Reviews

#1198 – Mean Streets

/ Chase Clark / Leave a comment

I recently watched this film again, also through the Criterion Channel, after not having seen it since college. I remember when I watched it that first time and thinking, “This movie looks cheap. New York City looks so grimy, and the camera is all over the place.” At that time, I naively considered these flaws of the filmmakers, and enough to make me dismiss the film as a whole. Obviously, I have since changed my tune. Those things still remain, but some are due to budgetary restrictions and therefore cannot affect the merit of the movie as a whole, and some are stylistic choices. Most Scorsese gangster movies have a crisp look to them. NYC isn’t the problem, it’s the people who are grimy. Mean Streets informs us that it’s both, and that, in part, was the intention.

Charlie (Harvey Keitel) is a good boy – he works for his mafia-connected uncle, and therefore has to do some unsavory things, but he’s very concerned with his sense of morality and the salvation of his immortal soul. So concerned that, every time he sees fire, he tries to touch it in hopes he can withstand the heat. Anyone who has ever touched a hot stove knows that doesn’t go well for him. Since the Catholic Church will not absolve him of his sins without him actually confessing them, he attempts to earn his salvation another way.

Enter Johnny Boy, played by a nearly brand-new Robert De Niro. Johnny Boy is the cousin of Charlie’s epileptic girlfriend, Teresa, but more importantly, he’s a ne’er-do-well on the path to eternal damnation. Charlie sees Johnny Boy as his ticket to Heaven. If he can get Johnny to walk the straight and narrow, there’s no way Saint Peter would turn him away. The only problem is that the more Charlie interferes with Johnny Boy’s erratic way of living, the worse it gets. Johnny Boy feels coddled. Some people just don’t want to be saved. His antics not only set his life on a downward spiral, but he begins taking everyone else down with him – particularly Charlie. It all comes to a head in a drive-by shooting in those mean streets. Johnny Boy, Teresa and Charlie are all hurt, but Johnny Boy walks away into an alley where the red, flashing lights of a police car hint at his final destination, and Charlie walks out into the street, baptized in the waters of a broken fire hydrant. Only Teresa is unable to get out on her own, more damaged than the others, requiring the EMTs that get to the scene first to help ease her out of the car. Teresa and Charlie will survive, but while he kneels in the street, and images of the sinful life he is potentially leaving passes before his eyes, Charlie doesn’t even acknowledge the condition Teresa is in. And in that moment, that final scene, we understand how selfish Charlie’s quest to earn his own salvation truly is.

As I said before, my views on this film have changed significantly. Where as once I held Mean Streets with slight disdain, even considering it lower-tier Scorsese, I have now nearly flipped that completely. Mean Streets isn’t just a great film, it’s also pure Scorsese, through and through. It’s full of Catholic guilt, religious imagery (a chat between Charlie and Johnny Boy in a graveyard, where Johnny lays on a grave and Charlie leans against a cross, is particularly excellent), an internal wrestle between saint and sinner, a killer 60s pop soundtrack (one of the first examples of a jukebox soundtrack; the infamous bar brawl scene is set to the Marvelettes’ “Please, Mr. Postman”), tracking shots (that same bar brawl), and a whole lot of New York City.

I read that Scorsese wrote the screenplay for this film (not something he does often) after a talk with actor/director John Cassavetes, where Cassavetes criticized his previous film, Boxcar Bertha, for being uninspired. His advice to a young Scorsese was to make films he’s passionate about. You can feel the passion in Mean Streets. I argue you will not find a film so near and dear to Scorsese’s heart again until 2019’s The Irishman. It’s reflective and thoughtful. It’s genuine. It’s a filmmaker in the middle of insecurity, discovering his voice and, somehow, confidently firing on all cylinders. Martin Scorsese’s third film is, dare I say, a masterpiece, and sits alongside Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and GoodFellas in the discussion for his best.

