KPK on the CINEMA (79): The Films of September 2018

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A brand new month, a brand new crop o’ films! A lifetime love of movies.

(All films are rated on a 5 star basis and must be over a decade old to get that 5 star designation.)

(Titles in purple have been expanded for Flix Pix columns.)

> This month I review the following 14 films:

DOWNSIZING  (2017)***+
THE LITTLE HOURS  (2017)***
HOSTILES  (2017)***+
CAKE  (2015)***
ENEMY  (2013)****
BLACKKKLANSMAN  (2018)****
12  (2007)***
SLOW WEST  (2015)***+
HOW IT ENDS  (2018)***
VICTORIA & ABDUL  (2017)***+
THE HOMESMAN  (2014)***
BORN IN CHINA  (2016)***+
A STREET CAT NAMED BOB  (2016)***+
EXTINCTION  (2018)***+

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

DOWNSIZING  (2017) ***+

> This film immediately made me think of an old Genesis song from 1972, called “Get ‘Em Out By Friday” that has the following lyric:

“I hear the directors of Genetic Control have been buying all the Properties that have recently been sold, taking risks oh so bold. It’s said now that people will be shorter in height. They can fit twice as many in the same building site. (They say it’s alright.)”

. Alexander Payne has an impressive array of imaginative, accomplished films under his belt, from ELECTION through ABOUT SCHMIDT, SIDEWAYS, THE DESCENDANTS and the wonderful NEBRASKA- all fine films. This much-anticipated, high concept film from the talented filmmaker really tantalized, but failed to elicit much attention or respect when it hit the screens. Marketed as a wry comedy, most of the funniest bits were in the trailer, leaving an unusually adventuresome sci-fi drama that wasn’t what they bargained for, apparently.

. It’s a wildly inventive idea:

. An ordinary man and his ordinary wife, (Matt Damon and Kirstin Wiig), are struggling a bit in the world. But then, a game changing technology suddenly changes the species forever: It becomes possible to shrink humans to only a few inches tall without dangerous side effects… if you survive the procedure. This seems to offer great hope on a rapidly overpopulating planet. Tiny people use a tiny fraction of the resources they once needed. People begin to do this, living together in enclosed communities that protect the little humans from the ravages of weather, or animals and insects, who would not be formidable foes. Even better for Matt and Kirsten, their paltry 50,000 odd dollars savings would equal 12 million bucks in tinyworld! What the hell- they go for it. And the adventure begins.

. No, it’s not really what trailers promised. That shot we saw it the trailer of Matt Damon waking up tiny and quickly checking to see that his man-parts were intact was the funniest part of the film, and did not indicate more hilarity to follow. The flick appeared to be jammed with comic bits about how gigantic ordinary objects become when you are suddenly five inches tall. There is really not that much low hanging fruit plucked here, and as fun as that conceit is, that’s actually a good thing. Kirsten Wiig is barely in this film, but Matt Damon gets to play a man who made a life-altering decision he can not take back, that forces him into an odyssey of self discovery.

. Ultimately, this film is about a whole lot. Its targets are many and potent. And in the end, Payne simply delivered more than people were prepared for. It becomes quite the philosophical journey by the end.

– Give DOWNSIZING a chance, and get tiny with Matt Damon for big, unexpected rewards.

THE LITTLE HOURS  (2017) ***

> THE LITTLE HOURS is a little film.

. There are no big stars in this minor comedy, no big plot twists other than a cursory nod to The DECAMERON, which it spoofs, broadly. Unfortunately, THE LITTLE HOURS is only a little fun.

. It is the Middle Ages, (though not very convincingly), and a cloister of foul-mouthed nuns shower the handyman with abuse to lighten the insufferable boredom of the aesthetic life. When he has had enough and summarily quits, the sole man remaining, a casually corrupt priest, (well played by John C. Reilly who just seems to be getting better and better with each role), is forced to find a replacement. He choses Dave Franco- a man on the run from cuckolded husband Nick Offerman, who is eager to torture Franco’s runaway loverboy slowly to death. This new servant is a world away from his predecessor- as he is a buff Adonis with the heart of an impish rogue. Reilly’s earthy clergyman introduces him as a deaf mute, to keep the wanton nuns at bay, but Franco is fresh catnip and the sisters are addicted felines. For his part, the lapsed priest is wont to sample the sacramental blood o’ Jebus a bit too liberally, and he is carrying on a secret love affair with Molly Shannon, barely there as the order’s Reverend Mother. Morals, ethics and values are thrown to the wind in pursuit of the pleasures of the flesh. The nuns flirt with witchcraft, and visiting Bishop Fred Armisen is outraged by the carnal displays of human debauchery-  Lanky character actress Kate Micucci fares the best, as a meddling sister who just may be both lesbian and Jewish!

