By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week I laid down the hammer on all of the streaming releases I semi-intentionally skipped at the Fall film festivals.
751. Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro has been talking up a true-to-the-book Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein adaptation for years now and Netflix finally gave him his shot. Occasionally dodgy CGI aside (del Toro’s a practical effects man through and through), this is as sumptuous and Gothic a tale as you’d hope for from the master of such, and the interplay between the increasingly soulful and searching Monster and his hubristic creator tells the story Shelley actually wrote better than any popular adaptation to date. Two Beers.
752. Ballad of a Small Player
Movies about gamblers on the ropes usually start you off with at least a little hope, if only to squeeze audience and protagonist alike with later. Well, Colin Farrell’s self-styled Lord Doyle is well past all that when we meet him, and the series of “pay by ‘x’ day or else” ultimatums that ensue are almost cosmic jokes. When his ship does appear to come in, though, will it be even more fatal- for man and/or for his eternal soul? In parts a ghost story, maximalist gambling tale, and redemption thriller all rendered in Macau’s glimmering neon, I at least was thoroughly entertained. Two Beers.
753. Lurker
Archie Madekwe and Théodore Pellerin both know a thing or two about playing obsession and the soul-subsuming allure of showbiz, and here get to play different angles. Madekwe plays the object of fixation this time as an up-and-coming pop star who has a seemingly chance encounter with a clothing store employee (Pellerin) who he on a whim invites into his entourage. Jockeying for Madekwe’s attention and approval is a regular game of thrones, but there’s an undercurrent of sociopathy to Pellerin that makes him the horse to bet on. An often skin-crawling but never less than fascinating film. Two Beers.
754. Steve
This is very different from Tim Mielants and Cillian Murphy’s last collaboration- the quiet and subtly felt Small Things Like These. Here Murphy plays the headmaster of an unconventional boarding school- one for a group of deeply troubled teen boys who he and his staff are devoted to helping get their lives together. He’s about to embark on an insanely stressful day, one in which he learns the school will be closing in six months and one in which a particularly jaded student is disengaging to a frightening degree. Perhaps more manic and stylish than the story demands, but a great vehicle for the acting of Murphy and others once again. Three Beers.
755. Splitsville
Fast friends and filmmaking team Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin have become the official American comedy squad of Cannes, where they debuted The Climb and now this starrier release that co-stars Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona as their respective (at least at the start) wives. A relationship comedy of divorce, open marriage, and the messy ways in which what the heart wants never seems to stay in one goddamn place for long, this is really funny if only slightly plausible comedy that cements the duo as must-watch comic filmmakers. Two Beers.
756. Hedda
Nia DaCosta and Tessa Thompson team back up on this biting, intriguing anachronistic adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s celebrated play Hedda Gabler. Thompson lords over a party at her husband-to-be’s imposing manor in which layers upon layers of personal and professional stakes play out as the liquor flows and the figurative knives and literal pistols come out. It’s chock full of deliciously devious performances, even if the plot mechanics show a bit too transparently in places for me to call it an unqualified success. Three Beers.
757. The Lost Bus
Despite Paul Greengrass’s ever-present devotion to verisimilitude and stressing the ever-loving fuck out of audiences with is quick cuts and shaky cam, this is very much Hollywood pablum. The heroic bus driver in real life sat in the world’s most literally hellish traffic jam where obviously they had to jazz the action up for the big screen treatment. And yet, Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera and their bus full of kids bring earnest emotion and barely subsumed terror to their portrayals and Greengrass paces to a classic crescendo so beautifully that it’s kinda impossible not to be swept up. Two Beers.
