Four Kids and It - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Make room for ‘Four Kids and It’

Directed by:  Andy De Emmony

Written by:  Simon Lewis and Mark Oswin, based on Jacqueline Wilson’s novel

Starring:  Paula Patton, Matthew Goode, Michael Caine, Russell Brand, Ashley Aufderheide, Teddie-Rose Malleson-Allen, Billy Jenkins, and Ellie-Mae Siame

“Four Kids and It” – “Here’s the story…of a lovely lady…who was bringing up (two) very lovely girls.”  

Alice (Paula Patton) is a struggling single mom, and her primary source of distress emanates from her oldest daughter Samantha (Ashley Aufderheide).  She goes by Smash and is duly named because this tyrannical teenager is angrier than Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) after classmates infamously humiliated her at the prom.   Yea, Smash is that irate, although mass murder - rest assured – is a stretch and not included in this narrative. 

Still, her parents’ divorce torments her.  Anyone within shouting distance of this human-tornado of rage and misery will need a healthy supply of earplugs and oceans of patience.  For the record, Alice’s much younger daughter Maudie (Ellie-Mae Siame) might be the lone person immune to Smash’s explosions, as this kindergarten-aged, kindhearted kid goes with the flow. 

Speaking of oceans and flows, Alice takes her girls on a trip to the coast.  This American triad lives in England, and they head to Cornwall, which is THE southwestern corner (or the chin) of the United Kingdom.  A gorgeous, spacious summer cottage, bright sunshine, a blue ocean, and scenic bluffs greet them, but three other surprises await:  Alice’s new boyfriend David (Matthew Goode) and his kids Ros (Teddie-Rose Malleson-Allen) and Robbie (Billy Jenkins). 

For some inexplicable reason – that defies the laws of logic, physics, and happiness - Alice and David thought this revelation-vacation was a genius idea, but when two frustrated teens (Smash and Ros) long for their other parents, summer sunbathing on a bed of rattlesnakes in Death Valley seems like a better choice.

No, these youngsters need an escape, and thankfully, director Andy De Emmony provides one in “Four Kids and It”, based on Jacqueline Wilson’s 2012 novel that was inspired by Edith Nesbit’s 1902 book “Five Children and It”. 

This whimsical film – about the four aforementioned kiddos meeting a magical being (voiced by Michael Caine) who grants wishes - is a nice diversion for parents and younger kids.  Although, prepare for a noisy, chaotic first act due to the earthquake and aftershocks of the two families’ initial assembly.  De Emmony raises a sledgehammer and whacks the audience with this point over and over, and Smash might be the most unlikable teenage film character since Scut Farkus chased Ralphie and Randy in “A Christmas Story” (1983).  Her lack of decorum quickly rubs off on the reserved Ros, as Alice and David’s parenting/refereeing skills have all the effectiveness of decaf coffee during an all-nighter. 

It’s all a bit chaotic, but the nearby beach is serene, where this youthful tetrad encounters Psammead (Caine).  Out of the sand, a greenish-yellowish E.T.-sized wonder – a cross between Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch and The Lorax (minus a bushy mustache) - appears.  Psammead (pronounced Sam-e-ad) offers a calming presence away from mom and dad, and he’s capable of conjuring boisterous wonders.  He’s an ancient wizard of sorts who sounds like Alfred from Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” trilogy. 

He warns these four about the limits of their fanciful requests, but when one stares at a cartoonish and gentle – but admittedly odd – wise man with the ability to grant any life-craving idea, the rules of the road fly out the window and off the beach.

The children, as expected, embrace these bizarre, surreal reprieves from their unconventional 2020 family dynamics, but promises of big dreams also provide life lessons.  In other words, Ros and Smash could mend their troubled relationship.  The script, however, doesn’t give Maudie and Robbie meaningful arcs, but at least they offer moral compasses when the older kids get a little lost in the clouds.   

Aside from a couple of stray detours, the “Four Kids and It” marches on clear paths and finds its way. 

The children’s relationships with each other may evolve for the better.  With good reason, because a wealthy recluse Tristan Trent (Russell Brand) pops up and presents himself as a clear adversary, as his condescending, shifty tones complement a vast taxidermy collection in his dusty mansion.  When Tristan invites Alice, David, and the youths over – like a Bond villain extending civilities before lowering some booms - he asks, “Have you come across anything unusual?”

Ros retorts, “Other than you, you mean.”

Yes, these opponents draw their lines in the sand.

Since screenwriters Simon Lewis and Mark Oswin set up Smash and Ros as combatants, the girls’ warm turns to Psammead and their cold impressions of Tristan help forge their bond.  Alice and David hold a different story.  Patton and Goode play their characters like a lovesick pair of Keystone Cops.  Sure, this couple competently steals a few, brief moments of affection, but they rarely know their kids’ whereabouts and finding cell service becomes a monumental accomplishment.  They play clueless parents, as seen in many family movies (i.e., Kate and Peter McCallister (Catherine O’Hara and John Heard) from “Home Alone” (1990)), but at least Alice and David are located on the same continent with their offspring, so there’s that.  

Still, they are a likable pair, and quite frankly, we need mom and dad to keep their distance, so Smash, Ros, Maudie, and Robbie can work their way into and out of mischief.

These young people do take a weird time travel detour that feels way out of place, and if the movie’s runtime increased from 110 to 140 minutes, perhaps it wouldn’t feel shoehorned.  The book probably dives into a much larger narrative thread, but like any novel-to-film adaptation, the editing can sometimes cut deep. 

“Four Kids and It” is a light, family affair, but admittedly, it’s sometimes clumsy and predictable.  In a way, the movie is similar to a nearly-two-hour “The Brady Bunch” episode.  The Bradys may have cornered the nostalgia-market, but Patton, Goode, Aufderheide, Malleson-Allen, and Brand completely bought into the material, and their can-do efforts shine on-screen.  Add Caine’s much-appreciated voice work, and with “Four Kids and It”, you have a pleasant afternoon on your hands.  No wishes are needed.

(2.5/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Tony Leung Will Break Your Heart by Jen Johans

Soulful, stirring, and often somber, even when he isn’t playing a lover, Tony Leung will break your heart. Famously dubbed by “The Times” in London as “Asia's answer to Clark Gable,” the Hong Kong native (whose full name is Tony Leung Chiu-wai) is one of the most acclaimed and adored actors of his generation. 

Routinely reading his scripts at least forty times before – as he confessed to “The Guardian” – possibly calling the writer in the middle of the night with his thoughts, for Leung (who celebrates his birthday on June 27), acting is not so much a profession as it is his addiction . . . as well as his therapeutic recovery.

Giving him an outlet for the feelings he'd been holding onto since he was a shy, repressed child whose gambler father had walked out on the family when Leung was just six-years-old, the ability to exorcise his emotions under the guise of playing someone else hooked him as soon as he signed up for an acting course at the age of nineteen.

Quickly finding stardom on the small screen in the early 1980s as the protagonist of the popular series “Police Cadet” – opposite his soon-to-be frequent leading lady Maggie Cheung – Tony Leung was one of five up-and-coming young male stars who were labeled “TVB's Five Tigers,” which you could liken to Hong Kong television's answer to the Brat Pack.

Making the move to film, Leung found his way into early critically and commercially successful ventures like Taiwanese helmer Hou Hsiao-hsien's Venice Film Festival award-winner “A City of Sadness” in 1989 and John Woo's “Hard Boiled” in 1992.

Reuniting with Woo two years after he worked with the director on his personal opus “Bullet in the Head," in the now contemporary crime classic “Hard Boiled," Leung was cast opposite one of Hong Kong's biggest box office draws, Mr. Chow Yun-fat.

A veteran performer who'd starred in the epic crime series “A Better Tomorrow,” and “The Killer,” both of which had turned him and Woo into huge box office sensations, it was Chow who was given the undisputed lead role in Woo's final Hong Kong “bullet ballet” before the director made the move to Hollywood.

The end result marked a decidedly different outing for the filmmaker. Criticized for glamorizing killers in his earliest films with Chow, in “Hard Boiled” – which underwent copious changes in its 123-day shoot after the death of screenwriter Barry Wong – Woo opted to use the same formula he'd had success with before, only this time with a police officer in the role of the protagonist.

Not playing a hitman or gangster this time but a hard-headed, impetuous cop nicknamed “Tequila” who's eager to bring down the Triads responsible for his partner's death, just as he did in “A Better Tomorrow” and “The Killer,” it's the wildly charismatic Chow Yun-fat who has the showiest role in Woo's film.

Yet, written as a cross between Don Johnson in “Miami Vice” and Bruce Willis in “Die Hard,” as marvelous as he is in “Hard Boiled,” because it's missing the same quiet poetry of his romantic antihero in “The Killer,” the film's soul is found less in Chow's lead than it is in the subtly mesmerizing turn by supporting player Tony Leung. And with this in mind, on repeat viewings, you'll notice that it's Leung who manages to sneak in and – while you're being dazzled by Chow's ability to fend off a hospital full of armed assassins while cradling newborn babies – manages to sail away with your heart. In fact, the first person to acknowledge this was Chow himself who felt like the film's final cut removed some important moments for his admittedly one-dimensional character to show the depth of his feelings, which is why Leung's supporting turn rings so true.

At least partially inspired by Alain Delon's character in Jean-Pierre Melville's crime classic “Le Samuraï,” “Hard Boiled” finds Leung in the type of coolly contemplative role that has since become synonymous with the star while playing a police officer who's been on a deep undercover assignment with the Triads for far too long.

Torn by his allegiance to two father figures on both sides of the law who ask him to kill and protect in equal measure, the only peace Leung finds is from living a solitary life on his boat. Docked in the bay, much like his yacht, Leung is forever waiting to set out for a new life on a new land far away from everything he knows and wants to forget. Making paper cranes as a form of penance and acknowledgment of the lives he's taken, Leung's tragic yet compelling internal struggle adds emotional depth to what is otherwise a completely awe-inspiring work of action filmmaking.

Giving him the more romantic inclinations that wouldn't have been out of place for Chow's killer in “The Killer,” even though it's Chow who's in an on-again, off-again relationship with his superior (Teresa Mo) in “Hard Boiled,” it's Leung who sends her white roses and coded Elvis lyrics when he needs to convey a message to the police department.

And in this respect, Leung's performance in “Hard Boiled” marks a terrific precursor to his staggering turn in Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's 2002 “Infernal Affairs” trilogy, which was remade by Leung's favorite American filmmaker – Martin Scorsese – as “The Departed” in the states with Leonardo DiCaprio in the Leung role.

A top-notch work of Hong Kong cop noir and a great introduction to Leung for new film fans hoping to see something a little more western minded before they venture onto the actor's more daring art films, even though it was made twenty-eight years ago, “Hard Boiled” still feels fresher than most CGI heavy, assembly-line manufactured action movies being released today.

But as great as he is at adding hidden layers to his co-lead or supporting characters in his mainstream Hong Kong fare, it's the lovers that most come to mind when you think of Tony Leung and doubly so when you look back on his heyday in the '90s and early '00s.

So fiercely devoted to his craft that he'll learn anything for the right collaborator, film, and/or role, when it came time to meet up once again with his most frequent director Wong Kar-wai in Argentina for the gorgeous gay love story "Happy Together" in 1997, Leung took up not only the tango but also Spanish. Still, this was not the only time he would adopt a whole new language for a role. Most notably, Leung learned Mandarin for Zhang Yimou's 2002 stunner "Hero," which, despite being dubbed in the final release, paid off for Leung five years later when he spoke Mandarin in Ang Lee's startling film "Lust, Caution."

