Glass

Year: 2019

Type: Horror/Drama

Stars: Burce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Paulson, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard, Luke Kirby, Adam David Thompson, Shannon Destiny Ryan, Diana Silvers, Nina Wisner, Kyli Zion, M. Night Shymalan

Directed: M. Night Shymalan

Production: Blumhouse Productions

Ever since M. Night Shyamalan has been marketing himself as the next Hitchcock via an amped-up game of peek-a-boo somehow sold as the most audacious horror thriller in a generation, he’s been trying and failing to live up to the hype. Disaster after filmic disaster re-casted the ambitious filmmaker as a charlatan - a man whose outsized notions of what film could or should be, served as a cautionary tale for all those who have a premise but little else. Then in early 2017 he pulled off a Hail Mary with the gutsy if misguided Split which reclaimed the attention of audiences and critics alike. The twist - the only good movie in his repertoire that could arguably yield a sequel/franchise received one and we were none-the-wiser until the very end.

I see bad movies...

Glass is a continuation of what’s become known as the Unbreakable (2000) expanded universe. In it David Dunn (Willis), Philadelphia’s resident vigilante is forced to face off against James McAvoy’s one-man play The Horde the villain/protagonist of the aforementioned Split. This is of course thanks to the machinations of revealed Unbreakable villain Elijah Glass (Jackson) who in the long years since his run-ins with Dunn has turned into a super smart supervillain (apparently).

Now this in itself would have made a decent enough movie. Maybe not great but the promise of having McAvoy’s twenty or so personalities getting their clock cleaned by David “I survived a train crash ergo I’m a super hero” Dunn seems like a lot of fun. Unfortunately Shyamalan felt it was necessary to bog down his verdant premise with mountains of back-logged lore and hastily executed retcons. To top it off, you remember the worst parts of Split; the excessive psychology mumbo-jumbo that’s excised from seemingly minor characters paragraph after painstaking paragraph? Oh that’s all in there, but to make doubly sure that Glass is a drag, Shymalan threw in a metric ton of navel-gazing meta-narrative having to do with heroes and journeys and heroes on journeys that commits the rare feat of talking down to and talking over the heads of the audience.

Much like Split, Glass takes place almost entirely in one place, in this case a private wing of a psychiatric ward. Sarah Paulson co-stars as a mysterious psychiatrist who, according to her and the trailer, “specializes in patients who think they are superheroes.” She then spends the better part of the movie trying to convince the principle three that all they think they do is just a delusion – a goal that is somehow reinforced by the fact that they’re put in specialized cages hereto not seen since the last X-Men movie?

We're not saying we believe you but we have removed the silverware...

The presumed reason Paulson is a factor at all is to seed moments of doubt for Dunn and Kevin (aka the Horde aka Patricia, Hedwig, The Beast, Scrappy-Doo) so they have something character-wise to overcome. In the first scene she and the other three are in a room, she spends what seems like hours shooting down their egos and whataboutisms.  But since the audience knows the movie has to be headed somewhere her monologues serve only to stall. Granted she does a better job regurgitating expository dialogue than the therapist in Split or god-forbid Shyamalan himself in The Village (2004), but it still feels wooden, overwritten and ultimately moot.

The real, real reason she’s there however is to serve as connective tissue between Dunn, Glass and the Horde as to hide the fact that Glass didn’t have the budget to keep Willis or Jackson for more than a few days. This is most obvious when the cinematographer opts to go back and forth with the camera when there are two people in a room together. This is instead of taking the time to light a good ol’ fashion shot reverse shot. Arguably this could have been done for aesthetic purposes but had that been the case than arguably the same would have been done when Paulson is, say, talking to Spencer Treat Clark, Anya Taylor-Joy, Luke Kirby or any of the other people she talks and talk and talks to.

The rest of the cast just seem to orbit around her, each getting about fifteen minutes of screen time a piece. Willis, the man who is actually called the “reluctant hero” out loud on screen seems so emotionally checked out of this film as to look catatonic. Between him and Jackson actually pretending to be catatonic, much of the heavy lifting is done by McAvoy who struggles to maintain the lightning in the bottle performance he first honed in Split. Part of the problem might be he doesn’t have Taylor-Joy to bounce off of on a regular basis. But part of it might be the novelty of having an actor play someone with dissociative identify disorder - or rather a movie version thereof, is just not there anymore.

