Movie Nation

The late wit and novelist Gore Vidal once said “Never pass up an opportunity to have sex, or appear on television.”

To that I would add “or spend time, in any way, with Jeff Goldblum.”

I have interviewed him several times, and he has grown more fascinating with every passing year.

He’s evolved from distracted flake who cannot finish a thought to “non linear thinker” whose curiousity and enthusiasm for just about everything is infectious.

A damned fine actor — catch him in “The Mountain” — an accomplished jazzman, and now the Replacement for Anthony Bordain that we have all been waiting for in this travel, conversation, explore and question show, “The World According to Jeff Goldblum.”

Streaming this fall.

My pre-weekend hunch that Gerard Butler’s “Angel” would far exceed the widely quoted $14-15 million projection for its opening take has proven correct.

Box office analysts use tracking data on pre sales of tickets, polling and social media analytics — how often the trailers have been viewed, shared, etc.

They look for how familiar the title is, what the previous films in the series have done, the star’s recent opening weekend takes.

I just consider the last couple of items. In the movies today, “brand” is everything. Ticket buyers flock to the familiar, reliable comfort food movies.

“Angel” is on track to manage $18-20 million. As I said. Reviews weren’t awful, so there was no reason to expect any less. Butler has a little of that Eastwood and Mel Gibson vibe and connection with one specific audience — violence, reactionary messaging.

“Ready of Not” opened Wed. and that deflated its weekend take quite a bit. Under $7 is better than the $5 it was expected to earn. Not awful, in terms of its opening weekend take. Imagine how it might have done if it was as good as some delusional critics were saying

Meh.

The preaching Kendrick Brothers’ “Overcomer” is doing a healthy $7.5 to 8. I will get to it this afternoon.

“Angry Birds” have fallen, “Once Upon a Time” has one more weekend in the top ten, perhaps its last.

https://deadline.com/2019/08/ready-or-not-angel-has-fallen-good-boys-box-office-weekend-1202701545/

Streaming later this year.

So that’s a plus.

It never ends.

The three saddest words we hear off the screen this year just might be, “Jesus, John Paul.”

Sarah Greene speaks them, playing a Dublin mother of four, in “Rosie,” a heartbreaking, underplayed and intensely gripping Roddy Doyle story about modern homelessness.

Greene is the title character. Rosie has spent all day, for days on end, running through her cell-phone minutes, trying to find a place for her, her toddler to tween kids and her kitchen-assistant partner, John Paul (Moe Dunford) to live.

And that line and the way Greene (of “Noble,” and TV’s “Penny Dreadful”) plays it is as wrenching as any anecdote from “Angela’s Ashes.” There is exhaustion, despair and just a touch of panic in her performance.

“Jesus, John Paul.”

She’s getting the kids dressed, every morning, feeding them and taking them to school in the under-sized minivan in which all their worldly belongings are packed. She’s not giving up her hope and determination, not letting the little ones — and her oldest, Kaley — see her desperation. She is not losing her temper.

But just at this moment she sees the juggled balls hitting the ground. In this instance, all her “My faults” and “I’m sorries” that get her through the day — with the kids, who whine, bounce off hotel beds when they have a room, off the walls of the van while they’re looking for a room, with the teachers she apologizes to about “late again” — hit her right in the face.

“Jesus, John Paul.”

In one of the great cities of Europe, with all the social safety nets a citizen of the modern European Union can expect, a lower middle class mother and her mate cannot provide the most basic shelter for themselves and their four children.

Doyle, a chronicler of modern working class Dublin without peer (“The Snapper,” “The Van,” “The Commitments”) taps into the irony of this most domestic of domestic tragedies.

And Greene becomes his muse, his vessel for making a statement about how close to the margins many of us are in a world where housing, in the control of what-the-market-will-bear landlords, is increasingly imperiled.

Dublin, like many cities, is pricing the lower ranks of the social order right out of their ability to survive there.

Greene gulps down the alarm in her voice when Rosie hears, from a hotel clerk, that Lady Gaga is in town for a show. She knows that hundreds of hotel rooms are now out of circulation for days, subsidies from the state be damned.

