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Warfare

IF YOU LIKE WAR MOVIES… you might enjoy Warfare.

IF YOU WERE OKAY WITH THE REALISTIC GORE OF SAVING PRIVATE RYAN… you might enjoy Warfare.

IF YOU APPROVE OF AMERICA’S INVOLVEMENT IN IRAQ IN THIS CENTURY… you might enjoy Warfare.

The true events depicted in Warfare occurred on November 19, 2006. American Navy seals were sent into a neighborhood of Ramadi, Iraq to quell an assemblage of jihadists. They took over a residence. They engaged the enemy. 

A missle hit resulted in injuries to troops who were outside the residence. Efforts were made to address those grisly wounds. A pair of tanks were dispatched to ferry the troops out of the danger zone.

Did this action have a significant effect on the U.S, war effort in Iraq? Hard to say. As one of the Iraqi family members whose home was taken over by the Americans pleads near the movie’s end, “Why?” 

The moviemaking craft employed here is laudable. Despite being filmed primarily in Britain, the moviemakers (co-directors/writers Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza) do a superb job of recreating the Iraqi home and its environs. Aerial surveillance images add to the storytelling of the mission.

Warfare shows the teamwork and commitment these men—real life individuals—put into the U.S. military efforts in Iraq. Only a few of these men have their real names and photos shown in the film’s end credits—most are given aliases and their faces are blurred.

Warfare is intense. Not an easy film to watch. Once was enough for me. Rated R.

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Drop

A suspense thriller has to be intense. Enough to make a filmgoer a tad uncomfortable but not so much as to be off-putting. Drop is just intense enough without going over the line. It’s rated PG-13, not R.

Violet (Meghann Fahy) is a widow with a 5-year-old son. She’s finally ready to date again. She agrees to meet Henry (Brandon Sklenar) for dinner. When she arrives at the restaurant she has quick encounters with a few staff members and patrons.

After Henry arrives, she begins getting threatening messages on her phone and wonders what’s going on. As the tension builds, it also occasionally ebbs throughout the ordeal via Henry’s gentle demeanor and a comic-relief goofy server.

As relatable as a constantly pinging cellphone can be, and as annoying as text messages from unknown sources can be, coupled with the awareness that we are often being surveilled, Drop takes our modern tech and the constant attachment we have to our cellphones to a different level. 

As Meghann monitors camera shots from her home and considers the potential peril her son Toby and her babysitting sister Jen (Violett Beane) may face, she wonders who is behind all this troubling harassment. Another restaurant customer? The piano player? The goofy server?

During their conversation, Meghann reveals to Henry that she is a survivor of domestic abuse. Interestingly, Brandon Sklenar played a key character in last year’s It Ends With Us, another film involving an abuse survivor. 

Director Christopher Landon and writers Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach have crafted a film that feels very “of today” with its focus on phone messages delivered via Air Drop. Still, Drop seems like a rather generic title. 

Drop clocks in just under an hour-and-a-half, so the suspense which some filmmakers stretch to ridiculous limits, is kept to a reasonable extent. Like the film’s intensity level, it’s not too much. Just enough.

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Black Bag

Black Bag is compact. Tight. Succinct. Slick. Director Steven Soderbergh does not waste a frame in this 90-minute spy thriller. 

Plus it has a cool percussion heavy soundtrack from David Holmes who did those wonderful soundtracks for Soderbergh’s Ocean’s movies (11, 12 & 13.) Black Bag’s music has more of a 60s-70s feel to my ear.

From the opening shot of George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) walking through a boisterous nightclub for a meeting to the quieter setting of the dinner he serves his guests in his home, the story keeps you guessing as to what’s next and who’s the transgressor. Which is the point, right?

Woodhouse is charged with figuring out which of a list of intelligence operatives is sharing secrets with the other side. His methods include an uncomfortable game played with his dinner guests which takes a surprisingly violent turn.

Those guests from the spy agency include his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), Col. James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page) and Dr. Zoe Vaughn (Naomie Harris). All of them, as well an agency guy played by Pierce Brosnan, are flawed and some of their missteps are known (or become known) to Woodhouse and to the film’s audience.

Revelations occur in sessions with therapist Dr. Vaughn, in interactions at agency HQ, via lie detector tests, via long distance observation of Kathryn’s visit to Geneva and even on a quiet lake in a fishing boat. And, of course, in private conversations between George and Kathryn.

Though marketing for Black Bag has stressed the issue of the married couple having to keep secrets from one another AND the issue of their not being able to completely trust the other partner, there’s more to the movie than that simple element.

