Review: Sorry to Bother You

All I knew going into Sorry to Bother You is that a black telemarketer starts using a “white voice” to become a hotshot salesman. Sounded funny enough as a gag. It’s probably for the best that it was the only thing I knew about the movie, and it’s probably the only thing you need to know going in. That and the fact that it’s amazing.

Sorry to Bother You is the story of Cassuis Green (Get Out’s Lakeith Stanfield), a down on his luck loser who shoots up the corporate ladder, from encyclopedia salesman to mythical “Power Caller”, through a set of increasingly surreal feats of salesmanship. It’s worth noting that this film is pretty surreal in general, and isn’t afraid to bend the rules of reality (frequently) to crack a joke or make a point, so it’s worth it to go in with an open mind and roll with whatever happens (trust me, you’ll enjoy it more that way). If you’re into comparisons, think Office Space meets Synecdoche NewYork, though arguably funnier than the former and less depressing than the latter. Another way to think about it is it’s like a really good episode of BoJack Horseman or South Park.

Credit goes to writer/director/musician Boots Riley for putting together this wild, weird, and exceedingly clever ride. It’s a Charlie Kaufman-esque dream of a film that entwines politics, pop-culture, and economics in a broad and sweeping satire. Riley creates an excellent sense of atmosphere from the first set of scenes and escalates everything as he goes. The film starts feeling slightly off kilter before slowly transforming into a wild comedic fantasy, a grotesque cracked-mirror reflection of the world we live in. There are great performances across the board, from the lead and especially from secondary players like Armie Hammer, Tessa Thompson, and the many voice cameos.

I’ve probably said too much already. This movie is great. I laughed my ass off. Go see it.

Rating: Shiny and Chrome

~G

You Were Never Really Here: A (Again, Way Too Late) Review

Full disclosure: I was extremely hyped for this movie. A stylish thriller with sequences of brutal hand-to-hand combat, directed by a one of a kind auteur, featuring great performances and great music sounds like something that I am destined to love. Needless to say, I set my expectations too high and ended up kinda disappointed.

First, the good.

Lynne Ramsay delivers, with her technical brilliance once again taking center stage. She’s a master of synecdoche, focusing on specific, clear details suggestive of the greater whole, and her directorial powers are on full display here. This attention to detail pervades the movie and allows for excellent work both visually and aurally, especially Johnny Greenwood’s jarring score. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as Joe, the taciturn hitman, is as good, if not better, than advertised. He goes all the way into the character, bringing him to life with every hammer swing, bad joke, and garbled phrase.  As for the other characters, well, there aren’t any.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The focus is squarely on Joe, his memories, his traumas, and his experience of events. The film does a great job placing the viewer in his fractured point of view, weaving memory, speculation, hallucination, and suppression into the events as they unfold to give us an idea of how Joe sees the world.

Now the bad.

The film is very stingy in how it parses information. Much of the violence and horror goes unseen, cut around or mediated by CCTV feeds and broken mirrors so it’s never really here clear. Part of this is Ramsay’s style, part of this is thematic: reflecting Joe’s internal suppression of violent memories and events. And we as the audience know what happens, but without seeing it, it loses much of the impact it would otherwise have. As a result we have a thriller that isn’t very thrilling, and is really more of a drama. This is a film where the primary danger, and the primary source of tension, is physical (Joe saving the girl as a metaphor for saving his own soul aside) and if the audience is removed from the physical violence and danger associated with it, then the film becomes devoid of tension or violent catharsis, which I ultimately found unsatisfying.

Where the movie excels is in other scenes. Scenes of Joe at home, on the street, and interacting with those in his life are interesting and funny. The movie also has its share of strange, dreamy moments that outshine pretty much anything else that happens in it.

You Were Never Really Here is extremely well-made; it’s stylistically and thematically coherent, but in the end, I wasn’t crazy about the final product. My problems with it aside, this is a very good movie and deserves to be watched.

Rating: Witness

~ G

Annihilation: (A Way Too Late) Review

People on the web these days seem to complain about Hollywood movies quite a lot. Not enough roles for women. Not enough minorities. The movies are so stupid they cause viewers to lose IQ points with each passing minute.

Well fret not dear reader, our savior is here. Annihilation is the answer to all these problems and more, so surely it will be a smashing success, right?

Oh, wait…Nobody saw it.

Annihilation is a riveting, genre bending, sci-fi survival/body horror film that is, to be blunt, fucking excellent. It follows five female scientists (All well developed characters, and of different racial backgrounds no less, how's that for Strong Female Characters^TM) who journey into a mysterious bubble that’s been designated a no-go zone in order to figure out just what the hell is going on in there, and what they are made to confront is something truly staggering. A force that takes all aspects of nature: plants, animals, humans, and even the laws of physics, and violently transforms them into something unrecognizable and alien, something that challenges every conventional view of our existence. It’s vintage body horror ideas played out on a massive ecological scale.

