Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Review #2157: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Cast: 

Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander), Katherine Waterston (Tina Goldstein), Dan Fogler (Jacob Kowalski), Alison Sudol (Queenie Goldstein), Samantha Morton (Mary Lou Barebone), Ezra Miller (Credence Barebone), Jon Voight (Henry Shaw Sr), Carmen Ejogo (Seraphina Picquery), Colin Farrell (Percival Graves), Ron Perlman (the voice of Gnarlak), Faith Wood-Blagrove (Modesty Barebone), Ronan Raftery (Langdon Shaw), and Josh Cowdery (Henry Shaw Jr) Directed by David Yates (#121-#124: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix / the Half-Blood Prince / Deathly Hallows - Part 1 and Part 2)

Review: 

Sometimes one just gets tired. They miss a film they probably could have seen or put it on their to-do list to throw onto the waste basket for the next year. This is one of those times, which is particularly amusing because I can say without a doubt that once Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011) came out, I seemed to just go in and out of making excuses to really go back and watch those films once it was all said and done. Hell, I read the books as a teen, and somehow the idea of a "spinoff" film that retained the same director from that film adaptation to go with a screenplay by J. K. Rowling slipped my attention (I went back to try and jog my 19-going-on-20 memory and found that I somehow had time for exactly one theater release in the month that this film was released: Doctor Strange). Anyway, why don't we start making up for lost time: this is a spinoff film conceived with David Heyman (who had produced the film series) serving as a producer alongside Rowling (who had produced the Deathly Hallows films) that shares the title of a guidebook that Rowling had written in 2001 (which, well, was about beasts one might find in the wizarding world). Development started in 2013 and went on from there. The success of the film, which was planned to be the first of five films, would inspire two sequels Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022).

You know, some things are just unbearably average. I was 15 when I last remember watching all eight of that aforementioned film series (which is now labeled as being part of a "Wizarding World" franchise that inspires a blank stare), and I think he and me can agree on one thing: even the most inferior of the films (Chamber of Secrets? Order of the Phoenix?) rank better than this one, a sponge of doing things fine with the bare inspiration to look ahead. It has some of the curiosity required when it comes to wondering aloud why one would want to spend a second watching magic-sound phrases come out of folks (either British or not), and it does hold 133 minutes of attention with a handful of wonder-inducement, one can be fair there. There is something useful to find in watching folks try to engage with the idea of silly beasts possibly causing havoc in a 1920s New York that Redmayne can handle with the sense of interest with Fogler and Waterston, where even a magical parasite could be something really curious. And yet...why is it the film finds itself trying to wedge some sort of bubbling idea of war in the middle of things? (complete with a middling amount of screentime for Jon Voight, "Man Who Can Be A Ham") You can fool me with names such as "Newt" or "Queenie", but New Wizarding Orders with guys named "Gellert Grindelwald" that like to play disguise? That takes a bit more time to really stomach. Silly little plant looking creatures are a bit cooler than newspaper exposition. The performances are serviceable to the material, mostly in the case of Fogler, who provides the "take it in stride" balance to go with Redmayne and his, uh, spirited attempts at wonder that come and go with effectiveness. At least Farrell gets to dilly dally in obviousness a bit, especially when compared with a stone faced Miller. In general, this is a film that makes idle movement towards having fun but pushes a big cloud (parasite) and trying to maintain that line between wizards and "No-Majs" (blank stare). It is mildly fun, because those little antics involving a bank and magic tricks (it works out better in some ways to have people come and go) do make things come off interesting, and I do think there is something worth looking into when it comes to magic run amok that isn't trying to play too hard into things you heard already (except one line that I hated guessing). It is the kind of film that is crafted from cloth that could have received a bit more weaving to really hit its mark, but it does the basic necessities that will make those who were really drawn into it want to wonder what could be next without being a churner for the rest.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Selma.

Review #1646: Selma.

