Category: Marc’s Reviews

ABSOLUTE POWER

By Marc S. Sanders

As Clint Eastwood’s Absolute Power was unfolding I started to think this plays like one of those hardcover bestseller political thrillers from the 90s that my dad would scoop up off of the neatly designed stack at the front of Barnes & Noble.  You know with the glossy book jacket that has the blood stain and a dead girl’s nail polished hand next to a bloody letter opener.  The graphics are elevated to feel the crime scene with your fingertips.  The intrigue is summed up on the inside tab.  You turn to the back of the book to see the picture of the author.  Then you buy it with your membership card.  Go figure!  William Goldman adapted the screenplay from a novel by renowned author David Baldacci. Absolute Power has an engaging set up, a who’s who of a cast, it’s directed, produced and starring Eastwood. Still, it evolves into utter eye-rolling preposterousness.

Eastwood directs his own portrayal Luther Whitney, an expert jewel thief.  He might be getting up there in age but he scopes out the mansion of a billionaire tycoon (E.G Marshall, in his final on-screen role) and locates the vault hidden behind a large two-way mirror.  Everything is going to plan as Luther bags up the valuables and a lot of cash but then a drunken couple enter with Luther hidden behind the mirror to watch their tryst turn deadly.  The President of the United States (Gene Hackman) avoids being stabbed to death by the young lady (Melora Hardin) when his secret service detail (Scott Gleen and Dennis Haysbert) enter to shoot the girl dead.  The President’s Chief of Staff (Judy Davis) arrives soon after.  Luther observes the four as they rush the Commander In Chief out of the house and alter the crime scene.  They get careless and just as Luther makes a quick exit, he retrieves evidence that will hopefully work to his advantage.  Now he’s in danger of the President and the other three as they work to permanently contain the situation.

Elsewhere is Ed Harris as the detective out to solve the murder and uncover everything we already know.  When he realizes a thief must have been at the scene of the crime, he actually approaches Luther for some guidance as to who could have been there.  Later, he will use Laura Linney, playing Luther’s daughter, for assistance as her father seems to be the prime suspect. 

The tycoon, the President’s biggest supporter, also wants to resolve his personal vendetta by hiring his own sniper (Richard Jenkins) to take out Luther. 

Absolute Power has all of these players, with recognizable actors in the roles, and yet cannot work the magic necessary to fix this outrageous conundrum.  I can believe that a President could get in more trouble than he needs with a one-night stand and a dead girl on the floor.  I can believe members of his staff will work to tie off all the loose ends, even if it means more murder and mayhem must occur. 

What is hard to swallow is how neatly the story wraps up literally within one afternoon leading into an evening.  It’s fortunate that window washers are present to throw off a couple of snipers with an inconvenient glare at the most inopportune time.  Otherwise, there will be no more movie.  It helps that a character with remorse happens to take his own life, thus exposing the conspiracy, just as Eastwood’s character is steering his own way to exoneration.  All in the same night!!!!

To ramp up the suspense, the bad guys go after Linney’s character, the one person Luther cares for the most.  She ends up in a hospital.  Message has been sent.  Luther better surrender himself along with what he knows to the President’s squad.  Yet, they try one more time to permanently eliminate her and I asked why.  What purpose does that serve to kill her now?  If you kill her, then Luther has nothing to protect or care about anymore.  He can just reveal the entire breakdown of what really happened complete with evidence and so on.

A few years earlier, Eastwood starred in In The Line Of Fire where John Malkovich played a master of disguise assassin.  Luther is also a craftsman at hiding in plain sight.  However, there’s no way I can believe that.  We are looking at Clint Eastwood here.  He’s got his own unique and very tall and square stature.  Put a white mustache and a pair of glasses on the guy, and it is still Clint Eastwood.  Put a hat and beard on him and it is still Clint Eastwood.  Wrap him up in a trench coat and have him walk the city streets in broad daylight where fifty cops are awaiting his arrival and you’ll be able to see the one and only Clint Eastwood.  It just can’t work.  James Bond can hide in disguise.  John Malkovich can hide in disguise.  Go anywhere in the world and Shaquille O’Neal and Clint Eastwood would never be hidden in plain sight. 

William Goldman (The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid) is one of Hollywood’s most celebrated screenwriters.  He did not think this story all the way through.  You may believe Gene Hackman (second billing behind Eastwood) would have had more of a presence in this picture but oddly enough he’s hardly there. The real bad guy roles belong to Judy Davis and Scott Glenn who are not nearly as exciting as what Hackman could have delivered.

There was a potential for a good conspiracy thriller. The problem is the audience knows too much following the first fifteen minutes of the film.  We know everything that happened and therefore I could care less about the progress that Ed Harris’ detective makes.  Absolute Power likely would have performed better had it opened after the crime had occurred.  Run the opening credits over the dead girl in the room and open the two-way mirror for Luther to enter the frame.  He makes a run for it and then the film can gradually reveal what precisely happened.  A mystery for the characters and the audiences who are watching them only works if the questions are offered before the answers are revealed.

Absolute Power offered a lot of promise with a lot of talent but it’s devoid of both.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE THE FINAL RECKONING

By Marc S. Sanders

The blessing behind Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning is that it opts not to follow the uninspired routine that was settled for with the previous entry, Dead Reckoning Part I.  With myself included, that film was poorly received overall (look for my review on this page). It performed way below box office expectations as well.  After its release, writer/director Chrisopher McQuarrie and producer/star Tom Cruise were in a quandary.  The hanging thread of a magical key/MacGuffin and the answer to destroying the omnipotent Entity were left unresolved.  A new film had to be made, despite an empty storyline.  Money had to be spent.  So, the guys needed to invest it wisely.  For the most part, the finances were used quite well as the pair learned what worked. More importantly they steered away from what didn’t.

What this movie improves upon is a hearkening back to some of the favorite elements of almost all of the prior films in the series, now on its eighth chapter.  Naturally, some citations cover what occurred in the last film to drive the continuous thin story of Final Reckoning. There are references made to the mysterious Rabbit’s Foot from the third picture, a favorite of mine.  Most notably, is the return of a long-lost character that no one would ever expect to turn up again. The best thing is that he truly serves the mission.  He’s not just a cameo blink and miss it.  Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire repeated that terrible grievance over and over.  The return of this particular guy actually makes you smile, laugh and cheer.  Yes, believe me when I tell you that marketing for Final Reckoning thankfully do not share every detail.  There’s more here than Tom Cruise running and running some more. 

