Movie Review Back to Black

Back to Black (2024) 

Directed by Sam Taylor Johnson

Written by Matt Greenhalgh

Starring Marisa Abela, Jack O'Connell, Leslie Manville, Eddie Marsan 

Release Date May 17th, 2024 

Published May 21st, 2024 

Why did director Sam Taylor Johnson want to tell this story? Is she a fan of Amy Winehouse? It's hard to say based on Johnson's new movie Back to Black. This is nothing biopic that offers no insight on Amy Winehouse, her art or her tragic death. The emptiness of Back to Black reminded me more of Johnson's Fifty Shades sequel than her slightly more accomplished John Lennon movie, Nowhere Boy. In that film, at the very least, we sensed that there was joy in the discovery of artistic talent and the forming of bonds that would become legendary. Back to Black carries little joy beyond playing Amy Winehouse's music. I could have gotten the same insights sitting at home next to my record player. 

Back to Black opens on an odd image. Amy Winehouse, played by Marisa Abela, is running down a London Street alone. The camera is shooting down at her from overhead. If this were a male director I'd want to ask why they have decided to aim the camera in a way that centers Marisa abela's cleavage as it bounces while she runs. The odd angle is perhaps, if I were to stretch a little, a visual comment on the strange way we view celebrities, but that's a pretty big stretch. Realistically, I can't think of a good reason for this visual. It's also a piece of a scene that unfolds later in the movie, not the end, it's not a preview of the end of the movie, it's a piece from around the end of the second act. So why does the movie start with this? I can't think of a reason. 

From here, we bounce back in time. A family party has Amy showing off her love of Jazz standards a mind for memorizing classic songs that she can repeat with out accompaniment. For someone as young as Amy to have memorized songs by Jazz legends speaks not only to her influences but her talent for adapting that style into her own remarkable pop styling. This, again, is an observation I could have made from listening to an Amy Winehouse record, but whatever, Marisa Abela sounds great and she has a big presence to her, reminiscent of Winehouse's outsized personality. 

Find my full length review in the Beat Community on Vocal Find my full length review in the Beat Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Fair Play

Fair Play (2023) 

Directed by Chloe Domont 

Written by Chloe Domont 

Starring Phoebe Dynevor, Alden Ehrenreich, Eddie Marsan, Rich Sommer 

Release Date September 29th, 2023 

Published October 12th 

Fair Play is a vile, ugly, nasty movie and I kind of love it. Few films have gotten under my skin as deeply as Fair Play has. I've struggled to write about the film until now simply because trying to gather my thoughts on it leaves me both enraged and exhausted. In a good way. I've written this review several times and thrown it out several times. I've written negative reviews and positive reviews and tried to figure out a way to talk about the movie without revealing too much about myself. That's the power of a work of art, when it can get inside you and mess around like that. 

Fair Play has a really clever opening shot. The camera opens on the back of Phoebe Dynevor's Emily at a party. She stands alone in the distance as Donna Summer's sex anthem, Love to Love You Baby plays on the soundtrack. The deeper meanings of this shot will become clear as the movie plays out. Emily, alone, singular, distant, and yet, sex is in the air. Sex has a big role to play in Fair Play. In fact, within mere moments of introducing Emily, we meet her boyfriend Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) and the two engage in deeply, unexpectedly transgressive sex that gets bloody. Note that, it's important later. 

The sex is followed by Luke almost accidentally asking Emily to marry him. He happened to be carrying a ring which fell out of his pocket as he was getting dressed. Despite the deeply inappropriate moment, Luke decides to ask Emily to marry him and she, surprisingly, says yes. The story of their engagement will be memorable, though I doubt it's the story they will tell their kids if they have any. Get ready because writer-director Chloe Domont is going to do this to us throughout Fair Play, taking life events and giving them a nasty twist. 

Emily and Luke met while working together at the same finance gig. Luke has been with the company longer and when an opening management comes around, both Emily and Luke assume that he will get the job. They even celebrate prematurely with sex. That night, at around 2 in the morning, Emily gets a call from their boss, Campbell (Eddie Marsan). He wants her to come have a drink and upon arrival, she's told that she will be getting the promotion that she thought was going to Luke. 

