WAKE UP DEAD MAN Review

It was only a matter of time before Rian Johnson used the church and religion as a means for one of his Knives Out vehicles and as someone who can both very much relate to Mr. Benoit Blanc's position in this film (love the hair btw) while keeping my balances in check enough to understand and more critically - empathize with - Josh O'Connor's Father Jud, Wake Up Dead Man is everything one might hope for from Johnson's exploration of faith while not necessarily meeting the expectations he has set for us with his first two whodunits (albeit by a very small margin). As a result, Kniv3s Out feels like an expertly concocted film where the genre serves the themes but the subject matter doesn't always allow the murder mystery aspects to excel; serving them well but not necessarily surpassing what Johnson has done in the past even as one can feel the writer/director pushing himself, invoking the classics in hopes they lead him to fresh deviations on these types of stories.  

Johnson eloquently crafts what feels like his own, ongoing internal monologue that goes back and forth between the need to logically solve the existence of God or if feeling the essence in one’s soul of what God’s teachings strive to convey is the real point. How Johnson graphs this onto this radical priest (closing out a banner year for Josh Brolin) and his small but loyal congregation who each personify a type of internet personality doesn't make it instantly feel as if something's not clicking but the turning of the knife (pun intended) becomes more apparent when our "suspects" are brought to the forefront. Kerry Washington is the networker, Daryl McCormack is the influencer, Andrew Scott the conspiracy theorist, Jeremy Renner embodies the lurker – watching but rarely interacting, and then there is Cailee Spaeny who barely registers but implies to be that specific kind of social media user who posts solely for the likes, comments, and validation these signs of approval bring with them. Glenn Close gaslights the hell out of people to the point I’d hate to see what she might do on message boards while Thomas Haden Church portrays her husband, an example of toxic codependency at its best – they’re sharing one Facebook account for sure. Close nearly breaks from these molds, her Martha Delacroix carrying forth the sole purpose of keeping the corrupting evil out of wicked hands. Much like profiles on a webpage though, these individuals are easily dismissed – working more for Johnson’s objectives than developing individual personalities.

THE PROM Review

I never saw a single damn episode of Glee yet it's the project that allowed Ryan Murphy to become "Ryan Murphy" in all the ways he's now heralded as the creator of all that is edgy (and a little self-important) which is kind of funny given what I've gleaned of Glee in the few actual clips I've seen of the show (AKA we're talkin' multiple football fields away from edgy). Never mind the fact Murphy has now become a bigger draw than the actual content on any film or television property he decides to slap his name on (did you see that last season of America Horror Story?), but let us not focus on how much the man has turned himself into a brand all his own and spread himself so thi...I mean, how prolific he's become that there's no possible way his latest endeavor doesn't turn out rushed and rather uninspired, right? No, instead let's remind ourselves that the man who has more ongoing projects with Netflix than Kevin Hart has returned to the director's chair for his first feature in a decade and further, has returned to his musical theater roots! Whatever that might mean...I said I haven't seen Glee, so...is this a good or bad thing? Wherever you fall in regards to your respect for and/or expectation of Murphy's work one thing at least seems to be consistent throughout the man's work and that's his ability to construct atmosphere whether it be in a high school hallway, a haunted insane asylum, or middle-of-nowhere Indiana. With The Prom, Murphy has taken a screen adaptation of the Broadway comedy musical (that is full-on musical and mostly-on comedy) as penned by the writers of the original production (Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin) and stacked it to the brim with stars whereas the material is smart enough on its own terms to elicit just the right balance of rebellion and sweetness. It's not difficult to imagine then, why The Prom - a message musical with major bones to pick with intolerance - will go over smoother than butter on a fresh baked roll. Yes, even in what are apparently hostile Midwestern towns. It’s almost magical how inoffensively the writing deals with the offensiveness of some of the characters and further, is able to convey everything the film wants to say while maintaining a tone akin to the feel good movie of the summer, but this is why atmosphere is key: it chooses to radiate positivity even in the face of ugliness when it could just as easily bury itself in the genuine heartbreak of the story. Though a little long-winded with maybe an extra song or two that could have been cut for reasons of both efficiency and effectiveness, there is no denying the charm of The Prom and its pleasing blend of old school Hollywood musicals with modern ideals and meaning.  

DJANGO UNCHAINED Review

It is likely with a biased opinion that I fully indulged in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. I am, of course, from the generation that was young enough to find Reservoir Dogs on VHS and proclaim Pulp Fiction as our own kind of masterpiece that pushed us to go to film school and wanting to gather a larger pool of knowledge concerning film so that we might apply them to our own works. Tarantino is the inspiration, the guy who made it seem possible for a film lover to become a filmmaker and that essence, that feeling of connection in giving the audience what it really wants, what it really craves despite feeling so constricted to the standards of Hollywood filmmaking. When the man decided he was going to take on the topic of slavery for his latest film it was certainly a field that would provide plenty of material for the kind of brutal, over-the-top genre pictures he likes to pay homage to. My only concern going in was how might this come off when made by a white man. From the get go though it is clear that Tarantino knew what he was getting himself into and that he wouldn't have done so had he not known what he was going to do with it. The film is, most of the time, extremely bent on undermining the power and authority of the institution of what slavery was and in doing so the writer/director brings his flair for sharp, witty dialogue into a film that is overall a very serious movie. In the same way he treated the Nazi's of World War II Tarantino again turns history on its head and gives the overseer's exactly what they deserve and then some. It also doesn't hurt he's extracted some of the better performances this year from his top form group of actors.