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Cinema Briefing
Movie reviews by
Ian Flanagan
Ian Flanagan
 2 ½ (out of 4)
David Fincher has maybe frittered about so long with TV that something dispensable, episodic and shortchanged has sneaked its way into his movies — Mank was his late father’s Oscar bait/handed-down-homework special and now he’s back to the usual programming: adult thrillers with blood and shadows and some necessary brooding. And it’s because Fincher was always so good at mainstream supply and demand as well as uncompromising skill in seedy exploitation that it makes The Killer seem perhaps lesser than it is. Whether he had Jeff Cronenweth or anyone else (this time DoP Erik Messerschmidt returning after Mank), the trademark look remains, operating within only a third of the color wheel, and as always it’s so cool to soak it in when the editing is as tight as it is here — slap a now signature Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross score of bleepbloops on top and you have what the non-normies refer to as KINO. All that assured style could make up for whatever novel David decided to adapt right? Almost. The Killer has got to be a satisfying read but its peripheral qualities in an audiovisual domain are tougher to extract, and the primarily streaming release (there were no local theatrical options for me) is sadder because it’s just about where this sinewy sliver of content belongs. The totality of this taut tale isn’t nearly valuable enough to consider along the lines of Fincher’s much richer, sensationalist paperback punch, his go-to gradient — Seven, Panic Room, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl… see there’s cinematic urgency, artistic panache and thematic food for thought in all cases, even the slightest, Panic Room, which seems critically more dismissed and is nonetheless bottled, breathless bliss. The Killer is just some Netflix joint. Something about it is so hapless, somehow sterile even though we're dealing with such extreme pulp, and pulpy for Fincher means practically all mush and no juice. The Killer strikes more like an obvious book adaptation than even Gone and Dragon Tattoo despite such famous sources — those 2010s gems play out as uncompromising movies whereas this rubbed off like a goddamn Steven Soderbergh movie if I’ve ever seen one, who similarly started dishing out for Netflix about five years ago. Granted, if this was concocted by the prince of digital photography (David is king don't deny), that is before it was the industry standard (much more praiseworthy than what George Lucas, Robert Rodriguez and Lars Von Trier [Michael Mann, debatable] did with the cusp of the crossover from celluloid to pixels just over a decade ago) The Killer would barely be considered one of Steven’s better late-career wins. In fact, this may as well have been a prequel spin-off about Michael Fassbender’s character from Soderbergh’s Haywire, a much more gripping, piquant assassin anecdote, with a stronger, similarly situated, solitary brawl to boot amidst a restricted exercise of stylization. I love the Fass but find his efforts here almost tragically… wrong. His American accent is an awkward, grating element and the narration itself, while clearly essential to the film’s social commentary and sleazy, self-possessed interiority, is just fucking dimwitted at certain points, perhaps on purpose. Fassbender's performances often border on brilliant but this role is just too robotic for him to work with — he ironically has infinitely more room to spread wings in android-mode for Prometheus (he’s the best part) and Alien: Covenant (he’s the only watchable part). It’s as if Nicolas Winding Refn ruined Drive with more subjectively and still failed to further edify our nameless protagonist in any way. In a similar backhanded move we have another autistic criminal who is a complete STONE COLD KILLER except when you happen to touch his only emotive nerve and he GOES CRAAAAAZY! "AHHH I’m so incredibly emotional and logical!" Not to mention The Killer lift's Drive's inciting getaway chase and simply swaps four wheels for two. And I mean it if I heard the very basic recitation of the hit man code or mantra or whatever again I was gonna have to get my own piece. The intense, almost incessant mind-monologuing is the most traditional thing about this neo-noir, other than a muddied sense of "what's happening?" in the simple yet labyrinthine story — the sleazy, morbidly ironic gallows humor could’ve been stripped entirely and possibly made for a more appropriately empty movie, as even with a mildly complex character anchored by a phenomenal actor, our man with a gun isn’t interesting enough, nor is the ‘deconstruction’ of the related rules of the genre. Either taken as cool or calculated irony, akin to Fight Club’s cult of disenfranchised men, The Killer is only whelming as entertainment and vexing to enjoy and think about. Maybe Summer Finn could’ve fixed this Smiths fan and put the assassin simp in his rightful place! The film is best in the first and last of its six segments, all gingerly bookending a gun-for-hire who isn’t terribly good at his job, and somehow Fincher slides by on this dark comic, semi-self-aware sincerity, even though this movie isn’t this secret comedy complete with bumbled protagonist like