Review: The Social Reckoning

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Reckoning" is an intriguing and unsettling follow-up to David Fincher's 2010 masterpiece "The Social Network," which was also written by Sorkin, that examines how Mark Zuckerberg - and tech giants in general - have an outsized influence on how our country is run and how our democracy has been weakened.

To get this out of the way: No, Sorkin's film is not nearly as good as Fincher's, which was a remarkable and fascinating story about power and privilege, whereas this new film specifically focuses on moments from the past decade involving Facebook's influence on our country's backwards slide toward authoritarianism.

The picture opens with a young white woman who is on the side of the road as she awaits AAA. She has been drinking and the two cops - both persons of color - who pull over to assist her notice this immediately. She is at first dismissive of them, and they are about to let her off the hook, until she becomes strident and begins filming them after they let her know that she's been let off the hook. She quickly resorts to racism and threats, which ultimately get her arrested.

Later, we find out that this woman, once a progressive, had been radicalized online by Facebook's algorithm, which pointed her toward right-wing content and groups. This woman was an acquaintance, at least according to the film, of Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison), a Facebook true believer-turned whistleblower who helped the Wall Street Journal break stories about things that Facebook was trying to keep quiet.

Haugen is approached by Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), a reporter covering the story for the Journal who knows very little about technology. When we first meet him, he's had difficulty finding the Journal's office because he didn't know how to use the GPS. As he first meets Haugen, she seems skeptical that he'll get far with his story on Facebook due to his, quote, luddite ways.

Horwitz thinks he might have a good story in his hands, but it turns out he has a host of them - how Facebook's algorithm has helped to radicalize people by allowing political ads with lies in them, hate speech, and infiltration by right-wing groups, bots, anti-vaxxers, election deniers, and even human and drug traffickers. He also learns of how Instagram, also owned by Facebook, has helped to increase online bullying and how the organization is fazing out its civic integrity team, of which Frances is a part.

White and Madison have a solid rapport here, and the film humorously - whether intentionally or not - portrays their partnership as an illicit affair. They often meet in hotel rooms and she is dressed up as if she's going on a date because that's what she wants it to look like in case she runs into any fellow employees. Jeremy Strong gives an offbeat portrayal of Zuckerberg, who comes off as controlling and stiff and somewhat of a far cry from Jesse Eisenberg's caustic interpretation.

The picture culminates with the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and Sorkin clearly intends to show that Facebook and other social media outlets helped to enable this monumentally horrific moment in our history by allowing hate groups to utilize the platform as a means of organizing. Sprinkled throughout the film are a series of sequences in which Zuckerberg practices how he will address Congress for an upcoming hearing with some of the leaders of his company.

Fincher's 2010 film, not surprisingly, displayed the director's trademark Kubrickian sense of style and craft and was scored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Finch's brooding music. Sorkin's film feels more in line with the previous works made by the writer-director. It is, basically, an old-fashioned message movie that favors characterization and writing (the film's witty repartee is its strong suit, though a discussion about mansplaining falls a little flat). 

All in all, it is a good movie, rather than a great one like Fincher's, although its sense or urgency is a little greater in that the 2010 film examined power, class, privilege, ambition, and betrayal, while Sorkin's picture shows how the company Zuckerberg built some 20-years ago - plus others of its type - play an outsized role in our country (we are told, at one point, that 43 percent of U.S. adults get their news from Facebook), and how its helping to spread propaganda and misinformation has undermined our democracy and allowed us to get to the dangerous place where we find ourselves today. 

"The Social Reckoning" doesn't tell us a whole lot we don't already know - although there are some elements of the film that still came as a surprise - but it is an engrossing David vs. Goliath story that feels especially satisfying right now as tech billionaires attempt to create their own oligarchy power structure at all of our expenses. It's timely and well done.

Review: Verity

Image courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

For those who didn't get enough campy thrills about a stranger moving in with a mysterious couple with last year's "The Housemaid," Michael Showalter's "Verity" is likely to satiate that appetite. The film is a mostly effective thriller that only starts to fall apart when you stop to think about how significant elements of its plot make absolutely no sense and how its ending is less of an open ended mystery than somewhat of a cop out.

