Category: Josh Brolin

WAKE UP DEAD MAN

By Marc S. Sanders

Benoit Blanc is back with a new mystery to solve in Wake Up Dead Man.  With three films, all directed by Rian Johnson (Knives Out, Glass Onion), Daniel Craig’s eccentric detective now belongs in the ranks of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.  He’s a pleasure to watch with a smirk on your face.  Ironically, he doesn’t make his entrance until at least a third of the picture is complete.

Josh O’Connor is Father Jud Duplenticy who first reveals a wide berth of exposition ahead of the murder mystery that awaits us.  He’s a catholic priest who works hard to contain his temper that might resort to raising his fists.  He’s been assigned as the assistant minister to a church in a small New England town where everyone knows one another, especially repulsive Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin).

Whodunit mysteries should never be spoiled.  I certainly wouldn’t imply how this film wraps up.  I also do not want to reveal who the victim(s) is/are.  I urge you to see Wake Up The Dead Man because this puzzler of a story is as gleeful as the title itself.

Like the Agatha Christie film adaptations from the 1970s, Rian Johnson does his best to provide a lineup of suspects with celebrity familiarity including Brolin, O’Connor, Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington, Thomas Hayden Church, Cailee Spaeny, Jeremy Renner and a standout performance from Glenn Close who steals much of the film away from the rest of the cast.  After seven nominations spanning over forty years, give her the Oscar already.  She’s eerie and needling, spooky and fun.  As Detective Blanc continues his investigation, a character tells him this all seems like something straight out of Scooby Doo.  Glenn Close, donned in black with an elderly bleached facade certainly feels like she’d come in contact with the animated pup and those meddling kids.

Rian Johnson writes with that classic narrative that Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle adopted, only it’s modernized.  The director of The Last Jedi even throws in a Star Wars reference and the joke soars.  The writer/director crafted this script as an invitation for hair raising merriment with his design.  If you can’t be a part of a mystery dinner theater party, he ensures that you can participate in this one.

An old church, priests who curse, habitually pleasure themselves and confess to an abundance of sins, a gothic tomb, a dark basement with a repulsive bathtub, a bar with a photograph of clues, startling entrances, unconventional dialogue and a quizzical murder weapon function like page turning literature.  Even better is to understand how impossible the first murder can be under the limitations of a locked door mystery.  How can someone be killed right in front of our eyes when no one else is in room?  The answers await and thankfully the revelations are not far-fetched.

Wake Up Dead Man is a fun time at the movies.  It’s coming to Netflix on December 12, 2025.  Nevertheless, I encourage you to go your local cinema.  The crowd we saw it with was responding consistently with us, and that only enhances the experience.

THE RUNNING MAN (2025)

By Marc S. Sanders

Everything you see in the remake of The Running Man belongs.  So why doesn’t any of it work?  I think director Edgar Wright needs to have his feet held to the fire.  He made this movie with his eyes closed and his ears muffed.

Like the Stephen King (or under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman) story and the original 1987 picture with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a violent game show called “The Running Man” occupies the airwaves in a dystopian future.  Modifications from the first film are done to separate this picture from that one.  In the last film, contestants were violent criminals on the run to win freedom from incarceration.  Here, anybody can try out to win the cash prize of a billion dollars.  I’m not sure which is more faithful to King’s novella.  

Ben Richards (a name which always gets me thinking of The Fantastic Four; Ben Grimm, Reed Richards) is played by Glen Powell with a handsome athletic build but not the muscular physique of Schwarzenegger.  Powell looks more like an Everyman who auditions for one of this future’s various twisted game shows, hoping to win cash prizes that will rescue his wife and sick baby girl from poverty.  He never intended to get thrust into the ultra-violent “Running Man” though.  The object is to outlast and survive for thirty days while sadistic headhunters attempt to find him and deliver a gruesome televised slaughter.  The producer, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), foresees a ratings bonanza with Richards as his most wanted runner.

Glen Powell needs to enhance his career with his sudden popularity.  Between this film, Twisters and Top Gun: Maverick he is playing pick-up sticks on resurrected franchises, and he ends up being completely unmemorable and uninviting.  Other than a square chin, there’s nothing special about this guy and I never once felt empathy for his role here.  He does not convey fear or anger or humor like a Bruce Willis, a Tom Cruise or even an Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He’s boring.  Edgar Wright’s script with Michael Bacall does not help the actor either as The Running Man is neither quirky or offbeat like a dystopian action picture or a standard Edgar Wright piece (Scott Pilgrim Vs The World) should promise.