Redditors are projecting — if this guy’s such a regular fuck-up, a mediocre marksman, it’s a miracle he comes out unscathed in the end eh? I guess I lament that day when a pivotal modern filmmaker produces something you can so easily skip. Like Matt Reeves’ The Batman, Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, Alex Garland’s Men, Edgar Wright’s Last Night and Soho and so many others of late, I’m just sick of technically flawless movies hanging their scrupulous hats on these ridiculously underdeveloped screenplays. It’s the most perfect style over substance example in some time and while, more often than not, I’m one to say that if said style is certain enough then a little narrative nothingness is forgiven, but not in this case. I don’t care if I’m “living amongst the normies” — this was Fincher’s most inessential movie since Alien 3 and YES that includes Benjamin Button thanks for asking.  3 ½ (out of 4)
Holy shit, is that an identifiable modern classic? Did Alexander Payne just radically rebound after his sci-fi social satire and all too prematurely self-declared “epic masterpiece” Downsizing blew up right in his face and diminished his reputation? While I could be upset that certain auteurs (like David Fincher with The Killer or Sofia Coppola and Priscilla) are just sticking with their proven routines and subjects, for Payne that means tart, touching, remarkably textured, sneakingly sublime dramatic comedies with simmering sadness and just enough commercial appeal, those special, simple ones only dexterous writer-directors ever manage, offering joyful melancholy or vice versa. As one of his best (and admittedly one of two directed features he did not write), The Holdovers is too tasteful to beat its farcical nature into broad banality and too realist to let schmaltz spoil the who-hash. Somehow even with the gimmickry of so brashly and ironically shooting the film in digital and then modifying the footage to look as if it were out of its period, all the seasonal, sentimental trimmings of 1971 are in service of knowingly wielding nostalgia as a powerful theme rather than just some stylistic element to exploit. Even the sound design is appropriately, convincingly vintage. In form, it could’ve easily been pure pastiche but in total The Holdovers is authoritatively authentic courtesy of one of those depressively-funny, emotionally scopic screwball scripts by longtime TV writer and first-time screenwriter David Hemingson, the second Payne film born of other scripts including another debut in Bob Nelson’s underrated Nebraska, the one you’d assume to be from Payne’s hand considering the strong representation for the cornhusker state throughout his ‘ography. The narrative doesn’t waste a beat, and though it emits a certain air of pop-cynicism along with potentially hokey Hallmarkiness, there’s no denying how genuine and veritable this throwback really is, especially as it instantly ascends to the ranks of alternative Christmas classics. There aren’t really much of any Christmastime films worth popping on regularly, at least none in the last few decades that can measure to this beautifully bittersweet communication. Are you actually gonna say The Holiday qualifies? Why not Love Actually at that point? Bending the definition to fit Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or Carol or Tokyo Godfathers feels like cheating so I honestly ask: When was the last time there was a Christmas classic, for real? Elf? Eyes Wide Shut? The Holdovers is pure and potent enough for multiple viewings (like annual viewings) to feel like some grown-up Peanuts special in its utter, irrefutable wholesomeness — there’s even a crappy Christmas tree moment for Christ’s sake. Melding meditations on grief, late-pubescent angst and Scrooge-esque redemption, The Holdovers is the early miracle of awards season, an effortlessly endearing, wildly wistful tearjerker even divided from the wintertime wash. Traditional hymns and Auld Lang Syne color the holiday break time-lapse outside of hearty, agreeable background folk feels from many eras, all of it rubbing off like Leonard Cohen’s ghost blessed us with sound pieces to set your weary spirit on (thank you to Damien Jurado and Labi Siffre for the film’s excellent respective refrains “Silver Joy” and “Crying Laughing Loving Lying”). So Holdovers has the Christmas/New Year season wrapped up, and equally checks out as well as unlikely hangout flick (with its troupe of lonesome misfit lead characters), a sorta satire on prep school rich kids and ultimately a renewing, soul-searching road movie, a sustained Payne staple — About Schmidt and the superior, aching Americana of Nebraska have the tired, elderly existential crisis down pat, even Citizen Ruth’s brutal consideration of the politics of abortion, The Descendants’ cathartic, comical Hawaiian telenovela and Downsizing’s overpopulation overcorrection all did some plot-pushing journeying. As the chilly foil to Sideways’ sensationally well-balanced Californian escape, still Payne’s apex as well as Paul Giamatti's, The Holdovers now makes a pair of complimentary west coast/east coast, soft-lit, feel-bad road trippers. On top of it all, it’s a new take on the typically quaint tale of professor and pupil going through all the expected relational hurdles, and as such this is