Movie Review Beau is Afraid

Beau is Afraid (2023) 

Directed by Ari Aster

Written by Ari Aster 

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Amy Ryan, Patti Lupone 

Release Date April 21st, 2023 

Published April 21st, 2023 

What if what Beau sees as the world around is really his internal life, externalized? This is the kind of question that toys with you when you watch a film from the remarkable, ungodly talented writer-director Ari Aster. The director of the twin masterworks Hereditary and Midsommar, Aster is a masterfully detailed and thorough director with a tone for tone and atmosphere that may just be unmatched in modern cinema. The thesis statement for my claim is Beau is Afraid, a film where atmosphere and tone stand in for just about anything you might find familiar as a film narrative. 

Beau is Afraid stars Joaquin Phoenix as Beau, a stunted, edgy, angst-riddled mess of a human being. Beau inhabits a universe where a criminal known as Stab-Man wanders the streets nude and stabbing people while building an astonishing body count. The streets are littered with filthy oddballs and just plain corpses strewn here and there by a society of haves and have nots we will only ever get a minor sense of. The point is not to make a direct comment about man's inhumanity to man, but to offer you the sight and let you make up your own mind about what is presented. 

Besides, the corpses in the street and Stab-Man aren't really things that Beau is interested, unless he's leaping over a corpse to escape the Stab-Man, and then, suddenly, these things really, really matter. The story kicks off when Beau's mother, played by the legendary Patti Lupone, is expecting Beau to get on a plane to come and see her. We've learned that Beau is not high on the prospect of seeing his mother. He tells his therapist, Dr. Jeremy, that though he loves his mother, the visit fills him with the kind of anxiety that must be treated by a high end drug that MUST be taken with water. 

You don't want to know what might happen if you take these pills without water. Regardless, as Beau is getting ready to leave his apartment, his bags and keys are stolen. Being a spineless simp for his mother's withheld affections, Beau tells Mom that he will still try and make his plane, even as he no longer has a bag or keys to his apartment, or his boarding pass, and she feigns telling him that its fine if he doesn't come, with the strong subtext being that he doesn't love her because he's not coming. 

Beau is a character to whom life happens. Beau doesn't have experiences, he has experiences inflicted upon him by an uncompromising world bent on making him do things he doesn't want to do. It's all related to his strange upbringing, the weird and uncompromising relationship with his mother, the absence of his father, and a bizarre relationship to women with deep oedipal roots and a self-loathing based fear that is not expressed but that Beau wears like a second skin. 

The trip to see his mother is the beginning of a journey for Beau that will somehow combine elements of David Lynch, David Cronenberg, and Homer's Odyssey. If that combination elements, shot through the incredibly prismatic mind of Ari Aster, appeals to you, Beau is Afraid is a must see movie. If however, you are not completely on board for some of the weirdest, most shocking, and distressing moments ever brought to the big screen, then, perhaps, this not the movie for you. 

Find my complete review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Late Night

Late Night (2019) 

Directed by Nisha Ganatra 

Written by Mindy Kaling

Starring Emma Thompson, Mindy Kaling, John Lithgow, Max Casella, Amy Ryan 

Release Date June 7th, 2019 

Published June 6th, 2019 

Emma Thompson delivers the most nuanced, engaging and charismatic performance of 2019 thus far in the new comedy Late Night. Written by and co-starring Mindy Kaling, Late Night stars Emma Thompson as Kate Newburn, a staple of American late night television, despite her British roots. Now in her late 50’s Kate has grown complacent and while she remains sharp, her show has grown stale and a network busybody, played by Amy Ryan, wants to replace her with a young, foul-mouthed comic, played by Ike Barinholz. 

The simple notion of Late Night, sold by the film’s trailer, is that Kate fires her male staff and hires Molly, played by Kaling, and their opposing personalities lead the show to renewed greatness. Thankfully, Late Night is far more unique and demanding than such easy to swallow fluff. Sure, Molly does shake things up among the roomful of Harvard educated, male comedy writers, including Hugh Dancy. Reid Scott and Max Casella, but only a couple of the unnamed writers actually get fired. 