The calls are all the same — “I’m looking for a room for a few nights. There’s six of us.” One call after another, poker-faced pleas that cannot show the panic, the urgent need.

“That’s right. City Council Credit Card.”

One child is hyperactive, another plainly stressing out at Mom’s “We just moved house” explanations to one and all, hiding their eviction from the place that is now being sold, “too dear” in price to be within their price range.

The youngest is fully potty trained, but frazzled by all the driving, calling, moving in with garbage bags full of clothes.

“I need the toilet. I need the toilet now.”

“Ok. Right,” Mom says. And then a moment where we catch the lost look in her eyes, “Where’ll we go?”

The oldest girl Kayliegh (Ellie O’Halloran) dutifully does her homework, bottles up her gripes, embarrassment and disappointment and tries to not be a burden. That’s a lot to ask of a 13 year-old girl.

Director Paddy Breathnach, who gave us an early Brendan Gleeson triumph, “I Went Down,” doesn’t fussy up this simple tale. The camera is always on Rose, “Rosie,” as her kids turn fractious and another hotel patron in the same situation begs her to quiet her unruly son “or we’ll’ get trone out, like. And I’ve nowhere else, like.”

John Paul is low man on the totem pole at the restaurant, so he’s little help during the day — lunch break apartment and house hunting — getting a call where his family will be on his bus ride “home.”

“Remember when we used to think it’d be great to stay in a hotel?”

Doyle injects a little extra melodrama in the estranged relationship between Rosie and her mother. They’ve already worn out their welcome with every other family member and friend in Greater Dublin, but Grandma’s place could be out of the question.

Any parent will recognize the form childhood rebellion takes in a seven year-old, and a thirteen year-old. Anybody watching will fear for Rosie’s sanity as she has zero time to cope, no energy left for added drama, which children cannot help but provide.

And any film fan will appreciate seeing one of the great, subtle performances of the 2019 cinema, glorious work in the simplest and most dramatic role of them all — motherhood.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic material.

Cast: Sarah Greene, Moe Dunford, Ellie O’Halloran

Credits: Directed by Paddy Breathnach, script by Roddy Doyle. A Blue Fox Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:26

Born out of a diptheria outbreak, inspiration for the animated “Balto,” and now this one.

Oct. 25 it hits theaters.

An insanely violent C-movie thriller starring a guy in the headlines for divorcing Miley Cyrus?

A classic “late August movie,” that’s “Killerman.”

It’s about a money launderer (Liam Hemsworth) who rides around New York in a Lincoln Town Car, buying 25 pound (400 ounces at @$1500 per ounce, worth $600,000) gold bricks with a big sack of cash, reselling the gold, “laundering” the money into checks several times removed from drug cash.

He is…The Lincoln Launderer.

Hey, that’s a better title than “Killerman,” which when it’s explained in the movie, gave me the biggest laugh I’ve gotten out of a limited release thriller all year.

It’s a film with an intriguing plot, gripping bits of action, savage violence and good performances.

But man, that pacing. It comes to a dead stop for half an hour, drags out every third act stand-off, torture scene, and the finale. The producer who should have told writer-director Malik Bader to “Rename your movie, man” should have hired the director of “Ca$h Only” a better editor.

Moe Diamond (Hemsworth) has a partner. His nickname, “Skunk” (Emory Cohen) should tell you all you need to know about him. Skunk hooked up Moe with his Slavic mafia uncle (Zlatko Buric of “Teen Spirit,” outstanding), but he longs to make his own money.

Which is how Moe and Skunk get mixed up with the “Debo the Nigerian” (Coletrane Williams), punked by dirty cops (Nickola Shreli is feral and fierce as their leader) and in a car accident that takes away Moe’s memory.

He’s on the run — OK, on the WALK — from those dirty cops, is in trouble with Skunk’s uncle and has no idea who he is, or is supposed to be.

Drugs and a sack of cash don’t jar his memory. Well, he remembers he’s a lowlife and how to swear.

“I gotta see something other than money and drugs!”

Maybe a trip to the club will help, some sex, a little hang time with the old gang.

