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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Val Kilmer Documentary Punctures the Actor’s Bad Boy Myth

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Leo Scott and Ting Poo’s new documentary feature, Val, is not a mortality play. It is a rehearsal for an upcoming act. During a tour of his one-man stage show, Citizen Twain, Val Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer. The actor underwent two tracheostomies, and now can only speak while covering a tube. The narration of the new film is thus done by his son Jack Kilmer, allowing the pair to share a non-verbal connection throughout the journey, and through time and expression itself. While there are flourishes of humor, the documentary is a serious study of an artist who has always struggled to be understood, told through the selective memory of Kilmer’s POV.

“I’ve wanted to tell a story about acting for a very long time,” Kilmer says toward the beginning of the documentary. “And now that it’s difficult to speak, I want to tell my story more than ever.” Kilmer is an artist, one who takes his vocation very seriously and introspectively. An actor’s voice is more than a tool, it is their primary source of communication. Non-verbal exchanges are important, but dialogue is the primary idea delivery system in staged and filmed works. Surgical procedures have split his throat, shredding the scope of his instrument. In the film, Kilmer is forced to project his story on the empty space between the notes.

Among Kilmer’s many defining roles, the one which appears to ring truest is his encapsulation of Jim Morrison, the poet and lead vocalist of the Doors in Oliver Stone’s 1991 biopic, The Doors. The young Kilmer is shown onstage in a small club, lost in the music, awaiting his cue to become one with the mic. Moments in Kilmer’s personal history, like how the actor was tagged with a “difficult” label, are consigned to rests. The most overt reference to Kilmer’s “bad boy” reputation comes from Robert Downey Jr., who smashes the notoriety to bits in a moment of impromptu dismissal.

There is no gossip here. There is no discussion of A-list-bad behavior. Kilmer sees it all as artistic license. He was searching for honesty, he remembers. Choices like lying on top of a mattress filled with ice in order to feel a real pain during his last scene with Kurt Russell in Tombstone come across as perfectly valid. Kilmer is still bitter over spending four months learning to play guitar for Top Secret!, and his first note informs him the director thinks he looks funnier faking it. There is little evidence of unprofessionalism, only growing pains.

The bulk of Val comes from clips of 8mm home video footage Kilmer has been shooting most of his life. “I’ve kept everything, and it’s been sitting in boxes for years,” Kilmer informs us. The archive was intended to tell a story about “where you end and the acting begins.” We are gifted with moon shots of both Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn, which have nothing to do with the films Apollo 13 or The First.

Early self-directed screen tests provoke a series of what-ifs. A tortuous encapsulation of a Juilliard acting class is a lesson in what-nots. Val’s hand-held approach to The Island of Dr. Moreau is a highlight. The actor respectfully rocks his co-star and idol, Marlon Brando, on a hammock they both wish was strung to John Frankenheimer. Please turn off the camera, the film’s replacement director demands. But Kilmer only hits pause when it’s time to rehearse.

The behind-the-scenes camcorder footage from sets of Top Gun, Tombstone, and The Doors are treasure troves in themselves, and possibly underused. Most of the audience will be very interested in the candid youth and truth recorded over his career. Val uses the archival clips and unearthed b-roll to establish a chronology.

Many videos were made at home in Los Angeles with Kilmer’s younger brother Wesley, who had an epileptic seizure and drowned at age 15. His death casts a mournful pall following the news that Val was the youngest applicant ever accepted as a drama student at Juilliard. Kilmer calls his brother “an artistic genius,” and one of the most revealing things to come out of the documentary is how often Kilmer used this brother’s art to augment the backgrounds of the sets he is living through on film.

Seeing how Stone speaks about Kilmer now makes me wonder if Val would have been able to put in the same performances in his movies if he knew it at the time. In his audition tapes for Full Metal Jacket and Goodfellas, we see an actor who needs to be taken seriously. He flies 6,000 miles to hand deliver his tape to Stanley Kubrick in London.

While he makes no comment, footage reveals Kilmer’s favorite Batman was played by Adam West. “Every boy wants to be Batman,” we hear, and see the Caped Crusader in every era of Kilmer’s life. A short, animated film he and his brother made with what looks like crayon is a Batman spoof. He still glories in the moment he got deposited behind the classic TV series’ iconic wheels as a youngster visiting the lot. It appears Kilmer still can’t pass a grocery store Batmobile without feeding it quarters. He wears the classic blue Halloween ensemble expecting tricks and treats as a kid, and as a daddy with his kids.

Don’t expect to see Kilmer wearing his cinematic puffed rubber suit at home, and it’s not because he left it at the dry cleaners. Footage old and new, homemade or professionally recorded, presents the Batsuit as an albatross. Heavy rests the cowl. He has to be lifted from chairs, deposited on marks, and his only identifying feature on the set of Batman Forever is a chin and bottom lip. Anyone could have been behind the mask, and the human superhero envied the subhuman villains. Kilmer comes across as quite happy Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones are able to create fully formed performance art in their portrayals. But he wanted to play with those toys.

“Batman Forever,” Kilmer laments, “whatever boyish excitement I had going in was crushed by the reality of the Batsuit. I realized it was just my job to show up and stand where they told me.” As the captured past footage is juxtaposed with modern sequences, we get an unfiltered glimpse of how little this has changed. The sequence of Kilmer at the Comic-Con autograph booth is wrenching. He initially didn’t want to take the part of Iceman in Top Gun because he felt it glorified the military. So many fans ask him to sign “You can be my wingman” on their souvenirs. It turns his stomach. He throws up in a garbage can and wheeled through hallways with a blanket over his head. Trouper that he is, he returns to the booth to finish out the signatures.

Kilmer blurred himself into the role of Mark Twain. There is a beautiful sequence where the actor walks through town to the beach, in full stage makeup, dressed in the signature white suit and long mustache of his character. It is extremely telling when Kilmer tells the camera it’s hard enough writing a good screenplay, much less a great one, which itself doesn’t even match what he feels he needs to bring to a script of a film version of Citizen Twain. Kilmer sold his ranch in New Mexico to finance the project. The documentary only captures some of the frustrations.

Most of the anecdotes are guarded, and all the admissions are part of a subjective narrative. Kilmer’s arc has rough edges, these tales are too smooth, and leave little room for impressionistic interpretation. Kilmer met his former wife, Joanne Whalley, when she was starring in a West End play directed by Danny Boyle, but he didn’t approach her.

“She was brilliant, and I was in town making fluff,” Kilmer concedes. It’s all about the art, even appearances. The documentary hints that Kilmer’s dedication to character did the most damage to their relationship. Wearing the same pair of leather pants for nine months could almost be on the books as probable cause for divorce in Hollywood.

Similarly, Kilmer’s Christian Science upbringing is brought up, and dropped. There is a loving but ambiguous undertone to Kilmer’s relationship with his once-rich-and-powerful father, who put his son in debt after trying to become a southern California land tycoon. But a sequence on his Swedish mother which juxtaposes a car ride he took with her when he was a child with one of being driven to her funeral speaks volumes without words.

Val is about the next step. “What’s past is prologue” William Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest. Kilmer pondered the “too, too solid flesh” while rehearsing Hamlet, and the documentary opens after the actor faced his own mortality. Kilmer swears he feels better than he sounds and, while he finds little to regret in his memories, he expects less in the ones he has yet to create.

Val can be seen on Amazon Prime Video.

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angelofberlin2000 · 5 years

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Photo: Emily Denniston/Vulture and photos courtesy of the studios

Keanu Reeves has been a movie star for more than 30 years, but it seems like only recently that journalists and critics have come to acknowledge the significance of his onscreen achievements. He’s had hits throughout his career, ranging from teen comedies (Bill & Ted’s) to action franchises (The Matrix, John Wick), yet a large part of the press has always treated these successes as bizarre anomalies. And that’s because we as a society have never been able to understand fully what Reeves does that makes his films so special.

In part, this disconnect is the lingering cultural memory of Reeves as Theodore Logan. No matter if he’s in Speed or Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Something’s Gotta Give, he still possesses the fresh-faced openness that was forever personified by Ted’s favorite expression: “Whoa!” That wide-eyed exclamation has been Reeves’s official trademark ever since, and its eternal adolescent naïveté has kept him from being properly judged on the merits of his work.

Some of that critical reassessment has been provided, quite eloquently, by Vulture’s own Angelica Jade Bastién, who has argued for Reeves’s greatness as an action star and his importance to The Matrix (and 21st-century blockbusters in general). Two of her observations are worth quoting in full, and they both have to do with how he has reshaped big-screen machismo. In 2017, she wrote, “What makes Reeves different from other action stars is this vulnerable, open relationship with the camera — it adds a through-line of loneliness that shapes all his greatest action-movie characters, from naïve hotshots like Johnny Utah to exuberant ‘chosen ones’ like Neo to weathered professionals like John Wick.” In the same piece, Bastién noted: “By and large, Hollywood action heroes revere a troubling brand of American masculinity that leaves no room for displays of authentic emotion. Throughout Reeves’s career, he has shied away from this. His characters are often led into new worlds by women of far greater skill and experience … There is a sincerity he brings to his characters that make them human, even when their prowess makes them seem nearly supernatural.”

In other words, the femininity of his beauty — not to mention his slightly odd cadence when delivering dialogue, as if he’s an alien still learning how Earthlings speak — has made him seem bizarre to audiences who have come to expect their leading men to act and carry themselves in a particular way. Critics have had a difficult time taking him seriously because it was never quite clear if what he was doing — or what was seemingly “missing” from his acting approach — was intentional or a failing.

This is not to say that Reeves hasn’t made mistakes. While putting together this ranking of his every film role, we noticed that there was an alarmingly copious number of duds — either because he chose bad material or the filmmakers didn’t quite know what to do with him. But as we prepare for the release of the third John Wick installment, it’s clear that his many memorable performances weren’t all just flukes. From Dangerous Liaisons to Man of Tai Chi — or River’s Edge to Knock Knock — he’s been on a journey to grow as an actor while not losing that elemental intimacy he has with the viewer. Below, we revisit those performances, from worst to best.

45. Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

The nadir of the ’90s cyberpunk genre, and a movie so bad, with Reeves so stranded, that it’s actually a bit of a surprise the Wachowskis were able to forget about it and still cast him as Neo. Dumber than a box of rocks, it’s a movie about technology and the internet — based on a William Gibson story! — that seems to have been made by people who had never turned on a computer before. Seriously, watch this shit:

44. The Watcher (2000) This movie exists in many ways because of its stunt casting: James Spader as a dogged detective and Keanu as the serial killer obsessed with him. Wait, shouldn’t those roles be switched? Get it? There would come a time in his career when Keanu could have maybe handled this character, but here, still with his floppy Ted Logan hair, he just looks ridiculous. The hackneyed screenplay does him no favors, either. Disturbingly, Reeves claims that he was forced to do this movie because his assistant forged his signature on a contract. He received the fifth of his seven Razzie nominations for this film. (He has yet to win and hasn’t been nominated in 17 years. In fact, it’s another sign of how lame the Razzies are that he got a “Redeemer” award in 2015, as if he needed to “redeem” anything to those people.)

43. Sweet November (2001) It’s a testament to how cloying and clunky Sweet November is that its two leads (Reeves and Charlize Theron) are, today, the pinnacle of action-movie cool — thanks to the same filmmaker, Atomic Blonde and John Wick’s David Leitch — yet so inert and waxen here. This is a career low point for both actors, preying on their weak spots. Watching it now, you can see there’s an undeniable discomfort on their faces: If being a movie star means doing junk like this, what’s the point? They’d eventually figure it all out.

42. Chain Reaction (1996) As far as premises for thrillers go, this isn’t the worst idea: A team of scientists are wiped out — with their murder pinned on poor Keanu — because they’ve figured out how to transform water into fuel. (Hey, Science, it has been 23 years. Why haven’t you solved this yet?) Sadly, this turns into a by-the-numbers chase flick with Reeves as Richard Kimble, trying to prove his innocence while on the run. He hadn’t quite figured out how to give a project like this much oomph yet, so it just mostly lies around, making you wish you were watching The Fugitive instead.

41. 47 Ronin (2013) In 2013, Reeves made his directorial debut with a Hong Kong–style action film. We’ll get into that one later, because it’s a ton better than this jumbled mess, a mishmash of fantasy and swordplay that mostly just gives viewers a headache. Also: This has to be the worst wig of Keanu’s career, yes?

40. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)

Gus Van Sant’s famously terrible adaptation of Tom Robbins’s novel never gets the tone even close to right, and all sorts of amazing actors are stranded and flailing around. Reeves gets some of the worst of it: Why cast one of the most famously chill actors on the planet and have him keep hyperventilating?

39. Replicas (2019) In the wake of John Wick’s success, Keanu has had the opportunity to sleepwalk through some lesser sci-fi actioners, and this one is particularly sleepy. The idea of a neuroscientist (Reeves) who tries to clone his family after they die in an accident could have been a Pet Sematary update, but the movie insists on an Evil Corporation plot that we’ve seen a million times before. John Wick has allowed Reeves to cash more random checks than he might have ten years ago. Here’s one of them.

38. Feeling Minnesota (1996) As far as we know, the only movie taken directly from a Soundgarden lyric — unless we’re missing a superhero named “Spoonman” — is this pseudo-romantic comedy that attempts to be cut from the Tarantino cloth but ends up making you think everyone onscreen desperately needs a haircut and a shave. Reeves can tap into that slacker vibe if asked to, but he requires much better material than this.

37. Little Buddha (1994)

To state the obvious, it would not fly today for Keanu Reeves to play Prince Siddhartha, a monk who would become the Buddha. But questions of cultural appropriation aside, you can understand what drew The Last Emperor director Bernardo Bertolucci to cast this supremely placid man as an iconic noble figure. Unfortunately, Little Buddha never rises above a well-meaning, simplistic depiction of the roots of a worldwide religion, and the effects have aged even more poorly. Nonetheless, Reeves is quite accomplished at being very still.

36. Much Ado About Nothing (1993) Quick anecdote: We saw this Kenneth Branagh adaptation of the Bard during its original theatrical run, and when Reeves’s villainous Don John came onscreen and declared, “I am not of many words,” the audience clapped sarcastically. That memory stuck because it encapsulates viewers’ inability in the early ’90s to see him as anything other than a dim SoCal kid. Unfortunately, his performance in Much Ado About Nothing doesn’t do much to prove his haters wrong. As an actor, he simply didn’t have the gravitas yet to pull off this fiendish role, and so this version is more radiant and alive when he’s not onscreen. It is probably just as well his character doesn’t have many words.

35. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) GIFs are a cheap way to critique a performance. After all, acting is a complicated, arduous discipline that shouldn’t be reduced to easy laughs drawn from a few seconds of film played on a loop. Then again …

This really does sum up Reeves’s unsubstantial performance as Jonathan Harker, whose new client is definitely up to no good. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a wonder of old-school special effects and operatic passion — and it is also a movie in which Reeves seems wholly ill at ease, never quite latching onto the story’s macabre period vibe. We suspect if he could revisit this role now, he’d be far more commanding and engaged. But in 1992, he was still too much Ted and not enough anything else. And Reeves knew it: A couple years later, when asked to name his most difficult role to that point, he said, “My failure in Dracula. Totally. Completely. The accent wasn’t that bad, though.” Well …

34. The Neon Demon (2016)

One of the perks of being a superstar is that you can sometimes just phone in an amusing cameo in some bizarro art-house offering. How else to explain Reeves’s appearance in this stylish, empty, increasingly surreal psychological thriller from Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn? He plays Hank, a scumbag motel manager whose main job is to add some local color to this portrait of the cutthroat L.A. fashion scene. If you’ve been waiting to hear Keanu deliver skeezy lines like “Why, did she send you out for tampons, too?!” and “Real Lolita shit … real Lolita shit,” The Neon Demon is the film for you. He’s barely in it, and we wouldn’t blame him if he doesn’t even remember it.

33. The Lake House (2006) Reeves reunites with his Speed co-star for a movie that features a lot fewer out-of-control buses. In The Lake House, Sandra Bullock plays a doctor who owns a lake house with the strangest magical power: She can send and receive letters from the house’s owner from two years prior, a dashing architect (Reeves). This American remake of the South Korean drama Il Mare is romantic goo that’s relatively easy to resist, and its ruminations on fate, love, destiny, and luck are all pretty standard for the genre. As for those hoping to enjoy the actors’ rekindled chemistry, spoiler alert: They’re not onscreen that much together.

32. Henry’s Crime (2011) You have to be careful not to cast Reeves as too passive a character; he’s so naturally calm that if he just sits and reacts to everything, and never steps up, your movie never really gets going. That’s the case in this heist movie about an innocent man (Reeves) who goes to jail for a crime he didn’t commit and then plans a scam with an inmate he meets there (James Caan). The movie wants to be a little quirkier than it is, and Reeves never quite snaps to. The film just idles on the runway.

31. The Bad Batch (2017) Following her acclaimed A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour plops us in the middle of a desert hellscape in which a young woman (Suki Waterhouse) must battle to stay alive. The Bad Batch is less accomplished than A Girl, in large part because style outpaces substance — it’s a movie in which clever flourishes and indulgent choices rule all. Look no further than Reeves’s performance as the Dream, a cult leader who oversees the only semblance of civilization in this post-apocalyptic world. It’s less a character than an attitude, and Reeves struggles to make the shtick fly. He’s too goofy a villain for us to really feel the full measure of his monstrousness.

30. Hardball (2001)

Reeves isn’t the first guy you’d think of to head up a Bad News Bears–style inspirational sports movie, and he doesn’t pull it off, playing a gambler who becomes the coach of an inner-city baseball team and learns to love, or something. It’s as straightforward and predictable an underdog sports movie as you’ll find, and it serves as a reminder that Reeves’s specific set of skills can’t be applied to just any old generic leading-man role. The best part about the film? A 14-year-old Michael B. Jordan.

29. Street Kings (2008) Filmmaker David Ayer has made smart, tough L.A. thrillers like Training Day (which he wrote) and End of Watch (which he wrote and directed). Unfortunately, this effort with Reeves never stops being a mélange of cop-drama clichés, casting the actor as Ludlow, an LAPD detective who’s starting to lose his moral compass. This requires Reeves to be a hard-ass, which never feels particularly convincing. Street Kings is bland, forgettable pulp — Reeves doesn’t enliven it, getting buried along with the rest of a fine ensemble that includes Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, and a pre-Captain America Chris Evans.

28. Constantine (2005) In post-Matrix mode, Reeves tries to launch another franchise in a DC Comics adaptation about a man who can see spirits on Earth and is doomed to atone for a suicide attempt by straddling the divide twixt Heaven and Hell. That’s not the worst idea, and at times Constantine looks terrific, but the movie doesn’t have enough wit or charm to play with Reeves’s persona the way the Wachowskis did.

27. The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) Reeves’s alienlike beauty and off-kilter line readings made him an obvious choice to play Klaatu, an extraterrestrial who assumes human form when he arrives on our planet. This remake of the 1950s sci-fi classic doesn’t have a particularly urgent reason to exist — its pro-environment message is timely but awkwardly fashioned atop an action-blockbuster template — and the actor alone can’t make this Day particularly memorable. Still, there are signs of the confident post-Matrix star he had become, which would be rewarded in a few years with John Wick.

