Review: THE REVENANT

 
   I thought Biutiful was a better film than Birdman. Most critics didn't care much for Biutiful and, as we all know, Birdman was adored and won the Best Picture Oscar. I thought Birdman was the worst film of 2014, so I'm probably the only one on earth that thinks Alejandro Inarritu has redeemed himself with The Revenant, a nineteenth century Terrence Malick-esque revenge drama set in the frozen wilderness of somewhere cold (the film was shot mostly in Canada, though the film keeps this a mystery).
     Inarritu has always been one of the directors I most admired. Even with misfires like Birdman (an ugly, hate-filled, confounding mess) and 21 Grams (a dull, depressing slog) on his resume, he at least always tries new things and his films surprise, excite, and intrigue you. I've always looked forward to seeing his new pictures. And The Revenant is his best picture since Amores Perros.
     The film is based on the true life of Hugh Glass, a man that lived through such an outrageously wild ordeal during a fur-trading job out on the frontier that it's almost too ridiculous to believe. His story was told so much over the years that it became legend. Who really knows if most of it really happened or not, but certainly the book the film is loosely adapted from, The Revenant by Michael Punke, and the plot and characters in the film, are embellished for dramatic effect. And while it is a great story, the story really isn't the reason that this is a good film. Inarritu went Apocalypse Now on this film. Ten members of the crew either quit or were fired. The budget ballooned from $65 to $165 million. They filmed this in extremely cold, extremely far-off, Mountainous forests. They only shot with actual sunlight. The one big battle scene apparently took twenty days to set-up and shoot (most of the film is done in long takes). All of this craziness ultimately paid off. This is one of the most gorgeous looking films ever made. And it also features some of the best action scenes put on film. At two and a half hours, it's not entertainment for the masses, however. This is definitely an art-house Western. Inarritu must enjoy Terrence Malick's films, because it has Malick's fingerprints over the whole thing. The endless shots of trees, sunsets, rivers, animals. The hushed-voiced poetry. The moderately silly death/life/love dream sequences. What it does have that Inarritu has added, though, is brutality and ferocity. Amidst the beautiful frozen tundra is a bloody revenge picture. Arrows in heads, bear attacks, rape, raw fish devouring. This is as hardcore as it gets. Survival of the fittest!
     Leonardo DiCaprio, as Hugh Glass, is adequate, but it's Tom Hardy as the villainous, half-scalped Texan that steals the show. He's about as unrecognizable as he usually is, but he just totally immerses himself in the tough, dirty, redneck. His voice slithers with evil and he's like that typical asshole you're stuck at work with and really want to punch in the face.
     With a stellar performance by Hardy, some amazingly filmed action sequences, and a plethora of beautifully shot landscapes, The Revanant is truly one of the best films of the year. There's not a hell of a lot of story here, but if you like visuals then you'll agree that this is definitely a high water mark in the world of film making. Perhaps Innaritu got his Oscar a year too early? ***1/2