Yet, regardless of the dialect that Leung takes on in the multilingual "Happy Together," fans of Wong Kar-wai know that his films are truly universal. Dedicated to the human connection we need and crave in others (director Sofia Coppola is a huge fan), Wong's movies speak a language we immediately understand – a language Leung is more than fluent in throughout his filmography – the language of love.

"Let's start over." Habitually said by his “Happy Together” character's flighty lover (played by Leslie Cheung) whenever he hopes to reunite with Leung's romantically drained lead and begin anew, “let's start over” is the refrain that holds the pair in each other's orbit after they venture from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires and break up yet again.

Knowing that he can no longer let himself backslide into a relationship where the two men's affection for one another is outweighed by suspicion and mistrust, by the end of the film that garnered Wong Kar-wai the prize for Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, Leung's protagonist knows that in order to start over, he's going to have to ignore the “let's” and go it alone.

Watched in quick succession with Woo's “Hard Boiled,” the parallels are obvious between his '92 solitary protagonist and the conflicted one he plays here who's heartbroken by his lot in life and his relationships with others, from his ex-lover to his father to a co-worker with possible romantic potential. And indeed, the double-edged sword of promise and penance wrapped up in the phrase “let's start over” seems to apply not only to his “Happy Together” character in one of Leung's strongest performances to date but to all of the men he's played for Woo, Wong, Zhang, Lee, and beyond.

Yet although his collaborations have been legendary, in the more than half a dozen films they've made together over the past three decades, in the end, it's Wong Kar-wai who seems to best understand how to use Leung's penchant for emotional complexity to disarm viewers and draw them in. Famous for his chaotic productions which find Wong shooting without a script – and often with only a kernel of an idea as to who each character should be which might change multiple times during the improvisational shoot as the actors feel things out with his guidance – the trust and respect the two have for one another is unmatched.

While “Happy Together” marked one of Leung's most soulful performances for the filmmaker, the actor is perhaps most famous for Wong's “Chungking Express” – where he played a lovesick cop so distracted by an ex that he nearly misses the chance at a new love – and the director's 2000 masterpiece “In the Mood for Love.” Starring in the latter as a repressed married man living in 1960s Hong Kong who develops an attraction to the wife of the man his wife is having an affair with (played by Maggie Cheung), "Mood" finally garnered Tony Leung the award for Best Actor from the Cannes Film Festival that everyone assumed would've been his three years before for “Happy Together.”

Skilled at bringing to life his own unique brand of morally and internally beleaguered men who fall in love without trying and want to start over but can't until they figure out what (and who) it is that they truly want, Leung shined exceptionally bright in Zhang Yimou's 2002 film “Hero" as the epitome of this type of role.

Inspired by Jing Ke's assassination attempt on the King of Qin which took place in 227 B.C., in “Hero,” Jet Li's nameless swordsman regales the king with tales of his successful battles against three of the man's most wanted enemies, including a man named Broken Sword (Leung) who fights alongside his lady love Falling Snow (played once again by Maggie Cheung).

A secondary supporting character whose true motives are uncertain for nearly two-thirds of the stylish wuxia feature, as Li shares his version of the events that brought him to the palace, we see the plot involving Leung's character unfold a handful of different ways as Li's narrative evolves from start to finish.

Is Broken Sword a jealous, possessive lover who acts impetuously and seduces Zhang Ziyi out of brokenhearted spite at Cheung's one-night affair with Donnie Yen? Is he a resigned, peaceful man who's outgrown life as a warrior? Or is he something else entirely – something that exists halfway between the two poles?

Leung's performance in “Hero” is passionate, ponderous, and (once again) predominantly quiet. A subtle turn overall, Broken Sword allows the actor to play both sides of the same solitary, zen-like coin of the man he's embodied for most of his career – a man who's looking to start again but doesn't completely know how to do so.

A gripping, somber, and lushly beautiful epic that found Leung and Cheung hired by Zhang precisely because he loved their chemistry in Wong's “In the Mood for Love,” the fascinating “Hero” questions how history is made and asks whether a sacrifice crafted from love carries just as much weight as one made of sword and blood.

Much like “Hard Boiled,” and “Happy Together,” “Hero” is proof once again that – having perfected silence as a child only to live to manifest his repressed emotions as an adult – Tony Leung plays thoughtful, quietly tormented men better than nearly anyone since Robert De Niro. (Thus, it should come as no surprise that De Niro and Leung are mutual fans of each other's work.) Always ready to learn a new skill and speak a new language besides – of course – love, in his richest and most daring performances, Tony Leung puts everything on the line to break your heart while also risking his own. He's the addiction as well as the cure.

Bio: A three-time national award-winning writer, when Jen Johans isn't reviewing movies at FilmIntuition.com or releasing new episodes of her podcast “Watch With Jen,” you can find her on Twitter @FilmIntuition.

Irresistible - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Chris Cooper, Brent Sexton, and Steve Carell in “Irresistible”

‘Irresistible’ successfully explores big, twisted political practices in Small Town, USA

Written and directed by:  Jon Stewart

Starring:  Steve Carell, Rose Byrne, Chris Cooper, Mackenzie Davis, Topher Grace, and Natasha Lyonne

“Irresistible” – “He’s a church-going Bernie Sanders with bone density.” – Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell)

Mr. Zimmer, a Democratic strategist, describes Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper) of Deerlaken, Wisc. with the enthusiasm of an obsessed teenager yearning for a dance with the prom queen.  Jack, however, is no demure beauty.  He’s a farmer, a retired U.S. Marine Colonel, and a widower.  In other words, Gary sees this man as a perfect candidate, one who the Dems could use after Donald Trump’s 2016 famous – or infamous, depending upon your perspective – success.  In Gary’s mind, if he can convince Col. Hastings to run for mayor of Deerlaken and win, they could spark a new perception of the Democratic Party throughout the nation and inspire more victories down the road.

It’s not difficult to deduce that “Irresistible” is a political film.  It may pleasantly surprise you that the former “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, who knows a thing or two about comedy and the United States’ political machinery, wrote and directed this movie, his second.  Stewart plays on the country’s state of affairs in a few universes currently swallowing it up.

Big cities versus Rural townships

This culture clash - that began when architects and engineers thought up multiple story buildings and housing congregated within close, confined spaces and then put pen to paper and equations to brick and mortar – plays out in a Midwestern farming and mom-and-pop business community.  It’s a place where a bar hosts local fellas, like the Two Mikes (Will Sasso and Will McLaughlin), and a little coffee shop on Main Street includes addicting, fruit-filled streusel on their menu. 

Gary decides to call this place home for a while and attempts to blend in by driving an American rental car and drinking domestic alcoholic beverages at the said watering hole.  He wants to befriend the Two Mikes and Ann (Blair Sams) from the humble caffeine stop, but he cannot find his go-to D.C. creature comforts.  Downtown Deerlaken has more boarded-up business than open ones, and for everyday farm life, let your imagination tiptoe through the cowpies.  Meanwhile, Carell shines with his character’s sarcasm and disgust, when Gary frequently mumbles under his breath, but we can hear him. 

Blue versus Red

These days, when looking at an electoral map - for nationwide, statewide, or perhaps countywide races - blue and red are the binary colors.  Democrats claim the former and Republicans maintain the latter.  Even though our brains hold these associations, this wasn’t always the case. 

In an informative Nov. 2016 The Washington Post article titled “Red and Blue: A history of how we use political colors”, this American standard only recently became unofficially official during the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election.  Surprising, right?  In 1976, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) designated Republican-won states in yellow.  Yellow?  Pollster Frank Luntz had to be displeased when watching the returns as a kid. 

This race isn’t for kids, and Gary’s chief nemesis, Republican strategist Faith Brewster (Rose Byrne), arrives in town to prop up Mayor Braun (Brent Sexton) and his reelection efforts.  In the process, she unleashes an arms race.  Byrne is so good as a sharp-tongued killer.  She’s a hell-bent cutthroat who doesn’t need to raise her voice to slash her opponents to ribbons, either on grand stages or in close conversations.  Gary and Jack are her main targets.  That’s not exactly true, because Mr. Zimmer and Ms. Brewster primarily combat in delightfully derisive discourse, while Jack is usually somewhere else.

Faith repeatedly outfoxes Gary, when delivering her verbal jabs and right hooks, and producers and directors have proudly cast Byrne in several comedies over the last decade.  Rose seems at her best when playing the villain ((“Bridesmaids” (2011) and “Spy” (2015)), although she’s also a breath of fresh air as a protagonist (“X-Men: First Class” (2011) and “Instant Family” (2018)) too. 

Old School versus New School

The two previous themes offer chuckles and laughs, but Stewart turns to the actual mechanics of running a campaign through old school techniques (like phone banking) and new school ones as a dramatic device to prove a point:  money and technology drive almost everything.  These copilots have always fueled politics, but since the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC, they’ve done so while on human growth hormone and Monster Energy drinks.  Super PACs and also superhuman analytics - similar to the exceedingly complex derivatives that ignited the 2008 financial crash or personal data collected by HYDRA in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014) – have contaminated the system. 

Stewart goes to vast extremes, and since “Irresistible” is a comedy, his approach makes a lot of sense, but the film slips into cartoonish, groan-inducing territory a couple of times, including a bizarre billionaire donor stopping in Gary’s office to drop off a massive contribution.  Okay, we get it.

Exploring the analytical inner workings feels informative though, and Topher Grace and a somewhat-unrecognizable Natasha Lyonne deliver several helpings of snide, condescending remarks.

This twisted 21st-century soup should agree with politically-interested audiences, and the flavors speak to aw-shucks films when comedic pairs throw barbs under competitive circumstances.  “Irresistible” isn’t in the same league as a classic Hepburn-Tracy flick, but Carell and Byrne’s comedic chemistry is on point.  Cooper’s Jack may tumble into supporting territory, but his on-screen daughter Diana (Mackenzie Davis) toes the line for the Hastings.  No, Davis isn’t punching out a relentless cyborg (“Terminator: Dark Fate” (2019)), but she keeps Gary honest, when he often patronizes the town or its residents. 

Hey, Gary doesn’t realize that he’s doing it.  He’s trying to find a comfortable middle ground between wanting a macchiato with almond milk, cinnamon and a splash of caramel and listening to Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy”. 

Hey, politics is a tricky business.

(3/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Irresistible - Movie Review from Monte Yazzie

Steve Carell and Rose Byrne in “Irresistible”

Dir: Jon Stewart

Starring: Steve Carell, Mackenzie Davis, Rose Byrne, Chris Cooper, Brent Sexton, and Topher Grace

Comedian Jon Stewart, at one point during his cable television tenure as the host of the “Daily Show”, was one of the most vocal political news correspondents and satirists during the 2000s. Stewart and the “Daily Show” team tackled everything from Presidential elections to small-town blunders with a combination of honesty and humor and many times a wealth of sarcasm. It seems the perfect combination of elements to craft a biting narrative about the sordid world of the electoral process which is the focus of Mr. Stewart’s second feature film “Irresistible”, an often maddening, sometimes funny, and on occasion completely out of touch comedy.

Gary Zimmer is a Democratic political strategist who worked on the Clinton campaign in 2016, the results were not in his favor and Gary has been looking for the next campaign scheme to get his party into the driver’s seat for the next election. The hope he is looking for comes from Deerlaken, Wisconsin in the way of a veteran named Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper) whose impassioned speech about the rights for undocumented workers at his town meeting when viral on the internet.

Gary understands that there is a disconnect with the Democratic party and middle America, Jack Hastings could be the solution of relatability and reliability as a Democrat contender for Mayor in Deerlaken. Gary brings the political campaign machine to the small town, in tow is major national attention and big-city money. It doesn’t take long for the opposing party affiliates to see Gary and Jack as a threat, they send their own consultant superego to Deerlaken in the form of Faith Brewster (Rose Byrne) to build a campaign to retain the Republican stronghold.