Miguel and I took advantage of an IMAX presentation, and for two guys who normally favor Dolby, this action/adventure should only be seen on IMAX.  Probably the best film I’ve ever seen in this medium and I saw Dead Reckoning Part I this way, but that did not measure up to what’s offered this time.

Tom Cruise is absolutely nuts.  He’s over sixty and he’s doing some of the most daring stunts he’s ever accomplished.  The insurance bill to cover his safety must be at least half the budget to make the movie.  The famed biplane scenes that you likely caught in trailers, even on the marquee poster, is so much more impressive on IMAX.  You are seeing every limb of the actor’s body stretch to their breaking points to hang on to first a red plane and later a yellow plane.  Cruise’s facial muscles stretch against the G-force that is giving him resistance at ten thousand feet in the air.  McQuarrie makes sure to cover every inch of these flying machines from the cockpit to the wings and the tail rutters and the landing wheels underneath.  Cruise’s superspy, Ethan Hunt, has to climb all over these things as they go up and down and upside down and right side up on top of bursting into flames.  This scene is not even over in ten minutes.  It feels like a good twenty-five minutes and it looks like it’s no easy feat for Mr. Hunt.

Midway through the film finds Ethan Hunt deep sea diving to a shipwrecked submarine.  This sequence might rely more on set design, but I was convinced the entire time that Cruise was actually that deep below the surface of the water.  Memories of James Cameron’s The Abyss come to mind, but McQuarrie’s craft of this middle sequence within his three-hour film is so well edited and designed.  On IMAX you feel yourself submerged with the weight of the ocean above you.  The film will cut to the outside of the sub to show it drifting as Ethan Hunt shifts from one side of the interior to the other.  Whatever action the guy takes, the sub works against him leaving you wondering if the vessel is going to topple over an ocean floor cliff to even greater and unescapable depths. 

I will never like this movie as much as when I saw it in the IMAX screening.  It’s impossible to feel the same way on a large in-home flat screen.  This is a giant movie.

Grand set pieces with the sub or the planes had me thinking that Christopher McQuarrie should get a Best Director nomination.  I know it won’t happen but not everyone can accomplish what’s offered in Final Reckoning.  Could Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola?  I question that, because this is an altogether different kind of beast.

McQuarrie must have done a polish on the violations he committed with the last film.  The story remains to be nothing but a chase with countdown digital clocks and the urgency for all of these tasks to be accomplished by Ethan and his team at the exact same second (a repeat M:I staple), but the dialogue does not drive in literal circles of similar vocabulary this time.  Terms like “the key” and “the entity” are not so exhaustingly uttered over and over in this film.  Esai Morales, as the conniving Gabriel, is much more interesting.  In the last movie he was terribly boring.  No charm.  No anger.  No brattiness.  Here, he at least gleefully laughs at Ethan’s demise.  He’s still far from a great villain and totally forgettable, but at least he’s given something more to do than just stand menacingly behind Tom Cruise. Morales is not just donning a dark tan and a salt and pepper goatee. 

Most of Ethan Hunt’s team is given something to do, particularly Ving Rhames as Luther and Simon Pegg as Benji, always reliable.  Hayley Atwell was the best feature of the last movie and she’s great here too as the pickpocket, and now supposedly a quick learning kick ass superspy.  Kind of—No-VERY ridiculous but I stopped asking questions.  Atwell deserves a franchise series of her own.  She’s charming and lights up the screen.  Great actor too.

Pom Klementieff as the dangerous assassin Paris is now a good guy and other than speaking eloquent French she’s regrettably become a ho hum element.  There are other unnecessary characters including Kittridge (Henry Czerny) and those two guys who were chasing Ethan in the last movie.  One carries a stupid secret that’s more like an unwelcome surprise.  The other joins Ethan’s team to shoot a gun and look panicked. 

It will only frustrate you to follow when Ethan or Gabriel has the upper hand.  Christopher McQuarrie fleshes out his overly long three-hour picture playing games like that, and I stopped trying to pass his impossible SAT exam.  The attractions are a few of the characters who work with Ethan and the great feats of strength that the hero attempts to overcome. 

It is not the best in the series.  It is a huge improvement over the last picture, though.  What’s most significant is that Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning is a gorgeous, mind blowing and breathless visual opus.

SEE IT ON THE IMAX before it self-destructs on your flat screen in five seconds.

THE WIZ

By Marc S. Sanders

It always surprised me that Sidney Lumet is the credited director of The Wiz, the black cultured musical interpretation of L Frank Baum’s celebrated fantasy The Wizard Of Oz.  Now that I’ve seen it with adult eyes and a tremendous appreciation for the director, it’s template makes sense knowing that I’m looking through the lens of Lumet.  Dorothy might arrive in the land of Oz, but Oz sure looks like a journey through the five boroughs of New York City, and of course Sidney Lumet is one of the all-time great storytellers of what happens within one of the greatest cities in the world.

With electrifying music penned by Quincy Jones and a screenplay by Joel Schumacher, The Wiz follows the step-by-step moments of the beloved tale.  However, everything looks like a new invention. 

Diana Ross was a sensation at the time this film was in the making and she campaigned so hard for the role of Dorothy that the script modified the age of the character to 24, thus allowing a thirty-something to convincingly play the role of an unsure kindergarten teacher with an opportunity to move on to high school academics.  On a snowy Thanksgiving night, our heroine is cast off in a twisting blizzard, landing in the Munchkinland of Oz.  Toto, a gray schnauzer, has accompanied her.  These munchkins are graffiti figures who come alive out of the concrete walls of a Harlem basketball court and neighborhood park.  It’s a brilliant invention of set design that deviates from the familiar.  The Wiz opts to maintain an urban theme.

Michael Jackson is the Scarecrow, though made of paper garbage, not straw.  A peanut butter cup wrapper enhances his nose.  He’s heckled by street guys garbed in crow likenesses when Dorothy comes upon him.  Lumet maintained a 70’s vibe to this film to fall in line with Jones’ music.  All of this design works, including the cartoon like cabs that ritually appear and abandon the characters as they embark on the Yellow Brick Road with the Chrysler Building rising in the distance.