But problems aside, "Verity" is a mostly amusing thriller based on a novel from Colleen Hoover, who is also responsible for the soapy novels-turned-films "It Ends With Us" and "Reminders of Him." The film starts Dakota Johnson as Lowen Ashleigh, an author of mystery novels whose work has yet to bring her widespread success. One day, after witnessing a particularly grueling traffic-related accident that leaves her soaked in blood, she meets Jeremy Crawford (Josh Hartnett), the husband of wildly popular thriller novelist Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway).

Lowen is told that Verity is having difficulty finishing a series of popular - and very dark - novels due to an accident and asked if she's interested in a gig that would involve moving in with the Crawfords and helping Verity to finish the series. Notably, all of Verity's novels are told from the perspectives of their villains.

The job turns out to be much more challenging than originally presented as Verity is in a coma, of sorts, that prevents her from moving or saying anything. Most of the time, she barely registers anything or anyone. So, it is up to Lowen to fish through Verity's notes to create the final novels in the series. Jeremy acts as the accommodating host and Lowen is taken by the Crawford's shy young son (Brady Wagner).

Not long after arriving at the Crawford's secluded Vermont home, Lowen discovers what appears to be either a journal or an autobiography written by Verity that tells the story of her marriage to Jeremy and her early career highlights, and includes some disturbing material - for example, the couple's young daughter died by drowning in the lake behind their house.

Things begin to get weirder and darker during Lowen's stay and she and Jeremy become close. Meanwhile, Lowen begins to become obsessed with the idea that Verity isn't as incapacitated as she seems and even starts to believe she sees her lurking around the house.

Subtlety is not the film's strong suit - I mean, the author who is spilling her secrets in a journal is named Verity and Lowen's most recent novel is titled, ahem, "Open Ended." To enjoy the film, one must be willing to engage in large leaps of faith. I won't give away any of the film's twists, but there's a plot line surrounding Verity's possibly faking her malady that makes no sense whatsoever when one considers how much wealth and power that she must have as a bestselling author.

Much like "The Housemaid," I won't go as far as saying that "Verity" is a good movie. It's often amusing and moves along swiftly enough until its plot twists begin dropping late in the film. The cast is good and Hathaway seems to be having a great time vamping it up as the possibly (or not) sinister titular character. It's a somewhat lurid film with some pleasures to be found, if one can navigate past the occasionally gaping plot holes and just enjoy it for the campy thriller that intends to be.

Review: Digger

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Although the studio system cranks out the same retreads, reboots, and existing IP year after year - and, not surprisingly, some of it flops - there's nothing that draws more scorn than an ambitious original film from a director with vision that fails. Of course, I'm talking about "Digger," Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's mostly panned new film and likely box office bomb that plays like an anarchic satire in the vein of "Dr. Strangelove."

I'll grant the film's many critics this: The movie does not find Inarritu at the peak of his powers and, for the most part, doesn't work. It's not my least favorite work from the director (that would be his previous picture, "Bardo"), but it's a far cry from the heyday of "Birdman" and "The Revenant."

That being said, I'm glad it exists. This is a wild swing from a talented group of people that, ultimately, doesn't come together in a satisfying way, but it's intermittently engaging, includes what is likely the most interesting performance in some years by Tom Cruise, and looks great (imagine a much more expensive-looking Roy Andersson film).

It's a bit difficult to discuss the film because there's a twist about 40 minutes into it that completely transforms the way we view the material, but suffice it to say that the movie grapples with such topics as climate change, corporate greed and unchecked power, and the role of art in a world that is on the decline. In other words, there's a lot going on here and its overabundance often makes for a more frantic viewing experience, which is not necessarily a good thing.

I can only summarize what has already been seen in the trailers: Digger Rockwell (Cruise) is an oilman with close ties to the president of the United States (John Goodman), both of whom find themselves in a pickle when an Arctic rig causes a natural disaster that turns into a global crisis. Digger, who lives alone with his ailing cat, welcomes the president and his staff (which includes Michael Stuhlbarg as the vice president) to his home to sort things out.

