Tag: catch-up reviews

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Playing Catch-Up: Privilege, Sully, Indignation

Dan Seeger

Privilege (Peter Watkins, 1967). This is exactly what I want a movie with a 1967 copyright date to be. The sole credited screenplay of novelist Norman Bogner, Privilege follows the story of Steven Shorter (played by Manfred Mann lead singer Paul Jones), a rock singer who is coopted by British authorities so they can insidiously control the upstart youth culture. Set in a near future, the film is groovy satire, just prescient enough to avoid being little more than an artifact of distant days when the counterculture seeped into cinema with sporadic success. Jones is a middling actor, but he … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up: Privilege, Sully, Indignation

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Playing Catch-Up: The Hot Rock, Krisha, Tiger Shark

Dan Seeger

The Hot Rock (Peter Yates, 1972). This adaptation of a Donald Westlake novel — featuring a screenplay that was William Goldman’s first produced work following his Oscar win for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — is a lithe and cheeky heist film. Robert Redford plays John Dortmunder, a professional thief freshly released from his latest stay is prison. Mere minutes pass before he’s roped into a new scheme involving the theft of an African gem on display in the Brooklyn Museum. What follows is a series of setbacks — all smartly plausible — that require Dortmunder and his assembled … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up: The Hot Rock, Krisha, Tiger Shark

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Playing Catch-Up: Suicide Squad, Don’t Breathe, Rogue One

Dan Seeger

Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016). As we stand perilously on the cusp of Wonder Woman finally arriving on the big screen (which has, predictably, included the wailing of tiresome males who find excuses to decry everything that doesn’t cleave to the credo “Boyz R Da Greatesssssst!”), it’s perhaps worth remembering the DC has gotten very, very bad at making movies of their superhero properties. Suicide Squad — which is one of the most obscure character groupings that the entertainment goliath-wannabe has thus far repurposed for real live actors — is astonishing in its parade of hideous spectacle. It’s as if director David Ayer looked at … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up: Suicide Squad, Don’t Breathe, Rogue One

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Collet-Serra, Davis, Heisler, Levine, Lewis

Dan Seeger

Lion (Garth Davis, 2016). The feature debut from Garth Davis — who has major cred in my book for directing half of Jane Campion’s great Top of the Lake — looks like the same achingly earnest, self-consciously award-hungry cinema the Weinsteins have been delivering since their Miramax days. For the first half of the film anyway, it’s far sharper and more compelling than that. When five-year-old Indian boy Saroo (played at that age by Sunny Pawar) gets separated from his family after boarding the wrong train, his travails lost, alone, and unable to effectively communicate about where he’s from are … Continue reading Collet-Serra, Davis, Heisler, Levine, Lewis

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Baker, Black, Bloom and Stevens, Dieterle, Howard

Dan Seeger

Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens, 2016). This feather-light documentary is mostly valuable in its accidental ability to fulfill the the heartsick desire for affectionate remembrances of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds following their deaths in December, shockingly arriving with the crack dramatic timing of a veteran pair of performers. Directors Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens occasional approach insightful examination of the scalding heat endured by those helplessly drawn to the spotlight, but their hearts don’t really seem invested in probing too far into darker corners. The film might have only a modest purpose, … Continue reading Baker, Black, Bloom and Stevens, Dieterle, Howard

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Larraín, Lubitsch, Riley, Snyder, Sollett

Dan Seeger

No (Pablo Larraín, 2012). In Chile in  the late nineteen-eighties, the dictatorial government of General Augusto Pinochet orchestrated a public vote to give the populace a chance to weigh in on whether or not they’d maintain control for another eight years after a decade-and-a-half of bludgeoning rule. With various systems under tight control and the people largely cowed by governmental forces, it was expected to be a mere formality on the way to maintaining continuity, a show of phony democracy to appease the international community. Instead, Pinochet was ousted. In this consideration by screenwriter Pedro Peirano and director Pablo Larraín, the … Continue reading Larraín, Lubitsch, Riley, Snyder, Sollett

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Edgerton, Holmer, Kriegman and Steinberg, Moore, Øvredal

Dan Seeger

The Gift (Joel Edgerton, 2015). I find it amusing and even endearing that Joel Edgerton bypassed any potential inclinations to establish himself as a serious cinematic artist with his feature directorial debut and instead crafted a lurid little thriller not unlike those that routinely slunk into cineplexes throughout the nineteen-nineties. In The Gift, Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) move to Southern California because the former has taken a new job. While shopping for their new home, Simon and Rebecca bump into Gordo (Edgerton), an acquaintance from Simon’s high school days. Gordo insinuates himself into their lives — including … Continue reading Edgerton, Holmer, Kriegman and Steinberg, Moore, Øvredal

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Dominik, Howard, Junger, Miller, Wolchok

Dan Seeger

Deadpool (Tim Miller, 2016). And so we’ve reached the point in the superhero era of cinema that allows for a caustically deconstructionist take on the genre to become one of the biggest hits of the year. There might be no better methodology for tracing the chronology of the genre’s takeover than measuring the comparative impact of Mystery Men (a dud in 1999) to Kick-Ass (a solid hit in 2010) to Deadpool (a sensation in 2016). Technically, Ryan Reynolds first played Wade Wilson in the dismal X-Men Origins: Wolverine, release in 2009. Besides the smirking countenance of the actor, that iteration … Continue reading Dominik, Howard, Junger, Miller, Wolchok

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Bird, Coon and Skousen, Garrone, Huston, Paradisi

Dan Seeger

Tomorrowland (Brad Bird, 2015). There’s nobility in Brad Bird’s oft-stated aspiration to use Tomorrowland to reanimate the futuristic optimism of his youth, countering the long meander into an endless procession of sci-fi dystopias. Intent is one thing. Execution is quite another. Bird’s second outing as a director of live-action features is a muddled, overbearing squawk of condescending nonsense that too often barrels headlong into disastrous inane storytelling choices. As a grizzled, grumpy outcast of a once-proud secret nation of innovators, George Clooney is in the mode of hammy, insistent twitches that rightly earned him derision when he made his initial … Continue reading Bird, Coon and Skousen, Garrone, Huston, Paradisi

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Branagh, Brooks, Leigh, McGrath, Trank

Dan Seeger

Cinderella (Kenneth Branagh, 2015). It’s grading on the most generous of curves, but as a crass attempt to develop a new revenue stream for a beloved Disney animated class, the live action Cinderella isn’t so bad. It’s certainly a damn sight better than the grotesque senses assault of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, which basically established this type of cinematic tomb raiding. Similarly, Kenneth Branagh’s directing is more tightly controlled and snappily efficient than anything else he’s done in ages, the stricter corporate oversight perhaps taming his penchant for dragging indulgence. Most of the acting is merely perfunctory, save for … Continue reading Branagh, Brooks, Leigh, McGrath, Trank