#jurassic world has cg animals that are fun to look at | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

weekendwarriorblog · 4 years

Text

The Weekend Warrior February 21, 2020 – CALL OF THE WILD, BRAHMS: THE BOY II, THE IMPRACTICAL JOKERS MOVIE, EMMA and more!

After overestimating Birds of Prey… I mean, Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey… it looks like I underestimated Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog… I mean Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik… with Sonic. It truly spanked my lowball prediction in the mid-$40 millions, but I wasn’t alone there at least. Hey, it’s a fun movie and my positive review wasn’t off-base with the critical world at large, so there’s that, too. (Apparently, I liked both Downhill and Fantasy Island more than most people, including CinemaScore voters who gave the movies a “D” and “C-“ respectively… ouch!)

This is likely to be another down week as neither of the two new movies are particularly strong, which gives me a chance to focus instead on this week’s FEATURED MOVIES! And we have four of ‘em this week, no less!

That’s right. I think it’s time I go back to my previous desire to use this column to focus on smaller movies that you may have missed since very few of the bigger outlets bother to cover them, and there’s a few worth pointing out this week. I’m gonna start with the two foreign films, because hopefully, you’ve listened to Bong Joon-ho and his translator and are not as fearful of subtitles…

First up, opening on Wednesday at New York’s Film Forumis Jan Komasa’s CORPUS CHRISTI (Film Movement), Poland’s selection for the Oscar International Feature category, which was actually nominated for an Oscar in the category in which everyone already knew Parasite was always gonna win! It’s a shame, cause this is a really amazing film with Bartosz Bielenia playing Daniel, a troubled youth just out of juvenile hall who steals the trappings and identity of the youth prison’s pastor and is therefore mistaken as an actual priest when he arrives at a small community village that has suffered a tragic loss. It’s an amazing film about faith and forgiveness and redemption, and how the script came to Komasa from screenwriter Mateusz Pacewic is an equally amazing story. Seriously, if you get a chance, definitely check this powerful drama out, since it’s another fantastic film from a country that has continually been delivering the goods in terms of original storytelling.

I was just going to do three featured movies this week, but a really good German thriller is finally hitting the States, opening at the Quad in New York Friday then in L.A. on March 13 before a nationwide rollout. Michael Bully Herbig’s incredibly suspenseful German thriller BALLOON (Distrib Films USA) is about two families from the GDR (aka East Germany) who try to cross over into West Germany in 1979 using a hot air balloon, over a decade before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Based on the actual events, their story previously was adapted into the Disney movie Night Crossing (which oddly, isn’t on Disney+ yet-- I checked, but it’s on Amazon Prime if you wanna compare the two movies). The movie doesn’t spend nearly as much time in the balloon as something like The Aeronauts, as the family’s first attempt fails miserably, so much of the film involves them working towards a second attempt, while trying not to be caught.

Balloon is a pretty heavy film (irony?), sometimes a little overwrought with drama but it keeps you on the edge of your seat as it cuts between the families trying to figure out their escape plan and the authorities trying to put together the clues to find these defectors. There’s a particularly amusing man in charge of the investigation, played by the always-amazing Thomas Kretschmann (The Pianist), who is constantly berating his men, something that helps lighten the otherwise heavy tone that permeates the film. This is another fairly low-key foreign film that’s worth seeking out.

Another movie people should make an effort to seek out is Rashaad Ernesto Green’s PREMATURE (IFC Films), an amazing film that follows the relationship between two young people in Harlem over the course of a summer. We first meet Zora Howard’s Ayanna as she’s hanging with her friends kibitzing about boys, as they begin their last summer before Ayanna heads to college. Shortly after, she meets Josh Boone’s Isaiah, and the two hit it off. The rest of the film follows the ups and downs of their relationship including incredibly intimate moments that lead up to Ayanna getting pregnant.

I won’t go through the plot play-by-play style, because it’s interesting to discover the twist and turns in their relationship in a similar way as we do our own relationships. Needless to say Green has a pretty amazing partner and lead in Howard, who co-wrote the screenplay, which is probably why it feels so authentic and real. Sure, there are a few scenes between Howard and Boone, both fantastic actors, that feel a bit too showy dramatically but otherwise, it’s a fantastic second feature from Green who has mainly been directing TV since his earlier film Gun Hill Road. I’ll definitely be very curious to see what Green and Howard get up to next either alone or working together.

Opening in New York and L.A. this Friday but in theaters nationwide on March 6 is the latest incarnation of Jane Austen’s novel EMMA. (Focus Features), this time starring the wonderful Anya Taylor-Joy (from The VVitchand Split/Glass) as the title character, Emma Woodhouse, a 28-year-old matchmaker who prides herself on the relationships she’s put together even while unable to find her own mate. The film follows as the latter starts coming in the way of the former as she infiltrates herself into things as an “expert on love” who can’t find it herself.

Maybe it’s not surprising that I haven’t read much of Austen’s work and have missed this one altogether, never having seen any of the other iterations, but it’s a fairly wild and witty ride. Much of that is due to the amazing and wonderful cast around the young actor, the most surprising behind Mia Goth, who is in fact three years older than Taylor-Joy, but plays the younger wide-eyed Harriet who looks up to Emma and elicits her advice. Emma basically steers Harriet from the farmer she likes to Josh O’Connor’s Mr. Elton, the wealthy local vicar who is more than a little bit of a dark. This leads to a bit of a revolving door of who is interested in whom, etc especially when Emma’s nemesis Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson) returns to Hartfield.

Some of the other men in the mix are Johnny Flynn’s dashing George Knightley – the brother-in-law to Emma’s sister – and Callum Turner’s wealthy Frank Churchill, whose attentions lead to more misunderstandings. Both were great but I was more impressed with O’Connor who transforms into a completely other person when Emma spurns his affections and seems like a different person from the way first-time features director (and photographer) Autumn de Wilde shoots him. Of course, Bill Nighy is as great as always as Emma’s father, always feeling a slight draft, but even more impressive is the wonderfully hilarious Miranda Hart (from Spy) as Miss Bates, a woman who gabs at length about how wonderful Jane Fairfax is, much to Emma’s annoyance. As much as Emma. is Anya Taylor-Joy’s show, it’s the ensemble cast around her that makes the movie so infinitely enjoyable, getting better as it goes along.

This is a very good first feature from de Wilde, who has directed quite a number of music videos for Beck, and Emma. seems very different from the movies we normally get from video directors, much of that to do with Austen’s source material and the cast. Either way, how things develop over the course of the film makes it more enjoyable as it goes along. (Although I have never read the book, the film seems fairly faithful to the book’s Wikipedia page, so Austen fans should enjoy it, too.)

I guess we can now get to the wide and semi-wide releases and the rest of the movies – merging my two columns into one means you get more 5,000-word columns, you lucky ducks!

The higher-profile of the two new wide releases is probably CALL OF THE WILD (20thCentury Studios), a PG adaptation of Jack London’s classic novel starring Harrison Ford and the most adorable CG dog (i.e. not real, so back off PETA!) you’ve ever met named Buck! Sure, dog lovers might say, “Why would we want to watch a movie with a CG dog when clearly, a movie with actors in green suits turned into dogs using CG would suffice?” But no, it’s actually a very heavily CG movie directed by Chris Sanders, who directed Lilo & Sitch, the first How to Train Your Dragon and The Croods before giving a go at live action. (Sanders also provided quite a few voices in earlier animated films like Disney’s Mulan and Tarzan.)

A film that already was well into production when Disney bought Fox (now 20thCentury Studios), Call of the Wild also stars Omar Sy (returning for next year’s “Jurassic World” finale), Karen Gillan, Dan Stevens, Bradley Whitford but the real star of the movie is the dog Buck, which is performed by the immensely talented Terry Notary, who you’ll know for his work on the “Apes” movies with Andy Serkis, Kong: Skull Island and some of the characters in the last couple “Avengers” movies.

Of course, opening the weekend after Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog, which has turned out to be a bigger hit than anyone imagined, certainly won’t help The Call of the Wild.

In many ways, this reminds me of the 2002 Disney movie Snow Dogs, which opened with $17.8 million over the 4-day MLK weekend. The combination of Ford (who appears in very few movies) and the adorable dog antics might be enough for the movie to make $15 to 17 million this weekend, maybe a little more, although it only has two weeks to do business before Disney’s next Pixar movie, Onward, takes over, not giving it much time to make bank.

Mini-Review: It’s pretty evident that this exceedingly faithful take on Jack London’s book will not be for everyone. While I personally was mixed, I expect this to be one of the rare positive reviews just ‘cause. Surprisingly, it’s also the most “Disneyfied” movie that could possibly come from the newly-renamed 21stCentury Studios as it’s a movie clearly made for kids and animal lovers even if never the ‘twain shall meet, in some cases.

