'Train Dreams' A Review

Train Dreams is a period drama based on the 2011 novella. An understated birth-to-death portrait of Idaho logger Robert(Joel Edgerton) from the turn of the century onward.

Edgerton is a bit lost, a bit listless in the role. It requires more stillness and abstraction than he's really able to provide, you can see him acting even when he's clearly struggling to do less. Edgerton is a fine actor but he's not a movie star and the kind of odd impressionistic tone requires that. He's not bad he's just not altogether successful. Nor is the film for that matter. Felicity Jones as Gladys Robert's wife is more in-line with the tone but she's in the movie only briefly. The supporting cast is full of talent, Kerry Condon, William H. Macy, Will Patton as the narrator, but there's just not a tone of substance overall to the story so they don't particularly matter.

Visually the film is beautiful, like a series of paintings, but whatever modern equipment was used there's an odd kind-of digital jittering anytime there's movement. It's a bizarre and ineffective choice given the period setting. The crystalline images are incongruous with the actors costuming(which is effective). The score is moody and transportive. For what it is, it's good not great, the real issue is that it's a mood piece but it's constrained by conventional editing, linear plotting, and ultimately seems to have no real message or if it does it's something as pedestrian and indisputable as "you only get one life" or "life sure is wild huh?"

Where the film really suffers is by comparison, which may be unfair, and yet the influence of Tree Of Life and Terrence Malick generally is kind of impossible not to see as far as style and by that metric Train Dreams is unambitious and thin. Nine Days investigates life and death in a much more emotional and inspiring way. The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford utilizes voice over and the period setting with more depth and intention. First Cow uses the truncated aspect ratio more effectively and the image coloring in service of the period setting. I could go on. This is all to say it feels reductive.

Pretty, mildly diverting, but unoriginal. A pastiche of better films in search of vision.

Currently streaming on Netflix.

Stream It.

The First Snowfall

I'll never tire of it
its sparking beauty

its inevitability

the shoveling and salting

the bundling and slogging

it necessitates

the focus and labor

it demands

bringing all of us

into the present

Glorious

'Sisu: Road To Revenge' A Review

Sisu: Road To Revenge is a period action movie, a sequel to 2022's Sisu. After WWII Finland has ceded parts of it's country to the Soviet Union as part of the peace treaty. Aatami(Jorma Tommila) our hero, sets off to retrieve his house, log by log, and bring it back into Finland. Igor(Stephen Lang) is tasked with making sure he never gets back across the boarder. Bodies pile up.

Tommila brings his same enigmatic charm but this time, in a moment or two, he's extremely emotional. It really works and it's an interesting balance. Lang, as always, is a mustache twirling delight. The guy is one of the best heavy's working and at 73 it's nice to see him still at it. The rest of the cast are mostly just cannon fodder. There was little dialogue and plot in the original and there is even less here, with a streamlined story and cast that focuses on the action.

As to the action it's great, thrilling, gory, frequently funny. That's where the focus seems to have gone in the sequel, on the action set pieces, and it shows. Tommila is just as proficient and unstoppable and it's a lot of fun. The choreography, the stunt work, the intricacy of it all work together to give it that tactile feel that many modern films lack. The only fault is that it's a sequel, it can't, by definition, come out of left field and be the lovely surprise that the original was so may be destined to fall short of it's predecessor.

An old school action thriller that delivers.

Currently in theaters.

See It.

'The Running Man' A Review

The Running Man is a dystopian action movie, an adaptation of the Stephen King novel. In the near future the US is under corporate authoritarian rule and the majority of the population live on poverty pacified by reality TV. Ben Richards(Glenn Powell) enrolls in the most dangerous program, the titular Running Man, in order to afford medicine for his ailing baby.

Powell was good in his breakout Everybody Wants Some!! he was good as the fourth on the call sheet in Top Gun: Maverick but he's not a leading man(at least not yet). His performance here is all posturing, all performative, all indicating and falseness. He is uncompelling and unbelievable. And as the movie is in some ways episodic as he continues his run there is no other characters for him to really build rapport with and neither his character nor any other develops in anyway. The supporting cast is mostly good but there are problems with the script, there's a tension in what the movie wants to be- the comedy, the commentary, or the action. The result is kind of a mess with Powell who is trying too hard to project some pre-loaded expectation rather than just acting.

Although extensively CGI'd visually the world created is cool looking and intricate. The soundtrack catchy, the action well choregraphed and shot. But it's just got no juice, no spark, no thrill. Because Powell isn't compelling the stakes of the whole thing feel meaningless and the machinations of the commentary are watered down and muddled to the point it loses any bite(during a time when it couldn't be more relevant!). For example, a scene where Michael Cera's character monologues about class revolution he ends it with a swigging a Monster energy drink, cringe. It all feels like something more appropriately dumped to streaming rather than a blockbuster.