Fassbender and Blanchett are both excellent in their roles and the other players make up a compelling ensemble. Soderbergh and writer David Koepp toss in Black Bag’s various narrative points at an occasionally rapid pace so don’t take a long potty break once the show starts.

Black Bag is rated R.

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Love Hurts

There’s a lot more HURT than LOVE in the new movie Love Hurts. The barrage of comic violence has folks in pain from fists, feet, guns, knives and various other means of human punishment.

The story? It’s the old “hit man tries to go straight” bit. Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) is a successful realtor, having put behind him his history of violence. But when what appears to be a Valentine’s Day card arrives with an ominous message within, he realizes that he has to elude various parties who want to settle scores.

His main nemesis is his brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu) who has engaged numerous henchmen to help track him down. Gable’s old romantic flame Rose (Ariana DeBose) is also back in the picture. 

The film has numerous references to that holiday of love but to call Love Hurts a Valentine’s Day movie is kinda like calling Die Hard a Christmas movie. It’s not the sort of Valentine’s Day-related movie that would be likely to engender thoughts of romance.

Also in the cast are Sean Astin who was a cast mate of Quan 40 years ago in The Goonies and former NFL great Marshawn Lynch. Plus a quick appearance by one of TV’s Property Brothers.

Quan and DeBose both have on-screen charisma. And Oscars! So there is genuine talent here.

Love Hurts is a relatively mindless bit of “John Wick lite” type violence with a few laughs along the way. It clocks in at a thrifty 82 minutes. Rated R for the comic violence and F-bombs galore. But, interestingly, no sex or nudity. 

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My Top Ten Movies of 2024

#1. Conclave—Classic movie for grown-ups. Story, script, acting, directing all top-notch! Ralph Fiennes could finally win best actor.

#2. Dune: Part Two—Stunning visuals. Booming soundtrack. Timotheé Chalamet leads a strong cast. But this is director Denis Villaneuve’s movie.

#3. Wicked—Ariana Grande is so dang cute and Cynthia Erivo is awesome and the music’s great and it’s colorful and almost totally fun.

#4. Thelma—An under-the-radar movie about an elderly gal who gets scammed out of $10K and tries to get it back. 95-year-old June Squibb is excellent in the title role.

#5. Sing Sing—Not your usual prison movie! Incarcerated men form a repertory theatre company and put on a unique production. Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin are award-worthy in their performances.

#6. A Complete Unknown—Timotheé Chalamet looks like Dylan, talks like Dylan, sings like Dylan. Plus Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, too! The early 60s come alive!

#7. The Fall Guy—This film has everything: drama, comedy, romance, stunts. OMG, stunts! Two of our best stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are both charming in this fun movie about… making movies.

#8. Knox Goes Down—Michael Keaton is the title star and the director of this compelling tale of a guy with early stage dementia who comes to the aid of his estranged son. Another under-the-radar film seen primarily via streaming.

#9. Twisters—Tornados are horrible but this film is not. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glenn Powell are the leads in a Hallmark-type romance. Effects are good and the vicarious rush of chasing tornados bursts through the screen.

#10. A Real Pain—Kieran Culkin is the title co-star of Jesse Eisenberg’s personal project—the story of two cousins who visit their family’s homeland of Poland. Eisenberg wrote, directed and stars.

A few more movies I liked…

Argylle—Bryce Dallas Howard has fun in a goofy fantasy.

Monkey Man—Dev Patel takes a licking (actually several) in this violent revenge film.

Piece By Piece—Colorful, musical Pharrell Williams biopic told with Legos!

The Beekeeper—Action/adventure vengeance carried out by Jason Statham.

It Ends With Us—From the Coleen Hoover novel, a well-made film about domestic violence.

Blink Twice—Island antics with Channing Tatum and friends turn weird.

A few movies I DID NOT like…

Deadpool & Wolverine—Expected fun and excitement, got a tedious slog.

The Brutalist—For film fest fans only. The 2nd half of this overlong film is interminable.

Fly Me To The Moon—ScarJo looks great but this film misfires on the launch pad.

The Nickel Boys—Watered down reworking of Colson Whitehead’s intense novel of racism in mid-century Florida.

Bob Marley: One Love—Lots of music, lots of ganja, heavy accents. Too much narrative squeezed into two hours.