But we’ve seen Moe as a cool-headed mastermind. Now, he’s more violent, impulsive, desperate and enraged.

“I feel like I’m running…”

You ARE running, Skunk insists. Only he’s not. Because the pacing here won’t let him.

“Killerman” takes too long to set-in-motion. We see much of what we need to grasp in the opening credits, but Bader takes forever to get to the point where Moe loses his memory.

The picture stalls out for a solid half an hour before events, and a girlfriend (Diane Guerrero) Moe doesn’t remember, trigger the orgy of violence that points us toward the finish.

Bader plays the second-worst among the bad cops, and doesn’t trim the fat or the cruelty from a lengthy torture scene that he’s in. A lot of scenes carry on past their climax, even if the acting is memorably over-the-top.

The Croatian Buric (I remember him from the British thriller “Pusher”) is wild-haired and amped-up into spittle-slinging rage in many scenes.

“You DON’FIGHT DEARTY COPS! You BUY zem!”

Hemsworth holds his own in all this, giving us two distinct versions of Moe as the role requires, never hinting that this New York hustler is an actor from Australia. Cohen is a compelling sidekick presence, and the heavies here are HEAVY.

But damn, this movie staggers along. So many of its sins could be minimized by an unsentimental slashing of establishing shots and establishing scenes, a thinning out of that dead-zone in the middle and a vigorous pass at the nervy but too drawn-out finale.

Bader clutters the plot with peripheral characters who serve either no function at all, or a contrived one –the sniper (Richie Ng) who helps Moe and Skunk escape the drug bust, the “clean cop” who serves no function at all, played by actor who was Bruce Lee in “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” (Mike Moh), the club pick-up who sexes up Moe in a bathroom stall.

No, that doesn’t help his memory. And it does nothing for the movie, which lurches along, an 85 minute tale told in an agonizing hour and fifty-two.

MPAA Rating:R for violence, pervasive language, drug material and some sexuality

Cast: Liam Hemsworth, Diane Guerrero,Souleymane Sy Savane, Zlatko Buric, Mike Moh, Emory Cohen, Malik Bader

Credits: Written and directed by Malik Bader. A Blue Fox Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:52

Sounds like The American Dream. A lot of ill- gotten cash, and no memory of how you got it.

And being divorced from Miley? A price we all have to pay, eventually.

Details of the Mouse’s plans to build a “Star Wars” themed hotel have my attention.

Characters wandering the corridors. I pop assume vid screen “windows” into space at several points, a PA system of Brit accented villain’s doing announcements.

And the room service!

Of course, as any Orlandoan can tell you, what Disney World REALLY needs is a vastly expanded monorail or new light rail on property and a major buy in to Orlando’s growing rail system to get people from the airport and assorted rail hubs into the park. Our galaxy is overrun with tourist traffic.

At least the stockholders will be rich enough to afford the oxygen tanks we are all going to need when this more greedy than green company realizes how shortsighted standing in the way of transportation progress (Eisner’s Legacy) was.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/08/disney-world-star-wars-hotel.html

The third film in Gerard Butler’s Scots Secret Service Agent “Fallen” series, named for radio code speak for the White House under attack (“Olympus has Fallen”) concludes with what should be a weekend at the top of the box office pyramid.

Deadline.com is projecting a neck and neck race with “Good Boys” on its second weekend — both films tallying $14-15 million.

Box Office Mojo is saying $14.5 will win it for “Angel.”

I figure the Butler film’s branding is stronger and will push it into the $18+ range. Just spitballing here. Reviews weren’t awful for “Angel.”

“Ready or Not” opened wide Wed and managed under $2 million for the day. Not awful.

Reviews were unjustifiably rapturous for this middling horror/rich hunting the less blue-blooded satire. Didn’t quite come together for me, and audience exit polling, per Deadline, is quite underwhelming. The first ticket buyers aren’t recommending it unreservedly to their friends.

It should do under $10 between Wed and Sunday, just $5 mill for the weekend, but we will see.

The preaching/moviemaking Kendrick Brothers’ “Overcomer” opens wide and could easily best “Ready” with a $6 million+ projected opening, according to BO Mojo.

