JOHN WICK CHAPTER 3: PARABELLUM [Film Review]

The third installment in the John Wick saga falters and slips following in the footsteps of its predecessors. While the two earlier entries in the series contained their fair share of violent action, they also hid a buried a sense of subtelty and mystery lying just underneath all the gun fire and blood spatter. Here, however, it’s all about one over-the-top action sequence after another, after another, after another... Sure, the early action sequences bristle, but there’s nary a break in the mayhem over the course of the 130- minute running time which means that by the second act you’re easily as exhausted as Wick looks throughout the film itself. In short: the seemingly non-stop barrage of bullets and fisticuffs soon escalates into a mind-numbing game of one-upmanship in the form of number of guns fired and asses kicked.
To add to the action-on-auto-pilot vibe we get tossed some serious miscasting (Angelica Huston as a Russian mob matriarch and Halle Barry as a former assassin-turned-Morocco hotel manager), a kind of groveling John Wick casually begging for foregiveness and his life at every turn, and the complete destruction of the mystique of the underworld created in the first two installments. The end result is a film that pales in comparison to either of the previous entries in the series.
This isn’t to say JW3 a complete waste of your time. The first act is visually kinetic, both in terms of choreography and cinematography; it’s teeming with slick imagery--NYC drenched in rain and neon-- plus some engaging and creatively gonzo fight sequences.
Things start to fall apart, however, once Wick leaves The Big Apple and journeys to the assassin mecca of Morocco. Once there, the inevitable ensuing gun fight is long, laborious, and filled with “magic bullets” (Barry’s character never once reloads her gun during the extended battle!). If that weren’t enough, Wick ends up wandering in the desert and is eventually granted an audience with the head of the High Table in a scene cribbed from Lawrence of Arabia; this segment of the film is obviously intended to be somewhat existential, but instead is rather hokey.
By the film’s end everything is on overkill, even down to the Enter The Dragon-by-way- of-The Lady From Shanghai-influenced final fight, which, while visually intriguing, ultimately feels lackluster and anticlimactic (not to mention just a tad too long). It’s all capped off with an ending that blatantly screams “John Wick 4 Coming Soon!” (the fourth chapter was recently greenlit, btw) as opposed to the more enigmatic endings of the two previous films.
All of this said, I have half a mind to go see it again just to make sure I didn’t miss anything lurking between the flying bullets and broken bodies.

Rating: 2.5/5

Missing Cat or Missing Snack?

My initial thought on seeing a "Missing Cat" poster in my neighborhood:
"I'm sorry, but when you live in the mountains your cat ain't missing, it's been digested."

School's Out. Like, Out Out - Assassination Nation film review

Critics are really divided on this film.

On the surface, I loved it. 

It pretty much borrows from every conceivable genre of film imaginable, from girl gangs to home invasion to Italian horror and giallo (mostly borrowing Mario Bava and Dario Argento's flair for saturated color drenched cinematography). 

It's smart, dumb, funny, teeming with shock-and-awe violence, cool meta moments, and snarky, attention deficit disorder-styled mayhem. It's exploitive and brash, and while there is obvious (and rather blunt) socio/political commentary, it can also succumb to mundanity in a flash. 

In short, it's a John Hughes-styled teen flick on crystal meth and psychedelics.

I am planning to see it a second time...

RIYL

Heathers; The Purge series; A Clockwork Orange; Kill Bill (either volume); vintage Brian DePalma; vintage Dario Argento

MANDY [Film Review]

A bit long-in-the-tooth at times, Pano Cosmatos' sophomore feature film is never less than visually stunning. His use of color is ripped straight out of the Italian genre master's handbook (think serious nods to both Bava and Argento), not to mention his use of intrinsic and bombastic prog rock-cum-metal influenced music.
While on the surface this is a rather simple revenge story, it is teeming with fantastical elements. In fact, for me, it really felt like Cosmatos was channelling John Milius' classic minimalist sword/sorcery epic Conan the Barbarian, both in terms of its story and the old school medieval violence. I mean there are demons, a charismatic cult leader, his mindless and obedient servants, there's pagan rituals, and heavy metal sword fighting (albeit, in this case it's axes and chainsaws).  Scratch the surface, however, and underneath it all one can easily construe that this is a condemnation of religion and the violence that has surrounded it for years; how people take beliefs and twist them to their own purpose all in the name of a higher being. But if that kind of philosophical slant ain't your cup of tea, no worries. The film is chock full of some good ol' ultra-violence, not to mention some gonzo humor.
And Nic Cage? Sure, he's made a latter day career out of doing over-the-top characters in direct-to-video B-movie schlock (think Mom and Dad), but here he takes the cake. When he's not chain smoking, chopping wood, or cuddle/spooning with his lady (the titular Mandy), then he's covered in blood, killing deranged biker gangs, and engaging in chainsaw dueling frenzies of mayhem.
His adversary, played to the hilt by Linus Roache, is a nefarious blend of weasely androgenous petulance. He is a narcissistic slimeball who teeters on the brink of empyrical sacrosancticity; he is creepy and sniveling and always malevolent.
Throughout the film there are obvious visual nods to The Road Warrior and the Evil Dead trilogy-by-way-of-Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as the aforementioned stalwarts of Italian horror cinema, plus a heavy debt to the psychotropic films of the '60s and early '70s. In the end, though, this is pure Cosmatos; a deja vu laced pastiche of all the best parts from myriad core genre films done as a loving homage to those influences and rendered in a manner that also manages to come off feeling and looking fresh and vibrant.
If there is any washback, I would say it comes in the form of the rather slow and long set-up; the first act is a bit too introspective for my tast and easily could have been edited down a bit. But that's just me, impatient as f#$k to get to the insane action and nuttso violence.

