'The Comedian' Review: This Comedy Fails to Land Its Punchlines
This film was reviewed as first seen at this year's AFI Fest presented by Audi.
The character of the insult comic is one ripe for investigation: what life events drive someone to pursue a career in stand-up comedy – and more fascinating still – what drives someone to pursue the professional career of an insult comic? Unfortunately, "The Comedian," the story of an aging insult comic who struggles – or more aptly, shmoozes – his way through his later years for celebrity relevancy, doesn't attempt to answer these questions. In fact, much like his more recent outings including "The Intern" and "Bad Grandpa," Robert De Niro's latest ends up being nothing more than another vehicle for the legendary screen actor to win hearts by cashing in on the light laugh of an old man living in a young world.
If there's any place that stand-up comedy would need to be told, it's New York City, which "The Comedian" sets itself in and employs like another character in the film, splashy jazz music romanticizing the city at every corner. It's where quick-witted insult king Jackie (DeNiro) lives and works, a creature born from the city that never sleeps. Well, not exactly the city, since his pedigree has taken a hit. Jackie's at a point where he takes the subway on a snowy night to get to a crappy stand-up gig, and frustrated as he may be, as long as he's making his insults, he takes it all in stride. And while his shocking brand of sarcasm doesn't phase his manager Miller (Edie Falco), it's always the case for his audience who expect the sitcom stylings of his infamous Archie Bunker-like character Eddie from "Eddie's Home" from years before. It's at one such crappy comedy club that, as Jackie is riling the crowd, an audience member baits him and leads a firey Jackie into a scuffle, which is also captured on someone's phone. While Jackie is booked and serves time in the clink, his video goes viral, so when he gets out of the clink, he's ready to start looking for more gigs.
Where an inciting first act incident like a stint in the clink could propel a story and character to re-examine a rock-bottom life, "The Comedian" only sets up this jail time to have a newly-released Jackie ask for money from his brother (Danny Devito) and do community service, which leads him to meet and connect with Harmony (Leslie Mann), a woman also stalled out at this stage in her life and much to the chagrin of her over-protective father Mac (Harvey Keitel). There's an easy breezy banter that defines their affections and connection, and Leslie Mann plays nice, as if she's all too familiar with knowing how to stroke the ego of a comedic partner (she's married to Judd Apatow in real life).
Within the formulaic beats of the pair's innocent-enough courting are middling low-stake career pit-stops that Jackie takes to re-spark his career, including unsuccessfully pitching a scripted series to a millennial-aged cable channel, bombing a dais-spot for Friar's Club awardee May Conner (Cloris Leachman) (which ends in a morbid state), and another unsuccessful reality show hosting gig. Except since the film never establishes Jackie as ever having been at any sort of real low point, it's impossible to know what the motivation is for why he's trying to achieve any of this at all. Where exactly is Jackie at this point in his life, and where is he trying to go? You'll have to be satisfied with the scattered, dirty jokes here, because in "The Comedian," all we need to know is that Jackie is just one of those politically-incorrect people from a time bygone who should be loved despite himself.
The best version of "The Comedian," would have been a character piece that shows a person past the prime of his life and trying to get that back without looking foolish or imploding first – like "The Wrestler," if Mickey Rourke's biggest dream was to play New York's famous The Comedy Cellar (who knows if a more in-depth examining was ever developed, as this has been De Niro's passion project for years). Director Taylor Hackford should have tapped into the inner grief of artistically-tortured artists that made his Academy Award-winning "Ray" so compelling and time-standing. Unfortunately, Hackford doesn't understand or tap into what could have been a stirring and worthwhile examination of the tragic life of the insult comic, leaving "The Comedian" to ask for laughs with material that bombs.
"The Comedian" is 119 minutes.
'Come and Find Me' Review: Aaron Paul Keeps This Mystery Crackling With Intrigue
Now playing in select cities nationwide, Come and Find Me, is a new thriller about the disappearance of a young woman and the search her boyfriend makes to track her down. Starring Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Come and Find Me is a playfully pulpy mystery in the same vein as Gone Girl where the deeper the search goes, the more questions arise that point to the missing person not being exactly who she says she is. Although Come and Find Me is a much more harebrained cat and mouse chase that loops in Russian gangsters and secret agents, it's still tightly-wound and intriguing.