The most exciting ingredient is Coleman Domingo, one of my favorite actors working today.  He is so magnetic in anything he does that I can practically guarantee whatever pizzazz he brings as the larger-than-life game show host, Bobby T (Yes!  That’s his name!), carries no impact.  This script gives him nothing to do other than wear a purple sports jacket while belting out “WELCOME TO THE RUNNING MAN!!!”  If he was simply given all of Richard Dawson’s dialogue from the first film, Domingo could have elevated this drippy picture into something engaging and fun.

Lee Pace (The Lord Of The Rings) is fully masked until the third act and has little dialogue as he’s the hero’s main hunter.  Why waste such a charismatic actor?  He’s dressed in black with a black mask.  What’s fun about that? Josh Brolin sits behind a desk as the puppet master producer.  He plays his part like Josh Brolin on a press tour stop on The Today Show.  He’s really not acting at all.

It’s an eye-opening surprise to see Sean Hayes (Will & Grace) make an early appearance as another game show host for a different show.  This should offer magnificent promise.  Brilliant casting for an over-the-top comic performer.  I was waiting for Hayes and Domingo to get into a sparring match of egos for attention in this television world.  You know what happens, though? Sean Hayes is never seen again following his appearance ten minutes after the film begins.  Another overlooked waste of talent.

William H Macy is a good character actor for this kind of film.  Too bad he’s also given little to do other than to tell the hero to go see the guy played by Michael Cera.  Why not cut out the middle man and let Ben Richards just deal with Macy’s character? The Running Man is far from the leaner film it could have been.

Some of the action scenes in this violent tale work, and some don’t.  When Ben Richards catches up with Cera’s character, a run/hide shoot out in a two-story house plays like a video game with bannisters that come apart and rapid machine gun fire.  It’s edited quite well.  Later though, there’s a battle that occurs in the cockpit of a jumbo jet.  Gravity is disabled while gunfire and fisticuffs are at play and everything shakes and bounces so much that it’s hard to tell who gets the gun and who is shooting who.  This looks like the filmmakers were pressed against a deadline and just didn’t clean up or tighten the scene into something coherent.  I just stopped trying to focus on the film and waited for the scene to end with another escape by the dashing Ben Richards.

This screenplay feels like it was made up on the fly.  Glen Campbell is awarded several scenes to speechify melodramatic gargle.  Is there a noble cause that we are to learn about from The Running Man? Just as the third act is about to start, he hitches a ride with a young girl who we have never seen before.  Nor has she been referenced anywhere thus far.  Yet, she’s got something to say with some kind of cause on her mind as well.  This nameless sidekick takes over the movie for the next twenty minutes and then parachutes into open sky never to be seen again.  What was the point of this detour? Moreover, what the hell was she ever talking about?

This Running Man had all the ingredients to work with a stellar collection of fine actors who were up for the task of wit and satire amid ridiculous violence and totalitarianism.  With Edgar Wright at the helm, the new Running Man could have been a harkening back to Paul Verhoven’s ultra-violent tales of gonzo media silliness found in his movies like Robocop, Starship Troopers and Total Recall.

Sadly, Glen Powell is uninteresting, and the more amazing talents of the supporting cast were handed lackluster and witless material.  

The Running Man marches at a speed of sluggishness.  Better to turn off the TV and read Carrie or Misery.

WEAPONS

By Marc S. Sanders

The longevity of horror movies and the insatiable appetite that audiences hunger for hinges on curiosity.  Horror is other worldly or beyond commonplace.  It’s unrealized. Stories likely begin with the concept of a particularly unique, unheard of scenario.  

For example, one night in a small suburban neighborhood, what could explain why an entire classroom of elementary school students, taught by Ms. Gandy, leave their homes at exactly 2:17 in the morning, vanish into the darkness and never return? Could Ms. Gandy be behind this mystery?  Also, why is Alex the only student in the class to show up for school the next day?

Reader, the trailer for Weapons had me hooked.  The imagery showing the silhouettes of innocent children running into the darkness with their arms outstretched was eye opening.  A young girl narrates the brief camp fire ghost story in the preview. It also opens the film with additional details.  This set up seems odd and different.  Doesn’t sound like another vampire or zombie flick to me.  This was going to be something else.  Frankly, ahead of the release of Zach Cregger’s film, I could not stop thinking about it.  I needed to know the reason behind this phenomenon.  

Yet, anticipation and finally scratching that itch turned out to be disappointing.  

Cregger’s movie answers almost all the questions it offers even if some elements are not wholly consistent as the story unravels.  The only salvation to watching Weapons is not knowing why any of this happened, in particular with the squirrelly young teacher, Ms. Gandy (Julia Garner, whose career continues to impress) at the center of it all.  

Like most second rate horror films though, there are teases of drawn out scenes as you anticipate the next jump scare.  Loud knocking on a front door to motivate the protagonist to go “Helloooooo!!!! Anyone there?,” and then to open the door to an empty street is just as annoying. Especially, if nothing is ever explained of that sequence. Was this wedged into the final cut for another hair raising experience? The best horror has an explanation for EVERYTHING you see. However, I was waiting for a cat or a bird to jump into frame. It’s been done!