What actually happens in Late Night is not so simple to describe. As much as Late Night is a genuinely funny and very engaging movie, its story is about the search for an authentic voice, a nuanced and not easily captured idea. Emma Thompson may have elements of Meryl Streep’s nasty 'The Devil Wears Prada' persona but there is a great deal more depth here. Thompson plumbs the depths of Kate Newburn and seeks a truth that applies both to the male dominated landscape of late night television and into something human and true about relationships, business, aging and love. 

John Lithgow plays Walter Newbury, Kate’s exceedingly educated house husband. Walter doesn’t go out much since the diagnosis of his disease. This however, is by design for both he and Kate as they are exceptionally private and insular people. Part of the journey of Late Night is forcing Kate out of that insular comfort zone and out into a world that changed around her while she stood still in the midst of depression and a few bad decisions. 

Mental and physical health, gender, and bad decisions are each a big part of Late Night. Emma Thompson combats each of these but not in a way that is simple. She may be the main protagonist of Late Night but that doesn’t stop her from being exceedingly prickly or narcissistic. It’s a journey for her to become a better person but part of who Kate is remains a narcissistic, attention seeking know-it-all. She gets better at being kind but she’s not becoming a saint and that makes the journey of Late Night so very authentic. 

I have barely made mention of Mindy Kaling, the other side of this double headed movie. Kaling’s Molly is rather underwritten. We know she doesn’t come from a comedy background, that she’s young and unafraid to say what is on her mind but in terms of actual incidents in Late Night, she’s mostly sidelined. Editing appears to have cut much of her romantic subplot opposite Dancy and Scott while her scenes with Kaling and Thompson are heavily charged, filled with back and forth, they are exclusively about Thompson’s character and not Molly. 

Kaling does provide a solid foil for Kate, a wide-eyed innocent in a cutthroat comedy industry but don't expect to learn much about her struggles, it's not her movie in the end. Molly's earnestness is the counterpoint to Kate’s stultifying cynicism and while we know Molly will win her over eventually, I enjoyed the ways in which the movie subverts expectations in Molly and Kate’s relationship by focusing on Kate. The script, written by Kaling, has a contempt for earnestness that I really appreciated and Thompson is at her best puncturing Molly’s enthusiasm. 

Late Night is funny because Emma Thompson makes Kate funny. She’s harsh and depressed and yet, razor sharp when she wants to be. Watching Molly see just how sharp she is off camera versus on camera is part of the plot of Late Night but, again, just making Kate speak her mind is too simple for this super-smart movie. Kate has to psychologically get out of her own way first before she can be authentic on her show and the pitfalls of that self-examination are at the heart of this brilliant little movie.

Movie Review Green Zone

Green Zone (2010)

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Written by Brian Helgeland

Starring Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson, Amy Ryan

Release Date March 12th, 2010

Published March 11th, 2010 

It’s tempting to say ‘too little, too late’ about the politics of the new thriller “Green Zone.” I was just getting started working in talk radio in 2002 and 2003 when the march to war in Iraq began and I was wondering at the time when Hollywood or anyone other than me, and a coterie of liberal groups, were going to start asking serious questions about why we were going to war in a country that had not attacked us and did not have any weapons of mass destruction.

Joe Wilson told us that the intelligence was faulty while others told the true tale of the Bush Administration wanting a war against Saddam and a chance to finish the job left undone by the first gulf war, and Bush's father George H.W. Bush. This information was readily available at the time but Hollywood, like so many others, allowed themselves to be cowed by administration goons screaming about a lack of patriotism in those who opposed war.

In the years since the decision was made Hollywood has become slightly less timid. Sure, there was always Michael Moore but he’s not Hollywood, he’s never been cowed by anyone but the occasional untruth. No, the filmmakers timidly attempted telling human stories, soldier stories but avoided really taking on the central issues of the war in Iraq and the war on terror.

It wasn’t until last year when the boldest critique of Bush administration policy arrived in James Cameron’s “Avatar.” Yes, though some loathe admitting it, not wanting to spoil the brain free fun of the film’s fantastic visuals, the most successful film of all time is an anti-war tract scoring points against preemptive war, occupying armies and how the war on terror has been fought.