Overlong, weak lead, convoluted plotting, enough good action to put on during chores.

Currently in theaters.

Stream It.

Middle Age Thoughts

I've come to the point
where death

is not likely

but possible

stroke, heart attack,

freak occurrence

the idea more

prevalent

with half my life

behind

not suicidal ideation

or mortality obsession

but standard

middle age reality

but the thought

from time to time

engenders

this desire

to provide assurance

If I go early

know

I gave it everything I got

the kind of

unnecessary proclamation

I feel compelled

more often to make

'The Mastermind' A Review

The Mastermind is a period drama about a listless Boston suburbanite father in 1970 J.B.(Josh O'Connor) who plots to steal paintings from a local museum as he's disinterested in working, his wife, and his kids.

O'Connor may be a decent actor with potential but he is not a leading man(at least not here), he absolutely crumbles under the weight of carrying this film. The character is on screen pretty much the entire run time and has very little dialogue, O'Connor basically does nothing, projects passivity and blankness aside from a moment or two where he tilts his head and gives a half grin, the only specific gesture he uses and one he does repeatedly. You get no interiority from him, no sense of depth, no understanding of what's going on with this character or why we should care about him. It's honestly baffling. He is, from minute one, profoundly boring. Since his meteoric rise in Challengers he's joined the underserving ranks of Austin Butler, Jacob Elordi, Glenn Powell, Timothée Chalamet, Paul Mescal etc. as Hollywood continues to try to force a new leading man on us(as opposed to letting talent and the box office speak for itself). The supporting cast(other than Alana Haim who, similarly seems to be cast because of industry hype rather than ability) is all great but they are all barely in the movie. It's extremely telling that, pretty much, the only compelling scene in the movie is when J.B. goes to lay low with his friends played by Gaby Hoffmann and John Magaro and the movie, finally, comes alive and it's because of Hoffman and Magaro.

Visually the film has writer/director Kelly Reichardt's patented understated meticulousness, the production design transportive, and the free-wheeling, chaotic, jazz score soars. Reichardt's craft has never been better but the story really begs the question why make this and why should an audience care.

A portrait of an uninteresting man being selfish and self-diluted.

Currently in theaters.

Don't See It.

'Freakier Friday' A Review

 Freakier Friday is a body-swap comedy, a sequel to 2003's Freaky Friday based on the novel. 22 years after the events of the first movie Anna(Lindsay Lohan) is a music producer and single mother with the help of her psychologist mother Tess(Jamie Lee Curtis). Anna strikes up a romance with Eric(Manny Jacinto) but their daughters Harper(Julia Butters) and Lily(Sophia Hammons) are vehemently opposed to the match, thus initiates the body-swap between Anna, Tess, Harper, and Lily.

Lohan and Curtis are clearly delighted to be back and go even bigger and have even more fun than the original. Butters and Hammons are good but are featured less and without the history there part of the narrative isn't quite as engaging. The supporting cast is stacked with talent, not only Jacinto but Vanessa Bayer, X Mayo, Chloe Fineman as well as a lot of returning cast from the original. All in all it's just fun, funny, and has heart and the entire cast is locked in tonally.

Visually somewhat reserved but with a lot of physical comedy and sight gags to give it a thrum of energy. The soundtrack is catchy and the costume design is delicious. It's an object lesson in how to do one of these legacy sequels, probably the most successful of it's type to-date, the biggest key is letting it actually be a sequel i.e. Lohan and Curtis are the undisputed stars but there's enough freshness, enough new elements, but at the same time still feels of-a-piece.

Playful, effective, family fun.

Currently streaming on Disney+.

Rent It.

The Gravity of Autumn

The leaves cascade down

to blanket sidewalks

streets and cars

frost creeps

The chill descends

storm windows sealed

dusty coats

come out of stasis

Quiet falls

it is a slow time

a planning time

a time of endings 

'Materialists' A Review

Materialists is a rom-dram, the sophomore feature from Celine Song after her breakout debut Past Lives, about NYC matchmaker Lucy(Dakota Johnson) and the tension between her actual feelings towards working class John(Chris Evans) and the magnetism of wealth from Harry(Pedro Pascal). What's a girl to do?