Come and Find Me launches into action when Los Angeles-residing David (Aaron Paul) wakes in his house one morning and finds the other side of the bed – the side his free-spirited girlfriend who calls herself Claire (Annabelle Wallis) sleeps in – empty. A worried David doesn't find her at the dry cleaners where she works or the dark room she develops her pictures in, transforming him from normal graphic designer to a Philip Marlowe (which the movie lazily jokes at) entering a world of danger full of Russian mobs, a corrupt venture capitalist cult-leader (whose story is little more than merely introduced and conveniently dealt away with, and happens to lead him to the tax-incentivizing location of Canada). A final torture scene and guns-a-blazing showdown leave things in a totally different world than where we first started, and it's part of this fun that Come and Find Me has.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKDSGy_FsBI
Aaron Paul grounds Come and Find Me, which, for all of the whirling and tangential storylines, could have felt entirely ridiculous instead of just passably ridiculous, which is what the movie manages. The wide-ranging Paul plays all things that the movie requires of him at any moment, bringing cool-guy charm when first meeting Claire and in the fragments of their relationship, worry and anxiety that made his turn as Jesse in Breaking Bad an essential part of the classic series, and leading action-hero bravado when his heroics are required. Newcomer Annabelle Wallis brings a self-assured and strong performance to Claire, being at both times the uncertain and fun girl as well as a dangerous question mark, making her relationship with Paul's David one where power and footing is traded at all times. At the heart of it, the two have sizzling chemistry, perhaps serving as the flick's most substantial and steady element that makes the whole charade work.
Written and directed by Zack Whedon (younger brother of director Joss of The Avengers fame), the reason you may want to take on Come and Find Me is that, while it feels like camp, it still feels serious and worth following along for. It doesn’t hold up in terms of being entirely plausible per se, not caring to develop the story in full that actually answers any questions at to why Claire has disappeared and who she really is, and centers its whole drama around a generic roll of film that everyone wants to get their hands on– as it may expose a character– but none we have any firsthand relationship with. But despite all this, Come and Find Me manages to crackle with intrigue which makes this a fun-enough sleuth story.
112 minutes. "Come and Find Me" is rated R for language and some violence. Opens at the Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica and on VOD this Friday.
'Arrival' Review: This Year's Smartest Sci-Fi Flick
With such searingly-laced dramas as 2013's Prisoners and in last year's more-blistering still cartel-drama Sicario, director Denis Villeneuve once again proves he is second to none in being able to craft an affecting human drama set in a consumingly dangerous world – and proves it here on his largest scale to date.
Inevitably, alien invasion movies must ask themselves – and their audience – the same critical question: What are they doing here? And yet, before this question can even be poised to alien life forms, the small hurdle of needing to teach word-based human language to an alien species of entirely symbol-based communication for which to even understand what a "question" is, must be developed. Good thing the world would have time for such a laborious undertaking and wouldn't likely be on the brink of planet-wide war.
This is the premise of Arrival, a multi-layered sci-fi movie that hinges its dramatics on a linguist's attempt to find a way to communicate with aliens amidst a ticking-time-bomb that is a Cold War standoff between international nations and extraterrestrials. Add to this a circular, non-linear time-space narrative that marries the unlocking of alien language to alternate realities, and Arrival stands as the smartest sci-fi offering of the year.
