"Accomplishments"
In theaters: James Gunn jumps us right into the action with only references to origin stories, maybe, and at this point in the superhero film genre, that's for the good. Stuff has already happened, including Superman's crucial "mistake" that drives the action, and while I felt the first act felt rushed as a result, it also made Gunn's DCEU more lived in. It's Year 3, and a few heroes are established, and we don't need to know how, etc. We're landing in the middle of the DCU just as a new comic reader would. Superman is very correctly imagined as someone who can't bear to lose a single life on his watch, and if there's comic book destruction, you always know which buildings are empty and which are not - it's never gratuitous. At the same time, Superman isn't entire the gosh-shucks "perfect" character his critics think he is - he's quick to outrage, he gets angry, he's stumbling through this early part of his career, and his dog is very, very misbehaved. Speaking of which, we all saw the trailer with Krypto, but I didn't imagine he'd be so important to the story. Similarly, Gunn finds a way to make Guy Gardner kind of cool, and Mister Terrific is a real scene stealer. He brings in Otis (a minor role and not annoying), but more importantly, Miss Tessmacher(!), probably my favorite ancillary character in the original films. Corenswet is good as Superman, Rachel Brosnahan has something of Margot Kidder in her Lois Lane, and Nicholas Hoult, while more vicious than Gene Hackman's Luthor, still brings some dark humor. Lots of Gunnisms, of course - the trademark humor, the goofy CG monsters, a "musical" number - all contributing to a very entertaining superhero film and an auspicious relaunch of the DCEU. Some have tried to make a lot of hay about the film's politics, but I don't think they're sitting up front. The film is of its day, in that it remixes ideas, issues and visuals from 2025. You see what you want to see.
At home: Seeing as two of my favorite cinematic genres are the spy film and the revenge picture, I had some fun with The Amateur. Based on the novel by Robert Littell, it has Rami Malek as a CIA computer jockey whose wife is killed in a terrorist action, leading him to track the perpetrators down when his bosses refuse to do so. He's got a "unique set of skills", as they say, but none of them are for field work. He doesn't even have what it takes to kill. So the interest is in watching someone who is out of his depth, in many respects, evade capture and deal with his own terrible guilt. It never gets any cooler than the revenge they showed in the trailer, but each culprit gets theirs in a different and satisfying way. Malek will be criticized for not being intense enough, perhaps - they use editing and visions to put his guilt across more fully - but I think that's what they were going for and didn't cast the guy from Mr. Robot for nothing.
I have a hard time believing How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is on all the "Shakespeare adaptations" lists (if this is, then every romcom should be). It's supposed to be Taming of the Shrew, but Kate Hudson is only faking being a shrew (or in the modern dating sense, a hot mess), and Matthew McConaughey is only faking his unshakability. The film makers might have claimed the inspiration, but we're far, far from Shakespeare here, and hinging much closer to the common romcom tropes of the 90s (in 2003, this would have almost been a throwback). If it works at all, it's because the stars are so affable (watch out for Kathryn Hahn or she'll steal the show) and because, well, it CHEATS. The way the relationship is set up is amusing, but given the circumstances, how can these two crazy kids get together? It's 8 days of sheer madness, and one day of being themselves, and that clinches it, but McConaughey has to essentially forget everything he knows for it to happen, and as for Hudson, the soundtrack really has to work hard to tell us she's not faking anymore. We only believe it because we know who the characters really are, or perhaps because it's not our first romcom.