I have issues with the heavy handed points that the ultra-liberal James Cameron makes in “Avatar” but mostly I was irritated that it came so late to the game. We needed a movie like “Avatar” 6 years ago when the topic was bold, fresh and there was an impact to be made. That same feeling clouds my appreciation of Matt Damon’s new thriller “Green Zone,” arguably the boldest direct criticism of the war in Iraq Hollywood has yet delivered.

Matt Damon stars as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, leader of a squad searching for WMD in the days immediately following the invasion of Iraq. Roy is growing frustrated quickly. Each site his team raids comes up empty and looks to have been empty for a very long time. When Miller questions the ‘intel’ that keeps sending him to empty sites he is told not to ask questions, just follow orders.

Miller’s questions however catch the ear of a CIA Agent, Martin Brown (Brenden Gleeson), who encourages Miller to keep asking questions and if he turns up something useful, call him. Miller soon does turn up something interesting and it is something that some very powerful people will do anything to keep quiet. Greg Kinnear plays a shady White House official who opposes Miller and Brown.

“Green Zone” boldly tackles the Bush Administration’s main justification for war in Iraq, the need to secure Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. We know now, really we knew then, that Saddam had no weapons and hadn’t had weapons since the first gulf war. The futile search for weapons they knew weren’t there cost far too many innocent lives, though “Green Zone” doesn’t pause too long to ponder that, the point is made in brief.

The film goes further in other avenues of the war however, wading into the strategy of the administration’s post war policy. In disbanding the Iraqi army the Bush Administration missed an important opportunity to shorten the war by keeping the guys with the guns employed on our side as opposed to unemployed, armed and desperate. Keeping some of the Baathists in power would have been controversial but it also would have saved lives.

Now, I am making “Green Zone” out to be heavier than it is. Trust me; this is an action thriller at its heart. Directed by Paul Greengrass, the director of two of the Jason Bourne blockbusters, “Green Zone” starts fast and is relentless in its pulse pounding action and suspense. The political points are scored on the edges while the action and suspense dominate the foreground.

“Green Zone” features bold politics and bad ass action and yet, like “Avatar,” it comes far too late to the party. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have my opinions reiterated with the force of pop culture behind them but I was making these points about the war at the time. I know Hollywood can’t make movies quickly but seven years late is a little much.

For those not invested in an anti-war stance as I was and am, “Green Zone” still offers the pleasure of being a seriously butt kicking action flick with realism, violence and chest tightening, pulse pounding suspense. I may still be lamenting the war in Iraq but “Green Zone” moves so quickly that lament will be the last thing most will feel while watching.

Movie Review: Before the Devil Knows Your Dead

Before the Devil Knows Your Dead (2007) 

Directed by Sydney Lumet 

Written by Kelly Masterson 

Starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Amy Ryan, Marisa Tomei 

Release Date October 26th, 2007 

Published November 5th, 2007

Sydney Lumet has already been given a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars. Those awards are given to artists whose best work is long behind them. Not Lumet who with his latest film Before The Devil Knows Your Dead crafts arguably the most engaged and fascinating work in his nearly 60 year directorial career. A thriller starring Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman as brothers trying to find some way to pay off their debts, Before The Devil Knows Your Dead unfolds from sleeze to tragedy and back again all the while holding the audience enthralled beginning to end.

Andy Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has the look of a successful man. His wife Gina is gorgeous and he's pulling down six figures a year in his high finance gig. On the other hand he has a serious drug problem and more than a little debt to take care of. Andy's brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) is far worse off. Even more in debt with an ex-wife (Amy Ryan) draining his bank account and a young daughter to support, Hank is in dire straits. Andy has a way to solve both of their problems but it won't be easy. It involves a robbery. To say much more than that would spoil a stunner of a plot.