When twelve unidentified flying objects land – or more so, ominously hover – over the world, linguistics professor Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is called upon by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) to aid the US military in figuring out how to communicate with Earth's newest visitors and uprooted from her rudimentary undergraduate teaching career. Seen to not be leaving any family behind, Louise gets choppered to the Montana landing site, where she meets another civilian-turned-top-security-cleared-specialist in physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). Yet as quickly as she is absorbed into this new world and its high-stakes stresses, so too do lapses of grief flare up, tied to memories of both her lost child and failed marriage, which the movie opens with in somber flashback, seeing the fleeting glimpses of a child's birth, through childhood, through ultimately being taken by disease at her side – leaving a now alone Louise to shuffle blindly into a new reality before cutting to present-day invasion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFMo3UJ4B4g
Downloaded on their missions, Louise and Ian are shuttled up into the alien pod's entry doors when they open every eighteen hours, floating through the gravity-less pod to get to the chamber to communicate with the life forms inside. After a few unsuccessful trials, initial anxieties and fears subside and Louise is drawn closer to the aliens, eventually stripping away her oxygen suit to convey who her "self" is, leading to more breakthroughs in communication. Yet the closer she comes into proximity and contact with the aliens, more vivid do the fragmented memories of her daughter become, bringing Ian closer to support Louise and her lengthy teaching process which, let's not forget, runs counter to the timelines of both Colonel Weber and the world. Without giving much else away, Louise and Ian's relationship develops into what leads to the movie's largest idea of non-linear realities.
With such searingly-laced dramas as 2013's Prisoners and in last year's more-blistering still cartel-drama Sicario, director Denis Villeneuve once again proves he is second to none in being able to craft an affecting human drama set in a consumingly dangerous world – and proves it here on his largest scale to date. In Arrival, Villeneuve deafens the galactic-absurdity of alien life (yet still taps into fantastic imagery of the design of the aliens and their symbol based communication system) to ultimately show the resounding human drama underneath. Whether it be the intimate devastation of a mother who must manage the memory of a deceased child on one end to the conflict of worldwide human civilization needing to work together amidst a fractured modern landscape of language and politics before world war ensues, Villeneuve handles an entire range of drama to polished success.
Arrival, like Villeneuve's filmography, is pristinely photographed and operates in chillingly measured pace, and it's great fun to see the director maintain his human-drama talents while dipping his toes into the world of sci-fi – which, in its final act, ups the entire ante by unveiling the full stakes of the quantum time-leaping canvas: that unlocking the alien's language may lead to the discovery of alternate timelines that only Louise may be capable of unlocking to save humanity. If at that point, this reality-bending closer feels a bit rushed in having to wrap up all of the movie's loose ends, and where MacGuffins start to come sailing in like meteor showers, Arrival is still an expertly crafted film that lifts the sci-fi genre to even greater, more thoroughly constructed heights.
116 minutes. "Arrival" is rated PG-13 for brief strong language. In theaters this Friday.
'Loving' Review: The Quiet Hurt in the Price of Loving
Hollywood love stories are stuffed with such overly-romanticized plots – boy-meets-girl introductions, flamboyant declarations of love, impassioned embraces (be it in the rain or otherwise) – that they also take on a layer of artificiality in which the story of two people in love is all but lost.
Loving, in theaters today, is devoid of all types of fantastical conventions and cliches, standing as nearly a polar opposite and one of the year's most affecting love stories.
Based on a true story, Loving tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a mixed-race couple living in the deep Virginian South in the late fifties whose union of marriage jails them and further threatens their civil liberties, setting up a seemingly uphill battle against them and the world. Except, here again, Loving doesn't position itself to work in the conventions of Richard and Mildred Loving to actively fight against their enemies, being the local townspeople, state police department, or Supreme Court.
So, if it's not a Hollywood romance, and it's not a social justice movie, then what exactly is this movie? Writer and director Jeff Nichols crafts Loving to be a love story unlike most others– a movie as naturally paced as the rhythm of the crickets in the field. Simply put – Nichols tells a story of two people in love with each other, and how in that love, all other factors act as peripheral. As this reviewer notes, it's as if even the movie is an unwarranted intrusion of their own relationship, speaking to their total humility.
What credits this movie to be so powerful? Well, Nichols' work is of course, commendable, allowing the story to be told with center-composed photography and medium-framed shots and effective use of lighting and shadows. But the real magic in Loving, which comes as no surprise, lies in the performances of Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga.
