Crisp Criticism - "Justice League", "Murder on the Orient Express", "Brigsby Bear", "Brad's Status", "Good Time"

by

Julien Faddoul

Justice League

Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman's selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy.

A terrible film; suffers from the usual suspects tenfold; so damn hard to muster anything more to say about any of these garbage superhero movies.

d – Zack Snyder

w – Chris Terrio, Joss Whedon, Zack Snyder   (Based on the Characters Created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger, William Moulton Marston, Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel)

ph – Fabian Wagner

pd – Patrick Tatopoulos

m – Danny Elfman

ed – David Brenner, Richard Pearson, Martin Walsh

cos – Michael Wilkinson

p – Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder, Jon Berg, Geoff Johns

Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher, Ciarán Hinds, Jesse Eisenberg, Amy Adams, Amber Heard, JK Simmons, Jeremy Irons, Willem Dafoe, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, Kiersey Clemons

Murder on the Orient Express

Hercule Poirot investigates a crime on the Orient Express.

A farrago: An adaptation and remake that the world doesn’t need, with zero life and allure given to Christie’s indelible characters, prompted by borderline erratic direction from Branagh, who has developed an aesthetic obsession - as also evidenced with Cinderella (2015) - with cut glass for some reason.

d – Kenneth Branagh

w – Michael Green   (Based on the Novel by Agatha Christie)

ph – Haris Zambarloukos

pd – Jim Clay

m – Patrick Doyle

ed – Mick Audsley

cos – Alexandra Byrne

p – Kenneth Branagh, Mark Gordon, Judy Hofflund, Simon Kinberg, Michael Schaefer, Ridley Scott

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Leslie Odom Jr, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Derek Jacobi, Lucy Boynton, Sergei Polunin, Olivia Colman, Tom Bateman, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo

Brigsby Bear *

Brigsby Bear Adventures is a children’s TV show produced for an audience of one – a young man who has been kept captive his whole life after being kidnapped as an infant. Once he’s released, he sets out to finish the story himself.

A potentially brilliant idea is never executed with the right tone – or any sense of tone, really. Some comedic idiosyncrasies work fine, but the film’s eventual plunge into foreseeable sweetness proves surprisingly banal.

d – Dave McCary

w – Kevin Costello, Kyle Mooney

ph – Christian Sprenger

pd – Brandon Tonner-Connolly

m – David Wingo

ed – Jacob Craycroft

cos – Sarah Mae Burton

p – Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer, Billy Rosenberg, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Will Allegra, Mark Roberts

Cast: Kyle Mooney, Claire Danes, Mark Hamill, Greg Kinnear, Andy Samberg, Matt Walsh, Michaela Watkins, Chance Crimin, Jane Adams, Ryan Simpkins, Jorge Lendeborg Jr

Brad’s Status *

A father takes his son to tour colleges on the East Coast and meets up with an old friend who makes him feel inferior about his life's choices.

An occasionally amusing comedy that seems stagnated by a sense that its protagonist’s discontent may come across as white privilege whining. If it does, it’s infrequent but the whole is certainly feckless.

wd – Mike White

ph – Xavier Grobet

pd – Richard Hoover

m – Mark Mothersbaugh

ed – Heather Persons

cos – Alex Bovaird

p – David Bernad, Dede Gardner, Sidney Kimmel, Brad Pitt, Mike White

Cast: Ben Stiller, Austin Abrams, Jenna Fischer, Michael Sheen, Luke Wilson, Jemaine Clement, Shazi Raja, Luisa Lee, Mike White, Adam Capriolo, Xavier Grobet

Good Time ***

After a heist goes awry, a bank robber tries to free his mentally-disabled brother from prison, all in one night.

The Safdie’s best film so far: Narratively, a series of sordid dead-ends, all of which are electrifyingly rendered in a way to note on issues of race, drugs and the intellectually disadvantaged. It also gains immeasurably from Pattinson’s performance as the most opportunistic of shrewd creeps.

d – Ben Safdie, Joshua Safdie

w – Joshua Safdie, Ronald Bronstein

ph – Sean Price Williams

pd – Sam Lisenco

m – Oneohtrix Point Never

ed – Ben Safdie, Ronald Bronstein

cos – Miyako Bellizzi, Mordechai Rubinstein

p – Oscar Boyson, Sebastian Bear-McClard, Terry Dougas, Paris Kasidokostas Latsis

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Ben Safdie, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Barkhad Abdi, Buddy Duress, Taliah Webster, Necro, Peter Verby