'The Beach Bum' A Review

The Beach Bum is a stoner comedy about burnout poet Moondog(Matthew McConaughey) bumbling between the Florida Keys and Miami while maintaining a constant level of intoxication and seemingly avoiding any real emotional interactions or any repercussions from his frequently illegal lifestyle.

In the past several years McConaughey has mostly squandered his much deserved career comeback/transformation dubbed the McConaissance with a series of regressive and mediocre roles of which Moondog is the proverbial bottom(essentially an aged grotesque version of Wooderson from Dazed and Confused). McConaughey brings his innate all-right-all-right charm to this role but it is incongruous with the affluent lecherous addict walking-incarnation of misplaced Hemingway sanctification that the character is. The fault though doesn't reside with McConaughey but with the script and direction.

Visually lush and colorful with an infectious if periodically on-the-nose soundtrack the production elements are top notch but the narrative itself is tired and utterly tone-deaf. Perhaps this story would have made an impression on teenagers in the mid-90s but in our current time this feels like some white male hetero undergrad film student obsessed with Catcher In The Rye and Bukowski's graduation project ie immature, pretentious, and ignorantly mono-cultural.

The movie attempts to portray sexuality in some pseudo-progressive bohemian manner that is actually sexist. It's shows drug and alcohol use as abhorrently positive and reinforces the acidic tortured-addict-artist archetype. Moondog is supposedly a poet, the character repeatedly says how good he is as do multiple other characters but the poetry he quotes and the one poem he recites is just 3rd rate Kerouac aping. All this as well as the implicit privilege Moondog is protected by which give all of his "adversity" virtually no stakes make for an astonishingly boring, predictable, and superficial.

Don't See It.

The Big Dark

During day
ghosts
are laughable,
under sun
gods seem
a fantasy,
in the light
monsters
a distant dream
but
come the shadow
come the night
unseen forces
crowd
unknown spaces
the mystic twine
with imagination
and magic
not so remote
a possibility.

'Prospect' A Review

Prospect is a scifi film about a father and daughter who travel to an alien planet in order to mine gems in its poisonous forest. The film opens on Damon(Jay Duplass) and his daughter Cee(Sophie Thatcher) in a ratty pod, part of an orbiting ship, as they prepare for a mining expedition to the hostile world. They encounter scruffy loquacious prospector Ezra(Pedro Pascal) and they must race against adversity and the clock in order to return to the docking ship before it leaves the solar system.

Duplass is sufficient as the drug-addled cold father but, as his credits indicate, he has more of an affinity for behind the camera rather than in front of it. He's not bad but he doesn't particularly distinguish himself even in the severely limited cast. Thatcher is decent as the lead, more a blank audience cipher than a character, but she gives it enough dimension and enough empathy that it works. She certainly seems to have the potential for a more dynamic performance but the script limits the amount of time spent on internal development. Pascal is the clear and present standout. With delicious, almost Shakespearean dialogue, and a rapscallion-with-a-code kind of DNA he clearly relishes the character and brings his significant charm and intelligence to full wattage in this delightful turn. Ezra is the reincarnation of a particular western/scifi archetype but he does it so well and so magnetically it feels fresh.

With a distinctly lo-fi gritty feel and significant western genre influence this fast-paced, bizarre, scifi drama has a lot to offer. Visually imaginative with tight plotting and world building relying more on inference than exposition Prospect is a sure-to-please for genre fans but may prove too nebulous for the mainstream. Released in only a few theaters in LA and NYC this past November the film is now available for rent.

See It.

It's OK, Kinda

In our age
of selfies
and social media
narcissism
is forgivable

to a degree.

'Shazam!" A Review

Shazam! is a superhero film about an orphan boy Billy Batson(Asher Angel) who gets placed in the latest in a long line of foster homes. After standing up to some bullies for his foster brother Freddy(Jack Dylan Grazer) Billy is then summoned by wizard Shazam(Djimon Hounsou) and given his powers which are activated by saying his name. Billy transforms into his superhero self(Zachary Levi) and initially him and Freddy experiment with the identity for social media popularity and financial gain. Dr. Thaddeus Sivana(Mark Strong), spurned by Shazam as a child for being corrupt, confronts the wizard as an adult and allows himself to be possessed by the seven deadly sins in exchange for power. The inevitable confrontation ensues.

Both Angel and Levi as Billy have an earnest wise-cracking charm that engages the heart and keeps things moving and light enough to still be fun. We are engaged in the transformation the character goes through and we still get the fun of the superhero-as-Big concept and the thrill of the action. Strong is solid as always and brings necessary commitment and gravitas, his usual, to a story that could very easily veer into the laughable. The real stars though are the foster parents and siblings of Billys defacto family. Grazer has the biggest part, as fast talking wry nerd, but Cooper Andrews and Marta Milans(the foster parents) and Faithe Herman, Grace Fulton, Ian Chen, and Jovan Armand(the foster siblings) all give Billy and his story a fullness and heart that uplift and augment an already solid piece of entertainment to something actually compelling(especially for the DCEU).

The sound track is solid, the costumes are bold and colorful, and the action is captured with a fantastic realism that is playful and fun. There is no somber, rain soaked, CGI battle that plagues many a superhero film. The action is clearly visible, the production design has a flare for the fantastic even if the cinematography is more pedestrian. It all works together to make a unique and appropriately aged superhero story. A surprise treat.

See It.

'Pet Sematary' A Review

Pet Sematary is a supernatural horror film, a remake of the 1989 film, both adaptations of the 1983 novel by Stephen King. Creed family patriarch/physician Louis(Jason Clarke) moves his family from Boston to small town Ludlow, ME to spend more time with them. As his wife Rachel(Amy Seimetz), son Gage, and daughter Ellie(Jeté Laurence) are settling in Ellie discovers a pet cemetery in their back yard and meets their grizzled neighbor Jud(John Lithgow). When the family cat Church is killed by a truck Jud takes Louis past the pet cemetery to an ancient burial ground. The next day Church reappears, alive but changed.

The small ensemble all put in decent performances with moments of real emotion amongst the thrill and terror. Clarke brings his everyman competence and charm to bear and shades it well with some palpable internal conflict. Seimetz is given less to do but makes the most of her hysterical heights. Lithgow, looking scraggly than he ever has before, gives a grounded and pathetic turn as the well-meaning but ultimately impotent neighbor. Laurence has the most difficult task and does well playing the innocence of youth as well as the deprave darkness of the corrupt.

With rich visuals, a decent if negligible score, and a limited location and narrative scope the film is a tight, bizarre, and pleasing horror flick but doesn't have the time or the finesse to capture both the horror and the human pathos that's found in the original novel.

A serviceable, entertaining, if somewhat uninspired Stephen King adaptation.

Rent It.

Keep Your House In Order

As a child
chores
were an unbearable
burden
which I executed
with the utmost
reluctance
preferring mess
and lethargy
to any shade
of effort
But now
aged and grown
cooking, cleaning,
even that dreaded specter
laundry
provide a monastic pleasure
and I realize
an ordered home
clean wardrobe
and stocked larder
provide an ease
not only within
the domestic confines
but without
the weight of worry
lessened
by responsibility fulfilled.