Mo' Better Blues.

Review #2350: Mo' Better Blues.

Cast: 

Denzel Washington (Minifield "Bleek" Gilliam), Spike Lee (Giant), Wesley Snipes (Shadow Henderson), Joie Lee (Indigo Downes), Cynda Williams (Clarke Bentancourt), Giancarlo Esposito (Left Hand Lacey), Bill Nunn (Bottom Hammer), Jeff "Tain" Watts (Rhythm Jones), Dick Anthony Williams (Mr. "Big Stop" Gilliam), Abbey Lincoln (Lillian Gilliam), John Turturro (Moe Flatbush), Nicholas Turturro (Josh Flatbush), Robin Harris (Butterbean Jones), with Samuel L. Jackson (Madlock), Leonard L. Thomas (Rod), and Charlie Murphy (Eggy) Produced, Written, and Directed by Spike Lee  (#1255 - Do the Right Thing, #1543 - Inside Man, #1643 - Malcolm X, #1976 - She's Gotta Have It, #2181 - School Daze)

Review: 

"I always knew I would do a movie about the music. When I say the music, I’m talking about jazz, the music I grew up with. Jazz isn’t the only type of music that I listen to but it’s the music I feel closest to."

Believe it or not, this was the first collaboration between Spike Lee and Denzel Washington on film. 

The inspiration for the movie came from Lee's interest to do a jazz movie with his own perspective after seeing Bertrand Tavernier's 'Round Midnight (1986) and Clint Eastwood's Bird (1988). The script for the film came up when Lee was working on Do the Right Thing (1989), with the first-draft screenplay being written in fifteen days. The fourth feature film directed and written by Lee, the movie was shot in roughly eight weeks with a budget of $10 million. The movie features the music of the Branford Marsalis quartet with Terence Blanchard doing the trumpet, with Delfeayo Marsalis lending assistance to Bill Lee with the producing of the music recordings (this was the last of four films where the Lees worked together, as they soon had a falling out). One isn't actually seeing the actors (most, anyway) playing the instruments, but they sure do a good job looking the part in imitation, which is more than enough. The first of nine movies Lee directed in the 1990s, it was a mild success at the time; the next movie directed by Lee after this one was Jungle Fever (1992).

Overlooked or not, there is something quite soothing about the way the movie flows in looking at the edges that come with trying to work at one's craft at the expense of relationships. It is hard to show maturity and know what one really wants when one could be working on something else, you might say. It is a movie based on mood and energy that is a curious one in basically reflecting its introduction and ending when it comes to parents and their son when it comes to shaping them and making a choice for them (in a movie where the rest of it is comprised of fallout from certain choices made, naturally). There is a crushing pressure one can feel in trying to hold on to themselves and not burn out into the night while also trying to think that everything is totally normal with how they do things within "fundamentals", and that includes one's love life. Undeniably, the sequence involving Washington opposite the two women in bed (at different times, obviously) is the most striking when it comes to misplaced ideas about people. Washington does pretty well with all of that in mind, mainly because he glides from place to place with weary disposition for what he seems to really want in life beyond that smooth facade of confidence (it takes more than talent to be a saint of jazz, shall we say). Basically, he treats the two women (C.Williams and J.Lee, the former making their film debut) in his life like they were items to check out at the store (incidentally, Lee called it a movie specifically about relationships and not a love story). The two women are only seen in that lens but each handle it with clear differences when it comes to timing and, well, allure. The Turturro brothers pop in from time to time to provide a few chuckles in the business interest side (if one ever believed the current times are weird for stereotypes, inquire further about this movie being called "anti-Semitic" and look to now when it comes to how much people like to waste time looking for stereotypes that aren't there). Lee also does pretty well in shaky stature (as one does when finding new ways to play characters in one's own story, which he did for his first nine movies). By the time the movie has its reckoning with certain decisions made in and out of good reason, one has found a pretty good time with the rhythm that the film has accomplished for itself, one filled with worthwhile interest in showing the power of human contact and making one's mind besides drawing it all in the craft. The relationships matter all around us: the music and the people we hold to us and how it matters so much to hold it tight to us as long as we can, which in this sense works out pretty neatly in the long run.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

MaXXXine.

