Movie Review Logan

Logan (2017) 

Directed by James Mangold

Written by Scott Frank, James Mangold, Michael Green 

Starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Richard E. Grant, Hal Holbrook, Stephen Merchant 

Release Date March 3rd, 2017 

When I first saw Logan, the latest spin-off of the X-Men franchise, I was not impressed. There was so much hype, so much discussion about how the R-Rating would finally allow Wolverine to be Wolverine. Then I saw the film and found it to be as conventional as any of the other X-Men movies with a little bit of gore tacked on for fan service. So, what’s changed for me since March of this year? Why was watching Logan at home on a DVD screener from the studio so different from watching the film in theaters earlier this year?

Logan once again stars Hugh Jackman in the role of Logan aka Wolverine. When we see him, he’s sleeping in the back of a fancy stretch limousine and gang members are trying to steal the tires. Logan tries to convince the men to leave peacefully but they prefer to attack him. In defense of his expensive vehicle, and with little care for his own well-being, Logan launches into a grisly battle and leaves several of the thieves’ dead.

From there we travel across the border to Mexico where Logan is hiding the debilitated Professor X (Patrick Stewart). With the help of another mutant named Kaliban (Stephen Merchant), Logan cares for Professor X by doping him up with medication to keep his powers neutralized and to keep him from remembering that he was responsible for killing a lot of people when he suffered a seizure several years ago that led the government to consider his mind a weapon of mass destruction.

The tiny, insular world that Logan has built for himself is upended when he meets Gabriella (Elizabeth Rodriguez). Gabriella wants to hire Logan to drive her and a girl she claims is her daughter, Laura, (Daphne Keen) to North Dakota where a group of fellow mutants is expected to help them cross the border to a place they call Eden. Unfortunately, Gabriella is being hunted by Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), the low-life leader of a group called The Reavers. It’s Pierce’s job to eradicate mutants that won’t fight for the evil Transigen corporation.

The plotting of Logan is simple and straight forward and I failed to give the film credit for that simplicity in my original review. Keeping things clear and easy to follow in the complex and desperately crowded super-hero genre is surely something to be praised. Logan has a clear and simple goal, get out of the country alive at all costs and if unable, make sure you die, and take as many Reavers with you as possible. The motivation is clear, and all the action is linked strongly to that motivation.

Find my full length revie in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review The Hitman's Bodyguard

The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017) 

Directed by Patrick Hughes 

Written by Tom O'Connor 

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Salma Hayek, Gary Oldman, Richard E. Grant 

Release Date August 18th, 2017 

Published August 17th, 2017

The Hitman’s Bodyguard is a very divisive film. Not because it has any challenging themes but rather because it is both a laugh riot and quite a bad movie. At once, The Hitman’s Bodyguard is very, quite intentionally, funny and quite poorly directed. I call the film divisive not because audiences will either love or loathe the film in equal measure but rather because I am divided personally by the fact that I repeatedly laughed quite loud during the film and by the fact that the film’s green screen effects, storytelling, and casting are so shoddy that at times I physically wretched.

Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson co-star in The Hitman’s Bodyguard, with Jackson as the hitman and Reynolds as the bodyguard (the too clever by half poster parodies the Whitney Houston-Kevin Costner movie). Jackson is the world’s most wanted hitman, Darius Kincaid. He’s been captured by Interpol after they arrested his wife, Sonia (Salma Hayek) and threatened to hold her in prison until he turned himself and testified against world renowned terrorist and Belarussian dictator Vladislav Dukovich (Gary Oldman, so bored of this role he can barely keep his terrible makeup job from falling off from his obvious, repeated eye-rolling).

When Interpol is compromised by the single most obvious mole in history, played by Joachim De Almeida, who might as well walk around with TRAITOR tattooed to his forehead, Agent Amelia Roussel (Elodie Yung) calls in her ex-boyfriend, Michael Bryce (Reynolds) to take Darius to court. Naturally, this court happens to be all the way across Europe and the two mismatched pals must road trip through Vlad’s terrorist gang to get to their destination.

