What says Christmas more than Nicolas Cage, playing struggling actor Nick Cage, having personal and financial troubles that get him involved in a CIA scheme to recuse a girl and prevent the destabilization of a foreign power?
It’s a brave movie that starts out openly borrowing from the star’s previous roles and builds to a climax that steals from Austin Powers. It doesn’t always work, but there’s fun to be had. Also: I know no one has ever said this, but that Pedro Pascal fellow is pretty darn charming.
The men of the Peltzer family are menaces to society. They bring non-native, invasive species into their town, and cause possibly millions of dollars of damage to their tiny town by failing to follow the instructions they were given. The father gets the species by ignoring the responsible adult and listening to a child.
Mrs. Petzler, on the other hand, is a badass. She takes out three gremlins in close combat.
Also: Why doesn’t Billy know the story of Kate’s father? Didn’t they grow up in walking distance of each other in a small town? I would think that story would be a local legend.
Music biographies face a lot of challenges. Some can be dealt with, like combining and changing events and people to make the story flow, but there are two nearly insurmountable problems that this movie, even with great performances, does not overcome.
Big Problem One: Music rights versus truth. You can’t make a music biopic without the music (though people have tried), and you can’t get music rights from an artist or his estate if you’re going to show anything they don’t want shown. So Dylan here does some not-great stuff, like being unreasonable onstage and having an affair with Joan Baez when his girlfriend is out of the country, but he never uses any illegal drugs. Actually, I don’t think anyone in this entire movie about musicians in the sixties is even shown smoking pot.
Big Problem Two (the bigger problem): Walk Hard. John C. Reilly’s 2007 fake music bio’s story of Dewey Cox accurately and effectively mocked every beat of a conventional music biopic that it’s impossible to watch a real one without comparing it to the equivalent scene in Walk Hard. Alamo Drafthouse made it even harder by playing the Bob Dylan parody scene from Walk Hard before the movie.
Here’s the thing: if you can somehow shut those issues out of your mind while you watch, there are some really strong performances. Chalamet’s Dylan performance and voice (both talking and singing) is great. Edward Norton seems like a cartoon version of Pete Seeger, except if you’ve seen the real guy and realize it’s spot on.
But someone needs to reinvent the music biopic. Do something crazy, like replace the artist with a CGI monkey. Nah, that’s dumb.
After seeing The Girl with the Needle yesterday I was afraid that The Brutalist would be equally soul-crushing. It’s definitely not lighthearted, but not relentlessly down. The story actually lets László the architect have some good days. Crazy! It’s also over three hours long plus an intermission, but it didn’t feel long at all.
BONUS RANT! WHEEEEE!
My main problems with the movie had nothing to do with the movie. For the record: Going to the Westfield Plaza Century City AMC 15 Theatre suuuuuuuuucks. The underground parking is narrow and labyrinthine; the spot I eventually found required parallel parking against the driver’s side, with a bonus low pole to make it extra challenging. Inside the theater the people next to me kept having a conversation, and two people in front of me thought a long movie with subtitles was a great time to send text messages. Oh, and a guy’s phone rang. People still have their ringers on?
If you like movies that start with a woman getting evicted and forced to live in filth because her husband disappeared during World War One, and then things get worse, this is the movie for you. Beautifully shot, well performed, compellingly told, and I never need to see it again. I came out of the theater so down that I decided to watch a lighter film to clear my head.
And that’s how I ended up seeing…
Tampopo (1985)
A cowboy trucker helps a woman form a crack team to make the perfect ramen restaurant, with a storytelling method that’s like a slightly more structured Dazed and Confused? Count me in!
Bonus Graphic!
I can only use one graphic for the “featured image,” so here’s the one I made for The Girl with the Needle.
Completely unrelated to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Another film crossed off the “I know all the memes but I’ve never watched the movie” list!
This movie has the simplest plot possible – “I gotta get my gang out of this bad area” – but it zips by before you can get bored or tear open too many holes in the plot (and there are plenty of holes to choose from).
Some thoughts:
There sure were a lot of costumes at the start of this movie. Some of them were pretty detailed – some costumer made a set of yellow satin jackets with custom “Electric Eliminators” logos for less than a minute of screen time.
On the other hand, a lot of gang costumes seemed to be “everyone gets the same color of dirty shirt.
So, all the gangs of New York send unarmed representatives to a meeting, but then they all split up?
I like the idea that somewhere in New York City people live in terror of a group of kids with mime costumes.
Weird to see one of the cast of Too Close For Comfort as a sex worker. Henry will be flummoxed.
Also weird that the sexy radio announcer is The Chief from Carmen Sandiego.
Also, if Mercedes Ruehl is sitting alone on a bench in Central Park in the middle of the night, don’t try any funny stuff.
Admiral Ackbar would know what was happening here.
The Tree of Life came out in 2011; I didn’t care for it. The whole “Brad Pitt whispers Meaningful Sentences Over Beautiful Images” thing made it feel like a long and expensive version of “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.”
This movies starts with similar beautiful but disconnected images, all shot in first person point of view, and I was afraid I was in for Deep Thoughts Redux. But the movie actually uses the starting scenes to teach you how to watch it, then trusts you to understand the story without having the leads narrate all of their feelings. And when the camera’s point of view shifts from one character to two, the movie takes a moment to teach how to watch the new style, while also using the moment to give some character moments for the two leads.
None of this would have happened if Kim Richards wasn’t so fussy about her ice cream.
Trust me, kid: be happy with plain vanilla.
If you’re at all familiar with John Carpenter, you’ll know he made the film as soon as the music starts.
Also: The movie is called “Assault on Precinct 13,” but the chief says it’s “Precinct 9, Division 13,” and when the lieutenant arrives the sign out front says “ANDERSON POLICE STATION DIVISION 14.” This obviously the entire film.
I kid. The whole thing is ridiculous and fun. I especially love the idea that a police station is closing, and no one thinks to put up a sign until the night before.
The wildest thing in this screwball comedy is watching Katharine Hepburn casually walking around with an actual leopard. Most of the leopard shots in the movie are done with rear projection or double exposure, but there are moments where the leopard is rubbing itself against Hepburn’s legs like a house cat.
Also: dialogue in 1930s movies cracks me up. “Make sure at least one person is taking as fast as they can at all times. We need to make sure the audience knows the sound is working.”