Review #2227: MaXXXine.

Cast: 

Mia Goth (Maxine Minx), Elizabeth Debicki (Elizabeth Bender), Moses Sumney (Leon), Michelle Monaghan (Det. Williams), Bobby Cannavale (Det. Torres), Halsey (Tabby Martin), Lily Collins (Molly Bennett), Giancarlo Esposito (Teddy Knight, Esq.), Kevin Bacon (John Labat), and Simon Prast (Ernest Miller) Written and Directed by Ti West (#1893 - Pearl and #2133 - X)

Review: 

"My goal is to put you in the era and to put you in the aesthetics of that, so that way it feels end-to-end created."

X (2022) was a neat time for those who like films with a touch of familiar sleaze to go with their horror movies, one that was a "ballad of sex and violence". Pearl (2022) was, well, delightful in its bloody charm that I seem to mention either too much or not enough in charming horror features that included a teaser for "MaXXXine". As with the last two, West serves as both editor, co-producer and director/writer. The film (if you didn't already know) is set in 1985 around the time of The Night Stalker murders, who had a spree of murders and offenses in the state of Calfornia prior to his capture on August 31, 1985. Evidently, MaXXXine may not be the capstone of an "X trilogy" but instead just the third wheel of a well-oiled pastiche machine, which actually seems to be a compliment when it comes to worthwhile slasher fun that looks around at just how people get influenced by cinema (such as perhaps the kind of folks that can recite Hollywood Boulevard [1976] or The Day of the Locust [1975] when thinking about slime in the belly of the filmmaking beast). Or at least a film in the journey of self-actualization with an ending that happens to be a bit different than expected.

Sure, it is a glossy pastiche that is a notch below the last two films. But the enjoyment of the film for me makes it pretty easy because it seems pretty evident that when it comes to genres of film, horror is the easiest to spotlight and defend at the same time. B-movies and slasher films, when entertaining, still manage to get crap from people who either think horror is supposed to be "dignified" or wouldn't know entertainment if it bit them in the ass. People like to get spooked just as much as they like to absorb a film trying to play familiar dress up. This is a delightfully vapid and occasionally gruesome movie that I enjoyed most of the time that really does show just how cheap thrills really do provide worthwhile intervention when executed well enough. The driven nature of the main character was pretty unnerving in each of the previous two films, and while it may not be as prominent this time around, there are flashes of just how craven one really can be when driven to get the life they believe they deserve, even if it means stomping away (literally) at would-be saboteurs. Goth manages to maintain that strange sense of unnerving confidence that is alluring in all of its weird charm that straddles the craven line that comes in someone that really could be called an antihero in the best of ways. There are a few scenes that could stand as a highlight, but I think the one where she finds herself stuck in a chair with makeup all over spooks me the most (well, a stomping one might be spooky for others too, but staging terror is a matter of pride when it comes to horror). Being wrapped up in a murder mystery while others try to play A-values into a B-movie production makes for a few chuckles with Debicki or with Sumney (playing the other side of movie-connected folks, a man of the video store), but it is pretty evident that Bacon steals the show with such smarmy confidence befitting of his natural energy that comes out (accent and all). Monaghan and Cannavale provide familiar procedural chuckles that roll right in for my tastes because, well, familiarity always wins the day if it is committed. Eventually one sees where Esposito and Prast make for homely touches of where the film really will go within gruesome truths, particularly with the latter. The eventual reveal is probably not hard to see coming after a certain amount of time, but I appreciate the circular logic that comes in wanting to make a statement about the nature of Hollywood by making a film themselves. In the end, the intervention that arises for its climax (if you haven't seen it, it sounds like a dumb joke, but...) serves the film enough as a hodgepodge of gloss and blood for an engaging time that will surely make West's next idea a worthwhile one to look forward to.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Abigail (2024).

Review #2208: Abigail (2024).

