Tomb Raider, the name means a lot in video games where it’s one of the highest-selling franchises of all-time. But in the realm of movies? That’s a little bit different, because it was Angelina Jolie who was the driving force behind the first film’s success, and when her star began to wane the sequel didn’t do nearly as well. So what does that mean for the upcoming reboot led by Alicia Vikander? Does she have the star power to make it her own?
So far there hasn’t been a lot of buzz even though Tomb Raider is only a couple of months away. The latest trailer attempts to change that. The Oscar-winner takes on the role of Lara Croft, a bike messenger (!?!?) who learns that her deceased father was last seen on a mythical island in search of a mysterious tomb. It sounds completely ridiculous but the action looks solid. I think Vikander is going to have to win people over that she can be a physical actress, that may be the biggest hurdle.
Here is the synopsis: Lara Croft is the fiercely independent daughter of an eccentric adventurer who vanished when she was scarcely a teen. Now a young woman of 21 without any real focus or purpose, Lara navigates the chaotic streets of trendy East London as a bike courier, barely making the rent, and takes college courses, rarely making it to class. Determined to forge her own path, she refuses to take the reins of her father’s global empire just as staunchly as she rejects the idea that he’s truly gone. Advised to face the facts and move forward after seven years without him, even Lara can’t understand what drives her to finally solve the puzzle of his mysterious death.
Going explicitly against his final wishes, she leaves everything she knows behind in search of her dad’s last-known destination: a fabled tomb on a mythical island that might be somewhere off the coast of Japan. But her mission will not be an easy one; just reaching the island will be extremely treacherous. Suddenly, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Lara, who—against the odds and armed with only her sharp mind, blind faith and inherently stubborn spirit—must learn to push herself beyond her limits as she journeys into the unknown. If she survives this perilous adventure, it could be the making of her, earning her the name tomb raider.
Directed by Roar Uthaug, Tomb Raider opens March 16th.
Imagine, if you will, Nicolas Cage as your father. And imagine that this Nicolas Cage, who is your father, is in full nutso freakout mode, exactly the Nicolas Cage we love to watch so much in all of his worst movies. Except, he wants to kill you. It’d be kinda awesome, kinda funny, kinda surreal, but also kinda scary. And all of those things are what you get out of Mom and Dad, a suburban dark comedy that explores middle class/middle age angst with the kind of hysterical mania you’d expect from the pairing of Cage and Brian Taylor, the director of Crank.
Taylor, working on his own for the first time, still has the same twisted sense of humor, and working alongsidea fully heightened Cage it makes for a master class in depravity. I mean, the entire movie is about parents killing their kids…and finds humor in it. Some may find that too disturbing to endure but for me, and I don’t know what that says about me exactly, it was loads of fun. Cage and a terrific Selma Blair are bored married couple Brent and Kendall Ryan. Theyre both disappointed in how their lives have turned out. She takes pilates to try and maintain her youth while he has a dead-end job he hates and a living room full of toys that he’s constantly tripping on, thanks to his precocious 10-year-old son Josh (Zackary Arthur). Meanwhile, they also have a rebellious teeenaged daughter, Carly (Anne Winters) who hates her parents and steals money and is basically everything every parent would hate about a kid that age.
Doesn’t Carly understand that her parents are people, too? That they were once her age? Well, she’ll come to learn the same harsh lessons as kids the world over do, when suddenly a wave of parental violence hits the country. Eerily, dozens of adults waiting outside the high school doors for their children to be let out of school, only for panic to strike when those parents start slaughtering their young. If you’ve seen Taylor’r prior movies then you blistering wall-to-wall action to follow. There’s barely an explanation for the pandemic, if that’s what you’d call it, but something has reversed the protective instinct in parents and turned them into murderers.
Taylor introduces this madness on a wide level as a means of shock; news reports flooding in of the killings only increasing the panic across the globe. But the film really cranks (pun intended) into high velocity as he narrows the field of focus to the Ryan’s neighborhood, as the family housekeeper slaughters her daughter mercilessly and other friends of the family go unhinged. We keep waiting for Cage to go off the rails, trained to expect him to always be somewhat deranged, but Brent’s flip-out moment is teased wonderfully until just the right time. And soon it’s kids vs. parents in a multigenerational bloodfeud that turns common household items into deadly weapons of war.
