FIST FIGHT Review

Going in with low to optimistic expectations there was no great weight on the shoulders of Fist Fight. It's February and Fist Fight is a comedy starring Ice Cube and what you get from Charlie Day in between seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia-which is more or less the same Charlie Day, but likely a little less energetic and manic due to his more lax schedule. There was no reason to believe Fist Fight would be a memorable comedic experience and it isn't, but it isn't the cheap altogether crap fest it very well could have turned out to be either. Rather, Fist Fight is a comedy that understands its premise is outlandish and unrealistic from the get-go and thus never takes itself seriously as a representation of the public school system (though some aspects could certainly be interpreted as exaggerated issues) and thus ramps up the ridiculous with every scene-testing the limits of how far the individual audience member is willing to go with them. It would be easy to drop off of the ride at any point along the way, but Ice Cube and Day offer a funny and different enough dynamic that the two parallel arcs are interesting enough to watch develop and culminate for the scant ninety minute running time. Sure, the premise is slim and one can feel the ride straining itself a bit as it nears the inevitable third act, but with a one-two punch of climactic scenes that includes both an elementary school talent show as well as the titular fight (which more than delivers on its promise) there is plenty to be pleased with once the credits begin to roll and the bloopers begin to play. Of course, Fist Fight isn't the pinnacle of comedic filmmaking and it certainly isn't what Thomas Edison had in mind when he imagined what his motion picture camera might one day be able to achieve, but as far as comic relief it is exactly that-it serves the purpose it was intended for squarely. We know what Ice Cube excels at and we know what we're getting when Charlie Day pops up on screen and the best thing to be said for Fist Fight is that it plays up those two personas until it forces them to collide and while that may indicate there is nothing new to be found in either the story or the performances it does mean it features two charismatic and admittedly funny people doing what they do best-what's wrong with that? Not a whole lot in my humble opinion.

Red-Band Trailer for BAD SANTA 2 Starring Billy Bob Thornton

Is anyone out there really excited or even good at remembering that there is a Bad Santa 2 being released this holiday season? I keep trying to remember, but with all of the annual Oscar season contenders beginning to make their presence known as well as a large amount of tentpoles by way of a Star Wars movie, a Harry Potter movie, a new Marvel movie, and even something as epically original as Passengers on the horizon it seems to be getting more and more difficult to recall the fact we're also getting a sequel to a thirteen year-old R-rated Christmas comedy that probably should have come out a decade ago if it really cared about being anticipated by anyone. Instead, Broad Green Pictures and Miramax are counting on the age of social-media made nostalgia awareness we're all currently existing in at the moment to give them a solid return on their investment in the Billy Bob Thornton/innocent icons talking dirty franchise. Of course, we all saw how this line of thinking worked out earlier this year when Paramount tried the same thing with the fifteen year-later sequel to Ben Stiller's Zoolander. That property was arguably more "viral" than Bad Santa and had developed more of a cult following in the time since its somewhat disappointing initial release. Add to that the fact Zoolander was rated PG-13 as opposed to the very R-rated Bad Santa and we could have a recipe for disaster here. Granted, the original Bad Santa made $60 million domestically on a $23 million budget, but with the lag between sequels I have to doubt the staying power of that original is as strong as some of the other reboots and sequels we've seen trying to ride this wave of nostalgia. In short, whereas something like Anchorman 2 was able to still succeed based on the fact it had defined part of the zeitgeist of the time in which it came out and parlayed that into a new movie that moved past the original Bad Santa 2 looks to be a redux of the original with cuss words taking the place of actual punch lines. I hope I'm wrong, but we'll find out how good of an idea Bad Santa 2 was when it opens on November 23rd, 2016. The film also stars Kathy Bates, Christina Hendricks, Ryan Hansen, Cristina Rosato, and features the return of Tony Cox and Brett Kelly as Marcus and Thurman Merman.

THE NEON DEMON Review

Though Nicolas Winding Refn is hardly a household name his films have come to feel like certain kinds of events. It is in the aura he has created around himself and his ambitions that his movies now feel like these mythic, untouchable experiences that take us into a usually weird and demented world that is largely metaphorical for the one the rest of us exist in. With what is his tenth feature film the director has made his first film with a female lead as he's chosen to explore his inner sixteen year-old girl. In his mind, if he were a girl that is, Refn would seem to want to exist in the world of high fashion and be a fashion model as The Neon Demon takes us through the age old tale of the young, pretty southern girl who travels to Los Angeles to make her dreams of becoming a star come true. This is an interesting choice as Refn adopts a rather straightforward narrative for this film while still remaining experimental through the visual design and the way he integrates interesting visual approaches to convey many of the tropes of such a story. Set in this world of supermodels, pretentious designers, and even more pretentious photographers everything about the film feels elitist-the world should belong to the beautiful. The substance matters little if the surface isn't beautiful enough to stop you in the first place. Ruled over by the few chosen gatekeepers of taste we willingly follow our protagonist despite knowing, that in Refn's hands, there is no way this ends well. What Refn is actually attempting to say (if anything) with the film is anyone's guess as it's clear he means for his works to elicit multiple interpretations, but given the more linear structure and straightforward fashion in which the film has been edited it would appear Refn wants us to believe he is discussing one thing while slyly delivering something else. These intentions don't really come forward until the third act though, when the sleight of hand turns into full on spectacle with the film simultaneously becoming less effective as a result. The slow paced, meditative quality of the first two acts that analyzes the ins and outs of the modeling and fashion industries through the innocent eyes of sixteen year-old Jesse (Elle Fanning) is abruptly disposed of in favor of slasher movie conventions thus making the strong build-up and examination of such a world feel short-changed by the abrupt action that concludes the film. Refn somehow still manages slight poignancy, but with not as unique a perception as he initially sets up.

