Swiss Army Man

SWISS ARMY MAN (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, 2016)

Alone and stranded on an island somewhere in the Pacific, Hank (Paul Dano) has lost all hope and is about to kill himself when a body washes up on the shore in SWISS ARMY MAN. The corpse is especially flatulent and thus can serve as a makeshift jet ski for Hank to ride back to the continent. The journey is just partially complete, though. Hank still has to make his way through California’s coastal wilderness to civilization, assuming he can muster the will to press on. Lucky for him, the dead body he totes with him functions as a multi-tool and, when Manny (Daniel Radcliffe) starts to talk, a companion.

Manny hasn’t retained any knowledge, so he relies on Hank for an education about the world. Manny also has no frame of reference for social cues, so he encourages Hank to stop bottling up the feelings and embarrassing bodily expulsions. Hank talks about his own past as though he left behind a life filled with loneliness and heartbreak. Based on flashbacks and the picture on his smart phone’s lock screen, a woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) plays a major factor in his sadness and his desire to go home. Manny mistakes the phone for his, and when he sees her photo and is told about love, he believes that it is his purpose to return to her.

With its decidedly quaint style and sensitive protagonist, SWISS ARMY MAN risks twee overload, but the offbeat humor and the actors help to keep the affectations from making the film into something overly precious. The scatological jokes keep Hank’s painful sincerity in check, as does Manny’s innocent bluntness. Writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert empathize with Hank and want the character to be more at ease with his weirdness, but to their credit, they don’t treat the odd aspects of him as being immune from distancing others. SWISS ARMY MAN accepts Hank for who he is and wants him to do the same, with the understanding others won’t always validate his unusual qualities. He’s special in his own way, but he can’t expect everyone to like it.

Dano does fine work in showing Hank’s vulnerability, particularly with how he lets down his guard with Manny. Belief is suspended in this absurd scenario because Dano opens up so tenderly to this talking corpse and becomes reliant on Manny as if he’s an imaginary friend who has taken physical form. In explaining to Manny how feelings and relationships work, Hank is better able to comprehend how he has failed at dealing with these things. Dano’s performance is touching when, through Manny, he can reflect how he observes and wants to be seen. Radcliffe’s acting as Manny produces a glorious mix of physical comedy and deadpan line delivery. The pure, matter-of-fact way he asks awkward questions and offers uncomfortable suggestions softens the crudity and makes such things all the funnier. Radcliffe comports himself like a ventriloquist’s dummy, which also heightens the comedy in his reactions and statements.

Although SWISS ARMY MAN is undeniably strange, it isn’t perhaps as original as it might sound from the description. Kwan and Scheinert are working in a similar domain as Michel Gondry, who, like them, also transitioned from music videos to feature films. Like Gondry’s ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND and THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, Kwan and Scheinert use unconventional means, not to mention all the handcrafted items, to look at self-doubt and romantic frustration. Even if SWISS ARMY MAN doesn’t blaze a new trail, the filmmakers have succeeded at making something distinct, funny, and curiously affecting.

Grade: B

Independence Day: Resurgence

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE (Roland Emmerich, 2016)

Movie theaters have been chockablock with ill-advised and hard-to-justify sequels in 2016, so Roland Emmerich’s bid to make a franchise out of INDEPENDENCE DAY seems like business as usual for Hollywood. Still, it’s some feat that INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE feels like a rush job even though twenty years have passed between the original and this sequel. Will Smith does not return, leaving his character’s absence to be explained with about as much elegance as Poochie being written off THE ITCHY & SCRATCHY SHOW on THE SIMPSONS. Some of the special effects impress, but a number of scenes don’t look much different than television dramas with conversations in front of chromakeyed backgrounds. The hash made from several weightless narrative threads does nothing to diminish the sense that this is a cash-in project timed to align with an anniversary ending in a zero.

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE picks up two decades after the events of humanity’s defeat of the alien invaders. Knowing that a common enemy is out there among the stars, the world has become a more peaceful and unified place. Scientists have reverse engineered alien technology to improve Earth’s defenses in the event that another attack comes. Former President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is haunted by the the previous battle and worries another is imminent. His fears are confirmed when scientist David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), among others, discovers that a distress signal is being sent by the first mothership.

When an unidentified vessel appears at the moon defense base, the snap judgment among world leaders is to destroy it. This victory is short-lived, as a ship three thousand miles in diameter follows and begins drilling into the Earth in pursuit of the molten core. Those fighting for Earth Space Defense against the aliens include Patricia Whitmore (Maika Monroe), the onetime First Daughter and pilot who assists the current Commander-in-Chief; her fiancé Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth); and her friend Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher), the stepson of Will Smith’s INDEPENDENCE DAY character.

The aliens wipe out the United States’ East Coast, London, and presumably much of Europe and Asia, yet the massive toll doesn’t register at all. The lack of impact could be attributed to scenes of spectacular destruction becoming commonplace in comic book films and the like, so the imagery of large-scale catastrophes has become overly familiar to moviegoers. Emmerich doesn’t help matters by putting no emotional investment in these sections. There isn’t really any proportional human reaction to the incomprehensible carnage that occurs. Emmerich dispenses with the faceless masses and fleetingly recalled characters from the first film as if he’s stepping on an ant colony. INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE goes even bigger than before, although perhaps not as near-extinction level as THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW or 2012, but the tragedy merits little more than a shrug of the shoulders.

Emmerich’s large-scale disaster films are knowingly outrageous and campy to a degree, and INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE is no different even as it verges on self-parody. Brent Spiner hams it up as Dr. Brakish Okun, who has been in a coma since the previous film. Judd Hirsch is back as Julius Levinson, the father of Goldblum’s character, and he brings some levity via his matter-of-fact acceptance of all the nonsense happening around him. Spiner and Hirsch’s performances demonstrate awareness that this is all big and dumb, so why not have fun with it? The rest of the film subtracts fun from the equation and substitutes it with an earnest insistence that a good time is being had. Emmerich’s salesmanship is not convincing.

Grade: D-

Hot Rod

HOT ROD (Akiva Schaffer, 2007)

In the comedy HOT ROD, Rod Kimble (Andy Samberg) aspires to be a stuntman like his deceased father, an assistant for Evel Knievel who died trying to get out of his boss’ shadow. Rod is using a moped to attempt jumps, so it may not take long for him to follow in his father’s footsteps in dying a horrible death. Rod also desperately wants to earn the respect of his stepfather Frank (Ian McShane), a tough old coot who withholds his love until Rod can beat him in a fight. When Rod is told Frank is in need of a heart transplant that insurance won’t cover, he decides to stage a 15-bus jump to raise money to save Frank’s life so he can beat him to a pulp.

Supporting Rod in his pursuit of stunt glory and charitable fundraising are his younger half-brother Kevin (Jorma Taccone), who is also team manager and videographer, and his friends Dave (Bill Hader) and Rico (Danny McBride), who builds ramps and oversees the explosives used for showmanship. Rod also invites his next-door neighbor and crush Denise (Isla Fisher) to join the crew. She has a soft spot for Rod and helps with his training regimen, but to his chagrin, she’s dating Jonathan (Will Arnett), whose loathsomeness she somehow hasn’t noticed.

Like WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER, HOT ROD successfully spoofs a film niche without requiring knowledge of what it’s sending up. In this instance the target is 1980s inspirational sports dramas about working class teenagers. As part of the meta humor about older actors playing high schoolers, like a 23-year-old Ralph Macchio in THE KARATE KID, Rod acts like a petulant adolescent but appears to be in his early twenties, although the character’s age is never clarified. The soundtrack swells to the bombastic music of Swedish hard rock band Europe, which establishes the period the film is trying to evoke even though it is seemingly set in the present day. Arnett hilariously plays every jerk boyfriend in teen movies standing in the way of the sensitive hero and the girl of his dreams.

