 Movie review: Bugonia
Although the possibility of alien life looms over proceedings in the latest film from Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness, The Favorite), it’s alienation that informs the dynamics. In this remake of the 2003 Korean sci-fi comedy, Save The Green Planet, the maximalist slapstick of the original is traded for a psychologically-intense battle of wills. The opening scenes show the morning routine of Teddy (Jesse Plemons), and his autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), contrasted with that of Michelle (Emma Stone). The former are working class and living in relative squalor, while the latter is an affluent healthcare CEO. While all parties are working on themselves, two of them are doing press ups in the dirt, the other has a personal trainer and hi tech lifestyle gadgets. Teddy and Don are shaping up to kidnap Michelle, convinced that she is an extraterrestrial being from Andromeda, who has caused medical harm to both Teddy’s mother specifically (via corporate malpractice), and the human race in general (via alien experimentation). They do so, and hold her captive in their basement, a situation that takes up most of the run time. Whether or not Michelle grew up 2.5 light years away, the difficulty of even basic communication is immediately apparent. Teddy has mostly withdrawn from society, and talks with anxious urgency as he fulfills his life’s work of setting up a meeting with the Andromedans. Michelle is steeped in neoliberal, workplace jargon, pleading for “a dialogue” as she is strapped into terrifying homemade monitoring devices. They talk over each other, never acknowledging the other’s stated reality. Tension mounts as the police start to show up. The officer is coincidentally an old babysitter of Teddy’s (Stavros Halkias) who wants to address some unspecified, shared personal trauma as he makes his enquiries. With Teddy occupied, Michelle starts to manipulate the emotionally-juvenile Don, and the kidnapping pair are forced into ever-more desperate measures as their plan starts to fall apart, and a bleak ending becomes increasingly inevitable. The three-handed, play-like scenes in the basement are dramatically enthralling, with Plemmons, Delbis and Stone all posting up award-bating performances. As the characters continue to frustrate each other, we’re given an allegory via Teddy’s bees. Environmental factors can lay waste to any hive, so if language has broken down and the world no longer has any shared meaning, does that mean colony collapse for human civilization? Is an existential alien threat any more damaging than our own societal implosion? Fans of Lanthimos will sense a slight change in cinematic timbre with Bugonia. His usual removed, stylized sensibilities are tempered somewhat. He needs us to at least somewhat relate to Michelle (and Teddy and Don to a lesser extent), and so there’s an artistic compromise of a more naturalistic approach to the acting. Your willingness to buy into the ending will likely dictate how highly you rate the third film in as many years from the director. The humor is being mined in some pretty dark corners - which is classic Lanthimos - but without his usual box of stylized tricks, it feels more raw. If humans can’t even communicate with each other, what are the chances of a unified front against an alien aggressor, real or imagined, to save this green planet? (PO) Bugonia is playing across the city.  Review: One Battle After Another
Fans of director Paul Thomas Anderson sometimes identify his filmography as being in drug-fuelled phases. There’s the ‘cocaine’ phase of Boogie Nights and Magnolia, with cameras whipping and zooming. Then the ‘weed’ phase of the more stationary There Will be Blood, The Phantom Thread and the nostalgic Licorice Pizza. With his latest, One Battle After Another, the weed is getting stronger and the paranoia is setting in. We open with a revolutionary group called the French 75 running riot as they free immigrants from federal facilities and blow up politicians’ offices. "Ghetto" Pat Calhoun (Leonardo di Caprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) lead the charge, the latter humiliating a military man, Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn). Lockjaw is depicted as being physically tense with bigotry, but develops a sexual obsession with Perfidia. He catches her planting explosives, offering her freedom for one night of motel sex. Peffidia gives birth to a baby girl, but abandons Pat and her new family. She remains active, getting caught again, eventually ratting out the French 75 and going into witness protection. Gang members are slain, the rest go into hiding, and Perfidia disappears. Cut to: 16 years later. Pat is now Bob Ferguson, a paranoid stoner and boozer. He’s bringing up daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti ) as best he can, and she’s independently learning self reliance and karate skills. It’s in the blood, after all. Also in her blood could be DNA from Lockjaw, though. He’s attempting to join an ultra-racist sect - The Christmas Adventurers Club - and an ‘impure’ bloodline just won’t do. What follows is two hours of tense mayhem, as Pat/Bob and Willa are forced into increasingly pressurised situations in light of Lockjaw’s personal mission, as well as general federal interest. Bob’s a little rusty, preferring to watch ‘The Battle of Algiers’ over activism. The weed has fried his brain, too, so he can’t remember old emergency code words to use with the underground resistance network or evade capture as nimbly as he used to. It’s a dynamic mix of humor (Bob running around like The Dude from The Big Lebowski, if The Dude had trained with the Bader-Mienhoff gang) and tension. Help comes in the form of Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), Willa's Karate teacher who is running “A Latino Harriet Tubman situation”. We get manic car chases, brutal violence and multiple reckonings. Based on Thoma Pynchon’s book ‘Vineland’, it’s half Coen Brothers-style romp and half ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ resistance flick. At almost three hours, we’re afforded time to develop character, but a good majority of the movie is action. Old revolutionary flames are reignited, but it’s all about whether Pat/Bob can keep the flame alive. (PO) The New Orleans Film Society (NOFS)has announced its Closing Night, Centerpiece and additional Spotlight Films for the 36th annual New Orleans Film Festival (NOFF), taking place in-person October 23-27 and virtually October 23-November 2 through the NOFF Virtual Cinema (available globally). All Access Passes, Six Film Passes, Student/Teacher Passes and Virtual Passes are now available for purchase, with Individual tickets on sale to NOFS members October 9 (12 PM CST) and general public on October 16 (12 PM CST). To view the complete NOFF film guide, visit neworleansfilmsociety.org/lineup-events.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH NOFF ARTISTSIC DIRECTOR CLINT BOWIE  Highest 2 Lowest
Review by Jeff DeRouen Like 2006’s Inside Man, Spike Lee’s new joint, Highest 2 Lowest, starts out as an action movie but ends its story as a fully formed allegory about morality and what we owe to each other on this planet. Lee is an expert in taking a high-concept thriller (which he executes brilliantly) and then, at the end of the movie, he drops us into his own moral universe where the auteur is not afraid to tell us, in no uncertain terms, what he believes and where he thinks the world should go. Lee’s frequent collaborator, Denzel Washington (who was robbed of an Oscar for Malcolm X), plays music mogul David King, a fading talent trying to get back on top, even though it may be time to pass the baton, sit back, and enjoy his money. David wants to interrupt the pending sale of his label, so he makes a risky move to get his company back, forcing him to leverage all his family’s finances. We see David slowly building the stakes of the movie (the deals, the promises, the risks) and Washington plays him cool like cucumber and mayonnaise noodle salad despite the enormous weight on his shoulders. David’s best laid plans are shot to hell, of course, when a loved one is kidnapped and held for ransom, putting his family and everything he's worked for in jeopardy. I don’t want to spoil any of the plot details except to say that the movie moves at a clip and shows off some of Spike Lee’s best work. There is a “money drop” sequence set to the music of Eddie Palmieri that is absolutely thrilling and worth the price of admission alone. There is also no question at this point: Spike Lee is THE New York City filmmaker. He adores the place and shoots the hell out of it; the Big Apple hasn’t looked this gorgeous on screen in a very long time. The cinematography alone is a VERY good reason (here we go) to get up, put on PANTS, and go OUT to the movies to see this limited run in the biggest way you can before the movie moves to AppleTV. The Prytania Uptown is, for my money, the best screen in New Orleans (beautiful 4K laser projection and Dolby Atmos sound) and starting this weekend, they’ll be playing Highest 2 Lowest alongside the film it’s based on, Akira Kurosawa’s classic High and Low. It’s an amazing opportunity to see two masters of cinema at the top of their game working with their muses, Denzel Washington and Toshiro Mifune. Is Highest 2 Lowest one of Spike’s masterpieces like Malcolm X or Do the Right Thing? Well, that’s for you to decide. In the end, the movie’s message may be a little too on the nose and perhaps heavy-handed to be held alongside those sophisticated works, but it’s authentic, very entertaining, and full of terrific performances (Geoffrey Wright has that supporting Oscar in his crosshairs, friends). I like that Spike still has something to say and knows how to say it loudly and with pride and, you know what? He ain’t wrong. For showtimes at the Prytania Theatre, click here  Weapons
