Sunday, April 5, 2020

Crisp Criticism - "Onward", "The Hunt", "The Invisible Man", "The Last Thing He Wanted", "Vitalina Varela", "Resistance" Retrospection - "Songs From the Second Floor" (2000)

by
Julien Faddoul






Onward **

In a suburban fantasy world, two teenage elf brothers embark on an extraordinary quest to discover if there is still a little magic left out there.
Lively Pixar feature that does absolutely nothing new, but like its director’s previous film it covers interesting emotional ground after a laggard start. One wishes that more was made out of its central fantastical universe, which seems mostly irrelevant.

d – Dan Scanlon
w – Dan Scanlon, Jason Headley, Keith Bunin
ph – Sharon Calahan, Adam Habib
pd – Noah Klocek
m – Mychael Danna, Jeff Danna
ed – Catherine Apple

p – Kori Rae

Cast: Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer, Mel Rodriguez






The Hunt


Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don't know where they are, or how they got there. They don't know they've been chosen - for a very specific purpose
Confused, didactic, fairly corny thriller-cum-political-allegory, clearly buoyed by the success of the two Jordan Peele films. The idea is an interesting one – The Most Dangerous Game as personated by heinous internet trolls – but the writing is just too consistently risible, with neither the left nor the right participates emanating any sense of reality.

d – Craig Zobel
w – Nick Cuse, Damon Lindelof
ph – Darran Tiernan
pd – Matthew Munn
m – Nathan Barr
ed – Jane Rizzo
cos – David Tabbert

p – Damon Lindelof

Cast: Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank, Ethan Suplee, Teri Wyble, Ike Barinholtz, Wayne Duvall, Emma Roberts, Christopher Berry, Sturgill Simpson, Kate Nowlin, Amy Madigan, Reed Birney, Glenn Howerton, Steve Coulter




 

The Invisible Man **

When a woman’s abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coincidences turn lethal, she works to prove that she is being hunted by someone nobody can see.
Effective thriller that comes together almost entirely through execution, with Whannell’s camera and Moss’ typically arresting nerve giving vigor to what is a fairly disorganized message on domestic violence.

wd – Leigh Whannell   (Based on the Novel by HG Wells)
ph – Stefan Duscio
pd – Alex Holmes
m – Benjamin Wallfisch
ed – Andy Canny
cos – Emily Seresin

p – Jason Blum, Kylie Du Fresne

Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, Michael Dorman, Harriet Dyer, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Benedict Hardie, Zara Michales, Renee Lim, Sam Smith, Nick Kici




 

The Last Thing He Wanted

A veteran D.C. journalist loses the thread of her own narrative when a guilt-propelled errand for her father thrusts her from byline to unwitting subject in the very story she's trying to break.
Terrible, supercilious adaptation of Dideon’s novel with shockingly inept staging and cutting from Rees. Every stab at profundity feels ad hoc, as if imposed at the last minute. 155 minutes of "What were they thinking?!"

d – Dee Rees
w – Marco Villalobos, Dee Rees   (Based on the Novel by Joan Didion)
ph – Bobby Bukowski
pd – Inbal Weinberg
m – Tamar-kali
ed – Mako Kamitsuna
cos – Ane Crabtree

p – Dee Rees, Cassian Elwis

Cast: Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Rosie Perez, Willem Dafoe, Edi Gathegi, Mel Rodriguez, Onata Aprile, Toby Jones, Carlos Leal, Ben Chase, Julian Gamble, Robert Sedgwick






Vitalina Varela ***

A Cape Verdean woman navigates her way through Lisbon, following the scanty physical traces her deceased husband left behind and discovering his secret, illicit life.
The apogee (and least inscrutable) of Costa’s austere, soul-grabbing Fontainhas cycle with all the characteristic variables: subterranean mise-en-scène, exquisite 4:3 compositions, dark Caravaggio-like use of lighting and a non-professional cast who all move around meditatively and never make eye contact with one another. Incredibly poignant, for those who are willing.

d – Pedro Costa
w – Pedro Costa, Vilatina Varela
ph – Leonardo Simões
ed – Vítor Carvalho, João Dias

p – Abel Ribeiro Chaves

Cast: Vitalina Varela, Ventura, Lina Varela, Manuel Tavares Almeida, Francisco dos Santos Brito, Imídio Monteiro, Marina Alves Domingues






Resistance

The story of a group of Jewish Boy Scouts, including Marcel Marceau, who worked with the French Resistance to save the lives of ten thousand orphans during World War II.
Another in the endless series of gross, syrupy dramedies of plucky people making a difference against the Nazis during WWII. This one is pretty embarrassing, despite its semi-factual basis. 

wd – Jonathan Jakubowicz
ph – MI Littin-Menz
pd – Tomas Voth
m – Angelo Milli
ed – Alexander Berner, Jonathan Jakubowicz
cos – Katharina Ost

p – Claudine Jakubowicz, Dan Maag, Thorsten Schumacher, Carlos García de Paredes, Patrick Zorer, Jonathan Jakubowicz

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Clémence Poésy, Matthias Schweighöfer, Félix Moati, Géza Röhrig, Karl Markovics, Vica Kerekes, Bella Ramsey, Ed Harris, Édgar Ramírez, Alicia von Rittberg




 

Songs From the Second Floor ***

In a European city, financial experts fiddle with unlikely solutions to an economic crisis while individuals suffer.
There is nothing quite like the films of Swedish director Roy Andersson. This one is an extraordinary work; it looks unflinchingly but with deadpan wit at the collapse of a society built on wealth and the desperate acts that result when the money runs out. A surrealist satire on modern society that proceeds by discontinuous tableau scenes, filmed in a vividly individual way, utilizing very long static takes. Andersson would repeat this style again with You, the Living (2009) and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2015), but this remains his sharpest. 

wd – Roy Andersson
ph – Jesper Klevenås, István Borbás
m – Benny Andersson
ed – Roy Andersson
cos – Leontine Arvidsson

p – Lisa Alwert

Cast: Lars Nordh, Stefan Larsson, Bengt CW Carlsson, Torbjörn Fahlström, Sten Andersson, Rolando Núñez, Lucio Vucina, Per Jörnelius, Peter Roth, Klas-Gösta Olsson, Nils-Åke Eriksson, Hanna Eriksson, Tommy Johansson, Sture Olsson, Fredrik Sjögren, Sandy Mansson






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