like the antithesis of Election’s teacher v tryhard setup, its premise retaining just enough sap to remind you of a cuddlier, marginally less suicidal Dead Poets’ Society, curiously one of the only "influences" to which I’ve seen the familiar film compared. Giamatti is nothing less than a phenomenal talent, handing in a career-best work, topping his similarly disgruntled characters from American Splendor, of course Sideways, Cold Souls and Win Win. His only other Oscar nom was for Cinderella Man — geez does he makes quite the loudmouth in your corner, so of course Paul is pigeonholed as the cranky curmudgeon, this time the pedantic pariah professor, but my is he caught in some splendid typecasting as he murders a classic, timeless role. And obviously the writing behind the articulate academic asshole persona is dripping with wit, Goddammit he has some great lines and, best of all, some sublime truths interspersed alongside the insults. Our newcoming lead Dominic Sessa — whose performance makes the film its own longing, glowing, Caulfield-esque coming-of-age criterion — is also superbly sparring with his seasoned co-star, panning out like a professional with places to go. Meanwhile Da’Vine Joy Randolph, at least this far out, seems due for an Academy Award and it wouldn’t be even slightly unearned, rounding out a delightfully mismatched trio with her devastating performance moments and uncommon warmth. She sincerely sells the thematic strand that no one’s suffering is as simple as it looks, a notion that could read like syrupy swill in lesser hands. The Holdovers really does sound truly trite when you spell it out on paper, but this movie’s tact in imparting compassion and criticism makes it Academy-friendly and also more than worth recommending casually — it’s the perfect package, like Green Book without any of those trickier topics you have to deal with or ignore. There’s hilariously verbose put-downs, blindsiding emotional developments, fuzzy superimposition transitions, camerawork viscerally employing the techniques, not just the garnishes, of New Hollywood grit (Snap zooms! Wipes! Dissolves!) all in tandem with a wonderfully nimble, agreeably accessible, all but perfect script — this movie’s such a glimmering gem it’s like it already existed, 70s simulacra be damned. It would be at fault as feel-good tissue-box fodder if Payne’s film didn’t occasionally force you to sink so low, taking what rubs off as some recognizable ready-made romp to touch on everything from parental neglect to mental illness, exploiting a certain melodramatic undercurrent enough to remain true to the tragedy cloaking each character. Payne’s eighth feature is a caustic, copiously enthralling crowd-pleaser and lovingly, introspective affair, a paradoxical pleasure to a range of the senses of cinema — The Holdovers has the comfiest of auras, a verifiable glow, that thin-stripped ember essence that sends you off beaming, brightened and bettered. It may not make you feel great about life but damn it’ll renew whatever remaining faith you have in filmmaking as art, so I’ll personally wade through general discomfort if and when it hurts just right.  1 ½ (out of 4)
Lower, lesser, slower baby…. Captain Marvel ain’t looking too bad now huh? Personally, after Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania shrank to a new low at the bottom of the MCU monkey barrel, The Marvels just dug its nails in and tore up that damp wood despite the soggy splinters, daftly deflating the once monumental franchise’s legacy by the biggest margin in a 15-year, 33-film history. At least in 2019, for Act One of Carol Danvers’ first affair things played out like a strong modern Star Trek riff — in 2023, note to note this must be how poorly an average Picard episode or any other recent Trek Paramount+ show turns out…. cheap, goofy, confusing, false and forced, nerd fantasies mashed and muddled to mincemeat. And look, I’m as forgiving and accepting as viewers come — if I’m entertained, there’s half the battle. But Jesus, I could barely spot the outer-marble first-draft movie that must have existed before this aborted, neutered mini-Avengers episode was Edward-Scissorhanded into superhero snowflakes in editing. Just in moments of dialogue, shot to shot, you can feel the internal rhythm lurch where the ends have been snipped. Foolishly I assumed brevity would be The Marvels’ greatest asset — no MCU flick yet has been so short but this is hardly sweet, somehow it could’ve been mercifully whittled down even further, even at the expense of logic. The film’s total length is only 95 minutes sans credits and I still checked my phone twice (rarely am I so severely disengaged), once to see if the first act just ended since it felt like the story had barely started (wow, we’re over halfway?) and later to see if the climax was even more premature than I guessed (another 20 minutes left??). I don’t know how else to paint a picture of the most pointless, lifeless, disjointed and derelict movie in this Cinematic Universe’s history EASILY and one of the most crooked, undercooked, jumbled, bewilderingly blundered “blockbusters” in recent memory. I can’t help but find it funny that they’ll catch you up on Captain Marvel (which EVERYONE has seen) in a crappy recap flashback, but if you haven’t seen two of their