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Too bad it sounds a good deal more fun than it actually is. It diverts though. I gave it three stars. I was entertained throughout…

– A little.

HOSTILES  (2017) ***+

> This worthy film came and left the theaters in the blink of an eye.

. I guess audiences were just not inspired. Perhaps it was the genre. How many westerns are made these days?

. More and more, it appears! The western morality fable seems to be a rediscovered genre with a number of recent and upcoming releases that all take place in the times of what we nostalgically call the “wild west”. For me, this is a welcome trend. Over the last decade of movie worship, the western drama has come to be among my favorite genres. And the trailer to this one looked so good, I had to have a look at it.

. HOSTILES is a somber, gritty affair. It tells the story of a stalwart but ornery and ruthlessly bloodthirsty cavalry officer, who operates on the principle that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. But the days of the Indian Wars are fading into history. The conflict has been resolved. The white settlers have effectively completed their domination of the land. The systematic genocide of the “Indians” was now waning as well, as the bedraggled native populations were being herded in defeat into reservations. What irony then, that this racist officer has a final assignment before unwanted retirement: to escort a former mortal enemy across the west, so the Cheyenne chief can die in his ancestral lands.

. Directed by Scott Cooper, HOSTILES stars a worn, grizzled Christian Bale as the reluctant escort, and features a very sympathetic Rosamund Pike, a ubiquitous Jesse Plemons, Ben Foster in a good cameo, and Wes Studi as cancer-stricken Yellow Hawk. (You probably don’t know the name, but if you are a sighted person who has ever seen a western, you know the face. For a period, it seemed like stalwart Studi played every American Indian character that was written for the screen.) Studi is always good at bringing humanity and dignity to what could otherwise be stereotypical roles, and he has never been better than he is here.

. Things get dicey when the travelers are stalked by some crazy motherfuckers- renegade Indians bent on mayhem and revenge. Old adversaries must become allies if any are to survive. (Hm. Shades of ESCAPE FROM FORT BRAVO.)

– The final scenes really deliver, making this often tragic drama a very compelling film to watch.

CAKE  (2015) ***

Director Asim Abbasi delivers a serious look at addiction, with Jennifer Aniston, distinctly unglamorous, as a woman whose family live was shattered in one horrible instant. Anna Kendrick plays the ghost of a friend that committed suicide that only Ms. Aniston can see, and Sam Worthington (AVATAR) is very good as the dead woman’s bereaved partner, who gradually gets involved in the addict’s life. This can be tough going, but it is a solid drama, and Aniston is really very sympathetic in a role that leaves Friends’ Rachel in the clouds of the past.

ENEMY  (2013) ****

> After PRISONERS, which I absolutely loved, I became very interested in filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, who went on to make ARRIVAL and BLADE RUNNER 2047- really visionary films.

. I had heard about this early psychological thriller, about a meek professor whose life is turned upside down by his discovery of his exact doppelgänger, and when it popped up on Netflix I swooped. And what I found is a mixed bag.

. Jake Gyllenhaal effectively plays both Adam and Anthony. They have completely different personalities, but look identical down to the scars on their abdomens. Eerily,  their voices are an exact match as well. Each version of the same man has a woman in his life who is unwittingly drawn into the drama. Isabella Rossellini is here as well- barely, as “mother”. But whose mother is she really? The good thing is you really don’t know where this is going once the seeming twins meet. The only thing we are confident of is that Villeneuve is probably taking us to some very dark place. And he does.

. The more troublesome news: at the last moment the film slips into outright surrealism. It seems to come out of left field, as nothing that came before hinted at it. It forces one to reevaluate what they have just seen. Was the film more metaphor than narrative? Was everything symbolic of something else? Apparently, yes. Not sure how to feel about that.

– When the surrealism hit like a brick to the head, my response wasn’t “Wow!” It was:

… WTF?

BLACKKKLANSMAN  (2018) ****

> This Spike Lee joint sure made a splash!

. Not sure how it fared at the box office, but it sure had Big Buzz! People are talking about a Spike Lee film again. It is being called his best film since DO THE RIGHT THING in 1989. For some reason, I did not want to accept this at face value. Spike has done a lot of good work through the decades. But then I took a good look at his filmography and realized… that BLACKKKLANSMAN is undoubtedly his biggest triumph since the heady days of the late 80’s. And it’s based on a true, stranger-than-fiction story.