There is a moment in the film when a political ad runs for Jack and all the familiar key elements are present; the patriotic music, the old red, white, and blue waving in the background, Jack positioned in a place of authority in the corner frame. The difference here is the image of a Democratic candidate firing a semi-automatic weapon in the forest, with the final sentiment being that very familiar “I approve of this message” look into the camera. It’s a rather comical moment that has the perfect mix of satire and sarcasm. There a few more moments just like this, along with a few perfect insights about the chaos of campaign strategy and the ridiculous money involved that give “Irresistible” some clever comedic crossovers with real-world concerns.

Unfortunately, there are also quite a few moments when the film just doesn’t find the focus for its purpose. A misguided romantic subplot between Steve Carell and Mackenzie Davis encumbers the pacing and much of the political swings and jabs are surrendered for easy targets that lack the depth of the issue being handled.

Steve Carell and Rose Byrne are great together here, many of their expletive-filled banters are hysterical. Chris Cooper is always reliable and here he does a fine job of being the everyman trying his best to please those around him while maintaining his moral compass. A great moment that takes place in a swanky New York City high-rise provides a nice visual representation of the process of procuring donations, it allows Cooper the opportunity to give a speech about wealth and the common man.

“Irresistible” has enjoyable qualities that inevitably outweigh the complaints of this film not taking more chances with its comedic political punches. The cast is great and the story remains engaging because of the characters. While it may not feel in the same focused and charged vein as what Jon Stewart was doing during his “Daily Show” days, it’s still a fun and sometimes insightful look at the measures our country takes to find and support the perfect candidate.

Monte’s Rating
3.00 out of 5.00

You Should Have Left - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Kevin Bacon in ‘You Should Have Left’ © 2020 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Dir: David Koepp

Starring: Kevin Bacon, Amanda Seyfried, Geoff Bell, and Avery Tiiu Essex

Take a moment and think about how many people have stayed in a hotel room before you? How about a new house? What kind of people lived there before you? How many birthdays were celebrated? Did anything terrible happen inside the house?

The haunted house subgenre has seen its fair share of bumps in the night and scary ghosts in the closet, but these stories have stood the test of time and continue to thrive today, look no further than the success of “The Conjuring” for proof. Because of their effectiveness to create atmosphere, provide space for scares, and create designs that feel like mazes to get lost in, the haunted house film will always be a vessel to explore for filmmakers. Simple stated, houses are scary.

The mysterious house in David Koepp’s new horror/thriller “You Should Have Left” sits lavishly adorned in the countryside atop a hill. Large windows that look like looming eyes, brick walls that feel cold to the touch, dark corners that shelter lingering shadows; all these elements, creatively executed and nicely structured within a mysterious narrative, stalk and haunt a family trying to get away from their busy life in Los Angeles.

Theo (Kevin Bacon) is a wealthy former banker who suffers from terrible nightmares and a past that he is trying to escape from. His actress wife Susanna (Amanda Seyfried) and young daughter Ella (Avery Tiiu Essex) provide a new opportunity for Theo, a chance for a fresh start. Susanna has work abroad and Theo decides to rent a house for a quick getaway, but strange things begin to torment the family and the secrets of the house start reveal the secrets of the family.

“You Should Have Left” takes many of the familiar elements and setups of haunted house horror films and adds some great creative touches that composes an interesting mystery and allows the story to build on some nicely crafted chills and thrills. Keeping explanations and easy answers to a minimum is always welcome, especially for a film that is treading on well covered ground.

Director David Koepp, who last worked with actor Kevin Bacon on the standout 1999 film “Stir of Echoes”, does a great job of utilizing the house design to its fullest extent. The house, which seems to shift and warp, has a life that manipulates the family with elongated hallways that stretch longer as Theo explores, random doors that appear out of nowhere, and a mazelike structure that adds confusion to every door and corner that is taken. It all works so effectively early in the film.

Everything leads up to a place in the story that unfortunately has difficulty executing a satisfying finale. Some of the mystery needs to be solved and early questions in the film need answers, while it never completely derails the story, it does hamper the horror of everything once revelations come to light. In the final act, the scares wear thin quicker and the tension created almost completely disappears. It’s an abrupt emotional wrap-up that doesn’t accommodate the good work done in the setup.

“You Should Have Left” adds some really interesting concepts and designs to the familiar haunted house subgenre. Director David Koepp understands how to build an atmosphere within the house, a creepy utilization of unorthodox space that makes it feel like a labyrinth. Unfortunately, the good creative choices and effective jolts are almost squandered by a finale that doesn’t understand the emotion it wants to convey.

Monte’s Rating
2.50 out of 5.00

Runner - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Guor Marial in “Runner”

‘Runner’:  Sprint to Guor’s inspirational tale

Directed and written by:  Bill Gallagher

Starring:  Guor Marial, Jacob Lagu, Brad Poole, and Eric Brown

“Runner” – “I hope this (will) be an example for all the refugees across the world to not lose hope.  They might think this is the end of the world for them, but there is always the next day.”  - Guor Marial

Shortly after director Bill Gallagher’s documentary opens, the 2012 London Summer Olympics is the scene.  It’s the final day, and the men’s marathon takes center stage, center city, and center broadcast television, as 105 athletes from 67 countries hope for gold, silver, or bronze.  This film eyes one marathoner:  Guor Marial.  This 28 year old runs under the flag of the International Olympic Committee.  He does not represent a country but lives in the United States after leaving (or escaping from) Sudan in 2001. 

His story is anything but conventional, as “Runner” tries to keep up with Guor through twists, turns, and clear straightaways. 

In some ways, life handed Gallagher the easiest job on the planet, because Mr. Marial’s tale writes itself, like Rodriguez’s, the singer-songwriter chronicled in “Searching for Sugar Man” (2012).  That doc – which won 2013’s Best Documentary Oscar – delivers a jaw-dropping experience for the viewer, and “Runner” offers miles and miles of disbelief. 

Guor’s history begins in Sudan, and more specifically, Pariang County, which unfortunately lies near the epicenter of a civil war.  He was born into the deadly conflict, and South Sudanese activist Jacob Lagu explains that the fighting lasted over 50 years.  After a while – let alone five decades – warfare can become institutional and wholly ingrained in the culture.  In this case, it’s multigenerational.  As a 7 year old and beyond, Guor suffered through unthinkable physical and emotional abuse that would downright shock most (if not all) residents in first-world countries, or anywhere else.

Without photographs or film footage, Gallagher relies on animation to visually communicate Guor’s childhood horrors.  The director has little choice, but – admittedly – these recreated scenes paint emotive images that deliver vast wells of sympathy.  These disturbing encounters weren’t temporary either, so a reprieve to the U.S.A. – in the form of the U.S. Refugee Admittance Program - offered an altogether different environment and a soothing and safe support system.

Gallagher finds friendly faces from Guor’s new hometown of Concord, N.H., and they recount the young Mr. Marial’s teenage years.  Did he experience racism due to his atypical appearance in this New England small town?  That question won’t be answered in this review, but know that Guor raised big smiles during recollections of his secondary schooling, but tears also fell, some of joy and others of sorrow.

Guor’s soft-spoken personality shines throughout the movie, and a familiar pattern of the said smiles and tears are his copilots.  “Runner” is an inspirational picture, but also an emotional one.  Imagine attempting to shake memories of kidnappings, burning villages, and executions from one’s childhood.  Those images claim permanent status, so Sudan (actually, South Sudan) still calls to him, and he answers by giving back using his most obvious skill set.  This personal journey takes staggering leaps, including Guor’s rise in high school cross-country and a remarkable jump to the marathon, but his life also takes unexpected tumbles.  That old saying the measure of a person is their response after a setback certainly applies here, as another evident quality rings true with this Sudan-to-New Hampshire gentlemen: tireless resolve.

According to imdb.com, “Runner” is a 2019 movie, so the 2012 Olympics can’t (or really shouldn’t be) the last chronological moment in this film.  It’s not even close, and although Guor Marial can comfortably live in the immediate present, there’s always the next day. 

(3.5/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Babyteeth - Movie Review by Jen Johans

Eliza Scanlen in “Babyteeth”

Director: Shannon Murphy

Writer: Rita Kalnejais

Cast: Ben Mendelsohn, Essie Davis, Eliza Scanlen, and Toby Wallace.

Review by: Jen Johans

In the startlingly original coming-of-age romance “Babyteeth,” first-time feature filmmaker Shannon Murphy brings the abstract concepts of love and death deliriously to life just as they're set to collide.

Centering on the unlikely romance that develops between Eliza Scanlen's terminally ill fifteen-year-old Sydney, Australia girl Milla and a twenty-three-year-old small-time drug dealer named Moses (Toby Wallace), the film, which was written by Rita Kalnejais and based upon her eponymous play, is as starkly bitter as it is surprisingly sweet.

A far cry from director Adam Shankman's pretty as a picture adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks weepie “A Walk to Remember,” “Babyteeth” is driven less by the protracted drama that often accompanies most end-of-life movies than it is dependent upon the ever-changing emotions of the individuals at the heart of the film who are stuck in life's cruelest predicament.

Messy, soaring, angry, feverish, freewheeling, and impulsive, “Babyteeth” doesn't alternate between moods so much as it does embrace them as they happen simultaneously. Early on in the movie, this culminates in one particularly chaotic scene when Milla brings her new friend Moses home for dinner.

Barely functioning from too much anxiety medication doled out by her psychiatrist husband Henry (a tremendous Ben Mendelsohn), Milla's protective mother Anna (a strong Essie Davis) isn't quite sure how to process this new development. Hurt that instead of meeting her mother at the beauty parlor to get her hair chopped off, Milla trusted a cute stranger with access to dog-grooming equipment instead, as Anna watches the two together, you sense that the thing she's jealous of most is that Moses stole time away from her daughter that was rightfully hers.

Instantly suspicious of the twenty-something – who makes a far worse second impression on Milla's parents by breaking into their kitchen in the middle of the night to look for drugs – Henry and Anna are stopped from calling the authorities when they see the excitement in their daughter's eyes at his return. Ignoring the real reason for Moses' visit, as Milla chats animatedly with her new crush, her parents recognize something that they haven't seen in their daughter in quite some time – hope.

Defying the two by kissing Moses goodbye when her mother drops her off at school, it takes a few more run-ins with the young man for Henry and Anna to realize that no matter how much they might disagree, if their daughter likes him, right now that's all that matters.

Admirably, however, “Babyteeth” doesn't sugar-coat the fact that Moses is a homeless drug addict, dealer, and thief. Challenged to evolve thanks to Milla's love – like every single one of the film's main characters – it's to Scanlen and Wallace's credit that we begin to see Moses through her hopeful gaze early on. A powerful breakthrough by the actor who won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor for his performance at the 2019 Venice Film Festival, “Babyteeth” also marks a strong follow-up by Scanlen to her similarly tragic turn in Greta Gerwig's 2019 adaptation of “Little Women.”

Fearing and knowing that Wallace's Moses will break her heart at least once, the frenetic hand-held cinematography of DP Andy Commis pulls us tightly into the frame alongside our young protagonist. Putting us on equal footing with Henry and Anna throughout Murphy's intentionally visceral film, we feel as lost, protective, loving, and as desperate as Milla's parents do to try to make everything okay . . . at least for now.

Visually inspired by “A Woman Under the Influence” and “Breaking the Waves,” Murphy is smart enough to remember that this is a film about a teenage girl after all. Filling “Babyteeth”'s aesthetically pleasing cinematography with bright, bold hues to heighten the film's sense of urgency, as soon as those colors leave the screen for any length of time, the tone shifts almost imperceptibly and we start to feel on edge.

