Review: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

 

Director Kogonada's third feature, "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey," is the first of his films that didn't quite work for me. Its two leads - Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie - help to make the picture watchable and there are some amusing moments, but the film feels like a Charlie Kaufman movie if you stripped away some of the darker elements and deep thematic resonance and just went straight for the quirky and, in this case, the neuroses.

The film is a romantic comedy, of sorts, about two people who are commitment-phobes for various reasons. When we first meet Farrell's David, he is mourning the death of his father (Hamish Linklater) and has recently called it quits with his girlfriend. Robbie's Sarah is a version of the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl trope that appeared more in movies about a decade or so ago. She makes it clear that she intentionally sabotages relationships, especially when they seem to be going well.

The duo meet at a wedding where they flirt but resist the temptation to take it any further. David has rented a car with a GPS that seems to be sending him on some sort of spiritual journey. Sarah gets mixed up in the journey and has some moments of her own.

It all starts when they come upon a door in the middle of a forest that leads them back to previous points in their lives - a lighthouse where David spent a reflective moment in the past is one, while a visit to Sarah's mother is another. The longest sequence involves David traveling back to his high school, where he takes part in the school production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and again makes the mistake of declaring his feelings to a girl who wasn't interested.

One of the issues with the film is that other than the somewhat forced quirkiness - the scene where he picks up the car with the magical GPS strains under the weight of trying to be funny - the picture doesn't really tell us too much about the characters before it immediately throws us head-first into their neuroses. 

We have a scene where David sees his father waiting to learn about his newborn son, the one involving his high school heartbreak, and another having to do with his parents' relationship. Then, we have Sarah's visit with her mother, which draws attention to the strained relationship she has with her father. There's another scene in which both of them meet their recent exes at a coffee shop and they dish out all of their problems. At times, the film feels like an expensive therapy session.

A movie that the film attempts to be emulating is Michel Gondry's wonderful "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," in which a couple whose relationship has failed gets the chance to renew the evidence as they plan to have their minds wiped clean. That film too was offbeat and featured a setup that was beyond the realm of the likely, all the while being emotionally resonant. "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey" appears to want to be a film in that register, but it feels more one-dimensional.

I'm perhaps making the film sound worse than it is. The picture is often visually stimulating and the two leads are, not surprisingly, good despite the material. Kogonada's first two features - "Columbus" and "After Yang" - were also offbeat indie movies with a distinctive vibe, but I found them to be a bit weightier and more compelling than this one. The film has its moments, but it feels as if it's missing something.

Review: The Long Walk

Image courtesy of Lionsgate

It looks like we're in the mist of what could be one of the best years for Stephen King adaptations, first with Mike Flanagan's superb "The Life of Chuck" and, later this year, a new version of "The Running Man" by Edgar Wright. This week, Francis Lawrence's film "The Long Walk," based on a novella during King's Richard Bachman years, finally sees the light of day.

The film, which was apparently in development hell for a long time, is a solid picture in the King tradition of male bonding exercises such as "Stand By Me" and the mostly all-male "It." Much like some of King's other "Bachman" works - including "The Running Man" - this story is set in a dystopian future in which a dictatorship keeps the public at bay through bloody spectacle.

We don't get much in the way of explanation for why the country has turned out this way - although a quick glance at the evening news these days is probably good foreshadowing - but we learn that a great war has led to an extended period of joblessness and poverty among the populace. 

A cruel man known as The Major (Mark Hamill, who I didn't even realize was in the film until I saw his name in the credits) leads the titular stroll in which one young man from each state in the union is picked via a lottery to take part in a grueling walk in which there can only be one winner. Those who can go no further are given warnings and then shot.

Although there are memorable characters among the participants - wisecracking Olson (Ben Wang) or the unruly Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer) - the film mostly focuses on the friendship between Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) and McVries (David Jonsson), who along with Olson and a young southern man named Arthur (Tut Nyuot) make up the self-proclaimed "musketeers," although there are four of them.

Garraty has a secret reason for taking part in the contest - and he's the only one to volunteer - that is only gradually revealed, while optimist McVries wants to use the prize money to do something good. The yin and yang of these characters makes for a compelling partnership and it helps that both actors are so good in the roles.

While "The Long Walk" doesn't exactly go places that you won't expect, it's a solid example of how the success of a film often depends less on what it's about than it does how it goes about it. This film succeeds because of its strong performances, imaginative camerawork that prevents a scenario that could become visually boring from becoming so, and some interesting back and forth between the characters about what it means to be a friend and to put others before oneself. It's a solid little genre picture with heart.

Review: Lurker

Image courtesy of MUBI.