. John David Washington plays Ron Stallworth, a soul brother in the early 70’s who always longed to be a police officer despite the animosity his community feels for the cops. When the Colorado Springs police department begins to actively recruit minorities into its lilywhite force, he is the first hire, big bushy Afro and all. The newly minted detective picks up the phone on a whim and phones the Grand Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke himself. Putting on his best “white voice” he pretends to be an Anglo racist who supports the Klan’s agenda and want’s to join the cause. Duke, is impressed and somewhat smitten by the enthusiastically racist stranger on the telephone, and eventually invites him to come to an orientation meeting. But how can Stallworth do that? His black face will stand out like… a black person at a KKK rally!

. Enter his new white partner, played by Adam Driver, who is sent undercover to infiltrate the Klan and gather intelligence. Driver may not be black, but he is a non-observant Jew, so he’s got his own secret to conceal. This nearly ubiquitous actor is effortlessly good in the role. I thought that was surely an almost unrecognizable Steve Buscemi in a small role as Driver’s sidekick. I was wrong. It was his brother Michael. Topher Grace is really a hoot as iconic racist Duke. Alec Baldwin in chillingly scary in his opening cameo and it’s crazy wonderful to see… Harry Belafonte, on the big screen again!

. Like many Spike Lee joints, this film is uneven. It has pacing problems. Really good scenes are sometime sandwiched by bland scenes that don’t push things forward much. At times, the film feels shockingly amateur for such an accomplished filmmaker. But then, maybe this is an intentional homage to the blacksploitation films of this time. (Lee includes a montage of movie posters from seminal films of the genre, from SHAFT to SUPER FLY.) It’s a good, entertaining film that is just drenched in the urban hipness of 1972. Lee deals directly (as usual) with some very thorny issues in the American body politic- the prevalence and persistence of an almost codified national racism, and hits all his targets.

. Yes it’s a really good film, but in the last few minutes, it flirts with greatness. Here, Lee made an editorial decision that might seem cynical and manipulative on the face of it, but the emotional effect is undeniable. My body convulsed in shivers and my eyes welled with tears. The theater suddenly seemed very, very cold.

– And the final image? Devastating!

12  (2007) ***

> In this Russian take on the classic film 12 ANGRY MEN, director Nikita Mikhalov reworks the familiar tale of a deadlocked jury to fit his times.

. A Chechen boy is accused of murdering his father. It appears to be what we call an ‘open and shut’ case… but is it? One juror is convinced the young lad is being railroaded by powerful corrupt forces, and bit-by-bit, he makes his case to his incredulous countrymen. Through recreations of the crime and heated debate, the balance of judgment gradually shifts to ‘not guilty’. But is this a good thing? If the jury is right that the boy is being railroaded by ruthless developers who will stop at nothing to see their business deal through- then serving justice by finding him innocent might substitute a jail sentence for a funeral.

. 12 is good- a bit overwrought, as I gather the Russians tend to be. One annoying problem: each juror in turn has his longwinded monologue, wherein they spin elaborate stories which don’t seem to relate much to the matter at hand. They appear designed to reveal each juror’s inner monologue, and clue us in to what makes them so “angry”, that might be clouding or coloring their judgment in the case. At these times, 12 feels less like a film and more like a filmed play. Let me tell you: American jurors would never stand for such detailed storytelling. These monologists would be cut off quickly in a real jury room. The Russians have a famous love of stories, so everyone’s patience probably makes more sense in this cultural context.

. Still, the film kind of lost me at these points of longwinded pontification, where I became very aware of the extreme technical acting of these well-trained Russian actors. They were good- but I could see them plying their craft.

– Modern audiences like me want this to be invisible to them. Are we spoiled or sophisticated?

SLOW WEST  (2015) ***+

> I love westerns.

. So glad there is a revival of the genre erupting, with several recent western titles and several more awaiting release. And this one had a lot going for it.

. In SLOW WEST, an aristocratic Scotsman, not yet old enough to sport a beard, journeys alone into the wild west in search of the woman he considers his true love. There was an incident back home. A man died. Our young squire feels responsible, but the blame has fallen to his beloved and her father who have fled to the western wilderness of North America. This romantic sojourner is like a lame calf in a land of hungry wolves. It does not appear he can survive long, considering the string of unsavory characters he meets on the road, eager to relieve him of anything they can take- perhaps even his life. Lucky for him, he crosses paths with the redoubtable Michael Fassbender, as a tough, rough-hewn drifter with a questionable past, who agrees to escort our fragile young hero to the secret location where the fugitives are holed up.