The Tin Man is portrayed by Nipsey Russell.  He’s discovered in an amusement park junkyard where he’s crafted out of rickety old junk.  Terrific makeup here.  Ted Ross breaks out of the lion shelled statue famously erected outside of the New York Public Library.  Within the land of this Oz, a New York flavor answers for all of Baum’s familiar creations. 

Not everything works so well in The Wiz.  I’m impressed among these great talents of black entertainment that Lena Horne is cast as the Good Witch Of The South, but her one true moment at the end of the film is wasted with baby angels floating in the background of a very false looking starry backdrop.  Lena Horne is shown for the briefest of moments as Dorothy crash lands in Oz but then does not come back until the end of the film.  She sings a message to Dororthy about believing in herself.  It’s an awful moment and drains a lot of the energy from the film. Cheesy and awkward.

The course of the movie is invested so well by hundreds of costumed extras along with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.  Nipsey Russell keeps up just fine. Ted Ross could have done more as he transferred from the live stage to this film.  His portrayal is not a standout from what Burt Lahr did with the role of the Cowardly Lion.  Diana Ross with Jackson are the leaders with nonstop energy, though.  Michael Jackson’s performance is clumsy but falls beautifully in line with all of the music.  His physical prowess in dance is part of what made him a star.  Diana Ross does not stop.  She never looks out of breath, and she puts such gusto into leading this company of musical performers.  It’s such a joy to watch both of them strut to Ease On Down The Road and Everybody Rejoice/Brand New Day.  These are two of the best and most memorable songs in the picture because of what Diana Ross does on screen with the numbers.  I especially love Brand New Day.  I’m hearing it now in my head as I write and fondly recall the wide shots that Lumet devotes to the enormous feats of choreography.  May be the best scene in the film.

Lest I forget Mabel King, as Evillene – this story’s Wicked Witch.  She is not introduced until after the great Wiz orders the four travelers to kill her.  When she does arrive, in her home based “Sweat Shop” it’s an amazing moment.  Mabel King is best known as Raj and Dee’s strict mother on the TV show What’s Happening!!!  Growing up, I’ve always been a fan and Mabel King is a sensational performer.  Her vocals give off such power and demand during her song Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News.  Evillene marches down the stage in her puffed-up costume wear of glittered red with a large updo to command her little Winkees.  She certainly hijacks the picture from Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.  This is a performance that is Oscar worthy.  An absolute scene stealer.

As for The Wiz himself, it is Richard Pryor.  He’s cute in what was supposedly his first film where he donned his familiar mustache.  He’s silly but not so much fun.  Sometimes he’s just garbling like he forgot his lines and does his Richard Pryor schtick that he’d later rely on in The Toy and Superman III.  What impresses me is the costume choice for the character.  He’s eventually revealed to be the phony Wiz who operated the giant intimidating head, and he’s dressed like a literal homeless person from the streets of Harlem. 

Sidney Lumet worked with Jones and Schumacher to help us envision a modern New York as a world of urban, but colorful, fantasy.  The Yellow Brick Road goes down into the subway tunnels for some threatening moments of suspense as well as through an old amusement park, maybe located in Coney Island.  The Emerald City appears on the other side of the Verrazano Bridge, and it is Manhattan lit up in green.  The centre of the city is Lincoln Center where the inhabitants dance in red, yellow and green depending on the traffic light raised high above the famous circular fountains.  I believe the mysterious Wiz is located at the top of one of the Twin Towers.  Lumet used what he knew and applied a colorful brush of fantasy over the entire Metropolitan area.  I say it is brilliant.  Familiar like it should be, but still a fresh idea as Dorothy leaves her home of Harlem for the more extravagant of locales where she seeks out the famous Wiz hoping for a way home.

A Broadway and touring stage company of The Wiz is performing currently and I hope not too much of what is featured in this film has been washed over. 

The Wiz is dated to a disco era but most of the songbook still works with high energy and passion.  A strong appreciation remains, and maybe that’s because L Frank Baum’s original story is so timeless.  This cast along with Quincy Jones and Sidney Lumet, plus creative inventions in makeup from Stan Winston still hold up.  You’ll tap your foot if you turn this soundtrack on your radio or you opt to take in the visuals of this kaleidoscope of color and sound on your flat screen.

DRAGON HEART: ADVENTURES BEYOND THIS WORLD

By Marc S. Sanders

Dragon Heart: Adventures Beyond This World is an ambitious animated film catered towards a young audience, but carrying a lot of imagery and themes designed for an adult crowd.  The film, directed by Isamu Imakake (Cowboy Bebop: The Movie) performs as a Sunday School lesson where the students were never picked up by their parents at the end of the day.  The artwork is incredible and some of the best I’ve ever seen, but there’s a lot of heavy material to weigh here with allegorical visuals that justify a very stern PG-13 rating.

Ryusuke is a middle schooler from Tokyo who spends the summer with his cousin Tomomi.  One day the boy and girl go on a nature walk and get swept away with the strong current of the Anabuki River.  They encounter a wise old man named Ameno Hiwashino Mikoto and a beautiful wide eyed green dragon in flight.  The old man explains to the teens that they are dead and now must sojourn through the spiritual worlds of hell where devious serpents interfere and butchering surgical doctors are thirsty for hacking patients into bloody pieces.  One embodiment dons sunglasses and a tropical shirt.  He cages a frightened Tomomi, while her cousin dodges the god’s attacks with tennis balls in an attempt to rescue her.  I’m not sure of the design options in this particular sequence.  The action is quite engaging, though.

The children’s race to avoid these harsh encounters occupy the center of the picture.  The last act reunites them with Ameno Hiwashino Mikoto who arranges for the kind dragon to escort them to Shambhala, a heavenly locale consisting of a variety of thousands upon thousands of gods. Vishnu, the god of India, is singled out for a select ritual.

In spite of my Jewish upbringing, I do not consider myself very spiritual or religious any longer.  I applaud anyone who safely adheres to what guides them in a positive light of assurance, safety and peace.  The adventure of Dragon Heart serves as a vehicle towards spiritual awakenings from a source of Eastern and Asian culture.  The film seems to expect any disciple to witness the worst in humanity if their soul is ever to discover the best within a realm of the afterlife.  Reader, that is likely you and me and everyone else in the theater.  