26. Knock Knock (2015) Reeves flirts with Michael Douglas territory in this Eli Roth erotic thriller that’s not especially good but is interesting as an acting exercise. He plays Evan, a contented family man with the house to himself while his wife and kids are out of town. Conveniently, two beautiful young strangers (Ana de Armas, Lorenza Izzo) come by late one stormy night, inviting themselves in and quickly seducing him. Is this his wildest sexual fantasy come to life? Or something far more ominous? It’s fun to watch Reeves be a basic married suburban dude who slowly realizes that he’s entered Hell, but Knock Knock’s knowing trashiness only takes this cautionary tale so far.

25. The Devil’s Advocate (1997)

Very few people bought tickets in 1997 for The Devil’s Advocate to see Keanu Reeves: Hotshot Attorney. Obviously, this horror thriller’s chief appeal was witnessing Al Pacino go over the top as Satan himself, who just so happens to be a New York lawyer. Nonetheless, it’s Reeves’s Kevin Lomax who’s actually the film’s main character; recently moved to Manhattan with his wife (Reeves’s future Sweet November co-star, Charlize Theron), he’s the new hire at a prestigious law firm who only later learns what nefarious motives have brought him there. Reeves is forced to play the wunderkind who gets in over his head, and it’s not entirely convincing — and that goes double for his southern accent.

24. The Prince of Pennsylvania (1988) “You are like some stray dog I never should have fed.” That’s how Rupert’s older hippie pal, Carla (Amy Madigan), affectionately refers to him, and because this teen dropout is played by Keanu Reeves, you understand what she means. In this forgotten early chapter in Reeves’s career, Rupert and Carla decide to ditch their going-nowhere Rust Belt existence by taking his dad (Fred Ward) hostage and collecting a handsome ransom. The Prince of Pennsylvania is a thoroughly contrived and mediocre comedy, featuring Reeves with an incredibly unfortunate haircut. (Squint and he looks like the front man for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.) Still, you can see signs of the soulfulness and vulnerability he’d later harness in better projects. He’s very much a big puppy looking for a home.

23. The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997) Every hip young ’90s actor had to get his Jack Kerouac on at some point, so it would seem churlish to deny Reeves his opportunity. He plays the best pal/drinking buddy of Thomas Jane’s Neal Cassady, and he looks like he’s enjoying doing the Kerouac pose. Other actors have done so more indulgently. And even though he’s heavier than he’s ever been in a movie, he looks great.

22. A Walk in the Clouds (1995) Keanu isn’t quite as bad in this as it seemed at the time. He’s miscast as a tortured war veteran who finds love by posing as the husband of a pregnant woman, but he doesn’t overdo it either: If someone’s not right for a part, you’d rather them not push it, and Keanu doesn’t. Plus, come on, this movie looks fantastic: Who doesn’t want to hang around these vineyards? Not necessarily worth a rewatch, but not the disaster many consider it.

21. The Replacements (2000) The other movie where Keanu Reeves plays a former quarterback, The Replacements is an adequate Sunday-afternoon-on-cable sports comedy. He plays Shane, the stereotypical next-big-thing whose career capsized after a disastrous bowl game — but fear not, because he’s going to get a second chance at gridiron glory once the pros go on strike and the greedy owners decide to hire scabs to replace them. Reeves has never been particularly great at playing regular guys — his talent is that he seems different, more special, than you or me — but he ably portrays a good man who’s had to live with disappointment. The Replacements pushes all the predictable buttons, but Reeves makes it a little more enjoyable than it would be otherwise.

20. Tune in Tomorrow (1990) A very minor but sporadically charming bauble about a radio soap-opera scriptwriter (Peter Falk) who begins chronicling an affair between a woman (Barbara Hershey) and her not-related-by-blood nephew on his show — and ultimately begins manipulating it. Tune in Tomorrow is light and silly and harmless, and Reeves shows up on time to set and looks extremely eager to impress. He blends into the background quietly, which is probably enough.

19. I Love You to Death (1990)

This Lawrence Kasdan comedy — the first film after an incredible four-picture run of Body Heat, The Big Chill, Silverado, and The Accidental Tourist — is mostly forgotten today, and for good reason: It’s a farce that mostly features actors screaming at each other and calling it “comedy.” But Reeves hits the right notes as a stoned hit man, and it’s amusing just to watch him share the screen with partner William Hurt. This could have been the world’s strangest comedy team!

18. Youngblood (1986)

This Rob Lowe hockey comedy is … well, a Rob Lowe hockey comedy, but we had to include it because a 21-year-old Reeves plays a dim-bulb, good-hearted hockey player with a French Canadian accent that’s so incredible that you really just have to see it. Imagine if this were the only role Keanu Reeves ever had? It’s sort of amazing. “AH-NEE-MAL!”

17. Destination Wedding (2018) An oddly curdled comedy about two wedding guests (Reeves and Winona Ryder) who have terrible attitudes about everything but end up bonding over their universal disdain for the planet and everyone on it. That sounds like a chore to watch, and at times it is, but the pairing of Reeves and Ryder has enough nostalgic Gen-X spark to it that you go along with them anyway. With almost any other actors you might run screaming away, but somehow, in spite of everything, you find them both likable.

16. Thumbsucker (2005)

The first film from 20th Century Women and Beginners’ Mike Mills, this mild but clever coming-of-age comedy adaptation of a Walter Kirn novel has Mills’s trademark good cheer and emotional honesty. Reeves plays the eponymous thumbsucker’s dentist — it’s funny to see Keanu play someone named “Dr. Perry Lyman” — who has the exact right attitude about both orthodontics and life. It’s a lived-in, funny performance, and a sign that Keanu, with the right director, could be a more than capable supporting character actor.

15. Something’s Gotta Give (2003) This Nancy Meyers romantic comedy was well timed in Reeves’s career. A month after the final Matrix film hit theaters, Something’s Gotta Give arrived, offering us a very different Keanu — not the intense, sci-fi action hero but rather a charming, low-key love interest who’s just the supporting player. He plays Julian Mercer, a doctor administering to shameless womanizer Harry Sanborn (Jack Nicholson), who’s dating a much younger woman (Amanda Peet), who just so happens to be the daughter of a celebrated playwright, Erica (Diane Keaton). We know who will eventually end up with whom in Something’s Gotta Give, but Reeves proves to be a great romantic foil, wooing Erica with a grown-up sexiness the actor didn’t possess in his younger years. We’re still not sure Meyers got the ending right: Erica should have stuck with him instead of Harry.

14. Man of Tai Chi (2013) This is the only movie that Reeves has directed, and what does it tell us about him? Well, it tells us he has watched a ton of Hong Kong action movies and always wanted to make one himself. And it’s pretty good! It’s technically proficient, it has a straightforward narrative, it has some excellent long-take action sequences (as we see in John Wick, Keanu isn’t a quick-cut guy; he likes to show his work), and it has a perfectly decent Keanu performance. We wouldn’t call him a visionary director by any stretch of the imagination. But we’d watch another one of these, definitely.

13. Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

Le Chevalier Raphael Danceny is merely a pawn in a cruel game being played by Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont, and so it makes some sense that the young man who played him, Keanu Reeves, is himself a little outclassed by the actors around him. This Oscar-winning drama is led by Glenn Close and John Malkovich, who have the wit and bite to give this 18th-century tale of thwarted love and bruised pride some real zest. By comparison, Danceny is practically a boy, unschooled in the art of manipulation, and Reeves provides the character with the appropriate youthful naïveté. He’s not a standout in Dangerous Liaisons, but he acquits himself well — especially near the end, when his blade fells Valmont, leaving him as one of the unlikely survivors in the film’s ruthless battle.

12. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009) In this incredible showcase for Robin Wright, who plays a woman navigating a constrictive, difficult life with more grace and intelligence than anyone realizes, Reeves shows up late in a role that he’s played before: the younger guy who’s the perfect fit for an older woman figuring herself out. He hits the right notes and never overstays his welcome. As a romantic lead, less is more for Reeves.

11. Parenthood (1989) If you were an uptight suburban dad, like Steve Martin is in Ron Howard’s ensemble comedy, your nightmare would be that your beloved daughter gets involved with a doofus like Tod. Nicely played by Keanu Reeves, the character is the embodiment of every slacker screwup who’s going to just stumble through life, knocking over everything and everyone in his path. But as it turns out, he’s a lot kinder and mature than at first glance. Released six months after Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Parenthood showed mainstream audiences a more grown-up Reeves, and he’s enormously appealing — never more so than when advising a young kid that it’s okay to masturbate: “I told him that’s what little dudes do.”

10. Permanent Record (1988) A very lovely and sad movie that’s nearly forgotten today, Permanent Record, directed by novelist Marisa Silver, features Reeves as the best friend of a teenager who commits suicide and, along with the rest of their friends, has to pick up the pieces. For all of Reeves’s trademark reserve, there is very little restraint here: His character is devastated, and Reeves, impressively, hits every note of that grief convincingly. You see this guy and you understand why everyone wanted to make him a star. This is a very different Reeves from now, but it’s not necessarily a worse one.

9. Point Break (1991)

Just as Reeves’s reputation has grown over time, so too has the reputation of this loopy, philosophical crime thriller. Do people love Point Break ironically now, enjoying its over-the-top depiction of men seeking a spiritual connection with the world around them? Or do they genuinely appreciate the seriousness that director Kathryn Bigelow brought to her study of lonely souls looking for that next big rush — whether through surfing or robbing banks? The power of Reeves’s performance is that it works both ways. If you want to snicker at his melodramatic turn, fine — but if you want to marvel at the rapport his Johnny Utah forms with Patrick Swayze (Bodhi), who only feels alive when he’s living life to the extreme, then Point Break has room for you on the bandwagon.

8. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) Before there was Beavis and Butt-Head, before there was Wayne and Garth, there were these guys: two Valley bozos who loved to shred and goof off. As Theodore Logan, Keanu Reeves found the perfect vessel for his serene silliness, playing well off Alex Winter’s equally clueless Bill. But note that Bill and Ted aren’t jerks — watch Excellent Adventure now and you’ll be struck by how incredibly sunny its humor is. Later in his career, Reeves would show off a darker, more brooding side, but here in Excellent Adventure (and its less-great sequel Bogus Journey) he makes blissful stupidity endearing.

7. The Gift (2000) This Sam Raimi film, with a Billy Bob Thornton script inspired by his mother, fizzled at the box office, despite a top-shelf cast: It’s probably not even the first film called The Gift you think of when we bring it up. But, gotta say, Reeves is outstanding in it, playing an abusive husband and all-around sonuvabitch who, nevertheless, might be unfairly accused of murder, a fact only a psychic (Cate Blanchett) understands. Reeves is full-on trailer trash here, but he brings something new and unexpected to it: a sort of bewildered malevolence, as if he’s moved by forces outside of his control. More of this, please.

6. My Own Private Idaho (1991)

Gus Van Sant’s landmark drama is chiefly remembered for River Phoenix’s nakedly anguished performance as Mike, a spiritually adrift gay hustler. (Phoenix’s death two years after My Own Private Idaho’s release only makes the portrayal more heartbreaking.) But his performance doesn’t work without a doubles partner, which is where Reeves comes in. Playing Scott, a fellow hustler and Mike’s best friend, Reeves adeptly encapsulates the mind-set of a young man content to just float through life. Unlike Mike, he knows he has a fat inheritance in his future — and also unlike Mike, he’s not gay, unable to share his buddy’s romantic feelings. Phoenix deservedly earned most of the accolades, but Reeves is terrific as an unobtainable object of affection — inviting, enticing, but also unknowable.

5. Speed (1994)

Years later, we still contend that Speed is a stupid idea for a movie that, despite all logic (or maybe because of the utter insanity of its premise), ended up being a total hoot. What’s clear is that the film simply couldn’t have worked if Reeves hadn’t approached the story with straight-faced sincerity: His L.A. cop Jack Traven is a ramrod-serious lawman who is going to do whatever it takes to save those bus passengers. Part of the pleasure of Speed is how it constantly juxtaposes the life-or-death stakes with the high-concept inanity — Stay above 50 mph or the bus will explode! — and that internal tension is expressed wonderfully by Reeves, who invests so intently in the ludicrousness that the movie is equally thrilling and knowingly goofy. And it goes without saying that he has dynamite chemistry with Sandra Bullock. Strictly speaking, you probably shouldn’t flirt this much when you’re sitting on top of a bomb — but it’s awfully appealing when they get their happy ending.

4. River’s Edge (1987) This film’s casting director said she cast Reeves as one of the dead-end kids who learn about a murder and do nothing “because of the way he held his body … his shoes were untied, and what he was wearing looked like a young person growing into being a man.” This was very much who the early Reeves was, and River’s Edge might be his darkest film. His vacancy here is not Zen cool … it’s just vacant, intellectually, ethically, morally, emotionally. Only in that void could Reeves be this terrifying. This is definitely a performance, but it never feels like acting. His magnetism was almost mystical.

3. John Wick (2014), John Wick: Chapter Two (2017), and John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum (2019)

If they hadn’t killed his dog, none of this would have happened. Firmly part of the “middle-aged movie stars playing mournful badasses” subgenre that’s sprung up since Taken, the John Wick saga provides Reeves with an opportunity to be stripped-down but not serene. He’s a lethal assassin who swore to his dead wife that he’d put down his arms — but, lucky for us, he reneges on that promise after he’s pushed too far. Whereas in his previous hits there was something detached about Reeves, here’s he locked in in such a way that it’s both delightful and a little unnerving. The 2014 original was gleefully over-the-top already, and the sequels have only amped up the spectacle, but his genuine fury and weariness felt new, exciting, a revelation. Turns out Keanu Reeves is frighteningly convincing as a guy who can kill many, many people.

2. A Scanner Darkly (2006)

In hindsight, it seems odd that Keanu Reeves and Richard Linklater have only worked together once — their laid-back vibes would seemingly make them well suited for one another. But it makes sense that the one film they’ve made together is this Philip K. Dick adaptation, which utilizes interpolated rotoscoping to tell the story of a drug cop (Reeves) who’s hiding his own addiction while living in a nightmarish police state. That wavy, floating style of animation nicely complements A Scanner Darkly’s sense of jittery paranoia, but it also deftly mimics Reeves’s performance, which seems to be drifting along on its own wavelength. If in the Matrix films, he manages to defeat the dark forces, in this film they’re too powerful, leading to a pretty mournful finale.

1. The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), and The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

“They had written something that I had never seen, but in a way, something that I’d always hoped for — as an actor, as a fan of science fiction.” That’s how Reeves described the sensation of reading the screenplay for The Matrix, which had been dreamed up by two up-and-coming filmmakers, Lana and Lilly Wachowski. Five years after Speed, he found his next great project, which would become the defining role of his career. Neo is the missing link between Ted’s Zen-like stillness and John Wick’s lethal efficiency, giving us a hero’s journey for the 21st century that took from Luke Skywalker and anime with equal aplomb. Never before had the actor been such a formidable onscreen presence — deadly serious but still loose and limber. Even when the sequels succumbed to philosophical ramblings and overblown CGI, Reeves commanded the frame. We always knew that he seemed like a cool, left-of-center guy. The Matrix films gave him an opportunity to flex those muscles in a true blockbuster.

#keanu reeves #keanu reeves movies #ranking #vulture

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douxreviews · 5 years

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The Avengers (2012) Review

"We have a Hulk."

I'll get right to the point; I loved it. I absolutely freaking loved it. And that is me being restrained. And by restrained I mean with actual restraints. I am actually dictating this to a friend while I'm strapped down like Hannibal Lecter. It is too dangerous to let me anywhere near a keyboard right now. Everything I write will just be a mass of overly excited hyperbole gibberish.

A film like The Avengers just shouldn't work. As it was in the comics, this is a film that sees Earth's Mightiest Heroes coming together to stop Thor's mad brother Loki from taking over the world. With so many famous heroes battling it out for screentime, The Avengers should collapse under its own weight before the title has even popped up on screen. But, against all the odds, it works and works beautifully. And a lot of this can be attributed to the hard work of one man, Joss Whedon.

Oh, Joss Whedon. How do I describe Joss Whedon? Joss Whedon is flawless. I hear what's left of his hair's insured for $10,000. I hear he does car commercials... in Japan. His favourite movie is Night of the Comet. One time he met Steven Moffat on a plane...and he told him that he broke fans' hearts without mercy. One time he plunged his fist into my chest, ripped out my heart, stomped on it for a total of four series and one movie, then gave it back to me and charged me for the experience. It was awesome.

The Avengers is unquestionably the biggest endeavour Whedon has ever embarked upon. Can he handle it? Of course he can. He might not have an extensive background in summer blockbusters, but any Buffy fan can tell you that he's a skilled director and an even better writer with a great gift for character and dialogue. He might not have created them but Whedon clearly understands each and every one of these characters. Because of this, some of the film's best moments end up just being people in a room bonding and bickering with each other. Whedon also makes great use of his entire cast. He understand that this is an ensemble piece and takes care to ensure that no one hero is given precedence over everyone else. Everyone is given their moment to shine.

That said, Robert Downey Jr. still swaggers off with every scene he's in and nabs most (but not all) of the film's best lines. Luckily, Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth are both able to hold their own against the onslaught of Downey Jr. charisma. As Loki, Tom Hiddleston is clearly having a lot of fun without once resorting to hammy scenery chewing. He also gets bonus points for pulling off Loki's distinctive headgear. Mark Ruffalo does a fantastic job taking over from Edward Norton, giving us a terrific Bruce Banner. Better yet, the CGI department finally delivers when it comes to his big green alter-ego. Along with looking like Ruffalo, this Hulk manages to steal the whole film. I won't say how because that would spoil the surprise.

On the S.H.I.E.L.D. side of things, Samuel L. Jackson is Samuel L. Jackson. Nuff said. Clark Gregg continues to expertly steal scenes as the deadpan Agent Phil Coulson, revealed here to be a massive Captain America fanboy (nice one, Joss). Cobie Smulders impresses as Maria Hill, despite being given little to do. After being a little one-note in Iron Man 2, Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow benefits the most from Whedon's involvement. There was no way he was going to have a kick-ass female character in his movie and not give her some personality and depth.

The Avengers succeeds where other superhero movies have failed by delivering one hell of a final act. Let's face it, as much fun as it is seeing these characters arguing and bonding with each other, what we really want to see is them kicking alien ass. We've never seen superhero action on this kind of epic scale before. All throughout the team's big battle with Loki's army in Manhattan I had a massive grin on my face and constantly had to resist urge to start jumping around the cinema cheering like a total loon.

Faults? Some of the CGI is a little iffy in places. Alan Silvestri's score is just as forgettable as every one he's done since Back to the Future. And Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye is seriously underused for first half of the film. But those are still minor quibbles. Bottom line, The Avengers is one of the most purely enjoyable experiences I have had at the cinema in a very long time.

Notes and Quotes

— While Iron Man, Cap, Thor and Hulk are close to how Stan Lee and Jack Kirby envisaged them, the rest of the film owes a massive debt to Mark Miller and Bryan Hitch's Ultimates series (still the best thing to come out of Marvel's Ultimate line).

— In The Ultimates, Miller and Hitch re-imagined Nick Fury and based him on Samuel L. Jackson.

— If you're willing, stick through the end credits to find out who the Avengers might be facing next. Many of you will be excited, even more of you will have no idea who those other people are talking about.

— The aliens in Loki's army are called the Chitauri, which is the name of the Skrulls in Marvel's Ultimate Universe. So they are basically Skrulls.