Credit goes to writer/director Alex Garland and his team for managing to balance ideas, exposition, mood, and narrative much better here than in his previous effort Ex Machina (which suffered a bit from the all-to-common “let’s stop the movie dead and explain basic science to people” type of exposition dump), as well as for the brilliant technical fireworks and pure aesthetic pleasure that comes with this movie. The environments and world are rich and beautifully rendered, imaginative and full of color, and brought to life with expert sound design. Not to mention the last 45 or so minutes, which are an overwhelming audio/visual spectacle that kept me in a state of low-grade euphoria.

Credit also goes to producer Scott Rudin, who saw he had a gem on his hands and used his final cut powers to have it released as the director intended.

The other producers, who essentially paid to have the movie buried, can all go fuck themselves.

Annihilation is clever, unique, well made, and at times downright spectacular. The fact that anyone would try to shelve this is baffling to me. It’s a film that begs to be seen in theaters, but unfortunately it’s long gone by now. So do yourself a favor when Annihilation reaches Netflix: find the biggest screen you can, in the darkest room you know of, with the loudest sound system you can get your hands on, and watch this movie.

Rating: Shiny and Chrome

 ~ G

P.S. - Annihilation isn't perfect. Its main problems come from some clunky dialogue, or otherwise difficult dialogue delivered in a clunky manner. This is less of an issue later on, as the final third or so of the film has very little talking.

The Top Ten Best Damn Movies of 2017. Period.

Buy and large, 2017 was one of the best years for movies we’ve had in a while (mediocre superheroes and a few sci-fi abominations not withstanding). It’s safe to say that making this list was very difficult, as there was an embarrassment of riches to pick from. Needless to say, several great movies will get little more than an honorable mention here.

But enough preface. In a post-truth world full of lies, scams, and fake news around every corner, the people need a Top 10 Movie list they can trust, so without further ado:

10) Raw

What’s not to like about a stylish French body-horror movie about college-aged cannibals? While it didn’t blow me away, Julia Ducournau’s genre-bending effort was more engaging than most films this year.  And despite all the salacious headlines, the film is, at its core, a coming of age story, one that focuses on an often overlooked part of growing up: facing down one’s demons and coming to terms with the dark, unpleasant aspects of one’s self. And it does this very well, using stylish cinematography, art direction, and great performances to tell a thoughtful, gross, and engrossing story of a young woman’s struggle with her own demons, ones that blur the line between sex, love, hunger, violence, and self destruction.

9) I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore

The directorial debut of writer/actor/Jeremy Saulnier’s best friend Macon Blair is basically a Jeremy Saulnier movie if the guy was into comedies. And it’s great. When lead actress Melanie Lysnkey’s Betty becomes fed up with literally everyone and all their bullshit, she goes on a quest for revenge against the burglars who stole her grandmother’s silverware, accompanied by a wonderfully weird Elijah Wood. They end up stumbling into more than they bargained for as the movie offers up more surprises and genuine suspense than most Hollywood thrillers can manage along with plenty of laughs. Macon Blair proves himself to be a creative force on in his own right, and this movie only makes me even more excited for 2018’s Hold the Dark.

8) It Comes at Night

Some people judge movies based on their marketing. Those people are very stupid and should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery.

While not a horror movie, It Comes at Night is a nauseatingly suspenseful drama with enough tension and anxiety to make most popcorn horror films look tame by comparison. The acting, production design, sound, and cinematography are all excellent and this bleak-as-hell story about survivors of a viral apocalypse is executed flawlessly. The grimness becomes a bit much as the film goes on, but I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

7) The Lost City of Z

I’m still not sure if Charlie Hunnam can act, but this movie is so good, he doesn’t really have a chance to do any damage. The film follows real life explorer Percy Fawcett (Hunnam) and his many expeditions to South America, all of which lead to his eventual obsession with finding a supposed lost civilization and the many conflicts that arise from that obsession. The movie is an excellent example of technique and atmosphere making up for a story that, while surprisingly true to the facts, feels like it has a few too many contrivances thrown in for drama’s sake. Every frame is gorgeous and the film does a great job of explaining the right things and leaving the right things ambiguous. It’s totally enthralling from beginning to end and, as a bonus, features a great performance from Robert Pattinson, who is proving himself to be one of the great chameleonic actors working today.

6) Brawl in Cell Block 99

A gritty grindhouse thriller with enough gore and great dialogue for two movies, Brawl is pure genre excellence. S. Craig Zahler, the writer/director/composer behind Bone Tomahawk, outdoes himself here, with a much leaner and meaner flick. It’s story and technical aspects are fairly straightforward, but the dialogue and simple, yet devastatingly effective fight sequences take precedence here. And to boot, Vince Vaughan (who was always better suited for drama than comedy) delivers his best performance yet as a taciturn criminal who has to fight his way into the nastiest prison on earth in order to save his wife and unborn child in a thrilling videogame-style dungeon crawl.