Stirred by the soulful, sensitive turns by the dynamic ensemble, while the entire cast is outstanding, “Babyteeth” belongs to Ben Mendelsohn overall. Having taken a backseat to Scanlen and Wallace in the third act along with Davis, the “Animal Kingdom” film star sneaks back in to give one of the most achingly true, tender performances of his entire career in the film's gorgeous, succinct coda.

A major directorial debut from the veteran small screen helmer, in “Babyteeth,” Murphy battles against the conventions of the women's weepie subgenre. A study of contrasts, the film is a fervent reminder that as prepared as we think we are for love, life, or death – since we have no idea how we'll deal with anything until it actually happens – it's better to have as much back-up as we possibly can.

(Bio: A three-time national award-winning writer, when Jen Johans isn't reviewing movies at FilmIntuition.com or releasing new episodes of her podcast “Watch With Jen,” you can find her on Twitter @FilmIntuition.)

7500 - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “7500”

‘7500’:  Take a number and get in line for this claustrophobic thriller

Directed by:  Patrick Vollrath

Written by:  Patrick Vollrath and Senad Halilbasic

Starring:  Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Carlo Kitzlinger, Omid Memar, and Aylin Tezel

“7500” -  “How would an event like this go down in real life?” - director Patrick Vollrath, August 2019 at the Locarno Film Festival

“Nice airplane.  Two wings and two engines.” – Capt. Michael Lutzmann (Carlo Kitzlinger)

It’s 5:23 pm at the Berlin Airport, but it is unclear which one (Schönefeld or Tegel), and security cameras offer several viewpoints throughout this sprawling locale: the check-in area, various hallways, gates, and even a bathroom entrance.  During this montage, one clip focuses on five everyday men – in their 20s or 30s – marching on granite tile with blank stares on their faces, but is this quintet together?

They aren’t a basketball team or a group of buddies on their way to an out-of-town bachelor party, and the lens zooms in on just one individual.

For pilots Capt. Michael Lutzmann and 1st Ofc. Tobias Ellis (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), their flight - European 162 - appears routine and ordinary, until it isn’t.

In “7500”, director Patrick Vollrath dispenses an intense, raw 85-minute thriller that throws the audience into a cockpit (actually, an authentic one, according to an August 2019 Screendaily.com interview) with Lutzmann and Ellis, as a calamitous encounter unfolds.  Hijackers - including the aforementioned man, Vedat (Omid Memar), earlier caught on camera - attempt to take over the plane with 85 passengers aboard.

With a bare-bones script, Kitzlinger and Gordon-Levitt frequently improvise their lines, as Vollrath very much succeeds in offering an authentic account of the perilous events.  The director films nearly the entire movie within an enclosed space. 

“7500” – which is an aviation transporter code for a hijacking – is a combination of “Buried” (2010), “Captain Phillips” (2013), and “United 93” (2006), and this public invasion in the sky also feels personal.  Our pilots sit alone in a claustrophobic venue that might be larger than a coffin, but smaller than a simple sales office or a Guantanamo Bay cell.  The seconds play out in the here and now, but we don’t hear the tick, tick, tick of an analog clock.  Instead, the constant bang, bang, bang on the cockpit door assaults any small moments of peace.

Thankfully the locked, bullet-proof entryway seems pretty darn impossible to bust open.  These baddies, however, appear bound and determined – like persistent, relentless car salesmen carrying sharp knives - so the danger is close, and the battering on steel rattles our heroes’ nerves.

Ours too.

The aviators see the aggressors’ actions through a small (maybe 12 inches by 12 inches) black and white monitor perched over the metal gate.  Sometimes this visual tool acts as a godsend for Lutzmann and Ellis – and us – because the screen is the only insight outside their immediate environment.  Still, it also frightens, because the travelers and flight attendants don’t have a barrier between themselves and the anonymous villains. 

We get a clear view.

It seems like Vollrath and his crew filmed the whole picture for $50,000 during a long weekend, since the setting rests in just one place.  That’s a compliment, because everything looks so realistic, as the camera sits within a couple of feet - and sometimes closer - from its players. 

In fact, Vollrath’s first feature film feels like the actors are genuinely flying a plane, and note that Kitzlinger was a commercial pilot for years.  How about that?  Regardless, without tricks or gimmicks, the movie’s lifeline relies on convincing performances.  Kitzlinger lends a big-time helping hand with his aircraft knowhow, and Gordon-Levitt unleashes his acting gifts to portray shock, angst, and fear convincingly.

No matter the extent of an actual pilot’s training, one’s reaction to an ugly street fight at 33,000 feet is a complete unknown, ‘til the moment arrives.  So, imagine the impact on us. 

(3/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Ice Cube Double Feature by Jeff Mitchell

On June 15, N.W.A founding member, screenwriter, and actor Ice Cube – aka O’Shea Jackson - turns 51 years young.  Ice Cube has starred in critically-acclaimed movies like “Three Kings” (1999) and “Rampart” (2011), and also popular comedies like “Friday” (1995), “21 Jump Street” (2012), “Ride Along” (2014), and their respective sequels.  Of course, his son O’Shea Jackson Jr. played him in the N.W.A biopic “Straight Outta Compton” (2015).

To help celebrate this iconic music and big-screen performer’s birthday, let’s look back at two memorable turns from his film library:  his first movie role and a celebrated lead-spin in a huge comedy ensemble.

Enjoy this double feature, and Happy Birthday, Ice Cube!  

Doughboy/Darren, “Boyz n the Hood” (1991) – When John Singleton’s film opens, 10-year-old Tre (Desi Arnez Hines II) walks with three classmates to an abandoned crime scene in South Central Los Angeles.  They duck under the yellow police tape, see “Four More Years – Reagan Bush ’84” posters littered with bullet holes, and blood splattered on walls and the trash beneath their feet.  Tre and thousands of other kids stand on uncertain ground in these parts, as occasional shootings are unwelcome, frequent visitors. 

Director John Singleton with Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube, and Morris Chestnut filming “Boyz N the Hood.” (1991)

Singleton establishes a clear sense of time and space in his first feature, but soon shifts the former.  After 30 minutes, the semi-autobiographical narrative picks up seven years later, and we reconnect with Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.).  He lives with his dad (Laurence Fishburne), and his friends are across the street.  Ricky (Morris Chestnut) dreams of a college football scholarship, and his half-brother Darren (Ice Cube) - nicknamed Doughboy - is a free man after serving hard time. 

Rather than set a promise of a defined endpoint, Singleton instead observes the three young men and their daily lives in 1991 Los Angeles.  At one point, “Boyz n the Hood” feels like an updated version of “American Graffiti” (1973), as the teens cruise in convertibles and walk around Crenshaw with warm feelings of youth and bright futures. 

Ice Cube as Doughboy in “Boyz n the Hood” (1991)

Although, this isn’t 1962 Modesto, Calif., so danger, or the sense of it, feels ever-present.  Young men have guns, the police aren’t always friendly, and a near-constant buzz of low-flying helicopters accompany studying, dating, or simply hanging out.  If Ricky or Tre runs into trouble, Doughboy will quickly face an adversary and ask, “Oh, we got a problem here?” and reveal a pistol at his waistband.  Yes, Ricky and Tre can handle themselves, but Doughboy is an enforcer, who openly carries a piece.   

He’s not a loose cannon who will snap after a cross look.  Still, Doughboy bears an invisible anchor weighing on his neck in the shape of years of unstructured time and his mother’s indifference for his destiny.  This non-lethal but damaging emotional concoction can develop into questionable judgment, but Doughboy is still a loyal ally, one donning a Los Angeles Raiders or Detroit Tigers baseball hat, lugging a massive chip, and sometimes revealing 80 years of heartbreak, disappointment or injustice on his 20-year-old face. 

Calvin Palmer, “Barbershop” (2002) – “Stay strong, Bro!” – Calvin (Ice Cube)

Calvin offers these encouraging words to Samir (Parvesh Cheena), a nearby convenience store owner.  You see, someone broke into his mini-mart and desecrated it to bits, so Samir is completely distraught.  However, later that day, he thanks Calvin, because his support gave him the inspiration to stay in the neighborhood and rebuild.

The cast of “Barbershop” (2002)

Calvin has that way with people, as Ice Cube takes a break from his more argumentative roles and plays a soft-spoken, congenial guy in director Tim Story’s “Barbershop”.  Okay, Calvin is not exactly soft-spoken.  He will raise his voice, and he’s not leading yoga practices, but Calvin is a big-hearted, respected owner of his Chicago’s South Side barbershop, and ask his staff.  Jimmy (Sean Patrick Thomas), Terri (Eve), Ricky (Michael Ealy), Dinka (Leonard Earl Howze), Isaac (Troy Garity), and Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer) love Calvin and their jobs.

First and foremost, Story’s story works ensemble-magic with big personalities cutting hair and cutting it up under one roof.  For instance, Jimmy frequently bickers with a two-time felon (Ealy) and the lone white guy (Garity).  Dinka - a naive immigrant, who may or may not be channeling Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy) from “Coming to America” (1988) – has a crush on Terri.  Meanwhile, Terri loses her mind when someone drinks her apple juice from the shop’s fridge, and Eddie, the elder statesman, expresses a litany of surprising opinions.

Eddie opines, “If we can’t talk straight in a barbershop, then where can we talk straight?”

Ice Cube as Calvin Palmer in “Barbershop” (2002)

Fair point, but Calvin hasn’t been entirely straightforward.  His secretive money problems might push him into an unpopular decision with his loyal staff and supportive wife, Jennifer (Jazsmin Lewis).  Screenwriters Mark Brown, Don D. Scott and Marshall Todd introduce Jennifer from the get-go, which further invests our emotional interest in Calvin’s fate.  She doesn’t need millions of dollars to be happy.  She’s proud that her husband took over his late father’s shop, but is Calvin filled with pride?    

That’s his journey.

Anthony Anderson (“Me, Myself & Irene” (2000), “Scary Movie 3” (2003)) takes an altogether different one in his pivotal part away from Calvin’s place.  At times, his oddball trip is a head-scratcher, but hang in there, because you won’t have to comb the earth for an explanation at the film’s conclusion.  That’s not the end of Calvin’s tale, as “Barbershop 2: Back in Business” (2004) and “Barbershop: The Next Cut” (2016) are next in line.

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Max Winslow and the House of Secrets - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Tanner Buchanan, Jade Chynoweth, Sydne Mikelle, Emery Kelly, and Jason Genao in “Max Winslow and the House of Secrets.”

‘Max Winslow and the House of Secrets’:  A high-tech, Wonka-like story

Directed by:  Sean Olson

Written by:  Jeff Wild

Starring:  Chad Michael Murray, Marina Sirtis, Sydne Mikelle, Tanner Buchanan, Jason Genao, Jade Chynoweth, Juli Tapken, and Emery Kelly

“Max Winslow and the House of Secrets” - “I’ve got a golden ticket!” – Charlie (Peter Ostrum) and Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson), “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” (1971)

Perhaps a parent or an older sibling convinced you – at the tender age of 6 or 7 - to sit down and watch “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory”, the celebrated story about a young boy and his grandfather earning a visit to a sugary locale and meeting its eccentric candy maker.  Hopefully, you experienced this movie – an imaginative, dystopian abundance of bizarre Dr. Seuss technology mixed with punitive life lessons led by a semi-crazed mad hatter – with the lights on.  As we know, Mr. Wonka gladly pulls levers and pushes buttons to seal the fates of kids and parents who break his rules, as this acid trip feels like a cross between Disneyland’s It’s a Small World and the “Saw” series.  

Come clean.  Did you trust Willy Wonka, even at the end? 

