My Film Critic pants are getting quite the workout these days! It's time for some capsule (short) reviews of four New Releases for the week of Friday, November 1, 2024.
1) HERE
Robert Zemeckis is one of cinema's most significant, innovative, and influential filmmakers. He is more than just some hugely successful Oscar-winning creator of simple, crowd-pleasing box-office hits—leave that to Spielberg. Zemeckis is a true cinematic artist, the best commercial American filmmaker alive, and his films are often very complex, very subversive, and wildly misunderstood (like "Forrest Gump," "Welcome to Marwen," and now, I'm sure, "Here.")
Always on the cutting edge of technology, he has pushed the art and creation of film forward by leaps and bounds, more than any other American director. He is also ridiculously underappreciated as a true auteur and should be regularly mentioned in the same breath as Welles, Hitchcock, Truffaut, Kurosawa, and Scorsese.
His movies have not only been consistently entertaining, well-made, and cutting-edge, but they are also surprisingly and deeply subversive take on America and its values. Despite that, or maybe because of it, many are box office smashes that are also groundbreaking, one-of-a-kind experiences that changed how movies are made.
He is a brilliant artist, who has made a few certified, timeless American Classic masterpieces, and he continues to push the boundaries of the medium by creating ballsy, smart, personal, and sneakily dark films.
Simply put, he is a fucking giant.
Having said all of that, his latest film, "Here," which he co-wrote with the great Eric Roth, based upon the brilliant, experimental graphic novel by Richard McGuire, is yet another triumph. I know I'll be in the tiny minority on this; frankly, I couldn't possibly care less.
Like the novel, the film's story spans millions of years and is told from one solitary point-of-view shot—a single unmoving frame in which all of the action takes place and a tale of time begins.
Starting with the Big Bang, dinosaurs, empty vistas, Native American settlers, denizens of the Revolutionary War era (in fact, Ben Franklin and family), and more, the film leads to the building of a house that will be occupied by various tenants over many decades, whose stories unfold during the film's 104-minute running time.
Among those tenants are characters played by Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly, David Flynn, Ophelia Lovibond, Nicholas Pinnock, and Nikki Amuka-Bird, and the stories cover many historical moments throughout American history leading up to and including COVID-era issues and more.
This is yet another stellar work from Zemeckis and one of the most subversively effective satires he has ever made. It's also very moving, smart, and shockingly dark (especially during the moments of huge family gatherings with human foibles on display). It's a brilliant examination of humanity's timeless, unending, and unchanging cruelty and yet another critical assessment of us all.
As is the case with almost all of Zemeckis' work, this is a total satire of America, American values, and everything we hold sacred. Like "Gump," he disguises it as a corny melodrama (and it absolutely works on that level, beautifully, I might add), but at its core, it is an indictment of the cruelty of humanity, and this time he goes back to the very beginning of time to fuck with us.
The artifice of using the single frame camera shot, combined with the obvious digital effects, and the process of de-aging the actors (a hugely boring complaint by people bitching about this movie), is done on purpose to add to the potent commentary about the inherent duplicity of this country's history. Yes, we all know that Tom Hanks and Robin Wright aren't 17 years old. Do you really think Zemeckis doesn't understand that? Seriously?
People who think this is just a sappy-feel-good diorama are missing the point ENTIRELY, especially when the film's final moment is unbelievably cruel, heartbreaking, and a devastating take on selfishness and the American Dream. It covers billions of years, and in all of that time, the message is simple: we are all assholes.
This is one of the very best films of the year. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
2) JUROR # 2
It's just a weird coincidence that in addition to Robert Zemeckis, one of my other favorite filmmakers of all time, the amazing Clint Eastwood, has a new movie being released this weekend. Eastwood's movie "Juror # 2," like Zemeckis' "Here," is also terrific.
Eastwood is now 94 years old, and shockingly, he continues to produce movies regularly. He has directed eight films in the past decade (admittedly, a couple of them are turkeys), and he really doesn't seem to be slowing down at all with the release of his latest, a hugely entertaining courtroom potboiler with a stellar cast and an intriguing story.
The film takes place in Georgia and stars Nicholas Hoult as an expectant father in recovery who reluctantly serves on the jury of a murder case that may or may not involve him in a major way. The film then turns into a combination of "12 Angry Men" and "The Big Clock," with a few Hitchcock themes thrown in and a smidgen of "Law and Order" added to round it all out.
The fantastic cast includes Toni Collette as the prosecuting attorney who is running for office, Chris Messina as the Public Defender, Zoey Deutch as Hoult's pregnant wife, Amy Aquino as the judge, and Kiefer Sutherland as Hoult's AA sponsor who also happens to be a lawyer. They all give outstanding performances, adding needed heft to Jonathan Abrams's light, gimmicky screenplay.