Rating: 3.5/5

RIYL: Baskin; Beyond the Black Rainbow; Harlequin (aka Dark Forces); The Neon Demon; Only God Forgives; Susperia; the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky; Conan the Barbarian

Blindspotting [Film Review]

Imagine a buddy cop movie (think the first Lethal Weapon film), but the buddies aren't cops, rather they are a white hood rat and a black soon-to-be ex-con. Toss in some over-the-top commentary on gentrification, slick visual elements (split screens, hyperintensive flashbacks, neon tinged night shots, etc.) and you've got a sweet slice of urban drama.
While far less absurdist than Sorry To Bother You (both films take place in Oakland, CA, btw), Blindspotting is no less hard-hitting on the socio-political-economic commentary. It is an excellent critique on what it means to be black in an increasingly gentrified community. The anti-hipster stance is militant, but also hilarious as fuck. The film strikes a nice balance between laugh-out-loud moments and tension drenched sequences that are as harrowing as they are thought provoking. The insights of a being a grown man in the hood were rendered with richness and deft nuance. Gritty like vintage Singleton and Lee and Hughes Bros.

Rating: 4.5 / 5
RIYL:
vintage Spike Lee; the spoken word musings of Danny Hoch; Boyz N The Hood; Menace II Society; Lethal Weapon if you edited it down to a short film that encompassed just the interactions between Murdoch and Riggs

Sorry To Bother You [Film Review]

Boots Raley's debut feature unfurls like a Terry Gilliam film as filtered through the lens of Spike Lee circa 1987. Or vice versa.
Absurd.
Brazen.
Hilarious.
In-your-face.
Plus it contains a wallopping W.T.F.?!?!?!? moment to end all WTF moments (it was like being knocked on your ass sideways after getting smacked in the face with an engorged donkey dick. Literally.)
It reminded me of Idiocracy, Brazil, Do The Right Thing, and a totally fucked-up Outer Limits episode. Additionally there is a noticeably heavy influence from Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufmann, and Spike Jonze.
The film contains blatant nods to Get Out, Gondry, Nickelodeon game shows gone awry, and probably a ton more references that I missed (there is a lot going on in this film in the background, so much so that I plan to see it a second time if I can).

Rating: 4.5
RIYL:
the early films of Sapike Lee (Do The Right Thing, She’s Gotta Have It, etc); the early films of Terry Gilliam (specifically Brazil); the early films of Michel Gondry; pretty much anything that Charlie Kaufman has written; the films fo Mike Judge (specifically Office Space and Idiocracy); the films of Spike Jonez; The Lobster

WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?

I laughed.

I cried.

I came out of the theater feeling like I am not that great of a person; that I can be a better human being. But I also came out feeling happy and that life ain't all that bad if you roll with it and keep a positive outlook.

If you grew up in the 1970s and were weened on PBS like I was, then I highly recommend this documentary. Now I've always looked at documentaries as films that "should" be objective, but let's face it, most documentaries these days are pretty subjective. So, be warned: this film is very pro-Fred Rogers, it’s essentially a love story about the show and the man. In many ways it portrays him as being damn-near saintly. Nary a bad thing is spoken about him. It does show him as having been insecure and perhaps not terribly comfortable in his skin, which is cool, but overall it paints him in a very positive light. So the film may feel a bit one-sided to some folks. Honestly, I was so emotionally wrapped up in what was unfolding onscreen that I didn’t really think about this aspect of the film until later.

What really resonated with me was how topical, socially conscious, and downright political Mister Roger’s Neighborhood really was back in its heyday (and even later in the oughts). This was something that was totally lost on elementary school aged Me, that’s for sure. Rogers and company addressed some heavy spiritual, philosophical, and political issues, but in a mellow, unassuming way.

Now while I was emotionally charged throughout the film, there were a few elements that puzzled/bothered me. Let's call them "minor quibbles about the film".  They would be the following:

     1. Lady Aberlin (aka Betty Aberlin), although represented in quite a bit of archival footage, is conspicuously absent from the film.

     2. It is mentioned that Mr. Rogers came from money and that he was a chubby (fat) kid who was bullied as a youth. Yet there is no commentary on this from Fred Rogers himself. It’s basically mentioned and then forgotten. On a similar note(s), it's not really delved into that much in regards to what led him to pursue the Seminary, nor is anything really said about his family (parents, brothers/sisters, etc).

     3. There’s a segment where Rogers meets with a young kid who had a tumor that left him wheelchair bound. They interview the kid’s parents    (today), but there is no mention of whether the kid is still alive. There is a quick clip during the credits that shows the kid (now grown up) meeting Rogers at an awards show, but that clip is at least a decade old.

     4. One of my favorite characters on the show was Chef Brockett, and while he passed away in 1995, there is no mention of him in the film. :(

     5. They stopped showing the names of the various people who were interviewed for the film, so I ultimately forgot who many of them were and what their relationship to Roger's was. They were a mix of actors, producers, journalists, historians, and family. I wish they had kept putting their names up on the screen throughout the film. 

Again, these are just minor quibbles that popped into my head after I'd seen the film. I get that it’s hard to make a documentary and hit all the points, but those were the ones that stuck out with me.

What the film does do well is provide a pretty solid cross-section of interviewees ranging from cast members to guests, crew, and journalists. It also features quite a bit of behind-the-scenes archival footage, which is super cool.

In the end, the film resonated with me on a pretty deep emotional level and showcased how much Fred Rogers was a man either ahead of his time or completely out of time (though there is a segment where he testifies before Congress that shows he was right on time!). If anything, it made me realize that it is totally hip to be square. 

Oh yeah, and you get to see Mister Rogers moonwalking!!!