This Week in Geek (15-21/01/18)

"Accomplishments"

In theaters: Left entirely to his own devices, Aaron Sorkin offers Molly's Game, the latest in his line of biopics, but where others transcend the genre and become heightened realities that deconstruct the person's life to recreate it as literary art, we feel his usual transformations much less. There are still the themes that have always interested him as a writer - ethics, daddy issues - but the tropes aren't as recognizable. The language seems pulled more from Molly Bloom's book too (and a LOT of narration), Sorkin's trademark banter present but not dominant. That's disappointing in a way, because his writing usually taps into something deep within me, but I also applaud his stretching himself into new directions, as it's true he could be boiled down to a checklist. What's really of interest is that despite an illuminating speech here and there, the subtext is nevertheless left open-ended, with multiple interpretations possible, and a lot of the work is done by the editing, cutting back and forth through Molly's life to inform the character. Jessica Chastain is good, though she's definitely not out of her element. The same goes for her co-stars, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, and a smarmy Michael Cera.

Paddington 2 has all the whimsy of the original film, though there's necessarily less of the bear's misunderstanding of everyday human things and of Brown's funny reactions to it. I miss it. Still, there's no lack of charm coming from the cast and story, and Hugh Grant makes a delicious villain, quirky and funny, even if his link to Paddington isn't as strong as Nicole Kidman's in the first film. And then there's the subtext. The original was more easily described as an immigrant's experience, but the racial profiling that befalls the bear in this one isn't as solid. All this to say it's a SLIGHTLY lesser film than the original, but only slightly. It still has the humor, heart, and visual inventiveness of the original, and the plot is tightly constructed, with nary an early detail not made relevant later on. This is proving to be a thoroughly lovely series about a kind young bear who turns everyone into their best selves. Surely, there's room for more stories in this world.

The National Theatre Live presentation of Stephen Sondheim's Follies is just a gorgeous production, and that's just on the basis of costumes, staging, and casting. The latter isn't an obvious trick because the play requires both younger and older versions of each character to be on stage, and in many cases, the actors do look (and sound) related. That conceit is also the best part of the musical - which Sondheim himself describes as plotless, "people get together for a party, get drunk, hate each other, and go home" - as the younger characters, essentially memories, seem aghast at what they have (will?) become. A touching story of mid-life crisis, regret and paths not taken, dressed up in song and dance, until the third act becomes all "follies". As expected of Sondheim, the lies we tell ourselves go deep into the core of the play, not only driving the relationships, but also the style, his songs simultaneously playful and bitterly sad. Great and moving performances all around, especially from Imelda Staunton, Janie Dee and Philip Quast.

At home: We're used to ghost stories being about ghosts who haunt the living, but in A Ghost Story, it's the living who haunt the ghost. That's because it's all from the ghost's point of view. One perfect shot after another, the film tends towards the still life, but one has to understand the obsessiveness of a soul that has refused to move on. We linger on moments of import to the spirit for almost unbearable lengths of time, while time may move in montage when its motive is absent. It's a love story that transcends eternity, a sad one, describing love as a haunting (because it is, even in life). It's about grief for things lost. It's also about closure, and the fear we won't be remembered, or won't have time to finish what we set out to do in this life, get all the answers we seek, and so on. Let's just say there's a lot to unpack in this quiet, artful movie, and leave it at that before I ruin any surprises by saying more.

My friend Michael May of the Adventureblog described Table 19 as "Breakfast Club at a wedding" and yes, that's very much the vibe. Brilliant five-word review. Written by the Duplass brothers, it's exactly the kind of funny/sad comedy you'd expect from the duo, but perhaps happier than usual. The idea is to get to know the outcasts at the rejects table furthest from the wedding party - the best man's ex, the friends of friends, the forgotten nanny, the unaccompanied kid - and see them heal each other through this quirk of circumstance. The always watchable Anna Kendrick is clearly the lead, but we get some good turns from Lisa Kudrow, Stephen Merchant, Craig Robinson, Tony Revolori and June Squibb as well. I'm iffy about the "forgive men behaving badly" motif running through the film, but Table 19 delivers enough smart amusement and heartfelt poignancy to still make this recommendable.

Watching Dial M for Murder, I thought we were in trouble early on. The 3D trend was pushed on Hitchcock at the time, which makes parts of this thriller rather ugly, blueish glows around things meant to pop out. But once the obligatory tricks of the opening sequence are done, Hitch dials (ha!) it way down and stop being distracting. In this cinematic page turner, a man plans the perfect murder, then spends a lot of time improvising around his mistakes while a smart and well-meaning copper hounds him. This is a Columbo episode before Columbo was invented. Through and through. A major inspiration to be sure, and mystery fans should see it just on that basis. Thankfully, it's also a well thought-out thriller set in a single room (it has its origins in the theater), a procedural from the killer's point of view. Shame about the technical imperfections, but they're no deal breaker.

In Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, two strangers meet and one has a macabre idea. What if they each did the other's murder, leaving no trail or motive to follow? What happens, then, when he commits the criss-cross murder, while the other man had no intention of following the crazy plan? Though not as well regarded as some of the others, there are some great Hitchcockian ideas in here, including a device through which the villain's madness becomes apparent, and a tennis match used to ramp up the tension. Great shots of the villain stalking the protagonist as well, pure Hitchcock, that. I personally love the completely insane merry-go-round finale, preferring to think it inventive and exciting rather than ridiculous. I will agree the resolution is a little tepid after that, however, and the police at times embarrassing.