Sorry, just daydreaming of being in a better movie...

There are small signs of life in this movie. Clever little moments of ratcheting up tension make for a few key moments of ghoulish fun. Luke Kirby and Adam David Thompson stand out as a pair of dimwitted psych ward helpers who find themselves caught up in all the superhero melodrama. They along with a menagerie of would be “Beast” victims are the only things that pass for human in a movie filled with walking deconstructions that speak poetically about capes, masks and outer underwear.

Actually come to think of it there was a guy early on in Dunn’s security hardware store that looked like he knew what he was doing. That guy will be going places!

Yeah! That guy!

Final Grade: F

Volver

Year: 2006

Type: Drama

Director: Pedro Almodovar

Stars: Penelope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Duenas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave, Antonio de la Torre, Carlos Blanco, Maria Isabel Diaz Lago, Neus Sanz

Production: Canal+

Volver is a revelation. It’s a singularly fantastic movie with interesting characters, a complex but captivating story, and clever twists and turns that keep you on your toes the whole way though. If you have the capability to rent, borrow or stream this movie, I hardily recommend you do so soon.
I wanted to get all the accolades out of the way at the top because despite everything above being absolutely true, to say anything about the film’s finer points would be, at the very least in the ballpark of minor spoilers. It’s one of those movies where tugging on any particular strand even to just tell you what is initially going on, will unravel the entire thing and handicap the entire experience for you. So again, I say it is a great movie. If you’ve ever taken any of my recommendations to heart and not regretted it - Seriously watch this one.

Now the plot: Volver opens with a pair of sisters Raimunda (Cruz) and Sole (Duendas); and Raimunda’s young daughter Paula (Cobo), cleaning and polishing the graves of their parents. The parents had died 3 years prior under mysterious circumstances, but the pair is more concerned as of late with their aunt Paula (Lampreave) who suffers from dementia. Paula insists that the ghost of their mother often visits her, a visage the sister’s blame on the blustering winds of the plains. But when tragedy strikes, Sole begins to suspect there might be something to Paula’s ghost story.

From there the story layers itself in a sophisticated mélange of farce, melodrama and magical realism that interweaves each character in surprising and untraditionally pleasant ways into the narrative. In doing so Volver encapsulates the many dark themes director Pedro Almodovar is fond of playing with (sexual abuse, family tragedy, death) and puts them into a story of refreshing vibrancy and joviality. This movie isn’t so much a tragedy with comedic elements but a comedy about tragedy that never ceases to enchant with its bold colors and even bolder choices.

Those familiar with Almodovar’s oeuvre know that this kind of approach to storytelling is not new to the, by now veteran filmmaker. Since the breakthrough success of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) the man has elevated melodrama with mature explorations of dark themes, deeply rich characterizations and an appreciation for the innately feminine. What’s more, Almodovar often has his characters go through a gauntlet but also infuses the frame with so much optimism and genuine compassion that it can’t help but effect upon every viewing.

But with the balancing act exhibited in Volver, there’s a lot more things to play with. The dichotomy between women maintaining relationships versus distancing and destroying them, the dichotomy of love versus brooding resentments, the dichotomy between an almost exclusively female cast having to contend with a story whose imprint of men are deeply felt – these are the meatier parts that make Volver such a fascinating watch.

At the center of it all is Penelope Cruz whose turn as a guileless put-upon wife sprouts forward like a rose blooming in windy, harsh terrain. She channels Sophia Loren and the colorful cadre of women typified by Italian neo-realist films. But with increasing ease and self-actualization, her Raimunda becomes something much more. For example, she glides across the screen confidently wearing the darkest of eye shadow and the boldest of push-up-bras, nearly always surrounded by primary colors. Yet nothing is ever innately sexual or meant to please anyone but herself. She’s empowered to be who she is thus her actions always are in the service of others – even when it’s obvious early on there are things she’s not telling them.