Yeah, this plot is terrible, ludicrously, painfully obvious and extremely played out. The Hitman’s Bodyguard is forced, clichéd, and predictable to the point of torture for anyone who’s seen more than one movie in their lifetime. Director Patrick Hughes then makes matters worse by topping his bad plot with even worse direction, including special effects that make the rear-projection in Saturday Night Live skits look great by comparison.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Saltburn

Saltburn (2023) 

Directed by Emerald Fennell 

Written by Emerald Fennell 

Starring Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Archie Madekwe 

Release Date November 17th, 2023 

Published November 27th, 2023 

Saltburn stars Barry Keoghan as Oliver Quick, an outcast at Cambridge University. Oliver is a scholarship kid from a middle-class family. He's a little awkward, a little shy, and doesn't make friends easily. When he meets Felix Carlton it's quite clear that Oliver sees Felix in a more than friendly fashion. He's practically falling all over himself to catch a glimpse of Felix and that makes sense, Felix is a young God. As captured by director Emerald Fennell, Jacob Elordi's Felix is among the most attractive human beings on the planet. 

Felix will also prove to be incredibly kind as when Oliver offers to help him with a broken bike wheel, Felix adopts the outcast as a friend and brings him into his popular Cambridge friend group. When Oliver proves to be a loyal and devoted friend, Felix returns the favor by inviting him to parties and introducing him to others. Eventually, when the holidays arrive and Oliver has nowhere to go home to, Felix invites him to Saltburn, the name of Felix's family property, a sprawling mansion in the English countryside. 

Oliver even gets the bedroom next door to Felix, connected by a shared bathroom. It's more than Oliver could dream of, though Felix seems unaware that Oliver has feelings for him that go beyond friendship. One person who does appear to be on to Oliver's romantic obsession is Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), Felix's best friend and a close friend of the Carlton family. Farleigh delights in needling Oliver, even as Archie seems to be holding more than friendly feelings as well. At the very least, both young men exhibit a fluid sexuality. 

Slowly but surely, Oliver weasels his way into the good graces of the Carlton family, removing obstacles like Farleigh, and earning the trust of Felix's parents, Lady Elspeth Carlton (Rosamund Pike) and Sir James Carlton (Richard E. Grant). If you haven't caught on that this is all part of a master plan hatched by Felix to break into a rich family, then you aren't paying very close attention. For all of Oliver's awkwardness and creepiness, he's not the wilting violet that he would lead you to believe. as Saltburn careens toward its unexpected ending, Oliver's duplicitousness comes to the fore in nasty, bitter fashion. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Horror in the 90s Warlock

Warlock (1991) 

Directed by Steve Miner 

Written by David Twohy 

Starring Julian Sands, Lori Singer, Richard E. Grant 

Release Date January 11th, 1991 

Box Office $15 million dollars 

Warlock is a completely hilarious disaster. Though it stars respected English actors, Julian Sands and Richard E. Grant, it's an embarrassment to both men's legacies. It's a black mark on their CV's for sure and I feel unkind in even bringing it up in the wake of Julian Sands' tragic passing. But, sadly, as we start a new year of Horror in the 90s, winding out 1990 into 1991, we are confronted with Warlock as the next major horror movie release. Never mind that the movie was actually made in 1989, the release date and its subsequent reputation as both a disaster and somehow a franchise, begins in 1991. 

Warlock stars Julian Sands as the title character, Warlock. Here we must pause to examine the first thing we see in Warlock. A man is building a cage into which cats will be placed. These cats are then taken to the gallows where they are stacked on top of kindling. The ritual is being undertaken for the execution of the Warlock. The cats are being burned alive along with the witch because... witches like cats? Cats and witches do have a long-standing association though where director Steve Miner got the notion that cats were burned with witches they weren't directly associated with; I have no idea. 

Anyway, before he can be executed by fire with cats, Warlock talks to Satan and is tornadoed into the future. The movie literally shows a wispy cartoon tornado engulf Julian Sands and sweep him out of the room. It's the first of several unintentionally funny special effects in this epic bad movie. For reasons never explained, Satan tosses the Warlock into the future world via a farty tornado and tosses him through the window of a suburban California home. Here, the world's most chill roommates, Lori Singer's Kassandra and Kevin O'Brien as Chas, react to having a human being crash through the window of their home the way you or I might react to spilling our drink. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review: Can You Ever Forgive Me

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) 

Directed by Marielle Heller

Written by Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty

Starring Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant

Release Date October 19th, 2018

Published October 17th, 2018 

Can You Ever Forgive Me stars Melissa McCarthy as writer Lee Israel. Lee had modest success in the 80’s as a writer of biographies of famous women. Unfortunately, this modest success was not enough to sustain her and she fell on some very hard times in the early 1990’s. While she was working on a book about famed Vaudeville comedian Fanny Brice, Lee was also battling poverty, alcoholism, a sick cat and eviction from her New York City apartment. 