Forty-nine years later, and an incarnation of Roald Dahl’s book – although not explicitly connected - comes to life in director Sean Olson’s “Max Winslow and the House of Secrets”, and Atticus Virtue (Chad Michael Murray) is the Wonka-like figure but best represents Elon Musk.

During an opening montage, we discover that Atticus is a genius.  He won a high school computer contest, constructed high-speed trains, and sent missions to Mars.  This guy isn’t shooting for the stars, but actual planets.  Atticus also gives back to his roots on Earth – and more specifically, Arkansas - by building a $40 million athletic complex at his alma mater Bentonville High School.  He probably chipped in a few bucks on speech lessons, because no one in the movie speaks with a hint of a southern drawl.

Atticus also bequeaths another out-of-this-world gift to the Bentonville High students.  He sends text-invites to five lucky students to stay at his mansion Virtue Manor, and one kid will win the ultimate prize: the Virtue Manor!

These five flawed kids – a video game addict (Jason Genao), a vanity-driven social media devotee (Jade Chynoweth), a jock who dreams of another destiny (Tanner Buchanan), a bully (Emery Kelly), and an introvert named Max Winslow (Sydne Mikelle) – place their trust in Mr. Virtue and his at-home A.I. named HAVEN (Marina Sirtis).

Okay, now we’ve seen this movie before, and Max isn’t Mad Max, Maxwell Smart, Max Fischer, or Maximus.  Max is a girl, and her name is short for Maxine.  Mikelle easily convinces us that Ms. Winslow not only has a high aptitude for computer programming, but she – unfortunately - also carries low self-esteem.  Maxine finds that friends and a boyfriend aren’t as easy to acquire as her neighbor’s password (through a bit of creative hacking).  Max is a pleasant, kind young lady, but yes, she’s a computer wiz and could play global thermal nuclear war while blindfolded.  Thankfully, she’s more interested in presenting computer code as poetry.

Well, this chaperone-less quintet is left to their own devices.  Grandpa Joe doesn’t appear in this flick, and Max’s mom Cathy (Juli Tapken) calls out the oddity of it all – before her daughter leaves for the manor - when she opines, “It’s weird though, right?”

Yes, a little.

HAVEN provides instructions, answers questions, opens (and closes) doors, and acts like HAL 9000 with Counselor Deanna Troi’s (Sirtis) voice.  Atticus isn’t on-site.  He’s traveling to Tulsa on business, but who knew that northeast Oklahoma was a high-tech hotbed. 

The events at the gorgeous, sprawling mansion - with an inviting southwestern curb appeal and a decked out Crate and Barrel interior – get heated and competitive, as HAVEN announces her first game and someone wins an allotment of points.  It all feels straight-forward until it doesn’t. 

HAVEN, screenwriter Jeff Wild, or both go off script, as the film throws the rules out a bay window.  HAVEN suddenly explains that games are everywhere and randomly sit throughout the house.  The competitors split up, and a challenge might appear as a music box or a statue wearing sunglasses. 

Great!  How many points can a kid win per game?  How many points does each kid earn?  Is anyone keeping track? 

It’s all a bit frustrating, especially to a rules-based viewer, but there’s a method to Olson and Wild’s madness.  HAVEN tests each teenager with intimidating emotional and physical nuances.  Olson, visual effects supervisor Dorian Cleavenger, and cinematographer Isaac Alongi offer impressive on-screen visuals, including Star Trek-like Holodecks and a pulsating, lighted doorway that resembles a “Poltergeist” portal.  These virtual reality trials feel like a PG-rated “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, and Max faces her demons, which take the form of a person much more earthly and personal than an actual monster. 

The last 30 minutes of emotional, practical growth – by some of the kids - almost redeem the first 68 minutes of tame horror, confusing world-building, and inconsistent rules of engagement.  “Max Winslow and the House of Secrets” is harmless family entrainment with high marks for on-screen visuals but low scores for the aforementioned matters.  On the other hand, only one moment – where a teen chokes on gas – raises any real danger, so at least your kids will sleep peacefully after experiencing this movie. 

They, however, may ask, “Is that what an Arkansas accent sounds like?”

If you’re keeping score at home:  Not on your life.

(2/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

The King of Staten Island - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Pete Davidson in “The King of Staten Island.” Photo by Mary Cybulski © 2020 Universal Pictures

Dir: Judd Apatow

Starring: Pete Davidson, Marisa Tomei, Maude Apatow, Bel Powley, Steve Buscemi, Moises Arias, Ricky Velez, Lou Wilson, and Bill Burr

At one point in life, we’ve all had lofty ambitions…scary, funny, crazy, impossible ambitions. The ambitions for Scott (Pete Davidson), a 24-year-old living at home with his widowed mother Margie (Marisa Tomei), is to open a tattoo parlor that doubles as a restaurant. It’s an idea that even his stoner best friends aren’t completely sold on. 

“The King of Staten Island” has a ton of ambition that sometimes reveals itself as heart but is often a confusing mess of emotions that doesn’t always find the nicest balance of tone. Still, Pete Davidson is fantastic, a great dramatic shift for the young comedian who winds up being the glue that holds this 2-hour plus film together.

The introduction to Scott comes inside a car, music blasting through the speakers, and a look on the young adult’s face that seems anxious and scared. He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to escape whatever is tormenting him, and narrowly misses a major car crash. Scott is troubled, suffering from some form of mental illness, and is still scarred by the death of his father, a New York City fireman. Scott is lost, angry about the attention his sister Nell (Maude Apatow) is getting, bumbling into nothingness with his friends, and keeping his mother Margie from moving on with life. An angry encounter with a firefighter named Ray (Bill Burr), who takes a liking to Margie, brings changes to Scott’s life.

Pete Davidson, most recognizably known as a cast member from “Saturday Night Live”, co-wrote the film with Judd Apatow and Dave Sirus. Davidson turns an impressive dramatic role, undercut with moments of both silly and dark comedy, building a character that is wholly unlikeable but with hints of a peculiar charm. And, it’s that charm, displayed when Davidson has sweet moments walking Ray’s children to school or during intimate conversations with his girlfriend Kelsey (Bel Powley) about his feelings, that brings compelling conflict to the character when things inevitably turn difficult.

Judd Apatow does a great job of building ensemble casts. Here, the director provides many opportunities for supporting characters to shine. Bel Powley plays Scott’s girlfriend Kelsey with a brassy, yet caring attitude, Maude Apatow provides some nice touches of tough love for her brother as Claire, and Moises Arias kindly and effortlessly supports his best friend’s aspiration to be a tattoo artist by lending his body as a practice canvas.

These characters, along with others like Steve Buscemi as the old school firehouse lead and Pamela Adlon as Ray’s ex-wife, are all given individual amusing pieces of comedy and drama that don’t always add much to the complete composition of the film. While they offer pieces of amusing insight and sometimes very funny scenarios, their characters are often inserted for just that brief moment and then taken away. It creates an unevenness to the storytelling that shifts the emotional tone of the film in many different directions.

While this may seem purposeful, perhaps emulating the inner emotional lack of control and constant struggle Scott experiences with his mental illness on a daily basis that is brought to life through Pete Davidson’s muted, frustrated, confused performance, the film never clearer makes that character connection an emphasis in the beginning. Instead, we have a character with a wealth of trauma that needs numerous avenues of attention even a 136-minute movie doesn’t have time to explore.

Monte’s Rating
3.oo out of 5.00

Becky - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Kevin James and Lulu Wilson in “Becky”

Director: Jonathan Millot, Cary Murnion

Starring: Lulu Wilson, Joel McHale, Amanda Brugel, Robert Maillet, and Kevin James

It’s strange to think of the holiday-themed movie “Home Alone” like a home invasion film, but it’s playing with themes on the most superficial level of this subgenre of horror. The Wet Bandits, as they are called in the film, aren’t structured for deep character menace and the violence. Once the blowtorch starts burning and the paint canisters start swinging, everything is played for slapstick comedy instead of gruesome horror.

“Becky”, from directors Jonathan Millot and Cary Murnion, takes a simplistic story that feels, in the beginning, like an overwrought family drama and infuses it with hefty doses of violence, gore, and a little inspiration from “Home Alone”. However, what may bring most people to make the decision to pick this grisly little film for a weekend stream is the role of actor Kevin James, yes, “The King of Queens” Kevin James, playing a neo-Nazi. However, the better role belongs to up-and-coming actress Lulu Wilson who channels her family-drama/tragedy anger into unbridled and vicious rage.

Becky (Lulu Wilson) is mourning the death of her mother and infuriated with her father Jeff (Joel McHale) during a road trip to their remote family vacation house. Things don’t get better as Jeff has invited his new girlfriend Kayla (Amanda Brugel) for the weekend getaway without telling Becky. If things couldn’t get any worse, a group of escaped prison inmates come knocking at their door; led by Dominick (Kevin James), the bad guys are looking for a secret key that they are willing to torture and kill anyone for.

“Becky” functions on a very simplistic premise and an all-too-familiar pacing scheme. The story starts with a home invasion angle in the woods, the location works nicely for the setup, and then transitions into a brutal tale of survival with a teenager left to fight the monsters tormenting her loved ones.  The narrative tries for a few surprises, throwing in a mystery about a key all parties involved are desperate for and some unexpected moments of violence, but these flashes are minimal in the shape of the story.

The title of the film tells you exactly what the focus is…Becky. Lulu Wilson is a great joy to watch as she transforms into an angrier and more volatile version of Kevin from “Home Alone”. The composition of her character is moody at first, then it’s revealed that she is grief-stricken, and then she turns into a vessel of anger. It’s a great transition and watching Ms. Wilson go through all those emotions is a majority of the fun of experiencing the film. One might assume the amusing piece would be Kevin James, the often type casted comedian sheds the jokes for a straightforward serious smirk with a large symbol of hate tattooed on the back of his head. But Mr. James isn’t given the compositional material to explore the character he is trying to portray, instead, his menace is restricted to surface level threats with harsh language thrown in for amusement. Still, in small moments the actor composes interesting emotional pieces concerning the hatred that defines his motivations, with more of that perspective this film could have been something completely different.

“Becky” wanders a strange path in terms of its tone, while most of the movie functions as a hardboiled thriller there are random moments of horror that feel thrown in for pure sensation. Whether special effects-driven, such as a gruesome set piece involving a butcher’s block, or specific scenes the movie just doesn’t know what to do with. While genre fans might get some amusement from the more visceral moments, or the change in dynamic of the title character as she turns into something ferocious, the bulk of “Becky” feels uneven in ways that keep it from being the satisfying genre film it’s trying to emulate.

Monte’s Rating
2.75 out of 5.00

Hammer - Movie Review by Jen Johans

Will Patton and Mark O'Brien in “Hammer” (2019)

Writer-director: Christian Sparkes

Cast: Will Patton, Mark O'Brien, Ben Cotton, Connor Price, and Vickie Papavs

Review by: Jen Johans

In this efficiently made, swiftly paced new thriller from award-winning Canadian filmmaker Christian Sparkes, one impulsively bad decision begets another when Chris Davis (Mark O'Brien) tries and fails to execute a double-cross in a drug deal gone terribly wrong.

Grabbing a dirt bike from the scene when he's caught in the crosshairs of a gun, Chris barely escapes with his life before he's caught once again. Luckily, it's not by the dealer (Ben Cotton) this time but rather his estranged father Stephen (Will Patton) who happens to see Chris fleeing from the scene of the crime when he's stopped in traffic in the crossroads of his small Canadian border town and hits his own gas pedal in response.

He soon catches up to Chris, whom we discover in a key line of dialogue had been forced out of his family's lives when he'd gotten in trouble for this sort of thing before. But when Stephen sees the panic in his son's eyes and the blood on his sleeve, he puts all of his preconceived notions of right and wrong out of his mind and offers his help.