. Complicating matters, a group of ruthless bounty hunters are shadowing them, hoping they will lead the mercenaries straight to their prey, and the $2000 dead-or-alive reward. A lot of money in those days! What our young lord does not know, it that Fassbinder too is eying that prize- so his protector may be his exploiter.

. Blood flows.

. Buckets of it.

. It’s a lawless time, where might makes right. A good man is hard to find. When the bullets fly, will Fassbinder turn out to be a good man, or the scoundrel he appears to be?

. First time director John Maclean did a bang up job with this. The cinematography is crisp and lush, the details of setting and cast of characters are sharply rendered. There are flashes of very black humor throughout. But that ending… I dunno. It was so apocalyptic, the screenwriter might as well have had a meteor hit the earth. Frankly, it damaged my enthusiasm for the film.

– This handsome film is rife with subtlety- just don’t expect any in the final reel!

HOW IT ENDS  (2018) ***

> I have always been perversely interested in this mass disaster scenario. Strange, and a bit disturbing that human Armageddon should hold so much fascination.

. In this example of the genre, handsome plastic man, (Theo James), loves bland pretty woman, (Kat Graham), but her crusty father, (a steely Forest Whitaker), is so hostile and cantankerous, getting his blessing will be an uphill battle. While ladylove is out of town, something bad- we’re talking, existential-bad. The power is down. No TV. No Internet. No cellphones. Natural disasters seem to be swarming the planet. Is it the revenge of Mother Nature? An alien attack? No one seems to know what’s happening. No one appears to be in charge. Chaos, anarchy, mass panic and mob rule run amok. Theo and Forest embark on an epic roadtrip into the unknown, to rescue isolated Kat, in the unlikely event she is still alive. The duo has to cross a no-man’s-land hellscape in this lawless new every-man-for-himself post-society world.

. Could the stakes possibly be higher? In a word: no. Could the film have been better? Oh yeah. But aside from the massive scale of it, the bar was not set very high. Whitaker sure lent the film needed gravitas, and it was always a bit buoyed when he was onscreen. Honestly though- in a film like this, it’s the special effects we are drawn to, isn’t it? The tension and excitement and the vicarious brush with Ultimate Disaster. It delivered pretty well there. HOW IT ENDS features lots of Big Mayhem and people scurrying for their lives like ants on fire.

– Cool. Not great, but cool if you like Big Noise.

VICTORIA & ABDUL  (2017) ***+

> Good news and bad news: This film turned out to be exactly what it appeared to be.

. It looked highbrow, with Dame Judi Dench once again donning the crown to play Queen Victoria of England- this time, in her final years. But it also looked highly formulaic. Guilty on both counts.

. Having already had one scandalous relationship with a Scottish guard, (a story beautifully told in the considerably superior MRS. BROWN and briefly alluded to here), there now seemed to be a new object of her fascination that was even more of an outrage to the royal machinery- a handsome and charming emissary from India, (Ali Fazal, a Bollywood actor I recognized from 3 IDIOTS), a man consistently referred to as “the Hindu”, despite the fact that he is actually a practicing Muslim. (Royal mucky-mucks Olivia Williams, Simon Callow and Michael Gambon don’t really care enough to ask.) The queen and her new Indian ward get along famously, until he makes a mistake in judgment that misleads the queen on an important matter, which disappoints and infuriates her profoundly. Still, her devoted servant from the sub-continent stands loyally at her side, as the ravages of time begin to take their toll on the aging monarch. It won’t be pretty when she dies, and nasty vindictive Eddie Izzard becomes King.

. Reliable director Frears gives us a film  that is just is lovely to watch, with the ornate settings and costumes and all the pageantry of the royal court. Dench is awesome, as it was obvious she would be. Her suitor Fazal was a very appealing presence, if a bit plastic and less substantial than his leading lady. I enjoyed it- quite a bit. But it was so numbingly predictable.

– Turns out to be based on a true story, as a poignant coda at the end establishes.

THE HOMESMAN  (2014) ***

> Tommy Lee Jones wrote, directed and stars in this worldweary western drama, and despite its drawbacks, he delivers a solid entertainment.

. It’s a story about a successful spinster, (a practical, plain-Jane Hillary Swank), and the rouge renegade she saves from the gallows. To repay the debt, he is enlisted to help her transport three madwomen in a wagon across the western wilderness, back to the arms of the families they left behind when the lure of the west beckoned. Definitely an unusual set up.

