

Yet there's a certain deceased actor's shadow that looms large in this film; a shadow that the movie acknowledges but in a way that only draws attention to the series' larger re-calibrations. It seemed obvious after the series used up its "law versus lovable rogue" tropes that it was going to foist its narrative flag behind Johnson's Hobbs character. Johnson, after all, has become a much more successful and marketable action star than the croaky, permanently sleepy Diesel. Diesel and the belated Walker would have remained the brotherly spiritual center, but every time a super-villain who looks like they're swallowing something still wriggling in their mouth ever shows up, Hobbs would be the one to track everyone down. Then Paul Walker died.

As it turns out Walker's rather white bread Brian O'Connor was actually holding a lot of this series together; either as a source of undiluted exposition, an audience POV and/or a focal point of F&F's themes of brotherhood and "feeamerler". Without him earnestly trying to keep up with the team or casually eye-f***ing Vin Diesel, Fate of the Furious works in parts but never as a cohesive whole.

I just don't know how to quit you bro!

I suppose we should all be thankful that series producers didn't turn around and retool the series like they did when they first realized there was franchise potential. Instead they uneasily passed the baton and will be chugging along on their laurels until either Statham's Shaw bromances the crap out of Hobbs or Scott Eastwood has more star power than being known as the last nameless soldier to die in Suicide Squad (2015). Personally I would have taken the franchise out back and smacked it repeatedly with a tire iron a long time ago. Unfortunately nothing truly dies anymore.

Final Grade: D

Free Fire

Year: 2016
Genre: Action
Directed: Ben Wheatley
Stars: Cillian Murphy, Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley, Michael Smiley, Sam Riley, Babou Ceesay, Enzo Cilenti, Noah Taylor, Jack Reynor, Mark Monero, Patrick Bergin, Tom Davis
Production: A24

Good action is hard to come by these days. Not only because the pyrotechnics, stunt work, complex camera movements and the taxing physical toll on the actors is so extreme but because franchise filmmaking has made it so the genre has become one of expectation instead of creativity. We now expect buildings to explode, we now expect high-speed car chases, we now expect our heroes to subject themselves to increasingly difficult acrobatics for the sake of some nebulously described macguffin.

Oh don't worry, I'll get to this thing soon...

Yet if we take away everything that has just been described, what are we left with? Well unless you're a new Fast and Furious (2001-Present) movie, you should still be left with decent characters, organically suspenseful moments and a plot that more or less makes sense.

Such is the case with Free Fire, a film that needs none of that highfalutin' excess to give you your adrenaline fix. With its beyond simple setup - a gun deal goes bad between Boston gunrunners and the IRA; the movie tactically fills the screen with more than enough spent shells for popular audiences to enjoy. If your goal is to simply watch a movie and have a heck of a good time, Free Fire might just be your golden ticket.

The film's bare-bones approach to its action is encrusted in the movie's very DNA. The action takes place entirely in the confines of a dingy, dirty harbor-side factory with little more than a couple of flickering lights proving men used to make a living here. We meet our myriad of characters and are quickly and smartly filled in on their motivations and larger roles within the group dynamic. The sequences of events that build towards the actual "free fire" are so simple, primordial almost pathetic in a way.

The more fun it is for the audience to dissect I suppose. The busied flurry of bullets and characters writhing on the ground either in pain or looking for cover, works well against the constant antagonizing banter. There's a love triangle of sorts between IRA buyer Chris (Murphy), handler Justine (Larson) and dealer Vernon (Copley); a blood feud between rival henchmen Harry (Reynor) and Stevo (Riley), a pissing contest between the self-serious Frank (Smiley) and the quick-witted Ord (Hammer). And somewhere in the middle of it all, someone double-crosses everyone else by bringing additional snipers to the party.

Smiley, Reynor, Riley, Cilenti and Taylor all have the thankless job infusing Free Fire with 70's-style legitimacy while being obvious support characters. Between them they bring to mind the easy-going coolness of The Getaway (1972) and the underworld fecklessness of Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973). I'd argue that they, along with milquetoast "leads" Brie Larson and Cillian Murphy sell the innate unbelievably of standouts Sharlto Copley and Armie Hammer both of whom chew the scenery to play out diametrically opposed versions of "the last man standing." Copley plays it cowardly but endearing - Hammer: cucumber cool, like Steve McQueen with a pornstar beard. It's a fun mix.

Yet even with all these interesting and fun characters, Free Fire can't help but occasionally fumble - especially as bodies start to pile up. Extended periods of gun play and heads poking out to chant na-na-na-na-boo-boo, give way to characters struggling to move, stand or continue to shoot. People's eyesight begin to blur, their shooting becomes sloppier and those who survive til the third act eventually run out of ammo.

To offset this, the movie wisely prods the characters towards one another with the introduction of additional cannon-fodder and alternative escape routes. Because the film is more-or-less Group A vs. Group B, we not only bare witness to creative plan-making but we get to laugh as each group struggles to maintain discipline within their ranks. The pot may not be stirred enough but we can all take heart that it's being stirred at all.