The jokes favor the absurd over the referential. Rod’s punch-dancing scene in the forest calls back to Kevin Bacon doing something similar in FOOTLOOSE, but the weirdness of the comedy is paramount. That sequence concludes with Rod’s lengthy tumble down a hill. Director Akiva Schaffer extends the fall well past the usual point so that it becomes funnier as it seems like it may go on forever. The same strategy is at work with Samberg and Taccone’s surreal repetition of “cool beans” being transformed into a proto rap song. The exclamation points to scenes often break traditional rules of humor, and the punchy editing rhythm keeps the film moving without making it seem like a series of sketches.

HOT ROD was initially intended to be a Will Ferrell film. While the screenplay is attributed to Pam Brady from that version of the project, the uncredited rewriting by Samberg, Taccone, and Schaffer adapts the script to The Lonely Island’s sensibility. There’s no denying that much of what gets laughs in HOT ROD is dumb, but the creativity and rambunctious spirit build a lot of momentum. This very funny film is remarkably consistent because of the strange chances it takes.

Grade: A-

Central Intelligence

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE (Rawson Marshall Thurber, 2016)

Calvin “The Golden Jet” Joyner (Kevin Hart) was a star athlete, student, and all-around big man on campus at Central High School, but as his twentieth reunion approaches in CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, he feels like his best days were when he was a teenager. Calvin married his high school sweetheart Maggie (Danielle Nicolet) and is gainfully employed as an accountant, so it’s not like he’s a failure by any means; he just hasn’t done anything that would seem to fulfill being voted “most likely to succeed” by his classmates.

Calvin’s self-esteem gets a major boost when he meets up with Bob Stone (Dwayne Johnson), another class of 1996 member who thinks the world of him. During a high school assembly Calvin helped Bob, then going by his eminently mockable given name Robbie Weirdicht, preserve some dignity when he was the victim of a cruel prank. Beyond the name change, Bob has since undergone a major transformation. The once-tubby teen has traded the flab for muscle so that he looks like a beefy action figure in the flesh.

After a fun night of reminiscing Bob asks Calvin to check some accounts he’s been having trouble with. The next morning three CIA agents, led by Agent Pamela Harris (Amy Ryan), appear at Calvin’s front door looking for Bob, who they claim is a government operative gone rogue. When Bob turns up at Calvin’s workplace, he assures him that he’s really a good guy trying to stop terrorists from exchanging United States satellite codes. Calvin doesn’t want any part of this but finds himself dragged into it anyway.

When describing action comedies, charming isn’t the first word that typically comes to mind, although it suits CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE to a T. This very funny buddy movie is surprisingly sweet thanks in large part to Johnson. He looks like a superhuman warrior but portrays the character like a sensitive teenager on the inside. Bob’s reshaping of his body has not altered his tender soul. Johnson brings so much joy and enthusiasm in playing Bob like a child eager to win Calvin’s approval and show him what he can do. The humor stems from the disconnect between this hulking specimen of masculinity and his unabashed love of unicorns, SIXTEEN CANDLES, and 1990s girl groups, yet the film never judges him as being less manly because of his interests. Bob Stone is the character’s best self, and Johnson is a hoot as Bob demonstrates the confidence he’s gained since the most humiliating moment of his life.

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber doesn’t use the size difference between Johnson and Hart for comedy. Instead he relies upon the chemistry the two have playing off one another. Calvin is a reluctant participant when Bob and the CIA place him in uncomfortable situations. Hart milks Calvin’s confusion and mounting exasperation for all it’s worth, resisting in the limited ways available to him.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE doesn’t lack action sequences, but the showcase moments tend to be small and silly, like when a slap fight breaks out when Calvin and Bob role-play as husband and wife or when Calvin is forced to riff to distract an airport security guard while Bob steals a plane. This remarkably good-natured film lets its stars trade on their likability and is all the stronger for it.

Grade: B+

Faults

FAULTS (Riley Stearns, 2014)

If Dr. Ansel Roth (Leland Orser) hasn’t hit rock bottom as FAULTS begins, he doesn’t have much farther to fall. He gets booted from a hotel restaurant for trying to use an already-redeemed meal voucher he fished out of the trash. Presumably just about everything he owns fits into his compact hatchback, including the boxes of books he schleps to his speaking events in hotel meeting rooms. Ansel is an expert on mind control and cults, but the suicide of a woman he tried to deprogram cost him a television show, his wife, and virtually everything else of value.

He’s so tired of his specialty and the point it has brought him to that he initially declines an opportunity to assist a middle-aged couple (Chris Ellis and Beth Grant) who are desperate to break the grip a cult named Faults has on their 28-year-old daughter. When his agent demands repayment of a large sum of money or else, Ansel reluctantly agrees to perform the expensive deprogramming work. He is upfront with the parents that the success rate is just fifty percent. He and two hired hands abduct Claire (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) from a grocery store parking lot. They take her to a motel room where, over five days, Ansel will attempt to weaken and sever the cult’s hold on her.

As Ansel is at wit’s end, he’s not exactly in the best state of mind to be facing off against someone with a newfound sense of inner strength. Naturally Claire is concerned about being snatched in public and kept captive, but it could be argued that she is better suited to withstand the immediate strains in the situation than her counselor. For all of his personal shortcomings, FAULTS shows Ansel to be professionally skilled, if somewhat of a bumbler. Writer-director Riley Stearns makes clear the seriousness of what’s at stake but uses a darkly comedic sensibility to toy with Ansel’s dignity. The scenario seems more fraught with danger because of the doctor’s vulnerability, not the patient’s.

To breed trust, Ansel alternates periods of intense discussion with restful time for Claire to reconnect with her parents. FAULTS also takes pauses so Ansel can address the increasing pressure he’s getting to set things right with his agent. Such moments are important in the process of bringing him even lower, but they don’t function so much as necessary releases from the tension but as interruptions. FAULTS rivets when Ansel and Claire duel in their cat-and-mouse confidence game, not quite knowing which is gaining the upper hand. The other stuff matters but is established well enough that returning to it isn’t essential.

A cult leader strives to strip a person of self-assurance and prior relationships and then take the place of what has been removed. A deprogrammer is essentially doing the same in reverse by attempting to clear away the cult-inspired certainty and connections so as to reestablish healthy foundation. Orser and Winstead’s performances convey the mental forces in opposition, with Ansel trying to weaken Claire’s defenses while her resistance rubs against the spots where he is exposed. Although Ansel is trying to present a rational, empathetic appearance, Orser plays him tightly coiled. The line between his suggestibility and his patient’s is narrow. Orser wears the demeaned nature of the character that can make it funny that Ansel is the one trying to eliminate someone else’s dysfunction.

Winstead brings a serene air to Claire that shows her capable of compliance as the circumstances demand yet not willing to yield her agency to the man aiming to shatter and reform how she views the world. In light of her role in 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE, which opened two years after FAULTS debuted on the festival circuit, Winstead’s Claire stands as a fascinating variation of the woman held against her will. Both characters generate power in maintaining the impression of assenting to their antagonists’ commands, but watch out when the facade ruptures.

Grade: B-

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING (Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, 2016)

Pop sensation Conner4Real (Andy Samberg) is preparing to release his second solo album and has a documentary crew around to capture every moment in POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING. Conner’s ascent started as a member of the Style Boyz with childhood friends Owen (Jorma Taccone) and Lawrence (Akiva Schaffer), but the rap trio breaks up when Lawrence gets angry about not receiving writing credit for Conner’s guest verse on an award-winning hit. Lawrence drops out of the music industry and becomes a farmer. Meanwhile Conner enjoys even greater success as a solo performer. Owen helps make beats for Conner’s tracks and DJs during his concerts, but for the next album and tour cycle Conner has reduced his contribution to pushing play on an iPod.