First Trailers for Nicolas Winding Refn‘s THE NEON DEMON

Nicolas Winding Refn is an interesting filmmaker, he's a guy who doesn't fit into any genre or category and yet he fits perfectly into the niche he's carved for himself. Drive catapulted the guy from general obscurity to the hero of many a film school wannabe's. Though he's made Bronson with an unknown Tom Hardy (you should check it out if you haven't) and Valhalla Rising with Mads Mikkelsen (I should probably check that out) prior, it wasn't until Drive with Ryan Gosling that his name was on the map. Follwing up that wild success with a completely bewildering work like Only God Forgives the director let us all know just how far he was willing to go to capture what he imagined in the purest form possible. I still don't know that I understand what he was going for with that film and I've admittedly had no desire whatsoever to return to it, but the fact he has crafted a new piece of cinema is reason to be excited enough. With The Neon Demon Refn replaces his typical male lead with that of Elle Fanning who plays an aspiring model who moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality eventually devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has. If that sounds right up Refn's alley you'd seemingly be correct as the visuals presented in this quick, 90-second clip compliment that story and world with a very specific tone and style. I'm on the edge of how much I should necessarily anticipate this given my reaction to Only God Forgives, but like I said before, it's a Refn film and for that I will certainly be viewing the movie regardless of its critical/commercial reception. The Neon Demon also stars Christina Hendricks, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, Keanu Reeves, and opens in June.

DARK PLACES Review

Oh what a difference an interpretation can make. One has to wonder if, after having seen both Gone Girl and Dark Places, which might have been the bigger success had the directors of each switched projects. One could argue the phenomenon of Gone Girl wasn't as much due in large to David Fincher's direction, but more the universal themes of relationships, cheating husbands and the acknowledgement of a very real presence in the exploitation of bad news for good ratings, but I wouldn't. I would argue these elements and the style with which they were presented heavily influenced what audiences took away from the film and that the story is wholly indebted to Fincher's direction. Don't get me wrong, Flynn's Gone novel is a well-written piece of noir that is highlighted by it's alternating narrators and cynical introspection, but it could just have easily been turned into a Lifetime movie and that is the difference between it and Dark Places. Written for the screen and directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner (Sarah's Key) Dark Places attempts to cover all of the seeming ideas and themes floating around in it's source material (I didn't read this Flynn novel prior to seeing the film) where with Gone Girl (I did read this one) Fincher chose to focus on one major theme and let whatever else came to the surface come out of that one focal area. This isn't to say Dark Places is necessarily a failure as a different approach could certainly work with similar material, but in Paquet-Brenner attempting to cram as much as he can into a two-hour movie the film eventually devolves into a standard procedural of uncovering the core mystery rather than being any kind of meditation on the factors that inform the mystery.

LOST RIVER Review

In his feature directorial debut Ryan Gosling shows us first and foremost just how stylish he can be. Very much concerned with the framing and cinematography of his piece, Lost River relies on both of these camera elements accompanied by the Johnny Jewel soundtrack to set the very specific tone that Gosling wants to elicit. Specific is the key word here because without this preference to create a distinct style that evokes a certain time period (or more specifically the photography of that time period) then Gosling's directorial debut would be almost void of anything else. And yet, the way in which everything has been composed and the way the subtle and sly story is brought to the surface is strangely fascinating. Not necessarily good, but certainly fascinating. We never really feel (or at least I didn't) that there is a solid grasp on anything that is happening. It is understood that there seems to be a super natural element to all that is going on, but compared to something like American Horror Story which tends to finely balance its style with its content while fully embracing its genre, Lost River is unable to give us a compelling story while delivering some rather interesting visual choices. Even in the climax of the film where our assumed protagonist fights to end a curse that has been put on his town and Ben Mendelsohn dances his little heart out the cinematography delves into dark shades so that we can hardly tell what is going on. It's as if Gosling has something very specific (there's that word again) that he wants to say, but is afraid to state it too explicitly. What is it exactly that Gosling's film is trying to accomplish? I don't know that I could tell you. It's too easy to say that it's all style and no substance because while the style of the piece is front and center there is clearly something attempting to be said here; a statement trying to be made-I'm just not completely clear on what that is.