An ever-so-English ghost story starring the omnipresent Domnhall Gleeson and the always scary Ruth Wilson, opening Friday, only previewing last night in some cities and this AM in mine.
Horror films that hit tend to not be period pieces, brand name franchises of the slasher/torture porn variety.
But this could be good. Fingers crossed.
If there’s one thing August of 2018’s box office has underscored, it’s the growing position of Chinese money in film production and the impact the Chinese market, international and Asian-American audience at home have on Hollywood’s bottom line.
Everything from “The Meg” to “Crazy Rich Asians,” has benefited from Chinese production cash and content catering to Chinese and Asian audiences. Even “A.X.L.” and “Kin” have Chinese cash on their books on the production side.
That being the case, there is one story, a natural East/West tale culled from Chinese history, unlike that abomination “The Great Wall” — the movie, not the wall — that begs for Chinese production money and Hollywood know how.
Japan invaded China twice in World War II, actually kicking off the war by occupying Manchuria. The second Sino-Japanese war was fought by a Japan with imperial designs on conquering and enslaving Asia, and a fractious China ruled by Chiang Kai-Shek, but fought for by the communists led by the future Chairman Mao, as well.
And Americans helped with their war effort. First, Chinese American pilots left this country to aid the Chinese Air Force. This is a wholly untold, basically unknown story begging for a Chinese-financed movie, even if it does bring up troubling “where your true loyalties lie” questions about the nationalist-racist era that WWII was fought in.
Then there’s the more famous story, of America’s Flying Tigers, the American Volunteer Group who took to the skies to defend Chinese cities and the last supply route into the country, the Burma Road, from the Japanese. They were mercenaries, volunteers, allowed to resign from America’s military air arms and join Claire Chennault for a deadly, epic adventure in the Far East. Roosevelt encouraged them, under the table and let them have P-40 fighters to match up against Japanese bombers and Zero fighters.
History has us mis-remembering their story, largely due to a 1942 film starring draft-dodger John Wayne that wholly fictionalized not so much their exploits, but their timeline. They volunteered to go and got to China months before Pearl Harbor, but didn’t see action until after the Japanese attacked the United States and Britain.
Sam Kleiner’s new book on the Tigers refreshes our memory and corrects the historic myths, to a large degree. It covers what will be familiar ground to anybody who has read much on the Tigers. And it’s short. As nobody in Hollywood reads, that’s a plus.
Many filmmakers I have spoken with over the years have talked of getting a new version of this story on the screen. Producer/writer Pen Densham was the first.
And every time I talked with the great Chinese director John Woo, he or I would bring it up. The Hong Kong action auteur moved into Chinese epics, and longed to get his arms around this East Meets West story of heroism, sacrifice, Fish Out of Water Culture clash, all of it.
Perhaps it is the Nationalist (non Communist) part of the story that has always been the hangup. The seductive Madame Chiang figures into the tale, surely one of the great villains of Chinese history, according to the Communists who have ruled the place since the 1940s.
But Woo never got to make this film. And even though there’s been a version in pre-production, off and on over the years (including now), it never happened. Tom Cruise and John Woo were pushing competing visions and versions of it about 8 years ago.
If the time was ever right and ripe for making this project, it is now. Digital effects for the air to air combat, a cast of young actors and actresses (romance in the combat zone), a grizzled 40something leader, lots of Chinese pilots, officials, soldiers and lovers, remote Chinese locations — this thing pitches itself.
Why isn’t it happening?
“Stoner comedies” is one of those genre niches Netflix has been throwing money and titles at ever since the streaming service — which has price-hiked its way out of the skyrocketing subscriber growth that finances such whims — began making its own movies.
Teen films, horror, rom-coms, Spanish language fare and the occasional “let’s get baked and watch these dudes get baked” is a “let’s fling these at the wall and see what sticks” approach to a release slate. But as “The Package” proved, and “Dude” and “Game Over, Man” almost did, there’s an audience for this.
“Take the 10” is a rowdy, random and not-nearly-raunchy-enough misfire in that regard, a buddy picture with stolen money from work, stolen concert tickets, stolen drugs and one guy’s dream of flying off to Brazil and getting into the healthy rainforest nuts export business.
