"Florence Foster Jenkins" Review

Florence Foster Jenkins is a biographical comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Frears and starring Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg, Nina Arianda, and Rebecca Ferguson. It tells the story of the legendary Carnegie Hall performance of Florence Foster Jenkins, a British New York socialite who loves music and performing but has an absolutely terrible singing voice, a fact that keeps her husband Mr. Bayfield (Grant) busy keeping the "scoffers and mockers" at bay.

I saw this movie with my mom, which is probably the best way to see it. This is by no means at all a work of groundbreaking, thought-provoking cinema, but Florence Foster Jenkins is such a delightful little confection of a movie that it's difficult not to recommend. In an age where online harassment by trolls of high-profile celebrities and public figures are getting extensive media attention and negativity is at the forefront of nearly every major news story, it's nice to have a movie strictly about a group of people working to the bone to keep someone else happy. But don't fret, fellow fans of sarcasm and pessimism, their creation of a sort of ridiculous socialite echo chamber, and the film's own tacit congratulating of it, are not met without ridicule. Frears welcomes your scoffing and mockery amid his film's own beguiling good nature.

Nicholas Martin's screenplay is not note-perfect here - the film does drag a bit toward the middle, and these performances are honestly a bit above their material. But if you're like me and are a fan of the kind of quips and crackly posh back-and-forthing that is so quintessentially British, you'll find yourself grinning through most of this movie's sequences. If you're also like me and enjoy period pieces featuring lavish sets and costumes, and hallmarks of the 1940s like swing dancing, tame and playful sexuality, and people somehow still looking distinguished and proper while being completely wasted, then this movie is once again a treat, especially once Florence starts flaunting her most ridiculous headpieces. Honestly, it's difficult to rag on this movie's flaws when there are just so many things to enjoy about it.

Like I said, the performances in this movie are honestly above their material, but this is anything but a negative point. Meryl Streep is reliably excellent - it's become almost an eye-roller to sing her praises as an actress, but she is a soon-to-be-20-time Oscar nominee for a reason. As someone who has time and again displayed actual substantial singing talent, her command of a character whose singing voice is impressively bad is remarkable. Few films get truly bad singing right - Florence's singing isn't just loud or slightly off-key. As one character puts it, "it defies medical science". Streep also adds considerable depth to her character, to the point that, even without the aide of brilliant makeup work, becomes another fully living person on the screen. Simon Helberg plays their jittery pianist in a way that could've been one-note, but ends up being almost as layered as it is entertaining.

Storied sub-par rom-com aficionado Hugh Grant nearly channels a Grant of another era by the name of Cary in his role as Florence's husband in an open relationship. Grant starts off screen-stealingly enough as a posh and peppy man that is the essence of the wartime elite, and soon grows into a fully realized character that adds to the humanity of the story. By the time Mr. Bayfield is explaining to us that he keeps Florence safe from the haters because he is devoted to her, we really feel and believe it, just as we do when Florence herself describes her love for music and performing.

In the end, Florence Foster Jenkins is not perfect, but it's an entertaining, funny, and sweet crowd-pleaser about courage, devotion, and just straight-up being nice. Streep and Grant are excellent in the lead roles, with a team of wonderful supporting players, some sure-handed direction from Stephen Frears, gorgeous costume work by Consolata Boyle, and reliably great swinging jazzy musical score from Alexandre Desplat to back them up in an otherwise somewhat loosely written story. The score may seem low, but this is a rather enthusiastic recommendation.

Grade: B+

"Hell or High Water" Review

Hell or High Water is a crime drama film directed by David Mackenzie, written by Taylor Sheridan (screenwriter of last year's Sicario), and starring Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges, and Gil Birmingham. Pine and Foster play brothers living in west Texas who are on the brink of losing the family farm to the big banks. In an act of both desperation and revenge (depending on which of them you ask), the two resort to robbing various small-town banks around Texas and Oklahoma, Pine's character hoping to funnel it into a trust for his nephews, and Foster's character planning to blow it on casinos, booze, and hookers like a real man. Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham play a Texas sheriff and his accomplice, respectively, on the trail but always one step behind the two crooks in this modern pseudo-Western.