I will catch that one today, I figure.

https://deadline.com/2019/08/ready-or-not-angel-has-fallen-good-boys-box-office-weekend-1202701545/

Young Lexy Kolker looks so much like young Drew Barrymore that I had to double-check the credits to “Freaks” to make sure Stephen King wasn’t involved, that I wasn’t seeing a “Firestarter” sequel or remake.

And as this dark, hallucinatory vision from Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein unfolded, I had to check again.

It’s a paranoid fantasy about a little girl (Kolker, of TV’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Shooter”) locked in her house by her seemingly unhinged father.

Emile Hirsch would have been my first, or at least second best guess as to who they’d get to play Dad. He’s spot on.

The first words we hear from the father tell us Chloe has been sequestered, pretty much since birth.

“You’ve gotta be a good HIDER, otherwise the bad guys will find you!”

He drills her on her cover name, the answers she’s to give if “the bad guys” get their hands on her.

“I’m Eleanor Reed, age 7.”

She recites details about “Eleanor” from memory, daily exercises Dad tests her on constantly. Heaven help her if she gets one wrong.

“BANG! You’re dead…You don’t know the answer to something, you make something up. You need to lie to be normal.”

But who’s the abnormal one here?

Dad doesn’t sleep, because ” “I can only protect you when I’m awake.” He sometimes bleeds from his eyes. He watches old videos, duct-tapes windows so that no one can see in and fends off Chloe’s many demands to “play with Harper,” a child next door, or to have ice cream.

Hearing that vendor’s truck go by daily is torture to the child, even if she’s supposedly never been out.

And there’s another form of torture being exercised in this cluttered, child-drawing-decorated suburban home. When Chloe makes a big mistake, she’s locked in a closet.

“You opened the door. You almost got us killed!”

So what are we dealing with, here? Crazed survivalist? Man who lost his mind when he lost his wife (Amanda Crew), whom Chloe “sees” in another closet in her room, apparently demented? This much is certain, Dad has weaponized his paranoia.

“You know what’s in an ice cream truck? Frozen kids’ bodies!”

Or has Dad got his “reasons” for behaving this way, treating Chloe as he does?

We can ascertain from the script that the co-writers/directors, who have shared credits on episodic TV and TV movies (“Ingressed Obsessed”  the “Kim Possible” movie) is that double-checking that “Firestarter” connection isn’t unwarranted.

Like Mr. King, these two must have binged on “The Twilight Zone” — probably as they were writing “Freaks.” Perhaps that explains why the wind goes out of the picture’s sails once the obvious-as-you-reason-it-out “mystery” is solved. The script is structured to play towards a punchline, which “Freaks” hits at about the one hour mark — “Twilight Zone” (the longer seasons) length.

As to what happens after that punch line/revelation is that Chloe goes outside, and the guy driving that damned ice cream truck is none other than Bruce Dern.

“Freaks” is far more interesting when it’s not spelling itself out to us, just an adult and a child, trapped in a house together, paranoid and loving, nurturing and torturing, all at once.

The first two acts are where the “hallunicatory” comes from, time-and-space-warping effects that put Chloe into other rooms, with other people, the sense that this is a world post-apocalypse, which kind of explains Dad freaking out at every knock at the door.

The third act is a pull-out-all-the-stops data dump of delayed exposition — what actually is happening here — and the rising threat level facing Chloe, the threats coming from all sides, but with the fear we start to develop emanating from her.

The final act isn’t as interesting as the first two were to me. But Hirsch impresses, as usual, as a man losing his wits and Dern always gives fair value as a canny old coot who knows more than he’s letting on.

And young Ms. Kolker holds her own with the heavier weights (Grace Park shows up as a formidable cop), and suggests that yes, should the Great Stephen King Revival extend to remaking “Firestarter” (It’s in developement), there’s this little girl with a lot of TV credits who might be perfect for the part.

MPAA Rating: R for violence and some language

Cast: Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern, Lexy Kolker, Amanda Crew, Grace Park

Credits: Written and directed by Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 1:44