I may be speaking vague, but so is the gospel of Dragon Heart.  Naturally, children, who are green at being tested, are selected for going on this adventure.  This mysterious and wise old man entraps them to choose for themselves how to lead their lives and use their souls.  It is their souls that are important because the script tells us that we do not merely live within flesh and bone.  Our soul and spirit live on after our physical body expires.

By the end of the film, I fear that Ryusuke and Tomomi will be knocking on my front door with scripture pamphlets with their bicycles parked on my driveway.  Personally, that does not leave me feeling very comfortable.  It’s the preachiness of Dragon Heart: Adventures Beyond This World that leaves me feeling queasy.

This is a gorgeous picture of radiant color.  Outdoor natures look so absorbing.  Green grass flows naturally in a breeze.  Rivers cheerfully flow and you want to drink from them.  Ryusuke is especially enthusiastic to explore the various mountain landscapes including Everest and thus you want to accompany him.  The skies are bright enough to glide through the air.  

The various dimensions of hell are equally convincing.  In many circumstances, you’re looking at some of your worst nightmares come alive.  In fact, for a pre-teen watching this film might incur a fear of doctors whose bloodthirsty grins emote through their surgical masks as they race at you with chainsaws and curved knives.  Freddy Krueger is like a Disney character compared to these guys.  My wife would never get past the snakes either.

Dragon Heart: Adventures Beyond This World does its job, but perhaps it works too well.  The animated imagery is so powerfully strong in what it shows that it is potentially traumatizing to certain viewers – definitely children and those who embrace the spiritual potential of religion.

While the film intends to conclude on a soaring positive note, it’s the journey to this destination that is quite unsettling.  

Once again, who is this film catered for? I know that god fearing worship is often sermoned by ministers, prophets and scriptures, but should any kind of religion or spiritual guidance put us in therapy too?

SINNERS

By Marc S. Sanders

Ryan Coogler is one of the most inventive writer/directors working today.  This is a filmmaker who will assemble a hundred different ideas into one body of work. All of it makes sense when blended together.  A movie musical sourced in blues and grassroots instruments like banjo, piano, harmonica, foot stomping and guitar stitched together on to a horror film?  Once the wheels get turning, Coogler can’t see it any other way and so he lands upon October 15, 1932, one day and one very long night in Clarksdale, Mississippi where Sinners takes place. 

The smokestack twins – Smoke and his brother Stack – return from working with Al Capone in Chicago.  They’ve got lots of money and big plans to open up the Juke Joint when the sun sets.  Michael B Jordan plays the charming gentlemen. Smoke is donned in blue accents, while his brother Stack is identified primarily in red.  Jordan is such a skilled and aggressive actor in everything he does. I truly did not realize he was playing both roles until about a third of the way through the picture.  His performances are so tantalizingly unique and memorable that Jordan has to be a contender for an Oscar nomination.

The boys circumvent the Clarksdale area. First they purchase a barn and the land it dwells upon.  With their pistols at the ready, their purchasing agreement is that the seller’s Klan associates do not come around here.  They go to the train station to recruit Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) for the piano and harmonica.  Smoke visits Ruthie (Andrene Ward-Hammond) to prepare the most delicious crawfish and shrimp.  Ruthie is also the mother of Smoke’s deceased infant child and they need to catch up on some history that was not tied off.  Stack needs to contend with Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), his sultry lover from the past who was also left behind unexpectedly. 

Most impressive is a debut performance from Miles Caton as Sammie Moore, the local preacher’s son, and the kid who can strum a mean guitar in the back seat of a car or down at the joint.  Sammie looks up to the twins. They will show him how to carry himself.  There’s a history to everyone the men encounter.  Sometimes they are welcome.  Sometimes they’re not, like the Klan, and sometimes they’d rather avoid who they come across as they continue to spread the word about the Juke Joint celebration that’s too come with all the liquor, food, and music they can imagine. 

Michael B Jordan and Miles Caton are definitely Oscar worthy; two very hot properties.  Caton can do it all.  He can sing and act.  He’s as big a surprise as Mikey Madison was with Anora.  You can’t take your eyes off of him and if the guy goes on tour, I’m buying a ticket to see him. 

A prologue narration followed by a disturbing, eye-opening epilogue scene within a town church opens Sinners.  Something unfathomable must have happened at the Juke Joint on this particular night. 

I went into this film having not seen a trailer, a commercial or even reading an article about it.  I was not aware of the blazing bluegrass root music that populates this film, nor of the surprise monster fest that eventually takes overtakes the story.  It was a better viewing experience for me than I imagine had I known some of the details of Coogler’s film.  This gorgeous film accompanied by magnificent sound and visual details with award caliber editing and direction steers into so many different curveball surprises and genres.  Sinners is a film that you go see in the movie theater.  The Juke Joint alone is worth the price of admission.  As memorable a setting as Rick’s Place in Casablanca, the Cantina in Star Wars or Jack Rabbit Slim’s in Pulp Fiction. 

You read it here first!  The Juke Joint is sure to be a haunted house at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights.  I promise you.

That being said, my love for the two-and-a-half-hour film dwindled during its last third when the monsters are revealed and the picture spirals into a blood fest battle between heroes and villains with spurting blood, fiery Molotov cocktails, guns and screaming and wrestling and chases upstairs and out the doors and off the balconies.  I’ve seen all of this a hundred times before and as well constructed as a film this is, nothing was surprising me anymore.  Nothing was giving me jump scares. 

For such an imaginative picture, the inventions went into neutral.  The dialogue starts to drain in lieu of schlock gore and the intelligence of this abundance of characters checks out at the door.  Some of what you see looks like material that could have been in Friday The 13th Part 14.  And, well, a lot of the material is a rehash of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s very proud B movie From Dusk Til Dawn.

Until the final act of Sinners, Ryan Coogler incorporates so much researched and genuine attention into this Jim Crow era film.  I read that while he was making the Creed and Black Panther films, he was feeling withdrawn after a favorite uncle passed away.  This uncle told stories of this Mississippi area, complete with a small immigration of Chinese populace.  Coogler capitalized on that idea and a well-drawn couple named Bo and Lisa Chow (Yao, Helena Hu) are weaved into this story to supply food and drink for the party that’s to come.  No one would ever question if these two were not part of this cast.  They could have been two black actors or even a pair of whites, but Coogler ensures additional flavors are worked into the film with the authenticity to back it.  These are not even walk on roles.  They own two different mercantile stores within the heart of town. 