Things get increasingly hairy as the Arctic situation leads to massive flooding in parts of Europe and Digger and company basically try to act like nothing's wrong. Sandra Huller plays Digger's sister, who operates a company that is meant to help the environment, while Riz Ahmed plays the exasperated scientist who tries to enlighten Digger and the president to the serious nature of the crisis and Jesse Plemons plays a mysterious individual who I won't discuss further.

Once the surprise occurs about 40 minutes into the picture, these early scenes - which involve a lot of men yelling at each other in a room - are interspersed with another plot line that, of course, I won't divulge. But this is where the theme of the role of art in our currently disintegrating world comes into play. The film loops back on this idea after the two plot lines have played out and led to a finale that only a bleak satire would utilize.

Inarritu is a talented director who has often made films filled with chaos - "Birdman" and "Babel," for example - but pulled them off with seeming ease. "Digger," on the other hand, just feels chaotic. It's great to see Cruise getting his first juicy role in a while, but most of the performances in the film feel dialed up to 11. Some of the jokes land, but at times the dialogue feels clunky, as if the filmmakers' portrayal of dumb American politicians and businessmen was a result of a few too many viewings of "Team America: World Police."

The subplot that I can't divulge isn't fully developed enough to make it compelling, so what much of the experience of watching "Digger" involves is people yelling at each other. There are some compelling sequences - Cruise kills it during a 10-minute speech before a European governing body - involving the characters and the picture often looks great, but it's an example of a film where I can admire the audacity more than the end result. 

So, no, "Digger" isn't as much of a misbegotten mess as you may have heard, although I can't wholeheartedly recommend it either. I'm glad that a film like this got funded, but I wish there was more to show for it.

Review: Primetime

Image courtesy of A24.

There have been several movies in recent years that examine the concept of making the news in which unscrupulous members of the media help to create a story so that they can cover it. Much like Dan Gilroy's unsettling "Nightcrawler," Lance Oppenheim's new film, "Primetime," is a story with some stylistic touches that make it feel closer to a horror movie than the media ethics drama it is on the surface.

The film follows the phenomenon of NBC anchor Chris Hansen's popular early-aughts TV program "To Catch a Predator," in which Hansen (portrayed by Robert Pattinson here in a strong performance) helped to set up scenarios in which members of his team portrayed themselves as minors online, drew the attention of sexual predators, and lured them to a house, where Hansen, his crew, and police would confront them.

Hansen is told several times by various people during the course of "Primetime" that he is doing the Lord's work, although the show's methods become increasingly queasy as the story is told through the eyes of Dan Plumb, AKA Decoy Dan (Skyler Gisondo), an aspiring young actor whose boyish looks land him the gig of playing an underage boy who entices pedophiles to the houses where Hansen is lying in wait.

The picture portrays Hansen as an ambitious man who wants to have the same type of respect that some of NBC's other anchors command - watch him wince when one tells him that he can see him reporting live from Afghanistan (mind you, the film is set in 2006) - and, therefore, wants "Predator" to be the program that puts him on the level of the greats. You can see the fire in Pattinson's eyes when an NBC executive tells him that his show is being moved to a primetime slot against juggernaut "Lost."

However, Hansen is also having an extramarital affair, and his crew and producer (Merritt Wever) are possibly looking for the exit signs, that is, until one of Hansen's crew believes that he has a big fish on his line - one online predator appears to be a man who holds some sort of office. This leads Hansen and company to Texas, where they team up with local law enforcement to try to catch the man.

For those unaware of the circumstances of "Predator," the show was eventually cancelled after a massive controversy involving the suicide of a Texas prosecutor during a sting operation and the ensuing lawsuits. 
The depiction in the film of the police work involved makes it seem shoddy and careless, giving "Predator" that making the news feel as its characters help to escalate situations for the sake of ratings.

In the film, Hansen portrays himself as a righteous crusader, but his show clearly banks on people's fascination with the lurid. There's an interesting scene in which a passenger on a plane congratulates him on the show, but then launches into violent fantasies about what he'd like to do to the show's targets. Hansen laughs it off, saying what he does to the predators is probably worse, but it's a rare moment of reflection about the desire that his audience feels for punishing others.