Between this, Sicario, and his work on the show Sons of Anarchy, Taylor Sheridan has a real interest and knack for writing modern-day crime. His greatest talent as well as his flaw as a screenwriter is that he is a pitch perfect scribe when it comes to observing and relaying said observations about modern America, but not so much at brilliantly expanding on them or offering any groundbreaking wisdom on them thematically. This film was described to me as a "dumbed down No Country for Old Men", which is fairly apt, if a little harsh. The movie isn't quite "dumb", just straightforward. Sheridan's presentations of post-financial crisis middle America, the casual racism of the South, and the general attitude of distrust and violence borne out of the country's most cinematically ignored regions is spot-on in terms of dialogue and performance, but the viewer is left with simple musings and exhibitions rather than meditations. It's a minor complaint - Sheridan is great, but has room to be brilliant.

And this is not at all to say that this is a mediocre script. What Sheridan may arguably lack in a Coen-level grasp of screenwriting language he makes up for with some very strong character writing and a grasp on how to build a tense, concise, and entertaining story. While still dark in its own right, this film is a great deal funnier and looser than Sicario, and with a great director like Denis Villeneuve may have even surpassed it. Mackenzie, though, does a very good job at striking a balance between moving the story along and letting it sit a while to resonate with viewers. While this movie starts with a bank robbery scene, it's not mindless gunplay and car chases from beginning to end. The film allows us to get to know our characters and build the tension so that its explosively violent conclusion is all the more dramatic.

That is really this film's high point - the characters and performances. Ben Foster aims to steal the show as a belligerent, borderline psychopathic man of action, and he is a great deal of fun to watch, but Chris Pine upstages him particularly in the second half. Pine's performance is one of surprising reservation and subtlety, and by the end he is one of the most gripping actors to watch onscreen. Jeff Bridges gives his best performance in several years, as well as delivering the vast majority of the comic relief. His relationship with his accomplice, played wonderfully by Gil Birmingham, was my favorite character dynamic in the film. It feels like a real friendship, albeit a troubled one that makes for some great drama in the last third of the film.

Ultimately, the dynamics between the two criminals, specifically Pine, and Bridges's sheriff character is what drives the thematic crux of the movie. Two men acting against a system they believe - with some good reason - has wronged them, and a sheriff who tells us before we justify too many of their actions, to remember that they're not saints or above the law. Both characters' worldviews are simplistic and biased, and it's what makes their characters interesting. And the characters' interactions with the various townsfolk who agree with our protagonists' lawlessness to varying degrees is, as I said before, while maybe lacking in significant subtext, note-perfect in execution. And when I think about it, though this is a rather timeless story structured like any good crime thriller, this movie is very much written for the now. In the political climate it was made for, those simple musings and on-their-face presentations of middle America may be all there needs to be to strike up conversation.

Overall, Hell or High Water is a smart, incredibly well-acted, and very entertaining crime thriller that, like Sicario, was just short of being really great. If you enjoy your violent crime dramas with some slow-burning tension and lots of character development as well as ample gunfights and manly talk, then it's a good time at the movies. And Jeff Bridges makes the second half very memorable - the climax alone is worth the price of admission.

Grade: A-

"Kubo and the Two Strings" Review

Kubo and the Two Strings is a stop-motion animated fantasy adventure film directed by Travis Knight, written by Marc Haimes and Chris Butler, and featuring the voices of Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Rooney Mara, and Ralph Fiennes. It is produced by the animation studio Laika, known for such other stop-motion films as The Boxtrolls, ParaNorman, and Coraline. Set in ancient Japan, the film follows a young boy named Kubo, a renowned storyteller in his village who, through a set of unfortunate circumstances, is sent on a quest along with a monkey and a giant beetle man to find the three pieces of armor that once belonged to his late father, a noble and respected samurai, in order to fight off the spirits of his aunts and grandfather, who have a sinister plot against him regarding his family's past.

