Change Your Image
jmstm
Reviews
Vengeance (2022)
Strong Script and Performances - Ashton Kutcher Shines
Enjoyed this a lot (last night) as very thoughtful, involving, surprising and humorous. Well done by all involved with a special nod to Ashton Kutcher for a very solid turn in a supporting role. For all the film and TV I have watched, I've hardly seen any of his work. Very surprised he and the film in general received next to no awards consideration.
*SPOILER ALERT*
If I were to offer a negative view it would focus on the very end of the film. It is not so much that it strains credulity that Novak's character would commit murder, although it is very out of character, it is more that we don't don't see him "cross the bridge". I did not, anyway.
At the film's outset when vengeance is proposed to him, he rules it out categorically. The rest of the film tends very much to support that he would not commit murder in this case. Yet, in the end, he does and it felt a bit forced, as if there only to prove "Chekov's rule", as mentioned in the film, that if a gun appears in the first act, it must go off in the third.
Still, solid work across the board. A worthy film, for sure.
Mother! (2017)
My Favorite Film of 2017
It is April 14th, 2021 as I write this and I just read a NYT times article on the birth scene in Pieces of a Woman (2020) that referenced the birth scene in this movie as if a useful comparison might be made between the two. The writer's apparent lack of understanding about Mother! Reminded me how under appreciated this stunning film was when it was released.
No film in my recent memory has equalled it for portraying so unflinchingly just exactly what humanity is collectively up to - which would be the heedless plunder, rape and poisoning of Mother Earth, the actual title character of this allegorical film.
It is a hard film to watch, to be sure, but so absolutely bracing for its refusal to soft-pedal the truth of the matter that you come away from it refreshed. "Finally!" you say to yourself, "someone has told the truth of it!"
The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021)
A Fatal Flaw
I have to mark this film way down for calling Strange Fruit "her song." Billie Holiday is certainly associated with it more than any other, but she did not write the lyrics and calling it her song is a very serious error of judgement by director Lee Daniels. Her ownership in the public mind, or even in her own mind, is one thing, but for the filmmaker to make the claim in the manner he did (on a text slate to start the film) is essentially fatal for the film.
The writer of the song is Abel Meeropol, aka Lewis Allan. Meeropol, son of Russian Jewish immigrants, seems an interesting person in his own right. In addition to writing what has been called the American song of the century, he apparently also taught high school English to James Baldwin and adopted and raised the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, famously executed by the U. S. in 1953 as spies for the Soviet Union.
By that accounting alone he seems like a character who would bring interest to a movie. According to her Wikipedia page, Holiday claimed in her book Lady Sings the Blues that she co-wrote the music to the song with Meeropol. Unless that claim has been proven false, this would have been an entirely appropriate scene for the film, given its heavy focus on the song.
Daniels ought to have pressed himself to rise to occasion and do right by Meeropol instead of trying to do him out of his claim to fame.
A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (2012)
A Better Film Than Critics Would Have You Believe
Just watched this film last night. Enjoyed it for its sense of style and silly fun and the cast and crew's commitment and talent in bringing it off. I'd give it particularly high marks for the production design and soundtrack/score. In all, a pleasure to watch and listen to.
And just this morning I read a few reviews of it published at the time of its release. All of them were generally tepid, which is unfortunate. It seems they wanted more in this comedy than laughs, which this film consistently gave me throughout. Yet, by my lights, this film, to go along with the laughs, had well enough heart and soul to not insult my intelligence.
Nor did I find the film as regressive on gender as some critics. The primary female characters, as played by Patricia Arquette and Katheryn Winnick, both struck me as independent agents of their own fortune. (Does Arquette suffer to play otherwise?) And the Swan character as played by Charlie Sheen is not pushed on us as a good man wronged by bad women. He may see it that way in his bouts of self-pity, but as the audience we are not asked to buy into that. On the contrary, the wisdom of his behavior, if only for his own sake, is questioned to his face throughout the film. In the end the Winnick character, Swan's love interest, tells him "thanks, but no thanks, I am moving on" and Swan is left to swallow it. So while he himself might be regressive on gender, the film isn't.
Lastly, let me repeat my praise for the film's production design and soundtrack/score, neither especially noted or praised nearly enough in the reviews I read. Which is simply poor work by the critics. Those are fundamental elements of film and any fair and good critic should treat them as such. Unfortunately, it seems bedrock filmmaking virtues take a back seat to too many critics feeling of whether or not the film gratified their worldview; all else goes by the wayside.
And who loses out? We do. I mean, how is it for the better that Liam Hayes has not a single composer or soundtrack credit since this film? Literally not believable.