least-watched Disney+ shows then FUCK YOU DUDE, keep up bro. It’s all backwards — maybe casuals watched WandaVision, but who in God’s name actually stuck around long enough for Ms. Marvel or Secret Invasion? The cameos are also nearly nothing, even for people who lap up that thick fan service — how could I for even a second think something was going down by showcasing Beast and bringing the latest X-Men closer to fruition, completely forgetting I already watched Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier explode into morsels about a year and a half ago, smack dab in the middle of the second Doctor Strange? At least this movie didn’t double down on GIRL POWER, unlike the feeble feminism of Captain Marvel (“got a smile for me?”) — Black Panther: Wakanda Forever sported a similarly, ironically laudable resistance to jerking off its own female-forward self-congratulations. As far as the meager positives go, young Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan has spunky zoomer energy, but unfortunately the script knows it — Kamala has all the movie’s personality to herself, even when she’s pretending to recruit the daughters of cooler heroes like Hailee Steinfeld’s baby Hawkeye, hey let me just stop you there! NO ONE CARES! I like Ms. Marvel’s powers — maybe her show manages a few cool exploits of her matter-forming abilities that are nonexistent here. Teyonah Harris as Monica Rambeau doesn’t have a character apart from feeling hung up on abandonment issues regarding Carol/Vers (Larson) after an unkept childhood promise — in action it’s just scene after scene of her expositing sci-fi-semi-speech into oblivion, wielding powers so poorly introduced I can’t tell if they were earned in WandaVision or here, don’t care to check either. Danvers, like last time, isn’t a real character, and poor Brie has moments where it seems she’s about to deliver a joke and Carol or Larson herself just bail: “Fuck you I’m not quipping,” I see flash in her eyes during some truly AWKWARD passages. At least they don’t retroactively change Larson’s character completely à la Thor, but leaving her as the straight woman against another plank in Rambeau and some dorky teen (Vellani inherits the cliché of the geeking teenage side character ceaselessly suggesting undecided super-monikers) doesn’t make for a nice little team-up, not in the slightest. Speaking of, you never trust a late Marvel flick that has to lean on Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury as a supporting crutch — Spider-Man: Far From Home is even worse than Captain Marvel (honestly the best of his more prominent turns for the MCU) and he’s only a measurable player in that first Avengers flick. The only gentle concession I can make in this film’s favor is the instances of absurdism were welcome even if they were so pitifully finagling, clasping and otherwise clamoring for MEME status, some puncturing pop culture moment to cycle around TikTok just so there’s ANY kind of social notoriety to this otherwise complete failure. As overcompensation for the altogether absence of thrills, this is now the most lame and lousy of the wilder, wackier B-movie selections of the collection (Ant-Mans, Taika’s Thors, Guardians) with dangerously littler charisma or cuddly wholesomeness to offer otherwise. This wasn’t even irreverent it was just bum-fucking dumb and, for one of the relatively “funnier” Marvel movies, quite the eye-rolling travesty. The Marvels is both bland and bizarre, not intrepid by any reach of imagination but rather a shapeless, exceptionally messy movie. Poor Nia DaCosta — it’s actually nice that her movie managed a Tessa Thompson cameo (gee thanks Valkyrie for saving some alien refugees!) considering she’s the star of DaCosta’s decent little debut drug drama Little Woods. For Nia the only other stepping stone from indie literally-who to the so-called director of MCU flick #33 is Universal’s Candyman reboot from two years ago (in which Rambeau starred), also a frustrating, flavorless film if a slightly more coherent one. Marvel sure likes to pluck the anonymous, auspicious, aspiring filmmaker while they’re still flexible and willing to let Feige essentially take credit EXCEPT FOR when he blames the film’s failure on a lack of supervision of the on-set happenings. At this late stage in the game (whether talking supers at large or just the MCU, we’re at like the post-post-game show at this point) I can forgive lighter, less pertinent fare. I’m not one to scoff at a one-off but I will not accept bafflement and displeasure, or the feeling like I’m watching some TV special rather than the surest comic book crap Hollywood can excrete. If I weren’t so utterly whiplashed by this movie’s clearly endless reshaping, then maybe I could be more kindly dismissive but I’m sorry, the film explains everything and orients you to nothing, is flighty without ever being fun and even the main genre gimmick (these three ladies of light can swap places with a simultaneous flick of the wrist) only equates to a few brief, decent fights that are so quick they could either be cleverly, logically choreographed or just nonsensical. This was just Marvel content, barely a movie. The wheels turn on a dime; oh this is happening now: Carol, why don’t you just reignite a sun with your powers? OHH. My consistent expression