Girlfriend in a Coma

Movies: The Big Sick

The real-life love story between writer-producer Emily Gordon and comic Kumail Nanjiani is truly stranger than fiction. The two met at one of Kumail's stand-up shows, dated for a couple months, and then Emily became very sick and had to be put in a medically-induced coma for over a week. It turns out she had a rare disease called adult-onset Still's disease that can cause severe infections. When Emily came out of her coma, Kumail knew he wanted to marry her--a tad difficult considering that the Pakistani comic had promised his parents he would eventually enter into an arranged marriage, as is the custom in his culture. He didn't. He and Emily married a less than a year later--only 8 months after they first met. They've been together for over a decade now.

If it sounds like the plot of a wacky romantic comedy, well, Emily and Kumail thought so too! The Big Sick, directed by Michael Showalter and starring Kumail as himself and Zoe Kazan as Emily, takes some artistic license with Emily and Kumai's love story, adding in dramatic elements like a pre-coma break-up when Emily finds a cigar box in Kumail's room containing head shots of Pakistani women that his mother sent him as potential brides. But overall, it appears to stay true to the heart of their story.

The Big Sick is absolutely adorable and both devastatingly funny and just plain devastating at times. After Emily is put into a coma to save her life, Kumail calls her parents--played wonderfully by Ray Romano and Holly Hunter. Beth (Hunter) is a 5' 2" mama bear who is very suspicious of Kumail, the man who broke her daughter's heart. Terry (Romano) is a bit more open-minded and impressed that Kumail is sincere in his desire to hang out at the hospital everyday, waiting for updates on Emily's condition.

By the nature of the plot, The Big Sick really is more Kumail's story than Emily's, since she's asleep for 50% of it. The film explores his fraught relationship with his parents who fully expect Kumail to marry a woman chosen by them. They are devout Muslims and Kumail humors them by pretending to pray even though he's not a believer. To make things more complicated, Kumail's older brother did enter into an arranged marriage and, for all intents and purposes, chose the life his parents expected him to choose. Kumail's wildly different path--trying to make it in the cutthroat world of comedy and falling in love with a white woman--challenges the rest of his family's choices on a deep level. But, as he points out in a climatic scene, they left Pakistan to raise him in America. Can they really blame him for embracing American life fully?

That The Big Sick is about an interracial couple, yet avoids eroticizing and politicizing that aspect, is pretty amazing. The fact that Kumail is Pakistani and Emily is white does come up over the course of the film, mostly during conversations between Kumail and his brother and parents about their expectation he marry within their culture, but there is an absolutely remarkable lack of hostile racism from anyone in the film, white or brown. There is the scene where Terry asks what Kumail's "opinion" of 9/11 is and Kumail deadpans "9/11. Well, it was a tragedy. We lost 19 of our best guys." (a conversation that apparently didn't actually happen). But overall, Emily's parents take it in stride that their daughter is dating a brown man. I don't know if Emily and Kumail's real-life relationship was so free of racial hostility (somehow, I doubt it), but it was really cool to see a movie where the fact that the leads have different color skin isn't their biggest obstacle (at least, I thought it was cool. Others might disagree).

Overall, I loved The Big Sick. It's a big-hearted movie for the small-hearted world we live in right now. And the fact that it's based in reality makes it even sweeter because it's even less of a fairytale. As much as I like movies that are massively fucked up and depressing, I also like being reminded that real love and commitment actually do exist and can overcome a myriad of obstacles.

Grade: B+

Baby, You Can Drive My Car

Movies: Baby Driver

Baby Driver is directed by Edgar Wright and feels like a departure from his earlier work, such as Shaun of the Dead and The World's End. While Baby Driver is very good, and earned a high grade from me, I found it to be slick and shallow compared to Wright's previous films which, I feel, are funnier and have more heart than the director's latest.

Actual baby-faced actor Ansel Elgort stars in the title role as Baby, a young man with savant-like driving skills and a nasty case of tinnitus left over from a car accident that took his parents' lives as a kid. Baby drowns out the endless ringing in his ears by constantly listening to music, which means this movie has a bitchin' soundtrack.