“It’s a Saws All, means it saws all…”, Kendall eerily informs her complicit hubby as they stalk the kiddos.
Beautifully cut within the madness are flashbacks to times that are sometimes happy, sometimes clues to the adult angst that maybe (?) sparked this insanity. One of its most brilliant moments actually comes before the outbreak, as Brent, fully in midlife crisis mode, buys a pool table as part of a new man cave he wants to build. Only to destroy it in a rage, sledgehammer in hand, as Kendall tears him down for being so obvious. They then quietly sit and come to grips with their unhappiness at how lame being adult parents can be. Fast forward to the two of them trying to gut their children like fish.
This is a movie that was tailor made for Cage. We’ve come to expect a high level of lunacy from him but it’s hard wired into every fabric of this movie. I couldn’t imagine Mom and Dad without Cage, but I don’t want to overlook Blair’s part in this. She’s fantastic, too, as the earnest and eager Kendall, who is as sweet as can be when she’s not trying to gas her children to death. Because the parents are basically their normal selves when not in a murderous rage, her transformations are the most jarring and disturbing, and Blair handles the emotional shifts wonderfully. Everyone, including Winters as the film’s focal point, acclimate themselves to Taylor’s wild extremes in tone and editing. Taylor’s frenetic, unpredictable style is what makes this film click, only failing him in the sudden, unsatisfying conclusion that just comes out of nowhere and snaps you out of the 80-minute long sugar high you’ve been riding.
Intergenerational resentment certainly isn’t going to go away; the previous generation will always demonize the current one while holding themselves up as superior. Maybe Mom and Dad has it right; let all sides fight it out to see whose best. My gut tells me the side with Nicolas Cage wins.
For months, ever since the release of Justice League and its dismal underperformance, there has been outcry from certain fans asking for a Zack Snyder director’s cut. Petitions, fansites, actual rallies…and all they really have to show for it was the suggestion of a possible extended edition Blu-Ray. Surely Warner Bros. could meet them halfway or something, right? Throw these Snyder fanatics a bone?
More like a giant lump of coal. It appears Warner Bros. has included exactly ONE bonus scene for the Justice League Blu-Ray release, and it’s exclusive to Walmart. Ugh. As for what this scene could be? Who the Hell knows? There was a ton that Joss Whedon sliced out of the film when he took over, so it could be just about anything. Look at some of the early trailers and you’ll see scene after scene that never made it into the theatrical cut.
The Justice League Blu-Ray arrives on April 4th. [ScreenCrush]
So will he or won’t he? Seems we could ask that question about a lot of things lately, but in this case I mean will Tom Holland’s Spider-Man appear in Sony’s Venom film, or won’t he? Most recently director Jon Schnepp revealed that he knew the answer, and that Spider-Man would be making a cameo. In fact, here’s his quote:
“Spider-Man is going to be in Venom. For the last couple of months, we’ve been hearing how Sony is keeping it all separated, and Spider-Man is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but every other character that’s in the Spider-Man universe is separate. All I’m saying is that Spider-Man—and I’m talking about Tom Holland’s Spider-Man—is going to be in Venom.”
How many times does he say “Spider-Man is going to be in Venom”? Well, now he’s walking back the very thing he was most adamant about, saying on Collider Heroes that Holland will appear in Venom, just not as Spider-Man…
“Tom Holland was on set filming scenes on Venom for at least two days as Peter Parker. Ok, so I’m not saying that Spider-Man is in the film. When I say that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is in the film, I’m saying ‘Peter Parker is in the film. This is a cameo. I don’t know what it is. I didn’t read the script.”
This all sounds like nonsense, but I always said to take it with a grain of salt. if Schnepp is right, though, then the impact is the same. The Sony Spidey-verse and MCU would be connected whether the characters ever acknowledge it or not, and audiences will have very different expectations going forward.
While watching 12 Strong, the latest film depicting the ever-present war in Afghanistan, I thought about how much I miss completely fictional military movies. Everything nowadays is based on true events, or actual people who have been caught up in the quagmire of our “War on Terror”. They may be heroes, but often it is hard to separate the men from the dubious cause they fight for, which 17 years after 9/11 is most assuredly not just to stop terrorists.