Albert Finney plays the boys father and delivers a performance of devastating depth and conviction. It is some of the finest work in a multiple Oscar winning career. With Hoffman and Hawke in the lead and Rosemary Harris, Oscar nominee Amy Ryan and Oscar winner Marisa Tomei on board Director Lumet assembled a can't miss cast and unleashed them on a Greek tragedy of mismatched fates, fortunes and family ties. A debut script from Kelly Masterson invigorates the old master Lumet and with this cast in place Before The Devil Knows Your Dead becomes something beyond extraordinary.

Movie Review Win Win

Win Win (2011) 

Directed by Tom McCarthy 

Written by Tom McCarthy

Starring Paul Giamatti, Burt Young, Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale 

Release Date March 18th, 2011 

Published March 17th, 2011 

Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) is struggling. His law practice is not making any money and the stress has begun to manifest itself in breathless panic attacks that mirror heart attack symptoms. Mike needs money and when he stumbles across an opportunity to make some money through an ethical loophole with one of his clients (Burt Young) he takes it.

Since "Win Win" is a movie we know that Mike's decision will have very particular consequences or it wouldn't be in the story. What writer-director Thomas McCarthy creates in order to arrive at those consequences and the wealth of emotions involved in when and how Mike's ethical lapse is revealed is the hook of "Win Win," a small human story about a good man whose flaws cannot mask his true nature.

Paul Giamatti is spectacularly well cast as Mike Flaherty. His unique face communicates worry and sadness while his clipped line delivery makes him sound desperate and close to out of breath even when he's in a relaxed moment. Giamatti's nervous energy has been his calling card since his breakthrough performance in Howard Stern's "Private Parts" through his rise to stardom in "Sideways."

Alex Shaffer plays Kyle in "Win Win." Kyle is the main complication to Mike's money making scheme. Having run away from home and being only 16 years old, Mike and his wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) are forced to take Kyle in while they sort out the situation with his mother and his Alzheimer's afflicted grandfather. The connections between these characters are something I want you to discover by seeing the movie.

The movie poster shows Kyle in wrestling gear sitting next to Mike. Wrestling appears in Win Win as both literal, Mike coaches a High School wrestling team and as a clever undercurrent to the main story as Mike wrestles with his conscience over his scheme, and, more importantly, about how not to get caught while Kyle wrestles with his past including his recovering drug addict mother (Melanie Lynskey) who also has a connection to Mike's scheme.

Writer-director Thomas McCarthy has an eye for small human stories. He was the writer and director of "The Station Agent," a small highly observant and smart picture about unique characters who form an odd family. McCarthy then directed "The Visitor," another film about unlikely family ties, this time an older white college professor and a young, immigrant African man and wife.

McCarthy approaches these stories with compassion and a thoughtful curiosity about how his characters live from day to day and how they interact with changing circumstances that are mundane by movie standards but are things real people are experiencing everyday. "Win Win," like "The Station Agent" and "The Visitor," is a warm, kind and modestly funny movie that compels you with great characters who reflect lives you can relate to, sympathize with and still be entertained by.

Movie Review Gone Baby Gone

Gone Baby Gone (2007) 

Directed by Ben Affleck 

Written by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard 

Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Ryan, Titus Welliver 

Release Date October 19th, 2007

Published October 18th, 2007 

Ben Affleck has long been unfairly maligned as an actor. Yes, he made Gigli and Paycheck and Reindeer Games and they are no picnic, fair. But those movies do not define his talent. The vitriol aimed at Ben Affleck has long seemed like over the top piling on and more than a little jealousy, from my perspective. Now, with the release of his directorial debut Gone Baby Gone, Affleck haters will have to eat their words. In a season of Oscar shortfalls, Gone Baby Gone is the fall season's first film to exceed the awards hype.

Casey Affleck stars in the moody, noirish Gone Baby Gone, based on the Dennis LeHane of the same name. Casey plays Patrick Kenzie, a small-time detective in the slums of Boston. Along with his girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan), Patrick usually handles missing person cases involving bail jumpers and child support deadbeats.

Imagine Patrick's surprise when a family involved in a high profile kidnapping seeks his help in finding a missing four year old girl. Amy Madigan plays the child's concerned aunt who hopes that Patrick can use his familiarity in the neighborhood to get better leads than the cops can get. Needless to say, the cops aren't entirely happy for the help.