Baby works for Doc (Kevin Spacey) as a getaway driver for Doc's various heist schemes. Baby is indebted to Doc after stealing one of his cars as a kid. Doc tells Baby that after this next heist they'll be square. Of course, after that heist is completed, Doc comes back to Baby and blackmails him into participating in another heist by threatening violence against Baby's girlfriend, Debora (Lily James), and his deaf foster father, Joseph (CJ Jones).

Among Doc's gang of criminals are Buddy (Jon Hamm), his wife Darling (Eiza Gonzalez), and the macho and highly unstable Bats (Jamie Foxx). Putting Buddy and Bats on the same heist team is like putting two siamese fighting fish in the same tank. The two testosterone-fueled men butt heads immediately, threatening to fuck up the entire mission. Suffice it to say, this heist doesn't go as planned.

And I just used the word "heist" 6 times in 8 sentences.

I won't give away any more of the plot, but I will say that it is action-filled, set to an awesome soundtrack, and often very funny and violent.

My initial feelings upon leaving the theatre was that Baby Driver was an AWESOME movie. But after more reflection, I think that the film was actually pretty shallow, especially given what I know Edgar Wright to be capable of. Don't get me wrong, Baby Driver is fun. It is entertaining. It has some truly amazing action sequences.

But the characters and their relationships are hopelessly flat. The relationship between Baby and Debora is entirely lacking in chemistry and, just...boring. Debora's wish to "head west in a car I can't afford with a plan I don't have" made me roll my eyes so far back, I could see the back of the theatre. The characters all having fake names hiding their real ones is more of silly affectation than anything that adds to the plot. The attempt to give the characters solid backstories, such as Buddy being a Wall Street party animal before turning to a life of crime comes off as slapdash instead of organic.

I will say, the one relationship that felt 100% real was Baby's relationship with Joseph, his foster dad. There's a scene between the two of them near the end of the movie that actually brought tears to my eyes.

If Baby Driver had been directed by someone else, I'd probably ignore this lack of depth, but I know for certain that Edgar Wright is capable of making the audience laugh, weep, and scream all in the same movie. The World's End, which was about friendship, making peace with the past, the ravages of alcoholism, and also aliens proves that the director is able to craft a film both entertaining and profound. Same with Shaun of the Dead which had some truly gut-wrenching moments along with lots of laughs and zombie gore.

So, to me, Baby Driver is actually a step backwards for Wright. Even so, a step backwards for such a gifted director is still miles ahead of many of the shitty action movies Hollywood churns out each year.

Grade: B

Holding Out For a Heroine

Movies: Wonder Woman, Logan

I'm a bit late to the party with these reviews, but here ya go.

Wonder Woman

After many years of wondering (heh) when DC's greatest female superhero would get her own film, it's finally here and it's pretty good! By all accounts waaaaaay better than Man of Steel and the much-loathed Superman v Batman: Dawn of Justice (side note: why do all these terrible superhero movies need extra-long, extra-cheesy titles?), and with a lighter touch than Christopher Nolan's Batman reboot, Wonder Woman captures the fun, wholesome popcorn pleasures of a superhero movie while also not being an embarrassing piece of garbage. Much the opposite, in fact.

Gal Gadot stares as Diana, Princess of Themyscria, raised among Amazons who spend their days preparing for battle. But battle against who? Their island is invisible and hidden to all outsiders...until War War I soldier Steve Trevor (Chris Pine, now officially my favorite of the White Chrises of Hollywood) flies his plane through the invisible barrier and right into the ocean while escaping the Germans.

Diana saves Steve from drowning, but a German cruiser chasing Steve also gets past the barrier leading to a bloody battle between the Amazon warriors and the German soldiers. Afterwards, Steve tells Diana about the horrors that the Great War has wrought throughout the world, and she becomes convinced that she must leave the island and search for Ares, the God of War. She believes, based on stories she's been told growing up, that if she destroys Ares, war will be over forever and there will be lasting peace on earth and goodwill among men.