throughout the movie was mouth slightly ajar and brows tightly furrowed. I thought last year’s threefold disappointment would be tough to beat but 2023 is the brand’s worst year by far, and I genuinely respect Guardians 3, it may be in my top 10 MCU offerings. I won’t say they studio is creatively bankrupt because they like to, at times, graze about in left field, though they are indeed DRAMATICALLY bankrupt. Feige would have to pull off miracle after miracle to make me care about ANYTHING anymore, and only yesterday we were so invested. How hard can you lean into cat jokes? They literally played music from Cats for an extended, lady-catered comic breath. For now Marvel’s The Marvels supplants Quantumania’s tiny worst-ever reign as officially the biggest bust of the MCU oeuvre. Now that the emperor of movie media is a little more stripped, nothing can ever be counted on anymore (if it ever could after Endgame, now I don’t even think Fantastic Four could revitalize the universe) and, gratefully, general goodwill toward the brand has slipped past expiration.  3 (out of 4)
On the Rocks watered down and bottomed out Sofia Coppola’s career as its tasteless, out-of-touch, sitcom-premise bullshitting-about found her on autopilot and Bill Murray at his most lethargic — to my chagrin and surprise, the movie is one of her best-reviewed. Maybe that’s because everything since Lost in Translation has been a little spacious and experimental, with Sofia’s quintessentially airy aura just foggy enough to receive mixed reactions for Marie Antoinette (her first, most relevant biopic, a revisionist treat), Somewhere (retrospectively one her most celebrated, perhaps her most personally inspired, not-quite-autobiographical work outside of Lost) and the blunt-force Cali-crazy satire The Bling Ring, with better scores for the soured Southern Comfort of The Beguiled (remake of an Eastwood-starring flick from the 70s). If not for the overarching irony that Priscilla, intentionally or no, can’t escape The King’s shadow despite an executive producer credit from Ms. Presley herself, the disquieting ending rounded out a structure situating Priscilla as almost anti-feminist given there’s not a single moment that’s not about Elvis, as if her life is only narratively, cinematically worthy if it’s Elvis-the-Pelvis-adjacent from scene one. I suppose the whole project concerns an inability to be her own person, plus Priscilla's autobiography is literally called Elvis and Me, look I get it OK — Coppola, oddly, rejects feminist labels despite their appropriate application in particular portions of her career, here especially. This Elvis (Jacob Elordi exuberantly shooting from the hip) has one bit of music performance in the beginning and otherwise Presley is only who he was to his wife, which was quite the character — it’s hard not to simply see a man who spotted some underage girl and decided to keep the poor doting thing on the back burner for as long as he could justify, Presley’s prudent pants making this girl wait to get deflowered for years and years… There’s an intense parallel between the seeming impotence of both Jason Schwartzmann’s King Louis XVI from Antoinette and the King himself here, whether you’re too pussy to screw your Austrian-born queen or too tasteful of a manipulative groomer to take advantage of your virginal bride-in-the-works — the bedroom is a place of confusion, awkwardness and disappointment in Sofia’s eye, at least as far the subjects of her diabolically genre-upending biopics are concerned. Like Marie A, the love story is forced, stupid and unreal, but there is an earnestness that suggests flesh and blood humans caught in terrible unions. Like many great juxtapositions of rapture and loneliness, there’s an element of the way in which couples can still be strangers to each other, and how the illusion is only broken when one doesn’t fulfill the fantasy the other has in their head — Priscilla wants Elvis to be a real husband and father, and Elvis wants someone under his thumb to come back home to after the tours and movie shoots. She’s his perfectly unsullied maiden, he the 50s teenager’s daydream manifest… Of course Priscilla is left gaping at any of his absences, especially if Elvis kissed you when you were FOURTEEN, yeah no girl is getting over that without some serious convincing. It’s a fairy tale slowly poisoned by constant cheating, intolerable isolation and at least a decade of lustful, readymade romantic entropy to undo. So this one is not quite as dreamlike, meditative and pensive (and all the other words I pull out for Sofia’s particular stylistic preferences) as her usual cinematic incisions. Even in a less intense shade her ticks perfectly match the idea of poor Priscilla sitting around a mansion in Memphis, doing little other than biding time until her cheating-ass, wigglin’-ass boyfriend comes around for an apology or to impregnate you. At first you want to buy the whole grieving, gentlemanly facade — the movie even mindfucks you into thinking you’ve entered his sex dungeon, before he’s going “Not so fast, baby” for years on end. Restraining himself until legal age could be vaguely upstanding enough if you don’t consider the literal parade of grown-up tail he got probably each and every night away from the Mrs. or soon-to-be. So if you ignore all