Writer-director and supporting player Chester Tam wisely hangs half the picture on Tony Revolori, whose humorous haplessness graced “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” and not-so-wisely gave another shot to Josh Peck, something of a perma-grinning kiss of death to films from “The Wackness” to “Red Dawn.”
The ex-child-star Peck can’t make banter about where the “acting” kicks in for Chloe Sevigny in that infamous “Brown Bunny” BJ scene funny, can’t pull off the “lady killer” vibe his character Chris is supposed to be, and isn’t even that convincing as a pitiless pilferer whose assorted acts of thievery drive the “plot” to this “valley” to Joshua Tree romp.
Chester (Revolori) is allegedly the “sensible one,” the smart one, the guy who lectures Chris “Get your car out of the impound, grow up, get a life.”
But over the course of this hellishly short (kind of like the movie) weekend, Chester falls for a Craigslist creep (Carlos Alazraqui) who doesn’t really want to buy his “vintage” ’97 Corolla, just force him to take the wheel for a drive-by he’s arranged. Chester is caught stealing from the Wholesome Foods where he and Chris work. Chester says he’s done “all this research” on the natural grains and nuts they sell at the store and figures, with no money, no connections, no skills and no Portuguese (he’s listening to tapes), he can leap right into that export business in Brazil and make a mint off hipsters who frequent stores like Wholesome Foods.
Chris steals concert tickets from his ticket-counterfeiting older brother (Andy Samberg), swaps them with a Craigslist ticket seller who turns out to be a tattooed drug dealer (writer-director Tam) whose girlfriend (Cleopatra Coleman) has figured out his sexuality, even if he hasn’t.
Chris acts on impulse, Chester plans. They’re both idiots, but they figure they’d be lost without each other, which is why Chris tells Chester he’ll join him for the flight to Brazil AFTER they go to this concert on counterfeit tickets.
“‘Brazilian” is my favorite porn search word, before ‘drunk’ and ‘amateur!'”
A funnier actor might have made that line sing.
The lads have crude, coarse, chats about sex in front of Wholesome customers, flinch at the threats of their crooked, corrupt manager (Kevin Corrigan, letting himself go) and in a series of timeline resets, show us how they get to the point where they’re being chased through Joshua Tree and getting shot at in the film’s opening moments.
Chris Rock’s younger brother Jordan shows up, and Fred Armisen of “Portlandia,” and pretty much nobody else funny.
“Random” is how this was pitched, I am guessing. “I can get Andy Samberg for one scene, two sets, playing ‘Rock Band’ with the family maid.” And “Fred Armisen says he’ll play a douche in a Bentley in traffic for one scene.”
Corrigan takes his shirt off and smart-mouths the cops about his criminal behavior, and that of his employees.
“I’m color blind when it comes to stereotypes.”
But the picture hangs on that central buddy pairing, and it just doesn’t click.
“When did you start smoking?”
“Since I decided to change things up. It was either this, or Scientology — and I can’t wear maritime style uniforms.”
Yeah, it’s like that. Eighty minutes never seemed so long or so wasted.
MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, drug abuse, brief glimpses of porn, profanity
Cast: Josh Peck, Tony Revolori, Kevin Corrigan, Chester Tam, Stella Maeve, Cleopatra Coleman
Credits: Written and directed by Chester Tam. A Netflix release.
Running time: 1:20
It’s entirely possible to have lived a life outside of New York, removed from the world of avant garde fashion, drag queen Vogue-ing and “club life” and to have never heard of Susanne Bartsch.
But “Susanne Bartsch: On Top” posits the seriously self-involved query, “Why would you WANT to, dahlink?”
The Swiss-born, German-accented Zsa Zsa sound-alike Bartsch is a New York institution, a club promoter/party planner who moved from post-punk London to New York in the ’80s and brought her fashion sense, gift for self-promotion and ability to conceptualize, costume and cast circus-like Baccanales which blend widely disparate (so she says) corners of culture on a single festive night.
It might be at the Copacabana or whatever nightspot is downstairs in her longtime home, the Chelsea Hotel, or at On Top at the Standard, High Line Hotel, but her notorious soirees, which spread her sense of style and yen for inclusion, have been a worldwide magnet for party-goers, “club kids” — specifically gay men — for decades.