Cast: 

Melissa Barrera (Joey), Dan Stevens (Frank), Alisha Weir (Abigail), Will Catlett (Rickles), Kathryn Newton (Sammy), Kevin Durand (Peter), Angus Cloud (Dean), Giancarlo Esposito (Lambert), and Matthew Goode (Abigail's father) Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (#1268 - Ready or Not)

Review: 

You know, it is funny, I picked this movie a few weeks after it was released because it just seemed like the kind of interesting little horror film you can encounter in the spring without needing too many audience members around (if one is paying over $8 for a theater experience, would you not take that chance?). Of course, it also helps particularly if you favor the directors, who, well, were behind Ready or Not (as released in 2019, although I suppose those two "Scream sequels" might be more familiar to certain folks). Perhaps not surprisingly, that film was also co-written by Guy Busick, who wrote Abigail with Stephen Shields (heh, a movie involving one controlled setting of a big house and trying to stay alive when presented with the fear of death, go figure). When it was first announced as being a production for Universal Pictures, it probably wasn't a surprise because of the fact that they were into the idea of just making a horror movie that could take loose inspiration from their previous history involving monsters to mold into something that would be along the lines of The Invisible Man (2020) rather than say, The Mummy (2017). With this in mind, one could be forgiven for thinking of this film as asking how one would do Dracula's Daughter (1936), which in it of itself was a very loose interpretation (read: little to no faithfulness) of a discarded chapter of the original Bram Stoker novel. And, well, I suppose I am making up for not watching Universal's two distributed vampire flicks in 2023 in Renfield and The Last Voyage of the Demeter.

The way one crafts the routine matters to enjoying what gets pulled for a film experience, particularly when it comes to horror, which gets plenty of flak from those who sure love other genres for playing to cliches just because they don't have "icky gore". But we aren't here to crap on people for their taste, we're here to see if a film seems worthwhile to spend time watching for 109 minutes. It delivers pretty much what you would expect from a film spent mostly in one location with a group of briefly describable characters and a title threat that is compelling enough to lend its ride to satisfaction. Weir (born and raised in Ireland) gets to play both sides of the coin that arises from a true wolf in a den of sheep that makes for an imposing presence in the fact that age and size is not the only way to spark terror when it comes to gnarly teeth and tone to go with it. She takes a playfully skilled approach to peeling off the illusion of being an outmatched youth with the endearing sense of fun theatrics. The ensemble around her (one that name drops And Then There Were None, to the surprise of probably nobody) does pretty well in the art of being picked off but having the tone of commitment a notch above staid. Barrera handles it best with useful timing that is generally worth rooting for when being in the house of the rising blood. When it comes to that old "final girl" trope, her worthwhile interest in the art of balancing "run!" and "it may be a vampire, but it's not a total monster" is solid for driving the film along, particularly when compared to the other key presence in Stevens in conniving engagement with baring opportunistic fangs. The others deliver a chuckle or two in their moments spent in the cast, such as Durand getting to play it naturally Canadian (with a bit of dim touch) or a silly Newton. As a whole, it is pretty standard type of gore, but it handles all the trimmings required of a well-oiled one-setting machine with the gore and pacing required to make for a solid curiosity piece. The setup for just what a vampire work just fine here (sunlight, ack!) to lend the climax a worthwhile execution when it comes to making decisions and, well, exploding splatter. Regardless of whatever may be next for Universal in playing it loose with familiar monsters or for the directors at large, I'm sure whatever lurks around the corner has a good chance of being solidly ready for viewing in the horror realm.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

School Daze.

Review #2181: School Daze.

Cast: 

Laurence Fishburne (Vaughn "Dap" Dunlap), Giancarlo Esposito (Julian "Dean Big Brother Almighty" Eaves), Tisha Campbell (Jane Toussaint), Kyme (Rachel Meadows), Joe Seneca (President Harold McPherson), Ellen Holly (Odrie McPherson), Art Evans (Cedar Cloud), Ossie Davis (Coach Odom), Bill Nunn (Grady), Branford Marsalis (Jordan), Kadeem Hardison (Edge), Spike Lee (Darrell "Half-Pint" Dunlap), Darryl M. Bell (Big Brother X-Ray Vision), Joie Lee (Lizzie Life), Alva Rogers (Doris Witherspoon), Jasmine Guy (Dina), and Samuel L. Jackson (Leeds) Produced, Written, and Directed by Spike Lee (#1255 - Do the Right Thing, #1543 - Inside Man, #1643 - Malcolm X, and #1976 - She's Gotta Have It)