Doctor Who Titles: Doomsday sure wants to be 2008's answer to Mad Max or Escape from New York, but to make that kind of loopy postapocalyptic stuff work, it needs to be fun. And it's not particularly fun. The year is 2035 and Scotland has been quarantined since 2008 because of a deadly disease. The survivors have since banded into either road warriors or Medieval knights (I kid you not), and one-dimensional badass Rhona Mitra must go there with a team of mostly idiots/cannon fodder to find the cure before a resurging virus decimates London. SHOULD be fairly fun, but the action is sadly edited within an inch past its life (3-4 messy cuts per second), there's little that hasn't been done better and funnier in 80s flicks, and the ultra violent gore is too disgusting for a real laugh. The whole thing is smothered in noisy music. So while I did like the ending (essentially everything after the action ends), I can't possibly recommend it.
#The TARDIS lands in the film... The 10th Doctor and Donna help a cyborg supercop find the cure, but then they go back to 2008 to introduce it into genpop so Scotland never falls.

Runaway Bride reunites Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, and director Garry Marshall to hopefully recapture the magic of Pretty Woman. So what went wrong? This misfire is possibly the most badly put together high end romcom I've ever seen. First, I don't know who to root for. In one corner, a raging misogynist with no real understanding of his journalism job; in the other, a woman who pathologically leaves men at the altar, thoughtlessly leaving heartbreak in her wake. When they shirk off their "damage", it's not psychologically motivated. The only reason they wind up together is because they're the two prettiest people in the story. Or rather, I get why they would be attracted to one another, but not how they somehow heal each other. And then there's all the slapstick, which never comes off as funny because it's not appropriately acted or shot, I'm not sure. It's like Runaway Bride is by the numbers, but they're not using the right color chart to fill them in.
#The TARDIS lands in the film... Rowan Atkinson is the Doctor and he's there to save a couple of people from making big mistakes (the movie still gets made, don't misunderstand, it's just a lot wittier).

The Great American Traffic Jam, originally aired as Gridlock, is a TV movie with a Love Boat cast (the fact that Rue McClanahan and Ed McMahon play a couple in this is proof enough, but there are also a couple of musical numbers), that's NOT QUITE a disaster movie and ALMOST a survival film, in which several crazy accidents happen on California freeways, blocking traffic and causing 2-3 million people to be stranded for the better part of a day. We follows several cars' occupants - the obligatory pregnant woman, the band thinking of breaking up, etc. - and John Beck as a heroic traffic expert at headquarters who might be able to get things moving again, if only his boss would listen to his ideas. Played as a gentle comedy, Gridlock is inoffensive but watchable, a very light spoof of disaster movies with its own story to tell.
#The TARDIS lands in the film... The fourth Doctor, the second Romana and the (also second) K9 play the Beck role and fix everything, especially once the Doctor finds out a computer is partly responsible.

Oscar Pool Stash Forced Watch: The Cobbler mostly suffers from being an Adam Sandler movie, and as such, appears to have attracted his fans, or fans of stupid comedies, and was perhaps even marketed that way. But hold on, this was directed by Tom McCarthy of Spotlight fame? Huh?! So yeah, this isn't a comedy at all, but rather a fable about a cobbler with a magic stitching machine who can literally walk in another man's shoes by wearing their modified footwear. And while yes, you could go comedy on this, it instead starts as a "what would you do?" and turns into a crime thriller where the face-changing can be used for good. Alas, it never properly explores its metaphor and fails as a fable. Alas, that first part skirts the edge of what's appropriate in terms of consent, racial sensitivity, etc. That leaves the crime thriller, which isn't bad, but nothing special. Sandler doesn't play his usual persona, but projects barely more than general apathy and disinterest (so it's a good thing he's "played" by lots of other actors). Out of focus and forgettable. The DVD's behind the scenes featurettes shows a lot of enthusiasm on the part of the participants, which is kind of heartbreaking considering the result.
#OscarPoolResult: Only the worst of the worst goes back in the pile, so I'm forced to keep this middling entertainment.

Some more MST3K movies (classic and new series), regardless of comedy commentary... The Land That Time Forgot (1974) features a WWI U-boat crew stumbling upon an island of dinosaurs and cave men, if you're patient enough waiting for them to get there; some funky retro monster effects, but paceless caveman stuff gets in the way. Pumaman (1980) is a cheap Aztec superhero movie that obviously takes its cues from Donner's Superman, but has neither the means nor the know-how to make us believe a man can fly (indeed, the flight scenes are HORRENDOUS); Donald Pleasance deserved better than to be this incoherent story's Lex Luthor (no, really, don't ask me what's going on). The Loves of Hercules is an overambitious sword and sandals flick that has some hokey charm, but is otherwise all over the place, with underwhelming effects and stilted mostly dubbed line readings (Jayne Mansfield is the only native English speaker). Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a camp classic about that time Mars kidnapped Santa and he upended their entire culture; it's silly and has the worst effects, and might be more fun if it weren't kind of boring too. For a motorcycle movie (with side bars), Sidehackers moves at a crawl, spending too much time on each of its inane scenes; the mind simply wanders off the track. Yongary: Monster of the Deep is a South Korean rip-off of both Godzilla and Gamera, with an underwhelming monster and some real pacing and tone problems, but it's not unwatchable.