Uggggghhh!!

To put it simply, Free Fire is a gas! It's a wildly entertaining action movie that purposely confounds expectations to bring you a stylish, popcorn-y pleaser with fun to spare. Let it be known that you don't need all the loud, dumb excess of recent blockbuster movies to make a good, solid shoot'em up. All you really need is an ensemble for great characters, snappy dialogue and a good setup. That and guns...lots and lots of guns.

Final Grade: B

Thoughts from the Usher Podium: Quickie Haiku Reviews V

I've been needing to play catch up for a while now.It's been a whole week since last I wrote a review. It's not for lack of trying; I've started and gave up on two reviews when I realized they were even worse than the crap I usually tinker with, give up on and toss into the interwebs. It seems no matter how hard you try to shield yourself from anxiety and adapt to change, it seems life has a way of just getting in the way.

Of course this week in movies is not without its blame when it comes to my writer's block. If a critic wanted to take a vacation, this week would have been the time to do it. Most of the wide releases out now are surprisingly forgetful and low-rent. Not only are they by-and-large not good but none of them are particularly loathsome either. If the week of April 6, 2017 to April 12, 2017 disappeared from the annuls of movie history, I doubt anyone would notice.

Thus to play catch up and attempt to get over my writer's block, I'm going to dole out some Quickie Haiku Reviews based on the most recent films I've seen. Most are fairly new releases though to escape the increasing homogenization of wide-released movies, there are a few older flicks in the mix.

Going in Style (2017)

Light and forgetful,

Geriatric generic,

Now I feel robbed gramps.

Final Grade: C-

The Case for Christ (2017)

Specious reasoning,

Never looked so good. Jesus,

Would be very proud.

Final Grade: C

Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017)

Boilerplate kid’s fare.

Pseudo-feminist stuff was,

Tacked on and tacky.

Final Grade: C-

Catalina Caper (1967)

Beach Blanket Bingo (1965),

But on a budget of suck.

Scooby-Doo should sue

Final Grade: F

Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

It’s Murder, My Sweet.

Raymond Chandler, can’t go wrong!

Still, this film can be.

 Final Grade: C

Your Name (2016)

Gorgeous and genius,

A dreaming Sci-Fi, Rom-Com.

Splendorous and fun!

 Final Grade: B+

Eegah! (1962)

A lonely caveman,

Played by a young Richard Kiel.

Mixes with twit teens.

Final Grade:  F

Gifted (2017)

Uncle and Grandma

Have a kid’s pissing contest

Not coefficient.

 Final Grade: D+

Nine Lives (2016)

Holy balls this thing!

Surprise! It's so bad, it's good,

This cat's a real blast.

Final Grade: D

The Fast Runner (2001)

Eskimo legend,

Long but so honestly told.

For the curious.

Final Grade: B-

The Zookeeper's Wife

Year: 2017
Genre: Drama
Directed: Niki Caro
Stars: Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Daniel Bruhl, Timothy Radford, Efrat Dor, Iddo Goldberg, Shira Haas, Michael McElhatton, Val Maloku, Martha Issova, Daniel Ratimorsky, Frederick Preston
Production: Scion Films

There will always be films based on WWII. The war demonstrated and exemplified both humanities best and worst attributes. There simply is no limit to the amount of stories one could tell nor the amount of messages that can be smuggled into the margins. Looking to honor the brave sacrifices made; Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and Saving Private Ryan (1998) might do the trick. In the mood for dynamic character pieces; how about Patton (1970) or Downfall (2004)? Vicious black comedy; The Americanization of Emily (1964), demure airiness; Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005).

Epic fight choreography...Kung Fury (2015)

Yet there's really only one "acceptable" way of making films about the Holocaust. At least the makers of The Zookeeper's Wife seem to think so. Thus the film based on Diane Ackerman's book, tells a stately version of a harrowing experience that on film, begs to be compared to Schindler's List (1993). It pulls at the heart-strings right where it needs to. It lingers at just the right moments of emaciated dignity and it lionizes its characters with the force of its true-to-life story. It also rings disappointingly false. Is it just me or are Holocaust movies losing their way?

The film starts the summer before the German and Russian invasion of Poland in 1939. Antonia (Chastain) and Jan (Heldenbergh) Zabinski work as zoologists at the Warsaw Zoo and spend most of their time tending to their animals and holding dinner parties for their intellectual friends. When the war makes it to their front doorstep, they have no choice but to relinquish their prized stock to German zoologist Lutz Heck (Bruhl) who also gives them permission to convert the zoo into a pig farm. It is then the Zabinski's realize that they have the space, resources and ability to hide Jews escaping from the infamous Ghetto Warschau.

Now this is an awesome movie!

So they do just that; no second thought, no consideration of the risks involved and no weighing of the pros and cons. If this movie is to be believed as fact, the Zabinski's didn't possess the steely-eyed negotiation abilities of Oskar Schindler, nor did they have the craven self-interest of Leopold Socha (who's story is recalled in Agnieszka Holland's In Darkness (2011)). The Zookeeper's Wife for all its inherent story potential, starts with a pair of saintly characters and ends with a pair of saintly characters.

