aGlassofCinema_com Reviews

The Irishman (2019)

The Scorsese format still works decades later.

[9/10 · 28 September 2019]

I was able to attend the NYC premiere this afternoon. Now that I've gotten over the shock of seeing so many celebrities, I'm able to happily to say that this movie, while being quite long, deserves to be remembered as one of Scorsese's great films.

The Irishman reminds me a bit of Tarantino's recent hit Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, both because it's a period piece and also because you need to know a little history to understand the direction of the narrative. The movie, while following Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) as the titular character, revolves around Teamsters union boss James Riddle Hoffa (played with intense and hilarious fervor by Al Pacino). Fortunately Frank goes to great lengths to narrate the story for the audience and provides a healthy dose of context for those of us not from the Kennedy era. The main thing you need to know going in is that Jimmy Hoffa had mob ties, and that he vanished in 1975 and was presumed murdered by mob bosses for being "uncooperative".

The movie unfolds over four acts, told over several decades by Frank Sheeran. In act one, Frank is introduced as a WWII veteran who is stuck driving food delivery trucks in and around Philadelphia. He has the bright idea to steal some of the steaks that he's delivering, and sell them to local mobster Felix "Skinny Razor" DiTullio (Bobby Cannavale). Eventually his brazen willingness to break the law catches the eye of Italian mob boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), who happens to be a mobster on a national level. His calm demeanor is both comical yet terrifying. A soon to be classic line encompasses Bufalino perfectly: "You might be demonstrating a failure to show appreciation." Under his mentorship, Frank becomes a ruthless action man for the italian mob and explains with rather entertaining dispassion how he does his job properly. In act two, Russell introduces Frank to Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), the outspoken and fearless president of the National Teamsters Union. Their relationship grows and Hoffa becomes Frank's second mentor. Together they use intimidation and bribery to gain influence until the election of John Kennedy, who subsequently appoints his brother Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General and immediately goes after Hoffa.

The first two and a half hours are the most fun, and in particular the end of act three is some of the most tense and dramatic storytelling that I have had the pleasure of seeing in recent memory. At a dinner celebration for Frank (who eventually becomes a Teamster boss himself), tensions between Hoffa, Bufalino and the other mobsters reaches a breaking point, and the decision is made to make Hoffa disappear. But in a gut wrenching twist, Frank is the one tasked to do the job. In a beautiful display of cinematography over a thirty-minute buildup, Scorsese forces the viewer to the edge of their seats with the dread of what's about to happen. Robert De Niro's performance in these moments is master class; the inner conflict is all the more apparent thanks all of the time we spent watching Frank being raised by Bufalino and Hoffa in equal measure. I plan to watch this part of the film again, probably with a notepad.

Getting away from the plot a bit, the movie is actually surprisingly funny. In one particular scene, someone insults an older Bufalino at a dinner reception. He and Frank exchange glances, and the frame suddenly cuts to a hotel bed covered in guns. Frank then narrates with excess detail and hilarious dispassion the ideal weapon for a public assassination. Moments like these are littered throughout the film and keep it from getting too bogged down in it's violence. It's impressive how quickly jokes fly, given the disproportionate amount of people getting shot point blank in the head. But anyone who has seen Scorsese's Goodfellas or The Departed will feel right at home.

The heart of the movie is definitely Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci. De Niro was de-aged with apparently exorbitantly priced CGI, as he is supposed to be younger than both Pacino and Pesci. While it's fairly obvious, I was never too distracted to not enjoy what was unfolding onscreen. Plus he's kind of made a career of holding one scowling facial expression, so that probably was a little easier to edit. Al Pacino is a riot as Hoffa, and is certainly one of the most arrogant, over-the-top characters that Pacino has played in awhile. Pesci as Bufalino is chilling, and it's fun to seem him as the boss in this gangster movie after being a junior-level mobster in Goodfellas so many years ago. The mentorship between De Niro's character and both Pacino and Pesci is amazingly entertaining.

The only thing keeping me from calling this movie perfect is it's length. Three hours and (almost) thirty minutes is a very long time, and while occurring infrequently the movie does drag a bit. This is most apparent in the fourth act where Frank introspects during his final years, and attempts to achieve reconciliation for all the murders he's committed. It doesn't really offer any closure or seem necessary to wrapping up the narrative.