Review: 

I don't pretend to know the legacy of certain films, but I do have an interest in the film that comes after one makes their debut feature, particularly if it happens to be one from a director as prominent in black cinema as Spike Lee. School Daze (1988) is curious not only as one released two years after She's Gotta Have It (his formal debut after his student films and shorts, remember) that was followed almost immediately by his third effort in Do the Right Thing one year later. This film was shaped by his experiences that he had when attending Morehouse College (a historically black college in Atlanta) in the late 1970s. Island Pictures, which had distributed Lee's first film, had planned on doing this film as well, but wavering issues in the budget (which finished above $6 million) eventually led to Columbia Pictures acquiring it. Strangely, a movie that talks about sororities and fraternities had a bit of a tough task in finding a place to shoot the film, which included Morehouse (irony?) before Atlanta University was utilized. Apparently, the film had different housing for certain groups of the cast, which led to an unscripted (and filmed) confrontation at a "stepping show". The movie was a modest hit with audiences.

Every so often I have to remember that films of a certain age could actually talk lightly about issues that mattered that seem distinct from now, which starts pretty quickly with a film that starts with someone trying to do a protest about divesting from South Africa. Of course, what really matters for this film is how people treat each other in the facets that come in... colleges and dorms. Within the divides that comes from people of the same color and distinct privileges is a film that also happens to have a few music numbers. I personally don't have any experience with fraternities, but I think we can understand that divides between certain groups and classes is not always black and white as it might seem. Of course, it seems like a fable one tells to try and get people to wake up (almost as if they were in a... daze) to the issues that are mired in the muck beyond arguments over hair. One can say progress has been made in a certain place, but how much of what we say is progress as opposed to being lip service? I liked the movie fine, even though its 121 minute runtime does tend to make one desire the tiniest bit more from its ending, which almost seems to be direct but brief as possibly can be. Fishburne has all the confidence required in a film surrounded by apathy that isn't merely played as a martyr but one with his own biases and charms. The musical numbers are executed with varying effectiveness, but probably the best sequences of the film are in smaller moments. I especially like one scene involving Fishburne and his group going out into town to eat only to confront some locals (which is where Jackson appears briefly) that resent them in their own privileges, because if there is one thing to say about people, it is that there are people who will just look down on anyone who want better for themselves, even to the point of calling them a certain word and say that they'll be like them "just like us". Esposito makes an ideal wannabee with a total absence of awareness for anything but his own group for a distinct act of the public. His narrowmindedness strikes most of all, even with Campbell (and accompanying status in loyalty) right there on the divide of hair and sororities. Amusement is here and there in those selection of scenes for a movie not focused on showing the classroom (Davis having a scene in trying to motivate his football team is a real chuckler). At the end of the day, the black experience is one that cannot be thought as just simple to pin down for easy stereotypes, regardless if one is a college man or not. Living in apathy that just thinks about wallowing in where they are or just being content with a small piece of the action is just not enough when one could also wake up to what's around them. The film is mildly effective in its approach as a whole due to a game cast that makes Lee's second effort at least a useful curiosity to seek out on its own terms.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

The Usual Suspects.

Review #1508: The Usual Suspects.

Cast: 
Stephen Baldwin (Michael McManus), Gabriel Byrne (Dean Keaton), Benicio del Toro (Fred Fenster), Kevin Pollak (Todd Hockney), Kevin Spacey (Roger "Verbal" Kint), Chazz Palminteri (Dave Kujan), Pete Postlethwaite (Kobayashi), Suzy Amis (Edie Finneran), Giancarlo Esposito (Jack Baer), and Dan Hedaya (Sergeant Jeff Rabin) Produced and Directed by Bryan Singer (#008 - X-Men, #010 - X2, #584 - X-Men: Days of Future Past, and #1077 - Superman Returns)

Review: 
"I believe that as a writer and a director, you're only providing the skeleton of a character, and you're hiring actors to fill it out."