This is not to say that Antonia and Jan Zabinski were not, in reality wonderful people. They were awarded the Righteous Among Nations by the State of Israel for their efforts to save what Antonia described as "shipwrecked souls". Yet the inherent risk of doing the right thing, when the right thing could get you killed is never entirely present. There are several characters that come and go, and a few fleeting moments where it looks like the Zabinski's placed their trust in the wrong person. Then there's a wink, a nod and another scene of laying and wait.

To offset the lack of tension, Zookeeper's Wife endows the movie with a subplot involving a Jewish girl (Haas), whose rape by two German soldiers, beguiles Jan to save her from the ghetto. Much of the film is spent with Antonia emphatically ushering her out of a catatonic state with art utensils and a fluffy rabbit. While these scenes inject just enough humanism without feeling melodramatic, one can't help shake the feeling they were added just so Jessica Chastain has something to act against.

Don't make me get Hitler's Personal Trainer!

For what it's worth, Chastain turns in some splendid work. Which is more than can be said for poor Daniel Bruhl. Zookeeper's Wife requires of him to be not just a villain, but a representation of the entire Nazi Wehrmacht by the power of his position as Hitler's personal zoologist. Why on earth did they pin that particular swastika-shaped pin on a guy who could be liberally described as Amon Goeth's kid brother? His sexual advances towards Antonia don't even come across as creepy, they just come across as pathetic.

Had this film focused on the sophistication of the Polish resistance or made an effort to demonstrate the frightful omnipresence of the Nazis in Poland, then Zookeeper's Wife might have been a movie worth the time to see. As it stands however, Jessica Chastain's performance is about the only thing keeping this meager movie afloat. That and a felicitously budgeted zoo bombing that was honestly done better in Underground (1995).

Final Grade: C-

The Boss Baby

Year: 2017

Genre: Animated Comedy

Directed: James McGrath

Stars: Alec Baldwin, Miles Christopher Bakshi, Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow, Steve Buscemi, Tobey Maguire, James McGrath, Conrad Vernon, ViviAnn Lee, Eric Bell Jr., David Soren

Production: DreamWorks Animation

“Put the cookie down! Cookies are for closers.” It seems this entire movie is created around that one joke. I mean, has there ever been any question that anyone other than Alec Baldwin could have sold the high concept of a cutthroat, suit wearing, and management oriented baby? What other voice would have struck the right balance between referentially satisfying and patently absurd? Gary Cole? 

If you could get me that binkie by EOD, that'd be great...

Of course the film’s reference to Baldwin’s character in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) is twenty-five years old and at times that’s how stale some of the film’s gags feel. Luckily for the movie and its intended audience, the premise is grounded in its sweetly irreverent narrative told from the perspective of a seven-year-old boy.

Timmy (Bakshi) is a stereotypical cartoon movie child. He’s precocious, easily identifiable, humorously naïve, charismatic and imaginative to the point of coming up with elaborate hijinks on the fly to further the plot. In fact, the only difference between him and Elliott from E.T. (1982) is he actually gets all the attention he craves from his doting parents (Kimmel and Kudrow), complete with a regular five story, four hug and one song bedtime special. That is until The Boss Baby (Baldwin) arrives with his briefcase full of memos on a mission from the aptly named Baby Corp. After a time squabbling, Timmy and the Boss Baby team up to uncover a mass conspiracy involving their parents’ employer, a late addition villain (Buscemi) and puppies who have apparently been stealing all the love.

The inner-mechanics of Boss Baby’s world is riddled with holes, pacing issues and confusion but because the entire story is being told by an adult Timmy (Maguire) recollecting his interpretation of events, it never seems to matter. It rather allows the film to truly revel in some creative slapsticky moments of goofy fun young children are primed to enjoy. There are plenty of Loony Tune-esque chase sequences, quickly-paced flights of fancy, playful sight-gags and plenty and I mean plenty of butt related jokes. It may prove a little repetitive for attentive parents but considering the prime demographic is going to be darting back and forth between bathroom-breaks it’s not like parents of young children will mind.

Of course telling the entire yarn from Timmy’s POV proves a double-edged sword at times. The film goes through great pains to deliver the stakes needed to elevate its one-joke premise. But since the emotional arc of the story is all but written in stone from the first act, all of the tension feels hollow and redundant. We’re seeing what amounts to a holiday free A Christmas Story (1983) with a talking baby. Yet while that movie ruminates on “an interesting Christmas” this movie asks; “will our two heroes wind up being brothers.”

Spoiler Alert: They do.

I f**king dare you!

Bereft of any real consequence, The Boss Baby winds up being a mildly entertaining family-oriented feature with a couple of good sigh-gags and some pretty outdated jokes. The larger message is just uncommon enough for tacit approval though I’m a little worried some kids might figure out alternative uses for baby bungee bouncers. As a younger brother myself I’m surprised I lasted this long with my siblings in the house.

Final Grade: C