The story follows a large St. Bernard named Buck (portrayed by Terry Notary – but we’ll get back to that), who begins his life as the spoiled and pampered pet of a wealthy judge in California but is sold to a man who trains Buck with his club sending the dog on a wild journey across the Yukon as part of a dog sled for a pair of Canadian postal workers (played by Omar Sy and Cara Gee from “The Expanse”). Eventually, he’s paired with an alcoholic frontiersman (Harrison Ford) and he finds true love, as the two of them go off looking (and finding) gold.

Some might be surprised that director Chris Sanders (who has an extensive animation background) decided to go for straight-up CG when depicting the animals and some of the environments in Call of the Wild. In fact, it feels almost necessary to make Buck as expressive as he needs to be to carry this film, and that’s where Terry Notary (Andy Serkis’ partner-in-performance-capture from the “Apes” movies) and the CG team comes in handy. Buck is already lovable but being able to make him so expressive doesn’t hurt, and the scenes where he’s interacting with other animals are pretty amazing.

We do have to discuss the negatives, and one of them is the episodic nature of Buck’s story that means that Harrison Ford, other than the narration and a brief appearance, doesn’t play a large part in Buck’s story until about the 45-minute mark. I didn’t think much of the performances by Sy and Gee or Dan Steven and Karen Gillan as the spoiled rich people who buy Buck to drive their dog sled off to find gold. Buck’s experiences as part of the first dog sled is far more positive even though it’s rigorous and it puts him at odd with the dog pack leader. The problem is that most of the human actors don’t come close to delivering what Notary does as Buck, the exception being Ford, but it’s still one of those odd CG-live action amalgations that doesn’t always work.

If you’re fond of Jack London’s Arctic adventures (as I generally am), Call of the Wild offers as much good as it does bad, but it’s worthwhile more for the amazing vistas and terrific use of CG (and Terry Notary’s performance as Buck) than anything else.

Rating: 6.5/10

I won’t have a chance to see the horror sequel BRAHMS: THE BOY II (STXfilms), but I never got around to seeing the first movie either, although this one, starring Katie Holmes, does look kind of fun. 2020 has not been a great year for horror so far with almost a new horror every weekend and few doing particularly well – The Grudge tops the heap with just $21 million and that opened almost two months ago!

I really don’t have a lot to say about this other than the fact that the original The Boy(not to be confused with The Boy, The Boy or The Boy, which are also movies about a different “Boy”), also directed by William Brent Bell, opened in January 2016 to $10.8 million on its way to $35.8 million domestic but it also opened at a time when there were no strong horror films in theaters. Some could argue that there are still no strong horror films in theaters, especially since so many of them quickly lost theaters after bombing. Still, there have been a lot this year already and the most recent one, Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island underperformed this past weekend, so why would anyone want more?

STXfilms’ marketing has been solid even as this moved from its December release to now, but I still think it will be tough for this to make more than $10 million this weekend and probably will end up closer to $8 million or less.

Opening in limited release but also sure to be exciting to the fans of the TruTV hidden camera prank show is IMPRACTICAL JOKERS: THE MOVIE, which brings the hilarious Tenderloins comedy troop – Q, Murr, Sal and Joe -- to the big screen as they go off on a cross-country adventure to attend a party in Florida, playing their usual prank-filled games to see which three get to attend. At this writing, I have no idea how many theaters it’s opening – I’m assuming 150 to 200 maybe? – so no idea how it might do although there are already some sold out showings in my general area (NYC) where the guys are from.

Mini-Review: It feels like there need to be two reviews for this movie – one for those who already know and love the show and find the Tenderloins hysterical (this includes me) —and then one for everyone else. The former can probably skip the next paragraph.

The Tenderloins are a group of four Staten Island friends (names above) whose antics led to a successful TruTV hidden camera show where they pull pranks and challenge each other to say and do whatever they’re told. The show has run eight seasons, and it’s made the Tenderloins such big stars they regularly sell out enormous venues (like Radio City Music Hall) to perform live for their fans. Considering the success Johnny Knoxville’s “Jackass” show has had in movie theaters where it can take advantage of an R-rating, there’s little reason why the “Impractical Jokers” shouldn’t be able to do the same. (For some context, I watched this movie with a theater full of the group’s friends, crew as well as Q’s firehouse buddies, in other words, 75% of Staten Island.)

The movie, directed by Chris Henchy, long time McKay and Ferrell collaborator – the film is presented by their “Funny or Die” brand –opens with one of a number of scripted/staged scenes to frame the road trip the Tenderloins to attend a party in Miami being held by Paula Abdul. Since they only have three passes, they need to compete in their usual challenges to determine who misses out.

If you are a fan of the show, I’m not going to spoil any of the challenges or pranks they plan on each other, but they generally get better and funnier as the movie goes along, to the point that when it returns to the “story” and the scripted stuff, the movie does falter a little. Although the Tenderloins aren’t the greatest actors, they are great improvisers and you can tell when they’re coming up with lines by the seat of their pants.

The majority of the movie is basically what we see on the show without all of the commercial breaks cutting in just as things start to get outrageous, and as someone who watches more of the show than I probably should admit, I find it hard to believe no one watching the movie will at least get one good snicker out of the movie. There are a few recurring gags throughout the movie as well as a follow-up to a memorable punishment from an earlier season. (Like with the show, you’re likely to feel bad for Murr and Sal, the nicer half of the group who always get the most abuse because of it.)

If you’re already a fan of the Impractical Jokers, you’ll probably like the movie, but if not, you might not get it and there’s just no real use trying. In other words, not a great intro to the “Impractical Jokers” but a fine bit of fun for the already-converted.

Rating: 6.5/10

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Sonic the Hedgehog (Paramount) - $29 million -50% (up $1.5 million)**

2. Call of the Wild (20th Century) - $17 million N/A (up .3 million)** 3. Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey (Warner Bros) - $9 million -48%

4. Brahms: The Boy II (STXfilms) - $7 million N/A (down .6 million)**

5. Bad Boys for Life (Sony) - $6 million -48% (down .1 million)**

6. The Photograph (Universal) – $5.5 million -55% (down .6 million)**

7. Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island (Sony) - $5.3 million -57%

8. 1917 (Universal) - $5 million -38%

9. Parasite (NEON) - $3.6 million -35%

10. Jumanji: The Next Level (Sony) - $3.3 million -42%

-- The Impractical Jokers Movie (TruTV) - $1.8 million*

-- Las Pildoras de mi Novio (Pantelion/Lionsgate) - $1.3 million*

* These last two projections are made without much info on either movie, including theater counts for the former.

**A few minor tweaks as we go into weekends with actual theater counts, although this weekend will still mostly be about Sonic the Hedgehog. I still don’t have any theater counts for Impractical Jokers on Thursday night so I guess we’ll just have to see if the theaters playing it report to Rentrak and it gets some sort of placement, presumably outside the top 10, on Sunday.

LIMITED RELEASES

There are lots of other new limited releases this weekend beyond the ones I mentioned above.

On Wednesday night, Fathom Events is releasing Masaaki Yuasa’s new movie RIDE YOUR WAVE (GKIDS) across the nation for one night only in some places, although it will get a limited release on Friday at New York’s Village East and maybe other places, as well. If you’ve seen any of Yuasa’s other films like 2017’s The Night is Short, Walk on Girl or Lu Over the Wall or Mind Game, then you can probably expect this to be another wild ride, except this time it’s on a surfboard. It follows the story of a surfer and a firefighter who fall in love. You can learn more about how to get tickets here.

Like Portrait of a Lady on Fire last week, Una director Benedict Andrews’ SEBERG (Amazon) received a one-week release in 2019 but it’s getting a legit limited release this Friday. It stars Kristen Stewart as French New Wave icon Jean Seberg who came to the States in the late ‘60s and began a relationship with civil rights leader Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie), putting her in the sights of the FBI who were hoping to use her to bust the Black Panthers. The film also stars Jack O’Connell, Margaret Qualley, Vince Vaughn, and Stephen Root, and it’s a pretty solid historical drama, although I haven’t seen it so long I’m not sure I can say much more about that.

I was never a huge fan of Bob Dylan or the Band but I found Daniel Roher’s doc ONCE WERE BROTHERS: ROBBIE ROBERTSON AND THE BAND (Magnolia) (about the latter) to be quite compelling as the story is told by various people who were there, including the film’s exec. producer Martin Scorsese who directed the band’s legendary concert film The Last Waltz. This is also produced by Ron Howard and Brian SGrazer of Imagine, so you know it’s gonna be a quality music doc, and it certainly is, although I’m not sure it will be of that much interest to people who aren’t already fans of The Band.