12 Strong, with its horse-mounted soldiers galloping through Afghanistan’s dusty terrain like heavily-armed samurai warriors, would have been perfect for a breezy, Magnificent Seven-esque diversion. If you’re able to separate yourself from what the real-life men of ODA Alpha, aka Task Force Dagger, really represented then it’s still a highly entertaining action film that makes solid use of its remarkable cast. Most importantly to those just looking to see our brave fighting men kick terrorist ass, it doesn’t ask a lot of questions or really any questions at all. We were hit on 9/11 and America got some payback. Point, click, boom.
For me, it was tough to shake that Task Force Dagger were the first U.S. forces to retaliate in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and their story was tailor made to be turned into an action movie. But their lives aren’t a movie, for them it was real life, and men of Task Force Dagger couldn’t have known they were just the start of what would be a seemingly never-ending morass of blood and treasure. Chris Hemsworth sets down his mighty Thor hammer and picks up a rifle as Captain Mitch Nelson, based on real-life soldier Mark Nutsch whose story is chronicled in Doug Stanton’s book, “Horse Soldiers”. Mitch has opted to leave the battlefield and settle into a desk job so he can spend more time with his family, including a wife played by Hemsworth’s real-life spouse, Elsa Pataky. But all of that is thrown aside when the World Trade Center was hit on September 11th. Mitch barges back into HQ and demands to put together his old squad, who are literally sitting around waiting for someone to give them an order to shoot something. Permission granted, and Task Force Dagger is off to Afghanistan to be America’s first strike against the Taliban.
While the mission is about as cut and dried as can be, take the team and destroy Osama Bin Laden’s forces, the reality on the ground is where 12 Strong finds its hook. Dagger is charged with keeping the fragile Northern Alliance together by joining up with a local warlord who, at least at this moment, hates the Taliban more than he hates the United States. But he harbors no illusions about the future; today Osama Bin Laden is the enemy, but tomorrow it will be the very U.S. soldiers he fights alongside now. And fight alongside them he does, on horseback, through the harsh terrain, riding into battle against tanks and rocket launchers. Its sort of surreal, actually, and reminded me of those aforementioned samurai warriors charging into cannon fire in The Last Samurai. The difference is our heroes fared far better, with Danish director Nicolai Fuglsig skillfully capturing the battlefield tactics that helped Dagger survive the insurmountable odds. Having covered the Kosovo conflict as a war photojournalist, Fuglsig knows how the chaos of battle also makes for a breath-taking, striking image.
Hemsworth, ironically playing as close a version of Captain America as he’s likely ever to, is exactly the actor a film this direct needs. He bulls ahead like the conquering hero, leading a strong group of supporting players that includes Michael Shannon, Michael Pena, and Trevante Rhodes. There isn’t ton of characterization to go around (Shannon has “killer eyes”, that’s about the extent of it) which is typical for war ensembles, but each actor makes the most of their limited opportunities. Rhodes, whose physicality masked his vulnerability in Barry Jenkins’ award-winning Moonlight, shows a softer side again as his character befriends a local boy assigned to protect him. Yes, we get the scene of the soldier introducing the foreign kid to American candy. It. Happens. Every. War. Movie. At this point it’d be weird not to have it.
The script, co-written by Ted Tally (The Silence of the Lambs) and Peter Craig (The Town), skims the surface of what our involvement in Afghanistan really means for a people that have been invaded over and over again throughout history. It could have used more of that, because it may have helped us figure out why this particular story needed to be told right now. There’s a statue honoring the Horse Soldiers at the World Trade Center site, but the film doesn’t do a good job of telling us why this event was important. Yes, Task Force Dagger drove Osama Bin Laden out of Kabul, an important early victory in the war. But it wasn’t decisive, and the fighting rages on long after Donald Rumsfeld exposed their efforts publicly a couple months later. That’s a sad fact 12 Strong never contends with. The only mission is to show the war in Afghanistan the way we imagine it to be, just good guys killing bad guys, like it used to be in war movies all the time before we started asking questions.
While there were certainly comic elements to The Help, like a certain stuck-up southern woman eating what amounts to shit pie, I don’t know it’s exactly what we would call a comedy. The film was a huge hit for Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer, anyway, and it’s long since past due for them to have a reunion. A Christmas comedy wasn’t the way I thought it would happen, though.