There are also the nightmare sequences.  Once again, I have been banged over the head with “It’s just a dream!”  This is such a desperate, last resort trope to stretch out a running time or make up for lost road in storytelling.  Can movies just stop with the “only a dream” sequence please?  Freddy Krueger is the only one who can legitimately lay claim to this tired idea.

While I may not care for the explanations of Cregger’s phenomena, at least I can compliment his skills as a filmmaker during the expository portion of his picture.  The writer/director provides an abundance of tracking shots through the hallways of the school, down neighborhood streets, in Ms. Gandy’s house, and even within the small confines of a liquor store.  

Much of his material is positioned behind his characters and he tracks where they are walking while being limited on showing their facial expressions.  Recently, I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious and the film initially only shows the back of Cary Grant’s head.  It works as a mysterious character device.  For the first twenty minutes of Weapons, we are primarily only seeing the back of Julia Garner’s head.  I was invested in this movie wondering what is it about this loner teacher who is being admonished as a witch within the community.  This movie is starting out with a modern day Salem. Ms. Gandy is weird and I desperately want to look her in the eye, but Cregger’s direction won’t let me.  So, I can’t get a grasp of this odd individual.  Well played.

The outline of Weapons works like Doug Lyman’s Go or a Quentin Tarantino film.  Cregger said he got inspiration from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia.  The movie is divided into different perspectives of a collection of characters.  You see the teacher’s experience first, and then respectively of another student’s father (Josh Brolin), a cop (Alden Ehrenreich), a homeless meth addict, and the school principal (Benedict Wong).  Their stories eventually cross paths while more and more clues and answers gradually deliver.

What is surprising are the humorous beats that come out of some of the frightening moments of the picture.  The bonkers ending feels like a salute to a memorable scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  What comedy derives from the dark elements though felt unwelcome to me.  For a horror picture with fascinating potential, the threats and whatever suspense that was to be expected suddenly feels watered down.  Now, Weapons feels like an uninspired episode of Tales From The Crypt or an exhausting and unnecessary two hour installment of Stranger Things.  This movie had its brains working overtime when it began and then lost its intelligence along the way.

Two characters in the script are given too much unwanted and uninteresting attention here.  When the film arrives at their perspectives, the picture meanderingly drags along offering little of anything substantial.  It felt like I walked into a different movie, far away from the spooky stuff that was eerily described in the beginning of the film.  More material could have been devoted to others in the town with a bigger and more personal stake in the central plot.  There are too many diversions of little significance.  Seventeen children disappeared and yet we only get to know one father and brush by another mom and dad. No one else is feeling the agony of this incident?

There are pertinent clues of simple logic that are overtly ignored as well so that the story can just simply move along.  Specific objects in Ms. Gandy’s classroom suddenly disappear and no one seems to question their absence while this case is being investigated.  Because it’s too apparent, you can’t help but dwell on this inconsistency.  If you’ve participated in an Escape Room, this bit of information will tediously occupy your mindset.  

Weapons has a marvelous idea, but it circumvents common elements of all horror movies too.  There’s a spooky house, nightmares, a haggardly weird old lady, knocks on the doors and lots of darkness too.  I don’t mind any of this.  What gnawed at me though was the simplicity of the answers to the riddles, and the enormous waste of veering off into several characters who bear little importance.

Someone should take this idea of children running away into the night and do it all over again.  I just love the idea. Other screenwriters would have written Zach Cregger’s story and then ripped the pages off their legal pad and tossed the crumpled balls of paper over the shoulder to start again. Cregger seems to have just settled on his first draft.

Weapons feels like a movie where the audience gets to experience a wrenching case of writer’s block, and nothing could be more frustrating.

AMERICAN GANGSTER

By Marc S. Sanders

My favorite kind of crime dramas are the ones that tackle the grit.  The screenwriters and directors go for where the itty-bitty stuff scrounges up into something bigger for either the career criminal or the low-level cop.  These guys start out as butterflies flapping their wings and before you know it their legacies and pursuits are as big as hurricanes.  Movies like The French Connection or Heat operate on these trajectories.  How did we get from there to HERE?

Ridley Scott went in an unconventional direction away from his science fiction eye and ancient history recollections when he directed American Gangster with a screenplay by Steve Zallian based on the true stories of Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) and narcotics detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe).

These two sensational actors don’t share one scene together until the epilogue of this always interesting three-hour opus.  Yet, in their second film together their pairing is as classic as DeNiro and Pacino or Newman and Redford.  I hope before they retire, these men pair up for at least one more film.  