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A Complete Unknown

If you said “hmmmmm, I’m not sure about that” when you heard that Timotheé Chalamet had been cast as Bob Dylan, your can rest your fears and rejoice because the young star is excellent as the legendary singer/songwriter. He nails Dylan’s nasally mumbling speech patterns and he also sings and plays guitar with style and passion in the new film A Complete Unknown. For music fans, it’s a “must see.”

Chalamet and director/co-writer James Mangold do a nice job of contrasting the raw rookie Dylan of the early 1960s with the very different Dylan of 1965. The early Dylan who rolls into New York is aware of his own talent but needs audiences. One of his first is Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) who is bedridden in a New Jersey sanitarium. 

It’s there he meets folk music icon Pete Seeger who give his young friend a strong leg up. Dylan’s relationship with Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) which goes from warm to icy, as Dylan gears up to take his music to a new level, is one of the film’s key conflicts. Here was the young savior of folk music who did the traditional folk songs as well as his own compositions in the style of the folk legends of the day. Would he follow Pete’s will and stay within the strict boundaries of the Newport FOLK Festival?

Dylan had bigger dreams. As fans know, he had a prolific period in 1965 and 1966 which saw him release three new albums (one of those a double album) in just over a year. He also had his first hit single which introduced him to America via Top 40 radio and contained the lyric that gives this movie its title. Those three albums were not like the ones that had come before. One of the cool scenes in the film is Dylan and his band playing the song Highway 61 Revisited—complete with police siren whistle!—in a recording studio. 

The 1965 version of Dylan in the movie is cool, detached, arrogant. He’s made some money, rides a motorcycle and is surrounded by adoring fans. He has an attitude.

Another of the film’s conflicts is the hot and cold relationship Bob has with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). Their songs together are among the film’s top musical moments, not unlike the memorable duets in Mangold’s 2005 biopic Walk The Line between Johnny Cash and June Carter (Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon). More conflict: Dylan’s girlfriend Sylvie (Elle Fanning) has enough of Bob and Joan and departs Newport just before the film’s climax. And, by the way, Cash (Boyd Holbrook) was a few moments in this film.

Looking back six decades later, it doesn’t seem that Dylan’s “going electric” was that big a deal. More like just another event in the rapidly changing pop culture scene of that tumultuous decade. But—at the time—it was a big deal. And it’s the crux of Bob Dylan’s evolution and the next step in the dawn of the folk/rock era as presented here.

A Complete Unknown is the best kind of biopic because it doesn’t try to cram decades of its subject’s life into a couple of hours. It focuses instead on just two distinct periods in the early years of this musical icon. And like the best movies that include music, the music is just as vital to the film as the story. Maybe even more vital. The songs provide the film’s most magical moments.

Not that it matters, but A Complete Unknown has already received awards nominations and more are sure to come. Chalamet, Norton, Barbaro and Mangold could be holding trophies soon. And even though the Dylan songs in the film are too old to be considered for new awards, wouldn’t it be cool to have Timotheé Chalamet perform a Dylan classic or two on the Oscars telecast?

Among my feelings after seeing A Complete Unknown is a desire to rewatch the movie Inside Llewyn Davis a 2013 Coen brothers film about a talented young folk singer in New York in 1961 who keeps making missteps and running into bad luck. That film, like this one, recreates the era beautifully even if the fictional tale is not so beautiful. 

To be sure, there are many more Dylan stories to be told and Dylan songs to be sung. Would Chalamet and Mangold want to tackle those in a future film? Is it completely insane to suggest such a thing even before this movie has been released? Maybe a romantic film focusing on Dylan and Joan Baez in their times together in California and upstate New York? Would that work?

Sorry for thinking too far ahead. Let’s just enjoy this superb movie A Complete Unknown right now and not worry too much about what may be blowing in the wind. 

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Blink Twice

Blink Twice. No spoilers. Just a few hints.

A rich guy Slater King (Channing Tatum) has a private island and likes to throw extravagant days-long events there. Unlike at Jeffrey Epstein’s place, all the guests here appear to be adults. But as Epstein famously did, King casts his net wide with his invitations.

Among the invitees are characters played by Geena Davis, Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osment and Kyle Maclachlan, among others.

Tatum’s co-star Naomi Ackie as Frida does the movie’s heavy lifting, moving the story along and maintaining the mystery. First time director Zoe Kravitz (who also co-wrote the movie) took a big leap of faith in casting the less-than-well-known Ackie in the lead role. Lucky for both women, Ackie does good work in what could be a star-making turn.