"Primetime" is stylish in an unsettling way, and its images often have the feel of an old VHS tape that has captured something unsavory and disturbing on it. Hansen is always lurking in the background, rehearsing lines written by pedophiles online to read back to them during the moment of reveal during the program, and it's as if he's reading lines for a play he's about to perform. In another scene, he keeps changing the intonation of his voice during a voiceover recording session, annoying his producer, for more dramatic emphasis. 

Pattinson is very good here, but Gisondo's performance is just as noteworthy. His portrayal of a young man who wants to be accepted as an actor and thinks that "Predator" is his meal ticket, only to discover that he sold his soul for a SAG card, is a punch in the gut. This is a movie that is intended to make audiences squirm in more ways than one - and it's effective in doing so.

Review: Resident Evil

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Zach Cregger's "Resident Evil" is a whole lot better than it likely has any right to be. Based on the popular video game, the film is a wild and brief horror movie about a hospital medical courier who finds himself at the center of a nightmare when tasked with delivering a mysterious package in Raccoon City, which has been overrun with monstrous creatures after some sort of outbreak.

There had been a previous series of "Resident Evil" movies that started in 2002 and starred Milla Jovovich. I haven't seen all seven of those films, but the ones I saw were pretty bad. Cregger's film is a gigantic step up in terms of quality.

The director is coming off the success of last year's "Weapons," an ambitious horror saga that was my favorite in the genre in about a decade (since 2015's "It Follows"), so while his latest picture is often a good time, it feels like a much more lightweight effort. Interestingly, as Cregger noted that "Weapons" was inspired to an extent by Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia," it makes sense then that his follow up is something shorter and simpler, considering that Anderson's follow up to his picture was "Punch Drunk Love."

In some reviews of the film, critics have noted that Cregger's film is more successful than any other in recent memory in capturing the vibe and feel of a video game in a movie format. In other words, the movie follows a first-person shooter character (Austin Abrams as Bryan) as he enters dark rooms not knowing what's in there - the film includes a few very effective jump scares, one of which actually made me shout in surprise - and looks for clues or new weapons.

This element of the picture may not resonate with me, as I never played video games much, but the film operates almost simplistically as one tense sequence after the next in which a character wanders into frightening scenarios and then is forced to react to whatever is there. It's effective, albeit slightly redundant as Abrams sees something horrifying and responds with "what the fuck" or something along those lines, over and over again.

In other words, Cregger fans hoping that he would take on something as complex, both thematically and visually, as "Weapons" might be a little disappointed to find him dabbling in franchise filmmaking and delivering something that is relatively straightforward and lacking in complexity.

"Resident Evil" would rank third among the three films by Cregger that I've seen - "Weapons" is the clear favorite, while the unsettling "Barbarian" comes in second - but it's still a good genre effort that displays its director's talents throughout. It's often funny, grotesque, frightening, and stylistically impressive. While I not-so-secretly hope that his next film will be something of greater heft, this will certainly do for now.

Review: The Weight

Image courtesy of Vertical.

Padraic McKinley's "The Weight" feels like a crime drama and adventure that was written by John Steinbeck. It's many things at once - a tale of people struggling in the 1930s during the Great Depression, a prison drama, and a wilderness adventure that feels as if it was inspired somewhat by "The Wages of Fear" and "Sorcerer," but on foot.

The picture succeeds on all fronts and features yet another great performance by Ethan Hawke, who has turned in one underrated and understated portrayal after another in recent years. In this film, he plays Samuel Murphy, who is evicted from his home early in the picture and sets out to find a new place to live with his young daughter, Penny (Avy Berry).

While looking through the window of a place that rents out apartments, after not having been able to locate the superintendent, he is mistaken for a thief and gets into an altercation with some men, who turn out to be police. He is arrested and thrown into jail. Penny is taken away and placed in a foster home. 