Review by Jeff DeRouen Zach Cregger’s new movie, Weapons, is a delightfully disturbing and wicked little tale of a small town thrown into turmoil when a classroom of small children vanishes. Each kid inexplicably, and at the same time, got out of their beds while everyone slept, walked out of their homes, and then ran until they disappeared into the night. The mystery and how it affects the people of the small town is broken into chapters to give us six separate points of view of the events that unfold. The always exceptional Julia Garner plays the maligned teacher of the kids who’ve disappeared and is now under suspicion by everyone in town. She joins forces with the father of one of the missing kids (a powerful and moving performance by James Brolin) to solve the mystery and, as each chapter goes by, we go further and further into the darkness until it all comes full circle in a shockingly hilarious (in a horror movie?!) and totally satisfying ending. Plenty of the terminally online will fight with each other over the term “elevated horror” because, I guess, some people need to create a whole new genre to single out the best product. Some folks have not and will not ever give horror its due as a genre with bold ideas and artistic legitimacy. The genre, though, should be irrelevant in our expectations of a well-made film that holds our attention because of how it tells the story and doesn’t glide by with cheap and cliché elements. That’s not to say there aren’t jump scares here (there are and they WORK) but they are not cheap. The scares add to what are already exquisitely orchestrated scenes that maximize the edge Cregger knows he’s brought us to. Is there a deeper meaning to Weapons? Maybe! I don’t want to build it up so much that it doesn’t meet the hype, but it’s a great story whose first goal is entertainment and Cregger has a deep respect for the audience and what we THINK we want. It’s thrilling, funny, creepy, and gives Amy Madigan (whose character I wouldn’t dream of spoiling here) a platform to return to the big screen and deliver an insanely brilliant performance that should absolutely be given awards consideration. Weapons is EXACTLY the kind of movie I want to see: an original story told with expertly crafted filmmaking and terrific performances. I love where the horror genre is today and I look forward to going where visionaries like Zach Cregger want to take us because, honestly, it was really fun to scream out loud in a movie theater again.  Movie Review: The Naked Gun
By Jeff DeRouen Let me be absolutely clear: I adore disgusting jokes. For folks like me, there is no bar too low when it comes to what will elicit fits of laughter from us so jolting we struggle to contain our loud accidental farts like the character on screen trying to hilariously outrun the chili dog runs. I know this truth about myself because I am the primary source, the living data, telling you that The Naked Gun is so funny, the aforementioned “hypothetical” could happen to you. Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson lead a pack of serious actors like Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, and CCH Pounder, who completely commit to some of the stupidest, funniest, bits and jokes I’ve seen in a movie in years. A reboot like this could have been a lazy retread, but director Akiva Schaffer manages to stick to the old playbook (smartly) and keep the material fresh. Please don’t think I’m hailing this movie as a comedy masterpiece or a work of cinematic importance; it’s not, and that’s part of the charm. The Naked Gun isn’t meant to change your life, just your day. I hope that folks use this film as an opportunity to forget about all the pain in the world, the difficulty of making ends meet, and the constant onslaught of political propaganda. It’s ok to step out of the real world for a bit to find some joy, and The Naked Gun is a surefire way to make you smile – especially if you think poop is funny.  Fantastic Four: First Steps