Lee’s infamy fell in her lap, rather literally. While doing research for her book, Lee found personal letters written by Fanny Brice. The letters aren’t special but they have her signature and to the right collector, they are worth something. When Lee goes to sell them to a local bookseller, she has a fortuitous moment. The bookseller tells Lee that had the letters been of a slightly more personal nature, they might have been worth more. 

Having studied Brice’s unique wit and way of writing and speaking, Lee was in a rare position to know how Brice might just write a personal letter to a friend. So, Lee sets off on her criminal venture into fraud by buying a period specific typewriter and typing a letter in Fanny Brice’s voice. She then copies Brice’s signature from one of the less valuable letters she didn’t sell and sets out to pass it off as the real thing. When that works, Lee finds herself with what she believes could be a sustainable enterprise. 

Joining her on her new journey into criminality is her best friend, a gay, homeless, dilettante, named Jack Hock. Jack is the proverbial devil on her shoulder, the perfect confessor and foil whose own minor criminal enterprises creates an understanding and bond among the two, even as Lee remains uneasy having an actual friend, she still prefers her cat. Just how good of a friend is Jack or Lee, for that matter, we will come to find out. It’s a true story but being unfamiliar with the story, I was very intrigued by the many unexpected turns of this story. 

The movie was directed by the fabulous Marielle Heller who directed the woefully underseen gem The Diary of a Teenage Girl and will next be on the big screen with a Mr. Rogers biopic starring Tom Hanks. Heller is a director with a strong authorial voice. Her style has a lived in and gritty quality which helps capture the period setting, even if that period is merely the early 90’s in the case of this movie. The story looks and feels authentic. 

The script was written by another phenomenally talented female filmmaker, Nicole Holofcener, who’s perceptive and hilarious efforts include Enough Said with James Gandolfini and Julia Louis Dreyfus, Friends with Money and the brilliant Catherine Keener vehicle, Lovely & Amazing. Holofcener has a knack for prickly pear female characters and Lee Israel is right in her witty wheelhouse. 

There is talk that Melissa McCarthy could contend for an Academy Award for her performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me and I hope she gets the chance. This is a fantastic performance and not merely on the sliding scale of a comic actress going for serious actress cred. McCarthy brings Lee Israel to devastating life. It’s a complicated part as Israel is notably dyspeptic, she hates people and leaving her apartment and yet, McCarthy makes you care about her. 

Lee is a pitiable figure, an immense unrealized talent who will forever be remembered as a faker. And yet, she fooled the known world of art and literature collectors with her remarkably perceptive impersonation letters. She captured the voices of Noel Coward, Dorothy Parker and Lillian Hellman in ways that fooled even people who knew them when they were alive. It takes a pretty great writer to pull off that level of impersonation across such a cross section of wit and intellect. 

Reading reviews of Lee’s own book, which was the inspiration for this movie, you find critics begrudgingly forced to admit that Lee Israel had a scalding wit of her own, a self-lacerating nastiness that could have been a hallmark of her own writing had she ever found the confidence to write in her own voice rather than as the people she wrote biographies for. Can You Ever Forgive Me doesn’t paint the kindest portrait of Lee but it is honest in the same way she was and for that it’s brave, bold and fascinating.