that, he wasn’t a bad influence, oh wait except for the copious drug addictions, emotional abuse and controlling every aspect of her public image. But ALL THAT SAID Coppola is too matter-of-fact to let this be some prepaid woe-is-me exposé — the movie didn’t become a #metoo moment, you have to respect how unexaggerated it is. Elvis is doused in a most unflattering light and yet he is only so vilified, Coppola resists grossly manipulating a peculiar pairing (more than Presley could), and at its best it feels like any other strong relationship drama, only within the most ludicrous context of all time. The few scenes they’re together you can sense something of a special bond, only to be punctuated by the extravagant outbursts or seasons of abandonment of the housewife-shaped trophy on the mantelpiece you dust off when you make you homeward reset. Cailee Spaeny has this incredible face that changes, as in seems to actually get older — I bought this 24-year-old at every single age. She’s got one of those mesmerizing, pliable kinda visages, she’s beautiful but every single different look was a detailed dead ringer on top of a performance that sold it. Take a talented, understated young person, an extremely dexterous makeup and costume department absolutely nailing every part of her romantic mythology with Elvis, and then bookend it with her actually looking like herself, the real Priscilla free of the intense mascara and puffed up black hair, and there you have the actual astonishment of cinematic real-life character studies. Jacob is almost good enough to overshadow Spaeny — he’s got some facial advantages too, that takes you plenty of the way there. Sure Elvis wasn’t some 6’5” Abercrombie model but apart from the lips he is the spitting image of Mr. Thank You Very Much in the right light, far more often than Austin Butler in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis just last year. Not to shit on Butler’s studied, excessive surliness but Jacob casually strips the affect, proving off the cuff can be a better method even if a matching head shape is doing too many favors. However you slice it these are two smashingly good performances, easily some of the best I’ve seen this year. So by the reduction of sensation (there’s nothing downplayed under Luhrmann’s garish, gaudy, crazy-ass direction) Coppola has naturally made one of the most agreeable, exceptionally fortifying biopics of recent times and it will probably make a tenth of the money Elvis made — that film only had time for Priscilla in the courtship and the later regret and not much in between. Because of what Sofia finds cinematic, one of her most eventful movies to date becomes one of the genre’s most refreshingly dry renditions — Priscilla, not unlike Oppenheimer, finds strength in subjectivity, making for an anti-biopic in the best way. Coppola gradually illustrates the slow grind of social or romantic subjugation, and the psychology is more subtle, if less obscured and mournful than The Virgin Suicides' pretentious investigations of the unknowable minds of teenage girls, and otherwise I believed it to be the great plain Jane companion piece to Luhrmann’s squishy sensationalism in Elvis til I realized it was far more interesting, if less overtly entertaining. Musically, even with the anachronisms alongside Coppola’s other aesthetic augmentations, plus a hurdle as big as the estate refusing rights to use Elvis' music, Sofia's husband and lead singer of Phoenix (akin to another internationally famous French pop group Air, which helped shape the strange, pretty, prickly vibes of her debut Virgin Suicides) Thomas Mars congeals even decades-removed cuts like they happened to be historically accurate. While there’s nothing as radical as a Strokes song in 17th century France, the 50s-late-60s era lets Coppola synthesize yet another incredible curation of sounds both informing and disrupting what she’s capturing on-camera — God there is some unregulated bliss cutting to roller-rink fun times synced with “Forever” by The Little Dippers. While her films once again prove masterclass in poetic, patrician, collage-like soundtrack selection, this mature turn was hardly an assault of ambience. Overall this was a filmography redeemer, an intuitive subject for Coppola’s eye for sugary, almost antiquated artifice — Priscilla's outfit-matched, color-coated guns are so cute Coppola can’t help but lay the shot out and savor it. She also loves a good, meaningful photo shoot scene, several if the subject allows, with some measure of upper class realism or whatever, which this subject of course has loads of, it’s just her thing. Her caustic realism too shapes the sometimes baffling humor and painful ironies of Priscilla’s place in her own life, separate and also among the masses. It’s got the modern/classical paradox beat from both ends, sporting a jaunty, New Wave edge, forming a piquant hybrid of all these styles — Coppola's best in 15 years slides into a shining spot within her own neat little auteur corner. Is the daughter, the Presley heir, wrong for speaking out? Do you hate your Mom? Maybe your Dad wasn’t so great and a culture of celebrity worship needs people like Sofia to take them down a peg and repeatedly demystify worship-worthy status. And that’s why she was perfect for the whole game of misusing stardom since the internal anguish of Priscilla’s situation is so specific — Spaeny’s version isn’t even particularly, painfully jealous but no other woman in the last century at least would have more of a right to keep tabs on her man, and it becomes a universal statement on the disparate dominant-submissive dichotomy of celebrity/non-celebrity couples.  3 (out of 4)
