The Bride!

Review #2515: The Bride!

Cast: 

Jessie Buckley (Ida "The Bride" / Mary Shelley), Christian Bale ("Frank"), Annette Bening (Dr. Cornelia Euphronious), Peter Sarsgaard (Jake Wiles), Penélope Cruz (Myrna Malloy), John Magaro (Clyde), Matthew Maher (James), Zlatko Burić (Lupino), Jeannie Berlin (Greta), with Jake Gyllenhaal (Ronnie Reed), Julianne Hough (Iris / Jinx), and Louis Cancelmi (Officer Goodman) Written and Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Review: 

"Yes, there’s sexual violence. There’s violence. Because it’s a big studio movie, we tested and tested it. We had big screenings in malls, where people came to see it, which I had never been a part of as an actress or a director before. So fascinating. And one of the things that they brought up was the violence: Is it too violent? And I was talking about it with a girlfriend of mine, who said — and she wasn’t being reductive — “I wonder if you had been a man making this movie, if you would have had the same response.”

Admittedly, there was an inkling in my mind that this film could be one to pay attention to for all the wrong reasons. I vaguely remember the promos for the film but mostly I remember the totally edgy "her comes the mother f-" tagline that, believe it or not, is stated uncensored for the film at one point. I will, however, grant one nugget of praise right off the bat: this was a movie originally envisioned for Netflix (who had distributed Gyllenhaal's previous directorial effort, The Lost Daughter [2021] in the States), as it was announced as such in 2023 before Warner Bros. stepped in when there were apparent disputes  between Netflix and director Maggie Gyllenhaal over shooting in New York vs. New Jersey. Incidentally, Netflix distributed their own Frankenstein movie in 2025. Hooray for them, I guess. But hey, The Bride is a Warner Bros. movie that got released into plenty of theaters as a, well, Gothic romance movie. There were a few edits made to the film prior to its release, with one sequence apparently involving Frankenstein licking black vomit off someone's neck. So, there's that too. You might remember that when I reviewed The Bride (1985) a while ago, I made a snide note about the impending Bride film. I will now shamelessly repeat what I said: "God, could you imagine if The Bride! (made for reportedly $80 million scheduled for release 2026) is bad? If it is good, sure, cool. The trailer did not do many favors, but I would desire a tiny trainwreck if possible."

So, let's do a bit of a setup: Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus because of a suggestion to try writing a ghost story while with a group of Lord Byron and other folks in 1816 that eventually became its own novel in 1818; you might know that in the story, Frankenstein, when begged by the monster to make a female companion, elected to destroy it. Left unmentioned in The Bride is that Shelley wrote a wide variety of novels that ranged from historical in Valperga (1823) to travel books such as Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844) before she died from a tumor in 1851 at the age of 53. Any of what I just said is far more interesting than trying to make heads or tails of what it really means for the film to feature Shelley in the afterlife wanting to tell of a story to follow Frankenstein and possessing a woman in 1936 Chicago that happens to dovetail with the arrival of Frankenstein's monster (who just goes by "Frank") wanting a companion (it is also possible that putting Shelley in the narrative is a way to do a twist on how Bride of Frankenstein had a prologue with Shelley talking about more of a story to tell with Frankenstein). One thing leads to another and, well, as Slap Shot [1977] once stated, "most folk heroes started out as criminals". 