In other words, this little Amazon cupcake has some growing up to do.

Much to the chagrin of her mother, the Queen of Thermyscria, Diana leaves with Steve and the two make their way to London where there are some delightful scenes with Diana trying on the current fashions for ladies, circa 1918, none of which suit her needs (her needs being: to kick ass).

Blah blah blah, stuff happens. Go see the movie. It's your duty as a feminist. There's a great subplot about mustard gas.

I really enjoyed Wonder Woman even though it's not a movie I'd watch over and over. I was less than impressed with Gadot's performance as Wonder Woman. While she certainly looks the part of a stunningly beautiful Amazon warrior, her performance is pretty flat. Even during the most emotional scenes, such as at the climax of the film when she fully realizes her love for Steve Trevor, her facial expressions convey only the most primary emotions: anger, surprise, fear. There's no nuance.

Chris Pine, on other hand, is great. Well, great in comparison to Gadot. His performance is so agreeable, American, wholesome, and patriotic that it's actually a fairly refreshing break from the rash of brooding anti-heroes in superhero movies (see below for an example).

In fact, the entire film could be described as traditional. It's less yuk-it-up than the Avenger movies, not snarky like Deadpool, not cynical and dark like The Dark Knight. It's optimistic, with a truly good heart (there's a moral lesson about how people don't have to "deserve" to be saved in order to justify saving them that wouldn't be out of place in a Sunday school classroom. And I don't say that in a mean or mocking way--the center of this film is a surprisingly spiritual one), just as one would expect from a classic superhero comic.

I'm always going to like my dark, sick superhero movies more than my sunny ones, but I had fun at Wonder Woman and it was nice to see a supposedly "male" genre of film have a kick-ass female lead and make a ton of money at the box office to boot.

Grade: B

***

Logan

Ok, as much fun as Wonder Woman was, Logan is much more my speed. It was gritty and some scenes nearly had me in tears.

I'm not a huge X-Men fan. The only other X-Men movie I've seen is X-Men: First Class and the only reason I saw it was because James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are in it. But I heard great things about the standalone Wolverine movie, Logan (titled after Wolverine's real name), so when the opportunity to watch it at a movie night with friends came along, I took it. I was not disappointed.

Logan takes place in the not-too-distant future (2029, to be exact). Logan, previously known as the self-healing mutant Wolverine, drives limos for a living. He occasionally visits Professor Charles Xavier, once the leader of the mutants who had mind control powers, now a nonagenarian whose seizures must be controlled with medication or they will endanger anyone in the surrounding area.

Logan is approached by a woman, Gabriela, who begs him to take an 11 year old girl, presumably her daughter, to North Dakota to a place named "Eden". It turns out that this girl, named Laura, is a tiny Wolverine herself! She is part of a cohort of child mutants born of forcibly impregnated young women in a government facility and raised to be soldiers with no will of their own. Gabriela was a nurse in the facility and saw the horrors with her own eyes.

Soon, Logan is on the road with Laura and Professor X, trying to make it to this supposed Eden where the kid mutants will meet up and cross the border into Canada together. Logan is skeptical that Eden exists, but he feels a fatherly connection to Laura (which makes sense, since they used his DNA to create her). The trio must outrun the bad guys who are intent of finding Laura and, most likely, killing Logan.

Logan was two things: incredibly violent and incredibly heart-string pulling. The film earns its hard-R rating with the dozens of violent scenes, including shoot-outs and Wolverine-on-Wolverine action (there is another Wolverine mutant, also played by Hugh Jackman, named X-24--a soulless killing machine). There are also a lot of children-in-peril scenes, although they're easier to watch knowing that these kids can fucking rip your head off if they want to.

Yes, this poster is a rip off of the Schindler's List poster.

But, oh god, the heart-string pulling. Seeing the ancient Prof X (played, as always, with warmth and dignity by Patrick Stewart) so weak and unable to control his seizures which have the power to kill people made me want to hug the old man and never let go. And the final scene between Logan and Laura--ACK! The most hardened movie-goer will crack.