— The Avengers is the culmination of five films worth of set up. So be warned, if you haven't seen any of the previous Marvel films, then chances are you'll be a little confused.

— Whedon vets Alexis Denisof, Ashley Johnson and Enver Gjokaj all put in appearances. Have fun spotting them. There are also cameos from the likes of Powers Boothe, Jenny Agutter, the great Harry Dean Stanton and, of course, Stan Lee.

Nick Fury: “There was an idea to bring together a group of remarkable people, so when we needed them, they could fight the battles that we never could.”

Bruce Banner: “Last time I was in New York I kind of broke... Harlem.”

Tony Stark: “There is no throne, there is no version of this where you come out on top! Maybe your army will come, maybe it's too much for us, but it's all on you! Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn sure we'll avenge it!”

Steve Rogers: “Big man, in a suit of armour... take that away, what are you?” Tony Stark: “Uh... genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”

Steve Rogers: “Hulk? Smash!”

Thor: “Be careful how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he's of Asgard and he's my brother.” Black Widow: “He killed 80 people in 2 days.” Thor: “...He's adopted.”

Michael Bay, please take note, this is what you get when you don't sacrifice character and story for lots of stuff blowing up. Four out of four Hulks who smash and smash good!

Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011.

#The Avengers #Iron Man #Captain America #Hulk #Thor Odinson #Black Widow #Hawkeye #Nick Fury #Loki Laufeyson #Phil Coulson #Marvel #Marvel Cinematic Universe #MCU #Doux Reviews #Movie Reviews #something from the archive

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theheavymetalmama · 6 years

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Katie Reviews “Venom”

A Turd in the Wind is Worth Two in the Bush

I will never apologize for my undying love and adoration for superhero, science fiction, and science fantasy movies and I don’t care how many pretentious reactionary hot taking dipshits who won’t shut the fuck up about The Last Jedi say otherwise. Like any art and genre, superhero movies can bring about all sorts of emotions from the viewers. They can make us happy, make us sad, give us catharsis, give weight to civil, political, and social metaphor, and can lift us up from the darkest pits we may find ourselves in.

Alas, the same is true in reverse. While superhero movies can make us laugh, cry, and be enlightening, they can also be ugly, depressing, stupid, intellectually offensive, boring, wrong headed, and profoundly tone deaf. Superhero movies can bring about feelings and emotions from all ends of the spectrum and everything in between, and Sony’s Marvel’s Venom is no exception and I felt a profound feeling evoked from my viewing of it; embarrassed.

Venom is a great character, a great villain, and a stupid movie. Not the enjoyable sort of stupid like Street Fighter the Movie or The Room, nor the self aware brand of stupid that is Jurassic World or Rampage. It’s, again, the embarrassing sort of stupid, because embarrassed is exactly how I felt after watching it. You know that dream you have now and again where you’re somewhere important but you’re naked? That’s this movie. Watching this movie felt as if I was caught skinny dipping with friends by my parents while my parents were on the lakeside having sex. It’s awkward, silly in all the wrong ways, and unlike Suicide Squad nowhere resembling something of the “so bad it’s good” category. It feels like the movie was written by two completely different people, one who had all the love and adoration in the world for Venom and his origins, lore, and mythos and wanted to make a no holes barred hard R horror movie while the other had nothing but contempt for both the character and comic book movies in general and went out of their way to make Venom as much of a screwball loser as he could get away with.

The tone is a mess, constantly flip flopping between wanting to be a body horror monster movie and an over the top camp fest akin to “What if Spawn was also Jim Carrey’s The Mask?” Now I personally think Venom could work from either angle, but this movie tries to do both and it’s just an awkward and disjointed mess.

Tone isn’t the only awkward thing in this movie. The acting makes you wonder if the director was blitzed out of his skull while making this movie. Hats off to Tom Hardy, for he’s a damn good actor with such an expressive face he could dent sheet metal with a glare and melt the coldest heart on Earth with his puppy dog eyes, but his interpretation of Eddie Brock is nothing short of bizarre. In the comics, Eddie Brock was a regular guy working as a journalist when life decided to wring him like a sponge, losing his job after turning in who he thought was a serial killer but just turned out to be a creepy weirdo while Spiderman caught the real guy. After that Eddie lost his job, his girlfriend, he had to move out of his apartment because he couldn’t afford it, his father disowned him, he couldn’t find a steady job because writing was the only thing he was good at, and on top of everything else he got cancer. He blamed it all on Spiderman, and one day he came across the previously discarded symbiote and the two bonded over their hatred of Spiderman and thus Venom was born.

In the movie, Eddie Brock is a washed up photojournalist who’s kind of a bumbling dipshit who bonds with the symbiote for...being in the wrong place at the wrong time, in which a very watered down version of this year’s ‘Upgrade’ begins to play out, bonding not from a common goal but more of a “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” type of relationship. It’s a better iteration than Topher Grace’s ‘wormy brown nosed dweeb’ take on the character back in Spiderman 3, but that’s hardly an accomplishment. His accent is over the top and silly, and some of the dialogue is so strange it would sound perfectly natural coming from the mouth of Tommy Wiseau. The rest of the characters are forgettable outside of Riot, who just sucks.

Now Venom’s design itself, lack of a white spider insignia aside, is actually pretty cool. The special effects aren’t great but plenty serviceable, and far and away the best parts of the movie are where and when Venom just unleashes on everyone and everything. And despite the cringe inducing ‘turd in the wind’ line (yes, I know it’s a line from the comics and it was stupid there too) when he’s going around doing anti hero stuff, on the inside I shout “Hell yes, that’s Venom!” Sadly, there’s a collective of maybe 13 minutes of actual Venom in this one hour and 52 minute Venom movie. The rest is half transformations and CGI black tendrils while Tom Hardy flails his body around like somebody poured a cup of fire ants down the back of his shirt.

I was actually looking forward to this movie. Unlike Amazing Spiderman 2 which was announcing pretty loudly months in advance that it was going to suck and suck hard, Venom looked like a fun ride. Now it’s no secret that this movie had about 40 minutes of footage left on the cutting room floor and was originally shooting for a hard R rating. I don’t know about the extra footage, but I can speak with confidence that more violence and gore would not have helped this movie. It would still be a stupid, silly movie.

Venom in the comics is Spiderman gone wrong, and this movie tries to be that but falls flat on its’ face. And as much as I salivate over the idea of Woody fucking Harrelson playing Carnage in the next movie, if this is the best Sony can do then I’d rather he not embarrass himself and I truly dread the day the contract Sony has with Marvel runs out and they start making solo Spiderman movies again.

In the end, Venom ends up delivering a bite without teeth. 3/10. Watch it if you must, but I can’t recommend it.

#venom #venom movie #marvel #sony #spiderman

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youngerdaniel · 6 years

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2017: A Year at the Movies

It’s that time again, folks. A year has gone by, and I spent a lot of it on my ass in dark rooms watching moving pictures. But this year is special! For the first time, my annual list of films worth seeing comes with FILM SCHOOL CRED.

What does that mean? Well, I guess I could delve into a deeper analysis of the chosen flicks... But let’s be real, you’re not here for that. So let’s just give the cred its cred and get into it.

2017: The raging dumpster fire of a year seems to be built on a foundation of terrifying surprise and disappointment. Everybody’s saying it, because it’s very much the truth—the world has gone batshit.

But it’s also been a remarkably good year for movies. When I try to list my absolute favorites, it gets difficult to rank them. Some gems in the indie circuit; some solid blockbuster fare. So rather than rank ‘em, I say fuck the numbers. Here’s what you should watch. Top 10:

Call Me By Your Name

Jesus, Gawd. The last 20 minutes of this movie alone are worth the rest of it. A beautiful tale of friendship, love, identity... and how all of these things can be tremendously confusing. I wasn’t fully hooked until around halfway through, but good leftovers gravy am I glad I stuck it out.

The Big Sick

It warms my heart that this lovely gem of a film is based on a true story. This movie is... Well, it’s fucking great. Amazing comedy, perfectly timed and nuanced drama. For we of the cynical Gen Y/Millennial crowd, this is the rom-com we needed, because grand gestures don’t work, there is no rushing to the airport, and there’s some surprisingly deep work at play when it comes to a timeless conflict in matters of the heart: family values vs who you love. The cast is on fire. The script is gold. If you missed this movie, you’re using your smartphone wrong.

The Bad Batch

If you tell me Ana Lily Amirpour made a film, I already love it. I’d been wooed ever since A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT, and when the grapevine started juicing on Amirpour’s newest joint, a dystopian survival tale, I was sold. When I finally got to sit down and watch it, I was blown away by how much of a visual storyteller Amirpour is. The visual pallette alone is drool-inducing. But the amount of worldbuilding and character development done free of expository bouts of dialogue is just tremendous. Now, that being said, the story involves cannibals, a lot of dismemberment, and perhaps just a bit too much shirtless Jason Momoa... But if that’s your thing, this one’s for you.

Lady Bird

Look, everybody’s already ranted to you about how great this movie is. You should really see it. No? Okay. Fine. It’s a fantastic, fantastic coming of age tale. Herein you’ll find a dysfunctional family, some well-drawn mother-daughter tensions, and a beautiful exploration of the thing that happens to most well-adjusted adults—the moment where you realize you’re grateful to your parents for everything they’ve done, despite the fact you’ve been a shit about it for the past 6-10 years. If that doesn’t strike a chord with you, maybe watch this movie and get a therapist?

Wind River

And speaking of getting a therapist, you might need one after this. Wind River is not by any stretch an easy film to watch (CW: rape scene late in the second act), but it is a gritty mystery that does what any crime story should well: it highlights a particularly ignored dark spot in North American society: the unaccounted-for loss of countless First Nations women on reservations. The politics are tied to the heart of this story, but rarely does it come off as preachy or a gimmick. At its heart, this mystery is a character study. In fact, nearly all of the moments that really sing are the quiet moments between the bigger set pieces. That being said, there’s a standoff sequence that happens late in the movie that is FUCKING INTENSE. You need a strong stomach for this one, but I was really impressed with it; the simplicity and effectiveness of the writing, the stark visuals, the top-notch performances. It’s great.

