Film Words

It’s a little surprising that Will Ferrell has never made a “Eurovision Song Contest” movie before. His career is littered with roles in which he pokes fun at relatively minor sports (which Eurovision kind of is) whose small and quirky sub-cultures make for good natured goof-fests. Ice skating, NASCAR, 1970s basketball, youth soccer; to describe this new film’s plot would be to assume you’re totally unfamiliar with Ferrell’s work. Be honest, you know what you’re in for when you pull this one of the Netflix shelf.       As is so often the case Ferrell plays a dopey loser with a big dream and a more talented teammate, who this time out is played by Rachel McAdams with a lot of bright eyed naiveté and a poor Icelandic accent (though no one else fares any better in that department). A humorously violent plot contrivance gives the duo a chance to represent Iceland at Eurovision, and what’s nice is that the movie seems to be as genuinely enthused about the annual music/weirdn...

One of my biggest movie pet peeves is when people opine that Do the Right Thing (or any Spike Lee film really) is “sadly still relevant” to whichever current civil unrest is rocking America. Lee’s masterpiece may have been released in 1989, but it would be naive to think it’s only concerned with 1989 problems, as opposed to the awful fundamental flaws woven into every aspect of society, as present now as they were hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. Like saying Einstein’s theories of gravity are “still relevant today”. Of course they are; they are a universal constant that permeate all our lives, whether we notice their effect or not.             To wit, it would be both obvious and insufficient to call Lee’s new film Da 5 Bloods “perfect for our present moment” or “the film we need right now”. It’s not about right now, it’s net is cast wide in terms of both subject and theme, including the often downplayed parts of the Vietnam war, the history...

Who is Michael Jordan, the real Michael Jordan, really? That was the tantalizing question we were promised an answer to in the form of an epic, 10 part documentary series focused on the Chicago Bull’s final championship winning season in 1998. “The Last Dance” (directed by Jason Hehir) teased us with never before seen footage of Jordan and the Bulls captured by a camera crew hired to document what many on the team knew would be their final season together (We have coach Phil Jackson to thank for the series’ appropriately romantic title). For over a month now the sports world has been engaged in an almost constant re-watching and re-evaluating of the remarkable career of number 23, their attention abnormally focused by the suffocating effects of an ongoing pandemic, and in many ways we don’t know any more than we did 5 weeks ago. Outside of one or two neat moments the majority of the near 10 hour series is spent listening to various talking heads tell us that “Michael Jorden was r...

From the quarantine zone, it’s time to look at three Netflix films from first time directors that represent the streaming giant’s broad and admirable cinematic ambitions, while also demonstrating it’s often limited stylistic boundaries. Tigertail This intimate feature from Alan Yang tells the mostly autobiographical story of his parent’s migration from Taiwan to America. It looks great at times but is often let down by some stiff blocking and editing. This is a kind of story that isn’t often explored with much depth in American films despite the immigrant experience being a keystone of the country’s identity and I appreciate how honest and specific Yang is in depicting the conflicting desires and soul crushing sacrifices of Grover, the man whom life constantly denies human connection as he tries to make a better life for himself. Unfortunately his daughter Angela is oddly underdeveloped which leads to the films emotional climax, which she is a crucial part of, feeling muted. On...

There’s no easy way to talk about your deepest, darkest problems; to do it in a very public fashion must be damn near impossible, but that’s what Ben Affleck is attempting in The Way Back , which sees him re-teaming with Accountant director Gavin O’Connor. It’s a film about a man struggling with alcoholism, something Affleck has had unfortunately well know issues with, and he must be commended for being willing to lay it all out there for this sombre and touching basketball movie. Yes, basketball movie. Affleck’s Jack Cunningham is hired to coach the high school team he used to be the star of, but in order to do so he needs to get control of his own rapidly spiralling life, in which he drowns his crushing sorrows with a never ending stream of booze. As is customary with these kinds of stories (think Coach Carter, for example) the teams various players also have exactly one big life lesson they each need to learn, not just to excel on the court, but to excel in the game of life....

One of the things cinema is great at is exposing your biases, forcing you to acknowledge the humanity in others, even if you are diametrically opposed ideologically to whoever is on screen, and look inwards at you own flaws. One of the more surprising examples of this recently is the Blumhouse produced Get Out, which made a slice of liberal leaning America recon with its own deeply held prejudices right as it was positioning itself as smugly superior to the newly emerged ‘deplorable’ Trump fan base. The Hunt sees Blumhouse once again trying to infuse a nuts-and-bolts horror/thriller with an incisive contemporary political edge, this time with muted results. The premise is that a group of redneck deplorables wakes up in the middle of a ‘Dangerous Game’ style kill zone, set up by a separate group of wealthy liberal elites. As the victims are quickly picked off with bloody glee, Crystal (Betty Gilpin) emerges as a protagonist that no one should want to fuck with, possessing superhum...

There are few cinematic experiences as fun as a good Austen adaptation, and should you find yourself in the mood there are no shortage of options. Despite being one of the lighter novels Emma has a pretty good track record of engaging and witty productions, so this new interpretation from first time fiction director Autumn de Wilde has a lot to contend with in terms of keeping your attention. Thankfully it does so with great verve.         Anya Taylor-Joy stars as the acerbic and solipsistic young woman around whom the citizens of a fictional English county revolve, at least according to her. It’s a great bit of casting, Emma is just as sharp as she’s ever been on screen but there are enriching layers to Taylor-Joy’s performance that keep you from settling on one strong opinion of her, giving the impression of a girl in the process of change as life begins to throw harder and harder choices her way. Not that her life is all that hard, the film plays everything ...