Introducing us to the first of the three other members of the Davis family who will be ensnared in this debacle to varying degrees by the time the film is over, “Hammer” uses the universal theme of the blood ties that bind to transcend what might otherwise have been a narrative derived solely from first-person films noir.

Fusing the drama together with a light dose of symbolism as well as raising questions of moral responsibility toward not only parents to their children but children to their parents as well, “Hammer” serves as a clever reminder that crime rarely impacts one person alone but instead affects every individual that person loves. The impetus for the film overall, in his sophomore effort and follow-up to his multi-award-winning feature debut “Cast No Shadow,” Sparkes intentionally set out to challenge “perceptions of who criminals are and where they come from.”

Wisely setting “Hammer” in the suburbs and focusing on an entire family (as opposed to only the criminal upon whom most genre films tend to fixate), together with its economical storytelling, this approach places us right inside the car alongside Stephen and Chris as they barrel down the road towards danger and the unknown for the rest of the movie's lean eighty-two minute running time.

Although in need of a bit more closure and perhaps, one more hurdle to bring the rest of the family – especially the mother (played by Vickie Papavs) – more effectively into the proceedings than the last act offers, “Hammer” is still an impressively tense nerve-jangler overall. Benefiting from its dynamic cast, the film is bolstered in particular by its two leads, namely Mark O'Brien who first caught my attention in AMC's acclaimed word-of-mouth hit series “Halt and Catch Fire,” and veteran character actor Will Patton who's been stealing scenes since the 1980s.

Released in Canada in 2019 and newly unveiled for rent on VOD in the states this week, in “Hammer,” Christian Sparkes proves once again that you don't need a big budget or special effects to catch viewers in the crosshairs of inventive character-driven suspense.

(Bio: A three-time national award-winning writer, when Jen Johans isn't reviewing movies at FilmIntuition.com or releasing new episodes of her podcast “Watch With Jen,” you can find her on Twitter @FilmIntuition.)

Shirley - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Elisabeth Moss in “Shirley”

‘Shirley’:  Moss gathers plenty of big moments in this troubling narrative

Directed by:  Josephine Decker

Written by:  Sarah Gubbins, based on the novel by Susan Scarf Merrell

Starring:  Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, Odessa Young, and Logan Lerman

“Shirley” – “Welcome to our hallowed end of the earth, my boy.  Welcome to Bennington.” – Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg)

Fred (Logan Lerman) is the boy in question, as he and his wife Rose (Odessa Young) move to this small town in Vermont’s southwest corner, within a stone’s throw of the New York and Massachusetts borders, for a job.  Fred is Stanley’s new teaching assistant at the local college, and the happy couple breaks bread with about a hundred others at the professor’s large farmhouse.  Strangers with drinks and plates of food whiz by Fred and Rose, like high-powered Audis and BMWs nearly clipping two wide-eyed hitchhikers standing on a busy stretch of Autobahn asphalt. 

It’s all a bit much.

However, director Josephine Decker nestles into a place of calm in a crowded living room, peeks her camera between two guests, and settles on a woman holding a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  Shirley (Elisabeth Moss) candidly complains about her first date with Stanley (who resembles Robin Williams in “Awakenings” (1990)) and then tersely refrains from discussing her next literary work. 

She says, “A little novella.  I’m writing, ‘None of your goddamn business’.”

Now, Stanley may teach at a university, but Shirley carries dramatically more fame than her husband.  She’s revered and feared horror-author Shirley Jackson, who wrote the classic dystopian story “The Lottery”. 

Sarah Gubbins bases her screenplay on Susan Scarf Merrell’s novel “Shirley”, which is a fictionalized tale of Ms. Jackson, Stanley, and the said young couple living under one roof.  You see, Stanley convinces Fred and Rose to stay, but life becomes uncomfortable, dreadful, or a half-dozen similar descriptors in between. 

“Shirley” isn’t a horror film.  It’s a troubling drama; an unpalatable, upsetting movie spun in the close quarters of two hosts mired in dysfunction and disdain. 

Since the fellas spend most hours from sunrise to sunset in classrooms and courtyards, Shirley and Rose root at home.  Unfortunately, our author flounders in front of the typewriter, so she acts out, like an impish Nurse Ratched without a poker face, against her naive, new playmate.

These women couldn’t be more different. 

Rose is a modest, polite cheerleading type with streams of grace and good manners, and she probably never heard a cross word spilled in her direction.  Meanwhile, a teenage Shirley most likely avoided high school football and basketball games, because the sight of peppy halftime cheer-routines may have driven her into silent rages.  Today, after years of suffering prolonged bouts of bedridden depression, quickly finding callous thoughts and comments for anyone within eyeshot, and ignoring her daily appearance, Shirley faces a Molotov cocktail – in the form of a kind 20-something woman - living in her house.

Decker’s picture explores Shirley and Rose’s journey, and these combatants could forge a détente, a friendship, or become sworn enemies.  No matter the direction, this concoction demands our attention.  Young faces a difficult task as Rose, since her pacifist character copes with dizzying, wearisome verbal gunfire.  Meanwhile, Shirley now shares space with an unspoiled lump of clay that she can shape with her twisted bullets, and Moss feels at home playing this subdued loose cannon.

Sure, Shirley rips into meanspirited diatribes on occasion, but she often swallows her anger.  Moss feeds long pauses and condescending stares at the camera, as her creation seems to scream bloody murder on the inside.  This talented, in-demand actress is quite effective at internalizing Shirley’s frustration in a mesmerizing, complex performance.  Shirley may make new enemies, but sometimes, she has legit reasons.

Since Stanley and Shirley were real, living and breathing human beings – who died in 1970 and 1965, respectively – how much truth is portrayed on-screen? 

As previously mentioned, the film is based on Merrell’s novel, but are Stuhlbarg and Moss accurately playing Stanley and Shirley? 

At a Jan. 2020 Sundance Film Festival Q&A, Moss says, “It was a lot of reading about her (and her work).  It was a lot of exploring the relationship with Stanley as well.  That was really important to us.”

Stuhlbarg adds, “I thought (the movie) was one thing when we started, and the next step was realizing it was based on fiction, the novel.  Then, we were taking it in a very different direction from there, so it was like three times removed from the original people.” 

The answer is muddy, and the movie feels cloudy anyway, especially in Stanley and Shirley’s house.  Frequently, it seems that Decker purposely fogs up the camera with a slight dew that leaves a grayish, muted mist on the screen, or maybe it is lingering cigarette smoke.  Since we’re living in a time warp of a real writer in a fictionalized story, the dreamlike effect seems relevant, or in Shirley Jackson’s case, a nightmare. 

At one point, Rose wakes up in the middle of the night, walks into the kitchen, and sees the distressed author staring into the refrigerator.  

Shirley says, “I had a crazy dream.  Mud oozing from the fridge, (and) big worms coming out of the crisper…as fat as fingers.”

Yea, we believe it. 

(3/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

Two Clint Eastwood Triple Features by Jeff Mitchell

On May 31, Clint Eastwood turns 90 years young.  This four-time Oscar winner has entertained movie audiences for generations, and to honor this Hollywood legend, let’s look back at some of his memorable performances and films.  Rather than visit his most celebrated hits like Sergio Leone’s westerns, the Dirty Harry series and his two Best Picture Oscar winners “Unforgiven” (1992) and “Million Dollar Baby” (2004), here are six gems (or two triple features) to watch on Clint Eastwood’s landmark birthday….or any day.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Eastwood!

Triple Feature # 1

Thunderbolt, “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” (1974) – “Just the good ol’ boys.  Never meanin’ no harm.  Beats all you never saw.  Been in trouble with the law, since the day they was born.” 

Okay, Thunderbolt (Eastwood) and Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) aren’t Bo and Luke Duke, but Waylon Jennings’ “The Dukes of Hazzard” theme song broadly fits.  In an initial setting that resembles almost any scene in Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” (1978), these two meet outside a church.  Thunderbolt, a preacher by trade, finishes a sermon and dodges gunfire, when Lightfoot drives up in a stolen white Trans-Am. 

Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges in “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” (1974)

He dodges gunfire??

Anyway, their travels involve convenient - but sometimes necessary - hijinks that eventually leads to an attempted bank robbery with two other shady characters (George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis). 

“Ocean’s Eleven” (2001) tenders a considerably more elaborate, state-of-the-art game plan, but like most amusing buddy pictures, this film’s treasure rests with the journey, not the destination.  Eastwood – admittedly - doesn’t stretch his acting muscles too much, as Bridges – who earned an Oscar nomination as this happy-go-lucky loose cannon – plays off his elder costar.  Director Michael Cimino’s first feature includes lots of lowbrow humor, car crashes and profanities, and Catherine Bach (a.k.a. Daisy Duke) makes a brief appearance.  See, there is a connection.

Preacher, “Pale Rider” (1985) – In LaHood, California, a town where a strong-armed mining company bullies small-time Tin Pans searching for gold, the Wild West’s moral code rolls around in shades of gray.  The same goes for the mysterious Preacher (Eastwood) who strolls into town on a pale horse and serves as a protector to Hull Barret (Michael Moriarty), his fiancée, her daughter, and several other families trying to strike it rich. 

Clint Eastwood in “Pale Rider” (1985)

Preacher may be a man of the cloth, but he handles a hickory stick like martial arts master and fires a pistol with Olympic precision.  This throwback western doesn’t employ a meticulous slide rule or protractor to deliver thrills for the genre’s avid and casual fans.  “Pale Rider” simply strikes all the right gun-toting, pony-riding, spur-jingling beats, and Preacher’s towering persona also mixes in some approachable moments and quips like, “Spirituality ain’t worth spit without a little exercise.” 

Clint also directs this engaging popcorn flick and taps Richard Dysart, Chris Penn and Richard Kiel (Jaws from “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977) and “Moonraker” (1979)) to play colorful baddies, but a fearsome marshal (John Russell) and his six deputies deliver heaping doses of anxiety to the townsfolk and us.  Thankfully, this pale rider sometimes lets his Remington revolver lead his sermons. 

John Wilson, “White Hunter Black Heart” (1990) – Mr. Eastwood directs and stars in a movie about another director, a famous one.  He plays John Huston on the somewhat-troubled set of “The African Queen” (1951), based on Peter Viertel’s novel, about his chronicles with the director during the shoot.  Please note that Clint changes the names, as his character is John Wilson, and the movie (within a movie) is called “The African Trader”.  For good measure, actress Kay Gibson (Marisa Berenson) and Phil Duncan (Richard Vanstone) look, act and sound like Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, however, Eastwood’s Wilson is easily the most magnetic personality.  Wilson is brash, bold, stubborn, and speaks openly to anyone within arm’s-length, as his apprehension-quotient hovers around zero at (just about) all times. 

Clint Eastwood in “White Hunter Black Heart” (1990)

For example, over drinks on a hotel patio, Wilson – with a mischievous smile – insults an anti-Semitic acquaintance.  Shortly after, he confronts an imposing bully and declares, “I think you’re a yellow, rotten, sadistic son of a bitch.”   

Eastwood seems to be enjoying himself, and hey, we want John Wilson on our team!  Then again, those same emotional behaviors can turn against his coworkers before you can say, “It’s my way or the highway.”

The roads and prairies in picturesque, adventurous Africa act as Wilson’s imperfect companion, because this airy, faraway journey includes some surprising and moving gravitas when we least expect it.

Triple Feature # 2

Dave Garver, “Play Misty for Me” (1971) – Sixteen years before Glenn Close terrified millions and millions of men in “Fatal Attraction” (1987), Jessica Walter earned a Golden Globe nomination in Eastwood’s directorial debut by causing nightmares for – probably – the same number of guys in 1971.  In the coastal town of Carmel, Calif., Dave (Eastwood) – a KRML disc jockey – has a fling with Evelyn (Walter), his number one fan.  Their next few encounters, however, morph into awkward confrontations, as she insists on a relationship.