Ridley Scott and his nominated art directors, Arthur Max and Beth A Rubino, capture a gritty urban, crime ridden Harlem of the 1960s/70s.  The streets are filthily here, as well as in the five New York boroughs and all the way across the bridge into New Jersey.  Frank’s markets carry a very wide berth. The buildings are distressed and cracked.  The clothes are of the hippie era with polyester suits.  This is where Frank Lucas moves his imported contraband, white powder heroin, labeled exclusively as “Blue Magic.”  The film provides a convincing source locale deep within the jungles of Vietnam where thousands of kilos are shipped to Frank for sale on the street.  The purity of the drug is beyond compare.  Scott and his art designers place you directly in this time period of dingy grime and among the sweaty Viet Cong and rivers to finally arrive at the crop Frank purchases his products from.

Once he finds his footing by eliminating the competition and recruiting his brothers and cousins to run his business, Frank invests in creature comforts with a furnished penthouse apartment for himself and a beautiful mansion for his mother (Ruby Dee in an Oscar nominated performance that comes off so naturally; you’d think she’s sitting at the Thanksgiving table with you).  He marries a beautiful Puerto Rican wife that he treats like a princess. Frank is smart.  He stays under the radar by wearing conservative suits and not making many waves like going out at nights and showing himself around the social scene.  He knows famous athletes like boxer Joe Lewis or the staff on the New York Yankees that could give his nephew a shot at being a pitcher. Still, his profile manages to stay low. Like his mentor, he just operates a business with a viable commodity.  He tells his younger brother (Chiwetel Ejiofor) that the loudest one in the room is the dumbest and the most likely to get caught.  So, mind how you carry yourself, how you dress yourself and how you flaunt yourself.

A separate story has no business intersecting with Frank’s plight until something gives.  Richie Roberts is a good, honest cop. Though he’s also a lousy husband and father. He has been assigned to head up a task force that will bust the top of the assorted drug empires.  He needs those rare breed cops who are not on the take and follow a strict policy of law enforcement ethics.  His team will not bust a common street hustler.  They will be looking for the kingpins with unquestionable evidence to put them away for good.

American Gangster follows two separate stories for most of its running time.  At least during the first two acts of the film, Frank and Richie are unaware of one another.  It’s only through some gradual surveillance that the cop finally gets a whiff of an idea and starts to move methodically towards a conclusion. The methods are the fascinating parts the movie.

When Denzel Washington plays a villain it’s always memorable and contrary to popular opinion, Frank Lucas is my favorite of his antagonists, especially compared to his Oscar winning work in Training Day.  Watch how he walks or sits on a sofa and broods over how his family and his business are functioning.  He’s the only African American actor I can see playing this guy because I’m always convinced that whoever Denzel Washington portrays, it’s a character who will never be intimidated.  This guy faced down Gene Hackman during a threat of nuclear holocaust. Not many other actors can do that so authentically.

Russell Crowe works like that hero who doesn’t want to wear the cape.  Richie Roberts succeeds on so many levels where his peers surrender to their inhibitions.  This cop passes the bar exam while fighting for custody of his kid on top of going after the empirical criminals who litter the streets in drugs and murder.  I’m reminded of his role in The Insider, where he used a similar American accent.  Richie is not as temperamental or hard wired as that guy, but he is at least as focused on doing what’s right regardless of threat or distraction.  Russell Crowe has a way of getting audiences to admire the concentration needed for many of his complicated characters.  You have as much tunnel vision as he wants the men he’s portraying to have. You are zoned in with what his characters live by.  You only trust their standards.

There are signature staples within the construct of this true story adaptation.  There are gunfights.  Punches are thrown.  The guy at the top beats up one of his cronies when he gets out order.  Yet, what stands this material apart from others is that now I’m watching how Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe handle everything.

The truth behind the story of a black gangster defying the dirty cops and the Italian mobsters who were thought to run the metropolitan undergrounds is amazing.  It’s so interesting to see how novel Frank is with smuggling the product from one side of the world to the other. Then, you see how he uses his family members to distribute to the consumers and collect the monies. Ridley Scott provides all the breadcrumbs in an easy-to-understand fashion.  

Painted against the landscape of an unwinnable Vietnam War that just won’t end, power is acquired and thus the best police officers are forced to change their approach.  So again, you see two different stories that start out small and undetected.  Frank and Richie are the most careful and meticulous of guys in their respective fields.  Therefore, it only makes sense that their paths don’t cross until their missions are nearly over.

There’s much to learn from American Gangster.  

You get an idea of how the harm of the war was not exclusive to just what was happening over in Vietnam.  There were more indirect effects to that crisis impacting the streets of New York and New Jersey.  