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

/ Chase Clark / Leave a comment

At the time of my writing this, Martin Scorsese’s latest picture, Killers of the Flower Moon, is roughly three months away from release. Early buzz for the film ranges from “Scorsese’s masterpiece” to “a fantastic film, if a little too long”. Between the collaborations (Scorsese, De Niro and DiCaprio, not to mention Lily Gladstone), and my own personal interest in the story (I read the book, I’m from Oklahoma, and I have an unhealthy obsession with Native American history and culture), it’s preemptively my most-anticipated release of the year. What better time, then, to take a deep dive into Scorsese’s hefty filmography? This is an odd starting point, considering what Scorsese’s famous for, but it was available on The Criterion Channel for the month of July. So, here it is: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

Martin Scorsese’s fourth feature film puts the director into uncharted waters of his oeuvre: the romantic comedy. Apparently, this film wasn’t even on Scorsese’s radar at the time. Ellen Burstyn, who plays the titular Alice, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress to show for it, received a copy of the script from her agent after being tasked with finding a complicated woman for her to play. After reading the script, she went on the hunt for a young, visionary director to helm it. It was Scorsese’s previous film, Mean Streets, that was garnering all the buzz at the time, and after viewing a screening, Burstyn decided he was the man for the job. Warner Brothers agreed, and so began Scorsese’s journey into major studio filmmaking.

Alice is a stay-at-home mom caught between her needy and verbally abusive husband and her preteen boy who is discovering that “brat” is a viable personality. Alice doesn’t have to keep the peace very long when her husband dies in a work-related accident. His death, however, leaves Alice and her son without any prospects or security, so they hit the road, heading towards California, so she can realize her dream of being a singer – a dream that was completely derailed by married life.

Her financial straits demand they stop in Phoenix to earn enough money to make the rest of their trip. Initially, she can only get work as a waitress, but through her determination, she is able to secure a job as a lounge singer. She captures the heart of the young cowboy, Ben (played by a young Harvey Keitel), and he sweeps her up into a whirlwind romance that is going great until she discovers he’s also abusive. Oh, and also, he’s married. Yikes! In the middle of a confrontation between her, Ben, and Ben’s wife, Alice decides it’s time to continue to Monterey. They get as far as Tucson before they are forced to stop again.

In Tucson, Alice gains employment as a waitress at Mel’s diner, working alongside the outspoken, headstrong Flo, and timid-to-the-point-of-collapse Vera. The chaos in the diner leads to some of the funniest scenes in the film, especially when Vera’s involved. Alice also meets a divorced rancher, David (Kris Kristofferson), and they fall in love. “Oh, sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found you!” It’s days of wine and roses until David finally does the seemingly unforgiveable: he spanks Alice’s son. Trust me, over the course of the movie, I spent more time with Alice’s son than David did, and he’s lucky a spanking is all he got. When he runs away after his reprimanding, Alice frantically searches all of Tucson for him, determined to find him and get him to Monterey. However, when she finds her son, they have a heart-to-heart, and Alice realizes that she’s happy in Tucson with David, and so is her son, so they make the decision to stay.

The script and Burstyn’s feminist take on the character makes Scorsese an interesting choice when considering modern criticism of his filmography (i.e. the sidelining of his female characters). I suspect her decision to choose a man over her dreams won’t sit as well with the most recent wave of feminists as maybe it did in the 70s. However, I think one of the things this movie does well is show growth in Alice’s character. At the beginning, she doesn’t have a choice in the direction of her own life, or at least she doesn’t believe she does, but at the end of the film, it’s completely her decision to stay or go. The other thing this movie does well is lean into the shmaltzy look and feel of older soap operas and 1940s melodramas. It gives the movie character and a charm that it’s mostly lacking.

This brings me to my biggest criticism of the film: it’s surprisingly bland. Without its color and occasional cutesy attitude, I doubt I would have made it to the end. Ellen Burstyn does great, but it’s far from her best performance (I suspect the Academy gave her the award for this film because they realized their mistake in not giving it to her for The Exorcist), and with the exception of Flo and Vera, all the other actors are wooden. I’ve never considered Kris Kristofferson a good actor and he doesn’t change my mind here. The kid is the most frustrating part of the entire film, though that may not be the actor’s fault. The character is insufferable, and I have never wished for a worse end to a kid in a movie since Mildred Pierce.

In the end, the movie is passable, and cute enough to give a look if you have the time, but don’t go out of your way to make time for it unless you’re doing a Scorsese marathon like I am. Mean Streets was a glimpse of what Scorsese could become, but Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is someone else’s movie tossed into his lap.