As is revealed in the trailer, all guests have to give up their phones. Even if they could get a signal, it is preferred that guests not take pics. (Christian Slater’s character Vic snaps lots of Polaroid photos.) The island getaway consists mainly of eating, drinking, drugs and pool time. While sexual tension simmers, it doesn’t appear to go far. The guests seem to have fun mainly by teasing one another, sharing booze and blunts and outrageous meals.

Google says: “‘Blinking twice’ implies that someone can’t believe what they’re seeing, so they blink again to make sure they’re not imagining it.” And in the drug and drink addled minds of the participants in Slater King’s island party, what’s real and what’s imagined is sometimes blurred.

Zoe Kravitz has crafted a suspenseful tale but my guess is that since she’s a rookie helmer, the studio had “final cut.” Blink Twice feels as if much more movie was shot but, as often happens, was trimmed here and there to speed things up. Should there have been more mystery? More exposition? More resolution? Or… was the film’s hour and forty minutes run time just about right? “Always leave ‘em wanting more” is a timeless showbiz adage and maybe it applies here.

The opening shot of Blink Twice has Frida doom scrolling through social media posts until she gets to a Slater King video. Here’s hoping that the folks who see Blink Twice and then jump onto TikTok, Instagram, X, Facebook, etc. will respect the folks who made the movie AND the folks who will see it in the next few weeks and think twice about sharing any spoilers. If you are a social media user, be careful where you click.

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Sing Sing

Who knew prison could be this much fun? Okay, not really FUN but Sing Sing begins with a light mood. Men in prison in a repertory theater company. Workshopping ideas together and coming up with an amalgam of a show to be written by their leader Brent (Paul Raci) who comes from outside the walls.

It’s prison but it appears more orderly and civilized than prison is often depicted in films. The men stay in units that look more like dorm rooms than cells. They chat amiably at meals and in the yard—with a few exceptions.

What makes Sing Sing special is these prisoners in the film are, for the most part, formerly incarcerated men. They bring a special level of reality and humanity in their portrayals of prison inmates. Yes, they have been convicted of serious crimes but they are real, generally likable, people.

Divine G (Colman Domingo) is the alpha of the rep company. He’s also working to get his conviction overturned. G is cool and calm in his clemency hearing. But the pressure of being behind bars slowly builds. Domingo, who was an Oscar nominee for his portrayal of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, is a compelling presence onscreen.

Also meriting special mention is Clarence Maclin, a former inmate, whose work on Hamlet’s “To Be Or Not To Be” soliloquy during the film goes from ludicrous to powerful. This is not the last time you’ll see him onscreen.

While the mood of Sing Sing is not as intense as that of some prison movies, there are reminders that the men are isolated from society. The frequent shots of men looking out at the Hudson River and of the trains traveling right next to the prison make that point clear. (The lyrics to Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues came to my mind each time the train rolls by.)

Sing Sing is likely to be in conversations in a few months when awards season kicks in. Not just for Domingo and Maclin but for the film’s director Greg Kwedar who co-wrote the script with Clint Bentley. It is one of the best movies to be released so far this year. Rated R for language.

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Twisters

Is it okay for a movie about something as terrible as tornadoes to be… fun?

Twisters has its share of perilous moments and amazing depictions of the devastation a tornado can cause. But it also has a Hallmark-like rom-com element and a Dukes of Hazzard quality as well. 

One Hallmark Channel boilerplate plot has a young woman leaving her small town for the big city, coming back for a visit, meeting a man who initially rubs her the wrong way. But as they keep encountering each other, attraction ensues.

In Twisters, Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar-Jones), now working for the National Weather Service in New York, had a frightening tornado experience years ago but is lured back into the plains of Oklahoma to test a new tornado tracking system. She soon partners with Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) a reckless storm chaser who posts his storm videos on social media channels. And off they go!

Will they find tornadoes? Um, if they don’t, there’s no movie here. Will they become a romantic item? Um, if they don’t, there are gonna be lots of disappointed folks when the movie’s over. 

How hot is Glen Powell? Well, he’s hot in that he’s a good looking guy with a great smile and good hair but he’s also hot in that he’s had significant success in movies in the last couple of years. And his work in this film will only add to his appeal to casting directors, not to mention it will add to his future paydays.

How hot is Daisy Edgar-Jones? She’s gorgeous. Cute in a wholesome, Hallmark babe kind of way. (She starred as Kya in the 2022 film Where The Crawdads Sing.)

