THE HOLDOVERS Review

As someone born in the late eighties and raised as a pure product of the nineties, I didn’t expect a seventies throwback piece to hit me as hard as Alexander Payne’s latest. What’s interesting is, as a millennial and someone who relates more to the first two decades above and who hasn’t seen enough “New American Cinema” born of the seventies to really recognize the qualifiers, it’s hard to know whether or not The Holdovers is in fact a movie akin to those made in the seventies or if it is simply a homage to what we now think of when we say “a seventies movie”. Payne, who is now sixty-two, has made films in the vein of seventies movies before - movies that center on multi-faceted characters with relatively small and always personal problems - but he’s never seemingly made a movie so overtly mimicking so much of what he clearly draws inspiration from. 

I say all of this as something of a qualifier in and of itself for, while I understand The Holdovers might be more provoking of the look and feel than invoking of the actual spirit of seventies cinema, as someone of my age and viewing history it left me feeling as if it had done both. Furthermore, I understand why those who might have a deeper pool of knowledge and sense of connection to movies of the seventies and their unshaven realism might find The Holdovers more of a copy of what once was rather than the authentic journey I experienced while watching the film, but the fact of the matter is: I found this far more enjoyable than expected given my aforementioned disposition, but more than that - I found this deeply affecting and honest. While it might be aping certain seventies visual cues very intently, it also manages a perfect balance of melancholy and comedy that elicits heavy truths while equally highlighting the gleefully effervescent moments of life (and how they weave our days and time together).

ROCKETMAN Review

“I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues” is one of my favorite songs of all time. Like, I would rank it as being among one of the best song's ever written...that's how much I love it. My mother's side of the family being from England I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know who Elton John was. It’s not so much the lyrical content itself that moved me as a young man for I couldn’t have grasped what Bernie Taupin was expressing through his lyrics, but there was always something about the tone of the music and the clarity of the melody in an Elton John song that would inherently move myself and countless others, obviously. I don’t know what exactly was meant by, “And it won't be long before you and me run-to the place in our hearts where we hide,” but I know how it made me feel; I know that it made me stop and take more time to recognize what was happening in my life at that given moment and realize that no matter what stage of life I’m in that it won’t be that way for long and to cherish those moments as life isn’t measured by how long we have, but by what we do with the time we’re given. A little deep, right? To say that I was hoping for the same type of emotional reaction to director Dexter Fletcher’s Rocketman is accurate and while it would be largely impossible for a two-hour visual interpretation of Elton John’s life to measure up to such high hopes there was the optimism that Fletcher might be able to pull it off as the opening moments of the film suggested this wasn't your typical musical biopic. Sure, we begin with the Elton John of the early eighties entering rehab with it serving as a platform for John to reflect on the entirety of his life, but while the framing device may be familiar you've never quite seen it service the story as it does in Rocketman. Fletcher's film is a full-on fantasy in many regards meaning this isn't a movie about Elton John's life as it actually happened, but the story of Elton John's life as Elton John remembers it. This setting of expectations paired with the flashing through of John's childhood that culminates in "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" and a full-on, flat-out, undisputable musical number complete with dance interludes gives the impression that Fletcher mastered how not to just convey the events of his subject's life, but capture the essence of what it might have been like to live as Elton John. From this moment on though, Rocketman never gains the same momentum that it bubbles over with during "Saturday" and though it offers some technically inventive filmmaking and creative interpretations of several Elton John classics the film itself is never as emotionally moving or rousing as the songs themselves. 

New Trailer for ROCKETMAN Starring Taron Egerton

After releasing a slight featurette focused on the fact star Taron Egerton (Kingsman) would be doing all of his own vocal work as Elton John in director Dexter Fletcher's upcoming biopic, Rocketman, earlier this week Paramount has now followed it up with the second, official trailer for the film and it must be said that this thing looks a thousand times better than it initially did after the reveal of that first teaser. That first teaser was released around the same time Bohemian Rhapsody was gracing theaters last year and after Rhapsody more or less followed the traditional beats of a music biopic and given Fletcher was brought in to finish the film after the firing of Bryan Singer it was easy to see why that first look left a feeling this might be more of the same despite John obviously being a singular and unforgettable figure both in both music and pop culture. What is great about this new, full-length trailer though, is that while it does somewhat stick to the familiar beats of the "rise to stardom" arc we've seen countless times before in movies of the same ilk it also really lends a sense of getting to know the man behind the facade, behind the excess, and behind the extravagance. There is a particular shot in the trailer where Egerton, dawning the famously sequined Dodgers uniform John wore during his 1975 show at Dodger stadium, goes from backstage to out in front of the overwhelming audience and the change in his facial expression so perfectly captures not only the essence of what the character might have been feeling at the moment, but also speaks to how much of and how good of a showman John was and still is to this day. There are also hints of the more whimsical, weird movie Rocketman is no doubt destined to be as Fletcher is said to have tried to display John's larger-than-life stage presence through what is more of a fantasy-like approach that channels the music and personality of John more appropriately rather than keeping things completely straightforward a la Rhapsody. Rocketman also stars Bryce Dallas Howard, Richard Madden, Jamie Bell, Gemma Jones, and opens on May 31st, 2019.