Laika has produced mostly quality work over the years, with Coraline probably still remaining my favorite of their films, although Kubo is a very close second. A behind-the-scenes featurette sent to me a while ago claimed that Kubo was Laika's most ambitious project yet, at least from a technical perspective, and the effort definitely shows. This is just about as beautiful as stop-motion animation gets. While it may not always reach the heights of visual cleverness and kid-friendly horror that Coraline did, Kubo is still a remarkably visually inspired film. From the camerawork to the character design to the absolutely gorgeous landscapes of the film's mythical Japan, Kubo does an excellent job of truly transporting you into its world. It's not often that I become legitimately transfixed in the universe a world creates, but Laika's world and characters feel like they live and breathe in front of you.

And the animation itself as well is craft of the highest caliber. Laika has definitely become experts at the art of stop-motion filmmaking. The animation here is remarkably fluid, and especially during sequences where they up the ante on the magic and mysticism, the film does wonders at being one of the rare films where you actually have to call into question how they managed to pull off these effects. From a towering skeleton that in reality was a full 16-foot rigged animatronic to the numerous magical origami creatures and objects Kubo creates as his magical abilities grow stronger, there are numerous effects and images in this film that are truly mesmerizing. I've always adored stop-motion animation for its hand-crafted feel that creates an unmatched sense of closeness and intimacy, and Laika turns that aspect of the art form up to 11 not just to great visual ends, but narrative ones as well.

Kubo and the Two Strings is a mature, thoughtful, and soulful film about family, mortality, memory, and stories. The screenplay is as meticulously and lovingly crafted as the world it takes place in, and our three main characters are interesting, sweet, and fun to watch. Theron and McConaughey provide great voice work to make two supporting characters that have genuine chemistry. While I will complain that the film's central villain has a rather weak motivation, the face-off between he and Kubo all feels very satisfying thanks to the rest of the story being so well-told. This film does not pander to its audience, and in fact, may actually be too scary and mature for younger kids. Kubo has many lengthy sequences of quiet, meditative dialogue that builds its characters, as well as the mythology of its world. Luckily, it has some colorful characters, humor, and exciting action sequences to keep slightly older kids hooked.

I had a tough time choosing just one or two screencaps from this
film, since there are so many shots that are just incredible.

I really enjoyed the themes and message of this movie. You hear all the time about kids' films having "heart", but this is a film with genuine heart and soul. It's a film that argues for the importance of stories and the unbreakable connections of family in an appreciably non-treacly and creative way. This story is a bit more melancholy than your average animated film (which seems to be one of Laika's trademarks at this point), with death and loss being central components that are handled very bluntly and directly. But ultimately it's a film about how our memories and stories of the ones we love are what keep them alive - that the greatest "afterlife" is that which is carried on by others. It's an interesting spiritual message and it's done beautifully.

Overall, Kubo and the Two Strings was a very refreshing surprise after a summer that was on the whole pretty dull. It's well directed, smartly written, sweet, funny, and has some of the most gorgeous animation I've seen in quite a long time. It's pretty amazingly done in every aspect you could hope for, and I hope it finds a second life out of theaters, as it seems to be flopping at the box office unfortunately. Go support an original, beautiful-looking, enjoyable animated film by a studio that puts an immense amount of craft and care into their work. I recommend this one highly.

Grade: A

"Sausage Party" Review

Sausage Party is a computer animated comedy film directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan, written by Conrad Vernon, Megan Ellison, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg, and featuring the voices of Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, David Krumholtz, Nick Kroll, Edward Norton, Salma Hayek, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Anders Holm and Lauren Miller. The film, in the tradition of Disney/Pixar's bringing to life of the mundane objects we know and love, follows the various products in a supermarket who await to be taken by the "gods" (humans) to the Great Beyond, where they believe they are showered with praise and happiness for eternity. When one skeptical sausage (Rogen) finds out what really happens to food once they get home, however, he sets out to convince his friends and the entire market that they've been misled and to fight back against the humans. In typical Seth Rogen movie fashion, this journey is accompanied by a plethora of expletives, shock humor, violence, ridiculous over-the-top jokes, marijuana, and - you must've heard by now - a three-minute animated food orgy. And some religious satire, bath salts, commentary on Middle Eastern conflicts, and even some displays of sexual pride. This movie is nuts.