Logan

Logan made my cry. Actually, I’m pretty sure all of these movies coaxed a tear. But here’s the thing. I don’t actually give a shit about Wolverine. He’s not my favorite X-person. He’s definitely not my favorite anti-hero... But this movie was fucking exceptional. Not only does it take Logan’s character to an honorable and earned conclusion, it shows us that superhero movies don’t have to be for kids; they don’t have to follow the same old formula of “good guys learn something and win”... Of course, conventions are played with in this movie, but almost always to toy with your expectation as a viewer. You never know for certain if Logan’s going to make it out of this one on top... And when it ends, you won’t feel the same “Enh” that usually comes with the credits of a big I.P. movie.

Baby Driver

If you go into Baby Driver planning to take apart the story or to really delve into the character study of a young getaway driver... You’re missing the point of this movie. Instead, go in expecting a musical that happens to revolve around crime, and a young getaway driver’s learning that crime is only fun to a point. It’s a great thematic deconstruction of heist and getaway movies, showing us why we enjoy these things before peeling away the layers of heightened idealism until we just see the truth: crime is where people die and innocence is lost. (CW: Kevin Spacey, one of the newly minted shitstains of Hollywood garbage men... But he’s a nominal force.) It also has a killer soundtrack, some of the best driving sequences to grace the screen for a while, and it’s all tied together with that expertly stylized fantasy vision that belongs to Edgar Wright alone.

Ingrid Goes West

The thing I love most about this fiendishly unrepentant social media satire is that it will legit piss off people who buy into the whole “Insta-lyfe”. It picks apart how easily one can manufacture a personality or brand online that in no way represents who they actually are. It also, with zero subtlety, highlights just how fucking batshit our world can get when we start valuing our online avatars more than the people behind them. Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper satire if the facade didn’t shatter, and where that takes the story of this troubled young woman as she tries to manufacture the life she’s been double-tapping in her feed? Well... I thought it was bloody brilliant.

Band Aid

A small screen gem that totally destroyed me on the first viewing. Strap in with tissues and follow this quirky dramedy which follows a couple reeling from the fallout of a miscarriage. They’re not coping well, and in order to save their marriage, they decide to start turning their fights into songs. Sounds cute, right? But that’s the thing about cute band-aids: they don’t heal the wound on their own. Check this one out for some brilliant and bizarre bits of comedy, some hilarious songs, and some moments that are just heartbreaking. I wanted to give this movie #1 with a bullet, but then again, I’m not ranking this year, and how on earth could I forget...

Get Out

This movie was amazing. I knew it would be from the first time I saw its trailer, but good zombie Jesus on a popsicle stick, did it deliver. Social horror is the best horror, because as weird and horrible as the movie gets, everything that happens in it actually fucking happens every day of the year. No, not not a young person of color getting kidnapped and brainwashed by a bunch of upper-class white people... Jesus, do you actually watch movies literally? Do you not understand allegory? Does the subject of race, and how privileged upper-class assimilation looks through a Twilight Zone lens make you uncomfortable? Then...

You thought I was gonna write “Get out!” didn’t you? Nah. Go watch this movie. If it makes you uncomfortable, good.

BUT DANIEL, WHAT ABOUT THE LAST JEDI?

I liked it, okay? It wasn’t perfect, and I’m sure I’ll get into that in more depth in a later post (or perhaps even in a podcast... that’s right, I’m working on shit). But all in all, a great entry to the franchise, and the first SW movie for a while to actually have the balls to move the franchise in a new trajectory and build off what the OT started. If you disagree, you can go wank your Return of the Jedi Luke Saber in the corner and cry about the lack of fanservice. Your days are numbered, cannon police.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

IT, GOTG Vol 2, and fuck it, I’m saying it: Dunkirk gave me a massive “meh.”

DID ANYTHING SUCK?

...The Election? Um... yeah, but I’m not going to the trouble of securing pictures for these. A list in short:

- Atomic Blonde

- Logan Lucky

- Kong: Skull Island

- Bright

- Max Landis in general

- Joss Whedon in general

And yeah. That’s a year at the movies. Toodles until 2018.

#journal #yearinmovies #2017

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attemptedfilmcritic · 7 years

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Spider-Man: Homecoming Review (Spoiler Free/Spoiler Talk Below)

Rating System:

buy it on DVD or digitally (legally)

see it opening weekend

pay full price at the theatre

catch a matinee if you want

rent it for $3-$5

I wouldn't recommend it

As someone whose lived almost their entire in life in love with this character and has been on both spectrums at one time or the other with the Toby-Andrew feud, it is safe for me to say this is the best interpretation put to screen yet. Said every tv spot and critic ever so far. And, they're right. Well admittedly in most cases.

For Peter Parker/Spider-Man, there's one thing I picked up on throughout the movie that I could not drop or forget for the life of me. It's that Tom Holland is beat for beat Marty McFly in some key moments in this film. And that's not a bad thing! The way he delivers when in panic or excitement of any kind just screams 1980s Michael J. Fox to me. And I dig it. He had such a youthful and comedic charm which translates well with this character. Which helps with their allusions to ‘80s classic films. That's what this Peter as Spider-Man is like. He's panicky and screams his confusion. And he's genuinely pretty nerdy and innocent. He's apart of an academic club and was in band. I was in band, I know these things.

Speaking of comedy! This film is full of it, as promised with any film slapped with a Marvel Studios logo on it. It's done very well and not really shoved in your face. Sometimes its situational and sometimes it’s through written dialogue. It doesn’t sacrifice sincere moments for the sake of an extra laugh (a gripe Doctor Strange received a lot). The comedy is where it belongs and the powerful climactic superhero moments are where they belong. Nothing messily meshed. Save one joke, that was totally worth it.

The suit in the film is really interesting. I’ve always loved the design itself, but the features it provides is insane. And it makes sense character wise because it was built by Tony Stark. Of course its going to be over the top and have insane gadgets. But l love the Peter has no idea how to use them or even a clue why he would use some. Some critics were getting antsy about 576 web shooter combinations. “That’s outrageous! What happened to plain and simple Spider-Man?” Well I can tell you Peter agrees! It’s a great touch to his character. He’s from Queens and isn’t used to high-tech luxurious super-suits. He just uses what he knows. And that’s all he needs. Though, when it’s time to take advantage of some features its pretty neat.

The primary love interest is Liz (who would be a loose interpretation of Liz Allan). Her character somewhat correlates to her comic roots. She's popular. They got that right. This Liz is also smart and apart of the academic decathlon club, something I would not expect from Liz Allan in the comics. But in all honesty that's pretty much it for her character sadly. Not a lot said nor done. She's not annoying but not compelling either. His friend in this film is a huge departure from Harry Osborn. Not Ned Leeds confirmed (later Hobgoblin) but just “Ned”. I thought he was a great addition and carried a good amount of the comedy from this film. Some claimed he wavered back and fourth from annoying to funny. I never felt he was annoying. A breath of fresh air, since both portrayals of Harry were quite angsty and “I will never be good enough for my father” territory. This is nice. Just a positive friend there to help. Basically also joining Peter on this cool, adventurous, dangerous ride.

Michael Keaton is a good baddie. He plays the part. Intimidating and has a motive, but sadly not really Loki tear of relevance and memorability. He's a good starting villain for Spider-Man. You are given an insight to why he does what he does. Granted, it's not Zemo level of tragedy. But he pulls his weight in the film. Not completely over-doing it into campiness but not phoning it in at all either. As for Shocker he's in a few scenes and is somewhat of a throwaway villain plucked from Spider-Man's rogue gallery. He's not a particularly interesting villain even in comic form so if he had not been there and was replaced with Bad Guy #2 the story wouldn't have lost a beat. I understand wanting new and never used bad guys adapted because “we have the rights now! Let's go crazy!” But I say quality over quantity. Vulture would've been—no, is plenty for the whole movie. And yes, Tinker gets a little bit too, but I argue he'll be more useful and brought back for future installments. Similar to what they're doing with Klaue. So he might actually have a pay off. Unlike Shocker, sadly. As for Donald Glover he's great! Only in two scenes, but cool. He's chill and even helps Spider-Man. I really want them to bring him back because he was criminally underutilized. The second scene with him is incredibly funny.

Right off the bat I will just say the ending is hilarious and made the entire theatre burst out laughing. I love the ending credits because it was new and thoughtful. It was youthful, yet again, and just made the part of watching the credits to get to the after credits scene more fun. It's colorful, which is what this movie is as well. It's bright and sunny. Marvel gets a good amount of flack for its gloomy cinematography despite its much more playful tones. Not all juxtaposition is good, translates well, or quite frankly makes sense. This movie breaks the trend. And it's fitting for a great summer-y superhero blockbuster flick. You want to have an exciting harmonious display to inflict a positive memory of seeing this movie on a relaxing summer day with your friends. You'll remember it with affection and ease. The stakes aren't as high with this film. The whole earth isn't in peril. There is conflict and tension but none too much that The Avengers themselves would have to come take care of. So it helps with the logic in that aspect of the universe as well.

Quite recently I've been big on spotting patronizing films with telling and not showing. Or worse. When they do both. They don't trust the audience to put it together, watch, or be intrigued. Invested. But we are! This film does hardly any of that, though it is slight. Sam Raimi is king of showing and not telling thus far out of all three Spider-Man directors. But overall it treats its audience with respect. The pacing is balanced as well. Some scenes are slow for development and even plot purposes and others a grand and big for a superhero film.

