Movie Review Joker

Joker (2019) 

Directed by Tod Phillips

Written by Tod Phillips

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy

Release Date October 4th, 2019

Published October 3rd 2019

Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix as the sad, damaged, mama's boy Arthur Fleck, who will one day in the near future snap and become the deranged criminal mastermind known as Joker. When we meet Arthur however, he's working as a sign twirling clown and it appears the world has it out for him. Not only is Arthur robbed of his twirling sign, he winds up beaten silly by the thieves and then told that he needs to pay for the broken sign. 

At home, Arthur's mother, Penny (Frances Conroy), insists that he check the mail incessantly for a response from Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen), her former employer whom she insists will come to their rescue and get them out of their impoverished hovel of an apartment. That letter never comes, while Thomas Wayne appears to be entering the political arena, running for Mayor of Gotham City and promising to rid the streets of the criminals and the trash. 

Arthur doesn't care much for politics, everyday life is a challenge enough for Arthur whose dreams of becoming a stand up comic are made poignant and tragic by his long term neurological issue. Arthur has a condition, likely developed from a head trauma, that causes him to laugh inappropriately and uncontrollably and rarely when called for. His condition renders his dream of becoming a stand up comedian darkly ironic and eventually humiliating. 

Arthur is obsessed with many things but one that stands out is the Murray Franklin Show. Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro) is the Johnny Carson of Gotham City, a television lifer who uses Sinatra's That's Life as a catchphrase and calling card. The two cross paths in person when Murray begins showing a video of Arthur's failed stand up gig and poking fun at Arthur. At this point, Arthur has lost his job, has murdered three men on a subway car after they attempted to beat him to death, and has gone off the medications that keep his delusions in check. 

This is what Murray does not know when he decides to book Arthur on his talk show and let the kid show he's a good sport by taking Murray's jibes in stride and in person. This is the final set piece of Joker and by far the strongest and most shocking element of the movie. If the rest of Joker had the power and fierceness of this moment, which fuses Joaquin Phoenix's real life talk show persona with the spiraling terror of the Joker persona for an extra kick of discomforting energy. 

Unfortunately, it's all downhill from here. Joker is an empty exercise in nihilism and troll culture. As directed by Todd Phillips, Joker mocks the audience by being all things to all audiences while not having a meaning of its own. The film uses a structure involving an unreliable narrator and the device is so clumsy that by the end, the filmmakers can use that unreliable narrator as a gimmick to deflect any reading of the movie, rendering the whole an empty shell and robbing the power from Joaquin Phoenix's performance. 

If you want to see Joker as a call to violent uprising against the rich, you can read it that way. If you want to see Joker as a critique of what is lacking in American healthcare, you can read it that way. If you want to read Joker as a critique of the policies of the Trump administration or as the ballad of the incel community or the most savage take-down of the policies of Elizabeth Warren, you can probably find all of that in Joker as well because the movie has no meaning of its own. 

I get that perhaps the movie intends to pose Joker as a mirror held up to society to reflect whatever society wants to see but I can't see what is intended to be entertaining or even interesting about such a taunting and trolling of the audience. Most people probably won't mind because the movie, and especially Joaquin Phoenix, looks cool while all that is going on, but the cool factor wore out pretty quickly for me once the cop out of an ending arrived and the unreliable narrator wiped most of the movie away in one fell swoop. 

I don't hate Joker, much like another nihilistic and childish swipe at those who choose to believe in things, Team America World Police, I just don't care. I find such intellectual dishonesty and trolling exhausting and thus I find Joker and the discourse surrounding it wearying. I no longer care. I suffered this movie and its arrogant, aggrandized taunting and I am glad its over.

Movie Review: The Wicker Man

The Wicker Man (2006)

Directed by Neil Labute 

Written by Neil Labute 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Ellen Burstyn, Leelee Sobieski, Frances Conroy

Release Date September 2nd, 2006

Published September 1st, 2006

Director Neil LaBute's war of the sexes examinations of the male-female dynamic are some of the most caustic and elucidating treatises on men and women thus far brought to the screen. His In The Company of Men, Your Friends, and Neighbors and The Shape of Things are withering, gut wrenching contests of highly neurotic will. Each film a wringing of the writer-director's psyche on to the screen. To this point in his career LaBute had avoided simplistic metaphor in favor of the raw examination of his feelings of insecurity and inferiority.