Movie Review: Nutcracker and the Four Realms

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) 

Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, Joe Johnston

Written by Ashleigh Powell 

Starring Keira Knightley, Mackenzie Foy, Eugenio Derbez, Richard E. Grant, Helen Mirren 

Release Date November 2nd, 2018 

Published November 1st, 2018 

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms isn’t bad if you’re under the age of 10 perhaps. If you can see it through the eyes of a child it has a lovely, safe, message about self-empowerment and a bright, shiny visual style that is impressively busy. If you can get over how simple the movie is and remember that it was made for children, you might be able to find a way to enjoy it more than I did.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms stars Mackenzie Foy as Clara, one of three siblings, children of Mr. Stahlbaum (Matthew McFadyen) whose wife, and the children’s mother, has passed away not long ago. Nevertheless, the family is to attend the party of Clara’s Godfather, Mr Drosselmyer (Morgan Freeman) and attempt to put their grief aside. This won’t be easy as before they leave for the party, Mr Stahlbaum hands out Christmas presents from their late mother. 

For Clara, the gift is a complex mechanical egg with a keyhole but no key. There is a note with it that reads “All you need is inside” which makes it more frustrating that she does not have the key. Thankfully, at the party, Mr Drosselmyer reveals that he has the key and the key is waiting for Clara at the end of a string which leads her to a magical place called the Four Realms. The Four Realms are an entire fantasy land that her mother had built and populated with fascinating characters. 

Up first is a toy soldier who guards a bridge into the 4th Realm. He is the Nutcracker of the title, real name Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight). Phillip warns Clara not to go into the 4th realm because it is inhabited by the dangerous Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren) and her army of mice. Unfortunately, Mother Ginger’s mouse army has made off with Clara’s key and she needs to get it back to open the egg and unlock its secrets. 

Before Clara can try to get her key back she must first see the rest of the cast including the leaders of the realms including the leader of the Flower realm, Hawthorne (Eugenio Derbez) and the leader of the Ice Realm, Shiver (Richard E. Grant). And finally, there is the leader of the candy realm, known as Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley). Sugar Plum is the most outlandish of the group and begins to explain to Clara that her mother was their beloved Queen and how the realms are now at war with Mother Ginger because of the Queen’s absence. 

Sugar Plum lays out the plot, she too needs the key being held by Mother Ginger so that she can turn on the machine that can make toy soldiers that can then battle Mother Ginger’s mouse army. Eager to open the egg and get at the secret her mother left behind, Clara offers to take a contingent of Nutcrackers to the 4th Realm and go head to head with Mother Ginger. She will come back with the key or all will be lost. 

No points for guessing that Clara gets the key back. The plot requires that she open the egg and we find out what her mother’s cryptic message was about. You can probably guess, just as I did, rather easily, what is inside the egg that has all the answers. It’s a mirror of course, because everything Clara needs is inside herself. Get it? It really is as if the movie were good-naturedly elbowing you in the ribs to see if you understood this, not all that deep insight. 

Indeed, the filmmakers appear quite pleased with themselves for rehashing this old cliche. But, in fairness, it’s a cliche to us jaded adults who’ve seen this kind of empowerment cheese before. For kids, especially those seeing movies for the first time, this may indeed be a revelation and it is pitched in such a simple, easy to consume fashion that it may resonate with children in a powerful way. It was groan inducing for me and perhaps most adults but I get what the movie is going for here and I understand that it is not intended to impress ME. 

There is a harmless, charmingly disposable quality to The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. There is nothing terribly wrong with it as a movie for grade school audiences. It has a broad beauty to it in cinematography and design that children will find enchanting and the empowerment message is fine, not exactly subtle or well crafted, but it’s fine. The part of how Sugar Plum comes to represent the angry, childish aspect of Clara’s grief is, again, not subtle, rather over top, but I can see the message reaching a child and I can’t say that’s a bad thing. 

Do I wish that we would not condescend to children at the movies? Yes, I don’t believe movies have to be dumbed down to reach a young audience. The Toy Story movies are a great example of reaching children and asking them to rise up to meet the movie rather than talking down by assuming children don’t get complex relationships and metaphors. I would argue: how will a child ever fully grow up if we keep speaking down to them? 

That said, Nutcracker and the Four Realms is not the worst example of movies talking down to children. There is a strong attempt by the filmmakers to be on the level with children even as it is patently condescending in its simplicity. But, for the most part, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a harmless empowerment fantasy with a nice look to it and deeply committed performances from Helen Mirren and Keira Knightley. 

I don’t love this movie by any stretch and if you are not the parent of a very young child, I don’t recommend The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. That said, if you are the parent of a young child, grade school and younger, you could do far worse than having your child watch this movie.