The best idea to Sinners is when the music is most entertaining at the Juke.  Ryan Coogler has fun with the clay he infinitely molds.  A long Steadicam shot is the centerpiece of the film as it travels through the whole barn that has been transformed into the Joint.  Coogler seamlessly goes for an ethereal or maybe spiritual feel as the sweaty, sexy and rhythmic performers and their music blends into all kinds of jazz, rap and soul found within the future generations of this community.  A turntable scratcher is positioned next to an acoustic guitar player or a banjo, and as deliberately anachronistic as this seems for 1932, it all belongs together within this seasoned stew.

Outside the Juke Joint are the monsters priming for their own celebration to come with Celtic harmonies, clogging and river dancing to get their appetites drooling, literally drooling.  Two communities will clash and it will be for more than just than standard prejudices found along the cotton fields of Jim Crow Mississippi.

This was not an easy review to write.  I do not want to disclose the surprises and turns that Sinners takes.  As well, my experience with the film is a mixed bag.  There is so much new and fresh material found in Ryan Coogler’s picture, but there’s also a lot of staple work that’s all too familiar as well.  What I recognize is not the least bit surprising and it is frankly uninteresting to me.  Sinners needed the creation of a new kind of cinematic monster to uphold its inventions. 

Especially considering that the body horror film The Substance and Jordan Peele’s terrifyingly smart Get Out earned tons of accolades recently, it will not be a surprise if Sinners earns a lot of end-of-the-year nominations as well.  The direction, editing, art design and costume design are equally worthy of large appreciation.  Sinners has likely clinched a spot for Best Picture nomination.  Only the wrap up will deny itself of the trophy though. 

I must end with a long overdue BRAVO to horror.  Often the genre does not get deserved recognition, because so much of it runs on cheap gross out junk or jump scares with no sensible reasoning behind any of it.  Guys like Coogler and Peele are finally working on the braininess which can be found in this area of storytelling and craftmanship.  They know there are scarier things to imagine than a foreboding hockey mask. 

THE PLEDGE

By Marc S. Sanders

The Pledge is a moody and bleak crime drama that follows a retired detective’s descent into obsessive madness.

Director Sean Penn opens his film with the gruesome discovery of a murdered nine year old girl found amid the snow covered woods outside a small Nevada town.  She happens to be discovered on the evening of veteran detective Jerry Black’s (Jack Nicholson) retirement party.  Upon receiving word of the crime, Jerry leaves his celebration to explore the scene that is carelessly compromised by the local sheriffs.  His protege partner Stan (Aaron Eckhart) rushes through a possible suspect’s (Benicio Del Toro) interrogation that draws a quick conclusion along with an unnecessary and bloody outcome.

Jerry surrenders his position with the police department, but he’s not entirely convinced the crime has been solved.  He obligates himself to uphold a devout promise he gave to the victim’s parents (Patricia Clarkson, Michael O’Keefe) that he will catch their daughter’s killer.

Time passes and rather than retire into a quiet life of fishing, Jerry purchases an old gas station located within the vicinity of the crime scene as well as nearby where two other murders with similar circumstances occurred.  Jerry is going to wait out the next attempt committed by “The Wizard” or “The Racoon Killer,” and catch him in the act.

The Pledge is a brooding and lonely film.  Sean Penn’s piece offers an impressive list of who’s who actors that appear in small roles to shape out the detective’s progress.  Amidst all of these familiar names in the cast, Jack Nicholson has never appeared so isolated or despondent before.  His character is limited on dialogue.  A thin mustache and a wrinkled complexion with a smoking habit hide any humor or joy.  Jerry Black knows he’s the last capable police detective in this area.  It pains him to abandon his post to the halfwits he leaves behind.

A promise is a dangerous gesture.  If you adhere to it, all obstacles become nonexistent.  Anything will be done to uphold a pledge and conclude your wild theories, even if proof is not conveniently supplemented.   Nothing stands in the way of pledge.  

The second half of The Pledge moves at a slower pace when Jerry welcomes an abused mother (Robin Wright Penn) and her daughter into his home.  A new life seems destined for these three people but at what cost?  Is the hero of this film at least as dangerous as the psychopath that supposedly remains at large?

Would you go to the great lengths that Jerry puts himself through?  Is the expense of his own sanity, and the safety of an innocent woman and her daughter worth this pursuit?

Sean Penn’s film does not operate on suspense. What action there is only fuels Jerry’s chase at a long-shot truth.  It’s a slow burn crime drama that makes the central murder a far second priority to how the initial discovery overtakes the main character.  Again, this kind of mania is a different breed from Jack Nicholson’s other crazed portrayals found in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Five Easy Pieces, or The Shining.  Nicholson is not as vocal or expressive in this role.  Yet, we all know what drives this guy with what few words he uses.

Robin Wright Penn and Nicholson share some effective scenes together. Their motive to be with one another stems from a misery loves company ideal. Good casting here, and throughout the film with small appearances from Helen Mirren, Harry Dean Stanton, Sam Shepard, Vanessa Redgrave, Mickey Rourke, Tom Noonan, Clarkson, O’Keefe, Del Toro and Eckhart.

Sean Penn is very good at creating visual moods to his film. The image of Nicholson standing within the pen of a crowded turkey farm with the anguished parents of the victim is truly haunting. Animals of all kinds seem to emote a cold harshness as well. The first image to appear consists of a swarm of large, winged birds soaring above this backwoods area where the biggest thing to happen is a town parade. Otherwise, as one girl tells Jerry there’s nothing else to do here. This remote Nevada area is unprotected from greater powers, and its only guardian is forced to accept retirement, leaving his community vulnerable. This formerly decorated Marine is now a formerly decorated cop, and the unseen animals-or monsters-still roam.