Some time later, Murphy is residing in a work camp operated by Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe), a task master who allows for little nonsense. Within a year, Penny will end up a ward of the state, leaving Murphy little recourse to getting her back. 

When Murphy jumps in and devises a plan to help the men in the work camp to move a gigantic stone - seemingly an impossible task - he catches the attention of Clancy, who takes a shine to him. Eventually, he tells Murphy that he has a job for him that, if carried out successfully, could allow him to get out of prison earlier, thereby giving him a chance to get Penny back.

The mission involves carrying backpacks full of gold through the Oregon wilderness to a rendezvous point. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had announced that in an effort to halt currency deflation that was dragging out the Depression, he had decided to take the United States off the gold standard, sending federal marshals to remove gold held in vaults by the Federal Reserve Bank.

Murphy and the three other convicts he chooses - plus two heavies sent by the bank and a Native American woman (Julia Jones) who follows them - are tasked with transporting the gold before the government can get its hands on it. The problem is that people living in the region know the bank is holding gold, so there's a possibility that Murphy's men could run across greedy men with guns in the woods who want to get their hands on the gold.

"The Weight" works well as a Depression-era drama about people struggling to survive - something which I'm sure modern audiences can appreciate - but also as a tense thriller about desperate men up against unbelievable odds - there's a particularly nerve-wracking scene involving the transportation of the gold across a wobbly bridge that reminded me of something out of an Indiana Jones movie.

Crowe is effective in his role as the probably untrustworthy Clancy and most of the rest of the cast provides solid supporting work - Jones as the the resourceful Anna, Avi Nash as the Indian-American socialist prisoner Singh, and Austin Amelio as Rankin, the troublemaker of the group. 

But it's Hawke who carries the film in yet another strong performance as Murphy, a quiet man who has more going on under the surface than what his fellow prisoners might notice. Often, his performance relies on facial expressions, rather than dialogue, to carry scenes. It's a great performance in a film that, in another era, would probably have been directed by John Huston, Anthony Mann, or Walter Hill. "The Weight" was one of the biggest hits at this year's Sundance Film Festival and it's easy to see why.

Review: Practical Magic 2

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

A lot of old movies and TV shows are getting recycled to cash in on nostalgia, some of which are welcome while others are, perhaps, unnecessary.

“Practical Magic 2” is a case of the latter. The original 1998 film was a modestly amusing dramedy about two sisters named Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian Owens (Nicole Kidman) who lived with their spinster aunts, Jet (Dianne Weist) and Franny (Stockard Channing), all of whom happened to be witches.

The women in the family were victims of a centuries-spanning curse that ensured anyone they fell in love with would die. The picture – and its sequel – are based on novels by Alice Hoffman and could probably play on a triple feature with “The Witches of Eastwick” and “Bell, Book and Candle.”

In this sequel, Sally has long been living in a sort of denial of her witchy powers – especially after her husband (Aidan Quinn, not present here) died – while Gillian remains a free spirit and a heavy influence on Sally’s now-grown daughters, Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams).

Kylie has been sneaking around with a young man (Xolo Mariduena) and, as it turns out, has told him that she loves him, which leads to an accident that lands him in a coma. Distraught and angry at her family that she has been left in the dark regarding the family’s curse, she travels to England to break the curse. Why England? That’s apparently where the woman who started the curse was born, although the details are a bit confusing.

Sally and Gillian, who frequently bicker, follow Kylie across the pond to protect her and, in the process, Sally meets a professor (Lee Pace) on whom she develops a crush, but keeps it at bay for obvious reasons.

On the one hand, the film has a cast of great actresses – Kidman, Weist, Bullock, and Channing, so it’s a shame to see them all forced to go through the motions of a mostly middling sequel to a movie that’s now 28 years old.

Kidman gets to shine a little as the wilder sister, but it’s a primarily by-the-numbers sequel. Mostly, the cast revisits the same character beats from the 1998 picture.

The film has its moments – there are a few legitimate laughs to be had – but “Practical Magic 2” joins “Masters of the Universe,” “Scary Movie 6,” and “Mortal Kombat II” are further proof that not all existing IP must continue to be revisited.