Be warned - if you hate Seth Rogen and his brand of humor, and are especially repulsed by juvenile humor, excessive swearing, racial stereotypes, sex jokes, and just general button-pushing, then just stay away from Sausage Party. You will find little of worth. All the complaints I've heard about this film have been valid, as they've all come from people who simply thought this film was a reprehensibly stupid idea in the first place. I, for one, was really interested to see where Rogen and the gang would go with this, and I was pleasantly satisfied. But if you find yourself rolling your eyes at 90 minutes of food puns and dick jokes, there's not much I can say to convince you.

To me, though, there's something that sets aside Rogen and co. from the likes of Adam Sandler, who is also known for crass and vulgar humor. But in my view, simply having your comedic brow permanently lowered is not enough to discredit you as a comedy writer - what lacks from Sandler's films is a sense of caring or genuine interest in telling jokes and making films that do or say something. Though they've had both hits and misses, I applaud Rogen and Evan Goldberg for being genuinely intriguing comedic filmmakers that like to push the envelope with premises that are instantly attention-grabbing. Fictionalized versions of them and their friends waiting out the biblical apocalypse, two trash journalists sent to kill a sitting dictator, an animated film about talking food that swears - in my opinion, they're yet to top This is the End in terms of actually delivering on everything their premise entails, but these are ideas that are at least fun and interesting.

Most importantly, the jokes about dicks, race, and violence are not toward nothing. Rogen and his ilk typically engage in vulgarity for vulgarity's sake, and often times that's just about enough, because most of them have the comedic chops to pull it off. But here, there's something to be said for the film's use of over-the-top shock humor. The film primarily satirizes animated Disney films as well as blind faith in religion (yes, really), and its most over-the-top aspects serve both of these comedic aims. It is true that this film contains quite a few more racial stereotypes than past Rogen films (most of his work prefers to take potshots at his fellow Jews), but it's not like Adam Sandler where the humor is meant to derive just from the observation that these people are of a different ethnicity. It's there to make a point. Ultimately, taking from the Trey Parker and Matt Stone book, the film argues for the equal treatment of races, and uses these bizarre stereotypes as just one of its many tools of absurd-ifying every aspect of the satirical world it creates. In other words, the ridiculousness is meant to reflect the ridiculousness of our own world.

And really, this film's satire is the best thing going for it. Having an actual narrative goal to your over-the-top humor is a good cushion, and this film does it well, and it's funny as hell most of the time. For a film with an intriguing but admittedly flimsy and juvenile premise, Rogen and his team wring an impressive amount of genuine laughs. And it's not all relegated to penises and weed - there's some truly legendary food puns and wordplay, clever visual gags, self-referential meta-humor, and some great jabs at popular culture and the human condition in this film that starts off as a quick reversal of expectations for a computer animated film and soon becomes a surprisingly thoughtful meditation on theology, belief, and groupthink, as well as an open celebration of hedonism and gleeful nihilism that backs up an unbelievable amount of profanity and balls-to-the-wall insanity, especially in the third act.

Ultimately, the mass food orgy finale is not quite as much of a cop-out as the Backstreet Boys in heaven (Rogen has a tough time ending his comedies - it's all quite clever, but then he usually just goes for pleasantly silly at the end rather than wrapping his ideas together cleverly), and this is not gleefully offensive and shocking humor of the same satirical genius as South Park, but I'm impressed both with Rogen and his team's desire to incorporate some actual narrative ambition into such a juvenile premise, as well as his unabashed fearlessness as to what to put on a movie screen - though I guess after receiving death threats from North Korea, not much scares you as a filmmaker anymore. As someone who's seen a lot of non-mainstream adult animation filled with cursing and sex toward dramatic purpose rather than for laughs, as well as plenty of anime that can get pretty crazily violent, the novelty of animated things swearing and killing things and fucking each other wore off quickly, and there was a point where I felt like the filmmakers were relishing in their swearing cartoons maybe a little too much. But I know that for the average audience member in this neo-Puritan moviegoing society, this will be the first such foray into animated debauchery, and quite a shocking one at that, so I applaud Rogen and company for their courage on that front.