For his latest film, however, LaBute has waded neck deep into the muck of a loaded metaphor. In The Wicker Man, a loose remake of 1973's horror thriller of the same title, LaBute places his battle of sexes inside a dopey thriller plot that any other director could have pulled out of his ass. Working uncomfortably within genre constraints, Labute chafes at his thriller plot which crowds out the more interesting ideas about men and women that he desperately crams into into sides of the picture.

Thus The Wicker Man becomes a dippy hodgepodge of thriller cliches and mixed metaphor. But mostly, it's  a tedious trip to the movies.

Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) just received a letter from his ex-lover Willow (Kate Beahan) and was rather shocked at the content. This women he loved; who disappeared without saying goodbye some years earlier, is calling on him to come to a remote island off the coast of Washington state where a girl who may or may not be his daughter has gone missing.

Making the journey to the island, Edward encounters a society of women who worship nature and dominate the men of the island who are seemingly slaves. Lead by Sister Summerisle (Ellen Burstyn); there is a distinctly creepy vibe to this little cult despite the gentility of most residents.

Searching for the child Edward is stonewalled by everyone as someone is tries to make it seem as if the child never existed. The truth is a sinister twist you can likely see coming even if you have never seen the original 1973 Wicker Man. The only real shock you may get from The Wicker Man 2006 is in the credits when you see this dull witted, plodding mess is directed by the usually tart and ingenious writer-director Neil Labute.

Based on the British cult classic; The Wicker Man was reimagined by Neil LaBute as an examination of a society dominated by women. The female of the species have always fascinated LaBute whose debut picture In The Company of Men examined a pair of misogynists who take advantage of a beautiful blind woman only to have her destroy them. Your Friends & Neighbors was yet another navel gazing assessment of male female dynamics.

LaBute's most intense, and I think telling, portrayal of women was 2003's The Shape of Things in which a nerd, played by Paul Rudd, is reshaped, literally and figuratively, by a woman played by Rachel Weisz. The change in the nerdy exterior of Rudd's character is eventually revealed to be a large scale social experitment by Weisz's ambitious college student. This film exemplifies an idea that comes a little clearer in The Wicker Man, Neil LaBute is afraid of the power women wield over men.

Women can drive men to do anything in Neil LaBute's universe and men are ill equipped to stop them. In The Wicker Man all of the men of the island exist as breeding stock and nothing more. Cage may be an alpha male but he is naturally undone by the far more clever women who, even though their devious plot is too convoluted to be believed, control his every move.

This idea of LaBute examining his fear of women through a thriller story about a cult of powerful women is interesting but that is not really what we get in The Wicker Man. Rather, what came of the picture is a dull mystery about a dopey tough guy and a search for a missing girl that has all of the suspense of a David Spade movie.

Is it possible that Neil Labute lost control over this picture in the editing room? Given the exceptional talent he has shown in the past that is really the only explanation I can think of for the odd shifts in tone in the picture and the uncomfortable attempts to force suspense where none exists. A scene where Cage seeks a place to stay for a night finds Cage overacting and gesticulating in a vain attempt to give the scene some tension when in fact it is just a guy checking in to a slightly off-kilter inn.

Neil Labute is simply too talented to have crafted such a mess of a movie like The Wicker Man.

Nicolas Cage as a cop hunting for a missing girl on a remote pacific northwest island is the bare bones of a plot that includes references to the occult, to witchcraft, and druidism. Unfortunately, somewhere in the editing, the film became about the search for the missing girl, a red herring of immensely stupid proportion, and not about these eccentric and downright weird characters.

Neil LaBute, a master of dialogue and conniving characters, here settles for a mystery story that eschews any real examination of the characters. He sets up metaphors but never delivers the true subtext. You can infer from the fact that the island is home to a cult dominated by women with men kept as breeding stock; that LaBute is commenting subtextually about the power of women over men. However, LaBute never takes the time to examine the dynamic. All is inferred then shoved aside for more thriller genre goofiness.