Ultimately that doesn't even come close to making me not recommend seeing The Irishman. There's a reason Martin Scorsese will forever be known for his gangster movies. Combining comedy, violence, brotherhood and drama, he has created a formula that continues to work. The fact that he continues to make excellent movies at 76 years old blows my mind. Well done.

Bird Box (2018)

I wish I had a blindfold on while watching this piece of $@#%...

[4/10 · 19 September 2019]

I haven't watched many Netflix Original films. However after they shoved Bird Box down my throat on the Netflix homepage for weeks, and they made that "45 million accounts" claim (is that good?), I decided to see what all the hype was about. If this film is any indication of the quality of Netflix Originals as a whole, then holy @#$% am I glad I've steered clear of them.

Bird Box is based on the 2014 novel of the same name. I'm sure it's a lovely novel, but this movie is hot trash. The premise is that there are some demon spirit appearing all over the world that cause people to commit suicide when they look at them. All hell breaks loose in a matter of minutes and a handful of survivors manage to barricade themselves in a house. From here the story drags on between this past event and the present day where our protagonist Malorie, played by Sandra Bullock, is trying to get to a safe haven with her kids. The gimmick is that they have to wear blindfolds so they don't accidentally see a demon and kill themselves.

Opposite Sandy is Trevante Rhodes as her love interest Tom. The age difference is glaring since Sandy is well into her 50s and Trevante hasn't even hit 30 yet. To make it even less believable, Malorie is pregnant. As all the other surviving housemates inevitably fall, poor Tom gets stuck with this stern-looking old white woman because she ends up being the only one left. Kudos to him for making the best of a bad situation, because I would rather have gone outside and looked at the demons than deal with that @#$%. John Malkovich plays Douglas, a man who is perpetually upset and likes to yell a lot. Machine Gun Kelly also makes an appearance as a useless piece of %$#@ that nobody wants around, which is fitting.

The most frustrating thing is that it's never explained why the demons drive people to suicide. There is a meager attempt to make sense of it in the beginning of the film when Lydia, played by Rebecca Pidgeon, starts talking to her dead mother after looking at the demons and then proceeds to go sit in a burning car. I'm not sure what exactly we're supposed to infer from this, but I am sure that I don't care.

To make it even more complicated, there is a subset of the population who can look at the demons and not kill themselves. These people essentially become disciples for the demons and attempt to make others look at them. There is probably some subtext here that I'm missing, but I just don't care enough to try and uncover it. My only takeaway is that I wish I had a blindfold on while watching this piece of @#$%.

Midsommar (2019)

I wanted to walk out midmovie...

[6/10 · 19 September 2019]

Midsommar is Director Ari Aster's second feature film, which follows his surprise breakout hit Hereditary. I personally enjoyed THAT movie very much, but THIS movie was an exercise in frustration...

Midsommar follows five graduate students who take a summer trip to a Swedish village in the middle of nowhere. Dani (the main character) is an anxiety ridden disaster that Christian (her boyfriend) wants nothing more than to dump like a ton of anxiety ridden bricks. Josh is the token black character that ALMOST dies first, and Mark is the annoying rude one who DESERVEDLY dies first. Pelle is seemingly there as a plot device to get the group to the aforementioned setting of the movie (it's where he grew up.)

If it sounds like I don't like any of these characters, that's because they do nothing to warrant my sympathy or interest. They all fit their stereotypical horror movie roles and don't seem to deviate at all from them. The great part of Hereditary is that the characters were relatable and weren't passive vehicles to the plot. They all participated to create the monstrous ending (the husband choosing to do nothing, the wife performing the ritual that started the chain of events, the son being a part of the horrifying mid-movie accident) but I don't recall any of the goobers in this movie actively doing anything besides walking around the village and watching everything happen/letting things happen to them. Granted, many horror movies have characters that don't really fight back, and the heavy lifting is done by the creepy house, the scary monster, or in this case the village and the cult that inhabits it.

To give credit where it's due, it's clear that a great deal of effort went into the production of the story's setting, which was the only character in the film I actually cared about. The majority of the movie's run time is spent showing almost every detail of the village of Hårga: the houses are covered with unsettling drawings (that to the discerning eye act as foreshadowing for the film's conclusion), and the white gowns, robes and flowery wreaths of the villagers are beautiful and ornate. Yet it's surprisingly minimalist, as there is probably no more than ten or so houses/structures in the entire village. Part of the horror is that you can see the entire village for the majority of the film thanks to the excellent camerawork, and yet there is something lurking below the surface that you CAN'T see. The characters seem small in the wide open space, and there's a paradoxical feeling of claustrophobia you won't be able to shake.