The theme of the film is slightly muddled and mixed for me to put my finger on. Overall it's to take responsibility. I mean, what else would it be? Do the right thing. When confronted with the Vulture, Peter is given a very clear and major threat on his life and his friends and family’s life. The whole scene he is clearly scared out of his mind. But he doesn't hesitate to drop everything and go after him the second he can. Knowing everything at stake. Because he has to. It's inspiring. He also humbles himself and feels the need to learn more and grow before becoming a full time Avenger. Ya know, go to school and stuff.

The musical score will have you smile with the opening theme. Otherwise, sadly nothing will top Danny Elfman’s. There aren’t any other distinct themes I picked up on could hum other than the iconic one everyone already knows.

Rating time. I would say both see this opening weekend and buy it when it comes out. It's truly great and a prime example of fun popcorn movies that can have quality. Quality acting, special effects, writing, you know the drill. I'd recommend it for kids (probably 10+), teens, and adults. See it with your family, see it with your friends to support watching movies as great as this in the theatre. And for Marvel to keep making fun movies that are all creating a bigger interconnected world. Or! If you just simply love Spider-Man and only care about him!

Either way, just see it!

Because it's honestly amazing.

SPOILER TALK

Now that the overall review is laid out I do want to give comments on…other things.

All I can say is I don't mind that Zendaya was/is “MJ” but I'm curious as to how they're going to play her out. Is her name solely just a wink at the character Mary Jane or is she going to be a genuine love interest? Time will tell, but personally I prefer the former. I'd really appreciate a plain and simple companionship between Peter and this character. I can't see these characters having a love for each other that isn't platonic. Let her be Michelle and let Mary Jane be Mary Jane. There doesn’t have to be some new spin or cross making of the sort. Preferable I’d say have this new character made be her own thing or adapt Mary Jane from the comics as well as you did with Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Because those two characters of Michelle and Mary Jane are absolutely nothing alike. Obviously.

I'm picky about Spider-Man love interests, okay.

As for the connection of Liz being the daughter of Vulture it is hilarious, but has very little impact emotionally. Yes it is funny but you don't feel bad for Peter in the way you should. You feel bad because he's in a bind and can be harmed physically. Not because this girls parental ties puts a burden on their love or relationship. It gives temporary tension, which is awesome, but in the long run the relationship between Liz and Peter went nowhere and is more or less one-sided anyways. It had no strain. If they really developed Liz to have more depth and a mutual love and admiration for Peter it would be more painful, in a good way. But the tie doesn't hurt. It pays off when she has to move to Oregon(?) and is given a gentle boot for MJ to step into the shoes of the love interest. To which I ask, why not just have MJ be the main love interest in the first place? And I don't mean have Peter fawn over her the way he did with Liz, but in build a strong friendship that clearly indicates room for romance in the future. Start with some chemistry first. They know each other but I can't say they're even friends right now.

Also, I'm so glad they brought back Pepper and repaired her relationship with Tony. Honestly, I really missed her.

Also also! With Donald Glover’s role as Aaron Davis, Miles Morales totally exists in this universe as well! He even references having a nephew. I just really don't want them to kill off Peter Parker after the trilogy is over for Miles Morales. Keep them both! We can’t lose the best Spider-Man put to screen!

And the last after credits scene is clever as hell. Nothing special or big. Not baiting anymore movies or characters or plots. Just simple and new.

#spider-man: homecoming #spiderman #movie review #movie recommendation

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brotherhood-of-okay-reviews-blog · 7 years

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Movie Review

Obscureviewer (Logan Runyan) review Turbo Kid Scores: %95 3 1/2 out of 4 8 out of 10 A 4 out of 5 stars. Call it an obsession, but to me, nothing is cooler than that 80s and 90s, slight-out-of-focus, neon-colored, grid art with arcade style weaponry, fast sporty cars, photon-based effects, and a glimpse into retro-futurism. And, although we haven't been delivered such a movie in full since "Tron" this movie does it in a whole new perspective with old tricks. So, strap in, grab your old power glove and enjoy my review of Turbo Kid I can describe this movie with one word... Nostalgia. The magic of this film takes place with its arsenal of retro items from the targeted demographics childhood/teen years. Stuff like the signature power glove, which is used as a weapon on the Turbo Rider suit, a view master, retro rollerblade pads, etc get you the instant gratification of nostalgia; making you attached to the screen thinking "I wonder what other cool stuff they have in this movie". Also, let's be honest, the power glove, although was awful as a controller, was still badass. Turbo Kid, what I believe to be a modern wonder, is exactly the movie I have been looking for in some time. It is a fine mixture of 80s grindhouse films, childhood memories, and a modern day hipster-feel love story. It does lack the scenic emotion of that of an 80s film, like that of Terminator, Robocop, and Escape From New York where the movie is constantly shrouded in a faint darkness for most of the film giving it a more shadowy depth to its features. But, definitely a modern day tribute to that style of art, and a very respectable one at that. Turbo Kid keeps a constant aura of over-the-top action and ridiculousness, giving it a nice comedic tone, to keep that authentic 80s cheese and comic book schmaltziness. By using bikes instead of motorcycles and questionable dialogue it makes you feel you're listening to a story told by an overly excited and actionable 10-year-old; "So the bad guy chops that dudes head off and there are blood and guts everywhere. Suddenly Turbo Kid comes flying through on his awesome tricked out bike and blasts him away with his Photon Blaster" as one could assume a child like that would tell such a story. Every time something really devastating happens, it ridicules that evil by fighting it off with pure awesomeness, with the child-like wonder of "I'm gonna kick evils but with my Photon Blaster". It's like an old, sick, and twisted power rangers commercial. One where the kids shooting their toy guns and fighting with action figures, cause real-life casualties. Each character follows a specific persona and formula, making the intended perception to make you feel you're actually seeing a comic book in action. Turbo Kid is a modern day cult classic that captures something most movies have not. A relatable sensibility of oneself. Even though the Turbo Kid world seems like a horrible world to live in, the characters make you wish you were there because they do such an amazing job and making you relate to, or idolize, the character in some way. Speaking of Idolizing, have you ever wanted to be your favorite superhero? Well, for The Kid, that dream came true... but not like you would hope. Turbo Kid takes place In an alternate 1997 in an almost enigmatic world known only as, "The Wasteland". One could compare the mystery of this world to that of David Fincher's film "Seven" where the city is only recognized as "This Place". Our protagonist aka, The Kid (Munro Chambers), is a lone wanderer who collects various nostalgic things from the past that catch his interest; come to find out later that it is significant to a deep and disturbing past with his parents who are presumed missing or dead. The Kid is the hero persona that idolizes a comic book hero named Turbo Rider. When you pay attention, you'll notice the comic strips you do see in the movie, subtlely explain the upcoming plot points. He lives off the land and sticks to himself; dwells on the past, and only goes into town for the occasional trade to a merchant for water and other goods. He has a very specific guideline of survival rules and regulations that he follows on daily bases, showing an utmost organization to our hero. Throughout his adventure, he is accompanied by an arm-wrestling cowboy, Fredrick (the mysterious stranger persona. Aaron Jeffery). Who, although at first seems like an antagonist, he becomes a helpful guardian over The Kid, almost a father figure... almost. He resembles a cowboy Indiana Jones, who lives life only in his prospects. The role was done fantastically. Fredrick is the best character in the movie as far as mysteriousness and keeping you aware of the comic-like-style of this universe. Enter, the love interest. We find The Kid sitting on a lone swing set in the middle of nowhere, reading a Turbo Rider comic that he received through trade/barter in town, and stumbles upon "Apple" (the love interest and damsel persona. Laurence Leboeuf) a young blonde girl who seems to be conversating with a dead body calling it "friend". Very weird and seemingly crazy. She slaps a wristband on The Kid, a tracking device, and claims him to be her new friend. Obviously weirded out by this, and acting like he's never seen a girl before, The Kid runs to his hideout, where he keeps all of his cool items and Turbo Rider memorabilia. Apple is a very curious character. She acts as an enabler for The Kid to discover who he really is and what he is destined to be. This is a typical approach in the film industry, but, does not make it more or less desirable. This is not a happy world and none of our characters have lived any form of a happy life. In fact, any curiosity of what lies beyond the wasteland, so they can "get out of this place", is immediately a bitter pill with promises of nothing else of significance throughout the entire wasteland. The wasteland itself can be seen as the universe for this movie as a whole. Picture it almost like what you are watching, is actually a comic book. When you listen to the dialogue and the general demeanor of the characters, it ends up making sense. It's important to keep that mystery of the wasteland alive too because if you knew everything you wouldn't have anything to look forward to. It makes you come to believe that what you see is what you get. It also leaves room for a sequel, which is normally heinous by nature, but I digress. I would actually enjoy a sequel in this case. The hierarchy of morals follows a true dichotomy of good and evil; anyone in between is just canon fodder. Now, there can't be evil villains without some sort of drive right? Well, water appears to be very scarce and is the main premise behind the devilish plot. The villains in this movie, lead by Zeus (the villain persona. Michael Ironside) and his psychopathic killer, Skeletron (the right-hand man persona), played by (Edwin Wright), have developed a machine that extracts water from human blood, as a means to re-hydrate the wasteland. This is where all the happiness and whimsy gets shot into the drain as you sit back and watch it, laughing while it happens. Zeus has absolutely no remorse for anyone. Just when you thought this movie was going to be about 1 thing, you watch Michael Ironside have a guy get his face smashed in with a cinder block and realize you're going for a ride. After a run-in with Zeus and his goons, Apple becomes "injured" and The Kid finds himself lost and confused. Through his confusion, he accidentally stumbles upon a buried space ship, that he clumsily falls into, and notices a familiarity. In the pilot seat is a dead Turbo Rider and a video feed playing the footage of a man deeming Turbo Rider as humanities "last hope". The Kid takes this opportunity to become what he's always wanted to be. A Turbo Rider. Hence becoming, Turbo Kid. So he becomes Turbo Kid and goes out on his plight in search of revenge and justice. Which takes your once destroyed innocence, gives it some steroids, and beats the living hell out of your guilt. Now, I'm not going to go into much further detail, but I rate this as one of my favorite movies to date. There are definitely flaws in the movie. I cannot fully explain its flaws without visuals and major spoilers but with its shotty transitioning, certain poorly shot scenes, repetitiveness, questionable support acting, noticeable lacks of effort, and progression, you can definitely see a dispute to this being anything other than just "a good movie". This definitely will, if it hasn't already, create a cult following that I hope inspires many more ideas like this and spawn some masterpieces for our future. It is a very satisfying film to watch and I walk away from it only wanting to see more.