Morgan Freeman is Jack Doyle, the local police chief in charge of missing children cases. Ed Harris and John Ashton are the two detectives leading the case who accept Patrick's help grudgingly and quite skeptically. Soon witnesses and suspects begin to pile up and so do a few bodies and Patrick finds himself wrapped in a very dangerous mystery and a moral crisis.

Gone Baby Gone plays like a police procedural but there is so much more to it. As the movie goes on Casey Affleck's Patrick is forced to make choices that no one would want to make. Choices that require an examination of his morals and ethics and his sense of right and wrong. The script by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard doesn't make the decisions easy or overly dramatic. The plot elements of Gone Baby Gone develop organically, natural to the story being told.

It's a rare modern movie that gives characters time to make moral decisions that aren't forced or pathetic. Patrick will be haunted by his choices, right and wrong. The consequences are aired and examined and smartly dispatched in one of the best scripts of the year.

Casey Affleck comes to life in Gone Baby Gone. Long known as Ben's little brother, Casey steps out of big brother's shadow with a performance that combines toughness, street smarts and sadness. Never angsty or overly dramatic, Casey's Patrick reveals himself slowly as just a good man turned into a reluctant crusader by some ugly circumstances and a promise he made to a grieving mother.

Affleck is matched grit for grit with Michelle Monaghan who nails the south Boston accent and the neighborhood's tomboy chic. Sexy with just a touch of naivete, Monaghan is the perfect dramatic and romantic foil for Casey Affleck's street smart tough guy detective. Together they spark with terrific romantic chemistry that gives the perfect impression of a relationship begun long before we meet them.

The third lead character in Gone Baby Gone is South Boston, a hard knocks area of one of America's most well known city's. Ben and Casey Affleck are quite familiar with these streets and this neighborhood having grown up there and as a director Ben Affleck gives gritty life to these downtrodden, drug and crime ridden streets.

That familiar turf is likely what drew Ben Affleck to the work of Dennis LeHane on whose series of novels Gone Baby Gone is based. Like Affleck, LeHane is from Boston and knows these streets, these crimes and these people. The naturalistic dialogue comes from a very knowing place in both Affleck and LeHane and while they are unafraid to expose the dark side of Boston even as you can sense a certain loyalty and love in the way they draw these characters.

Gone Baby Gone is the first film of the fall of 2007 that, for me, exceeds the awards expectations. Casey Affleck's confident and concise performance and the terrific adapted screenplay by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard seem like locks come Oscar nomination time. And here's hoping that the long time, unwarranted public disdain for Ben Affleck doesn't affect his chances of being nominated for directing Gone Baby Gone.

Ben Affleck's work here is as gritty and hard boiled as a young Scorsese with the polish of modern Hollywood production. Gone Baby Gone is Ben's baby and it succeeds on his talent. This one is a must see.

Movie Review: Beautiful Boy

Beautiful Boy (2018) 

Directed by Felix Van Groeningen

Written by Luke Davies, Felix Van Groeningen 

Starring Steve Carell, Timothee Chalamet, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan 

Release Date October 12th, 2018 

Published October 9th, 2018 

Beautiful Boy stars Steve Carell as David Sheff, a very successful freelance reporter living in California. When we meet David he appears to be at a desperate moment. He is interviewing a doctor, played by Timothy Hutton, about addiction. The doctor assumes this is for an article but David informs him that this research is personal. David’s son, Nic (Timothee Chalamet), is addicted to Meth and David has turned to the only thing he can imagine to make sense of things, in-depth research of the kind he’s done as a reporter. 

Indeed, research is the one way in which David Sheff is able to deal with the futility of his son’s addiction. We watch as David takes this research to varying extremes from trying to talk with Nic, to interviewing a young addict over lunch, to interviewing the doctor. He even goes as far as trying methamphetamine himself to understand the appeal. He’s lucky that he didn’t begin his own addiction with that move. 

These interactions are all kinds of interesting but as presented in Beautiful Boy the observations of David, the outcome of his research, have an obtuse quality. We get a vague insight into David, he lives for research, and that’s pretty much the one insight about the character that isn’t vague or assumed. He’s sensitive and he’s compassionate toward his son, he’s loving, but these are qualities we assume of a well to do parent and we wait for the story to tell us something different and it never does. 