It's easy to make a film people remember when you have assembled a script worth thinking about. Christopher McQuarrie spent his first few years out of high school (spent with classmate Singer) doing some traveling and work in a boarding school and a detective agency. His first foray into film came with Public Access (which he co-wrote with Singer) in 1993, which he co-wrote with Singer and Michael Feit Dougan. The film did win some attention from critics (such as with the Sundance Film Festival), but it ultimately did not find much of an audience to play to. The thing that sparked interest in writing the film came about from seeing a title of a Spy magazine column that was "The Usual Suspects" (which also happens to be a classic line from Casablanca), and a casual conversation about doing a film with that title led later on to Singer asking if he could write a film for him with that in mind (since there was interest by investors interested in their last work for a $3 million project). McQuarrie, working at a law firm at the time, found inspiration in a small white room that looked like one used for interrogation, with this springing to mind a character who talks too much; names for some of the characters would come from stuff revolving around McQuarrie in his workplace, such as the interrogator (named for a office manager at the firm) and even Keyser Söze (although the last name was changed from real life).

The most interesting parts of the film involve those little moments of interaction between the core cast that we follow along with in its story, more so in the first half than the second. It is Byrne who we gravitate to in terms of interest, one who just grabs at you with a flickering intensity that certain inspires a certain kind of imagination as to what he really is, since he is the figure we see in the midst of events that had started the film anyway. Baldwin follows along with useful pacing that is quick on the trigger in high-temperedness. Del Toro does fine with a share of eccentricity that lends curiosity for what really seems to be a plain character on paper. Pollak proves worthy of a few cheeky smiles in short fused-temperament, while Palminteri proves a worthy one to contrast against the core group of seediness with coarse charm. Spacey is the key to plenty in the film, since he is the one we are listening to and viewing within the background of the perspective, and he does a fairly decent job in unassuming nature, useful to the film is what it shows without seeming like an extra presence, verbalizing himself with effective weaving.

You know those movies that people say they would like for you to see in how it plays out? There are some films that people can really, really get into, ones that can lend plenty of discussion for how something "just works", something far more than what one could assume from a noir mystery and so on and so on. Honestly, the one sticking point for me when it comes to this film is that I wish it was better than I expected. What was there to expect? The climax at the end isn't exactly spoiler-free from pop culture, but it generally does help to not read too much into an ending for a film before you watch it anyway (look, either Keyser Söze will be revealed to us in the end as either someone already established or he won't be at all, it isn't exactly more than a binary choice). The film relies on this twist because of its perspective that it wants to tell within its confines of a story that perhaps works for numerous viewings, one might say (it has been described as Double Indemnity meets Rashomon). Well, that doesn't really work if you don't find its shaggy dog kind of storytelling that particularly highly to begin with, a big trick to play on the audiences. The cast ultimately plays into part of how this film falls into what I like to call the "five stages of movie classic disappointment" (in which one does when they are faced with a movie people like but you don't, which obviously differs from the inverse of normal movie disappointment, namely in paragraphs). In this never-tested method, they would represent denial, in that I am believing that because they do pretty well, I cling to the idea that this really will be a great film. Anger (or in this case, frustration, because who really gets mad at being tricked by a film?) presumably kicks in right around when the story starts to teeter a bit too long in making me keep caring to the inevitable stop. Bargaining comes around in the whiny voice of consciousness that argues that wants me to compromise (in other words, not just immediately say this film isn't quite right without a little bit of digging) and think of it as "good, but not quite perfect" because maybe the climax really will prove itself. This leads to that fourth stage of depression (disappointment), where I just sit through the motions of how it really chooses to go the way it goes and sighing all the way, with that fifth stage standing right there practically mocking me when I finish that last train of thought.