How good are the effects? While this new movie doesn’t have the money shot of flying cows that made the 1996 Twister buzzworthy, there are numerous scenes that are frightful AND make you wonder… how did they make it look so real? Objects and people do go flying through the air. Minor spoiler: a gigantic blade from a wind turbine plummets to the ground. Yikes.

Just like your computers and cell phones have made gigantic advances in the past 28 years, so have CGI and other movie making magic tools. You may not gasp in amazement at everything but you will enjoy the ride.

When Tyler is introduced, the film’s cool country music soundtrack kicks in. When he drives his pickup truck off road through rough terrain, you may be reminded of the Duke boys and their reckless driving in the General Lee. A rodeo scene lets Tyler inform Kate that he was once a bull rider. And Kate’s down home roots are confirmed when she goes home to the farm to see her mother (Maura Tierney).

Unlike many of the potential perils presented to audiences in movies, tornadoes are real and often catastrophic. I recall videos of the monster that hit Tuscaloosa AL in spring 2011 and then driving through the area of impact a few weeks later. Wow! Just a month after Tuscaloosa was hit, Joplin MO was pounded by an enormous twister that cut a huge swath through that town.

Why do people chase tornadoes? Is it for the adrenaline rush? The urge to tempt fate? Why do any of us do risky things? Twisters director Lee Isaac Chang says, “There’s a contradictory element to tornadoes. They’re so destructive, yet we all want to see them.” Twisters provides all the vicarious tingle I need without exposing me to danger. 

Plus the film has two lead characters who have great charisma and chemistry. It’s rated PG-13 so you can take most all of your family members. It clocks in right at two hours with nary a wasted frame. And, yes, it is a fun movie.

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Fly Me To The Moon

First, the good news: ScarJo looks terrific in the new film Fly Me To The Moon. She rocks a sort of Jill St. John vibe in snug-fitting fashions with a cool late 60s coiffure and, at times in the film, red lipstick. Not to mention her million dollar smile which she flashes frequently.

Now, the bad news: Fly Me To The Moon misfires on many levels. As a romcom, the romance is tepid and the comedy is not that funny. Its dramatic elements are out of sync with the rest of the movie, which is mainly light-hearted. But don’t blame Scarlett Johansson or her co-star Channing Tatum who does a good job in an odd, badly written, role.

Kelly Jones (Johansson) is recruited by Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson) to promote NASA and the moon mission. Berkus claims he’s a liaison to the president. On arriving at Cape Kennedy, Kelly encounters Cole Davis (Tatum) who is in charge of the launch. After a “meet cute,” he and she are soon at odds about her methods of getting coverage for the event.

The film’s gimmick is a top-secret fake moon landing on a sound stage. To be shot as a backup. That shoot is directed in the movie by Lance Vespertine (Jim Rash), a flamboyant gay man who has no charm whatsoever. Not sure if the blame for this role goes to the actor, the writer or the casting director. Or all of them. The fake landing offers many opportunities for laughs and amusement but that segment fails miserably.

In a nifty bit of scheduling, Fly Me To The Moon’s release comes as America notes the 55th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11, the mission that put our first men on the moon. In what is usually a slow month for news, the story of the moon landing always gets repeated by media because it is one of the high points of recent American history. So, a fictional movie centered around that event might seem to be a good idea.

In addition to the tension in Mission Control as the Apollo 11 launch occurs, the film references Apollo 1’s fire which resulted in the deaths of three astronauts. Davis not only visits the memorial to the crew daily, he loses his cool when an interviewer presses him about his role in the tragedy. This effort to insert a bit of gravitas in what is otherwise a generally unserious story seems gratuitous. 

The efforts of the film’s production crew to present references to 1969 are admirable. A huge collection of vintage cars shows up in multiple locations. Kelly’s assistant Ruby (Anna Garcia) has a wardrobe of colorful outfits like those often seen in photos of young women from the late 60s and early 70s. Eastern Airlines and TWA have signage in the airport. And it was great to hear the forgotten soul classic Slip Away by Clarence Carter in the soundtrack. 

Is Fly Me To The Moon a horrible film? No, that’s not the right word. But it could’ve and should’ve been better. It runs a bit too long—2:12. It wastes the talents of Ray Romano whose impact is negligible. And it inaccurately posits that the country was not that excited about the moon mission. 

According to Wikipedia, “the film was initially slated to be released direct-to-streaming but was redirected to theatrical following strong test screenings.” Hmmm. 

Directed by Greg Berlati. Script by Rose Gilroy from a story by Bill Kirstein and Keenan Flynn. Rated PG-13. 

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