Cast: 
David Oyelowo (Martin Luther King, Jr), Tom Wilkinson (Lyndon B. Johnson), Carmen Ejogo (Coretta Scott King), André Holland (Andrew Young), Tessa Thompson (Diane Nash), Giovanni Ribisi (Lee C. White), Lorraine Toussaint (Amelia Boynton Robinson), Stephan James (John Lewis), Wendell Pierce (Hosea Williams), Common (James Bevel), Alessandro Nivola (John Doar), Lakeith Stanfield (Jimmie Lee Jackson), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Fred Gray), Dylan Baker (J. Edgar Hoover), Tim Roth (George Wallace), Oprah Winfrey (Annie Lee Cooper), Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Bayard Rustin), Niecy Nash (Richie Jean Jackson), Colman Domingo (Ralph Abernathy), Omar Dorsey (James Orange), Ledisi Young (Mahalia Jackson), and Trai Byers (James Forman) Directed by Ava DuVernay.

Review: 
"You know, the thing that I was really interested in doing with the film is making King more than a catch phrase, more than a holiday, more than a street name in a black neighborhood, more than a stamp, more than one speech. I mean, I wanted him to be a man, a living, breathing man."

It's interesting to find a new voice for film, particularly when it comes to ones that took their time to march forward with their own stories to tell. Ava DuVernay grew up in California, but during her summer vacations, she would travel down to her father's childhood home in Alabama, near the city of Selma. The experiences spent with her father, who had seen the marches from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, would prove a lasting influence. She studied at the University of California, Los Angeles in English literature and African-American studies, but her first career interest was in journalism. It was not long before she shifted into public relations, for which she would work in for a few years. She made her first venture into film with a 2005 short (Saturday Night Life) before making her first documentary with This Is the Life (2008) and her first theatrical effort with I Will Follow (2010). The film was written originally by Paul Webb, although DuVernay would do uncredited re-writes during production. The original director in mind was Lee Daniels, with Oyelowo (who starred in DuVernay's second film, Middle of Nowhere) having to lobby for years to be considered as star, with intentions of casting Liam Neeson and Robert De Niro as Johnson and Wallace before DuVernay came in.

At any rate, what we have here is a fairly stirring film. It runs on the energy to stir emotion about a story it wants to tell involving a march for freedom that came not from one man but from many that came from various backgrounds with their own parts to play. It is pressure that matters most here, one that shows the drive for the vote as a collective. It is the fury of being counted after years of being stepped on that viewers will likely see through the lens of the present alongside the past, where literacy tests fading away don't mean an easy aftermath. If the accuracy is to be debated, at least one can't say the film doesn't have the vision to look like a crisp period piece, right down to shooting on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Oyelowo manages to step forward and does well with strength for a tough task at hand with making King out to be more than just an icon heard on old tapes. He carries the film along with calm measured patience, one who we can see as the main face of a movement with no long doubt or thinking of him as just the entire landscape. In other words, what we have is someone with aspirations to go with flaws just like someone you would know without being relegated to biopic sticking points. Wilkinson does just as well on the other side of the film's line of focus, having his own presence of immeasurability, one that mixes with Oyelowo in the struggle for the right to have others be heard going through the game of policy. Ejogo goes well for her part in soothing measurability in time usually spent paired with Oyelowo, a pillar of strength in her own ways that fits well for the first portrayal of C. King on film (Ejogo had played the role 13 years prior in a production for HBO in Boycott, which dealt with the Montgomery bus boycott). Others stick out in their own ways, such as a persevering Holland or with James. Appearances by Stanfield and Roth stay with the viewer after they leave the screen, for varying reasons.

The strange thing that arises from the dialogue might be the fact that I did not realize that King's speeches were actually under copyright, for which that meant the script had to dance around that with re-spinning of dialogue (Dreamworks and Warner Bros at the time had been given a license for those speeches for a biopic...in 2009, and a decade has passed with no biopic). As one might expect from a historical film, there was a bit of wringing with some of its aspects in depicting certain moments, with the debate being discussed probably just as much as the lack of award nominations for the film as a whole. With a moment like Selma that still had some of the players (both in the march and less connected) still alive, this is particularly interesting, such as the statement from Andrew Young, who stated that most of the film was true while having quibbles with the portrayal of the relationship between Johnson and King. Consider the statement made by DuVernay, who felt that she is a storyteller, not a historian when it comes to a film that isn't a documentary. Honestly, sometimes a film can still be great even if it isn't 100% to the point, such as the case with Malcolm X (1992), which had its own omissions and composites within artistic license (Lee's vision of Malcolm X might as well correspond to a statement DuVernay made involving history being interpreted though the lens of one who reads or experiences it). Quibbles over the portrayal of civil rights moments is nothing new, as noted with films such as Mississippi Burning (1988), for example. But hey, does it count for the film if it speaks to things about King's life that I didn't know beforehand (such as Mahalia Jackson being called by him to sing to him)? Maybe it is an indictment of what we know and don't know from studies in school when it comes to folks like James Reeb or with Jimmie Lee Jackson. There may be many Bloody Sundays, but that doesn't mean it is easily forgotten, particularly when it is one that can be seen on your screen with your own eyes. In that sense, the film does fairly well for itself in generating tension and deep curiosity for the events of 1965 in what happened then and what has happened since then, one that organizes itself with flourish in 128 minutes of events and pace that mostly hits the mark. It isn't a perfect film, but it still manages to do well enough for itself in gripping entertainment to pull a punch where it is still needed now.