This isn't to say I hated the film, because I actually did find it okay in making a fair piece of curiosity with a few highlights within conventional folks made fair through the actors (such as the scene where they all have to say a line in a police lineup), but in my view its magic trick leaves me feeling indifferent rather than astonishment. Pull that tablecloth from under the table all you want, but that doesn't make it a cool trick if I can see the way you "did it" coming.  Conventional can seem old hat and tired, but you know what was better in its portrayal of details and chase in the same year that this came out? Coincidence or not, that film is Seven (1995), which also happened to feature Spacey in a key role. Why stop there? Why not just chuck along a better film in dealing with stringed-together storytelling in Reservoir Dogs (1992)? Look, sometimes a film just doesn't have the reaching power it thinks it does, and that just falls to the perspective of the person who just saw it, and I just thought it was okay. I can understand the accolades and praise it received from certain audiences (which included an Academy Award for its screenplay, beating films of that year such as Braveheart and Toy Story) while also reaching the final stage of movie-classic-disappointment-grief: Acceptance that it just isn't completely what I think of when I think of a classic, and I move on to the next one.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Do the Right Thing.

Review #1255: Do the Right Thing.

Cast: 
Spike Lee (Mookie), Danny Aiello (Sal), Ossie Davis (Da Mayor), Ruby Dee (Mother Sister), Giancarlo Esposito (Buggin' Out), Bill Nunn (Radio Raheem), John Turturro (Pino), Richard Edson (Vito), Roger Guenveur Smith (Smiley), Rosie Perez (Tina), Joie Lee (Jade), Steve White (Ahmad), Martin Lawrence (Cee), Leonard L. Thomas (Punchy), Christa Rivers (Ella), Robin Harris (Sweet Dick Willie), Paul Benjamin (ML), Frankie Faison (Coconut Sid), Samuel L. Jackson (Mister Señor Love Daddy) Produced, Written and Directed by Spike Lee.

Review: 
When it comes to great movies, there is generally a sense early on its duration where you know this is going to be more than just a good experience of entertainment. For me, the turning point was probably a short sequence involving Aiello and Turturro's characters involving the latter wanting the former to close down his pizzeria and do something else with his life as opposed to serving the neighborhood any longer than has been the case for 25 years. You have had a look into these people's lives over the course of the film up to now (all of which over the course of one day, naturally), so seeing how a conversation can have some certain preconceived notions seem to bubble even further than what has already happened on screen. One lives on his pride for the people that grew up on his pizza while the other feels nothing but loathing resentment, where being accosted by a guy selling pictures on the street means being rude and loud to their face. This is such a vibrant film, one that grasps for what it wants to say about intercity life and the people that accompany it with their respective type of personalities and preconceptions. For what its worth, the film is still relevant three decades after its release now more than ever, seeming in step in terms of its execution of direction from Lee to bring these characters to life alongside a story that clicks without a hitch from start to finish. Aiello is the best of a group with plenty of useful castmates to go around, showing plenty of surly ruggedness one could expect for such an interesting character however one interprets him and his actions. Davis shines just as well, having a mix of humor and dignity with his key role whenever necessary, whether when on screen talking about doing the right thing or something else. Turturro and Edson certainly play the brotherly sided coin with a fair edge, where their differences stand clear alongside brotherly ties without having a safe closure. Nunn plays the key in making his time count, compelling with a boom box as company.

Whether the character is involved with an amusing moment or something more serious, each actor do their part to make it stick with conviction, whether it is the corner-men of Harris-Benjamin-Faison and their cracks through the day or the time spent at the pizzeria and the people working (and mostly talking) on food for the neighborhood, with the two hour run-time slipping by without much struggle. When the film shifts itself from a mix of comedy and drama to a sudden turning point, it hits with a devastating punch - whether one knows anything about what happens in the film or not before viewing, it makes a key point on the nature of prejudice and what makes for the right thing when the moment needs it. In addition to all of this is wonderful cinematographry from Earnest Dickerson, who does well with making the look of the film seem readily consistent to take place over a day with good lighting (in general, it is quite an achievement to make a film in a few weeks on location) and also good music from Bill Lee. It keeps the pedals rolling without betraying its efforts for its conclusion, keeping a roaring spirit that progresses beyond the final reel. On the whole, this is a thoughtful and entertaining film that pulls quite a punch with forming an interesting world come alive and show the layers beneath the quirks, for which one can still learn from now. It is worth a viewing, preferably with a crowd.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.