Hello readers!
Once again, time has slipped me by and I am in catch up mode for my reviews. While most of these movies are worthy of an individual blog post, I think it'll be easier for me to just rip the band-aid off in one go. That way, I can make space in my reviewing schedule for the most wonderful time of the year: Oscar Season, which is rapidly approaching.
Here we go:
IT
I have not read the Stephen King novel IT, nor have I seen the 1990 mini-series with Tim Curry playing the iconic Pennywise the Dancing Clown. So I went into IT pretty blindly. I knew the basic plot, but I had nothing to compare it to.
I was surprised to find that IT wasn't scary to me at all.
What's interesting about the film--and I'm sure what King intended all along--is that the humans in the small town of Derry, Maine, where events take place, are scarier than the evil lurking in the sewers. We have a roving gang of bullies that see no limits to the violence and humiliations they commit upon their victims. We have distant, neglectful parents; or, conversely, parents that try to keep their children trapped under their wing instead of encouraging independence. There's a backstory of brutal, race-based violence. And most disturbing of all, a plot line of father-daughter sexual abuse.
The reason Derry is so fucked up can (possibly?) be blamed on what some consider a town curse. Over the decades, bad things have happened in Derry. Children go missing at a rate much higher than the national average. Something below the town feeds on fear, violence and pain.
When Billy's (Jaeden Lieberher) kid brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) goes missing, he bands together with his friends--they call themselves the Loser's Club--to find out what happened to Georgie. Each kid has a terrifying vision that plays on their individual fears, be they germs, blood, or--yes--clowns.
I have to conclude that while IT was solid, I wasn't super impressed with it. Something seemed "off" about it, and not in a good, creepy way. It was less scary and more campy than I thought it would be, and I wasn't prepared for that. But as a horror aficionado, it could be that I'm too jaded to plug into the dread that IT is supposed to make you feel. So, depending on how scared of clowns you are, or how sensitive to children in peril you are, your mileage may vary,
Grade: B-
***
Logan Lucky
Here's another film I wanted to like more than I did (you'll find this to be the case for almost all the movies I saw this summer).
A mere four years after Steven Soderbergh "retired", he has returned with a wacky, Southern-fried heist movie. Channing Tatum plays Jimmy Logan, a down-on-his-luck blue collar man who gets fired from his construction job due to an injured leg and whose trashy ex-wife (Katie Holmes in a thankless role) has custody of their crazy-adorable daughter.
Jimmy's brother, Clyde (Adam Driver, awesome as always, but with a...questionable...accent) lost his forearm in Iraq and now tends bar at a shitty dive off the freeway. The Logan family is said to have a curse, although their sister, Mellie (Riley Keough, in a colorless female role...thanks, Soderbergh, and fuck you too!) seems to have escaped it...so far.
There's also a subplot involving Jimmy's daughter in a child beauty pageant. Call this movie Ocean's Eleven by way of O Brother Where Art Thou and Little Miss Sunshine.
This is a movie where the journey, not the destination, is the point. The film ends on a somewhat unexpected note that may leave you wondering what the point was. But it's not about how the film ends, or what the "moral" of the story was. It's about the fun you have in getting there. Or something.
Logan Lucky made me realize that while I recognize Steven Soderbergh's gifts as a director, he's really not a director I connect with. Other than Magic Mike (the first one), which is one of my favorite movies, I always feel a bit underwhelmed Soderbergh's films. Granted, I have yet to see Out of Sight and Traffic--which are considered to be among his best work. But the films I have seen have left me feeling like "is that all there is?" At least with Logan Lucky, there's plenty of laughs and entertainment on route to that ennui.
Grade: B-
***
Dunkirk
Surprise, surprise: another movie I felt "meh" about despite its pedigree! Sorry guys, I guess this blog entry is a bit of downer. Or maybe not...maybe it's a good counterpoint to the rapturous reviews Dunkirk and the above two films have received.
Directed by Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk is undoubtedly a very tense film. It's also a surprisingly short film, which I think serves it well since it's not really plot or character driven.
Dunkirk tells the story of the attempt to rescue thousands of Allied soldiers from the shores of Dunkirk, France after the Germans have them surrounded and begin bombing them from above. The film is broken into three chapters: "The Mole", which focuses on the attempts to evacuate soldiers from the beach; "The Sea", about a local man in Weymouth (right across the sea from Dunkirk) who takes his personal boat to try to rescue soldiers; and "The Air", about a couple fighter pilots trying to fight the Germans who are dropping bombs on the exposed soldiers on the beach.
One problem I personally had with Dunkirk is that I know so little about war. The types of guns, aircraft, boats, etc--it's really just not my bag. So a lot of what was going on didn't really click--especially during "The Air" portions of the film.
My favorite portions of the film were "The Sea" sequences, which were much more character driven. Additionally, the scenes on the beach were continuously tense, which was good because it helped me *feel* something in a movie that otherwise would have bored me to tears.
Dunkirk is star-studded and everyone involved gives undeniably top-notch performances. So I'm not sure why I didn't connect with the film. I feel like I have to give it two grades--an objective one that honors the artistry and talent that went into this film, and a subjective one about my personal feelings.
Objective grade: B
Subjective grade: B-
***
Rough Night
Ironically, the movie with the shittiest reviews is going to get the best rating because I fucking loved this movie. Now, let me give you some context: I watched Rough Night on an international flight during which I was completely exhausted and tipsy on free wine. So, that might have colored my opinion. But fuck all of that, this movie is hilarious.
Rough Night is a comedy about a bachelorette party go awry. We have our bride-to-be: uptight Jess, played with sleek Type-A-ness by Scarlet Johansson. We have her best friend Alice, a teacher by day, horny party slut by night (played with gusto by Jillian Bell). There's Frankie (Illana Glazer), a riot girl activist and Blair (Zoe Kravitz), who was Frankie's lover in college and now is a corporate mom going through a divorce. Finally, there's Pippa (Kate McKinnon), a flighty, wacky Australian that Jess met during her study abroad semester. All five ladies meet up at a fancy beach home to spend a weekend in Miami in celebration of Jess's upcoming nuptials to Peter (Paul Downs).
I'm not going to pull any punches: this film is, in many ways, deeply conventional. It does the whole "Sex and the City" thing by giving each character one overarching personality trait as a shortcut to telling them apart. It also has a lot of "female friend movie" tropes, like the best friend who is being pushed out by a newer, shinier model.
Rough Night isn't going to win any awards, but given how poorly it was reviewed when it came out in theatres earlier this summer, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Maybe exhaustion, three cups of airplane wine, and low expectations make for the greatest viewing experience of all.
Grade: B+
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