Opening in roughly 350 theaters this weekend is LAS PILDORAS DE MI NOVIO (Pantelion), translated as “My Boyfriend’s Meds,” a comedy about a woman (Sandra Echeverria) who falls for a mattress store owner who suffers from multiple personality disorder and when they go on vacation… he forgets to bring along his meds! Humor abounds. As usual, this won’t screen in advance for critics.

Tye Sheridan stars with Knives Out’s Ana De Armas in Michael Cristofer’s thriller The Night Clerk (Saban Films), Sheridan plays a hotel clerk with Asperger’s Syndrome who witnesses a murder in one of the rooms but ends up as the main suspect by the lead detective, played by John Leguizamo. The film also stars Helen Hunt and it will be released in select theaters (including New York’s Cinema Village), on demand and digitally this Friday. Just couldn’t into this one, having at least one good friend with Asperger’s, due to the way Sheridan played this often-debilitating disease. (Think Rain Man without the talent of Dustin Hoffman.)

Opening exclusively at theMetrographFriday with an expansion on March 3 is Portugese filmmaker Bruno de Almeida’s Cabaret Maxime (Giant Pictures), starring Michael Imperioli as Bennie Gaza, the owner and manager of the title nightclub specializing in a mix of burlesque, striptease, music and comedy. Bennie is fairly old-fashioned so when a modern day (translation: trashy and demeaning to women) strip club opens across the way, Bennie finds himself pressure to make changes to stay in line as he starts getting pressure from his mobster financer to change. I was kinda mixed on this movie, which delivers another typically great performance from Imperioli but the way it cuts between various acts and disparate scenes that do very little to move the story forward (including the far-more-interesting subplot about Bennie’s wife Stella, a performer suffering from depression, as played by the amazing Ana Padrão). I think one of the reasons I just couldn’t get into the movie is cause a friend of mine attempted a similar film based out of a nightclub and the film never got much traction. De Almeida should have paid more attention developing the storytelling than showing off his talented musical singing/dancing friends.

A second Portugese filmmaker, Pedro Costa, also releases a new film this week. Vitalina Varela (Grasshopper Film) will open at New York’s Film at Lincoln Center on Friday. The title of the film is also the name of the non-actor who returns from Costa’s Horse Moneyto play a woman from Cape Verdean who comes to Fontainhas for her estranged husband’s funeral and sets up a new life there.

Also opening at the Quad Friday is the latest from the Dardenne Brothers, Young Ahmed (Kino Lorber) about a 13-year-old (Idir ben Addi) who has come under the grips of radical jihadism in his Belgian town, putting him at odds with various factions. When he carries out an act of violence, he ends up in a juvenile detention facility. The Dardennes won the Best Director award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where their films have been honored with the Palme d’Or twice. I’ve never been much of a fan but what do I know?

Opening at the IFC Center Wednesday is Nicolas Champeaux, Gilles Porte’s documentary The State Against Mandela and the Others, which is built around recently recovered audio recordings of the 1963-4 Rivona trial in which Nelson Mandela and eight others faced death sentences for challenging Apartheid. The film mixes animation showing the trails with contemporary interviews with the survivors including Winnie Mandela, about their fight against the country’s corrupt system.

Another doc I know little about is Andrew Goldberg’s Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations, which will open at the Village East Friday but it includes the likes of Julianna Margulies, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton as anti-semitism rears its ugly head over 70 years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust.

Also opening at Cinema Village is Matt Ratner’s Standing Up, Falling Down (Shout! Studios) starring Billy Crystal and Ben Schwartz (the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog!), the latter playing a stand-up comic whose L.A. dreams have crashed and burned leaving him with little money, forcing him to return to Long Island. Once there, he pines over his ex (Eloise Mumford) and becomes friends with an eccentric dermatologist (Crystal) as they help each other deal with their respective failures.

Playing at the Roxy for a one-week run starting Friday is Sam De Jong’s Goldie (Film Movement), starring actress/model Slick Woods as the title character, a teenager in a family shelter pursuing her dreams of being a dancer while trying to keep her sisters together. This premiered at the Tribeca Film Festivallast year.

Oscilloscope (the distributor that brought you the cat doc Kedi) is doing something called “Cat Video Fest 2020,” which will take place at the Alamo in Brooklyn (although the Saturday screening is sold out there) and the Village East Cinema. This screening of pre-selected cat videos is also taking place at other cities throughout the country, and you can find out where right here.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

This Friday, the Metrograph will debut its newest series “Climate Crisis Parabels,” a series of varied future shock films, this weekend with Robert Bresson’s The Devil, Probably (1977), Steven Spielberg’s 2001 film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke (1999) (hosted by Naomi Klein Sunday afternoon, but also playing as part of the Playtime Family Matinees”) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner: The Final Cu ton Sunday night. “To Hong Kong with Love” also continues with screenings of Stanley Kwan’s Rouge (1987) and the 2016 film Raise the Umbrellas. The ongoing Welcome To Metrograph: Redux also continues with HarunFarocki’sdocumentary Before Your Eyes: Vietnam (1981). This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is another Japanese thriller, Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1966 thriller The Face of Another, and the Metrograph’s Japanese love continues as Playtime: Family Matinees will also show Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke from 1999.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Tonight’s “Weird Wednesday” is Ken Russell’s 1987 film Gothic, and this week’s “Kids Camp” offering is the 2006 animated Curious George with a special “pick your own price.” In preparation for the release of Emma. On Friday, the Alamo is doing a “Champagne Cinema” screening of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley, which unfortunately, is sold out already. (Waugh Waugh) Monday’s “Out of Tune” is the Prince film Under the Cherry Moon from 1986, which is also sold out. (Hey, Jeremy Wein, why don’t you tell me these things are going on sale so I can go!?!) Next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is the horror classic Candyman (1992), which is ALSO almost sold out and then we’re back to “Weird Wednesday” with next week’s offering, 1985’s soft-core actioneer Gwendoline.

If you’re one of those poor souls living in L.A., you can also go to see Don Coscarelli’s 2002 film Bubba Ho-Tep, starring Bruce Campbell, on Wednesday night or the 1986 Little Shop of Horrors on Thursday at the grand, new(ish) Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Downtown Los Angeles. Saturday afternoon is a matinee of Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight (1998), starring George Clooney and J-Lo and Saturday night, you can see Cassavetes’ Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), starring Seymour Cassel and Gena Rowlands. Monday night is Juliet Bashore’s 1986 Kamikaze Hearts, which looked into the X-rated SF underground of the ‘80s. The West Coast “Terror Tuesday” is Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula, starring Keanu Reeves, Gary Oldman and Winona Rider!

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Wednesday’s afternoon matinee is the classical musical The Sound of Music (1965) and then Weds and Thurs night’s double feature is Robert Redford’sThe Hot Rock (1972) and Cops and Robber (1973). Friday’s matinee is the late Tony Scott’s The Hunger (1983) and then the Tarantino-pennedTrue Romance (1993, also directed by Scott), will play Friday midnight and Saturday’s midnight movie is the 1967 film Carmen, Baby. This weekend’s Kiddee Mattine is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Monday’s matinee is Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973) and the Monday night double feature is A Man for All Seasons(1966) and The Mission (1986). Tuesday’s Grindhouse double feature is 1980’s Super Fuzz and 1977’s Death Promise, both in 35mm, of course.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Weds’ “Black Voices” movie is William Greaves’ 1968 film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, and then on Friday night in the Spielberg Theater, you can see the 1913 film Traffic in Souls with live music as well as a couple shorts. The Japanese horror film Kwaidan(1965) will play in the normal theater. On Saturday, the Egyptian is presenting “Leigh Whannell’s Thrill-A-thon” a series of four films that helped to inspire Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, which comes out next week with some great options worth seeing, including 1987’s Fatal Attraction, David Fincher’s 2014 film Gone Girl, Rob Reiner’s Stephen King adaptation Misery(1990) and the classic Aussie thriller Dead Calm(1989) starring Nicole Kidman … all for just 15 bucks!

AERO (LA):

The AERO’s “Black Voices” film for Weds. is the great Stir Crazy, starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, and then on Thursday afternoon, you can see Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classicDr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb for $8 (free to Cinemateque members!) New restoration of the Russian film Come and See (also opening at the Film Forum in New York) will play on Saturday evening as part of the “Antiwar Cinema” series. Sunday’s double feature in that series is Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) and the Russian film The Ascent (1977). Tuesday’s “Black Voices” matinee is Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991) and then Greg Proops will screen the 1996 film Ridicule as part of his Film Club podcast which precedes the film.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Jack Lemmon continues through the end of the month with Mister Roberts (1955) on Weds., Billly Wilder’s Avanti (1972) and the classic (and one of my all-time faves) Some Like it Hot (1959) on Friday. This weekend also sees movies in the continuing “Theater of Operations” series, which will include Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2009) on Saturday afternoon and a bunch of docs including Werner Herzog’s 1992 film Lessons of Darkness on Sunday. Weds also kicks off “Television Movies: Big Pictures on the Small Screen” – pretty self-explanatory, I think – with 1953’s The Trip to Bountiful and 1955’s Tosca on Weds. and Sunday, 1967’s Present Laughter Thursday and Tuesday and more. (Click on the link for full schedule!) Following Film Forum’s focus on black actresses (for February, Black History Month, get it?) MOMA begins a “It’s All in Me: Black Heroines” series with All By Myself: The Eartha Kitt Story and Julie Dash’s Illusions, both from 1982, on Thursday and many more running through March 5.