Man, Marty, no director’s cuts for you, just raw, uncut slabs of cinema, roadshows with no snack breaks! At least that’s how it’s been exclusively since Hugo — his one commendable kids movie I always forget exists — seeing as The Wolf of Wall Street was three hours long, Silence was just shy, and now Killers of the Flower Moon meets his last, The Irishman, for that 3 1/2 hour mark and sadly, for most, the runtime drowns out any discussion of the film’s spacious content. Whereas my way of avoiding discourse about the cinematic present is to properly peruse a cinematic past. Scorsese is nothing less than a living legend, with hardly a misfire or mistake in the whole oeuvre stretching back damn near 60 years. Maybe New York, New York’s combo of Martin’s more realistic, meticulously rehearsed yet loose and unpredictable rhythm directing performance and dialogue with more classical Broadway theatricality felt like oil and water, and Gangs of New York is riding on the passion of Daniel Day-Lewis almost exclusively. Sure, Who’s That Knocking At My Door? felt like a film school warm-up for Mean Streets and The Color of Money doesn’t quite hit like a classic as The Hustler does. His second film, the sprightly caper Boxcar Bertha, was a little toothless, the first evidence of a career that would consistently return to criminal consciousness, but in general I think it unfair to boil Scorsese down to the guy who makes mobster movies — his religious corner (Silence, The Last Temptation of Christ and even Kundun’s spiritual reflections) is home to some of the best he’s ever committed to film history. And while I admit that Goodfellas, The Departed and Wolf are in my top 10, the fact that the same man is responsible for Raging Bull’s old-fashioned rebound (and textbook troubling De Niro-anchored character study, almost more than Taxi Driver), The King of Comedy’s still-scaly satire of our fame-obsessed culture, After Hours’ near-perfect night gone wrong, another biopic to put all others to shame in The Aviator, the pervasive psychological shivers of Shutter Island (let alone his insistently scary Cape Fear remake), the existential experiments in Bringing Out the Dead, the romantic refinement of The Age of Innocence and the sheer modesty of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, is more than evidence enough of a creator of pretty unmitigated capacity. In my earned familiarity I was hoping Killers of the Flower Moon would go from vexing vilification to the extra large masterpiece critical consensus has deemed it. My main gripe is how little else besides the epic framework seems to compel curiosity, fear or contemplation about the Osage County murders from about a century ago, as accounted in David Grann’s book of the same name subtitled The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. While there are interwoven figures and newly forming family trees to keep a tally of, the moral suggestions of this film are unspeakably obvious. Is there room for the grey between good and evil when it comes to covering up dozens of targeted murders for money? This movie takes about five minutes to digest its thematic subtlety and, unfortunately for the dumbass casuals stumbling into a 210-minute movie, doesn’t stock the rest of the runtime with shootouts or showdowns or anything other than mournful semi-sour romantic tragedy. While I was anticipating some dramatically delicious Neo-Western, what I ended up with is yet another Scorsese crime period picture, sprinkled with the blunt, unflinching splashes of violence, simple human comedy and Brando-like, in-the-moment re-acting. I wish Scorsese had actually strayed into a new genre instead of an updated shade of despicable criminal deconstruction that still somehow just about fits the qualifications for some tough guy’s go-to hangout movie. Like The Irishman, Killers is also a movie made to fall asleep to, unless you can really stick it out, feel the movie’s insistently ponderous energy and finally let some last moments level you like a truck — respectively, a hitman’s heavy regret and the peculiar “true crime” radio show epilogue along with Leo’s last squirm-worthy soul-cleansing. Each denouement lands so much better because the rest isn’t narratively reduced or grandly overwrought but rather carefully mounted. Lily Gladstone’s fortitude is unspeakably apparent even as you watch her character succumb to secret poisoning — her compounding grief is the fundamental, singular soul of a heartless movie. Scorsese has most directly sampled story-wise from William Wyler’s The Heiress and George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun (Stevens’ Giant, just after Shane, too was a 20th century-set epic Western plus racial tension and oil fortunes), with Leo in Montgomery Clift’s place, taking his respective female co-stars (Olivia de Havilland, Shelley Winters more than Elizabeth Taylor) for a rollercoaster ride of romantic doubt. I think