I won’t spoil the ending which I commend, but there is one moment that Sean Penn includes in the final cut that is objectionable.  For the first time in the picture since Jerry Black accepted the case, one moment near the end of the movie tells the audience everything they need to know while leaving Jerry in the dark.  I think it was a poor choice to go this way.  The audience is going along with Jerry’s pursuit until they are spoon fed a resolution they didn’t earn because Jerry never arrives at this conclusion.  A better route would be to leave the audience in the same dizzying haze that Jerry must live with.  Some hanging threads should be left untied. The Pledge is a pot boiling, well-made and disturbing film, but with minutes to go before the end credits roll, a less is more approach should have been adopted.

THUNDERBOLTS*

By Marc S. Sanders

Thunderbolts* is the next Marvel movie out of the assembly line, the second of 2025 (after Captain America: Brave New World).  A new team is haphazardly assembled and the witty lines come through that poke fun at their idiosyncrasies and their origins.  Yelena (Florence Pugh) is the Russian assassin with a daredevil streak.  John Walker (Wyatt Russell) is the wannabe Captain America known formally as U.S. Agent.  There’s Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) who can teleport in and out of places, and Red Guardian (David Harbour), the Soviet equivalent of Captain America with a shaggy beard, a beer belly and an adorably estranged father/daughter relationship with Yelena.  Bucky, The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) is back too.  We’ve talked enough about him though.

Marvel and Disney are advertising this cast as the anti-heroes, or anti-Avengers and the film lives up to that mantra.  However, it still has the witty banter of those other superhero team up pictures.  What sets this one apart though is that eventually the characters and the story use their brain and a little welcome psychosis for a thrilling final act that leaves you alarmed while welcoming you to empathize. 

The strongest actor and most dimensional character portrayal belongs to Florence Pugh.  No doubt that she carries the film as she leads us into an unexpected underground trap where the other members of this cast are all trying to kill each other at the assigned behest of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).  Yelena quickly figures out Valentina’s deceit while overlooking an innocent looking Frankenstein’s monster of a young man named Bob (Lewis Pullman).  The others are there to just exercise their skills for some cool action scene edits, and tag along with Yelena and Bob.  An escape out of the underground structure might overstay its welcome, but fortunately the characters are fun.

Once the escape is complete, the action gets better from there with explosions and fire power and such.  Cars and a limo go boom.  Bullets deflect everywhere.

Naturally, disaster eventually has to arrive in New York City and it is up to these Thunderbolts* to save the city.  Honestly, as the citizens kept on disappearing into blackness, I kept asking myself why Dr. Strange or Spider-Man didn’t show up.  That’s the become the unwelcome problem with the Marvel films and their ongoing connections to each other.  Why would I expect a teleporter and a group of acrobatic fighters who carry shields and handguns to stop a godlike entity that is destroying New York City?  Last I recall, Stephen Strange was not dead.  I had to look past the obvious though because there’s interesting material that harbors itself during this third act. 

Florence Pugh and Lewis Pullman steer the reins to triumph, and it is more so done with an underlying, bordering hokey message that these two capable actors balance quite well.  There’s punching and running and screaming and superpower stuff, yes.  However, the win works on an emotional level too, setting itself apart from the various Avengers movies.  There’s good editing to be found here as the characters jump from one room to another as personal demons are confronted.  The room jumps make you feel like you are in that inflatable wonder wheel you would walk on in the swimming pool. It certainly keeps you alert. All the while, Yelena, the skilled martial arts assassin, uses her brains and instinct to rescue her teammates and especially Bob.

The debate rages on the oversaturation of superhero movies and how they might be destroying cinema.  I’ve never been so quick to surrender to that argument.  The box office of these films keep jobs in place for a large multi-billion dollar industry and the profits to be made allow for small more arthouse like films to be produced.  Also, they are still so fun and entertaining if you allow yourself not to be such a film snob. So, stop complaining so much. 

As for the material of these pictures, Thunderbolts* is a good, up to date example of not simply relying on special effects and city destruction with another villain of the week.  It has a Ghostbusters/Men In Black humorous vibe to it while still catering to intrinsic insecurities and personal baggage that all of us carry through life.  Sometimes, when we want to escape to the movies, it helps to uncover someone telling a story that gets me, gets you…gets all of us. 

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS

By Marc S. Sanders

Arguably the most famous photograph in American history is that of the six soldiers raising the flag on the island of Iwo Jima while battling Japanese forces during World War II.  I remain fascinated by the image.  

I recall visiting the landmark statue in Washington DC when I was traveling by myself.  I took countless pictures of the piece.  I got close ups, wide lens shots, pictures of the flag and pictures of each sculpted soldier.  It’s heroic in any aspect.  It looks like something out of a Superman comic book.  As it turns out, the famed image was just a happy accident during a violently terrible time in twentieth century history.  Photographer Joe Rosenthal didn’t even realize what his camera captured until his film was later developed.  Turned out this was the second attempt at raising the flag.  Furthermore, this occurred on the fifth day of the conflict – with thirty-five days still to go before the Americans could claim victory over the bloody crisis.

So, while Rosenthal’s image seems to declare American patriotism at its finest, the real story is not as romantic.  In fact, one of the narrators of Clint Eastwood’s film, Flags Of Our Fathers, suggests that there are no heroes to celebrate.  Whoever the men in that picture were, they were not so much fighting for their country as they were trying to stay alive and look after the comrades ahead and behind them.

Flags Of Our Fathers has a very reminiscent feel to producer Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan with unforgiving battle scenes of blood, death, bombings and young soldiers storming a beach while screaming for their buddies.  Spielberg might have impressed me first, but Clint Eastwood masterfully shoots wide landscapes and up-close turmoil with his reliable strategies of shooting in shadows and silohouettes.  Eastwood’s film, scripted by Paul Haggis and William Broyles Jr veers into a unique direction though as Rosenthal’s picture takes on a life of its own back in the states.  It makes the front page of every paper.  Harry Truman stands proud of it along with all the decorated military leaders.

Now that America has entered the war, it is appropriate to ignite a propaganda campaign.  This picture of the Stars and Stripes getting elevated into the sobering, smoky war-torn skies will motivate citizens to buy war bonds to further fund the war effort.  The spokesmen will be the ones believed to be the remaining surviving three of the six in that image.  Ryan Phillipe is Navy enlisted John “Doc” Bradley.  Jesse Bradford is Rene Gagon, and Adam Beach plays Native American Ira Hayes, both of the Marine Corps.