. Things look promising from the get go. There is much to enjoy here, but to the trained eye, things begin to go awry pretty quickly. Jones may be one helluva actor, (he is absolutely wonderful here), but his abilities as a director are less developed than his acting chops. Things look great, but the mechanics are murky. Transitions are awkward. It occasionally feels so disjointed, you wonder if there wasn’t supposed to be a connecting scene that ended up on the cutting room floor. They are supposedly traveling through dangerous Indian country, yet apart from one tense encounter that is over pretty quickly, scenes of carnage they happen across along the trail and an Indian burial ground Jones plunders for a warm buffalo pelt, they don’t act like it. That tension is only called upon when needed for a plot point.

. From the early scenes, it looks like it’s going to be Hillary’s movie, and she is a tragic figure- yearning for love and feeling hopelessly unlovable. But in the end, it is very much Tommy Lee Jones’s showcase. He is the one called upon to do the morally responsible thing when it’s questionable anything like that is even in his roguish nature. The end is appropriately sad, but somewhat flat and empty.

– Sure is great to see ol’ Tommy singin’ and hollarin’ and kickin’ up some dust though! His sparkling performance alone is enough reason to suggest this modern western.

BORN IN CHINA  (2016) ***+

> This was great to watch. All the Disneynature films are great to watch.

. The problem- and there is one, always lies in the far too precious storytelling that invariably invests the wild animals we see with projected human traits. That appears to be something Disney is hopelessly wedded to, like inseparable conjoined twins.

. This edition of the revived franchise from my childhood, focuses on three species who call China home: the adorable panda, the sleek snow leopard, and the real stars of the film, the golden monkey- one of the strangest looking primates on the planet! The footage of animals eking out a living in their natural habitats is as stunning as ever. Disney seems to be among the only people who can compete with National Geographic toe to toe in this regard.

. But Disney’s version of nature is sentimental- oh so sentimental. The horrid treacle that narrator John Krasinski is forced to spout often threatens to undermine the glory of the remarkably intimate wildlife footage. It has been worse in past outings, but it’s something that will always keep adult audiences at bay.

– The bookends on this film are perhaps the best parts. They are simple montages of the natural glories of vast, wild China and they are absolutely awesome to behold.

A STREET CAT NAMED BOB  (2016) ***+

> Taken from the international bestseller, director Roger Spottiswoode tells a fairly simple and straightforward story of a man who is hanging on to the world by a thread, when he is tossed an unlikely lifeline by a stray ginger cat who suddenly decided to adopt him.

. Busking on streets put pennies in James Bowen’s pockets. Desperate to keep clean after kicking a heroin habit that nearly destroyed his life, he finds that the world flashes him a smile instead of a scowl, when he busks with his guitar with a cat on his shoulder. The thing is, the guy’s got soul. He’s an authentic human being- and he’s got talent! His songs are good, his voice a bit breathy and limited but so evocative of love and pain and human emotion. Apparently this is easier for passersby to see when he has a cute feline sidekick. While plying his trade, he meets a publisher who wants to tell “Bob’s story”, (It’s really James’s story, isn’t it?), and the rest, as they say, is history.

. Luke Treadaway, (“Miller” in UNBROKEN), gives a heartfelt performance as James. He’s good, but I wondered why they didn’t cast the real James to play himself. Perhaps he could pull off the singing parts but had all the camera charisma of a wet noodle.

– Not a huge amount of conflict here really, but it works anyway as we really root for James… (and Bob!)

EXTINCTION  (2018) ***+

Looks like I am not the only movie-lover with a taste for destruction on a Biblical scale. Seems like there is a new entry in this genre almost daily. We live in such tenuous times that complete existential destruction almost becomes a welcome fantasy- akin to wiping the slate clean and starting again. Michael Peña is a family man who is plagued by recurrent dreams of unimaginable upheaval and carnage. It’s wearing on his marriage. And then one day, his cataclysmic dreams come true. No, they were not dreams at all- they were prophecy, and the unimaginable has become reality. “Aliens” have arrived, and they appear to be on a mission to wipe out humanity. Or is this just a presumption we make, accepting appearances too readily? This is decent sci-fi, not groundbreaking, but exciting and well photographed. No it’s not nutritious, but it’s pleasant to munch on. And Michael Peña is an appealing screen presence. Entertaining.

*

> All-in-all, I guess BLACKKKLANSMAN was the film that really floated my boat this month. I see a number of promising releases set on the horizon. Looks like fun… but you never really know until the films hit the screens. Gotta be some gems in there somewhere!

Vive Cinema, desperados!

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