Gran Turismo: Based On A True Story

/ Chase Clark / Leave a comment

Did you know this movie is based on a true story? I was unsure how to address the title of my review because all of the posters for this movie say “GRAN TURISMO” in big white or black letters across the top, and in much smaller letters, somewhere below that, it says “Based on a True Story”. Like it’s a tagline or an afterthought. But when I went to purchase my ticket, it lists the title as “Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story”, as if that were the full title. They really want you to know that this movie is (somewhat) based on a true story, and who can fault them for that? It’s an excellent piece of marketing. I wish other movies were that forthright with their origins. Titanic: Inspired by True Events. Schindler’s List: Based on a Book Based on a True Story. Braveheart: Total Male Fantasy, but William Wallace was a Real Guy.

This movie was fine, and more like the kind of “fine” your significant other is when you ask them how they’re doing, knowing full well they’re not doing “fine”, than actually fine. Which is a bummer, because the fact that this film is “Based on a True Story” makes it such an interesting idea for a film. The basics, for those not in-the-know, is a young man who is really good and obsessed with the Gran Turismo video game series, gets the opportunity to put his gaming skills to the test by becoming a real racecar driver, through a training academy set up by Nissan and PlayStation. It’s the story of a group of outsiders that have to prove they belong in a world where no one wants them. The premise is fine – actually fine – but that’s the best it can do.

There are some positives to be sure. The movie editing is tight and quick, all gas and no breaks, which keeps the movie exciting and suspenseful. I was certainly on the edge of my seat the whole time. It felt like a rollercoaster or like a game of Gran Turismo (I can only presume, since I’m not really a fan of racing games – not even Mario Kart), but at the very end, as I was walking out to my car, I wondered how I could have spent the entire movie so enthralled and yet walk away so nonchalant. Then, it dawned on me that I didn’t care how the movie turned out, I didn’t care about the characters, and it merely gave me an adrenaline rush. So, I guess I got my money’s worth.

It’s a struggle when talking about film sometimes, because film is sometimes highly artistic, and sometimes it’s solely mindless entertainment. I love a good rollercoaster, but the thrill is certainly a fleeting one. Likewise, Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story is fun and exciting, but it’s not going to linger with you unless you buy another ticket. But I’m digressing.

Some of the acting performances are worth mentioning. David Harbour, of Stranger Things fame, remains the highlight of anything he’s in. He plays Jack Salter – a former racer who lost his mojo and now works as a lowly mechanic until he gets roped into teaching these gamer losers how to be winners. And while we’ve seen his type of character thousands of times, Harbour ignites in every scene he’s in. Djimon Hounsou, who plays Steve Mardenborough, does the best with what he’s given, playing another stereotype – the father to our main character, Jann (it’s a soft “J”), who just doesn’t believe his son’s silly dreams until a tearful reunion makes him see the light. And then, there’s Orlando Bloom. Orlando Bloom is…there. In the movie. Seriously, what happened to that guy? I guess I just don’t love him if he’s not defying physics as an elf archer or the dull pirate of a two-pirate crew.

The two biggest things I have against Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story, are our main character and an emotional detour or pit stop that’s supposed to set up and lead into a triumphant final race. Whatever you want to call it, it pumps the breaks on the whole thing.

*Spoilers beyond this point. If you don’t want to be spoiled, scroll down to where you see a message similar to this.*

Okay, so everything is going great for Jann. He’s got his racing license, he’s coming up fourth and fifth place in races consistently, and he’s looking to get onto the victory podium. And then, suddenly, in the middle of a race, his car goes over a hill and gets too much air, causing him to flip the car and go crashing through the track and into some spectators. One of them dies, and Jann is informed of this when he wakes up from his mini coma. Realizing what has happened, he is understandably sad, and he may never race again. Racing is dangerous, after all.

My problem with this portion of the movie is two-fold. One, it’s so out-of-nowhere. Jann is cruising down the track, making a name for himself, and then boom! People die! And you know you should be sad because the music that plays in the background is sad. If you’ve been enjoying the movie so far, you’re going to get whiplash. And maybe you can say that’s the intention of the filmmakers, but I don’t think it is, at least not entirely. My second problem is that this crisis is completely unnecessary to the film. It adds a bit of internal conflict for Jann (which doesn’t work, and I’ll get to that in a minute), that’s resolved five minutes later. The movie had enough conflict to keep people engaged without the crash. You get the sense that the filmmakers felt they had to include it just because it was such a tragic accident that really happened. They rush through it, telling Jann and the audience that it was a freak accident and no one’s fault (again, this is Sony and Nissan making this movie about Sony and Nissan), and there’s no real closure. It just goes away as quickly and jarringly as it came.