It gets more awkward as Luke will now be Emily's immediate underling, her analyst. She will have to tell him what to do and take credit for work that he will do on her behalf, such is the nature of the job. She has to make the hard decision on an investment, but it's based on his grunt work. Luke tries to be happy for his now secret fiancée but the cracks in the relationship are immediate and seemingly irreparable. It's not merely Luke's male ego or pride getting in the way, it's also the way both are tip toeing around each other at work and at home.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Hancock

Hancock (2008) 

Directed by Peter Berg 

Written by Vince Gilligan 

Starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman, Eddie Marsan

Release Date July 2nd, 2008 

Published July 1st, 2008 

It's the fourth of July weekend and that means Will Smith is back in theaters. This time the world's biggest box office draw is playing a drunken superhero with a major image problem in Hancock. Directed by Peter Berg, Hancock is not your typical Will Smith movie. Playing against type as a charisma free jerk, Will Smith is still funny and fun to watch but also slightly off.

Laying on a bus bench in Los Angeles, with liquor bottles laying at his feet, Hancock (Smith) looks like a homeless guy. However, he happens to be a superhero who makes it his business to get the bad guys and protect the innocent, regardless of the damage he does along the way. Hancock causes as much or more destruction saving lives and protecting property as the bad guys do committing their crimes.

No wonder then that the people of LA despise their superhero savior. Media savvy image consultant Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) decides he will try and change that negative image. Hancock rescued Ray when his car became trapped on railroad tracks with a train bearing down. Naturally, Hancock stopping the train may have saved Ray's life but derailing the train damaged hundreds of other cars and will no doubt cost millions in clean up and other such costs.

At Least Ray is grateful, he even invites Hancock home for dinner with his family, wife Mary (Charlize Theron) and son Aaron (Jae Head). Mary is exceptionally uncomfortable around Hancock while Aaron is the rare kid who sees Hancock as a hero. Ray makes it his goal to turn Hancock from a pariah into a hero by making people miss him. The plan involves Hancock actually going to jail for all of his destructive behavior before being sprung by the very people who put him away after they realize how much they need his help. 

Meanwhile, Mary is holding back something she knows about Hancock; a revelation that eventually becomes an important bit of plot. But the less said about that the better.   

Anyone who has read the Watchmen comics or saw Pixar's The Incredibles will recognize elements of each that combine to create Hancock. Alan Moore's Watchmen series with its jaundiced view of flawed, failing heroes no doubt informs Hancock's flawed alcoholic act. Fans of the Incredibles on the other hand will recognize a major plot point of that film where heroes were forced to give up saving the world from evil after being sued too often and blamed for the damage caused in their effort to serve and protect.

Hancock is nowhere near as special as its influences but with a terrific cast it manages to be consistently entertaining. Smith, playing against type as a charisma free jerk, manages a star performance unlike any he has delivered before. I particularly enjoyed the way Hancock dealt with his anger in ways only a superhero could.

When it comes to bringing the funny in Hancock Jason Bateman is the comic relief. Bateman's nonplussed facial reactions and wry comments on Hancock's brutish behavior are terrifically timed and quite reminiscent of his wonderfully sly Arrested Development character Michael Bluth whose constant astonishment at the depths of his family's ruthlessness was one of the great running gags in TV history.

In an interesting coincidence it was during Arrested Development that Bateman first met and sparked great chemistry with Charlize Theron. Now Theron and Bateman are together again and the chemistry remains strong. Theron's Mary is unfortunately underwritten and suffers from a mid-movie twist that seems to exist only to justify hiring an Oscar winning actress such as Ms. Theron. 

Still, despite the way Theron's Mary is treated by the plot, Theron sparks with Bateman and in a different way with Will Smith. Though you will find the plot hard to believe, Theron's penetrating gaze aimed in Smith's direction communicates a great deal of emotion without words because Ms. Theron is such a terrific actress. Unfortunately, by the fifth time she stands and stares Hancock down, you will want to scream at the screen for her to just say what she is thinking already.

Hancock is entertaining and involving if more than a little uneven and lacking in depth. There are a wealth of possibilities for a story such as this but with little care for creating believable back stories, or as the comics call'em, origin stories for the hero and his various nemeses, Hancock becomes merely a series of well planned effects and stunts and not much more.