Questionable singles, bad reviews, and a backfiring release strategy that automatically pushes Conner’s new material to home appliances begin to erode his popularity. Album sales are suffering and his concerts aren’t selling out, so at the suggestion of his manager Harry (Tim Meadows), he agrees to take on underground hip-hop star Hunter the Hungry (Chris Redd) as an opening act. Ticket sales get a boost, but a string of embarrassing incidents threaten to damage his career even more.

POPSTAR puts a poptimist twist on THIS IS SPINAL TAP. It takes the music and the industry seriously while goofing hard on both. As outlandish as much of the lyrics and behavior can be, the main joke is that a lot of it isn’t far removed from real songs or public artist missteps. The absurdity is certainly turned up, but the humor reflects what life looks like inside and outside the pop bubble. Samberg, Schaffer, and Taccone employ a lot of referential jokes but have the good sense not to make the funniness contingent on being able to spot what they’re satirizing. It’s an added bonus if you recognize the film’s analogues to Tyler, The Creator and a Macklemore & Ryan Lewis hit, among many other zingers, but the jokes still land for those who don’t read Pitchfork or Stereogum every day. Considering the broad nature of the jokes, the film tends to relatively subtle, such as how Conner adapts his real last name for showbiz.

As members of The Lonely Island, Samberg, Schaffer, and Taccone are pop stars in their own right, and their ties with popular artists surely helped in getting many of them to cameo in POPSTAR. Whether appearing as themselves or playing parts, like Justin Timberlake as Conner’s approval-seeking personal chef, the presence of so many celebrities may take some of the teeth out of the comedy. POPSTAR pokes fun at the music business, but it adopts more of an insider’s perspective. That quality doesn’t make the film less funny, but it does seem like the humor is somewhat soft-pedaled. One of the most savage and funniest bits is reserved for the vultures at a TMZ-like television show, which is indicative of where the film’s sympathies are.

Still, implicit criticism is found in POPSTAR and is identified through the form it takes and the recent slew of pop star documentaries it riffs on. The title calls back to JUSTIN BIEBER: NEVER SAY NEVER. The style suggests that, at face value, the film is an unvarnished look at an artist, as if Conner or any other pop act, like One Direction, are just humble folks with ordinary origins even as such statements celebrate their excess and inspire envy. POPSTAR slyly draws attention to the fact that social media postings and theatrically-released documentaries for fans as ostensible promotional campaigns are just the current way of managing perception to keep revenue flowing. There’s a reason why artists authorize something unflattering being distributed widely. The joke may seem like it’s on the pop stars, but if we believe it, isn’t it on us?

Grade: B

Me Before You

ME BEFORE YOU (Thea Sharrock, 2016)

In broad strokes the romantic drama ME BEFORE YOU is a fairy tale of a sort. A sad young man rarely leaves the grounds of the castle where he lives. His parents worry about him to the point where the mother hires an exuberant young woman from the small English town to try and lift his spirit. In time she does. Whether they will continue together happily ever after is quite a bit trickier than it is in storybooks, though.

Louisa Clark (Emilia Clarke), or Lou for short, gets knocked down when she loses her job, but she gets up again and is willing to take virtually anything that can help support the parents, sister, and nephew she lives with. Although she’s never assisted a quadriplegic before, Lou is offered a well-paying position and six-month contract to be a caregiver for Will Traynor (Sam Claflin) in the family castle. She’s to be more of a companion than a home health care worker, which in its own way can be a greater challenge as there isn’t a medication or procedure for how she can make him feel better. Before he was hit by someone on a motorcycle, Will was a big mover and shaker in the London business world and highly active in his free time. The two years since he lost almost total use of his limbs and became confined to a wheelchair have not diminished the grief the 31-year-old feels over what his life has become.

Lou’s bubbliness and Will’s prickliness put them in opposition for awhile, but she is undeterred in wanting to make him happy. Eventually her openness and warmth softens Will, and he appears to be happier than he has been in a long time. Lou’s satisfaction with the progress she’s made takes a major hit, though, when she learns that, despite his better mood, Will still intends to go through with his long-planned, doctor-assisted suicide in Switzerland. Rather than quit, Lou is determined to show him all that life has to offer and to make it worth pressing on.

With her sparkly personality and bold wardrobe, Lou epitomizes the film type whose exceedingly whimsical nature is the cure-all for a man in need of reshaping his life. She’s Tinkerbell rather than a 26-year-old woman. At times director Thea Sharrock leads Clarke’s performance past familiar and adorable into shameless mugging. The character often seems to be at battle between being child-like but mature or childish. Her loving but frustrated selflessness with oblivious workout fiend boyfriend Patrick (Matthew Lewis) brings a needed edge to Lou. Clarke fares better when she doesn’t have to be unsustainably perky. For the significant stretch of ME BEFORE YOU when the romantic angle isn’t in play, chemistry builds between Lou and Will during their many conversations. Their evolution from a working relationship to friendship and beyond isn’t rushed and makes sense.

ME BEFORE YOU ventures into iffier territory when dealing with the right to die question. The problem arises because, first and foremost, this is a romance, not an issue film. The love story works because these are beautiful people speaking from their hearts and acting with concern for each other. That also means the most unpleasant aspects of Will’s condition are largely dealt with off-screen, lest they spoil the atmosphere. ME BEFORE YOU doesn’t have to be graphic in depicting the pain and lack of dignity that Will experiences, but the character’s wish is less easily understood when, all things considered, he’s doing well given the circumstances. Because this is Lou’s story, Will’s psychological state remains hidden.

Without fail Lou puts everyone else’s happiness before her own, so per narrative conventions, it is right that in the end she benefits from the sacrifices she makes. The ending thus seems a little unintentionally gross, as though the film’s events are a means to a deserving reward of putting her on the path to self-actualization. ME BEFORE YOU is an effective tearjerker, but dabbling with a controversial topic to yield more sobs cheapens the entire enterprise.

Grade: C+

Love & Friendship

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP (Whit Stillman, 2016)

The tart comedy LOVE & FRIENDSHIP savors passive-aggressive verbal fencing under the guise of polite conversation. Writer-director Whit Stillman’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s novella LADY SUSAN arms Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) with a devastating rapier-like wit with which she makes ribbon of her counterparts. Beckinsale expertly wields the veiled put-downs and Jedi mind tricks in Lady Susan’s arsenal, using perfect inflections to sound civil while criticizing or manipulating those on the receiving end of her words. At a time when being a widow made women particularly vulnerable, Lady Susan’s facility with language and persuasion is a means to survival.

When suspicion at Langford of her affair with Lord Manwaring (Lochlann O’Mearáin) makes staying there untenable, Lady Susan makes a hasty departure to visit her in-laws’ estate Churchill. The widow’s reputation as a flirt precedes her and is cause for her sister-in-law Lady Catherine Decourcy Vernon’s (Emma Greenwell) concern, as her eligible brother Reginald Decourcy (Xavier Samuel) proves susceptible to Lady Susan’s diabolical charm. With no husband and little of her own to speak of, Lady Susan is calculating how she can ensnare a man to provide for her comfort and security.

She fears that the arrival at Churchill of her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) could potentially shift Reginald’s attention until Frederica’s intended, Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), appears there as well. Sir James is a fool and of no interest to Frederica, but as a wealthy landowner, Lady Susan has strategically identified him as an ideal match for her daughter, thus securing their welfare. Nevertheless, Frederica, having promised her mother not to trouble her aunt and uncle with her lack of affection for Sir James, confides in Reginald. Lady Susan adeptly stamps out this potential undoing of all she is putting into motion, but the complications of controlling her daughter, maintaining Reginald’s fascination, and continuing to see Lord Manwaring on the sly are increasing.

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP treats matters of the heart in purely practical terms. Beckinsale’s performance does not apologize for Lady Susan’s ruthlessness and, in fact, delights in her devious brilliance. Lady Susan comes across as an effortless conversationalist, which obscures how Beckinsale is often closely observing the cues in social settings and revealing the character’s hyper-awareness in shaping her every utterance. The morality of her guiding principle can be fairly questioned, but the film sympathizes with Lady Susan, as she is attempting to maximize the benefit in a game social structure has rigged against her. The significance of the introductory narration is impossible to comprehend in the moment, but by the end, it becomes clear that the person speaking of Lady Susan’s time at Langford understands the difficult position she inhabits.