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES (NYC):

The Anthology still has a few more films in its “Devil Probably: A Century of Satanic Panic” including Eric Weston’s Evilspeak (1981) tonight in 35mm, but also David Van Taylor will be at tonight’s screening of his 1991 film Dream Deceivers. I’ve never seen either of these, by the way. Robert Eggers’ The VVitch and Alan Parker’s Angel Heart screen one more time on Thursday night, as well. This weekend also begins a new series, “Dream Dance: The Films of Ed Emshwiller” but since I have no idea who that is, I have nothing further to add. (Sorry!)

NITEHAWK CINEMA (NYC):

Williamsburgis showing David Lynch’s 1990 film Wild at Heart as part of its “Uncaged” series on Friday just after midnight and John Singleton’s Poetic Justice on Saturday morning as part of “California Love.” They’re also showing Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride on Saturday morning for an “All-Ages Brunch Movie.”

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Elem Klimov’s 1985 Russian drama Come and See (Janus) will have a DCP restoration premiere at the Forum and Sunday afternoon will be a screening of the 1953 Mexican film El Corazon y La Espada in 3D. This weekend’s “Film Forum Jr.” is the 1953 pseudo-doc Little Fugitive. Monday night is a screening of David Rich’s Madame X (1966) introduced by actor/playwright Charles Busch.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This weekend’s Weekend Classics: Luis Buñuel is the Mexican film The Exterminating Angel (1962), while Waverly Midnights: Hindsight is 2020s will screen Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Mnemonic and Late Night Favorites: Winter 2020is taking a surprising weekend off.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Still waiting to see if Pandora and the Flying Dutchman continues through the weekend, as at this time (Monday), there is nothing repertory listed.

BAM CINEMATEK(NYC):

Horace Jenkins’ Cane River continues through Friday. Saturday night’s “Beyond the Canon” is a double feature of Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker(1953) and Malick’s Badlands (1973).

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

This weekend’s “See It Big! Outer Space” offerings include1974’s Space is the Placeon Friday and 1924’s Aelita, Queen of Mars and the 1980 Flash Gordonscreening on Saturday and Sunday. As usual, 2001: A Space Odysseywill screen on Saturday afternoon as part of the ongoing exhibition.

ROXY CINEMA(NYC)

Weds’ Nicolas Cage movie is Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead (1999) and then Thursday is a 35mm screening of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)!

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Friday’s midnight movie is Who Killed Roger Rabbit (1988).

STREAMING AND CABLE

Let’s see what’s going on in the world of streaming this week, shall we?

Netflix is debuting Dee (Mudbound) Rees’ new movie THE LAST THING HE WANTED on the streaming service Friday, even though apparently, it opened in select cities last week, including New York’s Paris Theater, although it got such terrible reviewsout of Sundance, maybe Netflix didn’t want any more bad reviews before it begins streaming. Regardless, it stars Anne Hathaway, Willem Dafoe, Ben Affleck and Rosie Perez, and it’s based on Joan Didion’s novel about a D.C. journalist named Elena (Hathaway) who abandons her work on the 1984 campaign trail to run an errand for her father (Dafoe). I guess I’ll watch it when it’s on Netflix just like everyone else but my expectations have been suitably lowered.

The Jordan Peele-produced series “Hunters,” starring Al Pacino, which is about a group of Nazi hunters will hit Amazon Prime this Friday as well, and a new season of the popular series“Star Wars: The Clone Wars” will debut on Friday on Disney+, adding to the amazing amount of content already available on that network.

Next week, Saw and Insidious co-creator Leigh Whannell revamps The Invisible Man for Universal with Elisabeth Moss, and there’s also (supposedly) a movie call The Ride, which I know nothing about. You can guess which movie I’ll be focusing on.

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or send me a note on Twitter. I love hearing from readers!

#TheCallOfTheWIld BrahmsTheBoy Premature Emma Balloon CorpusChristi Movies Reviews Repertory Streaming TheWeekendWarrior

2 notes · View notes

revchainsaw · 3 years

Text

Gargoyles: Wings of Darkness (2004)

Salutations children and welcome to todays service at the Cult Film Tent Revival. Today's feature is the 2004 B Movie, Gargoyles: Wings of Darkness. Alright, let's knock this stinker out.

The Message

In the 1990s there was a wonderfully dark and complex animated series on the Disney Channel called Gargoyles, featuring Shakespearean allusions, comic book action, and a gothic style coming hot of the tail of the Tim Burton Batman movies and of course Batman: The Animated Series that just spoke to the youth of the time. I was all about it. So when in the early 2000s I was perusing the stacks of local video stores I would see this film on the shelves and think to myself "awesome, more Gargoyle content" but it looked scary and I would put it back in favor of something more along the lines of an X-Men or Jurassic Park. It would not be until my 30s that I will realize how wise that decision was. If my love of Disney's Gargoyles had not tied this film to my memories I doubt I'd have been inclined to even give this film a shot, but when scrolling my Hulu queue I was immediately met with the memory of a curiosity unsated.

A teenager at a blockbuster in 2004 may have been intrigued by the box art on this film, unable to discern between a cheap hack job and a bad ass monster poster, I was absolutely fascinated with this gnarly looking Beast on the cover. In 2021 however, this box art screams at me exactly what to expect going in. This is Scifi channel quality, however, that still might mean fun for an audience. In a post Sharknado world bad acting, poor CGI, and a barely existent plot is not an immediate death sentence for a creature feature, in fact all of those things can bring joy to the viewer. I've said it before but a bad movie is always preferable to a forgettable one.

You may have noticed I have not spoken to the plot of the film. Set somewhere in Eastern Europe, an ancient Gargoyle that had once been defeated by, I think it was a sacred crossbow, has returned and is wreaking havoc on the city. The poorly rendered CG monster has allied itself with a corrupt Priest to drop people onto church steeples and attack women in zoos upsetting all the poor monkeys. There's a bunch of goopy gargoyle eggs, and I forget the rest. Honestly, if you're here for a good story you are going to be disappointed, that is unless you google the horror stories the cast tell of being frequently attacked by wild dogs in Romania. If you want effects, you will also be disappointed. If you are looking for pure shlock that is not so bad you get angry, well, you've come to the right place.

The Benediction is going to be tough, let's attempt

Best Aspect: Holiday in Romania

According to some of the cast, the film was a cash grab and costs were kept as low as possible. Hence why filming happened on location in Romania. The catering provided was simply apples most days, and according to my reading these were often used as projectiles to fend off packs of wild Romanian dogs more often than enjoyed as healthy refreshing snacks. While the cast and crew may not have enjoyed their time abroad, Bucharest and the surrounding countryside are absolutely beautiful. The unfortunate political and economic conditions of such a place can not take away the appeal of such an old city, and the natural beauty of it's outdoor spaces. I wish more of those dogs had made it on screen.

Worst Aspect: Competent Incompetence

The actors are giving a commendable performance. The cinematography is lazy but not unskilled. The script is likewise a by the numbers lazy monster story but not so dumb that it can be enjoyed ironically. If you are going in expecting pure unadulterated crap that you may be surprised by the passing grade that the film receives for it's budget. The only thing that can be derided is the effects, which are so cheap and inconsistent, and honestly, just ugly. If the film had put money into practical effects it might have left the audience with at least a cool monster to remember. If the movie had been worse in all other categories it may have been so bad it's good. But as is, it's not SO bad, it's just generically bad, and for that reason utterly forgettable. Without googling information the only two things I remembered off hand were the body impaled on the church steeple, and the ugly cg gargoyle reenacting Sia's Elastic Heart Video at a Zoo.

Summary

In conclusion, the only way I could recommend Gargoyles: Wings of Darkness is as background imagery. Maybe at your next Halloween party you could throw it on so that everyone can ignore it. You may even get more out of it than if you actually paid attention. This films biggest sin is that it is utterly forgettable. There's a wannabe Glen Danzig in this movie, I forgot about him. There's scenes I thought were in this movie that I made up (the before mentioned body impaled on a steeple is only mentioned never seen). I'm calling it now, it's doodoo y'all. Strangely enough, I didn't hate my time with Gargoyles. My expectations were low, and this movie knew what it was. I really wanted to include a Most WTF Moment category in my Benediction, but this film contained a total of zero WTF moments. I would like to give it a D, since I generally reserve F's for movies that I HATED, but unfortunately I don't think it has any qualities that can save it. If only it had been better, if only it had been worse.