Johnson struggles to create a believable human, part of that is she's never displayed a particularly wide range but also, as written, Lucy and more broadly the whole narrative, has little basis in reality or interest. Johnson delivers all of her lines like she's reciting a memorized monologue but to her credit, that's how a lot of the dialogue comes across, like a socio-economics paper, not subtext, all text, all this kind of shotgun-blast punishing(and dated) argument about the intertwining of marriage and capital. Evans and Pascal are both decent, both charming, but they also struggle because their characters aren't particularly believable or compelling and said characters inhabit an absurd narrative. Give them an actual honest-to-goodness romcom and that's something that'd put butts in seats. The supporting cast is small and mostly forgettable. More broadly, why would a general movie goer care about the romantic travails of terrible, racist, shallow people complaining about making a quarter of a million dollars a year.

Visually Song continues to impress, the film looks incredible, every shot like a piece of art, the colors and textures rich and evocative. The score is consistently good but inconsistent with the tone, is this a rom-com, a rom-dram, a straight up drama, or an erotic thriller? The movie is confused and so the score, at times, doesn't really make any sense.

The big issue is the script. The themes and ideas are muddled and ultimately kind of repugnant. The movie feints at playing with rom-com tropes, postures at satirizing modern dating and marriage, but ultimately the message is this dated, regressive, quite frankly disgusting embrace of this purely capitalist kind of Girl Boss/Lean In perspective i.e. you can have it all as long as you make enough money. Which is, one, simply not true(Scrooge anyone?) and two especially offensive given what's happening in the US this year/right now, the economics they are discussing are not within reach of 95% of the population.

Blatant(seemingly unknowing) propaganda for the patriarchal capitalist machine.

Currently streaming on HBO Max.

Don't See It.

'Predator: Badlands' A Review

Predator: Badlands is a scifi action movie, a standalone in the Predator franchise and the ninth in the series. Dek(Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), a Yautja(Predator) runt, strives to prove himself to his clan by going to Genna, the 'death planet', and hunting the unkillable Kalisk. After crashing he teams up with Thia(Elle Fanning) a damaged synthetic and the two strike up an unlikely partnership.

Schuster-Koloamatangi gives a great performance, expressive and alien, conveying an understandable but distinctly different species. He has a lot of room to play, which he does, mostly utilizing physicality and brings the Predator, here-to-for mostly unknowable, into a fully flushed out character. Fanning is a great foil, fast-talking and funny and the two have great chemistry. The supporting cast is pretty limited but equally effective. There is a Grogu-esk sidekick that kind of rides the line of fun and cute occasionally dipping over to on-the-nose but still mostly just fun.

Visually the film is rich, imaginative, and exciting. The landscape, the flora and fauna, the creature design. It's all very specific and very evocative. Director Dan Trachtenberg continues his resurgent efforts for the franchise, expanding the world in interesting way and telling diverting standalone stories. The score is thrumming and contagious, the costuming, the props, all are clearly meticulously thought out and serve the transportive worldbuilding. It marks somewhat of a tonal shift for the franchise, this is definitely a PG-13 action flick, reminiscent of the kind of thing you'd have seen in the late 90's with humor, heart, and exciting fights and that's one of the things that make it feel so fresh and exciting. 

A thrilling, immersive adventure. A throwback style popcorn flick Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to make- fun.

Currently in theaters.

Don't Miss It.

A Lament For The Present Time

It needn't be this hard.

'Black Phone 2' A Review

Black Phone 2 is a horror movie, a sequel to 2021's The Black Phone. Four years after the events of the first film Finney(Mason Thames) is traumatized and violent, fighting kids at school and smoking weed at night to numb out. His sister Gwen(Madeleine McGraw) has also struggled with being an outcast while her promotions and psychic insights have gotten stronger. In a vision she sees her mother as a teen at a camp in the mountains. As a result Finney, Gwen, and their friend Ernesto(Miguel Mora) go to investigate.

Both Thames and McGraw, great in the first film, are even better here and are asked(and excel at) playing even more complicated emotions incorporating the damage and the fallout of the first film into their characters behavior and development in the second. The supporting cast is all great- Mora, Demián Bichir, Jeremy Davies, Arianna Rivas, and of course Ethan Hawke who reprises his role as the Grabber but this time as a malevolent ghost rather than a flesh-and-blood serial killer and the adjustment he makes in the performance, making it more expressionistic, having more fun, is really a treat.

Visually the film is rich and goes even further than the original with extended sequences taking place in an alternate dream reality with a Super 8 style graininess. The soundtrack is incredibly effective, the sound mix really potent, just all the way around great, inspired, risky(in a good way) production design. The only fault is that there's a scene or two at the camp which is clearly green-screened but even then the performances are so good, the tension so expertly ratcheted it doesn't really matter.

A solid piece of emotionally complex horror that thrills as well as inspires. An object lesson in what small and mid-budget flicks can do when there's a solid story and a clear vision.

Currently in theaters.

See It.