Stillman’s remarkable screenplay requires careful parsing of what is being said implicitly. The entire film is best understood by reading between the lines. Many of the most consequential events in LOVE & FRIENDSHIP happen off-screen, yet Stillman leaves no confusion regarding such developments and the motivations behind them. Discretion is of the utmost importance for these characters, yet scenes tend to be framed as though eavesdroppers on the grounds and in the hallways could be privy to what personal information is being shared. Privacy is thus presented as something of a mutually agreed-upon illusion just as forthright opinions are shrouded in well-manned discussions.

Much of the humor derives from cutting remarks, with the hilarious exception of the buffoonish Sir James. Bennett plays the silly suitor like a computer with latency problems. Sir James hears the other side of a conversation and takes noticeably longer than normal to process it and respond. His muddled replies are usually in a stilted cadence indicative that his mental faculties are still lagging. LOVE & FRIENDSHIP exhibits no similar operational defects but rather runs smoothly on Stillman’s aptitude for dissecting the social order and knack with pointed and cultured jokes.

Grade: A

The Nice Guys

THE NICE GUYS (Shane Black, 2016)

A young woman is on the run and hiding from unknown people in 1977 Los Angeles when she pays muscle-for-hire Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) to persuade private investigator Holland March (Ryan Gosling) to stop looking for her in the film noir comedy THE NICE GUYS. Holland is tracking Amelia Kuttner (Margaret Qualley) because an old lady has apparently mistaken her for her niece, a porn actress who died days earlier in a car crash. Jackson and Holland don’t make their introduction on the best of terms, what with Jackson breaking Holland’s arm, but they team up to search for Amelia when the professional intimidator realizes that her life is in danger if they don’t find her first.

Both are broken men, although Jackson is dealing with his wife’s demeaning departure better than Holland mourning his spouse’s death. Complicating their search is the undeniable fact that Holland is a drunk, although at least the disadvantages tend to be canceled by the positive effects of his bumbling. Holland’s precocious thirteen-year-old daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) tends to disregard his orders to go to a friend’s house for the night when the guys are out investigating, so she she often finds a way to tag along. Holly proves to be helpful, but she’s an additional concern for Jackson and Holland when the setting is no place appropriate for a kid and the bullets are flying.

THE NICE GUYS screenplay by director Shane Black and co-writer Anthony Bagarozzi is peppered with plenty of good jokes, several pertaining to the use of language. For instance, Holland corrects a reference to a “porno actress” as a “porno young lady”, as if that’s a more polite way of talking about the victim, and tries to break his daughter’s habit of adding “and stuff” onto the end of statements when he should probably be more concerned about her bluntness. Black and Bagarozzi make vulgar, funny poetry out of the hard-bitten talk of detective movies and pulp novels. Crowe and Gosling function more like a comedy duo than action heroes, with Crowe playing the gruff straight man to Gosling’s klutz.

As pleasurable as it is to listen to these characters’ terse chatter, the physical comedy is aces too. Gosling gets a showcase bit when Jackson confronts Holland in a bathroom stall. With his pants around his ankles while on the toilet Holland tries to recover the lit cigarette he dropped, prop the stall door opened, handle a gun, and keep his private parts covered with a magazine. His fumbling simultaneous management of these tasks is terrific slapstick. There’s a cartoon-like quality to the physical comedy too. When Holland scrambles to retrieve a bouncing film canister, he chases after it with the single-mindedness of Skrat’s pratfall-riddled pursuit of an acorn in the ICE AGE shorts and films. All that’s missing are animated birds circling the head of an uncooperative bartender when Jackson yanks on the witness’ tie like he’s ringing church bells and cracks his forehead on the bar. Looney Tunes wouldn’t go so far to depict the THE NICE GUYS’ darkly humorous disregard for bystander victimization and situational errors, as in corpse disposal, but both share the anarchic sensibility regarding comedic violence. Black makes clever use of the frame to bring some extra kick to the jokes, whether through the use of a lighter’s flame to reveal what a character hasn’t noticed is next to him or finishing gags with action in the background.

While THE NICE GUYS is a very funny movie, the sadness and cynicism coursing through it maintain the connection with noir. A lot of terrible incidents get shrugged off as just the way things are. Despite the film’s blithe attitude about killing and corruption, Holly, impressively played by Rice as a Veronica Mars in the making, embodies innocence worth shielding from all of the ugliness. Having lost her mother and home--and her father too, implicitly--Holly acts as though she’s seen it all, yet Rice reveals the character’s pure nature when directly confronted with the awful actions of adults. Sometimes all you can do is laugh off all of the rotten things in the world, but sometimes you have an obligation to maintain the moral center. THE NICE GUYS balances jaded amusement and reluctant uprightness exceptionally well.

Grade: A-

The Angry Birds Movie

THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE (Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly, 2016)

The knee-jerk reaction is to assume bad, frivolous, or less-than-inspired source material automatically means a film adaptation is folly, yet good ideas for movies come from unexpected places all the time. Plenty of popular but critically-derided books have been turned into good films, and several literary classics have been converted to the screen with dismal results. Still, it’s easy to scoff at the notion of movies based on theme park rides, board games, newspaper comic strips, or whatever weird source comes to mind. Positive examples may be rarer, like the first PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN film and Robert Altman’s POPEYE versus THE HAUNTED MANSION, BATTLESHIP, and MARMADUKE, but the problem isn’t with where they originated but how they were realized. Which brings us to THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE, a computer-animated comedy adapted from the mobile game.

Life is happy and carefree for most of the flightless avian residents of Bird Island, but for Red (Jason Sudeikis) pretty much everything is an affront. Red nurtures a grudge about growing up as an orphan and continuing to be teased about his prominent eyebrows. With his home relocated outside the village, Red’s sense of disconnection from his chirpy neighbors increases. Red is quick to anger, and an outburst in court gets him sentenced to anger management counseling where he meets the speedy, prevaricating Chuck (Josh Gad), the literally explosive Bomb (Danny McBride), and silent, imposing Terence (Sean Penn).

The birds are unaware of anyone beyond their perch in the ocean until one day when a ship arrives with green pigs. The ship’s captain Leonard (Bill Hader) comes bearing gifts, and the birds warmly accept the pigs. Red, though, is suspicious of the visitors’ intentions. He persuades Chuck and Bomb to join him in a search for their mythical protector Mighty Eagle (Peter Dinklage) in the event that they need to drive off the pigs.

THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE isn’t bad so much as it is unfailingly ordinary. This rote execution of the modern big-studio animation formula assembles a constellation of celebrities and comedians to voice the characters, sprinkles in some mildly inappropriate jokes kids won’t get but acknowledge the adults accompanying them, and winds up with a dance scene set to a pop song. No one was expecting THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE to be revolutionary, nor need it be, but the lack of a creative spark is notable. A film as brand extension doesn’t have to be inherently risk-averse. In many respects THE LEGO MOVIE is also a feature-length commercial for toys and games, yet its inventiveness overshadows the unit sales-driving force behind its existence.

A fantasy sequence with Leonard and an egg set to The Carpenters’ “Close to You” is moderately amusing, although the tried-and-true song cue is indicative of the film’s lack of imagination with its pop culture references. (It seems like a missed opportunity that Public Image Ltd.’s “Rise”, with the repeated lyric “Anger is an energy”, is not employed in the film.) Hader brings some smarmy humor to the diabolical pig king. The funniest thing might be Penn’s casting as a surly, fearsome bird, but it’s a meta in-joke that goes virtually unrecognized except for spotting his name in the credits. In general THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE doesn’t strive to be anything more than a mindless time diversion not unlike a game played on a phone while waiting in line. Thirty years ago this might have been a feature film, but its natural form is as a half-hour show playing at 3:30 in the afternoon on a broadcast TV station.