What a weird little movie this is. Aside from the 126-minute runtime, what we have here is a movie that is somehow bloated in its litany of wayward plot threads and characters to barely care about and yet also is begging for something to truly latch onto, even in an exploitative sense. If this was made on a budget of, say, a fraction of a fraction of the reported $80 million with plenty of corners to cut and straight exploitation, maybe you would get something to rival, well, Frankenhooker (1990). But you get a movie that has a proverbial stick up its ass* from the very beginning and never really cuts itself loose for anything that is actually meaningful. Even as a film trying to supposedly say something about the experience of women beyond what you could gleam from say, reading a Wikipedia article. It's pretty funny that a movie that yearns to say something about empowerment has a title character that basically spends most of the movie being misled about their name (well, first name anyway) only to just go with being "The Bride", honestly. The Bride could probably have been edited to run as a comedy and possibly be better for it, what with its bombastic energy that has a dance sequence (hey, if you have one Frankenstein-adjacent film go with the Ritz...) and the, uh, unintentional amusement of a bunch of people putting on garb to look like the title character (with a mantra of brain attack that-, no, wait, nobody will be saying that as a rallying cry, not even to enjoy ice cream) and cut tongues out. For a movie that is set in 1936, at least you will be able to enjoy the scenery every now and then, that much is true. But for all the attempts at dignity and intensity that doesn't want to be pegged as just being a wannabee Natural Born Killers (1994), Buckley and Bale can't save that sinking feeling of "I would prefer not to" when asked if they would say there is something that made you care about these folks. Every single time that Buckley goes to the Shelley Zone makes me giggle a tiny bit in the very idea that it is meant to be taken seriously as some sort of devastating blow for women. Bening* at least looks like she wants to be in a monster movie, while Sarasgaard and Cruz have little to actually do beside fight over who is more wooden. As predictable as it might seem, the movie begs for a real villain or something to root against more than just "the system" or "guy who doesn't say much but I guess it matters that he gets his due at the end" (to say nothing of Buckley's character having to be rescued from sexual assault twice). By the time the movie mashes to a conclusion of, well, something, at least you get the feeling of relief to wash over the disappointment to be had here. As fun as it would've been to call this movie a pile of garbage (hey, if you can't have fun...), I just felt that this was mostly a frustrating experience to go through. But if you like the idea of seeing what the fuss might be about a movie that believes it has something to say about people that happens to have a few people getting stomped, maybe it might be for you.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day

*oh how could I resist

*Crowd count for this movie at 10:45am: zero, which actually is not a new phenomenon for me, as it happened with Madame Web and, uh, Missing Link.

*Seriously though, am I the only one that sees her glasses as looking like Dana Carvey from Master of Disguise?

The Big Short.

Review #1574: The Big Short.

Cast: 

Christian Bale (Michael Burry), Steve Carell (Mark Baum), Ryan Gosling (Jared Vennett), Brad Pitt (Ben Rickert), John Magaro (Charlie Geller), Finn Wittrock (Jamie Shipley), Hamish Linklater (Porter Collins), Rafe Spall (Danny Moses), Jeremy Strong (Vinny Daniel), Marisa Tomei (Cynthia Baum), and Tracy Letts (Lawrence Fields) Directed by Adam McKay (#526 - Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and #693 - Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues)

Review: 

"I think it’s no accident that most people get bored when they hear about it. I think it’s, like, designed to be boring. I think they don’t want anyone participating in the conversation, they want you to use this jargon, they want you to basically go away, they want you to feel stupid, and the second you crack it, it’s just endlessly fascinating.”

Going from a reputation of comedy to verge into comedy can be a tough task, particularly if you have done so well with the former. And yet, if one has enough conviction in what they want to tell in their story (no matter how complicated), anything can happen. Adam McKay has proven a worthy example of achieving notice within both comedy and drama. The Pennsylvania native majored in English with studies at Pennsylvania State University and Temple University, but his real interest was in standup comedy. He did various work in improv comedy (most notably in Chicago with The Second City), which included being one of the founders of the group the Upright Citizens Brigade. He moved on to Saturday Night Live as a writer for six years (including two as head writer) before moving into directing. His first four films were each written by him and Will Ferrell (who starred on the show), which resulted in movies such as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) and The Other Guys (2010). Undeniably, it was not an easy task to adapt real-life events involving bankers and an economical collapse to film. Naturally, this is adapted from the novel of the same name, written by Michael Lewis that talked about the housing bubble of the 2000s and the people that bet against the bubble (the film kept Dr. Burry while basing the others on real-life money managers and traders such as Steve Eisman and Greg Lippmann). McKay expressed an interest in doing a film based on the book because of his interest (and outrage) in the crisis with people depicted in the book that did not fit what a studio might desire for leads to follow - explaining financial terms to go alongside all of this is another story entirely. McKay and Charles Randolph would adapt the book to film as screenwriters - Randolph wrote his screenplay over a period of six months while McKay made his contributions two years after that, most notably with the moments involving breaking the fourth wall and celebrities brought in to explain certain terms.