J.K. Simmons stars as a fellow juror who happens to be a former Chicago cop doing some extra investigating of the case (which might bring him closer to Hoult's character and the truth). The rest of the jurors are rounded out by strong actors like Adrienne C. Moore, Drew Scheid, Leslie Bibb, Phil Biedron, Chikako Fukuyama, and an outstanding Cedric Yarbrough, who sort of represents the Lee J. Cobb character from 12 Angry Men.
It all adds up to a perfectly entertaining, expertly made little thriller that evokes Grisham and Ellroy and has some potent commentary about the justice system and the true definition of "guilty" and "not guilty." It is also beautifully photographed, sharply edited, and has a great score—you know, just like 90% of Clint's other movies.
Eastwood still knows how to tell a compelling story in an impressively efficient and smartly stylized way. At 94, this guy still has the goods and can execute a forceful final moment that feels justified and satisfying despite being thoroughly unbelievable. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
3) EMILIA PEREZ
The latest from French director Jacques Audiard ("Read My Lips," "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," "A Prophet," "Rust and Bone") is a wild swing-for-the-fences combination melodrama/crime-thriller/musical that never really comes together and succeeds mostly at being either boring or irritating.
The plot involves a ruthless Mexican cartel boss (Karla Sofia Gascon) who wants gender confirmation surgery and hires a frustrated lawyer (Zoe Saldana) to handle the logistics, like finding a discreet surgeon, scheduling the procedure, and keeping the whole thing a secret.
Complications arise when the cartel boss' wife (a terrific Selena Gomez) and two kids are transported to a new home in Switzerland with no knowledge of the operation and must return home to the new crime boss, who still has love for the family.
A whole lot is going on in this rambunctious, unwieldy thing. While I admire the sheer audacity on display (hey, I'm the one guy on earth who has seen "Megalopolis" three times, so I'm clearly not opposed to audacity), it all feels forced, self-important, and annoyingly vaunting.
It doesn't help that the musical numbers are poorly staged, varying uncomfortably in tone and style (is it an operetta? Is it a farce?), and going on for far too long. The film plays more like a long-form music video made by a director who has never seen a music video before but somehow also thinks he's David Lynch or Pedro Almodovar, and he definitely isn't.
Despite the massive amount of tears and passion being launched all over the screen, none of it translates to any real emotion for the audience. The only emotions I felt were tedium and frustration, except for when the luminous Gomez was on screen giving a wonderful performance while single-handedly raising the quality of the music, simply being in the scenes. It's terrific work that is, unfortunately, wasted on a mess of a movie. - ⭐️1/2
The whole thing started with a TED Talk entitled: "The Rom-Com That Saved My Life."
In the new documentary "Chasing Chasing Amy," filmmaker, host of that TED Talk, and star of this movie, Sav Rodgers, goes on a journey of self-discovery concerning the development and creation of Kevin Smith's controversial LGBTQ+ film, "Chasing Amy."
Rodgers' entertaining film explores the transformational impact that a smartass Kevin Smith movie made on a 12-year-old kid from Kansas, coming of age and dealing with his queer identity.
I happen to be a big fan of "Chasing Amy" and still think it is the best movie Smith has ever made. However, like many films, it hasn't aged particularly well, and some of the portrayals of the gay lifestyle were a bit pat and problematic.
In this movie, Rodgers talks with Smith extensively, acknowledging the backlash that his film received and that the most significant blow black in its initial run came from "Ellen Degeneres and Anne Heche walking out in the first 10 minutes." Ultimately, though, "Chasing Amy" has survived and continues to inspire people like Rodgers, who still adores the movie.
Rodgers puts his story up front in the film, and, at times, it feels a bit forced and Michael Moore-ish; unlike the extraordinary "Time Passages," another personal documentary I saw this past week, the filmmaker's involvement in the story doesn't entirely work.
The best parts of the film come from the interviews Rodgers does with the cast of "Chasing Amy," the most revealing, intelligent, and insightful of which comes from Joey Lauren Adams. Adams not only played the lead (a lesbian who ends up dating a man) but was also Smith's off-screen girlfriend at the time.
Adams assertively questions why Rodgers is making this movie and especially why he is including so much of the developments of his current romantic relationship. These are valid questions from an artist whose feelings about Smith's movie aren't exactly blissful.
Another interview Rodgers conducts with Smith and Adams examines the relationship dynamics of the 1997 film. In it, their relationship is put under a microscope. They dive into their first meeting, their romance, and how Adams became Smith's muse until their eventual breakup, which was unpleasant.
Also included in the conversation are an array of filmmakers and critics, who label the film as an "accidentally important look a biphobia" while analyzing its impact in the real world. It's all pretty fascinating stuff, and it works when Rodgers isn't jamming his relationship into the movie and clumsily recreating moments from "Chasing Amy" for fun.
"Chasing Chasing Amy" captures a bit of the importance of Smith's magnum opus while it covers the ongoing discourse on the nature of the movie's subject matter and the impact it made on the film community and beyond. Flawed, but worth a look. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
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