David is reminiscent of Donald Sutherland’s character from Ordinary People minus the straw man villain provided in that film by Mary Tyler Moore’s harridan mother-figure. Like Sutherland, Carell plays a saintly figure of suffering but without the Moore character to play off of, Carell doesn’t have many notes to play here. Carell is certainly not bad in this role which leaves me to wonder what anyone thought was particularly cinematic about what David goes through. What is David’s arc? Suffering some to not suffering as much? 

Nic’s arc is to go from child to addict to recovery. That’s not a bad arc but it is off-screen a lot in favor of David’s less engaging lack of an arc. What are we to take away from Nic’s journey? What is special about what Nic went through? His family is wealthy, are we supposed to take away that addiction can happen to anyone regardless of privilege? The film doesn’t appear to have any insight or perspective, nothing really drives the narrative other than drugs are bad, don’t do drugs. 

The main takeaway I had from the movie is that Timothee Chalamet is a very charismatic and intriguing actor who is underserved by a role that doesn’t have a strong narrative engine behind it. Everything is surface level in Beautiful Boy, starting with the beautiful sets and cinematography which are at odds with the agony of Nic’s addiction and the toll it is having on his family. I have joked in the past about characters in disease of the week dramas who have what I call ‘Pretty Cancer,’ that strange type of disease that allows you to remain movie star pretty despite being on deaths’ door. 

Nic appears to have a case of ‘Pretty Addiction.’ Despite the years of meth abuse and living on the streets, the story appears to take place over 5 or 6 years or maybe a decade, now that I think about it, the movie is vague on this point. Regardless of however long Nic’s addiction has gone on, he remains a beautiful young man. Drugs don’t appear to take a toll on him aside from making him rather skinny but Chalamet even makes lanky look handsome. 

There doesn’t appear to be a baseline reality to the story of Beautiful Boy despite the fact that it is based, loosely, on a true story. The film shies away from the uglier parts of Nic’s addiction. For instance, in his book, “Tweaked,” Nic is very open about his years of trading sexual favors with men for money to buy drugs. This doesn’t get mentioned once in the movie and Nic rarely looks worse for wear despite the drugs and what we can presume he did to get them. 

Why did Nic get into drugs in the first place? The film has a scene of father and son sharing a joint and Nic opens up a little about how smoking weed makes life easier to deal with. What was wrong with his life? We don’t really know and perhaps we don’t need to. Kids try drugs all the time, some get a quick high and move on and some take on an addiction that can’t be explained. Brain chemistry makes some people more or less susceptible to drug addiction. 

This is a very specific story about a specific kid who got into drugs, got addicted and stayed that way for a while. There is one thing that stands out that appears insightful and instructive. At one point, Nic talks about being ashamed of being on drugs and how drugs were the only way to stave off the shame. That’s a strong notion, a vivid insight into Nic’s mindset. Beautiful Boy could have used more thoughtful asides like that but the film is dramatically inert. 

Beautiful Boy isn’t notably bad. Timothee Chalamet is incredibly talented and that talent shines through the moribund story being told here. Steve Carell, Maura Tierney and Amy Ryan are quite good at earning our sympathy but the story they are in lacks a narrative engine. The story unfolds in fits and starts that cause the film to drag and feel pointless even as it clearly has one point, drugs are bad, don’t use drugs. 

I don’t want to completely warn you away from this movie as it is not terrible. Beautiful Boy just isn’t quite as good as it should be. The scenery is lovely but the story has no movement. Nic is moving toward not being an addict but the rest of the story sputters along hitting the same note, drugs are bad, don’t do drugs. This does not make for much compelling drama or insightful commentary.

See Beautiful Boy for the performance of Timothee Chalamet but keep your expectations for the movie low. This is not the Academy Award contender that some would like you to believe that it is. It’s a big budget Lifetime Movie of the week at best, with an Oscar-caliber performance from Chalamet that is undermined by the rest of the movie’s lack of ambition.