Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Crisp Criticism - "Bohemian Rhapsody", "The Old Man & the Gun", "Indivisible", "Free Solo", "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot"


by
Julien Faddoul










Bohemian Rhapsody

A chronicle of the years leading up to Queen's legendary appearance at the Live Aid (1985) concert.
Endlessly fascinating in its abysmal awfulness: It falls upon every musical biopic cliche in the book, bungles easily recognisable historical inaccuracies, deals rather distastefully with Mercury’s homosexuality and contains some of the worst lines of spoon-feeding exposition ever committed to film.

d – Bryan Singer
w – Anthony McCarten, Peter Morgan
ph – Newton Thomas Sigel
pd – Aaron Haye
m – John Ottman
ed – John Ottman
cos – Julian Day

p – Jim Beach, Graham King, Bryan Singer, Brian May, Peter Oberth, Roger Taylor

Cast: Rami Malek, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Lucy Boynton, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, Mike Myers, Allen Leech, Aaron McCusker, Dermot Murphy, Meneka Das









The Old Man & the Gun **

Based on the true story of Forrest Tucker and his audacious escape from San Quentin at the age of 70 to an unprecedented string of heists that confounded authorities and enchanted the public.
Slight but infectious, almost irresistible tribute to its real-life criminal and the star who plays him. Lowery recreates the aesthetic of the 70s era films that Redford dominated in his prime.

wd – David Lowery   (Based on the Article by David Grann)
ph – Joe Anderson
pd – Scott Kuzio
m – Daniel Hart
ed – Lisa Zeno Churgin
cos – Annell Brodeur

p – James D. Stern, Dawn Ostroff, Jeremy Steckler, Anthony Mastromauro, Bill Holderman, Toby Halbrooks, James M. Johnston, Robert Redford

Cast: Robert Redford, Casey Affleck, Sissy Spacek, Danny Glover, Tika Sumpter, Tom Waits, Isiah Whitlock Jr, Robert Longstreet, Keith Carradine, John David Washington, Augustine Frizzell, Elisabeth Moss, Gene Jones












Indivisible

Upon returning from serving in the U.S. Army, a Chaplain faces a crisis that shatters his family and faith in God until his fellow soldiers help out with nonsensical platitudes that are supposed to sound like wisdom.
Christian evangelical nonsense; impassable to those who believe in anything even remotely contrary, and unsurprisingly incompetent on an artistic level.

d – David G. Evans
w – David G. Evans, Cheryl McKay, Peter White
ph – Bob Scott
pd – Darian Corley
ed – Jeff Canavan
cos – Anna Redmon

p – Darren Moorman

Cast: Justin Bruening, Sarah Drew, Jason George, Tia Mowry, Skye P. Marshall, Tanner Stine, Madeline Carroll, Michael O'Neill, Eric Close, Samara Lee












Free Solo **

Follow Alex Honnold as he becomes the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite’s 3,000 foot high El Capitan wall. With no ropes or safety gear, he completed arguably the greatest feat in rock climbing history.
Those who find extreme rock climbing and other alarmingly dangerous physical endeavours to be glorious human feats that should be celebrated at every instance will be enthralled by what is a fairly conventional National Geographic documentary. To one who comprehends differently – finding, instead, such endeavours like “free soloing” to be rather unastute, the psychology behind them to be imbecilic and the film’s central figure here to be an inarticulate dolt – it is best to focus on the excellently filmed and edited climbing sequences and not the dreary goings-on of a guy in his 30s with intimacy problems.

d – Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
ph – Jimmy Chin, Matt Clegg, Clair Popkin, Mikey Schaefer
m – Marco Beltrami
ed – Bob Eisenhardt

p – Jimmy Chin, Shannon Dill, Evan Hayes, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

Cast: Alex Honnold, Jimmy Chin, Tommy Caldwell, Sanni McCandless

















Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot *

On the rocky path to sobriety after a accident, an alcoholic discovers he loves drawing cartoons, which bring him a new lease on life.
Essentially an impetus for actors to play around with material, for the conversational scenes are virtually interchangeable within the the film itself (regardless of Van Sant’s fittering with chronology) and the performers in question are mostly playing against type. Some scenes are inspired but the film has very little to say about Alcoholism or 12-Stepping.

d – Gus Van Sant
w –  Gus Van Sant, John Callahan, Jack Gibson, William Andrew Eatman   (Based on the Book by John Callahan)
ph – Christopher Blauvelt
pd – Jahmin Assa
m – Danny Elfman
ed – David Marks, Gus Van Sant
cos – Danny Glicker

p – Charles-Marie Anthonioz, Mourad Belkeddar, Nicolas Lhermitte, Steve Golin

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara, Jack Black, Tony Greenhand, Beth Ditto, Mark Webber, Ronnie Adrian, Kim Gordon, Udo Kier, Carrie Brownstein, Ethan Tindukasiri




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