As the audience for THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE is primarily children, there is an implicit expectation that a message, however half-hearted, must be conveyed, even in something that’s the cinematic equivalent of empty calories. Setting aside the possibility of a political reading regarding the warranted fear of outsiders, the moral of the story is curious. THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE suggests that it is right to feel aggrieved because in due time others will come around to appreciate that perspective. Something tells me that won’t be the takeaway of FINDING DORY.

Grade: C-

2016 Roger Ebert's Film Festival recap

Having started classes toward a Master of Business Administration degree, it was necessary for me to miss opening night and the first full day of the 2016 Roger Ebert’s Film Festival. This was no small sacrifice for me, as I have attended every film at Ebertfest since 2001 and really enjoy the experience of being at it as part of each year at the movies.

As it turned out, I had already seen the first four films to play at the Virginia Theatre this year. Even though I yearned to be there, at least my familiarity with what was being shown meant that I didn’t need to feel like I was missing out. It would have been fun to see CRIMSON PEAK and THE THIRD MAN on the massive Virginia screen. I was less conflicted about missing GRANDMA and NORTHFORK, neither which I liked when watching them during their original runs, although I wouldn’t have minded revisiting the latter. Ebertfest has provided the space for reassessing films--some of which I did come around on after a second viewing--and as NORTHFORK was one Ebert championed, this would have been as good of a place and time as any to do so.

Ebertfest has a vibe akin to summer camp. Returning every mid-April provides the chance to reconnect with people you met there and may not have seen since the previous fest. That happens at other film festivals, but unlike the frenzied pace maintained in racing to one of multiple simultaneous options across a few square miles of a major metropolitan area, as with the Toronto International Film Festival, Ebertfest moves comparatively slowly, with screenings occurring at a common time and location for all in attendance in Champaign, Illinois. This allows for a relatively unhurried pace, aside from the free-for-all when the doors first open and passholders scramble to acquire their preferred seats for the day’s slate. I love the largeness and urgency of TIFF, but Ebertfest’s more deliberate state of being has its benefits. Attendees may be watching twelve feature films in five days, which would qualify as cinematic gorging for most people, yet here there is more time to digest them than the typical festival grants. The downtime between films is more likely to breed conversations among attendees and build the sense of community that clings to this festival.

As a longtime visitor to Ebertfest, I’ve wondered if the festival will be able to sustain itself without its namesake. Although my observations are anecdotal, I noticed that Ebert himself tended to be the biggest attraction regardless of what directors or actors were guests. Based on casual interactions with other passholders, his curation of and seal of approval for the selected films seemed to be of the utmost importance to those who bought passes and tickets. The crowds aren’t what they were when the festival was selling out passes quickly after going on-sale, but attendance appears to have stabilized to a healthy number that can support the annual event while not requiring one to be extraordinarily quick to ensure admission.

Ebert leaves a body of work that could easily serve as a guide to program a few decades worth of festivals. Co-founder and host Chaz Ebert and festival director Nate Kohn have always been involved with picking the films, so the task now falling to them, plus any directions left to them, is not as big of a shift in process as it might seem. Still, the difficult decisions surround what to play at the festival, especially if pass and ticket purchasers are accustomed to them having the critic’s endorsement. By my count, Ebert saw four of the films in this year’s line-up, with the two silent entries being ones he possibly screened during his life. At worst that’s a quarter of the selections; at best it’s half. Is that sufficient?

Clearly there has been a conscious choice for Ebertfest not to lock itself into being a purely repertory festival. Personally, I would prefer Ebert’s voice were a bit more prominent in the films chosen for this year. Assuming that rights issues aren’t a problem, it would be great if his old, pertinent TV reviews could play after each screening. Doing so would enhance the sense of his presence even in his physical absence. (It was a nice bonus when done this year.) Nevertheless, I also think they’re right not to keep the festival limited to films he reviewed or saw during his lifetime. If anyone has a right to surmise what new films he might have liked, it’s the two people in position to do so. Bringing in new films and talents keeps Ebertfest as an evolving thing rather than a museum piece, a quality that I intuit is important for this particular festival. Ebertfest has welcomed emerging filmmakers and critics rather than limiting those guests to a narrow group from one generation. If that is part of its mission, then it stands to reason that new films must play a significant role.

The highlights in this year’s line-up were BLOW OUT screened in a magnificent 35mm print and discussed in a post-film Q&A with star Nancy Allen; L’INHUMAINE with accompaniment by Alloy Orchestra; and EVE’S BAYOU with director Kasi Lemmons in attendance. At least where I live, Brian De Palma’s films tend to be harder to come by in revival screenings than other filmmakers of his generation, so seeing BLOW OUT like this was a treat. The Alloy Orchestra is an annual highlight of Ebertfest, and this year was no different. EVE’S BAYOU epitomizes the kind of film Ebertfest does well in showcasing. Ebert was a notable supporter of it, which makes it a good pick, but more importantly, it’s a film that may have slipped off the radar of cinephiles in the nineteen years since its debut. “Overlooked” was plucked out of the festival’s name many years ago because of its amorphous definition, but I think “overlooked” remains a valuable quality in what shows here. In a film culture increasingly driven by whatever’s newest, with canon titles getting the greatest attention for old films, there’s worth in shining the light on yesterday’s well-regarded films that have slipped through the cracks somewhat.

While I would prefer not to miss any days of Ebertfest, doing that this year permitted me to appreciate the respite it can be from everything else. Coming at the end of an academic term when I’ve been overwhelmed with homework, not to mention the day job, a few days of Ebertfest reminded that the movies can be an edifying escape.

Defending Your Life

DEFENDING YOUR LIFE (Albert Brooks, 1991)

Having been struck head-on by a bus after going left of center in his new car, Daniel Miller (Albert Brooks) comes to in a place that looks a lot like the western United States but is not on Earth. In DEFENDING YOUR LIFE the Los Angeles advertising man learns that he is dead and has been brought to Judgment City for a four-day review of his life. As all of his life has been recorded, the trial-like setting will feature the prosecution and defense presenting footage of his actions in an attempt to prove to two judges what motivated his actions. If he is determined to have lived with courage, he will proceed to whatever comes next in the universe’s design. If Daniel is found to have lived in fear, he will be returned to Earth to try again.

Daniel is a neurotic sort, so naturally this process, which his defender Bob Diamond (Rip Torn) insists is not a trial, makes him anxious. He can’t fully enjoy what Judgment City has to offer, from the chance to discover one’s past lives to the ability to eat all you want without gaining weight, because he wonders how his life will be assessed. Daniel is somewhat able to take his mind off of this whole ordeal when he meets Julia (Meryl Streep), a woman of the same approximate earthly age. He finds himself quickly falling in love with her, yet he resists to a degree because of his expectation that she will be moving forward while he will be sent back to Earth.

Perhaps the cleverest and funniest conceit of DEFENDING YOUR LIFE is that Daniel has no firmer grasp on how things are supposed to work in Judgment City than any of us do in our mortal lives. He can look for meaning in his surroundings, but without understanding how the place works, it’s all conjecture. Daniel is just as insecure in this way station, worrying about how the number of days being reviewed in his case and the modesty of his accommodations might be indicative of the verdict that awaits him. For this short period he is in a spot where fear should not be a factor, yet it continues to drive his choices and outlook. To make matters worse, everyone assures him that he doesn’t need to fret about anything. As writer, director, and star, Brooks taps into the nagging feeling that everyone knows something that you don’t, especially when they appear unconcerned.

Brooks has fun with the idea of a bureaucratic layover on the spiritual plane. Waiting room coffee table books are all photographs from God’s eye view, even of Judgment City. While the deceased are taken to places that resemble where they are from, there’s something amusing in the thought that mundane urban and suburban architecture would be soothing for souls in transition. Brooks also humorously envisions that even in death one can be made to feel small. Daniel has to sit through a blooper reel of his pratfalls and mistakes. Bob pokes fun at humans like for the low percentage of their brains they utilize compared to Judgment City’s residents like him. Insecurity, it seems, is something to be overcome to progress in the eternal.