The Wicker Man is a shockingly goofy movie that leaves one scratching his head; wondering how such talented people as Nicolas Cage and Neil LaBute could have made such a stunningly bad picture. The ambitions of both Cage and LaBute are visible around the edges but front and center is sheer goofiness that leaves its cast and creators with egg on their faces.

Movie Review: Catwoman

Catwoman (2004) 

Directed by Pitof 

Written by John Brancato, Roger Ferris, John Rogers 

Starring Halle Berry, Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Benjamin Bratt 

Release Date July 23rd, 2004 

Published July 23rd, 2004 

I don’t know what your opinion is, but for my money Michele Pfeiffer’s Catwoman in Batman Returns rocked. She was sexy, she was funny, and she and Michael Keaton’s Batman had a fiery chemistry. If ever there was a chance for Catwoman to be made into a stand-alone film character, it was with Pfeiffer and director Tim Burton about 12 years ago.

Of course, timing and good buzz do not mean much to dunderheaded studio execs whose arrogance tells them they can sell anything at any time. That arrogance is what gives us this new Catwoman movie without Pfeiffer and Burton and without any connection to Batman. Halle Berry and someone called Pitof are behind this Catwoman and while Berry fits the costume that is about all that fits in this lame repackaged comic book misfire.

Patience Phillips (Berry) is a mousy wannabe artist who works in advertising because she’s too scared to be a real artist. While working on a big project for a new cosmetics line, Patience comes across a chilling secret; the company’s newest product is an addictive face-destroying disaster. Before she can do anything about it she is found by the evil cosmetic company henchman and killed.

Yes indeed, Patience died, but is reborn when a gaggle of Cat’s discovers her body and one special cat delivers some kitty CPR. The strange cat called Midnight is owned by an even stranger woman, a crazy cat lady played by Six Feet Under star Frances Conroy. The crazy cat lady explains how Patience was brought back to life as a Catwoman and that she will now have all sorts of new powers and odd cravings.

Before Patience became Catwoman she met a guy, a cop named Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt). Tom happens to be the cop on the case when Catwoman is accused of robbing a jewelry store and eventually multiple homicides. The idea that Tom doesn’t recognize Patience is Catwoman is suspension of disbelief stretched to its breaking point. Catwoman must prove her innocence and stop the evil cosmetics company led by Laurel Hedare (Sharon Stone). If your thinking catfight, well duh.

Here is the amazing thing. Most, if not all of this mindblowingly-ridiculous plot is played straight. Anyone with half a brain could sense the camp potential of this material. Anyone that is, except for director Pitof who thinks he’s making a straight action movie. Pitof also convinced his star Halle Berry to play this material with a straight face which sinks any chance she had of succeeding in this role.

Halle’s Patience is a female Steve Urkel who, when she becomes Catwoman, is never believable. Delivering awful cat puns and mimicking cat behaviors, Berry comes off as something akin to a furry, minus the proper furry costume. She's got the cat cosplay down but any trace of anti-hero turned superhero is distinctly lacking. Part of the joy of Catwoman is her villainous side that softens ever so slightly via the tempting attraction to Batman. Since there is no Batman in this universe, Catwoman is forced to rely entirely on a badly contrived plot and the aforementioned and awful cat puns. 

There is the romance aspect, yeesh! Halle Berry and Benjamin Bratt spark the chemistry of two good friends or perhaps cousins who are a bit too close for comfort. But they never connect as potential bedmates. Benjamin Bratt has never been this bland on screen even on TV's Law & Order which didn't require much personality to begin with. Bratt is almost catatonic in Catwoman, his expressions rarely change. It doesn’t help that he’s saddled with a detective character more clueless than Clouseau.

The only member of the cast with any awareness of the camp material they’ve been given is Frances Conroy who tosses her dignity to the wind as the crazy cat lady. Conroy has to deliver the films most laughable dialogue as she explains what a Catwoman is and how it came to be. She deserves some kind of award for delivering her monologue with a straight face, though it likely took a few takes.