It’s that conceit, holding on to bitter secrets out of good intentions that provide the backbone of Volver’s complicated story. What keeps it whole and keeps it worthwhile is the film’s ability to honor its characters’ self-assurance without patronizing or idolizing them, making for a twisty-tale that not once rings false. Again I repeat if you haven’t seen this one; rent it, borrow it, stream it, then maybe own it. I promise you won’t regret it.
 

Final Grade: A

The Mule

The Mule (2018)

Genre: Drama

Director: Clint Eastwood

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Taissa Farmiga, Alison Eastwood, Michael Pena, Andy Garcia, Laurence Fishburne, Dianne Wiest, Ignacio Serricchio, Clifton Collins Jr., Robert LaSardo, Jill Flint, Manny Montana, Noel Gugliemi

Production: Warner Bros.

Clint Eastwood holds an undeniably unique position in the Hollywood firmament. He’s a singular talent whose 60+ years in film and television has garnered a bevy of acting and directing triumphs some of which go on the short list of the best the American film industry has to offer. The man has won four Oscars being among other things the face of spaghetti westerns, the torchbearer of revival westerns, the modern go-to drama director for gritty realism and ripped-from-the-headlines bravado, and a cultural icon for a certain kind of steadfast, rugged, individualistic masculinity.

Sweet tobacco infused masculinity...

At 88-years-old the man shows no sign of slowing down either. He’s made two films over the past year, one of which, 15:17 to Paris (2018) was an audacious personal project and filmic experiment that spat in the face of conventional wisdom, while also casually leaning into Eastwood’s public persona - one of the few members of Hollywood royalty that can get away with exploring expressly conservative themes. It didn’t turn out very well. 

In fairness, not everything the man has done is great...

Thankfully The Mule did turn out well. It is in fact an old-fashioned and genteel crime drama inspired by the fascinating story of an elderly veteran who briefly worked for the Sinaloa drug cartel. Eastwood himself plays Earl Stone, a down on his luck horticulturalist who has alienated nearly everyone in his life including his estranged daughter (played by Clint’s real life daughter Alison Eastwood). At the risk of foreclosure on his house and farm, Earl takes a job running drugs from El Paso to Chicago all the while invading the DEA and local law enforcement. Because of his avuncular demeanor, Earl soon gets a reputation as a reliable mule which only sinks him further into danger.

Now when I say old-fashioned, I mean it largely as a compliment. What could have been done as a tense or violent or brooding exercise in anti-hero mimicry, The Mule instead opts for the moral clarity of a grandma telling the kids to stop playing in the streets. Earl to this film is an otherwise likeable human being whose bad choices stem from a singular character flaw – that of him not appreciating his family as much as he should. In a pivotal scene where Earl opines that he wasn’t a good father or husband, the daughter responds “you’re just a late bloomer,” as if to telegraph the moral of our cautionary tale.

If viewed through the lens of a modern fable, The Mule is a fine if staid success. Even when the script repeats information and details, the inclusion of Bradley Cooper, Michael Pena and Laurence Fishburne as a gaggle of DEA agents and Andy Garcia as a gregarious drug kingpin makes it all easier to swallow. Cooper especially shows he has great instincts, slipping in depth and character motivations within a scene that even the screenwriter might have not picked up on.

Unfortunately some of the things that make their way into Eastwood’s lesser films also sneak into this one to wreck some minor havoc. For one, Eastwood has a way of playing off racial and gendered micro-aggressions as a quirk of personality rather than an opportunity for social commentary. Equal time, consideration and sympathy are given to Earl when he casually drops words like beaner and negro as is given to the receivers of said epithets. That mixed with the whole “old man b***hes about kids today” and Earl’s inability to use a cell phone makes it seem like the film wants to put everyone on equal footing. That’s not a completely bad impulse, but when you have a racist cop using the wrong instincts to reach the right conclusion, while in the same movie make a latino motorist sound foolish for citing police stop statistics, it becomes clear the script doesn’t exactly know how to broach such issues.

On the whole however, The Mule still largely works from beginning to end due to an anchoring performance by Eastwood, solid characterization by supporting actors Cooper and Garcia and the scripts ability to achieve most of its modest goals. While nowhere near such classics as Unforgiven (1992) or Million Dollar Baby (2004), The Mule nevertheless feels like the work of a master. Or at the very least the work of someone who knows that they’re doing.

Final Grade: C