I believe Flags Of Our Fathers embraces what every enlisted person did to serve the efforts of America during the war, and the picture mourns the countless sacrifices and losses that occurred.  However, it frowns upon the domestic response to what really went on overseas.  Those that returned carried terrible and unforgettable trauma based on their experiences.  Yet, the three thought to be part of the flag raising were pushed to celebrate their achievements summed up in a split-second image.  Bradley, Gagon and Hayes were skeptical if they were the ones in that picture.  Government Bureaucrats could care less.   There were others on that hill who cannot speak for themselves, but officials in suits and ties will insist otherwise to uphold a countrywide tour complete with recreations of the hill they ran up on that fateful day.  Even desserts are crafted like the famed image.

Ira Hayes is the one who is especially conflicted with his new responsibilities to the governing body that historically acquired his ancestors’ territory.  Adam Beach portrays a torn individual who is limited in celebration by the United States and certainly patronized.  Who he stems from does not matter.  He represents a false interpretation of the English acceptance of his Native heritage.  His obligation to this machine of propaganda only doubles the exaggeration that his other two peers are coerced to parade with marching bands and fireworks.  All that the ongoing extravagance does is keep him absorbed in the Japanese lives he brutally slaughtered and the bloodshed that surrounded him.  It’s a heartbreaking performance told with an absence of true appreciation for what Hayes gave up on that battlefield.

I learned much from Flags Of Our Fathers, but I had issues with comprehending everything.  While the immense war footage is chaotic with sharp editing and camerawork, it’s challenging to match names with faces in the picture.  There are two elderly men who are recounting what occurred and what happened to these men and their families long after the incident was over.  It was hard for me to line up which older man was who, on top of who they are talking about at times.  Paul Walker is one famous face in the crowd.  So is Barry Pepper but I could not identify the names of their characters until the film was arriving at its conclusion.  It was not until the epilogue of the movie arrives that it became a little clearer.  I also had to later reference what is listed on IMDB.  

The entire design of Eastwood’s movie is authentic from the battles staged for the Iwo Jima conflict to what mid-1940s domestic life looked like back home.  Truly absorbing while both storylines seem so different.  Clint Eastwood also wrote the soundtrack composition, and it is truly sobering.  His son Kyle performs with the orchestra.  

Flags Of Our Fathers partnered with Clint Eastwood’s follow up later in the year, Letters From Iwo Jima, which offered the Japanese perspective of the incident.  Bridge the films together and you get an incredible cinematic experience.  So many war pictures are one sided.  In all fairness, most movies do not have the time, luxury or finances to expand their palettes from one side to the other.  Because these two films are companion pieces, the viewer gets a fair account of how this battle, located on a tiny island, treated the men on the ground while their governing bodies celebrated their stands for patriotism, victory and monetary funding.

Eastwood demonstrates that the war destroyed practically everyone who was engaged in it regardless of the countries these soldiers served.  Many were slaughtered, but the innocence of those that physically survived died with everyone else during this period of time.  Clint Eastwood directed two films that explain this never-ending atrocity.  These men eventually laid down their weapons, but they never left the war.

BATMAN FOREVER

By Marc S. Sanders

Last month, upon hearing the news of Val Kilmer’s unfortunate passing, Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever actively swept the social media rounds.  Fans of Kilmer praised his one and done occupation with the costumed role.  Some declared the film their favorite of all the superhero’s cinematic adventures and expressed their immense appreciation of the Juilliard graduate as Bruce Wayne and his vigilante persona.  He’s good.  Yeah.  I’m not going to say he’s great though because the film doesn’t offer much meat for Kilmer to chew off the bone.  As for the film, well, it’s a Joel Schumacher movie.  Should it be good?

The director took over the reigns from Tim Burton.  Michael Keaton opted not to return following two films and thus Kilmer was contracted.  The villains of the week are a very miscast Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face and Jim Carry doing a misbehaved class clown interpretation of The Riddler.  Unlike Burton’s noir approach, Batman Forever is gleefully campy and colorful with overly apparent winks and nods to Batman’s butt, codpiece and notorious chest nipples.  None of it necessary because it’s all wrapped in vinyl and plastic.  Buy the action figures if you want to cop a feel.

Akiva Goldsman was the head screenwriter.  His script carries no reluctance in delivering cliche dialogue.  “It’s the car right? Chicks dig the car!”  or “I’ll get drive thru.” (McDonalds was a proud sponsor.) Worse though are the two halves of the picture.  Kilmer’s Batman endures his ongoing traumatic psychosis of losing his parents, while Jones and Carrey go for a reiteration of the beloved Adam West slapstick TV series.  These two languages never speak to one another.  The hero and the villains hardly confront or challenge each other and never hold a substantial conversation during the course of the film.

Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones try way too hard to duplicate what Jack Nicholson’s Joker portrayal memorably did the first time.  There is no backstory to Jones’ character except a brief news clip.  Otherwise, the middle-aged actor looks like he’s exhausting himself out of breath while trying to match Nicholson and Carrey.  As a Batman fan, he’s entirely wrong for this role.  The Two Face alter ego is the handsomely vain district attorney Harvey Dent.  According to comics lore, when Dent gets half his face grotesquely disfigured, he develops a deep-seeded anger to losing his looks and it leads to his ongoing villainy.  Tommy Lee Jones is a fantastic actor, but he is not the Adonis that Billy Dee Williams (Burton’s Harvey Dent) carried his charming career on.  The makeup job with Estee Lauder pink and purple is awful craftsmanship.

Jim Carrey is doing his usual schtick that skyrocketed his career with Ace Ventura and Dumb & Dumber, but it’s overly abundant here.  Goldsman, Schumacher and Carrey take equal blame.  This Riddler only offers three or four puzzles.  Otherwise, we get Carrey doing the Nicholson gags that should never have made the final print; a baseball pitcher tossing a curveball bomb in the Batcave and a mad scientist routine that drives the bad guy’s stupid plot line of using television waves to absorb the collective intelligence of the people of Gotham City.  The more this side story carries on the more mind numbingly stupid it becomes.  The Riddler’s device is nothing more than a kitchen blender that glows neon green while it hardly maintains balance on anyone’s head.  Junky production value.