You see what subtleties an investigation will collect upon before pouncing on to a bigger stake.  You also learn how to handle a criminal empire with trust and dignity rather than announcing your immorality. You witness the sheer defiance of a righteous guy in what is supposed to be a law-abiding field. Steve Zaillian’s script is not just good guy vs bad guy. It’s each of these guys holding on to the top while trying to catch up with or stay away from each other.

American Gangster is a very thorough and well-planned biographical thriller.  

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

By Marc S. Sanders

Avengers: Infinity War is a really FAT movie. Like ORCA FAT (thank you Keyser Soze), because it is chock full of so much to see. If this equated to gorging on junk food, after two hours and forty minutes, I would have a diabetic cardiac arrest immediately following the credits. Is this a film that is worth that handicap, however? You bet it is.

There is an ensemble of top Hollywood talent portraying a huge cast of characters, once again, and thus another installment has surfaced in the franchise that allows them to have various moments to shine. Producer Kevin Feige with all of Disney’s support, has mastered the formula to ensemble casting and production, as good as when George Clooney and company performed under Steven Soderbergh’s direction in the Ocean’s 11 remake. Thousands of special effects shots do not overpower the stage presence of the actors. The Marvel movies succeed because a story is always written first. Then witty dialogue comes thereafter, and then valid, convincing shock value. The special effects are the final ingredient. This is what the Transformers franchise and (yes, I’ll even own up to it) the Star Wars prequel trilogy (about ¾ of it) failed to achieve. This successful formula gives merit to the (at the time) biggest opening weekend ever, worldwide, and Avengers: Infinity War deserves the accolades.

How good is it? Well, reflecting back to May 1980, when sitting in a crowded theatre watching the ending to The Empire Strikes Back, by comparison I think audiences have finally been served up a cliffhanger (10 years in the making) that is just as effective. How is this all going to wrap up from here? How is this all going to be resolved? Reader, I don’t know if the next chapter will be satisfying. I don’t know if we will feel cheated like Annie Wilkes from Stephen King’s Misery. Presently, however, I’m turning an ending like this over in my mind; the same way I did with my pals in 1980 debating the survival ratio of Han Solo and if Darth Vader has told the truth, and if that was Vader’s brain or head that I saw, and who is this “another” that Yoda referred to….and that, my friends, is what makes a spectacular film. I don’t care if it gets watered down in the hype and McDonald’s promotions and toys. If you can mull over a movie long after it has ended, for days, even months and years, then a film like The Empire Strikes Back and Avengers: Infinity War has more than served its purpose.

Josh Brolin provides a villain with a justification to his madness. He’s not just twirling his mustache to be mischievous and sinister. He has a destiny to fulfill, and his portrayal of the mad titan Thanos does not compromise. This is a beast of a purple villain with size 52 boots and gold-plated armor with a chin that looks like it was clawed by Wolverine. Thanos cries, actually cries, while committing his crimes. He’s not just cackling. He flat out says that he executes his actions all so that he can relax and retire. Isn’t that what we are all trying to do, anyway? Nothing wrong with that. Guy sounds like a CEO to a large corporation. Maybe Thanos is updated to resemble an Elon Musk. 

All of the other actors from main staple Robert Downey Jr to Chris Pratt to Chadwick Boseman to Zoe Saldana and Chris Hemsworth, and so on, remain consistent to what we’ve seen of various prior installments. Their gimmicks continue to avoid becoming stale. Audience applause is cued by their appearances. These are well loved characters.

As an avid comic book reader of the silver age (1980s), Avengers: Infinity War presents itself as of one those annual limited series runs that were special because they were MAIN EVENTS!!!! My favorite back then was Marvel’s Secret Wars. Typically, a comic book from the 1980s would average about 18-22 pages with advertisements sprinkled in. Nearly every scene in this film equates to one issue of a limited run of a main event. That is a why a fat movie like this succeeds. The cast of characters are separated in various story lines. The scenes are given their time to flesh out and develop to move the subplots and overall story along. Each scene is like reading a new 18 page issue comic book. If I’m watching a comic book film, by golly, I want to see how a comic book is brought to life in a cinematic medium. Marvel’s films succeed greatly over DC’s films (produced by Warner Bros) because they rely on the source material. They know they got the goods. Cast it right, adapt it properly and go with that. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. A wealth of material (nearly 70 years) and Marvel/Disney uses it all. (How does DC/Warner Bros miss the mark so often?)

Of all of the Avengers films, Infinity War is definitely the best one. Ironically, I wasn’t expecting it to be. I was waiting for this stuff to get old and tiring. It just hasn’t faltered yet. It hasn’t gotten lazy yet. It all seems so fresh still. It’s a fantastic cinematic accomplishment. Sure, its main story is a guy chasing down six different colorful MacGuffins. So what! It’s simple. It allows the characters to stand out from there. An organized plotline like this doesn’t take much effort or time to explain its purpose. It states its conflict early on, and then the show stopping moments present themselves. One after the other after the other until a monster of an ending that is so jaw dropping, head shaking, thrilling and gasping, satisfyingly arrives. 

