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Movies on My Mind

Week Ending 7 May 2016

The Irishman

The Irishman (formerly I Heard You Paint Houses, based on Charles Brandt’s account of mob hitman Frank Sheeran, who was chums with Jimmy Hoffa, whom he professed to have offed) has been gestating for what seems like forever. I’d been wondering about its expiry date, as the names attached throughout have been the ever-longer-in-the-tooth holy trio of De Niro, Pacino and Pesci.

Now it seems there's a tight window (we’ll know by this time next week) for financing coming together. It seems the plan is to using de-aging technology (most recently seen making Downey Jr look less than zero in Civil War) to work its regressing magic on these wise guys. I’m a bit uneasy about that, as no matter how good it is, it’s distracting. Not that I think Scorsese would go there if he didn’t think he could pull it off, but it will still be there in the viewer’s mind.

Hopefully he’ll make going back to the Mob worthwhile; I’d presume so, as if his words in 2013 hold true it seems to be one of only a few projects left on his slate before he retires. We’ve got the also long-on-the-cards Silence due this year, and then there’s a Sinatra biopic. That said, he announced Devil in the White City after that interview, and a Mike Tyson biopic is rumoured (again using aging technology), as is a Ramones movie, so maybe such pronouncements are akin to Soderbergh saying he’s going to retire.

Black Widow

Just how tantalising is the prospect of a Black Widow movie, one of the least engaging of the Marvel supporting characters? About as much as a War Machine one. A Falcon movie, I could maybe get behind, at a stretch, as Anthony Mackie’s character is at least fun and engaging. But nothing about Scarlett Johansson’s performance as Natasha Romanov makes me want to spend two hours (or two and a half, following Civil War’s example) in her company.

And, since the glaring omission of female-powered Marvel superhero movies is due to be redressed with Captain Marvel (making her debut in Avengers: to-be-called-something-other-than-Infinity Wars) and the co-led Ant-Man and Wasp, it isn’t as if Kevin Feige will be stumbling about looking for possible properties. Joss Whedon attempted to beef up the roles of Black Widow and Hawkeye in Age of Ultron, and only managed to underline why they’re at-best supporting characters. Maybe it’s partly the actors, although Hawkeye would be an uphill struggle for anyone to make exciting (and, to be fair to Renner, he’s great in lots of movies, he’s just not a “star”; Johansson is a star (at least until Ghost in the Shell comes out), but she entirely lacks the prerequisite accompanying charisma); I’d have been into the idea of Emily Blunt as Natasha, but alas it wasn’t to be.

The Mummy

Russell Crowe as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? I’m trying to think when he last played anything approximating unhinged. He can do menacing, no problem (I Heard You Throw Phones). I guess we’ll find out soon enough, as he’s apparently going to be cameoing as one or the other or both in The Mummy. I expect it’ll just be the former for now.

Who knows how this is going to turn out; adjusting the Universal classic monster crew for a present day setting may end up blanding the whole thing out, losing the sense of what made them so regarded. On the other hand, it’s more creditable to try than taking the lazy option of an identikit ye olde London CGI-d period setting. The big question mark is Alex Kurtzman as a director. And the guy who writes synopses for these things. We’re promised (threatened?) “a surprising intensity and balance of wonder and thrills in an imaginative new take that ushers in a new world of gods and monsters”. Here’s hoping the script reads better than that.

Justice League

One only has to witness his stony face from the interview rounds for Batman V Superman to know Batfleck was none too chuffed with the way things turned out. He’s escaped without too much bruising, that being reserved for Zack Snyder, but he’s understandably keen to ensure it doesn’t all go pear shaped a second time with Justice League. Which is why he’s being reported as the newly appointed executive producer. Except… didn’t Ben also have significant input in the fashioning of Dawn of Justice? Which is how Chris Argo Terrio came on board? The position sounds good on paper, but one can only be dubious that, with the movie already in production, this is a PR exercise after horse has bolted.

His solo bat outing is rumoured to feature a whole villains’ gallery. Well, why not? Stuffing your picture to the gills worked so well with Dawn of Justice, after all. I remain to be bowled over by Affleck as director. He’s an above average filmmaker, but none of the material he’s selected thus far has been more than agreeably serviceable, and his penchant for putting himself or his sibling in starring roles suggests he sees himself as more of an Eastwood type multi-hyphenate than he actually is. The hype surrounding his new found second career is as undue as the evisceration he received during his Bennifer era fall from grace.