What we have here is a film that can equally be viewed as both a bio-drama and a comedy on the nature of unchecked greed versus incompetence within finance, a film that will have one buzzing with information to digest that will leave them rippling with curiosity over just how one could get away with so much with a system that really didn't know what it was doing. We are talking about people who bet against the odds for a market that looked like it would never stop based on what had happened before with the foundation when it comes to mortgages, subprime mortgages and collateralized debt obligations. In other words, it's the story of people who found themselves with a system that was not in fact too big to fail, and one can either look upon them however they like, whether that means with anger or another way. Sometimes one needs a bit of informative depression when it comes to films wanting to tell a film about finance. In that sense, it is inevitable to look upon another film related to greed with finance in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), or maybe even something like Margin Call (2011). The more complicated it gets with its foundation and tension, the better the film goes, and that proves to be the case with an excellent and complicated film like this, a useful one fresh for some interesting acting alongside its movement around economics that make a worthwhile film that appeals to biting satire rather than condescending biopic. The film is told through three separate but parallel stories that are linked through the eventual crisis, in which two of the main four actors doesn't ever interact with the others. Bale is our first focus, one who certainly molds right in with an eccentric role filled with concentration and awkward charm that never seems like a bit played out to impatience, whether that means listening to loud music in his office or fiddling with his clients about being right. Carell (no stranger to dramatic turns after being known for comedy) is just as well-done, capturing a certain cynicism-filled edge that reaches with useful honesty for what one can feel about others around them in terms of temper (although if you hear it from Eisman, the man that Carell is loosely playing, he captured the anger without his sense of humor - but biopics can only be so fleeting). Gosling does well here with a role that practically seems made out of snakeskin, one filled with transparency for what he does, which works out pretty well for a performance that we follow along at times for certain moments of explanation. Pitt is fairly reserved here for a role that fits that requirement, independent without becoming entrenched in the background for too long. Magaro and Wittrock both do well with contributing idealism within wanting to make a bunch of money within a withering system that lend a few wry moments while closing the film out with a poignant moment inside a collapsed building of finance. Linklater, Spall, and Strong also do fine with contributing their end in support to follow along Carell without being lost in all the financial hullaballoo. As a whole, its moments in trying to balance drama with details about finance with a variation on the usual exposition that keeps the film on its heels for 130 minutes with farce and furor that makes a provocative film on history that still lingers in its consequences years later that is useful to keep alive in our mind to understand the rights and wrongs of what might seem mundane but are in fact much more than that.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Overlord (2018).

Review #1162: Overlord.

Cast: 
Jovan Adepo (Pvt. Ed Boyce), Wyatt Russell (Cpl. Ford), Mathilde Ollivier (Chloe), John Magaro (Tibbet), Gianny Taufer (Paul), Pilou Asbæk (Cpt. Wafner), Iain De Caestecker (Morton Chase), Dominic Applewhite (Jacob Rosenfeld), and Jacob Anderson (Dawson) Directed by Julius Avery.

Review: 
I suppose the best thing to say about this movie is that it doesn't strive for greatness (or even awards) nor demand too much from its audience. It is a war/horror film that indulges in gore that satisfies in the right ways for entertainment. It is the kind of movie that would've fit just fine with horror films like The Thing (1982) or Aliens (1986) in terms of having a fair plot besides its selection of gooey villains that make it a step above what it could've been if it was made with a different amount of craftsmanship. The story comes from Billy Ray while having a screenplay done by him and Mark L. Smith while having Avery (who previously directed one other feature in 2014 named Son of a Gun) serving as director while having J. J. Abrams as a producer. The characters aren't really anything other than cliches from war or horror movies, but the actors are game enough to make them useful to follow along with (or root against, in the case of the villain). Adepo is our eyes for most of the film, and he makes the most of it like all fine leads by handling himself with enough care to go around. Russell (the younger son of Kurt Russell) plays his role with a no-nonsense approach that goes over pretty well with charm. Ollivier and the other members of the main group of heroes are fine, serving their role and function without any bumps in the road. Asbæk proves a fair menace for the material as required. The effects are a key part of what makes the movie tick along, with a good deal of them being practical (such as one involving a face) that make for a better showing than if it was just computer generated. The action sequences are pretty decent, having just a degree of intensity (particularly with the opening sequence) that keeps the movie on its toes. With a run-time of 110 minutes, the film is never boring nor too elaborate with its execution of its climax and ending. For the most part, the film is a bit predictable, with no real big twist or anything too out there (aside from what's beyond that village for the soldiers), but there isn't anything objectionable for ones with patience or curiosity in horror. There are some intense scenes with a bit of gruesomeness, not skimping out on what it takes while having a scare or two mixed in. It takes its time to show its horror tricks, but you never feel impatient in getting there. It won't be the film for everyone's tastes (such as perhaps people who might expect better from a war flick or horror), but I found that it is a pretty enjoyable movie with a fine bit of care and guts to make a fair winner. It certainly won't be a great classic for the war or horror genres, but it certainly has a place for curiosity's sake that certainly is worth a look.
 
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.