Nicole Kidman is radiant as the next romantic Bat gal in line.  She’s so much better than this insubstantial material, though. She consists of zero significance.  Nothing else I can say.

Chris O’Donnell makes his first of two appearances as Dick Grayson, Batman’s sidekick known as Robin.  O’Donell actually has the most interesting storyline as a daredevil kid who tragically loses his family but can’t sit still when adventure awaits.  He gets into all kinds of mischief on his motorcycle and within the confines of Wayne Manor before he finally dons the famous costume. Yet, even when he’s standing in the same frame as Kilmer, both actors look like they are performing in different films.  One guy is hyperactive.  The other is morose and neither seems to be reading from the same script. Their chemistry is begging. Did these guys ever stop and develop an appreciation for one another?

Joel Schumacher applies a candy-colored polish to his Gotham City with black light graffiti, bright lights and more glow, glow, glow!!! Even the street gangs use neon glowing fighting sticks and Two Face’s henchmen work with neon red machine guns.  Oy!!! Enough.  Willy Wonka’s factory was not this sugary sweet.  Batman Forever is one film that can give you diabetes just by looking at it.

Other than an impressive opening scene with a helicopter and a cylindrical bank vault, none of the action sequences are worthy of postponing your bathroom break.  Batman’s fighting prowess and his ugly car and jet look like they are being run by an eight-year-old with his action figures.

So, as I noted before, I took another look at Batman Forever to explore what Val Kilmer did with the role.  He would have been a good Batman if he was given some things to do.  Ultimately, his dashing good looks complement Bruce Wayne’s suits and ties quite well and his square jaw fits perfectly in the mask.

What else can I say except I can’t imagine any chicks loving the car because this Batmobile has a pointless fin sticking out of the chassis and the wheels glow white, plus there’s an odd rib cage of lights on the sides of the vehicle.  Oh, and it drives up the wall of a building.  Is this where people are supposed to be impressed with Val Kilmer?

MEET THE PARENTS

By Marc S. Sanders

Am I the only one who used to get tired of feeling sorry for Ben Stiller?  The go to formulas of his earlier comedies made him the unfortunate stooge.  The best of that batch was The Farrelly Brothers’ hilarious There’s Something About Mary.  Every gag, every cast member, every storyline was straight up side splitting.  Late last year, during the hurricane chaos in Florida I got around to watching Along Came Polly.  Poor Ben had to play basketball defense against a bare chested wookie hairball of a guy and his close up of misfortune carried the advertising campaign for that movie. 

Back in the year 2000, Stiller suffered through a terrible weekend with an intimidating Robert DeNiro frowning on his every move in Meet The Parents, also known as the first of a “Fockers Trilogy.”  Yeah, Meet The Parents is funny.  You shake your head at the absurd comedy that befalls Stiller’s character, Greg Focker. Though that isn’t even his real name at birthright.  Still, I can’t recall feeling so guilty for one guy’s misfortune that he can hardly ever help to avoid.  This guy is destined to never win, to never overcome, to never live without self-consciousness.

Greg Focker is ready to propose to his loving girlfriend Pam Burns (Teri Polo). First, he has to survive a weekend at her parents’ house where the other daughter is getting married.  Not so easy because first the airline loses his luggage and poor Greg has no clothes to wear, other than what Pam’s pot head brother can provide. Baggy jeans and baggy sweatshirt on a short and svelte Ben Stiller is one sight gag of many.  The guy also has to nonchalantly dismiss his uninviting surname and the fact that Pam’s father Jack (DeNiro) is unimpressed with his occupation.  Greg is not a nurse.  Greg is “a male nurse,” who opted not to go all the way for the MD, even after taking the exams. 

Jack and his wife Dina (Blythe Danner) are less than impressed with Greg’s housewarming gift.  Jack’s precious cat Mr. Jinx is a bit of a problem because Pam can’t keep her mouth shut that Greg is not fond of cats.  Doesn’t make him a bad guy, but does her cat loving father need to know this interesting tid bit, right away?  Pam’s ex-boyfriend Kevin (a hilarious Owen Wilson against Stiller’s pitiful expressions) can do absolutely no wrong – like nothing at all.  The biggest challenge for Greg though is Jack.  Whether it’s Taxi Driver or Meet The Parents or Rocky & Bullwinkle, Robert DeNiro is the embodiment of intimidation. 

Meet The Parents is funny, and it serves no purpose to surrender the many sight gags or one liners that are offered in the film.  I laugh.  I laugh hard when I watch this movie, but I hardly ever feel good about myself.  Poor Greg never catches a break.  He’s in a no-win situation and I’m just uneasy about the whole thing.  The guy chooses not to go swimming because he has no swimsuit. Then Kevin offers one and well…yeah…I’m on Greg’s side and it’s not funny for Greg.  If I was a guest in someone’s home only to wake up late when the whole family is dressed and finishing breakfast, and I’m wearing my girlfriend’s dad’s PJs, of course I’m going to feel insecure.  For the sake of the comedy in Meet The Parents, the set ups are simply awkward situations to laugh at that one guy in the room.  Poor Greg.  Poor, poor Greg. 

In fact, the real villain of Meet The Parents is not even DeNiro’s Jack Burns who has some secrets to hide.  Actually, the unsympathizing bad guy is Teri Polo’s character.  Pam never makes it easy for her boyfriend.  Greg rightfully asks why didn’t she wake him up or why didn’t she tell him her dad is not a florist, or why this and why that, and Pam is naïve to Greg’s justified concern, never empathizing with his position.  In fact, when he tries to explain his feelings, she’s nothing but insensitively dismissive. 

Yes.  It’s a comedy, but I was begging and begging and BEGGING Greg to just leave.  Leave this place.  LEAVE PAM FOR GOOD AND GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE.  You know, like we would tell the counselors in a Friday The 13th flick?  It’s not so much the father as it is his girlfriend who quickly nosedives Greg’s comfort into an inescapable hell.  You know how people love to say Jenny is the villain of Forrest Gump?  Well, I got one better.  Pam Burns is an unthoughtful, uncaring, spoiled brat of a daddy’s girl with nary a shred of consideration for others. 

I despise you Pam Burns – daughter of Jack and Dina Burns, rotten and heartless girlfriend to Greg Focker!!!!!