More importantly, the MacGuffin search drives the motivations and fleshes out the film’s main character, Thanos. This Marvel installment belongs to Josh Brolin as Thanos. Everyone else serves as his antagonists. What matters is that the bad guy wins this time, just like demonstrating that an Empire will strike back. Ironic that Spider-Man makes a humorous correlation to that celebrated franchise from almost forty years ago.

Avengers: Infinity War ended up in my top 10 list of 2018, and still holds as the best film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

HAIL, CAESAR! (2016)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTORS: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
CAST: Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 86% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A movie studio “fixer” in 1950s Hollywood faces his biggest challenge yet when the star of the studio’s most prestigious film in production is kidnapped by a shadowy organization calling itself, “The Future.”


The word “idiosyncratic” feels like it was invented for the Coen Brothers…or maybe vice versa.  Their 2016 film Hail, Caesar! is yet another case in point.  Packed with the kind of early Hollywood detail we wouldn’t see again until 2022’s Babylon, this film is a love letter to the 1950s studio system that produced such classics as All About Eve, Stalag 17, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Ben-Hur.  However, the comic story surrounding this love letter is a bit rambling and disjointed.  About halfway through, I found myself wondering if maybe the movie wouldn’t have been better if the filmmakers had just ditched the comedy and made a straight-up drama.  But then we got to the climax, and I realized, no, comedy is better for serving up the kind of silliness we get at the end.  It’s no Raising Arizona, but it’ll serve.

In classic film noir fashion, a narrator (Michael Gambon) informs us that Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) is head of production at the fictional Capitol Pictures, which is in the middle of shooting its most ambitious picture ever, an epic Biblical tale called Hail, Caesar!  (Think Ben-Hur with a lower budget and an outright plagiarized screenplay.)  However, their leading man, the improbably handsome and incredibly dumb Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), abruptly goes missing when he is kidnapped by a couple of lurking extras.  Mannix must deal with finding Whitlock while also figuring out what to do about:

  1. DeeAnna Moran’s (Scarlett Johansson) unexpected pregnancy.
  2. Hobie Doyle’s (Alden Ehrenreich) inability to deliver lines without a cowboy accent, which infuriates his director, Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes).
  3. Two persistent gossip columnists (both played by Tilda Swinton) who are running stories on Whitlock’s disappearance and/or salacious rumors about Whitlock’s past.
  4. A lucrative job offer from Lockheed.
  5. His promise to his wife (Allison Pill in a tiny role) to quit smoking.

Whew!  And I haven’t even mentioned the singer/dancer Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum) or the mysterious group of academics who have apparently kidnapped Whitlock, a group calling itself, “The Future.”  …spooky…

As in many other of the Coen Brothers’ films – not ALL of them, but many of them – the story itself is not really the point.  It just serves as an excuse for Ethan and Joel to present the viewer with scene after scene demonstrating their immense affection for a bygone era of filmmaking.  When Scarlett Johansson’s character, DeeAnna, is introduced, for example, we don’t just get a line or two about what she does (she’s an aquatic star modeled after Esther Williams).  We’re treated to an elaborately choreographed scene with dozens of bathing beauties, ScarJo diving from a great height wearing a mermaid tail, and a mechanical whale complete with a spouting blowhole.

At one point, Mannix visits the chief film editor for the studio, C.C. Calhoun (Frances McDormand), to see how Mr. Laurentz’s film is shaping up.  This scene in particular is lovingly presented, as we get a quick-cut sequence of Calhoun unspooling the film in the dim editing room, re-threading it, punching a button, flipping a switch, click-clack, click-clack, and Mannix watches the opening sequence of “Merrily We Dance” on the tiny Moviola as the projector whirs in the background.  I would bet real money that Martin Scorsese really, REALLY loved this scene.  (Plus there’s a nice little comic button at the end of the scene that is an excellent demonstration of Edna Mode’s immortal dictum in The Incredibles: “No capes!”)

The whole movie is like that.  It’s one of the most nostalgic homages to old Hollywood that I’ve ever seen.  But the movie can’t seem to make up its mind about what it’s about.  George Clooney puts on a clinic of how to play dumb as the clueless Baird Whitlock.  (In fact, this movie serves as the conclusion to the unofficial “Idiots” cycle of films from the Coen Brothers films, which also includes O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Intolerable Cruelty, and Burn After Reading, all of which star Clooney in a lead role…playing an idiot.)  Alden Ehrenreich is pretty convincing as a young star with a pretty boy face and limited acting ability, which I’m sure is far from the truth, but he pulls it off.  His scene where he tries to wrap his Texas accent around the simple line, “Would that it were so simple”, with his director patiently trying to coach him, is hilarious on its own.  But it runs on a little too long, as does the aforementioned scene in the editing room.  The subplot with the gossip columnists feels tacked on, almost as of the Coens were trying to pad the running time.  There’s a magnificently choreographed scene where we watch Channing Tatum’s character do some tap dancing dressed as a sailor for another movie being filmed, but even THAT runs a little too long.