Scorsese saw a lot of de Havilland in Gladstone, the same tempered, simmering disquiet and discontent, though Molly is the far fiercer creature if just as passive — Lily’s performance must double down on the “sickly” in a remarkable, tremendously wrenching display of exponential anguish backed by reserved talent. For Leo’s Ernest, as one questionably taking up a particularly wealthy single woman’s interest, Scorsese’s fresh angle is flipping Clift’s completely cruel characters, instead testing out if a greedy, horrible, dumb asshole really is in love, does that make him less of an asshole or an even bigger one? Sure he just saves his wife from death, but lying about it just the same kinda cancels out the minimum mercy. DiCaprio and his unruly underbite aren’t helping the shortage of subtlety. So while Gladstone works out bedridden miracles, frankly for such a stupendous set of sparring leads this has got to be the least entertaining Leo/Scorsese affair, though it’s surely better than Gangs of New York at least. But my God, for the FIRST TIME Scorsese has directed DiCaprio AND De Niro together, it should be somewhat more momentous than this, especially for how often they share the screen. Their characters’ final dialogue fills out one of the film’s best scenes, the sole instance worthy of a once in a blue moon cinematic pairing. I almost want to say De Niro is phoning it but maybe I’m not used to a Bobby DN role where he hides behind benevolence, usually he’s playing just as much as dick on the outside as in. This has nothing on his most of his Scorsese roles, classic or otherwise, even the weirder ones like Cape Fear — he’ll never get better than The King of Comedy but Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and The Irishman (sorry Casino) are untouchable acts as well. King’s character dynamics don’t confirm De Niro as the GOAT but he still runs circles around Leo and his try-hard Revenant-reminiscent jaw-jutting like he’s Keira Knightly in A Dangerous Method. John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser and Jack White make for unexpected final reel appearances. Whatever backlash is coming from the side of “NOT ENOUGH NATIVE REPRESENTATION” somehow missed the film’s plain-as-day preaching which for sure AIN’T OUT TO PLEASE NON-NATIVE FOLKS. The white devil is in the details, Scorsese couldn’t make that clearer — and I’m all for dramatic irony in the name of pit-in your-stomach, secondhand suspense but in Killers of the Flower Moon the Hitchcockian, proverbial bomb under the table sits there ticking much too long. I love that Marty isn’t holding back anything, his style is simple enough, oscillating between panoramic portraiture and more recognizable, sweeping semi-long takes with active, astounding editing — as always, from the berserk energy of Cape Fear or Wolf of Wall Street to something as cold, reserved and mature as this or say The Age of Innocence and Silence, he only stylizes when the subject demands, or at least suggests it. Like The Irishman, his 26th feature film (not to mention over a dozen docs) skirts around greatness the entire time — whereas the de-aging and been-there done-that feel kept his grandiose 2019 gangster picture from all-timer status, here too the meandering meditation on evil doesn’t explore moral slipknots and quandaries enough for 200 plus minutes. Given all the time spent on the ins and outs of deplorable backwoods carnage I can actually understand anyone who questions why the Osage don’t have more of their side of the story told, ‘specially since the killer side has specifically been made unexciting. I don’t need good guys, but I do need durable, long-lasting drama that doesn’t just meld into some kind of interrogation with audience — The Irishman lets you decide if you feel bad for Frank Sheeran, and it’s cumulative revelations truly steamroll you given it actually adds up to something greater than the sum of its parts. I don’t find Killers to be a waste, but it's his weakest epic in 20 years. Though the historical dynamic between European immigrants and the Native American people is such rich soil and decadent tapestry for a revisionist Western historical behemoth of rare might, this is only Scorsese’s most important movie in a long time, far from his most functional, let alone entertaining. But it was a true epic, a work that feels remote and subdued until it all aligns — if it had the poetic subtly, transcendent sense of wide-canvas tragedy and the similarly stone-set sympathy and respect for Natives emitting from Terrence Malick’s The New World, this could easily be named among 2023’s most exceptional. Instead Scorsese’s most ambitious feature yet is up to his steady, assured benchmark and not much else. "Can you spot the wolves in this picture?" Yeah they’re right fucking there. |
Forthcoming:
Thoughts on Snow White Black Bag Mickey 17 Captain America: Brave New World Flight Risk The Brutalist Nosferatu A Complete Unknown Sonic the Hedgehog 3 The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim Wicked Gladiator II Emilia Pérez Here Anora Megalopolis The Substance Longlegs Hit Man Dune Part Two Poor Things ... Follow me on Twitter @ newwavebiscuit To keep it brief...
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October 2024
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