Overall Grade: F

#Gargoyles #2000s #2004 #Gargoyles: Wings of Darkness #SciFi Channel #CGI #creature feature #gargoyle #F #Grade: F #horror #(F)

0 notes

27timescinema · 5 years

Text

INTERVIEW - NYFA - CRAIG CATON

By Maria Salomia (pics © Sinead Shahrzad)

Craig Caton is a special visual effects artist known for his work on an impressive number of lovable Hollywood blockbusters. He has designed, built and pupeteered some of the most memorable creatures in recent cinema history: the famous raptor(s) in the riveting kitchen scene from Jurassic Park, Slimer from the 1984 Ghostbusters, the penguins from Batman Returns and countless others. Being a part of the motion picture industry for 36 years, he has worked with highly acclaimed directors like Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron and contributed to over 100 films.

He was present at the 76th Venice Film Festival as a special guest and representative of the New York Film Academy, where he teaches 3D Animation and VFX. The 28 Times Cinema participants had the opportunity to attend and actively participate in a workshop he held on Wednesday 4th, during which he managed to shed some light on the wizardry of motion capture, augmented reality and the wonders of digital special effects in general.

I sat down with him to find out more about his background, his impressive career, his extremely diverse skillset and his passion for monster films.

I would like to start at the very beginning: you have mentioned in a previous interview that your career grew from a childhood passion, triggered by seeing the original Planet of the Apes and trying to reproduce that makeup on yourself. Would you say that your career is, in a way, an extension of that child-like playfulness? Do you still approach your work in that manner?

Absolutely, that was all I wanted to do from the fifth grade on, move to Hollywood and make monsters for movies. That was my dream and I realised it. And it’s really fun. If people pay you to make toys and then play with them, you should do it!

What was your first encounter with puppeteering and animatronics? What got you into it?

Ghostbusters was the first one. I got to work on the Slimer ghost and that gave me a taste of mechanics. It took off from there, I went from being a makeup artist to being a sculptor, then to doing the mechanics and in the end that’s what I liked better. When you were doing the mechanics for a puppet you also became its best puppeteer, because you knew how it worked.

It also had something to do with my background, because I used to be an X-ray technologist. So I have a great knowledge of bone and anatomy and that actually worked pretty well for creating puppets.

It’s very interesting that you could take that knowledge and use it to create characters that don’t actually conform to basic human anatomy at all.

That is what I really liked about doing puppets, that you weren’t constrained to the human form any more. I had done so much makeup and effects that were on people that I just wanted to completely move away from that and do real creatures and monsters instead.

How do you create these creatures and monsters? What sort of references do you use, where do you get your inspiration from?

I use as much real world references as I possibly can, especially when it comes to movement. I love to study how birds fly, how fish swim, how centipedes crawl and try to look at the real nuances of those motions, so that I can incorporate them into my puppets. A lot of it comes from nature.

Was any of the projects you have worked on particularly challenging? In the sense that, for example, you had to find new ways of doing something that didn’t have much precedent in the field at that time?

Jurassic Park was the big innovator because Steven Spielberg said: whatever you can do to make the best dinosaurs ever, do it. Without much time or budget constraints. So we pulled out all the stops and just came up with great ways to make dinosaurs! And I’m pretty happy with some of the solutions we came up with. There is a lot of groundbreaking stuff in that movie that people don’t realise.

You have been in the field for 36 years and during that time special effects have evolved considerably. Jurassic Park is especially relevant in this respect, as you didn’t just witness the transformations, but have actually worked on a film that pioneered and propelled a big shift in paradigm. How did you welcome the change? And how did you eventually transition to computer generated visual effects and digital animation?

In the early 80s I had started playing around with computers, mostly to play games. But then the Amoeba computer came out and it had all these amazing 3D graphics and even as a home user you could create dinosaurs and logos and a lot of cool stuff. So I did a logo for my boss, Stan Winston, which was kind of goofy and sad, but he thought I knew everything there was about computers. Of course I didn’t, and I still don’t. But times were changing and he wanted to be able to create these things. So he gave me a lot of money and I bought a bunch of computers and software and set up a lab. And then James Cameron and Stan and another man named Scott Ross joined together and we created a company called Digital Domain. One of the early movies that came out of Digital Domain was Titanic. We were really pushing the envelope on digital stuff back then.

I also created for Cameron the first permanent motion capture stage in Hollywood, and that was my personal contribution to the field.

What sort of relationship would you say there is between a director and a VFX artist? How would you describe a successful creative collaboration?

We all have to remember that we’re trying to create the director’s vision. And some directors like Ron Howard, James Cameron and Steven Spielberg are very visual. They can describe to you right down to the minutous detail what they want, which is great, because as an effects artist that leaves a lot of the mystery out and you can focus on what you have to do. It’s a great liaison to work with directors like that. James Cameron is a very good example because he started out as an effects artist, so he spoke the language, he knew everything about visual effects and he knew what the expectations were.

Whereas directors that aren’t visual will say something that is very vague and keep rejecting the results because they don’t really know what they want. And it becomes very frustrating, not to mention vey expensive.

Would you say that there’s a tendency toward over-reliance on CGI nowadays?

I do. I see a lot of bad filmmaking where they say “let’s fix it in post”. And that little sentence, that’s like hundreds of thousands of dollars right there! My personal philosophy is to try to do as much as you possibly can in the real world and then use the CG tool for what it’s really meant to be. When you can’t do it in the real world, that’s when you go to CG.

To what extent are practical visual effects still being used?

It’s real hit and miss and it depends on the director. You can get someone like Christopher Nolan who doesn’t like CG, so before having to rely on it he will try to do everything practical first. But every type exists, of course there are a lot of directors who go straight for the digital effects.

Can you name one or more films from the past few years that you especially enjoyed?

One of my guilty pleasures is watching the Marvel movies - superheroes are always fun. And of course I like the Batman movies and some of the really out there SF movies like Ready Player One. I’m a popcorn-movie fan, if it’s fun to watch I don’t need something really intellectual, I just want to enjoy it and I also want it to be something that I don’t see everyday. I’d rather watch soap operas about spaceships blowing up than regular ones that portray what happens in real life.

Is this the reason why you chose to work on monster films and in genres that usually represent a departure from reality?

You are really able to stretch your imagination with these projects, but you do need to ground everything in reality, otherwise you loose your audience. There’s actually a fairly simple rule about it that’s called the “double mambo-jumbo rule”: you can have a movie with a lot of science fiction and tech and you can have a movie with lots of cool magic, but when you try to combine them, that’s when things start to fall apart. I think that’s one of the reasons why the remakes of the Star Wars movies, the prequels, were a bit over the top.

You are a self-taught professional, but now you teach at the New York Film Academy. As someone who has a perspective on both formal and non-formal education, what is your take on film schools?

I think that going specifically to a film school like NYFA has an advantage over going to normal universities. Let’s say you decide to take an animation class at a regular university. The other people in the university are either lawyers, businessmen, doctors and social workers and all these other things that don’t really have anything to do with filmmaking. But when you go to a film school, you go to school with directors, cinematographers, screenwriters and actors and actresses and now all of a sudden it’s more than just a school, it’s a network. It’s a great advantage to going to school with people likeminded.

Is there anything that you learned in the beginning of your career that you still apply to this day? Do you pass it on to your students as well?

I used to say: it’s who you know that gets you in the door, but it’s what you know that keeps you there. A strange phenomena is that some young people today think that knowing somebody and using that person to get a job is not fair and they think that it’s cheating - and it’s not! Use everything you can to your advantage. Because once you get there, if you don’t know how to do your job, you’re not going to last for very long.

This was totally by accident, but one of my students used it recently and it worked: when I first came to LA, there was this company called Make Up Effects Labs. I went to them and they didn’t have any work for me, but said that they might have something in a couple of weeks. In the meanwhile I could work for free in the shop, reorganising all the tools and the shelves and the supplies. I did that, and by the end of the week I was the only person who knew where everything was. And all of a sudden, I was indispensable! And one of my students just got an internship at a stop motion company and he was able to repeat that and succeeded!

It might seem like a trivial thing or it might seem beneath you to sweep a floor, but you should never be afraid to roll up your sleeves. Whatever it takes to get that movie made, you should do it.

Is there also something that you have learned from your students?

To talk slower (laughs). 64% of my students are from other countries, from over 122 countries. And for the most part, English is their second language. And if I start rattling off like a machine gun, I’ll loose them. But even more importantly, all of these countries and all of these students bring their unique stories and experiences with them. Yet everybody has the same great core values, everybody just wants to love each other and get along. Our leaders should look at our students. There’s a lot to be learned from young people today.