Logan has style and substance. It has humor and violence. It's so enthralling, you will get lost in the story while watching it, but then continue to think about it afterwards for days. It's easily one of the best superhero films I've seen, right up there next to The Dark Knight (in fact, I may even rank it slightly above TDK).

Grade: A-

Fox in the Hen House

Movies: The Beguiled

Sofia Coppola is a film auteur whose work I *want* to like more than I actually do. I've seen almost all of her films (with the exception of 2010's Somewhere) and my general emotion towards the lot of them is "s'ok".

Imagine you went on a date with a beautiful person whose dating profile sounded very intriguing...and on that date, you realize this beautiful person across the table from you has very little to say and few interesting opinions. That's what the experience of watching a Sofia Coppola film. All beauty, and maybe *some* substance, but not enough for a second date/rewatch.

Coppola's latest film, The Beguiled, which is actually a remake of a 1971 film starring Clint Eastwood and based on the 1966 novel by Thomas Cullinan, is ripe to be a sexy, violent, Southern Gothic story. Unfortunately, it doesn't live up to its overheated plot description: during the American Civil War, a wounded Union soldier is discovered outside of a girl's school in backwoods Virginia. The ladies of the academy decide it is their Christian duty to tend to his wounds before turning him over to their boys on the Confederate side. He's the only man they've seen in years and an attractive one at that (with an Irish accent!!!!). What could possibly go wrong?

Nicole Kidman, beautifully cast as a gentle Southern lady, is Miss Farnsworth, the Headmistress of the girl's school that bears her name. Kirsten Dunst (a Coppola regular) is Edwina, a prim schoolteacher who is ripe for marriage with no men in sight to make her an offer. Elle Fanning plays Alicia, a sly teenage student who becomes quite curious at the helpless visitor who takes up temporary residence at the school after being discovered by one of the younger girls in the woods. And Colin Farrell who is so insanely hot it should be illegal, plays that visitor: Cpl. John McBurney, previously from Dublin and now fighting (possibly as a mercenary) for the North.

The Beguiled has a pretty thin plot: wounded hot guy makes the broads go crazy. That's about it. John is not above manipulating the women who surround him: he pitches woo at Edwina with no intention of making an honest woman of her, he flirts with Miss Farnsworth herself, and he even tells Amy, the young girl who discovered him in the woods, "I consider you my best friend here." Whether he does this as a means of survival (every day he stays at the academy is another day the Confederates don't know about his existence) or out of a sense of sick fun, or out of pure lust is never entirely clear, but it's likely a mixture of all three motives.

All of this leads to a climax that I found more underwhelming than shocking. Just as with Coppola's films The Bling Ring and Marie Antoinette, I left the theatre thinking "Well. That was a movie." (to be fair, her films Lost in Translation and The Virgin Suicides are a little more substantial).

Additionally, there's the issue of there being no black people...in a movie that takes place in the South during the Civil War. Early in the film, when Amy is helping John back to the school she says "the slaves left." Oh, excuse me, the slaves left? Geez, why didn't anyone tell all the slaves in the South that they could just fucking "leave" if they wanted to?? It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble!

So, the problem is not just the fact that there are no black characters in the film (incidentally, the 1971 version does have a character named Hallie who is a slave), but that the entire point of the War which is the background for the film (a film about imbalances of power) is washed away with a line that doesn't make any sense. Seriously, if Amy had said "we sold the slaves to get extra money for food", it would have made more sense. And the saddest thing about the white-washing of The Beguiled is that Coppola had a great opportunity to add an extra layer to a film which, as I mention above, is primarily about power: who has it and how they wield it. In a film where southern women, normally seen as not much more than pretty objects who can sew, suddenly have the upper hand over a man, wouldn't it be interesting to have a black woman in the mix and explore how her power changes given the situation? I think so, but clearly Coppola did not.

Normally, I'd give The Beguiled a B for its beauty and the undeniably solid acting chops of all involved, but for the lazy way slavery is dismissed and for not living up to my standards of what a movie like this could be and should be, it gets a...

Grade: B-