Review by Jeff DeRouen Again, I’m not really the guy to analyze comic book movies because (aside from some obvious cinematic masterpieces) I look at them as pretty much all the same, really: little fables with a bunch of action, awesome special effects, and perfect entertainment for a Saturday afternoon. While Superman certainly delivers a more compelling and sharper script, Fantastic Four is the one for the WHOLE family to enjoy. The acting is fine, the script is on the nose but gets the job done, and there are truly exceptional elements in the movie. The effects are the best we’ve seen in a Marvel flick in a good while (Galactus, the villain, is huge and so cool to look at on the big screen) and folks are positively raving about the incredible production design by Kasra Farahani. He makes retro look fresh, and the colors pop off the screen. It’s slick and fun, but I disagree with the folks who are likening it to The Jetsons – this looks to me like if Disney’s Tomorrowland (the park, not the movie) got it right. By the way, Disney’s Tomorrowland got nothing right: we all want to kill each other, and the billionaires are gonna make that easier by unleashing AI overlords; no happy robots and moon colonies here. Look, if comic book movies aren’t your thing, there’s plenty out there to choose from. Adults who are looking for more substance should go see Eddington or 28 Years Later. Folks who want something a little smarter than the regular Hollywood fare, and also big and loud, should see Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning or even F1, but The Fantastic Four: First Steps is unabashedly for all ages. What I mean is it adequately covers all the bases: it’s perfect for the family unit, the young middle schoolers going on their first date, and college kids on mushrooms. There’s something for everyone. So get up, comb your hair, grab the nice underwear, and get out to the picture show!  Review by Jeff DeRouen
The question of how to use Covid and the reality of those “lockdown” days in entertainment has plagued the industry and artists since our collective masks came off. How do you portray a miserable time in everyone’s life where each day brought a new catastrophe in the world, a fresh social media battle, and hours of Andrew Cuomo talking out loud to no one on CNN. How do you begin to explore what all of that was and what it means now? If you’re Ari Aster, one of our greatest living filmmakers, you make Eddington, the story of a tiny town during the Covid epidemic and use that town as an allegory to show us exactly how insane we all really were and, sadly, still are. Aster’s brilliant new movie is hilarious, shocking, and guaranteed to join the ranks of great American satires like Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove and Altman’s Nashville. Joaquin Phoenix embodies Joe Cross, the Sherrif, who runs for mayor against his arch enemy and incumbent, Ted Garcia, played pitch perfectly by Pedro Pascal. Sheriff Cross is anti-mask where Mayor Garcia and the majority of folks in Eddington (who are not afraid to shame the maskless in public) want the mandates enforced. Add Black Lives Matter protests and performative white people to the mix and you get a VERY funny movie that no one knows if they should laugh with (you absolutely should). The movie feels and is shot like a modern western with echoes of legendary director John Ford and action maestro John Woo. After films like Hereditary, Midsommar, and the criminally underseen and appreciated dark comedy masterpiece, Beau is Afraid, Aster has become a master storyteller and changes the stakes of the film constantly. He keeps us on our toes trying to figure out who’s good and who’s bad or who’s right and who’s wrong: the answer is no one and everyone. The heat under the narrative gets turned up slowly until all the worst parts of ourselves and the conspiracies we believe and promote play out for us in the delightful third act that can only be described as “full blown bat shit”. We always say, “Hollywood needs to make more original movies” and here is one to support. I absolutely adore Eddington, but I understand it may not be everyone’s bowl of chilli. You may not like it (and that’s ok!) or even understand it, but you will not deny that Eddington is wildly imaginative, unpredictable and, good or bad, will have folks talking – the way good art is supposed to. And I just want to end this review by mentioning the magnificent Deirdre O’Connel who plays Joe’s mother-in-law. She was recently seen on HBO in a sensational performance as the Penguin’s mother and she does stellar work here as Joe’s mother-in-law, a delusional (maybe?) conspiracy believer. Go see this movie.  Superman