While Brooks’ character has a nervous energy about him, DEFENDING YOUR LIFE provides a warm, funny space to consider larger questions of existence. Brooks challenges the notion that courageous and fearful behavior are clear cut from one another. Rather, what can appear cowardly may be a sign of internal strength and what seems brave may just be a survival instinct. Streep bestows a peaceful air upon Julia, who lived less fearfully than Daniel, yet even she is not wholly free of hang-ups. Typically an exploration of self doubt would wrap with a skeptical or ironic tone, but Brooks finds a way to conclude DEFENDING YOUR LIFE that feels hopeful and honest without betraying the protagonist’s cautious nature.

Grade: A-

Knight of Cups

KNIGHT OF CUPS (Terrence Malick, 2015)

KNIGHT OF CUPS follows Rick (Christian Bale), a screenwriter lost in the wilderness of Hollywood and all of the temptations it has to offer. Writer-director Terrence Malick compares Rick’s experience with a story about a father who sends his son west to retrieve a pearl, except the boy forgets his mission as he is seduced by what this new land puts before him. Success has brought money and an unending flow of beautiful women to Rick, but it has separated him from his wife Nancy (Cate Blanchett) and brought tension between him and his father (Brian Dennehy) and brother (Wes Bentley). Like Rick, who is referred to in the title, every significant character is given a chapter named after their corresponding tarot card. Each segment looks at how each person affects the wandering dreamer.

Malick continues to push his style to greater abstraction in KNIGHT OF CUPS. This film may show the limits of its utility. Malick employs a thin line of narrative for hanging his meditations in voiceover about the pursuit of God and love and alienation from it amid a world that distracts from the eternal by making beauty and novelty easily accessible to stave off boredom. Characters are heard on the soundtrack before they’ve been introduced and often sound the same, so it can be difficult to parse whose thoughts we’re hearing, although Malick may be more interested in the totality of the statements than assigning any to particular voices. The technique is freeing in that it allows the viewer to float along with the experience and confounding when trying to understand specifically what Malick is saying. For better or worse, the actors are symbols, even more than in his previous film.

After THE TREE OF LIFE and TO THE WONDER, how much one is willing to submit to the ride probably depends on one’s tolerance for Malick’s mystical poetry. The film unspools like a waking illusion, with Rick hazily roaming through the dream factory rich in material things and impoverished spiritually. It helps that cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s ravishing imagery of manmade opulence holds interest even if one loses the threads of philosophy and theology that hold KNIGHT OF CUPS together. It’s a staggeringly beautiful film in which the camera swoops among the people and tilts upward as if in worship and humility.

Christian or faith-based cinema tends to be narrowly defined to the kind of pat homiletics in stuff like MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN. Certainly those very straightforward types of films are more accessible on an aesthetic level than the sound and image pastiche Malick favors, but both are searching for something higher. KNIGHT OF CUPS dwells in the sinful entertainment capital to understand how one can be led astray and might be led out. If there can be multiple denominations within the predominant western religion, why can’t there be different ways for art to contemplate the nature of the divine too?

Grade: B

Miracles from Heaven

MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN (Patricia Riggen, 2016)

In MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN the Beam family appears to have as close to a perfect life in their spacious ranch house in a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas. Christy (Jennifer Garner) and Kevin (Martin Henderson) feel blessed to have three daughters and an ever-expanding number of dogs, although mom may not be thrilled every time a new one is brought home. Kevin has opened a big veterinary clinic. Christy worries a little that they might have overextended themselves in launching the business, but she and her family are regular churchgoers with faith that God will see them through whatever may come.

Christy finds that faith tested when middle daughter Anna (Kylie Rogers) becomes sick and seems to be getting worse despite medical professionals assuring her and her husband that there’s nothing seriously wrong. When Anna is finally diagnosed correctly with an intestinal disorder, the news could not be more disheartening. The condition is incurable and does not permit Anna to eat. Christy is distraught, finding her only comfort in the hope that a Boston specialist will take Anna as a patient and be able to alleviate her considerable pain.

MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN treads lightly as a story of tested faith, but it allows Christy to have the space to turn away from the church in a manner that makes sense even for believers. The strain of her daughter’s struggle, the lack of hope, and the cruel judgment of others as to her piety and how a deficiency in it might be responsible for the situation provide sufficient reasons for Christy to turn away from religion. Because this film’s purpose is to witness, MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN is careful to avoid Christy rejecting God outright but instead has her distance herself from a higher power, like putting something in storage that she does not have use for currently. God is there if she needs it, especially when she doesn’t think He can or will intervene.

While MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN makes room for that doubt, it is saddled with the narrative and filmmaking problems endemic to faith-based films, particularly those grounded in evangelical Protestantism. Primarily this is a matter of message above all. Randy Brown’s adaptation of Christy Beam’s real-life account of what happened to her daughter has two clear purposes. It is to assure those who are born again that their faith is the one true way, and it is to welcome non-believers to the light without being too Jesus-y. The first intention shows in doctors broadly dismissing Christy’s protests that something serious is wrong with Anna because, after all, they are the experts. This gets complicated when one doctor is a comfort to Christy and Anna, but the film reminds that he’s no match for God. It also comes across in the sense of superiority over a father who doesn’t his sick daughter tainted with that God stuff. In the film’s view prayer is like a wish slot machine that you just have to keep pumping enough quarters into until you hit the jackpot.

It’s no surprise that MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN plays best when it’s taking it easy on the sermonizing and merely letting the characters inhabit the stressful circumstances. The middle portion with Christy and Anna in Boston succeeds best because focuses on a parent and a child coping with hard things. A better film would have looked closer at the financial problems this medical predicament would put them in, especially when it just pays lip service to their stretched bank account mentioned early on. Although Anna’s illness is an emotional drain on the rest of the family, the film deals with them with a token scene or two. Perhaps most distressing is how MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN seeks to glorify God in on Anna’s unexplainable healing without fully appreciating the smaller kindnesses she and Christy received throughout the trying times. The message may be to open one’s eyes to how God is reflected in the words and deeds of others, but the film prefers something showier.

Grade: C-

The Brothers Grimsby

THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY (Louis Leterrier, 2015)

Although it’s been twenty-eight years since he was separated from his little brother, Nobby (Sacha Baron Cohen) continues to hold out hope that they will be reunited. In THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY Nobby is tipped off that Sebastian (Mark Strong) will be at a London charity event, but he’s unaware that his sibling will be in attendance as an MI6 agent intent on taking out an assassin. Nobby’s bumbling greeting of his long-lost brother leads to Sebastian accidentally shooting one of the very people he was supposed to be protecting.

With the nation’s security service in hot pursuit of him, Sebastian reluctantly agrees to let his eager brother hide him at the crowded flat he lives in with his wife Dawn (Rebel Wilson) and nearly a dozen kids. Sebastian’s return to their working class English hometown of Grimsby, sister city to Chernobyl, is short-lived as professional killers follow him there. Before long he and Nobby are traveling to South Africa and elsewhere around the globe to foil an evil mastermind’s plot to terrorize the planet.

Like THE DICTATOR, THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY features Baron Cohen’s antics in a scripted scenario instead of the mix of quasi-documentary and fiction in BORAT and BRUNO. He’s credited as one of three screenwriters on THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY, and it’s the funniest thing he’s made since BORAT, although, as with his other work, your appreciation depends on how high your tolerance is for the outrageous and offensive. Like the hardscrabble buffoons that Nobby lives among, this is a comedy of exceptionally low taste. For instance, one of the most memorable scenes features the brothers hiding in an elephant’s vagina while their host is visited by a line of amorous pachyderms. The extended bit is as filthy and uproarious as one might imagine.