“Her elusive gift,” The New York Times” once opined of the 60something fashion icon/promoter, “is relevance.” She might lie about that age and boast of all manner of cosmetic surgery, but she’s still totally “a thing” in a city that ground up and threw away every other vestige of the late-disco pre-AIDS club life decades ago.
The debut feature by filmmakers who have branded themselves Alex & Anthony (Opie must be looking for a new on-air co–host) uses archival news footage, 35 years of party shots and home movies as well as testimonials from friends, family and followers to argue for that “relevance” in the days leading up to a 2015 Fashion Institute of Technology retrospective of “her work.”
That would be costumes, each more outrageous than the last (several new ones a week, at her party-planning peak), decor and footage from the epic, “orgiastic” blow-outs she has thrown over the years. Alex & Anthony follow the exhibitionist Bartsch around as she fusses with makeup and hair stylists, organizes the show’s collection of her costumes and reminisces about a life on the underground culture’s cutting edge, pre-AIDS to today.
She is the “Queen of the Night,” columnist and nightlife/gay life/gossip chronicler Michael Musto enthuses. “She picked up where Andy Warhol left off.”
Bartsch preached and preaches “Use the costume to push yourself,” and the world listened. “If it’s not a statement, what’s the point?”
She lured legions to the Big City where many acolytes, self-described “personalities” and “Night Club Legends,” mostly drag queens, yearned to impress her with their costumes, to get her attention like an underground Anna Wintour.
For many, the “Bartschworld” the New York newspapers and magazines reported on represented “my chance to be myself” for the first time — openly gay, flaunting it in the most out-there costume each could come up with in Bartsch’s assorted showcases.
If America today resembles, to a large degree, a narcissistic culture of Perpetual Halloween, Bartsch was its progenitor. She popularized Vogueing and drag fashion shows years before Madonna and “Paris is Burning” discovered them. She conceived parties, immovable feasts, and swanned through them, affirming those who got in, remembering names, encouraging.
Her son Bailey notes “It’s interesting to be around Susanne when she’s playing Susanne,” but “On Top” suggests that it’s quite rare to find her otherwise. Even out of uniform, she is imperious, impatient,but supportive, recognizing her 1989 AIDS fundraiser, the Love Ball, as perhaps representing her high-water mark as a taste-maker and culture-influencer.
The film parks her at the center of a universe that was and is all about gender tolerance and inclusion, even if one doubts her claims of a “post ‘velvet rope'” party ethos.
The film gets off track a bit as her fans get into “my story” too eagerly — another piece of American culture Bartsch adapted early on as her own.
You can make the case that she narrowed the definition of “frivolous” in a self-absorption sense, and “ridiculous” in a clothing sense — the lady never got over Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” period.
And her own son declares that “her contribution (to society) is “dust in the wind,” and that she knows it.
But “On Top” is still documentary history of value, capturing a “tipping point” of gay acceptance as it happened and honoring the woman who rode, like Lady Godiva, at the head of the a glittery victory parade.
MPAA Rating: unrated, nudity, sexuality
Cast: Susanne Bartsch, Michael Musto, RuPaul, Amanda LePore, Kenny Kenny, Ryan Burke
Credits:Directed by Anthony & Alex (Anthony Caronna, Alexander Smith). An Orchard release.
Running time: 1:26
This trailer had me at that moment when Dame Judi Dench, asked about “getting old,” tells the director, who also did “Notting Hill,” “Oh f— off, Roger.”
Then there’s Dame Maggie smith, who hasn’t come off as “the youngest” in a movie since the Thatcher Administration, is asked about “working with your husband” — “Which one?”
Dame Joan Plowright, a delightful woman and great comedienne in films from “Enchanted April” onward, so much so that one almost never refers to her as “Laurence Olivier’s widow,” chuckles and demands champagne.
Dame Eileen Atkins rounds out the quartet, and gets a chance to hold her own with her more famous (globally) sisters in this trailer to what promises to be a bloody delight — conversations with four gathered Grandes Dames of British acting.
“Tea with the Dames” gets a US release soon, quite soon.
“Kin” is the sort of colossal miscalculation that makes you wonder who got fired for making it.
Not the Baker Brothers, Jonathan and Josh, whose short film “Bag Man” SOMEbody at Summit/Lionsgate decided would make a swell feature. It’s that SOMEbody that one figures is looking for work this Labor Day weekend.