Review: THE HATEFUL EIGHT

     At this point in Quentin Tarantino's career, we've accepted the fact that he will never make another masterpiece like Pulp Fiction. And we've accepted that this is okay, as long as he entertains. And so far he's held up his end of the bargain. He doesn't make great films any more, but he does make interesting and entertaining ones, and I'm glad to say this his newest, the Agatha Christie-esque "locked room" Western, The Hateful Eight, is better than his last film, Django Unchained. It's not a great film but it has all the classic Tarantino trademarks that will make his fans feel right at home.
     The story is pretty basic. Kurt Russell is a bounty hunter taking his bounty, a murderess, played with ferocious glee by Jennifer Jason Lee, to be hanged. On the way to town he gets stuck at a general store type of establishment while waiting for a blizzard to pass. Also at this general store are an assorted cadre of characters that may or may not be who they say they are. And so the film, at just short of three hours, takes place in one room.
     I think most casual film goers will be bored to tears with this film and its premise, but I was mostly riveted. To enjoy this film you probably have to be a fan of Tarantino (the long scenes of dialogue, the buckets of blood) and a fan of whodunnit stories. The one caveat to the Agatha Christie-style mysteries is that the ending is usually or should be an ingenious completed puzzle revealed with awe. It should be a twist in the best sense, breathing new life to what came before and knocking it out of the park with a big reveal. The Hateful Eight does not have any sort of brilliant or smart payoff, but the climax is at least saved by a wild, kinetic bloodbath that has to be seen to be believed. And while it doesn't exactly have any great twists nor is the ultimate story and revelations anything truly interesting, Tarantino has turned this all into a good film. There's a number of reasons why, but the best reason is that this is first class film making. The film was shot in old-school 70mm "wide-screen." This makes it look grainy, colorful, spacious, and epic. The film was also scored by old-school, Spaghetti Western maestro Ennio Morricone, and the music in this is dramatic, full-bodied, raw, and perfect. The shots of snow-peaked mountains in the distance are breathtakingly cool and the gun-battles and carnage that emerge in the confines of the general store are precisely filmed while also being guttural and brutal and sick. It's a beautifully disgusting film.
     Kurt Russell is the main character but Samuel L. Jackson and especially Walter Goggins steal the show. Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern and Demian Bichir don't really have a lot to work with here, and Tim Roth is a bit too much of a cartoon show-off (akin to how annoyingly silly Christoph Waltz was in Django Unchained). Jackson, though, is on fire here, gleeful in the debauchery. And Goggins, probably best known for his role on TV's Justified, is the perfect anecdote for the gloomy, often quiet, slow burn of a film.
     And that's the one big problem with the film: the pace. It's slow, it's methodical. It doesn't help that there hasn't been any interesting dialogue exchanges in Tarantino's scripts in years. Remember in Reservoir Dogs the great bits about tipping waitress's and Madonna's Like a Virgin? Or in Pulp Fiction the scene about the Royale with cheese? There's no dialogue that fun or fresh in The Hateful Eight, and that's one reason Tarantino doesn't make great movies anymore. But with one thing gone, another emerges. The Hateful Eight might be his best looking picture and one that proves that he's working at the top of his game in terms of directing.
     He may not be the best writer anymore but Tarantino is still, love it or hate it, a blood thirsty son of a bitch. The big Hamlet climax will have your adrenaline surging, your blood pumping, and your jaw probably on the floor. He may not make great movies anymore, but he can still put on a hell of a show. ***

    
    

Review: JOY

     The whole gang is back together! Like old times! But the big problem is that maybe they wanted to be together so much that the "project" didn't matter.
     This "gang" is writer/director David O. Russell and stars Robert De Niro, Jennifer Lawrence, and Bradley Cooper. This is their third film together after The Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. Those films were huge successes. Russell got back in Hollywood's good graces (where was he between I Heart Huckabees and Playbook?), Lawrence won an Oscar, and De Niro was back in decent films. But with Joy, their latest collaboration, it almost feels like a shell of a film, as if these people just wanted to work together again they'd come up with any excuse. Russell wanted Lawrence to star so he thought the idea of a female-driven film would be ideal...and because Russell is now known as a loose, on-set filmmaker more than a set-in-stone, follow-the-script-exactly type, maybe he didn't think he needed a great script. Maybe Lawrence wanted to star so bad and get a leading role in her friend's film that she didn't care about the quality of the script. And the dominoes fell and were left with Joy, a film with an intriguing premise that doesn't really go anywhere rewarding or interesting. It feels like we're short-changed when it's done. And that's a problem.
     I've mopped floors a billion times and have never even heard of The Miracle Mop. But apparently years ago it made a poor, divorced woman rich. This is that story. And it's a good, Rocky-esque plot. Lawrence is a child with a big imagination but ends up a failure. She's broke, has a lousy job, divorced with kids, living with her parents and ex-husband. Then she finally comes up with a new idea and decides to become a business woman, which turns out to be incredibly difficult. She finally gains success on a new TV channel, QVC, and the rest is history (I guess it is...I've never heard of this woman...though I admit I've never watched QVC...and a classic mop and bucket has always worked good enough for me).
     The best aspect of Joy (and Playbook) is the family dynamic. De Niro is hilarious in this. Add a Spanish singer ex-husband living in the basement, a soap opera addicted mom that falls in love with the Haitian plumber, and an evil half-sister, and the drama is fun, chaotic, and entertaining to watch. After a half hour, though, the film ends up being a business woman on a mission trying to sell a mop and this never becomes more interesting than it sounds (and it sounds dull, right?).
     Perhaps a documentary would have been more interesting. Russell attempts to make this out to be a film exploring a person fulfilling and going after their dreams, which may have worked if there was more here. The film is slight, bare, and ends up at its rich/success finish way too fast. The idea of being children with fantastic dreams only to end up middle-aged 9 to 5ers stuck in the quagmire of life is, obviously, prominent in a lot of films. That this woman got out of her rut and become a success story is nice, but do we care? We could. We should. But unfortunately we don't.
     Russell has made some good films in the past (Three Kings will always be his best), but Joy just feels like a thrown-together, vanity project...a reason to get together with old friends.
     There's a scene in American Hustle where Bradley Cooper is in an office after a victory and he's over-acting and show-boating and he's hilarious and the scene is kinetic and fun and wild. There's more energy to that one scene than in the entire film Joy. And Cooper's character and performance in this is kind of how the film ended up: Cooper is restrained, tired, and just there.
     Joy is entertaining in spots and De Niro and Lawrence give good performances but it's way too plain. It's forgettable, forgotten. ** (out of ****) 