Chastain and Spencer will reunite for an untitled Christmas comedy in the vein of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. The treatment was developed by Chastain and producer Kelly Carmichael (The Nanny Diaries) for Peter Chiarelli (Now You See Me 2) to turn into a workable screenplay about two women trying to make it back home in time for Christmas.
Classic premise, two classy actresses…I dig it. No word on a director but I expect that will change soon with these two on board. [THR]
Know who could use a dash of Harry Potter wizardry to repair a stagnant career? Daniel Radcliffe, that’s who. The best role he’s had in years was when he played a dead guy in Swiss Army Man, but films like Jungle and Imperium you probably never even heard of. And his role in Now You See Me 2 was just kinda sad. Don’t even get me started on Victor Frankenstein. Well, Radcliffe is back with Beast of Burden, and unfortunately it looks like another that will fly under the radar.
Radcliffe stars alongside Pablo Schreiber (in this week’s Den of Thieves) and Grace Gummer (Mr. Robot), in the story of a pilot who agrees to smuggle drugs across the U.S./Mexico border to help his ailing wife, only to see his allegiances tested. The film is directed by Jesper Ganslandt who I’m not at all familiar with.
While this may not be an atrocious movie, it just looks beneath Radcliffe somehow. Am I wrong to feel that way? Beast of Burden hits select theaters and VOD on February 23rd.
Of the many things that drive Donald Trump (I refuse to call him President anymore) crazy, few have pissed him off more than Michael Wolff’s explosive book, Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House. The Idiot-In-Chief tried to block it from being published, practically after it was already on shelves, and the best he accomplished was to probably get Wolff millions more in sales than if he had done nothing at all. But that’s the level of incompetence of the Trump Administration, accurately depicted by Wolff, and now we’re going to get to see it captured on the small screen, too.
Heads exploding in the Shithouse…er, White House right now.
THR reports the screen rights to Wolff’s book have snapped up by Endeavor Content for a hefty seven-figure sum and are already shopping a TV series project to potential networks. Oooh boy. Something tells me it won’t be long before they find a taker because, as Trump keeps telling us, he’s “good for ratings.”
As Trump continues to whoosh down the toilet bowl stories about his epic flame out are only going to become more prevalent. Getting in on the ground floor of the hottest story about the Administration would be a smart move, but I hope it’s HBO or Netflix that can do it justice.
Now, who do we think could play Trump? Is there anyone who doesn’t think he would volunteer to play himself? Here’s the book synopsis:
The first nine months of Donald Trump’s term were stormy, outrageous—and absolutely mesmerizing. Now, thanks to his deep access to the West Wing, bestselling author Michael Wolff tells the riveting story of how Trump launched a tenure as volatile and fiery as the man himself.
In this explosive book, Wolff provides a wealth of new details about the chaos in the Oval Office. Among the revelations:
— What President Trump’s staff really thinks of him — What inspired Trump to claim he was wire-tapped by President Obama — Why FBI director James Comey was really fired — Why chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner couldn’t be in the same room — Who is really directing the Trump administration’s strategy in the wake of Bannon’s firing — What the secret to communicating with Trump is — What the Trump administration has in common with the movie The Producers
Never before has a presidency so divided the American people. Brilliantly reported and astoundingly fresh, Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury shows us how and why Donald Trump has become the king of discord and disunion.
While most of the attention on Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread has focused on Daniel Day-Lewis’ apparent retirement afterwards, what’s most amazing is that his final role sees him ceding prominence to a relative newcomer. Day-Lewis is given his most formidable female-co-star in years in Vicky Krieps, who gives as good as she gets in Anderson’s latest examination of creative genius and the mangled relationships it spawns. If this is Day-Lewis’ actual swansong, then the actor goes out on a high note, and Anderson gets back into a groove following the hazy Inherent Vice.
