By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week I finally got the opportunity to catch up on some of the most high profile titles I missed at the fall festivals.
36. Nickel Boys
RaMell Ross showed plenty of potential in his Oscar-nominated documentary debut Hale County This Morning, This Evening, but aspires to and achieves another level entirely in this adaptation of Colston Whitehead’s acclaimed novel. While the story, about a pair of boys in a dystopian youth correctional facility in the 60s, likely would have turned out great using a more conventional approach, Ross takes another path. We experience the film as the characters, as the camera switches between the boys’ perspectives in a style certainly never seen in drama at this scale, if ever, and the effect is spectacular, operating in a Malickian register when it isn’t creating its own novel cinematic language outright. A staggering achievement. A Toast.
37. Better Man
While I have only the most cursory knowledge of one Robbie Williams and was vehemently never the audience for boy bands circa 1990-1995, I found myself liking this idiosyncratic biopic much more than I expected. The remove and ecstatic possibility that being portrayed by a Planet of the Apes-style CGI chimp offers is fully capitalized on by director Michael Gracey and Williams himself in his vocal performance, who find new language to express the emotions of what is otherwise a fairly standard rise and fall and rise again musical biopic. Two Beers.
38. Adagio
This Netflix-hosted, Rome-set drama follows a young man who’s gotten himself into some serious trouble with the police, and now finds himself a reluctant honeytrap for hard-partying politician they seek to blackmail. When he gets spooked, a desperate chase by the corrupt police comes into conflict with his aging ex-hardass father and a couple of his ex-criminal compatriots. Some scenarios here may stretch credulity, but there’s some pretty awesome surprises as well. Three Beers.
39. The Room Next Door
Pedro Almodovar tackles his first full-length English-language film in this Inigrid Nunez adaptation about two friends who reunite after years, with one revealing a cancer diagnosis and then, eventually, a request- to stay in the room next door when she takes her life. Almodovar remains a master of form and color, and Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore are as grand as always, but even they struggle a bit in the beginning with overly expository dialogue and a melodramatic tone. It comes together in the end, though. Three Beers.
40. Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action
It’s kind of surprising Netflix hasn’t covered this territory before- certainly Springer’s passing just shy of a couple of years ago limits its impact. It does have evil genius/TV producer Richard Dominick, though, and he gives a gleefully small amount of fucks about the various questionable ways his show helped stack the drama deck with its subjects and guests. Springer may have expressed contrition at how his most famous work helped drag down the American discourse, but Dominick and other interviewees couldn’t be prouder. Three Beers.
13. Evil Lives Here
This Discover-err-Max true crime documentary series seeks to tell bite-sized first-person narratives of living with a killer, and succeeds in its documentary function. The interviewed all do a good job of telling their stories, but where the series falls short is in its dramatic recreations that assuredly kept some erstwhile actors in rent money but don’t add anything outside of inauthenticity to what is ably told verbally and with primary material. Four Beers.
41. Don’t Move
Sure, this Netflix horror about a woman who is prevented from committing suicide only to fall into the clutches of a sadistic serial killer isn’t high art. But for what it is- a non-stop thrill ride of ratcheting tension- it’s extremely effective, and Kelsey Asbille and Finn Wittrock both do excellent work as they struggle for survival in their own ways. You won’t be checking your phone. Two Beers.