What are you working on right now?

I have an internal project that I’m actually using students at the NYFA to do. We joined up with NASA who are planning to send a space rover to the moon to explore these giant holes that they discovered. So what we’re doing is creating animation for them to play and help sell the idea to Congress.

If you could create any character/project from scratch and had the means to do it, what would you like to do?

I’m pretty sure it would involve dragons. In a perfect world, it would be a dragon movie directed by Ridley Scott. One of the only things that’s left on my bucket list is to even just meet him. He was so inspirational, when I saw Alien that was my decision point right there: I wanted to come to Hollywood and do stuff like that.

#venezia76 #nyfa #interviews

0 notes

funnythingshere0-blog · 6 years

Text

Take a Break from the Darkness of the World, and Smile With Our Pick of the Week

New Post has been published on https://funnythingshere.xyz/take-a-break-from-the-darkness-of-the-world-and-smile-with-our-pick-of-the-week/

Take a Break from the Darkness of the World, and Smile With Our Pick of the Week

Plus 13 More New Releases to Watch This Week on Blu-ray/DVD!

Welcome to this week in home video! Click the title to buy a Blu-ray/DVD from Amazon and help support FSR in the process!

Pick of the Week

Savannah Smiles

What is it? Two criminals cross paths with a young runaway and are mistaken for kidnappers.

Why see it? This is one of hell of a sweet movie, and it’s one that has stuck with me over the years as a story of compassion, friendship, and redemption. Young Bridgette Andersen is cute and adorable, but more than that she shows an immense heart and talent. There’s fun here alongside some minor action/suspense, but its core is a story of just how important companionship and human interaction are. Her own life story ended tragically, but the film serves Bridgette well as a reminder of a better and more innocent time.

[Blu-ray/DVD extras: New 2K transfer, documentary, featurette, interview]

The Best

Daphne & Velma

What is it? Before the dog stole all their thunder, two new friends solved mysteries on their own.

Why see it? Scooby Doo isn’t exactly the kind of cartoon you’d expect to have a backstory for its “lesser” characters, but it happened anyway with impressively entertaining results. We meet Daphne and Velma in high school and see them brought together over a mystery involving other students and a wealthy sponsor, and it’s all presented with bright colors, energy, and real wit. It’s a fun and funny movie for young and not-so-young alike that hopefully leads to a whole new franchise. Fans should also seek out director Suzi Yoonessi’s feature debut Dear Lemon Lima (2009) which is fantastic.

[Blu-ray/DVD extras: Featurettes, gag reel]

A Fantastic Woman

What is it? A trans woman struggles to grieve after the death of her lover, but society seems determined to prevent it.

Why see it? Sebastián Lelio’s drama offers a timely look at a sadly timeless issue, and Daniela Vega shines in the lead role. Her character begins the film in love, and after tragedy strikes, she’s forced to face obstacle after obstacle to confirm that love to other people’s satisfaction. There’s a simplicity to it all, but both Vega and her character are such fierce powerhouses offering strength and complexity that the tale becomes highly engaging. Brief moments of fantasy highlight the journey.

[Blu-ray/DVD extras:]

A Fistful of Dollars [KL Studio Classics]

What is it? A Yojimbo remake.

Why see it? Its origin as an Akira Kurosawa “homage” aside, the film finds its own value as a terrific western exploring morality and violence with style, atmosphere, and a memorable Ennio Morricone score. And not for nothing, but it’s also the start of “spaghetti westerns” as we know them and paired Clint Eastwood with Sergio Leone for the first time. Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” is a mysterious presence seemingly more interested in cash than loyalty, and it became a prototype for hundreds of future antiheroes. As they’ve done with a few other classic westerns recently, Kino Lorber presents the film with a beautifully restored picture and numerous extras. One interesting extra here is a prologue added to the film’s network premiere featuring Harry Dean Stanton, an Eastwood double, and a misguided attempt to explain his character’s actions.

[Blu-ray extras: New 4K restoration, commentaries including one by Tim Lucas, interview, Trailers from Hell, outtakes, featurettes, network prologue]

Game Night

What is it? A group of friends sees their calm game night take a turn when one of them is abducted… or is he?

Why see it? This is the best studio comedy in several years, and it’s not even close. The cast is terrific — Jason Bateman, Kyle Chandler, Billy Magnussen, Lamorne Morris, and a stellar Jesse Plemons — with Rachel McAdams killing it and reminding the world that she’s a comic genius, the jokes and gags are smart and numerous, and the direction is remarkably alive and vibrant. Scenes have real energy and visual style, and the script keeps up with sharp story turns and plenty of surprises. It’s just a ridiculously fun time at the movies, and the high replay value (along with the guarantee you’ll want to share it with friends) makes it a movie worth owning.

[Blu-ray/DVD extras: Featurette, gag reel]

Jurassic Park: 25th Anniversary Collection – 4K UltraHD

What is it? Scientists and capitalists think it’s a good idea to create living dinosaurs… four times!

Why see it? A fifth Jurassic Park film is set to open this summer, so a re-issue of past films is to be expected, but happily, rather than simply drop new Blu-rays Universal has upgraded all four existing films to beautiful and often stunning 4K. Steven Spielberg’s original remains the best of the bunch, but all of them display varying degrees of thrills and wonder — and those displays are often jaw-dropping in UltraHD. The discs are loaded with special features, and while none of them are new they still offer up a wealth of detailed information on the franchise’s production.

[4K UltraHD/Blu-ray extras:]

Of Unknown Origin [Scream Factory]

What is it? A Wall Street executive finds the biggest challenge of his life when a persistent rat settles into his fancy condo.

Why see it? There are other rat-focused horror movies, but none are better than George Cosmatos’ early 80s look at obsession and vermin. Peter Weller takes the lead opposite the rat, and the film follows his descent towards madness as the two enter into a battle of wills that threatens to bring the walls down around them. The film walks a fine line between tragic terror and black comedy, and unlike the similarly structured The Vagrant it balances the two pretty damn well. It’s thrilling, funny, and seemingly destined to not end well. Scream Factory’s new Blu looks fantastic, and the commentary featuring director and star is a solid listen.

[Blu-ray/DVD extras: New 2K scan, interviews, commentary]

Vazante

What is it? A young woman in the early 19th century struggles to make a life.

Why see it? The first thing you notice with this black & white beauty is the stunning confidence of Daniela Thomas’ feature debut. Gorgeous cinematography draws viewers into the past, and while pacing is in no rush the characters come to life through their humanity, hope, and misery. The bigger tale being told her is one of colonialism’s effect on culture and women, and while it’s not a film to watch when you’re in the need of some light it’s a film worth watching all the same.

[Blu-ray/DVD extras: Featurettes]

The Rest

The 15:17 to Paris

What is it? The true story of three Americans who helped prevent a terrorist assault while on vacation.

Why see it? Clint Eastwood’s “patriotic” interests have been on display for years now, but his ability to turn it into worthwhile entertainment hits a wall with this absolute turd of a drama. It’s riddled with problems, but the two biggest facing it come down to story and casting. The real event lasted mere moments meaning the dramatic intensity is severely limited. And the three American heroes? They’re playing themselves. These guys deserve praise for their actions, but they are most definitely not actors. Their performances add to the myriad of issues holding the film back from being even remotely interesting, and a flat script sees ridiculous dialogue share the screen with dull flashbacks, bland narratives, and a supporting cast slumming it for a once-great director.

[Blu-ray/DVD extras: Featurettes]

Black Venus [Arrow Academy]

What is it? The true story of an African woman used as an oddity in Victorian London.

Why see it? There’s a stark beauty to Abdellatif Kechiche’s biographical tale of Saartjie Baartman, but it’s constantly at war with the oppression and misery suffered throughout by its lead character. At 162 minutes it becomes something of a hard watch as there’s little respite from the abuse and ignorance she’s subjected to on a daily basis. She’s a curiosity to the people around her, both the elites and the dregs who see her at a freak show, and that becomes the driving force within the film itself — a curiosity as to whether or not she’ll escape this life. It’s a heartbreaking journey, so venture in at your own risk.

[Blu-ray extras: Featurette]

Death Smiles on a Murderer [Arrow Video]

What is it? A woman returns from the dead for vengeance.

Why see it? Joe D’Amato’s filmography is a varied thing, but he’s best known as the director of numerous genre efforts filled with all manner of sleaze and terror including Beyond the Darkness, Porno Holocaust, and several Emanuelle films. This early film features both bloodletting and T&A, but it gives more effort towards atmosphere and mood than his later movies. It’s a story of cruelty that comes back to haunt the cruel, quite literally, and it features a rather sedate performance by Klaus Kinski too.

[Blu-ray/DVD extras: New 2K restoration, commentary by Tim Lucas, interviews, visual essay]

Early Man

What is it? A caveman fights back against the Bronze Age.