Those effects and stunts are fun but not entirely satisfying and thus Hancock is only good and not quite great.

Movie Review The Illusionist

The Illusionist (2006) 

Directed by Neil Burger 

Written by Neil Burger 

Starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell, Eddie Marsan

Release Date August 18th, 2006 

Published August 17th, 2006 

Bob Yari is the controversial producer of the Oscar winning Crash. I say Yari is controversial because a fallout with his partners on that film prevented Yari from taking the stage to accept the best picture Oscar. The fallout, naturally, was over the cuts of money each of the profit participants were to receive. His partners claim he was cutting himself a bigger portion than the rest. The details of this controversy are left up in the air at this point.

We do know Yari made a tidy sum from Crash, enough to start his own production and distribution company. The production company is typical Hollywood, everyone and their brother has a production company. It's the distribution that is eye-catching. Only major studios usually have the means to get a picture on enough screens for profitability. Bob Yari is himself a major. Yari has somehow managed to finance and distribute the new romantic period piece, The Illusionist; a mature, well acted movie that is making waves in a stronger than expected platform release. If the film can maintain a strong box office, Yari may even try his hand at launching an Oscar campaign.

In turn of the century Austria a magician named Eisenheim (Edward Norton) is astonishing sold out crowds. So amazing are his various tricks and illusions that even royalty must come to see his show. When Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewelll) and his future Queen, Sophie (Jessica Biel), attend a show, Eisenheim chooses Sophie to assist him with a trick. Seeing her face, Eisenheim realizes that Sophie is his long lost childhood sweetheart.

When Sophie finally recognizes Eisenheim they begin a dangerous rekindling of their relationship. Sneaking off to Eisenheim's cottage for forbidden trysts the couple eventually is discovered by Leopold who assigns his chief of police, Uhl (Paul Giamatti), to follow Sophie and if she goes to Eisenheim, the magician is to be killed.

The story of The Illusionist, adapted by writer-director Neil Burger, from a short story by Steven Millhauser, works at a snail's pace and yet manages to enchant thanks to the brilliant topline performance by Edward Norton. Ever the method actor; Norton learned magic from the famed English magician James Freedman as a way to avoid CGI as much as possible. His stage schtick is spot on and his minor conjuring's are as entertaining as any great modern magician.

Of course when conjuring spirits on stage a little CG help is unavoidable. Thankfully, the effects of The Illusionist are minimal and the magic looks as if it were the conjuring's of a true stage magician. The CGI is good and most importantly, it's effective enough to not distract from the main point of the film which are the exchanges of dialogue between the dueling geniuses Norton and Paul Giamatti. The Illusionist is an actors showcase and Norton and Giamatti take full advantage of the freedom offered by director Neil Burger.

Neil Berger, in his second feature film, shows a great deal of skill, and a deft touch in handling his actors. As I mentioned earlier, the film unfolds very slowly and requires the cast to do a great deal of talking. For this task Berger smartly assembled a terrific cast who could handle these talky characters. What Burger does best is direct without ever letting you know it. It's a skill far too many directors fail to master.

What a treat it is to watch great actors working with great material. That is what you get with The Illusionist, a movie that respects its audience, dazzles the eyes and the mind, and allows us the opportunity to watch great actors at work. Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti are a magnificent tandem. The verbal tete a tete, the actorly flourishes, are a joy to watch and clearly, from the exuberance of the actors, a joy to perform.

The romance of The Illusionist between Norton and Jessica Biel is strong if not fiery passionate. The actors do smolder for one another but they don't quite set the screen on fire. The backstory of forbidden teenage love and two terrific teen actors, Aaron Johnson as young Eisenheim and Eleanor Tomlinson as young Sophie, does much of the work of establishing the drama of this romance.

The Illusionist is the kind of fabulous adult minded dramas that many don't believe Hollywood can make anymore. Smart, literate, sexy, romantic, and populated with fantastic actors in meaty roles, The Illusionist is that rare breed of high minded drama that combines high intelligence with mainstream popular storytelling and a stellar cast.

The Illusionist is a must see picture.