Review by Jeff DeRouen The thing is, I enjoy just about every comic book movie I see. I’m not a reader of the literature, so I don’t have an emotional connection to these characters. It doesn’t upset me when they “get it wrong” because I don’t really know what “getting it right” looks like. My day will never be impacted over what actor they pick or whether they explore the “awesome World War II storyline where he goes back in time – it’s so REAL, man!” period of the late sixties. In my eyes, what the filmmakers do with these properties comes down to one question: is it entertaining or not? Yes, filmmakers like Richard Donner took this story about flying people who can shoot rays out of body holes and created something beautiful and cinematic. Christopher Nolan took the pages of these comic books (by and large intended for children) and made three compelling, violent, and decidedly adult movies. They were heavy. Heavy is not what James Gunn is doing here: he’s taking us back to the books and embracing the ridiculous child-like world depicted there and in the cartoons. That doesn’t mean the film isn’t serious – there are moments, but Gunn’s Superman is fun, bright, and full of toy ideas. When Superman does get serious, it explores timely themes but certainly isn’t as heavy-handed or 'woke' as it’s been accused of being. It’s hard to justify calling how the film depicts immigrants and a pending ethnic cleansing something NEW or only of today. The struggle of the immigrant has been depicted in art since the beginning of, you know, art. In fifty years, the people who watch this movie will not think of Israel and Palestine, or the policies of the current presidential administration. They will think of whatever conflicts are happening then and reflect on how their world treats those seeking refuge. The themes Gunn explores in Superman are universal and timeless. Superman has always been a symbol for truth and justice – for morality and kindness – if you see yourself or your ideology in the BAD GUYS on screen, that’s on you, boo. Superman is the kind of movie where we get to let go, be entertained, and feel good about life – and we need that. If you want serious cinema, you’ll want to skip this one. If you’re a dad in his forties looking for a movie to take your kids to on a Saturday afternoon, boy, are you about to have a good time. This movie was made for you.  Checkered flagging: F1
Review by Jeff DeRouen When a studio wants to make a big, loud, fun summer movie, Joseph Kosinski is the guy to call. He made Top Gun: Maverick, so they know Joe is gonna bring the spectacle and pure entertainment – and if that’s what you’re looking for (who isn’t?!), F1 is perfect. However, if you like your beautiful sports car movie to have a very nice alternator or maybe transmission, then F1 needs a lot more under the hood. Or F1 is like driving a Corvette with a lawnmower engine. Or something like that. The movie stars the always charming Brad Pitt as aging race car driver, Sonny Hayes. Sonny agrees to race for his friend whose team needs help (the friend is embodied honorably by Javier Bardem wearing a blazer in every scene). There, Sonny meets the beautiful scientist (Kerry Condon) who’ll become his love interest and the cocky, young hothead played by Damson Idris, a rising talent that proves here that he can command a cinema screen. Damson’s character, Joshua Pierce, will hate Sonny, learn from him, then love him the way all the men in these movies do. The question: is it interesting? The answer is yes! Kind of. There are effective moments here, but nothing new to offer in the way of character objectives or development. The movie passes, and smartly never lets a scene run too long, but Ehren Kruger is a good writer, so it’s a shame that studios make scribes play these scripts so predictably. I know the guy who gave us Arlington Road can cook, and I wish studios would empower artists like him to break new ground or, at the very least, push boundaries with these narratives. The result would be better movies. The bottom line is that you’re gonna have a good time with this play-by-the-numbers action sports drama because what you’re there for is the racing and, oh boy, is it good. Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda do with the racetrack what they did with the sky in Top Gun. These guys put the audience in that car with those drivers, and it’s thrilling. See this movie (I say this every week because it’s TRUE) on the biggest screen possible and, I assure you, you will be white knuckling it through every turn. The technical innovations they employed and allowing their stars to ACTUALLY DRIVE the cars (thank you insurance!) gives the movie a fresh energy that can be exhilarating. I give F1 a confident green light and think it’s worth putting pants on and going to the theatre for the big screen experience. However, I wonder why Hollywood (with ALL of the writers in that town) can’t seem to offer something fresh with the characters in their tentpole scripts. It tells me what the studios think about the audience: that we don’t want them to deviate from the norm. They think we want that standard Hollywood structure filled with all the predictable Tinseltown clichés. I hope the enormous success of Sinners shows executives and bosses that we actually crave originality, because the hits are getting harder to sit through. |
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