*Spoilers over with. You may continue.*

My other main gripe with this movie is our main character, Jann. First of all, I don’t think the actor, Archie Madekwe, is particularly good. Granted, he seems fairly new, and maybe he’ll keep growing and improving. However, I really feel like he was fighting a losing battle in this movie. Jann is a real person, and so Archie has to pass for someone you can easily find videos online to compare to, but the filmmakers also want you to see yourself as Jann. He’s a self-insert for all the gamers and dreamers out there, and so it becomes difficult to give Jann any personality. The most we get is his love of Kenny G and Enya, and that he’s sad when tragedy strikes, but he appears sad most of the time, so it’s hard to tell the difference. This idea of the main character as a stand-in for the viewer seems to be a newer trend in movies, and it really has its origins in video games, so it kind of makes sense here, but it gets in the way of storytelling and character development, causing both to suffer.

In the end, Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story does most of what it sets out to accomplish. And again, it is a white-knuckle thrill ride for the majority of its 2 hour and 15 minute runtime. It’s an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. But that’s all it is. Don’t let that “based on a true story” moniker rev you up too much. If you do, you’re likely to crash and burn.

Rating: 4/10

Barbie

/ Chase Clark / Leave a comment

Barbie has all the subtlety of an atomic bomb, but maybe that’s a good thing. It wants to make a statement on so many things – identity and humanity, womanhood in a patriarchal society, manhood in a matriarchal society, corporate branding and influence, superficiality versus substance, and quite a bit more – and for the most part, it does well, relying on its intelligence to circumvent its need for eloquence.

This is a movie for modern times. It’s feminist, it’s self-referential and breaks the fourth wall frequently, and it overuses or misuses words like “patriarchy” and “fascist”. Despite your personal views on some those things, Barbie is a lot of fun. It’s beautiful to look at, vibrant and very pink. Think of Set Design and Cinematography come Oscar season. The introduction to Barbie Land, complete with an opening song from Lizzo (because, duh) that describes the jokes we’re seeing onscreen, is so cute and bubblegum-pop, it might make you nauseous, like the kid who eats all their candy and then gets on the loopiest of rollercoasters. But, hey, wasn’t that cotton candy delicious?

The very beginning of the film includes a parody of the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey, replacing the apes for little girls with baby dolls, and the obelisk with a giant Margot Robbie that is sure to give the film’s detractors some very weird fantasies. From that introduction, we’re introduced to our lead character, Barbie, or “Stereotypical Barbie”, as she is sometimes referred to. Her life is perfect. Everyday, she gets up, and goes to the beach with the other Barbies and all of the Kens, and then every night is Girl’s Night. Though, maybe all is not as it seems, because in the middle of a nationwide dance party, Barbie asks the question, “Do any of you ever think about dying?”

From here, the movie becomes a blend of The Lego Movie (Will Ferrell even plays another CEO of Business-type), A Matter of Life and Death, and Wings of Desire (the Wim Wenders film about an angel who just wants to be human – if you haven’t seen this one, you may have seen the John Travolta-led, romcom remake, Michael). Barbie must find out why she’s having this existential crisis by traveling to the Real World and confronting the girl who is playing with her. Ken, whose entire existence is made on acknowledgement from Barbie and whose occupation is simply “Beach”, sneaks into her car and joins her on her venture of self-discovery.

Ryan Gosling as Ken is the highlight of this film. He’s so funny and charming, even when he’s tiptoeing towards misogynistic or incel behavior. In the Real World, he discovers that a world dominated by men can be fun and exciting, and you can’t help but love him, even as he gleefully returns to Barbie Land and transforms it into Kendom, or explains the necessity of referring to his takeover of Barbie’s Dreamhome into his “Mojo Dojo Casa House”.

Meanwhile, Stereotypical Barbie has to get back to Barbie Land and fix what Ken is doing with the help of a mother-daughter duo that have their own problems to work out. The director, Greta Gerwig, whose other films include Lady Bird and the most recent remake of Little Women, usually shines with the mother-daughter dynamic, but in Barbie, it gets lost amid the jokes and winks to the audience. They really don’t bring much to the table until the mother, Gloria (played by America Ferrera), has an epiphany and monologues all the well-trodden issues that women face in a male-dominated society, thus breaking all the other Barbies out of their patriarchy-induced trance. This is where the lack of subtlety actually works in the movie’s favor. In another movie, this speech would have completely stopped the film. The things Gloria says are true, but they are delivered in the most awkward, parent-scolding-their-child-way possible.