Unfortunately the film's glaring flaw eventually becomes apparent: that promise of unseen horror isn't enough to carry the movie for almost two and a half hours. After 90 minutes you've seen basically the whole village, and being forced to visit the same places over and over (a long table for every meal, the same dormitory to sleep) becomes stale. I found myself becoming impatient and wanting SOMETHING to happen just to move the story a little bit faster. While the payoff is eventually reached, at that point I was so burned out that it's impact was much less than it could have been. Almost every character meets their demise off screen, and while you do find out what happens to them, it's all at once and the fact that they're already dead really deflates the the build up. Ironically, the most horrifying moment of the film for me was within the first 15 minutes. It's even telegraphed well in advance, and yet as the camera pans through the dark house and the music swells the plausibility of what has happened evokes true horror. Maybe that's why the prolonged run time is felt even more; the film starts with a bang, and forcing the audience to wait such a long time for the next horrifying moment just doesn't work.

Midsommar is not a horror movie that will make you jump. It's a slow burn psychological thriller that unfortunately takes way too long to reach it's conclusion. While the ending is horrifying, depending on your point of view, two hours of exposition for 15 minutes of pay off may not be worth it.

Desperado (1995)

Before there was John Wick, there was... El Mariachi

[8/10 · 19 September 2019]

I'd like to state up front that this is one of my favorite movies of all time. If you love Quentin Tarantino, westerns, or movies where a lone character absolutely decimates an entire population of villains (à la Atomic Blonde, The Equalizer, or John Wick), you will love Desperado. Written and Directed by Robert Rodriguez (recently known for directing Alita: Battle Angel), this is definitely his best movie. It's an original story, written produced and directed by RR himself. Interestingly enough Desperado is the second in Rodriguez's El Mariachi trilogy, which all more or less have the same premise: musician's love interest is killed at the hands of a gangster, and "the mariachi" goes on a quest for revenge. No one saw the first movie of the trilogy because no one memorable was in it, and the third entry Once Upon A Time In Mexico was too ambitious for it's own good, with a massive cast of characters that frankly diluted the fun out of the whole movie. Aside from a few memorable lines from Johnny Depp, it's mostly forgettable.

BUT NOT DESPERADO! It's the perfect blend of cinematography, music, and great script, made even better by the smooth yet seething Antonio Banderas as El Mariachi (EM), and the sexy-as-all-heck Salma Hayek as Carolina the librarian love interest. The opening 8 minutes sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Steve Buscemi walks into a seedy bar and proceeds to emphatically and with great showmanship tell the story of the "biggest Mexican I've ever &*$#%! seen" who massacred a bar full of low-lifes a few towns away. His story is aided by frequent cuts to said bar where the titular character performs physically impossible feats of execution. Half the fun of the movie is watching the characters learn about the terror of El Mariachi and watching their reactions when he finally arrives. And when he does, the heavy guitar music ramps up, and the set pieces provide an extremely fun backdrop for some great shoot outs.

Yet despite everyone painting EM as an immortal demon and an omen of death, the audience knows he is just a man, and seeing him get battered and bruised keeps the tension high through the entire hundred and seven minute running time. The concept of plot armor doesn't seem to exist, at least based on how much he gets injured, and this serves to keep the stakes high. In addition, the witty and frankly sizzling banter between EM and Carolina will make you laugh, and probably wish you knew how to play an acoustic guitar. Their relationship serves to give EM's character more depth than the average movie assassin, and is why he is one of Robert Rodriguez's better written movie characters.

At the core of the film is a sad tale of how a man with a love of life and a talent for music fell onto a path of darkness and death. Themes of family, love, and self-forgiveness are used to give the story some emotional weight, but only enough to drive the story and not enough to depress the viewer. It's a little harder to empathize with John Wick because he was originally an assassin, but EM was a simple guitarrista who had so much potential, but became consumed by a desire for revenge. This becomes even more poignant in the final act after he learns a shocking (some might argue obvious) secret, and is forced to make a hard decision.

The music is really one of the highlights of the movie. As the film takes place in a rural Mexico town, the genre of music employed is appropriately Ranchera, which originated in the rural ranches of the country. Think Carlos Santana meets traditional mariachi music. The fast paced shoot outs are riddled with as much music as they are bullets, and the fact that the music is actually tied into the plot makes it even better.