But first, the good news. The late late LATE third act special effects — “bullet-stop-time” and “portal” and dot-matrix holographic “memories” of an event that took place earlier make a good proof of concept clip for say, the Coen Brothers, the Hughes Brothers or the Wachowski No-Longer-Brothers.
Dennis Quaid, highly-billed, plays the father of the kid and the prodigal ex-con other son whom the film is about, and mercifully is killed-off early in the first act.
And James Franco, as Taylor the insane tattoo’d heavy hilariously and ridiculously obsessed with the music of Joni Mitchell, is already in the career doghouse thanks to #MeToo. This can’t do him much harm.
The Baker Brothers? Youtube beckons.
Eli, played by newcomer Myles Truitt, was adopted by Hal (Quaid), a struggling contractor whose wife died and left him with little to take care of the kid with. Boy wants sneakers? He’s got to scrap — scavenge for copper wiring, pipes, etc. in Detroit’s sea of empty homes and factories.
That’s how he comes across the remains of a firefight straight out of science fiction. Headless android-like corpses don’t phase him. He’s a fan of the “Terminator” video game (HINT HINT). So he picks up a futureweapon, a laser rifle, and takes it home.
Step-brother Jimmy (Jack Reynor, sort of Chris Pratt lite) is home after six years in prison, still in hock to mobster Taylor (Franco), still not getting any help from his had-enough Dad. So he sets up a robbery to get the money, and gets his father killed.
Jimmy lies and lies and talks Eli into taking a cross country road trip in Dad’s truck, not telling him their father is dead and not letting on in the least that he feels any remorse. Because Jimmy or actor Jack Reynor playing him is incapable of expressing remorse. Badly pitched performance, all the way round, though he handles the weak one-liners well enough.
“You into performance art, Eli?” He’s talking about strippers.
They’re being followed by sci-fi storm troopers who steal motorcycles to chase them, and by Tay-Tay’s suicidally committed gang. And then the brothers bust up a strip club, and a stripper (Zoe Kravitz, who deserves better) joins them on the road. They’re just lucky the strip club gang doesn’t join the chase. But no, even though we’ve seen the walls of this joint blown open, leaving a fully-stocked bar and everything else here for the grabbint, the owner and his boys have closed up and gone off to play poker.
The inanity/insanity goes on and on, with the 14 year-old first fondling and posing with the cannon he quickly comes to understand, and then carrying out a heist with it, threatening anybody who threatens him and his brother.
“Dad’s not going to be cool with ANY of this!”
Because even though Eli can’t figure out his brothers’ blizzard of lies and didn’t hear the nearby gunshots that killed his father, he’s laser gun savvy.
I hated this clunker long before the third act “twists” that are supposed to make it better, make it make sense and give us hope that this is a future franchise.
Because their fondest hope is my idea of a Dog of August nightmare. And as I said, Youtube beckons.
Only Franco seems to be having any fun, and his is of the psychotic variety. At least we’re relieved to see there were no barely legal or illegally young women in the cast for him to prey upon.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for gun violence and intense action, suggestive material, language, thematic elements and drinking
Cast: Myles Truitt, Dennis Quaid, James Franco, Zoe Kravitz, Carrie Coon
Credits:Directed by Jonathan Baker, Josh Baker, script by Daniel Casey. A Lionsgate release.
Running time: 1:42
So here it is, the Labor Day Weekend end of one the weakest movie-releasing/movie-going month of the year.
And for the same reason one buys lottery tickets, we cling to hope for “Kin,” Lionsgate’s young boy with an alien gun thriller. “Because you never know.”
Dennis Quaid, Zoe Kravitz, that’s a pretty good supporting cast (for starters). James Franco and his #MeToo burden are the heavies.
The trailer doesn’t hint at great things, but again…
The FINAL movie screening for this final weekend of the summer cinema season is “The Little Stranger,” and that has a hint of horror period piece “sleeper” to it. “Destination Wedding” isn’t opening wide enough to make Keanu/Winona nostalgia ring out, and isn’t being screened for critics anyway.
But hope springs eternal, even if the market research that tells a studio “Just unload it off your books at the end of August and you might get lucky” dampens expectations just a bit.
As “Silencer,” a new sniper/contract killer thriller starring Johnny Messner, is the worst movie we’ve seen the always-busy big screen bad guy Danny Trejo (“Machete”) take on in ages, lets see if we can parse why he decided to do it.