Why We’re Killing Gunther

Arnie’s post-Governator, resumed movie career has been distinctly underwhelming. Not so much his performances (he’s the best part of both Escape Plan and Terminator Genisys by a long shot) but the stumbling material (anyone seeing Sabotage would think twice about the prospect of David Ayer’s forthcoming Suicide Squad being any good, studio butchery or no studio butchery).

Why We’re Killing Gunther has an attractive premise, but penned by SNL veteran and first time feature writer-director Taran Killam, it may be a little premature to get hopes up. However, Arnie as an arrogant (but really good, ya?) hitman, who so infuriates his fellow tradesmen that they decide to off him, and fail spectacularly, sounds like it could work like a charm based on not-quite-so-prodigious-any-more muscleman’s oafish charm. I see the Variety report references the on-again, off-again Legend of Conan (once King Conan) as his next project, but I’ll believe that when it enters production.

Space Jam 2

Just why? Because Warner Bros suits (not exactly a studio going great guns just now) think it’s a now ripely nostalgic property and they’re are all out of ideas on how to make dough from their cartoon legacy (and generally)? Does Justin Lin know what he’s letting himself in for?

An ordeal, if Joe Dante’s experience on the royally shafted but actually quite enjoyable Looney Tunes: Back in Action is anything to go by. That film found Dante attempting to ensure something like Space Jam, desecrating hallowed characters as it did, didn’t happen again (there was a Jackie Chan vehicle, Spy Jam, planned as a follow up at one point). It looks as if he’ll have to resign himself to another case of mistreatment (“It doesn’t matter what the characters used to act like. They should act like they’re contemporary characters today” was the studio’s mandate). Maybe, to make amends, Warners could dust off Termite Terrace, the film he and Charlie Haas planned about the studio’s early animators, set in ‘30s (and focussing on Chuck Jones). Chance would be a fine thing.

Box Office

Captain America: Civil War’s lack of a $200m+ opening weekend in the US will have DC defenders rejoicing, even though Marvel professes to have always expected its likely ballpark as $175m. Does it signal anything that it hasn’t outperformed the studio’s expectations? Probably nothing more than a line-up of superheroes not being quite the same must-see third time out, even if the quality is well up to par, and that right after the fizzle of the Bat and the Steel Man general audiences may not be so whetted in appetites (although the opening is still coming in ahead of Dawn of Justice). It’s going to have no problem hitting the magic $1bn mark globally, unlike DoJ, and will thus be a Top Four Marvel movie, which no one is going to sneeze at.

The performances of openers in the near future become more debatable, however. Will Neighbors 2 buck the trend in underperforming comedy sequels? Will Nice Guys find a niche? Will The Angry Birds Movie swallow all competition? Have X-Men: Apocalypse and Alice Through the Looking Glass got any chance of doing anything like the business their predecessors did? And that’s just the rest of May.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

This risotto is shmackin’, dude.

Stranger Things Season 4: Volume 1 (SPOILERS) I haven’t had cause, or the urge, to revisit earlier seasons of Stranger Things , but I’m fairly certain my (relatively) positive takes on the first two sequel seasons would adjust down somewhat if I did (a Soviet base under Hawkins? DUMB soft disclosure or not, it’s pretty dumb). In my Season Three review, I called the show “ Netflix’s best-packaged junk food. It knows not to outstay its welcome, doesn’t cause bloat and is disposable in mostly good ways ” I fairly certain the Duffer’s weren’t reading, but it’s as if they decided, as a rebuke, that bloat was the only way to go for Season Four. Hence episodes approaching (or exceeding) twice the standard length. So while the other points – that it wouldn’t stray from its cosy identity and seasons tend to merge in the memory – hold fast, you can feel the ambition of an expansive canvas faltering at the hurdle of Stranger Things ’ essential, curated, nostalgia-appeal inconsequentiality.

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

Is this supposed to be me? It’s grotesque.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) (SPOILERS) I didn’t hold out much hope for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent being more than moderately tolerable. Not so much because its relatively untested director and his co-writer are mostly known in the TV sphere (and not so much for anything anyone is raving about). Although, it has to be admitted, the finished movie flourishes a degree of digital flatness typical of small-screen productions (it’s fine, but nothing more). Rather, due to the already over-tapped meta-strain of celebs showing they’re good sports about themselves. When Spike Jonze did it with John Malkovich, it was weird and different. By the time we had JCVD , not so much. And both of them are pre-dated by Arnie in Last Action Hero (“ You brought me nothing but pain ” he is told by Jack Slater). Plus, it isn’t as if Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten have much in the way of an angle on Nic; the movie’s basically there to glorify “him”, give or take a few foibles, do

Whacking. I'm hell at whacking.