Next Time: Closing time comes for Black History Month on the movie side, for which we end with Fences.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

It Comes at Night.

Review #1579: It Comes at Night.

Cast: 

Joel Edgerton (Paul), Christopher Abbott (Will), Carmen Ejogo (Sarah), Riley Keough (Kim), Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Travis), Griffin Robert Faulkner (Andrew), David Pendleton (Bud), and Mickey (Stanley) Written and Directed by Trey Edward Shults.

Review: 

"With this one, I think I jumped into it as the audience would. The way it’s written is the way I jumped into it. I let it spew out of me. Also, it stemmed from something super personal, so it started from that and spewed out from there. I don’t build out this whole, huge world and start writing. It comes from this personal, little space and let it build out. And then I have my logical reasons for everything else, but I intentionally keep stuff out."

Never count out seeing a young voice find their place in resilient prominence in cinema, whether for drama for horror, particularly from a name that could prove quite useful to know in the future in Trey Edward Shults. The native Texan already had a love of films by the time he was a teenager, but his chance to move into the work of filmmaking came at the age of 19 when he was hired to work in the camera department on The Tree of Life (2011), directed by Terence Malick (a visionary director to discuss another time). The experience shaped his decision to drop out of Texas State University (having been at school for business management) and do work interning for Malick (which resulted in work on Voyage of Time (2016) and Song to Song (2017)). He made three short films as a director from 2010 to 2014, which includes Krisha - he would convert it into his feature debut the following year with members of his family participating in the film, which was a hit with the festival circuit. The basis for the film came from his reaction to his father's death, in which he tried to help his dad find some peace with the regrets he had, with the film being about the process of grief and regret that is torn by fear, reflecting his biggest fear - mortality. He found inspiration with films such as Night of the Living Dead (1968) and The Shining (1980) alongside works from directors such as John Cassavetes and Paul Thomas Anderson.

I'm sure you have heard this before, but sometimes it is what you don't see that is more scary, which can be drawn right in the open from the prominent featuring of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting The Triumph of Death. If one is expecting a slow burn involving paranoia wreaking havoc over all as opposed to a monster movie, you might be in for quite a tense winner. It relies on pulling the strings in stress and doubt for the majority of 91 minutes, and the enjoyment is in exactly how one feels about seeing fear play out like this, seeing people trying to survive despite the threat of sickness while cooped up away from the world (or at the very least trying to escape the problems the world can bring), because fear is one thing, but death is another. Edgerton is dependable here, capable of reacting to his surroundings with the conviction required to move in fear without seeming brazen about it. Abbott does just as well here, expressing his own control on the situation as it grows, maintaining the other side of tentative balance of family just fine. On the other side of reflected families, Ejogo and Keough each do well in matching the surroundings needed that keeps the doubts in check. Harrison (having been in small roles of film since 2012 before having a breakthrough here) proves the key piece of the main group, capturing a yearning fear and growth that makes for a usefully different kind of youth horror story. It builds a carefully-planned atmosphere of quiet doubt to longer on who and what one knows and doesn't know that makes for delicate human nature drama that works best within the details (such as during its dream moments, for example), relying on one's patience to make an efficient time (with an equally appropriate ending to go with said buildup). It won't merit the best for everyone in delivering everything in horror, but it is a quietly effective film of family and fear to match the moment needed to ponder on its content after the screen goes to black and one goes back to their normal life behind the screen.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.