In the end, Barbie is nothing like its critics have described it. It is not antithetical to its feminist grounding, but it is also not man-hating “woke” garbage. The film is smart enough to be critical and understanding of both sides – maybe too understanding at times to be overly critical (Stereotypical Barbie apologizes to Ken for not giving him enough attention at one point). Legally Blonde maybe did it better, but that doesn’t diminish the enjoyment of this movie. It has a little something for everybody. It’s cool, it’s fun, it’s hilarious. It’s cotton candy. Closer, it is, to “fine” than “great”, but that still means it’s “good”, and sometimes, that’s Kenough.

Rating: 6/10

Oppenheimer

/ Chase Clark / Leave a comment

“Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.” This quote, surrounded by the flames produced by an atomic bomb, begin a three-hour analysis of the complicated scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer. The movie, inspired by the biography on Oppenheimer, American Prometheus, will never let you forget that comparison. Thankfully, it’s the only clue the film presents on where its opinion of its subject lies.

Instead of taking a stance on the long-running debate over whether Oppenheimer was a good or bad person, the film smartly keeps its namesake at an arm’s length. Christopher Nolan does this with most of his movies, with varying degrees of success, but with this one, it works. Film, like any art form, can show skill, produce emotion, and change perception, and you can see it within the work and style of any auteur. Nolan, however, sees himself less as an artist, and more as a scientist. In this regard, Nolan’s films are more like textbooks. They are a cold and distant presentation of facts, events and theories. Sure, there is art there, but it comes in the form of figures and illustrations of those theories. You can see this in the slight-of-camera work in The Prestige, or the three-tiered dreaming climax of Inception, or how The Protagonist is just as confused about the plot of Tenet as the audience is. In Oppenheimer, images of light, stars, blackholes, and apocalyptic pillars of fire engulf the screen, showcasing their vastness by covering every inch of the IMAX filmstock on which it was produced. See Figure 1.

Speaking of which, Oppenheimer is the first film ever to require black and white IMAX filmstock, which brings me back to the movie itself. From the beginning, we are presented with two timelines, Fission and Fusion. For those, like myself, who need a refresher on high school science, Fission splits a larger atom into smaller pieces to create energy. Fusion joins smaller atoms into a larger one to create even more energy. The Fission timeline is in color, following Oppenheimer’s rise to prominence, while the Fusion timeline is the breakdown of his power and influence, and is in black and white. A contradiction to add to the list. Oppenheimer: the man who can both agree and disagree with his country, bringer of fire and destroyer of worlds, punished by the gods and a god, himself.

Running these two timelines simultaneously, we know from the start that not all ends well for Oppie (as he is referred to by his colleagues) – perhaps a pro to covering a historical figure with whom so much is already written about – and with that information out of the way, Nolan is free to explore that contradictory nature. And in here lies what makes the film great. The moment the bomb drops, and you think, “this is what it was all leading up to”, you realize you still have an hour left of this movie, and there are still many twists and turns in the road ahead.

The cinematography is gorgeous. Again, “vast” is the word. Los Alamos is a beautiful desert setting surrounded by mountains as far as the eye can see. The colors are vibrant. After the bomb is dropped, and Oppenheimer realizes the gravity of what he’s created, the background behind him shakes violently. A bomb is going off in his mind. A vision of the crowd of scientists applauding his leadership and work ignites into pure desolation – an image of the carnage the atom bomb will inflict. Those cheers, a cacophony of sound, rise in their intensity until that mental bomb drops and it all dissolves into the scream of a single woman. My words can’t do it justice. This sequence is the best in the entire movie.

Cillian Murphy does well as J. Robert Oppenheimer. He has always been good at playing subdued or distracted characters, and he gets to lean into that here. But for me, the great standout is Robert Downey Jr., who shines as Lewis Strauss. To avoid spoilers, I won’t say too much here, but I will concede that he outperforms anyone he shares screentime with. He should have won an Oscar for Chaplin, but the least the Academy could do is give him one now. Together, Murphy and Downey Jr. are like two scorpions in a bottle.

Ultimately, there is little to complain about with Oppenheimer. Nolan treats the Father of the Atomic Bomb with the respect the title deserves – not worthy of sympathy, reverence or disdain; simultaneously incredible and horrible, much like the fire he brought down to the world.