With his bleached hair and yellowed teeth, Joel, in a career-best performance, tenderly shapes the character of Richard to be if not the most articulate Southerner, then certainly one with the purest of hearts, whose puppy-dog innocence doesn't consider that choosing to be with a woman of color is wrong for the times. His quiet but powerful depiction is beset by the winning performance from Ruth Negga as Mildred, who displays equal humility and captivates the screen with her enormous watery eyes and graceful performance. Those simple acts of looking at each other in the eyes and whispers of nighttime confessions are the heart of this movie.
There's a recurring sequence in Loving that may sum up the film, and should be looked out for. Richard's brick-laying work is returned to multiple times and may stand for his and Mildred's relationship as relating to the world. In Virginia, Richard slops concrete onto bricks, laying bricks at a dizzying and reckless speed (perhaps Richard is initially ignorant towards the society where he lives). After moving to Washington D.C., Richard lays bricks slowly, more precisely, with the intense focus of using his leveling tool (perhaps Richard is now fully aware of how he must tread lightly and follow rules precisely so). And finally, when the resolution comes in the film's final sequence... well, let's just say that a self-made string aligns the bricks he lays, perhaps symbolizing how Richard and Mildred ultimately created the rules for how they were to live their life.
'Loving' is rated PG-13 for thematic elements. Opens in theaters this Friday.
'Kids in Love' Review: Repeats the Same Kiddie Coming of Age Story
The funny thing about growing up, in the way that all punky teenagers tend to do, is that the anxiety-ridden tales of doing so are all largely the same. All defined by the same inconsequential uncertainties, heartbreaks, and consuming worries about the future and their place in it. Yet while these stories are all connected by this shared similarity, that doesn't mean that movies about this stage in life all have to fall into the trap of feeling the same as the rest of the Young Adult movies. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happens in the hip and youth-aimed drama Kids in Love.
An uninventive yet eye-pleasing story of across-the-pond youths being youthful, Kids in Love distances itself from its peers by quite nicely capturing the real look and feel of this self-important time of millennials growing up – credit that to it's cooly casual screenplay (penned by two youths themselves who also show up as part of the bratty pack) and its steady musical score. If Kids in Love feels largely unoriginal, it at least gets the tone and feel just right.
Kids in Love doesn't so much follow kids being in love as it does one kid, Jack (Will Poulter) – and not so much his being in love as his being a confused and anxious mess in the days after graduating high school and before the soul-draining world of Law School. It's pretty much as cliché as you'd think, including how his safely lived life is (you guessed it) upended when a beautiful pixie girl Evelyn (Alma Jodorowsky, granddaughter of film director Alejandro Jodorowsky) whisks him away from a volunteering gig to a night of costumes and dancing. She introduces him to the likes of such free-spirited friends as Voila (Cara Delevingne) who all dance around and smoke cigarettes in not one, but many of the film's music-driven montages. From there, it follows as familiar a storyline of turning away from his once-accepted responsibilities to pursue fun, his friends, and love.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Smpsx13Ao
Kids in Love may have a tougher time connecting with their target demographic of "kids" since it's really only the brooding Will whose story of confliction we are drawn to (again, screenwriters are two young chaps themselves). Perhaps Will getting closer to the exotic and alluring Parisian and taking pictures is a story, but it's all so tepid and singular that it's a bit of a mis-sell.
If you can forgive the lack of original storytelling and instead are looking for a pleasant hour and a half of watching attractive young people frolic through life, then Kids in Love will certainly satisfy. To that end, this movie is as real and affecting as it is the sulky teenager who may spring to watch it.
'Kids in Love' is not rated. 87 minutes. Now available on demand.
Coen Brothers' First Feature 'Blood Simple' Digitally Restored on Criterion Collection
While the Coen brothers may now be able to attract such A-list stars as Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson to their Oscar-geared films, the Academy-Award winning directing team began their careers far from Hollywood.
In fact, it would be an understatement to say that Joel (61) and Ethan (59) weren't among the forefathers of filmmakers who got their start by making movies outside of the studio system entirely, in the American independent filmmaking movement of the 80s.
And now, their first feature film, 1984's exploitation-horror inspired "Blood Simple," has been digitally restored and released by the Criterion Collection, out now on Blu-ray and DVD.