Why see it? Nick Park’s (Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep) features as director and/or writer bring joy through an animation style less frequently used than the usual CG or even hand-drawn, but while they’re less common they’re often far more affecting because of their tangible nature. (Or maybe that’s just me.) His latest is a fun romp, and while many of the jokes will land best with European football fans (and British locals in general) more than enough appeal more broadly to those of us who just enjoy a good underdog story. Toss in some goofy visual gags and a rousing football game to determine it all and you have a solid feature for the whole family.

[Blu-ray/DVD extras: Featurettes]

I Kill Giants

What is it? A girl believes her town is due for an attack by a giant.

Why see it? Fans of the recent A Monster Calls will enjoy this drama with a tease of fantasy as its story feels very reminiscent as a pre-teen with a rich imagination struggles with bullies at school and a sick parent at home. As YA adventures go this one leans towards the dramatic, but the performances make it work even if it grows a bit heavy-handed at times. There’s power to the ending, though, and it’s ultimately an important tale for kids and young teens.

[Blu-ray/DVD extras: Featurettes]

Red Sparrow

What is it? A young Russian woman is trained to be a saucy spy (of sorts) but runs into trouble.

Why see it? Jennifer Lawrence takes center stage as the “sparrow” while Joel Edgerton plays a CIA agent who crosses her path. Performances and visuals are strong across the board, but at 140 minutes the film is something of a cruel and slow-moving slog. Action is minimal — it’s no Atomic Blonde — and an excessive amount of time is spent highlighting mean, degrading methods used to keep people in line. It wraps up nicely, but the journey is a challenge. It basically comes down to the performances and the period feel, but if you’re looking for more than that, say a fresh take or engaging story, you’re out of luck.

[Blu-ray/DVD extras: Featurettes, commentary, deleted scenes]

Wild at Heart [Shout Select]

What is it? Young lovers go on the run.

Why see it? David Lynch’s films are almost always strange, stylistic tales, and this story of forbidden love, gruesome violence, hazy sex, and a road trip is no exception. Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern headline, and while the former channels Elvis for the umpteenth time of his career Dern stands apart with an electric performance capturing youthful abandon. That said, as with most Lynch films, this one just doesn’t hold together for me. His style of excess and exaggeration leaves me cold. I’m clearly in the minority, though, so for the rest of you this new Blu-ray is a recommended pickup.

[Blu-ray extras: Interviews, deleted scenes, documentary, featurettes]

Also out this week:

Beyond the Hills [Criterion Collection], The Bloodthirsty Trilogy, Frank & Eva, Graduation [Criterion Collection], Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters [Criterion Collection], Night Zero, The Party, Swung, The Vampire and the Ballerina [Scream Factory]

0 notes

weekendwarriorblog · 6 years

Text

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND – Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Skyscraper and More

With the 4thof July behind us, there are only a few more weeks of July, then we hit August where things can slow down considerably. Every summer, there’s at least one weekend where two movies both have great potential to be #1, and this week is no exception as we have a second sequel to a hit animated movie featuring Adam Sandler and friends, while Dwayne Johnson -- arguably one of the biggest Hollywood stars right now -- offers us something we haven’t seen much this summer… an original movie!

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3: SUMMER VACATION (Sony)

I honestly couldn’t tell you if I’ve seen Hotel Transylvania 2, because I just can’t remember, but I did see the original Hotel Transylvania, probably sometime before the Toronto International Film Festival where it premiered. Honestly, I wasn’t too surprised that it was another hit for Adam Sandler before moving over to Netflix, but I didn’t realize it would be his biggest hit.

The original Hotel Transylvania opened in late September 2012 with $42.5 million, the second highest opening for Sandler after The Longest Yard, which got some help by opening on Memorial Day. Its sequel opened three years later with $48.5 million, trashing Sandler’s previous record on its way to $169.7 million, which is also a record for Sandler… and then he went over to Netflix and has been there ever since. It’s hard to believe but this will be Sandler’s first nationwide theatrical release in three years, although it’s hard to tell whether his presence of that of any of the voice cast will be that much of a draw rather than the characters and situation.

Family cruises are fairly typical things these days that will give this film a relatability that might have been missing from the previous movies, although we’re still dealing with a comedy featuring some of the greatest movie monsters of all time (or rather versions of them). Animation king Genndy Tartakovsky is back helming the third movie, this time co-writing it as well, as Sandler focuses on his Netflix stuff but still provides his voice and sense of humor as well as all his friends… and the always great Mel Brooks once again voices Dracula’s father.

Not sure what more can be said about Hotel Transylvania 3 other than the fact it’s the first in the series to get a summer release (after getting a kick-off at Cannes!), and it has a number of distinct advantages over Dwayne Johnson’s new action-thriller Skyscraper in that it will be in more theaters (over 4,000) and it has relatively little family competition, basically The Incredibles II in its fifth weekend (so that will likely lose a few hundred screens).

Another thing to consider is that family sequels don’t always do well as previous movies, although that hasn’t always been the case with animated movies (as was the case with Pixar’s sequels). That said, last year’s Despicable Me 3 had a noticeable dip from the previous movie, though.

It seems likely that this movie will have another $40 million plus opening, but we’ll have to see if it does more than $45 million or spreads its business out over the rest of summer, and Hotel Transylvania 3 should be good for $130 million or so domestically.

SKYSCRAPER (Legendary/Universal)

Next up is that Dwayne Johnson movie, an action-thriller that reunites him with Central Intelligence director Rawson Marshall Thurber, as well as with Legendary and Universal, the latter who wisely brought Johnson onto 2011’s Fast Five, which in turn helped solidify the former WWE superstar as a bankable box office star.

Central Intelligence did well enough in the summer of 2016 by teaming Johnson with Kevin Hart to the tune of $127 million domestic and $217 million worldwide that Johnson and Thurber looked for another project when Skyscrapercame along. By now, you’ve already seen the trailer which makes the movie look a lot like a modern-day pastiche of Die Hard meets The Towering Inferno with Johnson trying to rescue his family, who are trapped high up in a skyscraper. This is new territory for Thurber, who had comedy hits with 2004′s Dodgeball (a cult classic, for sure) and 2013’s We’re the Millers before directing Johnson and Hart in their 2016 hit.

Johnson had an interesting year in 2017, as The Fate of the Furious dipped from 2015’s franchise record-holder Furious 7, but still grossed $226 million domestic. Paramount’s failed Baywatch remake followed a month later, and that bombed with just $58 million domestic, but Johnson ended the year with Sony’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which reunited him with Hart. That opened meekly with $36.2 million before Christmas, but then it exploded over the holidays and in January of this year, grossing an astonishing $404 million. That’s about as good an example as any that if a movie is good and funny and delivers an experience as good or better than trailers, then it will have decent legs. In April, Johnson starred in Rampage, which looked like a summer blockbuster with giant monsters, but that barely hit $100 million after opening with around $36 million.

In fact, a $35 to 36 million opening is a pretty solid benchmark for Johnson other than Baywatch, and reviews which broke on Tuesday have generally been better than expected.

Basically, this should end up in that same $35 to 36 million range, which puts it in direct competition with last week’s Ant-Man and the Wasp for second place, and that should be a fairly tight race. Then again, with the summer heat and humidity and audiences looking for something to see, this could be a better choice than the Marvel movie and the animated one, so it could break out and surprise.

Mini-Review: Let’s face it that if you’re interested in seeing this movie, it’s because you’re a fan of Dwayne Johnson, and Johnson’s fans probably won’t be disappointed, because Skyscrapergives him another chance to basically be… Dwayne Johnson. It’s actually kind of funny that an actor with so little range could become one of the world’s biggest action stars, but maybe that’s what’s necessary, since none of the past great – Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, Van Damme, etc. – had that much range, but they were good at doing what they did, and people loved them for it.

In this case, Johnson is Will Sawyer, some sort of military hostage negotiator who is injured on duty but has an opportunity to get a job as the security advisor for the hi-tech Hong Kong high-rise The Pearl. In fact, he moves his whole family in as the Pearl is getting ready to open its residential floors, but he soon learns that the friend who got him the gig is actually part of a plan to destroy the tower and its billionaire creator Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han) by the evil mercenary Kores Botha (Roland Møller).

That’s probably the best I can do with the plot since I was pretty distracted as the film started by a group of “seat-fillers” being herded in, including the one who knocked over a large soda that was pooling by my feet as the film began. Needless to say, it’s a far more complicated plot than should be necessary in trying to explain what the bad guys are doing there and how Will’s family ends up trapped in this enormous building on fire.

Sure, there are lots of questions and problems because the general concept is so ridiculous at times, as is The Pearl itself. While Will is being given the grand tour, he is shown so much high-tech stuff that clearly is only there to act as a plot device later in the film, and that’s exactly what happens. But Johnson himself is quite good, as is Neve Campbell, who is terrific as his wife, and even the kids are decent, but they can’t make up for some of the over-the-top performances from Møller and Noah Taylor as the building’s insurance broker who is so clearly tied to the terrorists.