Aside from the payday, of course.
He plays a cartel-connected New Mexico mobster who has crossed, with extreme prejudice, the retired killer “The Silencer” (Messner). And he gets one big speech. It goes like this.
“One of us ain’t walkin’ outta here alive, Frank! And since I’m the one with the gun, that might be you!”
He goes on — “Trust is like the silence of the night, Frank. Once you lose it, you can’t ever get it back.”
And then, “If I’d listened to what my Daddy told me, Frank…”
You get the picture. Maybe they were running out of days to film Trejo and just stuck all his big speeches together for one scene. “Silencer” is that sort of B-movie.
A slow, sullen, morally bankrupt and logically inept thriller, “Silencer” begins with a Marine sniper, Frank (Messner, remember?) losing it in the Middle East and wiping out a family in an “escort into custody” mission gone wrong.
With choppers and Humvees and realistic Afghan (or Iraqi) sets, this is where “Silencer’s” budget went.
Back home, Frank has his own garage, a beautiful lady friend (Nikki Leigh) and her daughter living with him and a past he won’t talk about, even at AA.
Then a hit and run driver kills the little girl of the friendly neighborhood Las Cruces mobster (Trejo) and he demands that “The Silencer,” who did time in prison prior to serving his country (apparently) get his revenge for him.
That makes no sense. Where’s the “revenge” in shooting a guy at long range?
Frank puts up a tepid argument, relents for no morally justifiable reason, and when he takes his vintage, bright yellow Boss Mustang out of storage for the stalk and shoot (Inconspicuous much?) refuses to take the shot. This HE becomes the object of Ocho and his henchmen’s wrath.
His lady is shot, her little girl is snatched and Frank’s back on the bottle and back in business. His plan?
“Find my kid. Kill Ocho. Have a beer.”
Chuck Liddell is the mouthy muscle in Ocho’s gang, Robert LaSardo is the respectful but murderous fixer for Ocho with the unfortunate name, “Lazarus.” It’s as if he knows what’s coming to him. Or the screenwriter did.
Timothy Woodward Jr. (TV’s “Hickok,” and “American Violence”) gives us mayhem on both sides of the border, blase shootouts and fistfights and knife fights and the obligatory trip to the strip club. His shot selection isn’t the best, and one memorable moment has him showing up a map as we’ve seen the ancient paid-for-and-built-for-the-movie entrance sign to the town where Ocho is hiding out, only to have one of his henchmen give another location.
It’s Woodward’s “No, we didn’t make a mistake. See? They’re close together on this here map.” moment, and not the only eye-roller we’re greeted with here.
Messner and the script turn Frank into a silent, stoic growler, quite unlike his most famous role, on “Jane the Virgin.” The character is uninteresting, giving us too little to latch onto.
The action, after that opening debacle, takes forever to restart and doesn’t show us anything a thousand other C-action pics have given us before.
And Trejo? Don’t ever let them shove all your speeches into the last night, amigo.
MPAA Rating: unrated, lots of violence, profanity, pole dancing etc.
Cast:Johnny Messner, Danny Trejo, Nikki Leigh, Robert LaSardo, Chuck Liddell
Credits: irected by Timothy Woodward Jr. A Cinedigm release.Chuck Liddell
Running time: 1:29
I meant to post this a few weeks ago but one thing after another interrupted my carefully laid plans.
She was one of the most dazzling performers ever to hit “Saturday Night Live,” as versatile as Kate McKinnon, as malleable as Aykroyd, as distinct as Murray, as plucky as Hartman, and sweeter than of them.
I vividly remember Steve Martin announcing her death from the stage, tearing up as he introduced a classic dance sketch he shared with her.
I saw this touching trailer and started posting it and some dog/cat fight erupted on the other side of the house, the doorbell rang, a thunderstorm knocked out the power..
“Gilded age,” I thought, trying to remember what it was I was supposed to do, “What’s this documentary about a Gilded Age REALLY about?”
Never mind.
Vivian Bang is the star of this Sundance darling about performance artists, and performers, just trying to get by in the “task rabbit” gig economy as the country spirals down the toilet.
No release date yet, but Gravitas has it — so soon.
Movie Nation 