The Coen's directorial debut (of which Ethan is singularly credited as director and Joel as Producer, as it would be years before the Academy would recognize the pair as a legitimate directing team), a neo-noir about a love triangle and hitman has been was undertaken by the Criterion Collection from the original 35 mm negative, which was scanned in 16-bit 4K resolution. Color correction and restoration were supervised and approved by Joel and Ethan Coen, as well as director of photography Barry Sonnenfeld.
Take a look at what's loaded onto this fantastic special edition:
As a web exclusive, check out this storyboarding video that compares scenes from the film to their original storyboards, with commentary by Joel and Ethan Coen, cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, and actor Frances McDormand.before adding "Blood Simple" to your personal collection.
'Goat' is a Bold, Shocking Dramatization of Hazing in a Fraternity
If you were in a fraternity or sorority in college, you'll most likely agree: being in Greek life offers young adults the positive experience of creating lifelong bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood with their fellow students by way of sharing the same character-building and ethics-shaping experiences.
However, the darker and more dangerous sides of frat and sorority life– involving what happens when pledges and members, still in their latter-formative years and shaping their self-identities by seeking acceptance amongst their peers– are met with the new normal pressures of raucous partying that is so ingrained in Greek life. This can create inadvertent bonding experiences by testing their members by way of stressful, sometimes traumatic events. Experiences that former fraternity-rusher Brad Lands had in real life and documented in a memoir.
In "Goat: A Memoir," Lands chronicles his own experience of seeking safety in brotherhood by rushing Clemson University's Kappa Sigma chapter (after transferring when he was brutally jumped and assaulted in an unrelated incident at his previous school). The safety he seeks, however, proves elusive, as Lands and his fellow pledges are pushed to the brink of enduring a first-week hazing that, after a real-life devastation amongst a fellow pledge, forces Brad to confront what he is rushing for.
Lands' experience has been adapted into the film, "Goat," opening this Friday. One of the most buzzed-about films at this year's Sundance film festival for its unrelenting portrayal of youth partying, director Andrew Neel brings this tumultuous tale to the big screen.
After a dream-like slow-motion sequence of screaming shirtless young men in a possessed-pack mentality, we meet Brad (Ben Schnetzer) an incoming freshman who has just been jumped, car-jacked and left for dead. After recovering from injuries and the trauma-related stress, Brad circles to the idea of joining his year-older brother Brett (Nick Jonas) in college with plans of rushing the fictitious Phi Sigma fraternity. And hey–maybe it wouldn't be so bad to run with the popular crowd and meet beautiful young women and participate in all college has to offer.
As Brad quickly finds out, Phi Sigma, of which Brett is a top brother, is the most exclusive and coolest fraternity, meaning the rushing process is seriously meant to weed out anyone who might not be serious to join (Neel also makes the commentary that the level of hazing has grown year after year and arguably in its more prevalent state in this generation's college culture). And so, an already trauma-induced Brad attempts to prove his loyalty by enduring inhuman level treatment and hazing, including the consumption of alcohol, drugs, partying, and then the less than glamorous moments–being stripped of clothes, having waste poured on him, being forced to fight, and a backwoods event involving a goat that even former rushers assumed was myth in its fraternity's history of hazing (it should be repeated that while the events are based on true-life events, the reviewer is not categorically incriminating fraternity and sorority life of these events)
Andrew Neel directs with a fearlessness that makes these scenes feel coiled with the tautest tension and suspense for its audience. While Seth Rogen and Zac Efron portrayed college partying and pranking as a humorous and mostly slapstick event in "Neighbors" and its sequel of this year ("Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising”), "Goat" takes the absolute opposite approach of dramatizing the real-life vulgarity and violence to chilling effect.
Ben Schnetzer ("Snowden") gives an incredible performance in what is a physically and emotionally demanding role, telling a journey of Brad's initial introverted reluctance to participate in normal life, through his terrible and torturous treatment at the hands of the very people he is seeking to find brotherhood in which forces him to question whether he wants to call these people family. Nick Jonas lends a little more than star power as the more popular Phi Sigma brother, whose conscience is tested by witnessing his brother's treatment. James Franco makes a cameo as a former Phi Sig brother, indulging in a night of partying and passing out to unanswered calls from his wife and children asking his whereabouts in one of the movie's funnier scenes.