Witness (1985) (SPOILERS) Witness saw the advent of a relatively brief period – just over half a decade –during which Harrison Ford was willing to use his star power in an attempt to branch out. The results were mixed, and abruptly concluded when his typically too late to go where Daniel Day Lewis, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro had gone before (with at bare minimum Oscar-nominated results) – but not “ full retard ” – ended in derision with Regarding Henry . He retreated to the world of Tom Clancy, and it’s the point where his cachet began to crumble. There had always been a stolid quality beneath even his more colourful characters, but now it came to the fore. You can see something of that as John Book in Witness – despite his sole Oscar nom, it might be one of Ford’s least interesting performances of the 80s – but it scarcely matters, or that the screenplay (which won) is by turns nostalgic, reactionary, wistful and formulaic, as director Peter Weir, in his Hollywood debu

What’s so bad about being small? You’re not going to be small forever.

Innerspace (1987) There’s no doubt that Innerspace is a flawed movie. Joe Dante finds himself pulling in different directions, his instincts for comic subversion tempered by the need to play the romance plot straight. He tacitly acknowledges this on the DVD commentary for the film, where he notes Pauline Kael’s criticism that he was attempting to make a mainstream movie; and he was. But, as ever with Dante, it never quite turns out that way. Whereas his kids’ movies treat their protagonists earnestly, this doesn’t come so naturally with adults. I’m a bona fide devotee of Innerspace , but I can’t help but be conscious of its problems. For the most part Dante papers over the cracks; the movie hits certain keynotes of standard Hollywood prescription scripting. But his sensibility inevitably suffuses it. That, and human cartoon Martin Short (an ideal “leading man” for the director) ensure what is, at first glance just another “ Steven Spielberg Presents ” sci-fi/fantas

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Watership Down (1978) (SPOILERS) I only read Watership Down recently, despite having loved the film from the first, and I was immediately impressed with how faithful, albeit inevitably compacted, Martin Rosen’s adaptation is. It manages to translate the lyrical, mythic and metaphysical qualities of Richard Adams’ novel without succumbing to dumbing down or the urge to cater for a broader or younger audience. It may be true that parents are the ones who get most concerned over the more disturbing elements of the picture but, given the maturity of the content, it remains a surprise that, as with 2001: A Space Odyssey (which may on the face of it seem like an odd bedfellow), this doesn’t garner a PG certificate. As the makers noted, Watership Down is at least in part an Exodus story, but the biblical implications extend beyond Hazel merely leading his fluffle to the titular promised land. There is a prevalent spiritual dimension to this rabbit universe, one very much

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

Get away from my burro!

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) (SPOILERS) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is beloved by so many of the cinematic firmament’s luminaries – Stanley Kubrick, Sam Raimi, , Paul Thomas Anderson and who knows maybe also WS, Vince Gilligan, Spike Lee, Daniel Day Lewis; Oliver Stone was going to remake it – not to mention those anteriorly influential Stone Roses, that it seems foolhardy to suggest it isn’t quite all that. There’s no faulting the performances – a career best Humphrey Bogart, with director John Huston’s dad Walter stealing the movie from under him – but the greed-is-bad theme is laid on a little thick, just in case you were a bit too dim to get it yourself the first time, and Huston’s direction may be right there were it counts for the dramatics, but it’s a little too relaxed when it comes to showing the seams between Mexican location and studio.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls… dyin’ time’s here!

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Time was kind to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome . As in, it was such a long time since I’d seen the “final chapter” of the trilogy, it had dwindled in my memory to the status of an “alright but not great” sequel. I’d half-expected to have positive things to say along the lines of it being misunderstood, or being able to see what it was trying for but perhaps failing to quite achieve. Instead, I re-discovered a massive turkey that is really a Mad Max movie in name only (appropriately, since Max was an afterthought). This is the kind of picture fans of beloved series tend to loathe; when a favourite character returns but without the qualities or tone that made them adored in the first place (see Indiana Jones in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , or John McClane in the last two Die Hard s). Thunderdome stinks even more than the methane fuelling Bartertown. I hadn’t been aware of the origins of Thunderdome until recently, mainly because I was

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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