THE UPSIDE Review

Charming is the key word here. You will be charmed. The Upside is charming. Charmed in the sense not that The Upside will put you under a spell necessarily, but more in the sense of it being a pure pleasure; a delight, if you will. Many a foreign films are re-tooled into American stories so as to make the context more familiar and the circumstances more relatable/understandable, but oddly enough the 2011 French film, The Intouchables, might be the last foreign film to come to mind when considering what would benefit from a re-contextualization as it, by virtue of its broad and rather simple odd-couple premise, feels the least foreign in terms of beats and emotions relayed. Still, for one reason or another it was deemed a big enough hit overseas and therefore must have been doing enough right to make a stateside studio want to re-make it once more (it has already been re-made in India as well as having a Spanish-language re-make to boot) and so why not hire the likes of Walter White and the most reliable comic actor of the moment to bring it to a wider, English-speaking audience? Thus, The Upside was born and first premiered on the festival circuit back in the fall of 2017, but was shelved and sold off following the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations. Eventually bought by STX Entertainment, the studio is either hoping people overlook the time of year in which they are dumping this into theaters and simply trust the inspired pairing of Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart or they are just trying to unload what is sure to make some money, but what they ultimately realize was always an unnecessary piece of cinema. And yet, unnecessary as it may be, the inspired pairing of Cranston and Hart is what makes director Neil Burger's (Limitless, The Illusionist) re-make of the film a film with genuine heart and even a little insightful substance from time to time rather than that of a film completely devoid of any charm or wit that exists solely as an opportunity to replicate a previous winning formula. The Upside is certainly formula and it goes without saying any seasoned movie-goer will know to expect every beat this hits, but that doesn't mean it's neither appealing nor endearing as it strokes its familiar elements to the point it is these charming qualities that stand out most.   

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Review

Manchester by the Sea is a simple film made from a rather simple story. Meaning that the narrative is straight-forward and wholly based in the everyday lives the majority of us tend to lead. While these factors certainly make it more relatable than say, something along the lines of Allied, which is technically based in reality, but from which we are so far removed at this point it almost feels not of this world. All of this is to say that in our current plane of existence, Manchester by the Sea feels personal. It is a movie that creates an authentic environment from the world in which it exists. It feels lived-in and to that point we are not necessarily welcomed as much into this halfhearted existence that comes to be the subject of the film as we are wedged into the ongoing crap show that literally and figuratively seems to make up Lee Chandler's (Casey Affleck) life. I find it best to go into most films without much of an idea as to what exactly one might be getting themselves into and while it may be difficult to do that in terms of major blockbusters when living in a world that offers teasers for teaser trailers it is with movies such as Manchester by the Sea where this practice can be exercised to its full effect. And so, I went in more or less blind to what Manchester by the Sea carried in terms of narrative and with only the buzz it garnered out of its Sundance premiere earlier this year to signify that it was one worth watching. No matter if one knows the basic premise or not though, one thing is for certain: one cannot know the whole of the story the film is telling and it is in how director Kenneth Lonergan (Margaret) sets up the present scenario for our characters to operate in and then how he slowly peels back the layers of each of their pasts helping us to understand not only why and how these people have become who they are, but also giving us a glimpse of how far they can go and what the future might hold for them that makes the experience so simultaneously simple yet equally involving. It's a powerful piece of human drama to say the least with bare bones emotions bleeding through on the face of Affleck and every other actor in any significant portion of the movie. Lonergan, as a writer, is clearly interested in digging into the psyches of those who have dealt in tragedy and analyzing the different ways in which we as human beings deal with such surreal, life-altering events. With Manchester by the Sea the writer/director tackles permanent heartbreak to grandly moving results.

ELVIS & NIXON Review

In December 1970 Elvis Presley apparently wasn't feeling too great about the direction America was headed in. If one wasn't aware, Presley was largely a conservative; a man who feared communists, the general tone around the Vietnam War, and the seeming lack of respect for the office of the President. And so, being the King, he assumed he could take such matters into his own hands and indeed planned on doing as much by taking his concerns straight to the White House. In December 1970 Presley's career was as big as it had ever been. The iconic one-piece jumpsuits debuted earlier in the year and the signature karate moves were now an even bigger part of his stage show. His shows at the Las Vegas International Hotel had sold out, set, and broke records throughout the year, but by the end of 1970 it seemed Presley's head was in a very different place. This brings us to the new film from director Liza Johnson, Elvis & Nixon, which discusses little to nothing about the music career of Elvis Presley, but more offers insight into the man Presley was outside of his well-known (and well-worn) persona. It's an interesting take and the film overall is a slight 86-minute excursion that strictly covers the how and why of this infamous meeting offering little to no commentary on the actual events leaving plenty of room for audience interpretation. This lack of any real angle, but rather pure intent to tell the story of a rather strange and unexpected set of events is admirable given today's highly peremptory society and especially considering the topic, but Johnson seems to care little for her characters actual beliefs or motivations, but simply accepts such feelings as fact and follows them with her camera to where such impulses led these actual men. Does this provide a compelling or complex film? No, not really, but it would have been next to impossible to make a film of this meeting not interesting and at the very least Elvis & Nixon is an interesting and straightforward history lesson if not being as necessarily notable as its main characters.