As base and scatological as THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY is, the vulgarity seems cheeky and cheerful in large part to Baron Cohen’s amiable doofus. Perpetually clad in an England soccer jersey and resembling the lead singer of Oasis, Nobby is a genial family man who is willing to endure all sorts of indignities for the sake of being with his brother again. This sweetness is critical in striking a balance with all of the disgusting stuff that, while nasty, doesn’t come across as mean. Some may find that a couple jokes cross the line into racial insensitivity, but for a film that takes big risks for laughs, most don’t seem to come from a cruel place.

Director Louis Leterrier, possibly best known for THE TRANSPORTER and its first sequel, brings credibility to THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY’s action scenes. During the opening credits the first-person POV chase with Sebastian tailing a suspect serves as a good example of the breakneck excitement in such sequences and a funny riff on spy movie setpieces. The action matters in THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY, but ultimately the film strives, like the James Bond and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series, to find its purpose in showing the audience something it can’t believe it’s seeing. In this case that means howling at grotesquely swollen anatomy and an unconventional method for containing the threat of weaponized rockets.

Grade: B

Shotgun Stories

SHOTGUN STORIES (Jeff Nichols, 2007)

Long-held resentments and a feud between two sets of half-brothers is triggered when their father dies in SHOTGUN STORIES. To Son (Michael Shannon), Kid (Barlow Jacobs), and Boy (Douglas Ligon) their father has been dead to them since he abandoned the family and subsequently straightened up and started a new, respectable life. Their dad also produced three boys with his second family, and his preference for them is evident by the fact that they all have proper names.

Son stirs up the bad blood between clans when he crashes the funeral to speak ill of the recently departed. His words provoke a brief confrontation between the antagonistic half-brothers but don’t lead to anything of consequence by the grave. Still, the offense gets Mark Hayes (Travis Smith) and his siblings itching for a fight. Even if they do their best to stay clear of one another in the small, central Arkansas town, a clash seems inevitable.

Writer-director Jeff Nichols excels at capturing the shorthand that families, especially brothers, often communicate in. Terse conversations among Son, Kid, and Boy reflect a common understanding that allows them to discuss emotional matters without having to spill their guts to one another. Each inherently knows what the others are thinking whether things go unsaid or are spoken around. Nichols makes good use of the actors in letting their subtle facial reactions and lack of comments clearly fill in what is going on in the characters’ heads. The affection and protectiveness that Son, Kid, and Boy feel for each other isn’t proclaimed in any grand manner, yet it comes through in their actions and clipped discussions. The spare style, especially as it ties in with masculinity, is perhaps reminiscent of Clint Eastwood.

Nichols also has a strong grasp of location and social conditions in SHOTGUN STORIES. Part of the conflict between the half-brothers comes from the economic disparity between them. The younger Hayes brothers may not be rich, but they live in nice homes and have a family farm to attend to. Meanwhile, Son and Kid scrape by with jobs at a fish farm, and Boy coaches youth basketball when it’s in season. Son has his hopes for more money pinned on learning how to count cards so he can win at the casino. Kid sleeps in a tent outside Son’s house while Boy stays in a conversion van that he parks at the dam because it’s cheaper than getting an apartment. Nichols doesn’t gawk at their poverty or fetishize it but rather depicts it as the reality that the characters know and accept, even if they’d like to be better situated.

As his first film, SHOTGUN STORIES shows Nichols’ promise and his need to develop as a dramatist. The build-up to the showdown between the half-brothers is filled with tension, but the film loses intensity when the grudges boil over into violence. While the spartan nature of the screenplay mirrors how these men remain relatively closed off in their personalities, Nichols draws them in fairly broad strokes. He benefits from Shannon playing Son, as he suggests a complex interior life for the oldest brother. Shortcomings aside, SHOTGUN STORIES tells a Shakespearean tale by way of the American South and points toward better things to come from its talented filmmaker.

Grade: B

10 Cloverfield Lane

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE (Dan Trachtenberg, 2016)

Having left her fiancé, Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is not in a good place emotionally as she drives across Louisiana in 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE. After being knocked out during a nighttime car accident, she awakens in a bad physical place. She finds herself on a mattress with her right leg chained to the wall of a locked concrete room. Michelle is visited by Howard (John Goodman), who informs her that he saved her life by pulling her out of her wrecked car and bringing her to his bunker while an unspecified attack has rendered outside uninhabitable. He isn’t clear on what specifically has happened. All he knows is that everyone Michelle knows is surely dead.

In time Howard grants her more movement around his well-stocked underground shelter. Also occupying it is Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), who helped build the bunker and rushed to it for safety when the unknown event happened. Emmett and Michelle don’t fully trust Howard, who comes off as a paranoid survivalist, but with his broken arm and her injured leg, they are limited in their abilities to physically overpower him. The limited information they have about what’s going on above ground also discourages a possible escape. For now they’re better off playing board games, doing puzzles, and enjoying whatever other entertainment options are available while biding what could be a couple years until it’s safe on the surface.

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE exists within the same universe as Matt Reeves’ 2008 thriller CLOVERFIELD, although the films stand as separate works that lack overlapping characters. Such knowledge is a tip-off to the mystery about what the trio is burrowed away from, but the greater uncertainty lies in Howard’s motivations. By preparing for a doomsday scenario that seems to have arrived, his suspicious nature is validated. Howard is weird, but the limited evidence also means that he’s correct. Goodman plays Howard as a creep emboldened because his fears have become manifest and thus allow him to exert excessive influence on what Michelle and Emmett can do and say. Goodman is terrific straddling the line of acting like those around him have the freedom to do as they please while never letting them forget that he holds their fates in his hands. Sometimes it’s what he implies, like telling Michelle that she’ll learn to enjoy cooking. In other actions the threat is explicit, such as the fact that Michelle is still locked in that barren room at times. Goodman is often scarier as Howard when he’s putting on the appearance of being nice, which poorly disguises whatever pathology drives him.

Winstead is excellent at showing how Michelle maintains the peace around a volatile personality. She locates the character’s strength by having Michelle play along with whatever placates Howard even as she schemes to find out the truth of the predicament for herself. There’s not much meat to the part, but Winstead brings solid determination to it.

Director Dan Trachtenberg maximizes the tension in close quarters, whether it’s the stifling experience of bunker life or the claustrophobia of crawling through a ventilation shaft. Even if the three people living there were on good terms, at some point it would feel like the walls are closing in on them. Every word and movement is heightened in this tight thriller because upsetting the fragility of the environment can be the difference between life and death.

Grade: B

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT (Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, 2015)

With its title conveyed in the NATO phonetic alphabet, WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT hints at the main character’s heedlessness in becoming a war correspondent and astonishment at what she finds to be normal in that environment. Kim Baker (Tina Fey) is tired of spinning her wheels writing lightweight scripts at a cable news channel, so when her employer seeks on-camera talent to cover the war in Afghanistan, she grabs the opportunity even though she’s not prepared for the inherent hardships and danger. She has a boyfriend who is often traveling but no kids, which frees her to accept the initial six-month assignment.

Beginning in 2003 Kim sets up her base in Kabul in a place akin to a ramshackle hostel for international journalists. Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie) gives her a crash course in the dynamics of the place, particularly in regard to her high desirability in a spot with few western women and many men. Scottish photojournalist Iain MacKelpie (Martin Freeman) becomes a friend who would like to get more familiar with Kim. Interpreter Fahim Ahmadzai (Christopher Abbott) tries to be protective of her even as she takes unadvised risks. Kim gets hooked on the thrill of reporting from a war zone while the public back home increasingly is losing interest.

In WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT Fey stays largely true to the persona she’s developed in films and TV shows but adapts it for a setting more serious than audiences are used to seeing her in. Once again she’s a clever, funny, fortysomething single woman with an unfulfilling personal and professional life, but in this situation there’s little time to spend fretting about her disappointments. Kim’s intelligence and sharp wit function as shields, if not weapons, in a hostile land. She is quick with withering remarks and crude rejoinders, in part because it’s what survival in the male-dominated culture demands, yet there’s a limit to how much her verbal assertiveness can protect her. Fey is good at showing how Kim mounts her defenses while remaining aware of her vulnerability. Her funny performance demonstrates that her character can drink and swear like one of the boys but still faces disadvantages because of her gender.

Kim rediscovers herself during her time in Afghanistan, but WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, based on Kim Barker’s book about her experiences, resists being EAT PRAY LOVE goes to war. The film is Kim’s story of personal growth, but it also depicts the lack of change where she’s reporting from. Robert Carlock’s screenplay observes the absurdity and sadness in war-torn Afghanistan. It’s funny that Kim doesn’t recognize the scam of a boy crying over the broken eggs he was going to sell on the street and heartrending to realize that he’s out there doing it out of necessity. There’s humor in a local mistaking an African-American soldier’s presence as meaning that the Russians are now black, yet it points out the decades-long, unresolved conflict in the region.

Directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa maintain the tricky harmony of laughing at the strangeness of a war zone without demeaning those who endure bombings, searches, and gun battles. Alfred Molina’s portrayal of an upper Afghan official who drops thinly veiled come-ons to Kim is the one out-of-tune exception to WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT’s tonal balance. Molina’s performance contains menace as he implies receiving sex for secrets, but the threatening aspect of him is overshadowed by his clownish behavior. Otherwise WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT stays clear-eyed while taking an askew view inside the bubble of war.

Grade: B

Sunshine Superman

SUNSHINE SUPERMAN (Marah Strauch, 2014)

What compels someone to try to find an alternative to skydiving because it starts feeling ordinary? The documentary SUNSHINE SUPERMAN explores the answer in telling the story of Carl Boenish, who is known as the founder of BASE jumping. Boenish worked for an aviation company but was nudged toward his calling when asked to shoot skydiving scenes for the Hollywood film THE GYPSY MOTHS. He decided to focus his work on becoming a cinematographer who documented the aerial pursuit. When skydiving was no longer scratching his itch for excitement in the late 1970s, he and some friends turned to the next challenge: jumping off a cliff in Yosemite National Park.

The Yosemite jumps and the debate about the legality of them led Boenish and company, including his wife Jean, to find other high perches from which they could leap. TV antennas bridges, and high-rise buildings, especially those under construction, became other sites from which they could jump to get their adrenaline rushes. Boenish insisted that they film their jumps so that others could share in the experiences that were so important to them, and doing so meant jumping in daylight and thus heightening the possibility of being arrested. Jumping from high places may or may not have been legal, but trespassing certainly wasn’t.

SUNSHINE SUPERMAN features plenty of archival footage from helmet-mounted cameras and those on the ground. For those of us who would prefer to remain more earthbound than risk death, the film provides an exhilarating perspective of what it is like to freefall from thousands of feet up and then float to safety with the aid of a parachute. Boenish says that he doesn’t intend to inspire others to make these jumps but hopes his actions will give those who see them the courage to do whatever they desire. Boenish’s childlike enthusiasm and seemingly limitless ability to push himself testify to the wonders one can achieve when brave enough to chase a dream that others may think impossible or foolish. In this and its tale of adventure to get up in the air, SUNSHINE SUPERMAN bears a passing resemblance to MAN ON WIRE, the documentary of the high-wire walker who performed between the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers.

The message of believing in oneself is all well and good, but SUNSHINE SUPERMAN introduces an ominous tone to Boenish’s story at the outset. The promise of potentially bad things to come fades as the rise of BASE jumping is traced through Boenish’s footage, reenactments, and interviews. The fateful sense returns in the film’s second half as Boenish and his wife prepare for a world record-setting televised jump in Norway. Director Marah Strauch presents an admiring view of her subject but isn’t so blinkered to ignore that what made Boenish who he was also cost him his life. As someone less impulsive, it’s hard to understand the fearlessness to take such risks and how his wife responds in the aftermath of Boenish’s last jump. Chalking it up to different viewpoints may not be a satisfactory answer, but it seems like a fair way of assessing Jean’s reaction.

Boenish’s own words are peppered throughout SUNSHINE SUPERMAN. It’s apparent what he gets out of jumping from high places but less clear why he does it. The film suggests that a childhood brush with polio may have driven him to appreciate what his body could do when healthy. His technical interests reveal a drive for understanding how things work and may have steered him to reach for the human mind and body’s limits. One anecdote raises the possibility of how his religious beliefs may have guided him, and another calls into question how they played into his final jump. For whatever reason Strauch includes Boenish’s beliefs as a Christian Scientist briefly, yet that would seem to be a key piece of comprehending him.

SUNSHINE SUPERMAN concludes with a spectacular jump that, in a way, fulfills Boenish’s last. Some of us, myself included, don’t have the courage to do what Boenish and other BASE jumpers do, but we can thrill at their remarkable feats.

Grade: B-

Eddie the Eagle

EDDIE THE EAGLE (Dexter Fletcher, 2016)

Since he was a boy with a brace on his leg, Eddie Edwards (Taron Egerton) has dreamed of being an Olympic athlete, but his abilities don’t appear to match his aspirations. In EDDIE THE EAGLE the determined young man hopes to earn a spot on Great Britain’s 1988 Olympic downhill skiing team but fails. The setback doesn’t stop him from pursuing his goal, though. Eddie decides to become a ski jumper because his country hasn’t produced one in more than fifty years. More importantly, he doesn’t have to be great to qualify either. Sticking the landing on a jump from the 70m platform should be sufficient.

Eddie leaves his working class English neighborhood to train in Germany. What he lacks in ski jumping experience and knowledge, he attempts to make up for in enthusiasm. The best ski jumpers often start in early childhood, so observers scoff at the 22-year-old’s efforts with the expectation he’ll break some bones, if not kill himself. Onetime elite United States ski jumper Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman) maintains the slopes and unsuccessfully tries to discourage Eddie. Bronson is now an alcoholic and a crank, but he agrees to become Eddie’s coach because of his protege’s perseverance and the British Olympic Association’s gambit to keep Eddie off the team. After Eddie meets the low bar for qualification, British officials change the rules to a competitive standard they don’t expect him to reach.

Based on a true story, EDDIE THE EAGLE takes a slightly different tack on the underdog sports movie. Typically the underestimated athlete or team in such films rallies to be in a position to win a championship, even if they fall short. Eddie isn’t competing for a gold medal, or even a bronze, but against himself and the presumptions of those who look upon his ambition with disdain. Finishing in last place is acceptable to him as long as he gets the opportunity to participate in the Olympics.

EDDIE THE EAGLE would be less inspirational without the pushback the ski jumper faced. How uplifting would the story be if getting to the Winter Olympics merely required exploiting a loophole? In a weird way the film undersells his achievement, depicting him as a pie in the sky wisher when he still had to do the hard and dangerous training. It’s not like any weekend warrior could try out a few jumps and be Eddie’s equal. The Eddie-eye view of him careening down the slope does a good job of conveying the speed, height, distance, and peril involved in the sport.

In a one hundred eighty degree turn from the cocky, underachieving lad turned spy he played in KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE, Egerton makes a sympathetic hero out of this optimistic, teetotaling nerd. With his glasses perpetually sliding down his nose, Egerton overplays Eddie’s naïveté somewhat. One could be excused for thinking Eddie is five to ten years younger than the character actually is. That simplicity is in keeping with the upbeat tone, primary colors, and ebullient synth score director Dexter Fletcher employs. There’s nothing particularly complex about EDDIE THE EAGLE, and the screenplay’s fictions, like the invention of the drunkard coach redeemed by his pupil, lean on clichés. Nevertheless, EDDIE THE EAGLE brims with the joy in pursuing a hard-won dream even if it looks like failure to bystanders.

Grade: B