"Goat" is bold, shocking, and one of the most electric movies of the year. It's fearless and unapologetic in its dramatization and depiction of real-life events, which stands as a warning to young people of the reckless behavior that can influence them during the formative years of their life. While disturbing and unsettling, "Goat" should be essential viewing to remind us one of horrors that can arise by way of the deadly combination of pack mentality and a six-pack of beer (or, more).
'Goat' is rated R for disturbing behavior involving hazing, strong sexual content and nudity, pervasive language, violence, alcohol abuse and some drug use. 96 min. In theaters this Friday.
WWII Thriller 'Anthropoid' Tells Gripping Story of Assassination Attempt
For those unfamiliar with the deeper points of world history, "Anthropoid" might sound like something alien and out of this world. In actuality, "Operation Anthropoid" was the code name given for the assassination attempt of the infamous German SS officer Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect of the “Final Solution” (the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people during World War II). The new film, simply titled "Anthropoid," opening in Los Angeles at the Landmark Theater this Friday, is a more slow-burning drama than edge-of-your-seat action thriller and tells the story of two fearless Czechoslovakian soldiers who attempted the assassination mission, an operation that would change Europe forever.
Based on actual events, this World War II thriller captures the grim and anxiety-ridden feelings of fear during that infamous period in world history; where danger looms around every street corner and in every untrustworthy individual met. The two rogue characters who must navigate these perilous waters are our main characters, Josef Gabcík (Cillian Murphy) and Jan Kubiš (Jamie Dornan), a pair of exiled soldiers who plan to assassinate Heydrich (Detlef Bothe), third in command from Hitler and the leader of the Nazi forces in Czechoslovakia.
"Anthropoid" opens with a series of title cards and historical footage that leads into Germany's rise to power with the signing of The Munich Agreement – a written pact agreed upon by Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy that, in a simplified version of events, allowed Germany to invade and overtake Czechoslovakia (now regarded as a failed act of appeasement toward Germany).
Gabcík and Kubiš parachute into their now-occupied homeland, and – after a rendezvous with enemy spies – find shelter in the home of fellow Czechoslovakian-resistance supporters, including the beautiful Marie Kovárníková (Charlotte Le Bon) and Lenka Fafková (Anna Geislerová), who Gabcík and Kubiš fall for shortly. With their support, along with that of Uncle Hajský (Toby Jones) and a handful of others, Gabcík and Kubiš devise a plan that, after studying the daily transportation of the target Heydrich, they feel like they can strike in plain sight. Yet when an unexpected setback jeopardizes the mission, Gabcík and Kubiš are forced to go into hiding while they await news of the attempt, and ultimately must defend themselves against an outmatched Nazi army.
If "Anthropoid" drags for a few scenes in its second act, up until its truly amazing finale, a near twenty-minute-long shoot-out between the small Czechoslovakian band and the Nazi forces, it's to the credit of both Jamie Dornan and the always-enigmatic Cillian Murphy that the more human elements shine through. Dornan extends his range past his one-note dominator as Christian Grey in "Fifty Shades of Grey" to a fearful yet brave fighter, and Murphy offers weight and experience as the spear-headed leader of the mission.
"Anthropoid" will certainly be enjoyed more when thought of as a slow-burning drama rather than as an action-packed thriller as was 2008's Tom Cruise-starring "Valkyrie." Writer and director Sean Ellis should be commended for not only bringing such a gripping and lesser-known story of the assassination of the highest-ranking Nazi officials under Hitler's regime to light, but capturing the mood and tone of these paranoia-stricken times as well. All things considered, this tightly-wound drama will leave an impact on viewers, not only from its historical importance, but through Dornan and Murphy’s humanization of these characters, making this film and story feel even more remarkable.
'Anthropoid' is Rated R for violence and some disturbing images. 120 minutes. Opens this Friday at the Landmark Theater.