Before you go beating up Dave for acting like a typical noncommittal bachelor, this isn’t an ordinary case of an immovable object versus an irresistible force.  You see, his old girlfriend is suddenly back in town, so his dating picture becomes muddled.  More importantly, Evelyn waves big neon, flashing billboards that spell KOOKY, UNSTABLE and DANGEROUS.  

Clint Eastwood and Jessica Walter in “Play Misty for Me” (1971)

Poor Dave. 

Well, it’s not like he doesn’t see the madness coming.  We certainly do!

Clint plays with our minds, but also our senses by alternating between big, sweeping views of this gorgeous California paradise and the closed, dark quarters of his character’s apartment, a local restaurant and a quiet radio station.  Soon, nowhere is safe in this well-crafted, claustrophobic thriller, and it makes you wonder if Close and Walter (or Eastwood and Michael Douglas) ever compared notes.  Just asking.

Ben Shockley, “The Gauntlet” (1977) – “Never saw a cop feeling sorry for himself before.  Mind if I watch.” - Augustina Mally (Sandra Locke)

Sandwiched between Dirty Harry’s third and fourth movies, Eastwood plays Ben Shockley, an invisible Phoenix Police officer in “The Gauntlet”.  Despite several years on the force, Ben hasn’t broken a big case yet, and he longs for a wife and kids.  Unfortunately, he’s been married to alcoholism for far too long.

On a beautiful Downtown Phoenix morning, his commanding officer (William Prince) hands him a routine assignment to transport a witness (Locke) from Las Vegas to the Valley of the Sun.  Still, Ben’s trip is anything but ordinary. 

Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke in “The Gauntlet” (1977)

Clint – who also directs this road trip movie - doesn’t let Ben fire many rounds over the 109-minute runtime, but he probably spent about 80 percent of his budget on bullets.  The story includes two wild, over-the-top shootouts that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Charles Bronson blush. 

While Augustina and Ben travel on several winding roads, his coarse language and actions – at times - aren’t super-palatable in the year 2020.  Our hero, however, softens a bit, when he’s not complaining about her grievances by lightly uttering, “Nag, nag, nag.”  Hey, it was 1977.

Frank Corvin, “Space Cowboys” (2000) – Twenty years ago, what would you say if NASA planned to send four senior citizens into space as first-time astronauts?  A brief pause and a blank stare might precede your answer.  What if these four individuals are Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner?  Millions of fans and dreamers - including this critic - might moonwalk to their couches and pop on cable news to catch the lift off.  Okay, this superstar quartet didn’t actually shoot into orbit, but Eastwood directs and stars in “Space Cowboys”, and he and his three pals have a blast.  You probably will too. 

Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner, and Donald Sutherland in “Space Cowboys” (2000)

This modern-day space mission wraps itself in the hope of second chances, because 42 years earlier, Frank (Eastwood), Hawk (Jones), Jerry (Sutherland), and Tank (Garner) missed their initial one.  The script follows an expected formula, and the boys battle stiff backs, sore muscles and winded lungs during their training. 

At one point, Tank mentions in the cafeteria, “I’m too tired to chew.” 

This “Spies Like Us”-like boot camp does connect with humor, good feelings and the space travelers’ camaraderie.  These actors know their strengths, and the film doesn’t lose any cinematic muscle during the second and third acts.  Add impressive special effects and an Oscar nomination for sound editing, and “Space Cowboys” will inspire men and women of all ages to reach for the stars…and maybe apply to NASA.  Can we fly in a space shuttle with Frank Corvin?   

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

The Vast of Night - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

Sierra McCormick in “The Vast of Night”

‘The Vast of Night’ is an impressive achievement, but not a satisfying one

Directed by:  Andrew Patterson

Written by:  James Montague and Craig W. Sanger

Starring:  Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz

“The Vast of Night” –  Fay (Sierra McCormick) and Everett (Jake Horowitz) are a couple of enterprising teens.  They attend Cayuga High School but hold grownup jobs in the evenings.  Fay is a devoted switchboard operator, and Everett is a radio personality at WOTW with a Highway Hits radio show from 7 pm to 11 pm.  If Fay’s work sounds bizarrely dated, that’s because director Andrew Patterson’s “The Vast of Night” is set in the 1950s, and the kids’ hometown of Cayuga, N.M. is a blip on the radar screen with just a population of 492. 

The law of supply and demand between the labor force and available jobs in Small Town, U.S.A. might explain the inclusion of teens in highly visible (or their cases, audible) posts.  Well, Fay’s and Everett’s jobs place them in the center of this “Twilight Zone”-esque feature film. 

While shifting and plugging switchboard jacks, as various calls pop in and out of Fay’s headset, she listens to Everett’s show, because that’s what friends do.  Although this ordinary evening takes a curious turn, as some bizarre noises – that resemble whales performing industrial music – interrupt Highway Hits.  The curious kids soon connect and begin an investigation to solve this audio oddity.

Patterson’s film delivers a surreal experience from the get-go.  A Rod Serling soundalike welcomes us to something called Paradox Theatre through a small rounded television that was last seen at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.  Through the looking glass, we find ourselves gliding into the town’s high school basketball gym.  

Think of a Hickory game from director David Anspaugh’s “Hoosiers” (1986), but about an hour before tip-off with gentle Steadicam strolls and a soft, smoky haze over a lens that offers a slight emotional distance.  We are observers in this movie, not partakers, which feels consistent with nonsensical dreams, and Anderson’s camera seems to float, so this trancelike atmosphere is wholly complete. 

Basketball is not this movie’s prime focus, but entering the Cayuga Statesmen’s wooden and steel den is not without an absolute purpose.  Instead, we hover behind and next to Fay and Everett, as they leave.  They have jobs to do, right? 

If you step back, please note the list of facts:  small town, New Mexico, 1950s, and odd sounds.  Yea, they don’t quite add up to basketball, and science fiction seems infinitely more likely.  Luckily, our two adolescent (but only in age) leads carry a Mulder and Scully vibe, but without the stark differences between idealism and pragmatism.  They are a two-person team with a common goal, and writers James Montague and Craig W. Sanger appear to have distinct purposes for every move during Fay and Everett’s nighttime chase. 

Yes, this smartly-constructed, beautifully-filmed 86-minute experience is a mesmerizing step into some bizarre lost moment in a parallel universe.  No question, “The Vast of Night” has a tight hold on a soaring, fearless presentation, but it lacks tension, angst and drama.  This movie – first and foremost – is for filmmakers and cinephiles.  It’s one to behold, cherish and assign to eager film students everywhere, but with little narrative anticipation, the picture feels like a nonevent. 

It’s “Blood Simple” (1984) without violence or “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004) without distress and passion.  

It doesn’t mean that “The Vast of Night” isn’t an impressive achievement.  It’s just not a satisfying one.

(2.5/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

The High Note - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Ice Cube, Ricky Martin, Dakota Johnson, and Tracee Ellis Ross in “The High Note”

Dir: Nisha Ganatra

Starring: Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Bill Pullman, and Ice Cube

There’s a moment in Nisha Ganatra’s new film “The High Note” when a young musician does a cover of “You Send Me”, a song made famous by the legendary Sam Cooke. It’s my favorite kind of music cover, one that isn’t the same as the original but tries to compose its own unique style.

This might be the best way to describe “The High Note”, a sometimes sweet and many times completely charming film about chasing dreams and making beautiful music in many different ways along the way. The film is familiar, cliched at times, but its pulse accomplishes an appealing rhythm of notes that have great feel-good qualities all over them.

Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross) is a superstar, a musician with a storied career big enough to warrant the prospect of holding residence as a Las Vegas attraction. However, in the eyes of Maggie (Dakota Johnson), Grace’s overworked and underappreciated personal assistant, the songstress is an icon with many more stories to tell and songs to write. Grace, on the other hand, isn’t sure of her relevance in the music industry and her oversized ego creates concern about making a comeback. Grace’s longtime producer Jack (Ice Cube) is pushing for remix and greatest hits albums, but Maggie secretly wants to be a music producer and is hoping Grace will give her the chance to produce a new album.

“The High Note” moves a bit awkwardly at first, the introduction of Grace and her considerable ego alongside Maggie and her somewhat starry-eyed, naïve approach to the music business takes a few scenes to find its footing. But once Tracee Ellis Ross and Dakota Johnson settle into the relationship of their characters, the chemistry between them holds the remainder of the film together, especially when predictable familiarity takes control of the journey. 

The narrative keeps everything fairly simplistic, even while it hints at some deeper conversation starters regarding issues of race and age in the music business. There is no doubt that Ms. Ross could have deftly handled some deeper subject matter explorations. Whether dealing with a boardroom full of men telling her what is best for her career or listening to a smug music producer trying to explain that her music isn’t relatable to younger generations, Ms. Ross does an exceptional job of displaying her true emotions through simple physical movements like eye glances, hand gestures, or the movement of her body.

One of the most admirable aspects of the film is that all the actors do their singing; Tracee Ellis Ross, daughter of Diana Ross, easily steals most of these scenes with her impressive voice, while Kelvin Harrison Jr., playing a singer named David who likes performing at hipster grocery stores, has a couple of really good moments performing well-known covers, and Dakota Johnson even has a small moment to showcase her melodic abilities.

“The High Note” is easy comfort cinema right now, a movie that succeeds primarily because of a dedicated cast doing great work with modest characters and an understanding that sometimes fun, heartwarming music moments will make up for the shortcomings of a narrative.

Monte’s Rating
3.25 out of 5.00

John C. Reilly Triple Feature by Jeff Mitchell

On May 24, Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated John C. Reilly turns 55 years young.  Happy Birthday, Mr. Reilly!  To help celebrate Mr. Cellophane’s day, let’s look back at three memorable performances from his fantastic, fruitful film career.  Rather than highlight his more prominent roles in “Step Brothers” (2008), “Wreck-It Ralph” (2012) and “Chicago” (2002), here are three deeper cuts, and I hope that you enjoy this John C. Reilly triple feature.

John, “Hard Eight” (1996) – A hard eight is a roll of two dice, when both land on four at a craps table at any nearby casino.  According to Google, the player has a 9.09 percent chance of winning this bet, or 1 out of 11.  Since the payout is typically 9 to 1, the numbers are not in the bettor’s favor, so the possibility of hard luck is real. 

When we first meet John (Reilly), he looks like a man with a genuine case of hard luck.  He’s sitting on the ground and leaning against Jack’s Coffee Shop when an older, distinguished gentlemen (Philip Baker Hall) - sporting a black jacket, a black tie and a white-collar shirt - approaches.  Sydney (Hall) offers John a cigarette and a cup of coffee.  He accepts, and this is the beginning of a close friendship and a master-apprentice relationship, but what type of trade does Sydney offer? 

John C. Reilly and Philip Baker Hall in “Hard Eight” (1996)

Set in Reno, Nev., “Hard Eight” is director Paul Thomas Anderson’s first movie, which includes a sizable gambling element, but the narrative also copes with a separate makeshift existence away from the flashy lights, buzzes, beeps, cheers of victory, and groans of defeat inside the casinos.

Anderson tapped Reilly and Hall for his first three movies, including “Boogie Nights” (1997) and “Magnolia” (1999).  When looking back 24 years to “Hard Eight”, it’s easy to notice Reilly’s youthful appearance.  Okay, he was 31 in 1996, so he’s not that young.  Still, Reilly’s character carries a clumsy innocence of a guy with no apparent skills. 

That’s not exactly true, because John declares, “I know three types of karate: Jiu-Jitsu, Aikido and regular karate.” 