I can only imagine the “method acting” horror stories from the Phantom Thread set, with Day-Lewis perpetually in character as Reynolds Woodcock (the unfortunately-named, since I spent the entire movie imagining the atrocious Billy Bob Thornton comedy Mr. Woodcock), a 1950s British dressmaker and staunch perfectionist. He’s also a bit of an a-hole, but most perfectionists and geniuses are. He may be a “confirmed bachelor” but he indulges in the occasional tryst with beautiful, younger women, and when he grows bored with them he leaves it up to his helicopter sister Cyril (Lesley Manville, never met a grimace she didn’t like) to end things. It’s during a brief sabbatical that he encounters Alma (Krieps), a lovely young waitress, and is immediately infatuated with her. He sweeps the small-town girl from her humble surroundings and lets her into his life, as far into it as he undoubtedly allowed many women, only to push them out when they got too close. The question for Alma is whether she will allow that to happen to her, as well?
There’s an intoxicating romanticism to aspects of Reynolds’ life that clashes with the side best described as poisonous. His is a world of beautiful, shiny, satiny things, and Alma is perfectly suited to it. She becomes his muse, his inspiration, his silent confidante, emphasis on silent. Or perhaps obedient is a better word, because when she starts to make her presence felt, in an effort to not be brushed aside like the women before her, that is when Reynolds actually wishes to do away with her. But it’s not that simple, because Alma is no wilting flower ready to be yanked out of the ground and discarded. Anderson meticulously details the evolving details of their toxic relationship, from the happy “courtship” period to the quiet animosity to the…well, let’s just call the next phase Misery-esque. The ease with which he moves between these raw emotions, bridged by one frigid yet darkly humorous conversation to the next, is extraordinary. But then, communication between his characters has always been one of Anderson’s strengths; one can look at how handily he juggled as a massive array of characters in Magnolia and Boogie Nights for that. That he could take that skill and sharpen it between just three extremely forceful characters shouldn’t be a surprise.
And I say three because Cyril is the most diabolical element. Apparently with no life of her own, Cyril has dedicated everything to Reynolds and his career. Besides being the living specter looming over his household, she takes care of all the menial duties someone of his genius can’t be bothered with. What’s fascinating is how she sees Alma’s arrival, beginning with a sort of bemusement that she’ll be axing another woman from her brother’s life. But then, as Alma starts to flex her muscles and disrupt things, Cyril recognizes that it gives her a different kind of importance, a different kind of strength that will also challenge him. In a way this is the most outwardly feminist movie Anderson has ever done, and there is at least one surprising “cheer” moment afforded to both women. Anderson has often attacked the idea of the power in male masculinity, and in Alma and Cyril he’s got two fierce warriors to aid him.
At different times an absorbing character study of an unknown world ala Boogie Nights, a dysfunctional romance in the vein of Punch-Drunk Love, and a psychological mind f**k like The Master, this is Anderson best bringing together all of his cinematic influences. I think in recent years this has been his greatest struggle, trying to merge all of his sensibilities into one perfect movie. Inherent Vice was the most obvious failed attempt, but he makes up for it here and it’s due in no small part to his trio of stars. Whether he’s brooding, mumbling orders to the help, or engaging in some passive-aggressive power play you can count on Day-Lewis’ intensity to steer the film through occasional rough waters. Having played many brilliant men through his career, Day-Lewis hasn’t nearly as often tackled a role quite like this. Reynolds’ intellect and stylistic acumen is only matched by his emotional immaturity, which cripples any hope he has of ever finding someone to be his equal.
That’s what makes Krieps’ performance as Alma so fascinating, as she rope-a-dopes us into thinking one way about this naïve young woman. Instinctively we look at any character played by Day-Lewis as the one in full control but it’s Alma who evolves most, recognizing all of his shortcomings and improving herself in ways that make her indispensable. The way she does it may be despicable, but they come with a certain self-assuredness that is to be respected. And as for the great Lesley Manville, I’d pay a pretty penny for a collection of all the shade she throws in this movie.
I don’t know if the Alma and Reynolds are meant to be; and I don’t know if that’s even what Anderson wants us to think about with Phantom Thread. In this twisted love story, chaos and dysfunction are the ties that bind, and if that union leads to more beauty in the world then who are we to judge?