The 2015 Macbeth, starring MIchael Fassbender, is made to look like an historical epic - vast landscapes, big armies, grounded witches, even a different and potentially more probable take on the travelling woods - but it comes at the cost of the play's theatricality. Despite recognizable stars giving strong performances in a hellish landscape, bringing the Scottish Play closer to realism makes it rather dull. I always have problems with Macbeth, mind you. It's my least favorite of Shakespeare's major plays. One of these is that it's difficult to render the Scotsman in a way that provokes audience empathy. Fassbender's falls into the "inhuman" camp with his, and we therefore lay our hopes with Marion Cotillard's Lady Macbeth, who is shocked earlier than usual by her husband's butchery and is therefore rather affecting. Of course, she doesn't make it to the end of the play. The adaptation does a few things well, too. I don't think there's a version I've seen that stresses so well the theme of the Macbeths' barrenness (even the Witches have kids), and I like the button at the end. Unfortunately, there's an overall flatness these qualities can't overcome, as of a play whispered in a dark room when it should be shouted to the top balcony.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is about fairy-enabled adultery with an apologetic button at the end, so it's no surprise Woody Allen would want to make his own version at some point. Surprisingly, A Midsummer Night`s Comedy isn't as positive about adultery as most of his output (and almost strangely, it's his character who is the most outraged at age differences in couples - the director protests too much, methinks). So it's kind of Shakespeare's set-up, but not beholden to the plot, and instead of young people who need Puck's potion to fall in love crosswise, it's middle-aged adults who need no help at all. It's that sexual mid-life crisis that requires a re-sowing of one's oats, steeped in regret as much as lust. The 1920s setting created an enchanted summer in the country where animal instincts can take hold, and allows for a bit of fairy dust even if it's all largely grounded in reality. Allen has, as usual, assembled a strong cast, including José Ferrer, Mary Steenburgen and for the first time, Mia Farrow (replacing Diane Keaton in the film as she had in Allen's life), but as a comedy, it produces a fleeting smile more so than laughs.
It's summer, let's put on some shorts...
Ari Aster's 2014 collaboration with Rachel Brosnahan - Basically - introduces us to Shandy Pickles, a privileged and cynical would-be Hollywood actress whose complaints we may find superficial, but she'll eventually blurt out her most guarded truths and make us care (or perhaps, we can't help but respond to Brosnahan herself even when she plays a loathsome character). 15 minutes of fourth wall-breaking tableaux will eventually do that.
It's all in the title. Nothing seems credible in Ari Aster's Munchausen, and only when the credits start to roll will we know what we're watching was true (and even then). A mother watches her son pack for college and already pines for his return in this retro-60s, modern take on the silent film. I enjoyed the experiment, and Bonnie Bedella is stellar as the mother who puts herself through the wringer.
Like something Terry Gilliam plucked out of a Time Bandit's dreams, The Crimson Permanent Assurance is Spartacus + a pirate film, but for accountants. They start out chained to their desks and end up sailing the financial seas, intent on taking stock brokers at broadsides. An absurd and lively epic! Hey, was that Matt Frewer?
From the World Cinema Project![Angola, Congo] In its dramatization of the days leading up to a kind of Angolan Bastille Day (to put it in Western terms for those less than expert in African history - guilty), Sambizanga shows the making of a martyr. A man is taken from his home and held at an undisclosed location, while his wife tries to find out where, and other members of the Liberation Movement try to figure out WHO has even been taken. It's a mess, but it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Though meant as a propaganda piece that inspires revolution against the Colonial State, one can also read it as a critique of the Movement as something that uses people as pawns too. Our man Domingos seems to be more useful incarcerated or dead than alive. Filled with moments of life captured on the streets and villages, the film has a vérité feel that approaches documentary. Indeed, it's largely presented by non-actors, and you do feel it in the staging and line delivery. Director Sarah Maldoror had worked with Elisa Andrade (the wife) before, and she has the better claim to professionalism. Certainly, I wanted the movie to be about her a lot more than it ended up being.
[Democratic Republic of Congo] That the title character tells her story to her unborn child seems the only conceit preventing War Witch (Rebelle) from being a strict procedural about the life of child soldiers in Africa, at least at first. Komona, taken from her village age 12 and press-ganged into a rebel army, soon starts seeing ghosts and is branded a witch - something that gives her a certain status among the rebels who gladly follow her to victories. But this isn't a story of glory, it's one of great guilt, and getting out of terrible circumstances. Shot with an almost documentary eye, we eventually follow Komona to where her rebellious spirit takes her, whether that's a certain kind of magical realism that takes superstition as reality, or in the arms of fleeting hope. It's one of those films about misery, which I won't want to watch more than once, but, I think, a good one, as it eschews sentimentalism and emotional manipulation. Good music, too.
Comments