Pitof a former visual effects supervisor on films like Alien Resurrection and Luc Besson’s Joan Of Arc flick Messenger, he learned a little on those films as he does show some visual flare. However as a novice director he also has an unhealthy obsession with closeups and flashy unnecessary camera movement. The guy has some talent and with time he could round into a pretty good director but he is very raw and much too raw for such a high-profile project.

Though his background is reportedly in special effects, director Pitof comes off like an amateur when it comes to CGI. The Computer Generated Images in Catwoman are absolutely abysmal. Part of the problem could be that many of us have recently seen great CGI work in Spider-Man 2 and or I, Robot, two tremendously accomplished special effects spectaculars. But, the real problem is the seeming lack of care and ability behind the CGI in Catwoman. Just look at the way Halle Berry's Catwoman glistens when she becomes a special effect. She becomes shiny and rubbery and obviously not a person. She could be a character in a Pixar movie, that's how damningly obvious the special effects of Catwoman are, it's as if a Toy Story character emerged in real life but remained animated. 

The problem with Catwoman is the fact that it was made at all. There was a clamor for a female Superhero franchise but not this one. Wonder Woman has been gestating for awhile with a number of actresses and directors attached and unattached at various times. Catwoman had its moment in time back in the nineties on the heels of the success of Batman but that time has passed,

This Catwoman was doomed from the moment it was greenlighted. Doomed by executive overkill, businessmen whose only concern is printing money off of well-known properties. They put this film on the fast track, rushed the production, went cheap on a young, inexperienced director and maybe thought casting one of Hollywood’s hottest actresses would guarantee box office even if the quality film wasn’t there.

They were wrong. Very, Very Wrong!

Movie Review New in Town

New In Town (2009) 

Directed by C. Jay Cox

Written by C. Jay Cox and Ken Rance

Starring Renee Zellweger, Harry Connick Jr, J.K Simmons, Frances Conroy 

Release Date January 30th, 2009

Published January 29th, 2009 

I find as I grow in the job of film critic that I am getting a little softer. I am growing more tolerant of some things and less tolerant of others. In my fiery early years I likely would have torched a little movie like New In Town simply because I could. I wouldn't have done it merely for sport, I would have had good solid reasons for torching it. The point being that I would have walked into the movie with an attitude and perhaps been less tolerant of overly familiar elements of the rom-com. 

In fact, I have a number of good reasons to torch the film right now. But I am not going to. With experience I like to think comes wisdom and my newfound wisdom tells me that I would have been far too hard on this harmless forgettable little formula romance. Trashing New In Town for being a formula rom-com would be like squashing a bug with a rocket launcher.

Cute as a button Renee Zellweger stars in New In Town as Lucy, your prototypical fish out of water. The water here being New Ulm, Minnesota, a frozen corner of the world that is none too welcoming to a gal born and bred in Miami. Lucy has come to New Ulm to take over the management of a local food producing plant and fire half the staff.

If you can't guess that the hard hearted city gal falls for the small town charmers like Siohban Fallon's Blanche Gunderson or J.K Simmons as the crotchety plant manager, you just aren't trying. Throw in Harry Connick Jr. as the obligatory love interest and you can really say you've seen the movie just from knowing the cast.

Nothing in New In Town breaks the mold of your typical rom-com. This is where I would have started lobbing bombs in years past but not this time. Sure, I knew every step of this movie before walking in the door of the theater, the plot has all the depth of a 2 minute film trailer.  What experience has taught me however, is that with rom-coms, it's not about how cliched the story is but rather how enjoyably enacted those familiar elements are. A well executed formula romantic comedy can still be a good movie if the cast is likable enough to make you forget the overly familiar elements. 

New In Town succeeds, ever so slightly, due to Renee Zellweger being cute as a button with charm to spare. Zellweger is backed up by a charming supporting cast of veteran character actors capable of stealing a scene or two, especially the brilliant J.K Simmons, the conscience and the soul of New in Town and a guy who is impossible not to admire. The romance between Renee Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr. doesn't exactly set the screen on fire but, because of Zellweger, it has just enough charm for me to care about it. 