Overall, as I said before, if juvenile humor and button-pushing toward any purpose don't jibe with you, Sausage Party will not be your bag. It's offensive, profane, disgusting, and stupid - but also pretty clever and often very funny, at least in my opinion, and I have to give Seth Rogen and his crew some bonus points for sheer audacity and their commitment to cinematic anarchy. While this is not satirical shock-humor-with-a-purpose of the highest caliber, it's got some surprising tricks up its sleeve, and should be rewarded for possibly ushering in a new age of mainstream animated American entertainment for adults. If it sounds like something you're open to, check it out. I had a lot of fun.

Grade: B+

"Suicide Squad" Review

Suicide Squad is a superhero film directed and written by David Ayer and the third film in the DC Extended Universe, starring Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ike Barinholtz, Viola Davis, and Cara Delevingne. It follows the Suicide Squad, a group of supervillains banded together by Amanda Waller (Davis) to be used as pawns by the federal government to stop a potential evil Superman-like figure. In the event that an indestructible superpowered alien comes to Earth with the intent of destroying a city again, the cunning and clever Waller recruits Harley Quinn with a baseball bat and some nerds with guns as part of her flawless plan. In an effort to recruit, she accidentally unleashes Enchantress (Delevingne), an evil sorceress witch lady bent on retrieving her stolen heart and taking over the world with giant CG clouds and magic who can summon demons by belly-dancing. Will Smith plays Deadshot, who leads Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn and a team of ragtag antiheroes to fight this faux-terrorist attack that is all Amanda Waller's fault in exchange for leaner prison sentences. The Joker makes a special cameo appearance.

So, you'd probably guess from my snarky intro that I thought Suicide Squad was kind of silly. But you're wrong - I thought it was a huge mess. I'm actually inclined to give it a lower rating than I've ended up giving it because I've already been wronged by DC in this way before - only five months ago, actually. I still consider Batman v Superman to be the worse film, but they both suffer from many of the same core issues, all of which lead back to ineptitude on the part of Warner Bros. If anything, though, Suicide Squad is more frustrating because unlike BvS, I saw glimmers of things that could've been interesting or fun. So in a way, it was actually more disappointing.

Suicide Squad's first trailer sold it as what David Ayer's apparent original vision for the film was - a dark, thought-provoking action thriller about a team of misfit antiheroes employed by a sadistic cold-blooded government agent to take down other forces of evil. Evil working for secret evil to combat obvious evil. It works well with the whole almost neo-noir levels of nihilism and ambiguity regarding morals and justice in the Gotham/DC universe. Partway through marketing, though, the film suddenly became a sort of color-drained Guardians of the Galaxy for the Hot Topic crowd with blaring pop rock tunes, flashy zany characters, and tons of reshoots and re-cuts to compensate for the change after numerous test audiences found the original film to be too dark and upsetting. Warner Bros/DC panicked and created this instead, and the result is something that can only barely be called a finished product.

Now, knowing the backstory of this movie's cobbled-together production process and the unsettling influence of social media on its release is only gravy in the discussion of why this movie is bad, but it adds some healthy perspective as to where these flaws can be drawn from. The biggest and most glaring problem, to me, with this film is the editing and direction, most likely because these jobs were originally handled by one person each and then sent off to be redone by about seven or eight people in post. The film has almost zero flow, with jarring tonal shifts not just from act to act but from scene to scene. There are jittery flashbacks, awkward insertions of humor, and no structure to how the story is told - we're introduced to most of our characters in the first 30 minutes via Viola Davis's show-and-tell monologue, then introduced to most of them again in subsequent individual scenes, and then other main characters are haphazardly tacked on throughout the setup for the second act that is actually the setup for the real story of the film. Oh, and we don't get an action scene until about halfway through the movie.