*NOTE: This is a reprint of my review from the Middleburg Film Festival.*
Olympic figure skating can be exciting, but it’s not supposed to be as exciting as it was in 1994. And it had little, if anything, to do with who had the best short program on the ice. It was about who had bashed poor Nancy “Why!?! Why!?” Kerrigan’s knee just before the U.S. Championships, and the ensuing scandal became the hottest criminal kerfuffle of the ’90s. OJ Simpson who? For that brief moment in time it was all about Kerrigan’s rival, Tonya Harding, a powerful but unpolished skater from the wrong side of the tracks, surrounded by a bunch of bumbling goons right out of a Coen Brothers movie. Harding, whose actual involvement in the attack is in dispute, paid the price anyway, but her story has only ever been a punchline. Well, it still kind of is in the pitch black, wildly enjoyable I, Tonya, but at least Harding is getting to have her say.
She really wants you to know that it wasn’t her fault.
More on that later, because so much of I, Tonya rests on the shoulders of Australian star Margot Robbie, who gives a perfect 10 (or 6.0 in ISU scoring) performance in the first role that doesn’t demand her sex appeal. In fact, Harding’s lack of grace and femininity is what makes her such a pariah in the sport of figure skating, which trades on outdated ideas of what a proper woman should look like. Harding, from whitest of white trash corners of Oregon, can probably fix your car better than you can. Her mother, LaVona (Allison Janney), a soul-crushing dictator who snuffs out cigarettes as much as she does dreams (but she loves parakeets, apparently), introduced Tonya to skating at a young age, simply to get the girl to shut up about it. When her eventual teacher Diane Rawlinson (Julianne Nicholson) balks at the idea, LaVona won’t take no for an answer. That stubbornness would become ingrained in Tonya, as well, which would cause her further problems, especially when she starts dating Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), a local tool and the dimmest of dim bulbs.
Based on the “irony free, wildly contradictory” interviews with the major players in Harding’s life, you begin to think these people escaped from an episode of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. In the best work of Craig Gillespie’s (Fright Night, Lars and the Real Girl) career, the film is done in mockumentary style, not only examining the colorful, utterly ridiculous characters Harding was surrounded by, it also highlights all of the ways in which figure skating is an absurd sport. Tonally, it invites you mock them and figure skating in the way Drop Dead Gorgeous crushed beauty pageants, or Christopher Guest’s movies skewered…well, everything. And there is plenty to laugh at, but not the way the sport’s strict guidelines and ancient morals helped keep Harding down when she already had enough to contend with at home. Certainly, Gillooly turned out to be no less abusive, both physically and mentally, than LaVona had been.
It’s a balancing act as risky as attempting a triple axel, but Gillespie lands it beautifully, embracing the silliness of the story and the sadness at its edges. Even when cartoonish figures like Gillooly’s delusional wannabe secret agent pal Shawn Eckhardt (scene stealer Paul Walter Hauser) take the spotlight they feel organic to the crazy world Gillespie has us in, one where tabloid TV rag Hard Copy (fronted by an oily Bobby Cannavale) takes the lead introducing us to the 24-hour news cycle.
As for the attack on Kerrigan (played in brief glimpses by Caitlin Carver), the film does eventually get around to it, painting the whole thing as one big comedy of errors. Whether Harding really knew anything about what her husband and his band of idiots were planning..well, if you hear it from her she didn’t know a thing, but the script smartly treats everybody as unreliable witnesses. The only problem is when it gets too cute for its own good. That Gillespie and screenwriter Steven Rogers managed to make the flashback/interview style work is practically a miracle, but they go overboard when Harding starts addressing the audience directly. It’s a distraction in the few times it happens, and yet it’s doubtful the film would’ve worked at all if it happened more often.
So was the attack on Kerrigan, and the eventual fallout that led to convictions and an eventual banishment from figure skating all Harding’s fault? While Harding spends most of the movie deflecting blame, and the film goes some way in excusing her a little bit, she makes a lot of really terrible choices that let it happen. It can’t all be blamed on her crappy childhood, and she’s at fault for letting idiots like Gillooly and Eckhardt into her life. But does that make her the villain she was so frequently portrayed as, and is still portrayed as, in the media? I, Tonya may not change your mind whether she was complicit, but that’s not really the point. Tonya Harding was often called a rebel, simply for daring to be herself and not what the powers within the figure skating community wanted her to be. And isn’t that the kind of lesson we’d expect from a champion?