#movies #movie review #movie recommendation #movie rating #film

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lucasflanagan-blog · 7 years

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The Best Movies of 2016 According to Me and Only Me

I love movies. I love talking about them, talking shit about them, arguing about them and writing about them. This new blog I'm starting is my attempt to get back to basics with what I like to write about the movies I love and hate and everything else in between the highs and lows. Oscar Sunday is the perfect opportunity to discuss what I loved best about this past year. I saw many movies and still somehow seemed to miss a great deal of what I suspect might be worthwhile movies to check out. This stands as a testament to the strength of this past year -- the strongest in recent memory. But let's cut through the bs and get down to it.

First off, I want to highlight how strong a year this was for the horror genre. Something happened and horror movies -- a whole mess of them -- delivered in a legit way. Cooties was the best horror comedy I've seen since Shaun of the Dead. Rainn Wilson ruled nearly every minute of that movie. Adam Wingard did some interesting things with The Blair Witch and while that movie didn't entirely work, it's still a nice entry on Wingard's resume. The same goes for James Wan with The Conjuring 2. Not perfect but still a solid movie. 10 Cloverfield Lane and Green Room might not exactly be horror movies but they both slipped into the genre rather nicely while never being hampered by traditional genre trappings. The Mind's Eye was an extremely weird and crazy as shit little telekinesis movie. The Witch was a terrific exercise in slow building dread while still hiding so much more underneath the surface. Light's Out and Don't Breathe were, on the surface, more traditional fare but over delivered in every conceivable way. Specifically, Don't Breathe which always zigged when you expected a zag. Lastly, The Autopsy of Jane Doe and I'm not saying anything else about this movie except: SEE THIS MOVIE! There is one more horror movie to talk about but it nearly snuck into my top ten and will thus be discussed in this next section.

Now, getting closer to the main course. In trying to pare down to a top ten, I was shocked at how many movies I was originally considering. This speaks to two things: How many great movies I saw this year and how close some of them were for me. Dr. Strange is definitely the craziest Marvel movie I've seen to date. Lion surprised me with how touched I was by what, on the surface, was a traditional, sappy, awards-bait story. Dev Patel was magnificent in showing the turmoil of going twenty-five years without finding your way home. Hidden Figures was the feel good movie of the year. Fences was crushing and while imperfect in it's pacing and constant tendency toward monologues, which is never great to watch on screen as opposed to seeing it live, the highs were really, REALLY high. Hacksaw Ridge was Mel Gibson's most complete effort as a director since Braveheart and while pretty standard, it was still a handsome production. The Lobster was definitely not for everyone and I'll definitely not be able to recommend it to anyone I know but for me, it totally worked. I found this movie hilarious at times. Is something wrong with me? Don't answer that. Next up is The Wailing, a Korean horror movie about...well, it's a Korean horror movie. It's about the Devil? Maybe? Whatever, the movie was nuts in all the best ways.

This next group of movies is still in the same boat but were either made by some of my favorite directors or based on or part of something else I adore. Nicolas Winding Refn is a polarizing figure. I find the man to be a genius behind the lens and The Neon Demon felt like him summing up his career to this point while still projecting how he feels about the industry in general. Everybody Wants Some was marketed as a spiritual successor to Dazed and Confused and while that's a fairly accurate tag, the movie speaks more to the bonds of friendship and new love. Linklater is as good a filmmaker as there is working today. Everything he does just works for me. I feel like we speak the same film language. The Jungle Book surprised me. Rudyard Kipling is one of my favorite authors but this movie didn't look special to me in any way upon it's release. Word of mouth led me to an eventual viewing and I was stunned. It's one of the most useful applications of CGI I've ever seen in a movie. Nailed it. Oh Rogue One. I really don't know how this didn't make my top ten list. I love Star Wars and this easily ranks as the third best Star Wars movie ever. The best depiction of Darth Vader ever. Holy shit. Midnight Special made me cry. Hard. On an airplane. In front of a lot of strangers. Michael Shannon is in the discussion of greatest actors of his generation and kills it in this movie. Joel Edgerton has quickly become one of my new favorites and Jeff Nichols is the best filmmaker in the business right now. And finally, the final movie to JUUUUUUST miss making the cut. Arrival. Awesome, quiet, meditative movie and when the pieces of it's puzzle finally fall into place, you're left stunned in the best possible way. And next up for Denis? The Blade Runner sequel. Get psyched.

And now for my top ten. (Note: The top three movies were so close and are constantly playing leap frog. As I'm writing this, I still don't know which is going to be number one for me. And yes, I know it's February and nearly March. Don't look here for sense.)

10. THE HANDMAIDEN

Chan-wool Park is a madman. His movies are impeccably designed, ultra violent and perverse as hell. This one was no different. Easily the most gorgeous film of the year and full of twists, innovations, titillation and drama. I respect it more than I love it but I respect the living shit out of this movie.

9. DEADPOOL

Unlike any superhero movie we've yet seen. Violent, sexually deviant, foul-mouthed in the most horrible way but also smart, superbly written, hilarious, violent, sexually deviant and foul-mouthed in the most horrible way. Deal with it prudes.

8. THE INVITATION

Ahhhh The Invitation. The most contested movie of the year in my house. My wife hated it which killed me a bit. It'll undoubtedly be brought up in our divorce proceedings. Karyn Kusama reminded me of Hitchcock in this movie. Actually, the best ode to Hitchcock since the man himself. She is now on my list of directors whom I see no matter what. What's it about? Who cares? Karyn Kusama directed it.

7. THE NICE GUYS

Shane Black is a legend. How did this movie get ignored this awards season? Not even for it's script? Maybe the tightest script of the year. For sure, the best dialogue. Gosling and Crowe should spend the rest of their careers working with each other. Amazing movie.

6. NOCTURNAL ANIMALS

Another on the list of: HOW DID THIS MOVIE GET IGNORED? Tom Ford is carving out a hell of a place for him in Hollywood. A Single Man was amazing and now with Nocturnal Animals, I suspect studios will be hot after Mr. Ford. Also, how can you go wrong with the three best actors working today in the same movie? Shannon, Gylenhall, and Adams all crush here. Such a nasty slice of noir. We haven't seen noir willing to go full noir like this in a long time. I honestly can't remember the last time I saw one willing to be pitch black like Nocturnal Animals. I love when filmmakers don't give a shit about what an audience might think or like and just go out and make a fucking movie.

5. MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

This is a tough one. It's also another movie that is hard to recommend because it's so soul crushingly sad. But it's also funny and somehow life affirming. It's a great piece of character writing and solid directing by Kenneth Lonergan. Michelle Williams continues to be excellent while Casey Affleck continues to be the best Affleck. Anyone else wondering what Live By Night would have been with Casey playing the lead?

4. 20TH CENTURY WOMEN

And again another member of the WHERE IS THE LOVE CLUB. Mike Mills wrote the best script of the year. I'm willing to debate but there is really no debate. This was the best written movie of the year. Mills is an amazing talent. And then he went and cast so many people I love. Billy Crudup is great. Greta Gerwig, my wife now understands why I have such a crush on her. She is impossibly cool. Elle Fanning is going to be one of the biggest stars in the world very, VERY soon. Remember that. And finally, Annette Benning has never been better. She was robbed! And this is where things get messy/interesting/crazy/nonsense-y?

3. HELL OR HIGH WATER

Whoah. This movie was number one on my list for a very long time. Ben Foster gave one of my favorite performances of the year. Jeff Bridges was funny and badass at the same time and Chris Pine was incredibly authentic as a man willing to put literally everything on the line for his family. This was noir and a western at the same time and that ain't easy to pull off. Impeccably written and basically told two separate stories about varying degrees of brotherhood at the same time while still having plenty to say about the haves and have-nots. About ownership, not only about tangible things but also about one's life. I have a brother who'd I'd rob banks for and maybe that's why this movie spoke to me so sweetly but I loved it all the same.

2. LA LA LAND

This was the most inspiring movie of the year for me. I loved every second of it and maybe down the road this will be remembered by me as the best. I don't know, I have yet to receive my time machine. Gosling is as charismatic as actors get and ditto for Emma Stone. They're both likable nearly to the point of annoyance. Chazelle is a great writer and even better director. He allows his movies to breathe while still managing to fill them to the brim. It's a high wire act few can pull off.

#1 MOONLIGHT

This one was just different. I've never seen anything quite like Moonlight. It's the movie which stuck with me the longest after seeing it. I saw it over a month ago and not a day goes by without me thinking about it. The story is timeless and new at the same time. The way Barry Jenkins shot this movie feels revolutionary to me. Everything was shot in hyper color and then drab. Things shoot into and out of focus. It's like seeing a movie with all of your senses. Mahershala Ali gave my favorite performance of the entire year. He was nothing short of extraordinary. Everything about this movie was extraordinary. I liked it upon leaving the theater. I liked it more the following day. I loved it a few days later. And where Hell or High Water and La La Land were, in many ways, equally extraordinary, they were maybe just the best versions of their respective genres that we've seen in years. Moonlight defied genre to just be unforgettable.

Enjoy the show everybody.

RIP Bill Paxton.

Love each other.

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