Rating: 8/10

No Hard Feelings

/ Chase Clark / Leave a comment

No Hard Feelings is a Raunch Com starring Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman. Lawrence plays Maddie Barker, a 32-year-old who makes her money bartending and driving an Uber, who loses her car over unpaid property tax. Desperate for transportation (you can’t Uber on rollerskates very well), she responds to an ad on Craigslist that conveniently offers a car to any young woman who is willing to date their son and give him some good “life experience” before he goes off to college. Helicopter parents who want their son to get laid before he leaves the house. That makes sense.

Maddie has a tough road ahead, however, because Feldman’s Percy Becker is antisocial, a stickler for the rules, and afraid of the beach because of what might be in the water. She’s going to have to use more than just her body to seduce Percy. She’s going to have to actually get to know the man inside the awkward boy. Lucky for her, he’s irresistibly charming once you get past the shy, nerdy exterior and you also randomly open up about your daddy issues. The movie speedruns the falling-in-love portion of the movie, moving at a breakneck pace, only to come to a halt and give the audience severe whiplash in the transition to the third act.

Beneath the surface of this superficial comedy, there is a tender, beating heart. The cliches haven’t changed. You still shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and get to know and love someone for who they are instead of what you can get out of the deal. Sweet sentiments, if all too familiar.

I’m noticing a trend in Hollywood lately. There are a lot of movies coming out that are “Based on a True Story” (or, in this film’s case, almost Based on a True Story), that are not really worth having made. Just this year alone, we have Cocaine Bear, Tetris, Flamin’ Hot (a movie about the creation of Hot Cheetos), and The Beanie Bubble. It’s a dark time we live in when the people behind Beanie Babies get their own movie. If you like stuff like that, or are really into sex comedies, No Hard Feelings might be for you. The one thing it did for me was reminding me that there is nothing funnier than awkward humor for its own sake…except for any other type of humor.

Rating: 2/10

The Courier

/ Chase Clark / Leave a comment

The Courier is a based-on-a-true-story, Cold War-era, spy drama. Bet you’ve never seen one of those before. This well-tread, trope-riddled film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the true-life electrical equipment salesman, Greville Wynne, who is recruited by MI6 to act as a courier (hence the clever film title) between England and Russia, carrying secret documents back and forth between the countries in an attempt to prevent nuclear war. His Russian contact is Oleg Penkovsky, a high-ranking GRU officer, brilliantly played by Merab Ninidze who also played an interrogator in the similar Spielberg film, Bridge of Spies. And it wouldn’t be a war film without the U.S. getting involved, so Rachel Brosnahan fills out the cast as the fictitious CIA agent, Emily Donovan.

Many comparisons to other Cold War spy films, especially Bridge of Spies, are easy to make, but where this one sets itself apart from the rest of the pack is that The Courier is not boring. Of course there’s still plenty of roundtable dialogue in this movie, and intrigue disguising itself as decent plot, but it’s a tightly-edited feature (running at under 2 hours, unlike the majority of others in its subgenre) that only drags a little in the third act.

Greville is constantly looking over his shoulder for any Russian bogeymen out to get him after he agrees to be a courier, and his paranoia keeps him from being able to relax, even when he returns home to London throughout the picture. Oleg fairs little better, but feigns confidence in their secrecy for Greville’s sake. The bond between these two men carry the film, as there is plenty of time spent on them getting to know one another, experiencing what their respective countries have to offer, and spending time with each other’s families. Even small things like Greville’s emotional reaction to a Russian ballet would make you roll your eyes in a lesser movie, but here it’s given just the right amount of weight to avoid tipping over into shmaltzy.

And in this lies what makes the movie truly enjoyable to watch: while other spy films have played the “there’s good and bad on both sides” angle ad nauseum, The Courier doesn’t overdo it. It lets scenes play and allows the audience to collect what it wants to as it builds toward its melancholic climax. I won’t spoil it here, but suffice to say, “War is Hell.”

The Courier is not without it’s problems. While the script is decent, the dialogue is a little on the nose at times. One early scene is Oleg bringing the CIA and MI6 initial information regarding Premier Nikita Khruschev’s nuclear plans, and Emily Donovan comforts him with a speech about how scared he must be to betray his country, and Oleg nods and says, “Khruschev frightens me. He is impulsive, chaotic – a man like that not have nuclear commands.” Perhaps a true statement, but it sounds like something a 16-year-old Twitter user would say about a certain former American President. A small stumbling block in an otherwise enjoyable historical spy thriller.