Ultimately, Hail, Caesar! feels more like an intellectual exercise instead of an emotional one.  I hate to keep bringing this movie up by comparison, but Babylon, for example, managed to capture a nostalgia for Old Hollywood AND kept me emotionally involved for its entirety.  There was an energy that kept things moving.  Hail, Caesar! lacks that energy, but I can’t quite bring myself to call it a “bad” movie because I connected with its affection for the monolithic, flawed system that managed to create so many diamonds amid SO many lumps of coal.  (Just like today!)

THE GOONIES

By Marc S. Sanders

You know how there are some movies designed for that unexpected thunderous rainy, Saturday afternoon?  Maybe a Star Wars flick or an Indiana Jones.  James Bond or Marvel?  For me the best candidate is probably The Goonies, where the rascally kid in all of us comes alive, yearning for adventure like riding our bikes through the paths of the sleepy town we live in over to a hiding spot on the other side of the woods where a once long lost treasure map begins an unknown journey.  Quick on our tales though are the bad guys with the humped back, crooked nose and clicking revolver.

Richard Donner did more for The Goonies than I think a lot of people realize.  It’s no wonder to me that the film is officially inducted into the National Film Preservation Archives since 2017, the same year that pictures like Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, Ace In The Hole and Titanic also received their recognition.  Maybe Donner had help from producer Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Chris Columbus.  Granted, ahead of the age of cell phone addiction, these guys knew how twelve and thirteen year old kids ticked.  The Goonies bond over insulting each other, shoving one another, telling each other to shut up and freely dropping the s-word.  It’s a rite of passage.  It’s how I bonded with my buddies at that age.  Heck, I still maintain contact with my best friend at the time, Scott, and we still trade barbs like that even if we live over a dozen states away from each other.

Sean Astin plays the asthmatic leader of the gang, named Mikey.  A son of actors Patty Duke and John Astin, he made his film debut with The Goonies, and I think it holds as one of the best child performances to grace a screen.  He’s such a genuine little guy, who is passionate about making any last ditch effort to save his house and home town from being bulldozed by greedy golf course developers.  On a rainy Saturday afternoon, Mikey’s buddies ritually come over to the house and with his older brother Brand (Josh Brolin, another celebrity son making his film debut) make their way into the attic and uncover a treasure map written by the infamous pirate from the 16th century, One Eyed Willie.  Soon after, Mikey along with Mouth, Data and Chunk (Corey Feldman, Ke Huy Quan and Jeff Cohen) embark on adventure that leads them to the underground caverns of an old restaurant off the Pacific coast.  Two high school girls, Andy and Stef (Kerri Green, Martha Plimpton) join the gang.  Andy and Brand have adorable puppy love crushes on each other. 

One Eyed Willie’s map supposedly leads to a treasure of enormous wealth that Mikey and the gang believe can save their small town of Astoria from being razed.  However, there are inventive booby traps along the way, and the nasty Fratelli brothers with their cranky old mother (Robert Davi, Joe Pantoliano and Anne Ramsey) are hot on their trail.  The Fratellis are straight out of those old Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries.  They are hilarious with their bickering, and scary at the same time. Anne Ramsey was a special kind of character actor with her ugly appearance and craggily voice. It eventually even got her an Oscar nomination (Throw Momma From The Train).  

We may know how the story will end up, but Donner, Spielberg and Columbus advance with one unpredictable scene after another.  Reader, when I feel the height of suspense in a film, I actually tear up and I get a very nervous laugh.  The shootout scenes in Heat (1995) and Lethal Weapon will do that to me every time.  The lightsaber dual in The Empire Strikes Back and the snake pit scene in Raiders Of The Lost Ark!!!!  I’ve been watching The Goonies since I was the age of most of these characters.  I still get this natural reaction when Andy has to play the correct notes on a skeletal piano to open a passageway.  Each time she plays the wrong note though, a tease of impending doom appears.  It works so well in the ensemble performance of the cast bellowing “Oh no!” and “Oh shit!” and “My God!” and “Hurry up!”  Edited with the quickly advancing villains getting closer, and the pulse beat music accompanied by composer Dave Grusin, and you are so caught up in their escapades now, that it feels like you are there.