The cinematography also matches the gritty tone of the film nicely. Half the movie is an experiment to see how many epic brooding shots Robert Rodriguez can squeeze out of Antonio Banderas. It's a visual feast that makes me wish I could be half as cool.

The movie's other characters have much less screen time, which for some is fine and for others is a shame. Cheech Marin and even Quentin Tarantino himself make fun cameos, but the movie's villain is pretty standard fare. We don't see him commit any terrible atrocities, which makes him seem much less intimidating. Honestly it doesn't matter too much, as he is mostly a vehicle for the plot and for EM to participate in the bloodiest bar crawl in the history of cinema. As far as I know. At least in Mexico.

What I do know is that Desperado is a fun ride from start to finish. At minimum, you'll pick up some smooth pick up lines. At most, you'll have a new favorite movie to watch again again. I'm at 20 viewings and counting.

It Chapter Two (2019)

It... should have been way better

[5/10 · 19 September 2019]

Full disclosure, the original Stephen King novel It is something I talk about with great reverence. The 1000-something page book is a fantastic piece of horror fiction for a lot of reasons. So perhaps I'm being too harsh when I say that It: Chapter Two fails to meet the standard set by both the book and the first film in the duology, and frankly is not really worth your time.

Chapter Two picks up 27 years after the 2017 movie, and Pennywise has returned to continue his Derry-based buffet. Mike Hanlon (played by Old-Spice-commercial legend Isaiah Mustafa) never left the town since the original "Losers Club" thought they beat the monster. After he finds a blood soaked message, he calls his old friends one by one to bring them back to defeat the monster once and for all. After reuniting and remembering one another, they are sent off to find "tokens" from their past somewhere in town in order to complete the ritual of Chüd that will hopefully put Pennywise in the proverbial ground.

The above ensemble cast play the grown up versions of the kids from the last film, and do a fairly good job. When they're together and they aren't mostly screaming, the chemistry between them is great. Bill Skarsgård is still absolutely horrifying as Pennywise... when director Andrés Muschietti actually uses him in the film. There is one particular scene (partially featured in the trailer) where he lures a little girl below the bleachers of an ongoing little league game. She quickly realizes that he's not someone to be trusted, causing him to begin to cry and explain that no one likes him because of his scary makeup. The girl happens to have a large birthmark on her face, and she tells Pennywise she understands because people make fun of her face too! They laugh, and suddenly he promises to blow that mark right off her face... on the count of three! Oneeeeeee, twoooooooo, and then there's a 3 second beat of silence where Pennywise says nothing and only drools and stares..... before HE EATS HER FACE. The scene is a fantastic example of what the movie could have been. Its a travesty that he barely has any other opportunities in the movie to monologue like this, and is instead relegated to lines like "kiss me fat boy". It feels like the character could have reached the heights of a psychotic Hannibal Lecter. But alas, not in this adaptation.

Aside from a segment with a creepy old lady and another in a dimly lit hall of mirrors, nothing in the near three hour run time ever again comes close to this moment, and is mostly jump scares populated by CGI monsters. It's predictable yet exhausting for the viewer. Stories like It have the opportunity to affect terror and long-lasting fear through slow burn scares like the segment above. But the movie falls into a predictable and tiresome formula: character is alone, they hear a voice, they proceed to an isolated area, the music swells enough to make my ears hurt, cue jump scare, character runs away, end scene. The first movie is like this as well, so if you're here for more of the same you might be satisfied. However one difference that doesn't help the movie is that the tone is all over the place. It was clearly a horror movie, while Chapter Two has a multitude of one liners and awkward directing choices that cut through the tension and deflate many of the scenes. Is it a drama comedy? A fantasy epic? I'm still not sure.

There are also a few minor changes that I found to be distracting and unwarranted, one of which involves Richard Tozier (played by Bill Hader) who is suggested to be gay. This seems like a blatant attempt to make the movie "socially relevant", and while multiple scenes dropped hints, they added absolutely no value to the story. It makes even less sense when you note there was absolutely no mention or suggestion of this in the first movie. Another issue is that the numerous flashbacks of the Losers Club were riddled with de-aging CGI effects, which was super distracting and made the fear more difficult to appreciate on the faces of the kids. It was like they'd all gotten Botox injections right before they filmed their scenes.

So to summarize, the music is annoying, the scares are cheap, it's not even a horror movie, and worst of all, the star himself has no opportunity to shine. For a movie that should be about floating, it spends most of its time sinking.