Those who find it challenging to watch movies about people with whom they wouldn't want to spend time might struggle through director Alex Russell's "Lurker," a psychological thriller of sorts that took a while to grow on me, but ultimately made its case. This is a movie about people who are mostly intolerable, but the story in which they are involved becomes increasingly interesting as it goes on.

It's been said that there's something about being in the room where something great is born. While the music in "Lurker" primarily comes off as the type of pop radio music that I'd flip through while channel surfing, clothing store clerk Matthew (Theodore Pellerin) is instantly drawn to pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe) when he drops into the shop to pick up some outfits. 

It's unclear whether Matthew is telling the truth when he says he's unfamiliar with Oliver's music - whereas Matthew's star-struck fellow employee Jaime (Sunny Suljic) is almost drooling - but he jumps at the opportunity when he makes some comments on music that Oliver likes and is soon thereafter invited to drop by his concert in town (the film is set in Los Angeles). 

Upon arriving backstage, where he is at first ignored and then ridiculed by Oliver and his entourage, Matthew is encouraged by Shai (Havana Rose Liu), who appears to be Oliver's manager, to find something that he can do to make himself useful. We soon learn that what she means is that to stay in Oliver's orbit, one must do something to impress him or risk being quickly forgotten.

At first, Matthew must contend with the other members of his entourage, which include Swett (Zack Fox), who goes out of his way to poke fun at Matthew, and a videographer (Daniel Zolghadri) who seems wary of having to work with Matthew.

But Matthew is a master manipulator and convinces Oliver that he can provide great insight into the videos he is making for his upcoming album as well as photo shoots and a documentary about the making of the album. When Jaime tries to insert himself into the entourage as well, Matthew becomes just as overprotective - and even more fearsome - than the previous members.

The group takes a trip to England, where things begin to go south for Matthew, who had since ingratiated himself into the group. The second half of the film turns into somewhat of a stalker movie in which Matthew, who becomes more and more sinister and Oliver becomes more vulnerable, goes to great lengths to keep his place in the pecking order.

At first, the picture only appealed to me moderately. Admittedly, I found most of the characters to be obnoxious, but it becomes obvious that this is intentional. It becomes increasingly more interesting as we get a glimpse at how Matthew, in some respects, torments Oliver, but how he also seems to provide him with valuable collaboration. He's both good and bad for him. As Oliver sings at one point in the film, "What's the difference between love and obsession? I can never tell them apart." 

Pellerin gives a solid performance as Matthew, who's both nakedly desperate not to fall out of favor with the rich and famous person onto whom he has latched himself like a leech. He's also a bit of a cypher, which makes the film at times more mysterious and unsettling. All in all, "Lurker" doesn't say much that's new, but it does so in a compelling way. 

Review: The Conjuring: Last Rites

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

I've never quite understood the logic of demons in horror movies like "The Conjuring: Last Rites." They seem to spend a lot of time lurking in the shadows and popping up for a quick scare before disappearing again, leaving their victims time to come up with a plan on how to get rid of them. The endless taunting doesn't seem very productive.

There's a lot of that in this - allegedly - final chapter of "The Conjuring" chronicles, which follows the exploits - a word that could, depending on who you ask, be taken literally - of Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga), parapsychologists who take on cases that have to do with the supernatural.

This fourth chapter of the series involves a 1986 case that, we are told, devastated the family and was therefore the couple's last case, although the film's ending on a happy note doesn't seem to denote that. Regardless, this particular haunting is one that comes with a fair amount of creepy sequences and, yes, jump scares.

The film's first scene is set in the early 1960s when Lorraine has trouble in the delivery room and it appears as if she's being tormented by a demon as she gives birth to her daughter, who nearly dies in the process. Cut to the 1980s when Judy (Mia Tomlinson), the Warrens' supernaturally inclined daughter, gets engaged to Tony (Ben Hardy), a former cop who is supportive of his fiancee, but still has difficulties getting on Ed's good side.

Meanwhile, a family of eight in a working class Pennsylvania town is being terrorized by a demon that bears some similarity to the one that tormented Lorraine during childbirth. The haunting appears to be caused by the presence of a sinister-looking mirror that appears in the early 1960s scenes and the 1986 ones.

The Warrens are contacted by a friend regarding the case, but when that friend meets a gruesome end, they reluctantly get involved. Ed's heart problems had been the primary cause of their hesitation to get back in the game, while Lorraine secretly worries that her daughter has more troubles than she is letting on.

The film ups the ante on the jump scares - you know, people looking around a room in the dark at a specific spot several times, and then on the third or fourth time something suddenly makes an appearance. I've always considered this a cheap scare tactic in movies, but it can be effective when applied correctly. There are a few sequences - especially one involving a closet and a phone on a cord and another that is centered around the rewinding of a videotape - here that are rather spooky.