Review: STAR WARS EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS

     Today at work I looked out the window and it was raining but it didn't matter because I was excited. I had tickets for the new Star Wars movie on opening night and I couldn't wait. And this reminded me of a long time ago, January 1996, the day From Dusk Till Dawn came out. I was stuck in Biology class and looking out the window and it was raining but who cares because I was excited. I had tickets to the new Tarantino/Rodriguez vampire movie on opening night and I couldn't wait.
     Obviously, the first Star Wars movie with the original cast in thirty two years is a bit of a bigger deal than a cheesy, B-horror movie is...but that feeling of being excited to go to opening night of a movie you can't wait to see and already having your tickets and dying for the time it starts to finally come is the same. And how often does that happen? Maybe there are sixteen year olds these days just as excited for movies like The Avengers. But for the generation that went to see the original Star Wars movies in theaters as kids...how many times do you get this excited to see a new movie? It's a rare and special event. And I'm glad to say that the new film, Episode VII: The Force Awakens, is not a letdown. It is not better than any of the three original films but light years better than the three awful prequels.
     When it was announced that Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill were going to be back, fans went ape-shit. And, surprisingly, it's the new actors that steal the show. Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are awesome in this. They're tough but believably human, have great chemistry and are hilarious and entertaining together. Creating new characters that you actually want to go on a journey with in the Star Wars universe is the one big step this new franchise needed and succeeded at. They even introduce a new droid, BB-8, who almost steals the show.
     The script, by Michael Arndt, Lawrence Kasdan, and J.J. Abrams, is terrific in one sense because they know what worked in the past and have basically re-made the original Star Wars with an Empire-esque ending. There really isn't anything new here, and that's okay. We have a young, new character that learns that they have the power of the force. There's the bad-guy empire with a Death Star. There's the good-guy rebels. There's family strife. There's light-saber duels and Jim Henson-style real puppets and fighter-jet action scenes and the classic, original score and opening scroll.
     It is kind of cool to see Han Solo and Leia and Chewbacca and R2D2 and C3PO back, albeit their scenes are more nostalgia-good than actually good. The only bad aspects of the film are some lame special f/x (an octopus monster? ugh...a wise, small creature/woman voiced by Lupita Nyongo that's just silly...and an Emperor-like old man villain that should have just been played by a real, old man) and a plot that gets a little stale in that good guys get captured and escape not once but twice!
     But this is a new film and thankfully the new faces are the highlight. J.J. Abrams does a good job in creating a very cool looking film with some good action scenes and some good drama and emotion. The villain, played by Girls' Adam Driver, is adequate at best (his cross-light saber is a lot more menacing than he is), but the film is a lot of fun and well structured enough that you still want to see what happens to him and how his story plays out.
     The ending is a cliffhanger in the best sense. You do want to see Daisy Ridley again and John Boyega again and Oscar Isaac again. You want to see more of this world, more of the unfolding story, and you can't wait to have another adventure with all of them again. And while it's not a great film nor a new, bold classic like the originals, it's still a worthy continuation of a classic franchise. ***