Then again, one can picture John waking up on a random Wednesday morning and wondering what his unscheduled day will bring. 

He’s a man without a plan.

John (the character, not the actor) might remind you of Dirk Diggler’s wingman Reed Rothchild (Reilly) from “Boogie Nights” (1997), but after his adult film career ended, and the Game of Life dropped an ACME anvil on his head. 

Anyways, Anderson includes Gwyneth Paltrow in a dubious role as a cocktail waitress.  Samuel L. Jackson plays a security manager, and Philip Seymour Hoffman delivers a wild, flat out hilarious appearance as an obnoxious craps roller. 

Yes, this is Anderson’s first rodeo, but he dons his familiar puppet master garb, throws his on-screen creations on an ice rink and yanks the strings.  Be careful, Clementine (Paltrow), Jimmy (Jackson), Sydney, and John!  So much is at stake, including the coveted master-apprentice relationship.  

Dean Ziegler, “Cedar Rapids” (2011) – “What’s the one thing I said?  Stay clear of Dean Ziegler.” – Bill Krogstad (Stephen Root)

Anne Heche, John C. Reilly, Ed Helms, and Isiah Whitlock Jr. in “Cedar Rapids” (2011)

If Dale Doback in “Step Brothers” (2008) is Reilly’s funniest role, then his turn as party-focused insurance agent Dean Ziegler has to be a close second.  Descending on The Royal Cedar Suites in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for the 2009 ASMI Conference, Dean isn’t focused on work.  Drinking heavily, breaking the rules, hanging out with old friends, and making new ones are his top priorities.  Sure, tornadoes sometimes plague Iowa, but there’s no bigger windstorm than Dean, or as he likes to call himself, The Deanzie.  This 40-something – who would’ve fit in perfectly with Faber College’s Delta Tau Chi fraternity – hasn’t grown up.  Mind you, Mr. Ziegler doesn’t carry a malicious bone in his body, but that doesn’t stop him from conversing like Cartman from “South Park” while wearing a $600 suit and holding a cocktail.

“Well, I don’t know about you wingnuts, but the Deanzie could use a Drinksie,” he proclaims.

Reilly steals every scene with wild, nutso glee, as Dean constantly crashes cartoonish crass words of wisdom to his old buddies (Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Anne Heche), but they usually shrug off his insane energy.  They’ve heard it all before, but we haven’t, and their deadpan reactions amplify our disbelief, as this crazy, lovable lug delivers about 200 belly laughs.  Stepping into a swimming pool fully clothed with a garbage can lid on his head and loitering around the hotel in his boxers for about 10 minutes of screen time are a couple of hysterical examples. 

Dean also finds nicknames for his buddies, as Ronald “Ronimal” Wilkes (Whitlock Jr.), Joan “O-Fox” Ostrowski-Fox (Heche) and newcomer Tim “Timbo” Lippe (Ed Helms) stick together like lifelong siblings, but families do fight on occasion.  Tim – who might be the most naive adult to grace a big or small screen since Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson) – clashes with Dean, as the exchanges between straight-laced Timbo and frat brother Deanzie are celebrated comedic concoctions.  By the way, Helms is the lead protagonist of director Miguel Arteta’s “Cedar Rapids”.  “The Office” actor carries a full bag of humor-tricks, and Reilly’s Dean is the perfect horrible influence that we’ll wholeheartedly invite to every bash.  

Eli Sisters, “The Sisters Brothers” (2018) – Director Jacques Audiard’s “The Sisters Brothers” might have the most confusing title in motion pictures since “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” (2016) and “Naked Lunch” (1991).  Don’t blame Audiard, because Patrick deWitt’s novel has the same name.  Thankfully, the opening minutes of this unorthodox, unexpected western (set in 1851) solve the perplexing mystery.  Eli Sisters (Reilly) and Charlie Sisters (Joaquin Phoenix) are brothers. 

Eureka!

John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix in “The Sisters Brothers” (2018)

They are also business partners, and their chosen profession is bounty hunting.  Reilly quietly dives into the mind of the low-key, older sibling, who regularly looks after his younger, hot-tempered and constantly-drinking bro Charlie.  Let’s face it; Charlie is Phoenix’s jam.  Joaquin can play him in his sleep, and look at his performances in “The Master” (2012), “You Were Never Really Here” (2017) and “Joker” (2019) as similar examples.

Both actors deliver intriguing, mesmerizing work in this picture, but Reilly juggles a lot as Eli.  First, Eli is a part-time nurse because Charlie frequently drinks himself into oblivion.  His repeated losing battles with alcohol frustrate Eli to no end, but that’s not the only bother. 

On their journey from Oregon City to several locales in Northern California - to track down an unassuming chemist named Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed) - Charlie asks, “Are you upset because I’m the lead man?”

Charlie takes the reins of this dangerous two-man errand, but we might assume he’s led every operation during their entire careers.  Now, Eli and Charlie’s relationship isn’t a replica of Fredo and Michael Corleone’s rapport, but some conflicted feelings – to a much lesser degree - linger.  

Lastly, both Eli and Charlie – at their core - are stone-cold killers.  Although Eli is dramatically more introspective and subdued than Charlie, these two gunfighters wouldn’t blink at shooting a man.  The Sisters fire so quickly and efficiently, the fella facing the end of either sibling’s barrel better not bat an eye, or he will find himself buried six feet in the ground.

Audiard hardly gives us a chance to stand on solid ground throughout the film’s 122-minute runtime.  With Charlie’s unpredictable conduct and the picture’s shifting narrative, this western regularly surprises, including some haunting scenes with minimal lighting. “The Sisters Brothers” is a dark picture, literally and figuratively, but Reilly and Phoenix light up the screen in a movie (with a notable title) that you won’t soon forget.    

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.

The Painter and the Thief - Movie Review by Ben Cahlamer

Barbora Kysilkova and Karl-Bertil Nordland in the Sundance Award winning film “The Painter and the Thief”.

Directed by: Benjamin Ree

Featuring: Barbora Kysilkova, Karl-Bertil Nordland

If you were to look at "The Painter and the Thief" based only on its title, you might immediately think of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" or "American Animals."

"The Painter and the Thief," is a documentary hybrid between "Dragon Tattoo" and "American Animals." It uses the mystery theft of two paintings from an Oslo art gallery to bring two people together in ways that neither of them could imagine.

The documentary, which won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Storytelling at the 2020 Sundance, uses the intrigue of the theft to tell the story of the artist, Barbora. Police can identify the two thieves. Through the course of their trial, police are unable to determine what happened to the paintings nor why or even how the thieves were able to get away with the deed.

Coming from a difficult background, Barbora has one of the most unique perspectives of the human condition that I have seen, something that Ree captures exquisitely. Barbora believes that she can survive on her art alone, something her boyfriend supports. Even as she struggles though, something that Ree also makes a point to expound on, Barbora is an exceptionally altruistic person, giving the clothes off her back to someone.

This is where Karl comes in.

Since the police cannot explain the motive behind the theft and cannot retrieve the art, Barbora takes an interest in Karl, asking to meet with him, and eventually paint him. When we first meet Karl, he is very much down on his luck, having turned to drugs. But we also see a glimpse of intelligence behind his eyes; a powerful force exists within the glazed-over eyes.

Ree tells their mutual stories from two different vantage points and, in doing so, reveals a unique bond that forms between the two of them. The uniqueness of the story compels you to understand that it is indeed a documentary, while at the same time, it feels like a narrative drama having been written for the screen. This combination demonstrates why the film won the Sundance jury prize.

In telling the story, we learn of both Barbora's and Karl's innermost secrets, a personalization in them that would potentially be lost if they were distilled on to a script and then interpreted by an actor. Just as with Barbora's art, the canvas comes alive.

"The Painter and the Thief" reminds us of our uniqueness and the connections that drive us toward one another.

4 out of 4 stars

Life in Synchro - Movie Review by Jeff Mitchell

On May 23rd, film festival audiences from across North America will join together for a virtual screening of the documentary ‘Life in Synchro’.

Director: Angela Pinaglia

“Life in Synchro” – If someone said the words sport and synchronized, what’s the first thought that comes to mind?   That’s right, synchronized swimming, a cross between ballet, group dance and water polo, and the aquawomen, who embrace it, make their graceful routines look effortless.  So much so, that observers – sitting on their couches with remote controls in hand – may say, “I could do that.”  

On the other hand, many others - who struggle to tread water for 30 seconds in the deep end,  and include yours truly in this group -  might respond, “Holy smokes.  They must have practiced for years.”

That’s exactly true, and synchronized swimming – an Olympic sport since the 1984 Summer Games – has gone mainstream, although most folks probably only watch these extraordinary swimmers/artists once every four years.

Turning to director Angela Pinaglia’s documentary, she chronicles a sister sport, but one played on ice in “Life in Synchro”.

If you are unfamiliar with synchronized skating, you aren’t alone.

“You find out synchronized skating is this new crazy world,” Emily Fitzgerald, a roughly 20-year-old skater on the Dearborn Crystallettes. 

She adds, “It’s not the female version of something else, and it’s 99.99 percent female.”

Although it’s not an Olympic event, after experiencing Pinaglia’s doc, one certainly recognizes the passion burning in suburban Detroit and throughout the country.  According to Google, about 600 teams registered with U.S. Figure Skating, and the film takes thoughtful care by featuring coaches and several former and current skaters who offer detailed personal history lessons and explained the present-day state of affairs. 

We meet Emily, her sister Cayty (and that’s not misspelled), numerous coaches, and former competitors in their 60s and above, like Peggy, Edie and Heidi.  Heidi Coffin still skates competitively with the DownEasters out of Portland, Maine, and proudly proclaims that she wasn’t ready to hang up her blades after turning 65.

The doc splashes the coaches’ and skaters’ names in big pink letters on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, so the interviewees are easier to remember, but Pinaglia mainly follows Heidi’s and Emily’s journeys.  All of the women (and one man) sport friendly faces and upbeat energy, but many acknowledge the lack of media sunlight on their lifelong endeavors.  Although other than the absence of everyday recognition and a short montage of spills, we don’t get a real sense of the uphill struggles that the dedicated women overcame.  So, when it comes time to witness the Crystallettes’ and DownEasters’ crescendos on the ice, this new spectator indeed rooted for them but wanted to feel more invested.  The aforementioned sacrifices didn’t appear evident, but then again, the sporting world has never slighted this movie critic because of his gender.  Surely, female viewers who have walked/skated in the on-screen athletes’ shoes/skates would feel a deeper connection.  Still, that bond seems limiting, because the film is remarkably short with a runtime of just 53 minutes. 

Also, with so many thoughtful interviews, Pinaglia leaves less time for actual skating.  At one point, however, a camera is included with a skater on the ice in a dazzling, eye-opening sequence, so we get a feel for the overwhelming speed and precision.  

Oh, let’s see more of that! 

That was cool, but the film only grants that one first-person chance.

On the other hand, “Life in Synchro” delivers a complete picture of synchronized skating with coaches strategizing on-concrete and skaters practicing and performing on-ice.  We soon know Emily, Heidi and others, and their collective love of the sport shines so brightly that the various rinks’ high-powered air-conditioning units need to work overtime to keep the ice intact.  Looking back, Cayty and Emily’s mom Suzie may have said it best.

“Synchronized skating is like a flock of birds.  You know, how they all move in one direction in flight.”

After watching “Life in Synchro”, there’s no question the skaters carry can-do attitudes, showy presentations (colorful costumes filled with sequins and faces splashed with big smiles), impressive athleticism, and close teamwork.  So, the next time you hear the words sport and synchronized, TWO thoughts will immediately come to mind.

(2/4 stars)

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.