"The Conjuring: Last Rites" is better than the third entry in the series, but not as effective as the original two pictures. All in all, it's not bad - but it works much better during the scenes laden with atmosphere that exude creepy menace than the others involving histrionics or shouting prayers at sinister figures, something that multiple "Conjurings" and god knows how many "Exorcists" have made redundant. In essence, this isn't the best entry in this series but it has its moments and its finale provides a nice sendoff to these characters, assuming that a large box office draw doesn't result in a fifth entry.

Review: Caught Stealing

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Darren Aronofsky's "Caught Stealing" may be a minor entry into the director's oeuvre, but it's an enjoyably slick and fast paced thriller boasting a memorable cast of supporting characters. The picture reminded me a little of Walter Hill's 1979 cult classic "The Warriors" in that both films feature a character or characters - in the former a gang, in the latter a bartender caught up in a wild game of circumstance - trying to stay alive while a motley crew of criminals pursues them/him. Hill's film was set over the course of a single night, while Aronofsky's takes place over a few days.

Fans of "The Warriors" might recall the baseball-attired gang members. In this case, they'll have to settle for bartender Hank's love of the San Francisco Giants and gradually revealed backstory involving his near-miss at becoming a professional baseball player. 

The film is set in 1998 - and the soundtrack at Hank's bar is populated with Meredith Brooks, Semisonic, and Smash Mouth - in New York City. Hank has a promising relationship with a young woman named Yvonne (Zoe Kravitz) and a close relationship with his mother over long-distance telephone calls that typically end with "I love you, go Giants." At the film's end, there's a surprising cameo for this character.

Hank's somewhat sketchy neighbor, Russ (Matt Smith), who dresses like a member of the punk scene from the era in which "The Warriors" was set, asks him to watch over his cat while he attends his father's funeral in England. 

A twist of fate finds a series of dangerous characters coming to look for Russ - and when they don't find him, they inflict violence on poor Hank. These include a Puerto Rican gangster (Bad Bunny), some Russian thugs, and a pair of psychotic Hasidic Jews (Liev Schreiber and an unrecognizable Vincent D'Onofrio).

Hank enlists the help of a cop (Regina King) to assist in the situation and I won't say more to prevent from giving away any spoilers. From there, Hank is essentially on the run as he tries to outwit the various criminals who are pursuing him. There are a number of solid action sequences - including a car chase and a foot chase through a building that ends in a fist fight.

That being said, this is a minor Aronofsky film. The director's best films are dark and brooding psychological dramas that border on horror - such as "Black Swan," "Requiem for a Dream," and "Mother!" Some of his other films are interesting and well-made swings that don't always connect - "The Fountain" and "Noah" - but are still worth a look. His latest, while good, is the director's most straightforward and simplistic. It's nothing more and nothing less than an enjoyable and fast paced crime thriller. Those seeking a piece of solid escapism would probably consider the picture a few hours well spent.

Review: Honey Don't

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

It has been seven years since Joel and Ethan Coen worked on a film together ("The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"), opting instead to do solo projects. In 2021, Joel contributed "The Tragedy of Macbeth" (very good) and, last year, Ethan released "Drive Away Dolls," a movie that was decent but still ranked among the lower echelons of Coen films.

I'm sorry to report that Ethan's latest, "Honey Don't!", is a step down from that picture, which is not to say that it's bad - even lesser Coen films still have noteworthy elements - but it certainly is at the bottom of the totem pole. The film is a swift - another way of saying that it just suddenly ends with little warning - and breezy film noir that is part of an apparently planned lesbian road trip trilogy ("Drive Away Dolls" was the first and this the second entry).

Much like his previous film, "Honey Don't!" stars Margaret Qualley, in this case as a private detective who doesn't suffer fools gladly. The rest of the film's cast includes Charlie Day, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, and Billy Eichner, but Qualley is the only one who really manages to rise above the material. The others fare with less success.

The film opens with a crashed car that Honey O'Donohue (Qualley) believes might be murder. The female victim of the crash was once a client and had made an ominous phone call shortly before her demise. Day plays a cop investigating the scene who continually sexually harasses Honey, despite her repeated insistence that she likes girls.

Evans plays a shady pastor named Rev. Drew at a new agey church who seems to spend more time sleeping with his parishioners than anything else. One of Honey's clients is a man who believes his lover is seeing someone else - and it turns out that the lover is killed during a drug deal gone bad that ties back to Rev. Drew, who is also involved in some nefarious business with the French. I'm not sure that the details of the schemes going on in the film are meant to be fully comprehended.

Meanwhile, Honey is involved with Plaza's cop, MG Falcone, and the film makes sure to include one or two steamy sex scenes, much like "Drive Away Dolls." Bodies begin to pile up as Honey investigates the car crash - some in humorous ways, others in more gruesome ones. 