Verdict: I think I’m going to keep this one. It may not be one I return to very frequently, but I believe it deserves a spot on any movie collector’s shelf.

And you can add it to your shelf with a copy <a href="http://<a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/Courier-Blu-ray-Benedict-Cumberbatch/dp/B0914QSRGC/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=the+courier+blu+ray&qid=1692304432&sprefix=the+courier%252Caps%252C230&sr=8-7&_encoding=UTF8&tag=destinedforme-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=f93270044fe798e782abf4bb29115d4f&camp=1789&creative=9325">the courier blu rayfrom Amazon.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

/ Chase Clark / Leave a comment

Ant-Man’s back, baby! Or at least that’s what he tells himself in his internal monologue as the theme song to Welcome Back, Kotter plays in the background. The film really wants you to believe that Ant-Man is really and truly “back”. Unfortunately, Quantumania is as much an Ant-Man movie as Civil War is a Captain America movie with it’s need to bridge the gap between the other, bigger events in the MCU, and it causes Scott Lang/Ant-Man to shrink down to microscopic levels in his own title in order to make room for one very interesting villain and two very uninteresting side characters.

Let’s start with the good: Jonathan Majors – a still-on-the-rise star who is talented enough to fill the Thanos-shaped hole in Marvel’s overarching villain department as Kang the Conqueror. Kang is menacing and seemingly powerful until he gets trapped in a Marvel third act, where he is devolved into a hard-hitting boxer that has difficulty getting his opponent to stay down (maybe this was preparation for his upcoming role in Creed III). I realize the reason Kang is so terrifying is because there’s an infinite number of him, all more evil than the last, but it’s difficult to see him as such a threat when he’s been defeated rather easily twice now (If you missed Loki, or any other Disney+ MCU content, I can hardly blame you). Majors does a remarkable job with what he’s given, as does the ever-charismatic Paul Rudd, but to the film’s detriment, they are both given very little.

On to the bad: Besides trying to setup the next two phases of the MCU, Quantumania has to try and give us a reason for it’s own existence. To do this, they give the majority of the screentime to Michelle Pfeiffer’s Janet Van Dyne (not a problem under different circumstances) and Kathryn Newton’s Cassie Lang. Janet gets to spend the majority of the film in fear of the inevitable third act and talking incessantly about how there’s no time to talk. I guess explanations of her time in the Quantum Realm would make several of the movie’s events unnecessary and would shave off significant runtime – an alternative I would have greatly appreciated. The greater offense, however, belongs to the new Cassie. She’s a rebellious, teenage ne’er-do-well who has to be bailed out of prison for…helping homeless people. Her only real crime is caring too much and spouting off self-righteous and clunky dialogue (“Just because it’s not happening to you doesn’t mean it’s not happening”). She also gets to wash her hands of her own actions because her dad wasn’t around for the five-year “Blip”. Just because it’s eye-rolling in order to set up a mediocre father-daughter reconciliation doesn’t mean it’s not eye-rolling.

Now, for the ugly: I realize there’s a lot of talk lately about the working conditions of visual effects artists, especially ones working on Disney content, but the CGI in Quantumania is absolutely horrendous and cannot be left unmentioned. The Quantum Realm backdrop is incredibly dark and looks like a Jackson Pollock made with only the dullest of browns, violets and reds, but the real offender here is our live-action M.O.D.O.K. Corey Stoll returns after nearly seven years since the first Ant-Man to play the now-deformed Darren Cross, who has been reconstructed by Kang into a pathetic and goofy metal Igor that looks eerily similar to George Lopez’s Mr. Electric in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. It’s a pointless addition to an unnecessarily jam-packed movie, and the laughs M.O.D.O.K. brings aren’t the laughs the creators are going for. The ones they are going for fall flat, like an attempt to redeem him at the last minute (“I got to be an Avenger”).

The bottom line is that Ant-Man has come a long way from the exciting fight aboard a toy Thomas the Tank-Engine, but unfortunately, it’s in the wrong direction. Long gone are the contained adventures of the littlest Avenger and his quirky sidekicks (the absence of Luis is particularly felt), and here to stay are high-stakes battles for all humanity and lifeless characters here to punch their way into your hearts. Those who still go to the first showing for each formulaic Marvel showstopper off the production line will enjoy this one and what it sets up for the future, but for the rest of us, even a Bill Murray cameo can’t salvage this one.

Rating: 3/10