Taking again from the playbook of Guardians (often right down to the actual choice of songs), this film is full with popular classic rock and pop songs. And by "full", I mean it has literally a couple dozen of them, and almost all of them feel inappropriately shoved in. Yet another symptom of post-completion studio meddling, many of the scenes feel like they were shot entirely separate from the song accompanying them, and so they often feel jarring and tonally inconsistent, and often these epic song breaks only last for about 30 seconds to underscore establishing shots. The film cuts off "Bohemian Rhapsody" before the atmosphere it creates really gets to go anywhere before fading into generic blockbuster score.

Entire sequences feel tacked on, such as a very awkward 30-second brawl between Harley Quinn and some faceless zombies in an elevator that progresses absolutely nothing in the story. By the way, the action feels just as jumbled as well - while DC has expanded their color palette vaguely beyond grays, blacks, and browns, almost all the scenes are unimpressively shot or borderline incomprehensible at times, and when they are visible, they're still toothless and tensionless. Lots of guns and punching, but very little stakes (probably because the film is too manic and jarring to establish any sort of comprehensible rising action).

We can talk forever about whether this movie is a product of a true visionary director having his vision taken from him by the studios, and David Ayer is admittedly much more of an auteur than Zack Snyder (though that's not saying much). But some fundamental script and structural problems, much like BvS, make me think that this movie wouldn't have been a complete success had it not been messed with afterward. That said, I'd be more willing to forgive muddled characters and incoherent storytelling, which aren't too uncommon in big blockbusters, if the presentation of such flaws was actually enjoyable.

To close out, let's talk about those characters, by the way. The standout performances by far were Robbie as Harley Quinn, Will Smith as Deadshot, and Jai Courtney as Boomerang, of all people. Along with Hernandez's Diablo, these are the four most interesting and entertaining characters, the former three because of their performances and the latter one because of his actually well-handled backstory. Robbie saves the under-written Harley with her comedic charm (although by the end of the film she gets too far into quippy territory and some of the humor is really reaching), and Jai Courtney manages to play a human being with a personality for the first time in cinematic history. Deadshot and Diablo are given appropriate backstories, unlike the vast majority of the characters who do almost nothing and who we are expected to believe are best friends after three hours of minor violence and are expected to fall in love with and care about after 80 minutes of scattershot psychedelic flashbacks. Enchantress is a laughable villain, both in writing and performance. It would've made perfect "so bad it's good" cringe fodder if this film had more fully committed to its wackiness (it becomes suddenly dark and emotional in the second half, especially during a nice bar scene, and it's actually enjoyable, but at that point completely unearned).

Fun fact: This shot is literally not even in the actual film.

The biggest disappointment by far is Jared Leto as the Joker, whom the marketing hyped up quite a bit. Apparently the majority of the footage for the Joker was left on the cutting room floor, primarily because audiences didn't like watching a bad guy abuse his girlfriend. I'm almost glad we didn't get to see much of the Joker though, because Leto's performance was a lot like Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, in that he tried to sell almost sexual writhing, growling, and eccentricity as mental instability and depth. It didn't work for Lex, and it doesn't work the Joker, and now we are entering a cinematic universe where the two biggest comic book supervillains of all-time are played by actors who read their lines like this guy from Foodfight.

Overall, Suicide Squad isn't nearly as dour and joyless as Batman v Superman, but is just as slapped together, incoherent, messy, sloppily written, and too much too early for the DC cinematic universe, which is now 0 for 3 for me. It has some decent performances and a few short moments that are cool, but these are too short and too few and far between to recommend sitting through the entire movie for them. Instead of constructing scenes that flow together in a coherent structure to tell a story, DC has focused on creating "moments" that are marketable and digestible at the expense of creating a story and characters that have actual weight or logic. It's not absolute unforgivable garbage or anything, but at least for me, it too often toed the line of boring and desperate, neither of which are favorable. If you're a DC fanatic and/or have loved the last two DCEU films, however, you will probably enjoy yourself seeing some likable characters come to life. I, on the other hand, can't say I'm too excited for whatever DC has in store.

Grade: C-