The film clearly aims at capturing the oddball comedic noir style for which the Coens are known - and Qualley delivers some one liners with zest - but the film is too short and convoluted to completely work. There are some effective noir touches and solid cinematography, but "Honey Don't!" is ultimately slight and there's a third act twist that comes out of nowhere before the film ends abruptly. 

The Coen Brothers are among the best American filmmakers of the past few decades. Together, they are a duo of filmmaking genius. Since they've gone solo, Joel has proven that he's the one responsible for the Coens' dark gravitas, while Ethan seems more the one to provide the comedic relief. So far, his two outings have been passable, but nowhere near as good as the overall Coen output. "Honey Don't!" has its moments, but it's a very minor entry into the Coen canon. 

Review: Highest 2 Lowest

Image courtesy of Apple Films.

Spike Lee's winning streak continues with "Highest 2 Lowest," an engrossing remake of Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low" that marks the director's fifth collaboration with Denzel Washington. Strangely enough, a recent film to which I might draw some slight comparisons is "Weapons" in that the film switches tones successfully and ends up becoming a lot more than from where it originally set out.

At the film's beginning, Washington plays David King, a record executive whose visage has graced the front of every major magazine and who, in the early 2000s, was known to have the "best ears in the business" due to his ability to find talent. When we first meet him, he's still a big player in the industry, but his best days are, perhaps, behind him and he's in the middle of selling his company, Stackin' Records, to a corporate entity that he fears will dismantle all that he's built.

Adding to his troubles is the sudden kidnapping of his basketball star son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph), by a menacing individual who threatens to kill the young man during phone calls for ransom money. The police are brought in and, at first, they spend a lot of time harassing Paul Christopher (Jeffrey Wright), David's right-hand man and chauffeur, because of his past criminal associations and time served.

But, much like Kurosawa's film, there's a twist - and I wouldn't read any further if you don't want to hear more: The kidnappers accidentally took the wrong person. Trey is returned, while Paul Christopher's son, Kyle (Elijah Wright), is the one being held. David must then grapple with whether he should pay the $17.5 million to the kidnappers to save Kyle, knowing full well that he needs the money to buy out his company to prevent its sale as well as to not breach a contract that could lead to legal troubles for him.

The first half of the film contains a fair amount of long shots, distancing us somewhat from the characters. The filmmaking is sleek as the camera glides around David's expensive New York penthouse, and there is more than a little melodrama - David and his wife, Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera) being upset about their son seemingly being kidnapped, the drama between Paul Christopher and the cops, and the fraught moments between David, his family, and his chauffeur about whether to spring for Kyle's release.

But the film switches into a different gear about halfway through the picture as David and the cops set up a money drop with the kidnappers. Perhaps Martin Scorsese is the only other director who can show as much love visually to New York City as Spike Lee, and there's an incredible series of moments as David goes on foot through the city's Puerto Rican Day festival - where Rosie Perez, Anthony Ramos, and various Puerto Rican musicians portray themselves as a massive crowd full of people dance in the streets - carrying the bag of money and boards a train for the drop.

The film becomes more of a thriller after another great twist later in the film having to do with David's reputation as having the "best ears in the business." This leads him to the recording studio of an aspiring rapper, Yung Felon (A$AP Rocky), who might have something to do with the kidnapping. There's a great tete a tete between Yung Felon and David in a recording studio that might come across as a rap battle, though it's not as simplistic as it sounds.

Lee has been on a roll in recent years. His "BlacKKKlansman" was my favorite film of 2018, while "Da 5 Bloods" was in my top five two years later. His David Byrne concert film, "American Utopia," was energetic and his latest is also solid. The film marks his third remake - following an "Oldboy" reimagining and "Da Sweet Blood of Jesus," which was a riff on the 1970s blaxploitation picture "Ganja & Hess" - and it's easily his best of the bunch.

Washington and Lee's collaborations rank up there with some of the best modern filmmaking duos - Scorsese and Robert De Niro and Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater. "Highest 2 Lowest" marks the best role for Washington in a Lee film since the 1992 masterpiece "Malcolm X." This is a solid film that features terrific cinematography, is a wonderful attempt at capturing New York City's vibe, is a well-made thriller, and is an interesting take on the value of art - in this picture, particularly Black art.

There's a compelling sequence late in the film in which A$AP Rocky's rapper and Washington's producer get into a debate about good money vs. bad money as well as fads vs. art that lasts. A$AP's character notes how he has become popular due to his notoriety and that we are currently living in an attention economy, meaning he who gets the most attention gets the most money. This certainly also applies to our politics. Lee does a masterful job of slipping a profound debate on the value of art into a film that's essentially a thriller and a remake. I'm glad to see him on such a roll as of late and look forward to whatever he does next.