5) Logan Lucky

People these days seem to talk a lot about how serious blockbuster movies are and how they need to be more “fun”. Well, no movie in 2017 (except one) was more fun than Logan Lucky. Steven Soderberg, Mr. “Not Boring” himself, is back and as great as ever. The film features many of Soderberg’s favorite topics (heists, double-crosses, clever underdogs going up against more powerful people, money) as well as his signature off kilter, never-use-the-same-angle-twice camera work. It’s also impeccably cast, with a few winks at the audience thrown in (i.e. Daniel Craig and Hillary Swank). While held back a bit by some odd choices near the end, Logan Lucky is a blast to watch, a rare movie that does almost everything well.

4) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

The Lobster writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos doubles down on all his stylistic eccentricities in this tale about a father who must choose a family member to sacrifice as part of a bizarre, mystical revenge scheme. An interesting mix of multiple genres, deadpan deliveries, excellent camerawork (so many zooms!), and plenty of tar-black comedy makes this one of the most unique and well-executed ideas to come out in the past few years. It’s dark, strange, obtuse, and wonderfully funny. Comparisons to Kubrick are dime a dozen for this film, especially in relation to the late master’s best and final work, Eyes Wide Shut. But Lanthimos does plenty to help this movie stand well enough on its own, outside of the great Kubrick’s long shadow. While not for everyone, and hampered by a weak ending, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is well worth the price of admission.

3) Dunkirk

What I’m about to say might sound insane, but I think Dunkirk is criminally underrated. The conventional western narrative structure demands a clear, single protagonist, who has a clear goal, and is impeded by a single, defined antagonist. Dunkirk is often faulted for not fitting into this basic paradigm, but that’s kinda the point. Dunkirk may be the first slice-of-life war film, more documentary than narrative, more Battle of Algiers than Saving Private Ryan. It’s not about following an individual character, it’s about getting the audience to experience and understand the totality of the Battle of Dunkirk, and in that respect the film succeeds masterfully. Dunkirk captures the essence of a single event with immense clarity and precision and as a result, creates more tension, suspense, and anxiety than most blockbusters could ever hope to muster. One goes through the entire film with a knot in one’s stomach, truly feeling like anyone could die at any time. The film's editing is superb; it’s toying with time an excellent vehicle for exploring the battle. All the technical aspects are great and Tom Hardy’s in it, so extra brownie points for that.

2) John Wick: Chapter 2

When I walked out of the theater on opening night, I was worried I had seen the best movie of 2017 with 10 months left in the year. I was (almost) right. John Wick 2 is fucking awesome. It’s so fucking awesome that all I could think about while watching every other action movie this year was, “I could be watching John Wick 2 instead”. It’s the 2^nd best action movie of the last few years (behind Mad Max: Fury Road) and one of the best of all time. Chad Stahelski and Co. manage to perfectly balance ridiculousness and seriousness while walking the tightrope of badassery all the way from beginning to end. It takes everything that made the first one good: great choreography, stylish lighting and production design, precise camerawork, disciplined editing, and a comically blunt performance from Keanu Reeves, and raises it all to dizzying new heights while managing to raise the stakes to a level that manages to be both enthralling and absurd in a self-aware way. The film also features a roster of great character actors like Lawrence Fishburn, Ian McShane, Peter Serafinowizc, Peter Stormare, and Franco Nero all delivering hilariously hammy performances. And the action…my God…I can’t even begin to describe how great it is. I was giggling like a schoolgirl for over 2 hours. John Wick 2 was the most fun I had at the movies all year.

1) Good Time

It’s hard to give John Wick 2 the #1 slot, mainly because it isn’t “about anything”, at least anything other than stylish murder. Good Time, however, is the “serious” movie that matches John Wick 2 in terms of excellence. From New York’s Josh and Ben Safdie, Good Time is a film about desperate people trying to survive in a world that’s entirely too much to bear. Its style and mood reminded me a lot of the original Bladerunner, oddly enough. It follows Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) who has to scrap together enough money to get his mentally handicapped brother out of Ryker’s Island before he gets himself killed. But Connie, a generally shitty person, finds himself getting farther from his goal over the course of a single night, as his antics and manipulations continually make things worse and worse. The story, like Connie’s scheming, becomes more convoluted as it progresses, strange characters come and go, problems are solved only to introduce new ones, until the whole damn thing threatens to crumble under its own weight. The whole movie oozes style, with fittingly frenetic cinematography, excellent on-location lighting, and the best score of the year from musician Daniel Lopatin as well as a great original song from Iggy Pop. To boot, the entire cast delivers great performances. The movie pulls off a difficult high-wire act: It indulges in plenty of absurdity, but lets that absurdity comment on the narrative without overwhelming it. It manages to be sincere without being mawkish. And ultimately, it’s a story about a bad man trying to do one good thing: to save his brother and, by extension, himself. It’s about trying to care for and do right by the people you love, even if you’re not the right person to love them. It’s a movie that left a strong impression on me, one that’s lasted long after the screen faded to black and it’s the best damn movie of 2017.

So that’s that. The 10 best. Period.

Now of course this year’s was a crowded field, and a lot of good and great films were left on the outside looking in. Films like: PhantomThread, The Disaster Artist, Super Dark Times, Baby Driver, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Get Out, Personal Shopper, and A Ghost Story. 

~ G