Now, it's highly likely that you will have forgotten about New In Town by the time you reach the parking lot after seeing it. But, while you are watching New in Town, I imagine that you will smile, you will laugh genuinely and a few times and the movie will never offend you with any low brow humor, stupidity, or insulting twists of the plot. It may be a formula rom-com but it is a formula rom-com starring a rising superstar in Renee Zellweger. Her appeal alone is enough to life the film to a mild recommendation from me. 

Yes, New in Town is a dumb little fairy tale romance that aspires to be nothing more than a minor distraction. That said, how can I trash a film for accomplishing exactly what it set out to accomplish? This review may not be enough to encourage you to see New In Town but I am not here to discourage you. The film will earn every dollar it gets this weekend.

Movie Review: The Seeker The Dark is Rising

The Seeker: The Dark is Rising (2007) 

Directed by David L Cunningham 

Written by John Hodge 

Starring Alexander Ludwig, Christopher Eccleston, Ian McShane, Frances Conroy 

Release Date October 5th, 2007

Published October 4th, 2007

Why are so many fantasy adventure heroes so whiny and ineffectual? Shoved along by the forces of good and basically forced to be heroes? Take, for instance, Will Stanton, the hero of The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising. Will is among the whiniest and most winsome heroes in film history. Constantly slowing the action to complain that his mission is too hard and that he's too young, Will makes The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising a slog to sit through.

Will Stanton (Alexander Ludwig) did not know, until his fourteenth birthday, that he is a member of a secret society. Will is secretly a member of The Light, a force that protects humanity from the forces of The Dark, led by The Rider (Christopher Eccleston). Not long after Will's birthday, The Rider is set to regain the strength that he has been denied for centuries but before he can do that, The Rider needs the trinkets gathered by The Seeker, to gain his full strength. You can probably guess who The Seeker turns out to be. 

Yes. Will just happens to be the seeker, or so he's told by Merriman (Ian McShane), the cryptic spokesman for the good guys, which also includes Miss Graythorne (Frances Conroy), Dawson (James Cosmo), and Old George (Jim Piddock). Merriman explains to Will that he can travel through time, summon great strength, and control fire as The Seeker. And still Will whines that the task will be too much for him. Nevertheless, it's up to Will to get the six elements that can restore the power of The Light or if the fall into the hands of the rider, bring about the rise of The Dark and the end of the world.

Directed by David L. Cunningham, and based on the popular novels of Susan Cooper, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising is one of the lamest adventures in a good long while. I can't compare what is on the screen to what came from Susan Cooper's page except that Cooper's books are over 30 years old and the film has been modernized. Also, The Dark is Rising is the second in the 6 book series of The Seeker and thus truncates each of the first two books into this one 94 minute movie.

You can see and feel where corners were cut, even if you haven't read the books, because the plot of The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising is so full holes. The nonsense with The Rider, the characters who work for The Rider, and the motivations of the evil known as The Dark are murky and goofball. Just the fact that the evil of the film is just referred to as The Dark shows how little creative thought went into the evil side of the movie.

Not that the good is all that well defined. Calling the forces of good 'The Light' is certainly no more interesting than 'The Dark'. On the bright side, The Light is represented by Ian McShane and Frances Conroy to terrific character actors who need to take more care in choosing their roles. Both of these brilliant, dignified actors give their all to their work, sadly they are defeated by the poorly crafted script and by Alexander Ludwig's deeply awful performance. 

Whiny, ineffectual and shoved along by the plot, Ludwig's Will Stanton would let the world come to an end if he had his way. Were it not for the forces of The Light forcing him to be a hero, Will would simply accept the sweet embrace of death rather than have to learn, grow, and fight with honor for a cause he believes in. There is certainly nothing wrong with a reluctant hero, that's a fine source of dramatic conflict, but the makers of The Seeker: The Dark is Rising have the character Will Stanton do little more than whine and complain about his reluctance to be a hero. 

The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising fails on a number of levels but most damningly in the creation of its hero. I don't want to be too hard on young Alexander Ludwig, or harder than I already have been, but his Will Stanton is arguably the whiniest hero of all time. Constantly bleating about how it's too hard or he's too young or he can't even find the courage to talk to a girl, Will whines throughout the film and grows into one of the most annoying 'heroes' in the history of fantasy adventure.