All these kids become your best friend quickly.  Data is the inventor with the tripped out gadgets, inspired by James Bond, ready to set his own booby traps.  Mouth is the Spanish interpreter who gleefully causes trouble and mischief, but Feldman the actor is allowed some tender moments as well.  Jeff Cohen is like the Curly of The Three Stooges who gets sidetracked on his own adventure with a monstrous but loving, and sadly rejected son of the Fratellis.  A chained-up ghoul named Sloth (John Matuszak).  Cohen might have the best comedic moments in the film.  When I moonlight in Community Theater, I still must remind myself that just once I’d like to audition with his hysterical crying monologue where he confesses to stealing his uncle’s toupee to use as a beard to dress up as Abraham Lincoln, while another time he used fake vomit to sicken an entire movie house.  Hilarious stuff! 

There are dropping boulders, rattling pipes, a waterfall wishing well, scary skeletons, that creepy piano, and fun water slides to circumvent around One Eyed Willie’s maze onward to his legendary treasure aboard the most spectacular pirate ship ever seen.  Rarely are kid’s adventures constructed like this anymore.  I dunno.  Maybe it’s the script.  More likely, maybe it is the cast of kid actors doing one of the best ensemble performances together on screen.  Their timing could not be more perfect among the seven Goonies. 

The Goonies is a much more honest and transparent look at how kids behave with one another than you might find in a bleached-out Disney flick.  These kids get dirty and unsophisticated, yet thoughtful.  They are not age 21 playing age 14.  They don’t have fashionable haircuts and designer clothing. They are not pop singers trying to be actors.  Most importantly, the conversations among the gang are more natural in pal around rudeness.  You’re not really a friend unless you are telling the kid next to you to shut up and exclaiming “Oh shit!” when another encounter with danger lurks ahead. 

The Goonies is just a fun ride to watch over and over again. It succeeds with its own interpretation of The Little Rascals, and it’ll give you all the feels as you watch Mikey plead with One Eyed Willie for the next clue, or when he stops to remind his Goonies that there’s more at stake than just a play date on a Saturday afternoon. 

My advice is to keep the rose colored glasses off your children’s eyes.  Let them know it’s okay to get in trouble and make mischief.  Make sure your kids know they should be the best Goonies they can be.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

By Marc S. Sanders

Joel and Ethan Coen have an odd collection of films under their belt. No Country For Old Men, an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel is no exception. You’re likely to meet the oddest hit man you’ve experienced in a film. (Reader, I’m going under the presumption you’ve never encountered a normal or odd hit man in real life. If you survived long enough to read this passage, you are truly blessed.)

Anton Chigrh follows a discipline that likely no one ever taught him. His code is to continue until he finds what he’s looking for and dispose of any lead in his ongoing quest. His weapon of choice-an air gun hose connected to an oxygen tank. It’s instant in serving its purpose. Its sound is quick and jarring.

Javier Bradem delivers an Oscar winning performance as Chigrh in search of $2 million when Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) takes possession of it after coming upon the sight of a drug deal gone bad.

Tommy Lee Jones is perhaps one of the old men in the title. A Texas sheriff not surprised by the carnage he comes upon, but not of much use either. I think he regrets that he can never do more or better and simply can only surmise what’s already been done. I gathered that especially from a scene depicted in a hotel room during the third act of the film. His approach on the scene and his need to sit down translate that for me. His periodic anecdotes during the course of the film seem to say so as well. This sheriff has likely never rescued anyone from harm despite how intuitive he may be.

The Coen Brothers are never shy with blood. A lot of directors are not, really. Yet with the Coens, it seems the bloodshed is disturbingly honest. The instant splatter and flow following another act by Chigrh couldn’t be more truthful. They tell this tale very well, never concerning themselves with how unsettling they can be. Sun filled deserts are not comfortable. Evenings are sleepless. Blood is dark, thick, sticky, messy.

Moss is a hunter who has no idea what he’s up against. Brolin plays him with quiet reservation. He could not resist the urge to take the bag of money, but he also knows he’ll pay for it as well. When he realizes there’s no way to escape, by even crossing the border, he can only try to kill the devil incarnate. He’s likely aware of how this will all play out though.

Among this trio of fine actors (with Woody Harrelson also briefly in the fold), the film is nevertheless celebrated for Bardem. Whenever the story returns to Chigrh, you sit up in your chair a little more alert. He’s got disturbing dialogue exchanges with those he encounters and Bardem’s method makes you wish you never have to decide your fate with a coin toss.

No Country For Old Men is not an action film. The pace takes its time, invested in three men with respective histories who cannot change what their meant for. No incident will change their lifestyles. They are meant to be an assassin, a washed-up lawman, and a poor country hunter. Until they die, no moment in time will alter their caricatures. That’s what I took from the Coens’ Best Picture winner.

I appreciate its honesty.