Put it this way, Skyscraper is better than Central Intelligence in the same way that Rampage was better than San Andreas, and this is about as much fun as Rampage despite it not being even remotely a comedy and being more in the disaster realm of San Andreas. Got all that?

There are more than enough nail-biting moments and solid action scenes that you can almost forgive the weak script and the low-budget casting to allow the majority of the budget to be used on the CG-heavy setting and Johnson himself.

Rating: 7/10

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (Annapurna Pictures)

Beyond the two wide releases, Annapurna Pictures will be expanding Boots Riley’s much-lauded directorial debut into 805 theaters* on Friday and with so many weak offerings in the bottom half of the top 10, there’s a good chance it can end up as high as 7thplace with just under $4 million. It’s all going to depend on how many theaters Sicario and Uncle Drew retain, since they’re shooting for around the same general $3.5 to 4 million territory.

Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp opened below expectations, probably not helped by it being released during the quiet weekend post 4thof July, but we’ll have to see how it holds up in its second weekend, because it has direct competition for family audiences and for older males from the new movies.

1. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (Sony Pictures Animation) - $43.6 million N/A

2. Skyscraper (Legendary/Universal) - $36.3 million N/A

3. Ant-Man and the Wasp (Marvel/Disney) - $35 million -54%

4. The Incredibles 2 (Disney-Pixar) - $17.1 milliom -40%

5. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Universal) - $13.5 million -53%

6. The First Purge (Blumhouse/Universal) - $8 million -55%

7. Sorry to Bother You (Annapurna) - $4 million*

8. Sicario: Day of the Soldado (Sony) - $3.6 million

9. Uncle Drew (Lionsgate) - $3.5 million

10. Ocean’s 8 (Warner Bros.) - $3 million -40%

*Upped this number to reflect the 800+ theaters that will be playing Boots Riley’s directorial debut

Before I get to this week’s limited releases, I want to give a shout-out to the annual FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL of Montreal, which kicks off on Thursday with the World Premiere of Mick Garris’ Nightmare Cinema, the Asian film Last Child and Daniel Roby’s Dans la Brume. One can expect a bunch of movies that have played previous festivals like Fantastic Fest and Sundance including Panos Costmatos’ Mandy, starring Nicolas Cage and Andrea Riseborough, Piercing, Summer of ’84 and Anna and the Apocalypse (none of which I’ve seen yet!), while also having a premiere screening of Blumhouse’s upcoming horror sequel Unfriended: Dark Web. I’m still dying to see Jenn Wexler’s The Ranger, the directorial debut from Larry Fessenden’s wife/producer, and I’m also interested in Yoko Yamanaka’s Amiko and Robert Krzykowski’s The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot, starring the great Sam Elliot, who will be there in person.I’m not going to be able to go to Montreal this year for the festival, which runs through early August, but I hope to catch some of the films I haven’t seen remotely via links once the World Cup ends.

LIMITED RELEASES

There are two really solid specialty releases this weekend and another one that’s pretty decent. (And unfortunately, due to time issues, I wasn’t able to finish this up but will have the rest added by sometime Friday morning.)

Comedian, actor and musician Bo Burnham’s directorial debut Eighth Grade (A24) was one of my favorite movies from Sundance, this one starring newcomer Elsie Fisher as 13-year-old Kayla, who has to get through her last week of middle school with hopes of making a mark after being selected as “Most Quiet.” It’s an amazing coming-of-age film on par with last year’s Lady Bird that shows off the great talent of Fisher and Josh Hamilton as her father. I wrote more about this fantastic film out of Sundance, but don’t let this one pass you by because you may be worn out on coming of age films.

I also can highly recommend Rob Reiner’s Shock and Awe (Vertical/DirecTV), which is getting a moderate release into a couple hundred theaters this weekend. This one is a political drama about the reporters at the small Knight Ridder news network, who questioned America’s decision to go to war in Iraq after 9/11. It stars Woody Harrelson, James Marsden, Tommy Lee Jones and Reiner himself as the journalist who tried to get the story on record and ended up being the only ones to “get it right.” Honestly, this is one of Reiner’s best films in years, pretty much his Spotlight or The Post, part of which can be credited to screenwriter Joey Hartstone, who was able to cull the life stories of journalists Joseph Galloway, Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel and John Walcott into a fantastically entertaining film. Don’t miss this one either!

Also good and worth checking out is Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far On Foot (Amazon), a biopic (of sorts) about Seattle cartoonist John Callahan, as played by Joaquin Phoenix, a man who was paralyzed after being a passenger in a drunk driving car accident (driven by a completely blotto Jack Black). The film follows John’s battle against alcoholism, helped by a new-agey guru, played by Jonah Hill, and an odd group of people offering support. The cast also includes Rooney Mara, Carrie Brownstein from Portlandia and Kim Gordon, formerly of Sonic Youth.

Another artist biopic is Gaugin: Voyage to Tahiti (Cohen Media), starring Vincent Cassel, which opened on Wednesday at the Quad and Paris Theaters in New York. I haven’t seen it but this film by Edouard Deluc is based on Gaugin’s memoir Noa Noa and it takes place around 1891 when the artist got tired of the civilized world and deserted his family to live in Tahiti where he finds hisnew muse Tehura.

Also, Keanu Reeves and Molly Ringwald star in Siberia (Saban Films), Matthew (Frank & Lola) Ross’ new thriller about a diamond merchant (Reeves) and his love being caught in a crossfire between buyers and federal agents when a deal goes wrong…. And hard to believe for Saban’s latest almost direct-to-digital movie, but reviews are atrocious.

I’m far more intrigued by Norwegian filmmaker Iram Haq’s What Will People Say (Kino Lorber), which opens in New York at the IFC Center and will open in L.A. at the Laemmle Music Hall on August 3. The semi-autobiographical film stars Maria Mozhdah as 16-year-old Nisha, living in Norway and trying to fit in while also being the perfect Pakistani daughter. When her father catches her with a boy, she’s sent to live her extended family in Pakistan, where she has to adapt.

This week’s IFC Midnight offering is Aislinn Clarke’s The Devil’s Doorway (IFC Midnight), which will also play the IFC Center on Friday and Saturday night. Set in Northern Ireland in 1960, it involves two Catholic priests who are sent to the Vatican to investigate a statue of the Virgin Mary weeping blood. There, they discover “a depraved horror show of sadistic nuns, satanism, and demonic possession” – sounds like MY kinda party.

youtube

Some of this week’s docs…

Fans of jazz and swing might want to check out Jake Meginsky’s doc Milford Graves Full Mantis (Cinema Guild), opening at the Metrograph Friday then in L.A. on July 27. It’s not the usual talking heads music doc either, but it was a little too esoteric for my tastes, even though I dug the music and performances. Probably the most interesting aspect of this doc was going to Wikipedia to learn more about Graves and reading this:

“In 2013, Milford Graves along with Drs.Carlo Tremolada and Carlo Ventura received a patent for an invention that relates to a process of preparing a non-expanded tissue derivative, that is not subjected to cell proliferation in vitro, which has a vascular-stromal fraction enriched in stem and multipotent elements, such as pericytes and/or mesenchymal stem cells, or for preparing non-embryonic stem cells obtained from a tissue sample or from such tissue derivative, wherein the tissue derivative or such cells are subjected to vibrations derived from a heart sound to control the degree of differentiation or possible differentiation of the stem and multipotent elements into several other types of cells and optimize their potency. The invention relates also to a device for carrying out the process, to stem cells obtainable by the process as well as a drug for the regeneration of an animal tissue.”

(I was lost after that first sentence.)

I was even less of a fan of Jonathan Hacker’s Path of Blood (Paladin), based on his book of the same name, that assembles some raw footage of captured jihadi home movies filmed by a group of Muslim terrorists. To me, this was a little bit too much like found footage without commentary, which is certainly a valid documentary technique but not my favorite.

Sadly, I didn’t have an opportunity to see Kimberly Reed’s Dark Money (PBS), which opens at the IFC Center on Friday with tons of QnA opportunities, but it’s very timely in dealing with corporate money being used to influence elections and elected officials. Sound familiar? It premiered at Sundance and won the “David Carr Award for Truth in Non-Fiction Filmmaking” at the Montclair Film Festival, and if you don’t know who David Carr was, then please stop reading this column immediately. Thanks.

From Bollywood comes Shaad Ali’s Soorma (Sony Pictures Releasing), an inspiring sports drama about an athlete who came back after a freak accident.

#Movies Reviews WeekendWarrior WhatToWatchThisWeekend Skyscraper HotelTransylvania3

0 notes