End-of-Summer Roundup

As if it were actually the end of summer.

Honestly, I just so happened to be on accidental hiatus and did not get a chance to share some of these pieces. Instead of bludgeoning you, my readers, with filling reviews and analysis, I opted for summaries of my thoughts and feelings. If anything speaks to you, and you want me, reach out and I'd be glad to.

Here we go:

The Big Sick

Admittedly, expectations ran afoul with this one. Director Michael Showalter plays with raunchy, pungent comedy and grounded, conscientious drama like a street yo-yo performer. Writers Kumail Nanjiani (who also stars in the leading role) and Emily V. Gordon innovatively tell their own true story of a relationship in survival mode; the beginning, middle, and off-kilter plateau when Emily (Zoe Kazan steps in to play her) becomes suddenly ill, leaving Kumail (playing himself) to ponder the relationship alone, and pick up the pieces with her parents (fantastic supporting performances from Holly Hunter and Ray Romano). It’s the most honest piece of filmmaking this year, even when the tone browns and crisps on either side a bit too much, instead of finding an even balance. Then again, perhaps that is simply not how the modern relationship works anymore. ***

The Dark Tower

You know you have a bad movie in your hands when you’re having more fun writing about what you don’t like than actually watching it. This is a painful experience that even the performances by Idris Elba (enigmatic in a way that didn’t entirely work for me) and Matthew McConaughey (inconsistently charismatic) couldn’t save. Never loud, but somehow manages to be boring and rushed. *

A Ghost Story

I will report that I saw this movie, but I have yet to have an opinion. I appreciate its wisdom of life and the potential alienation of the afterlife, but the deliberately slow pacing (and it truly is a choice and a style from director David Lowery, and I understand that) fascinated me just as much as it made me squirm and check my watch several times. It’s an enormously ambitious film, and a frustrating and punishing one at times. I’m going to have to sit on this one for a bit longer. (no review)

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

First things first: you don’t have to like Guy Ritchie and his style, so bellyaching about his super-stylization in Arthurian context will do no good for me. That said, the movie isn’t by any means great, or really good, because past its great use of sets and costumes (and they really are smashing), the film seems tired and lazy, and does not treat the character of Arthur (Charlie Hunnam, so game for any role) to a fair story or set of challenges. Nor is Jude Law allowed his due privilege to cool-bodied villain. For every fight, every sword clashed and arrow launched, less and less meaning is made, and the film simply evaporates into thin air as those two hours go by. **

The Mummy

Formulaically, The Mummy has everything the Saturday matinee type (think Raiders of the Lost Ark or, in short-term recent memory, the Uncharted video game series) should offer: the dashing soldier of fortune (Tom Cruise, whose ability to sell a movie really is contagious), the love interest who can hold her own (Annabelle Wallis), the reluctant sidekick (Jake Johnson, more of a burdensome jester), and the quirky and mysterious all-knowing professor (Russell Crowe, intriguing indeed). I was so enthralled by the bookends, involving deserts and chases and sunsets, as close as the film echoes its own ancestors.

Yet it seems director Alex Kurtzman is throwing a lot of spaghetti strands at the wall, not committing to a story or particular theme. The most significant takeaway from worth talking about is the difference between action and violence. The Mummy needed much more action in exotic territories, and less violence involving the scraping away at any hopes of empathy. *½

The Promise

The Promise is meant to be seen as one would a David Lean picture from years before. It celebrates the grandest scale of filmmaking, with broad photographic strokes and stunning set pieces and costumes. It comes down to how so by-the-books the film is, and how director Terry George seems to have lost a bit of his empathetic heart (Do you remember Hotel Rwanda? What an excellent film!) in the midst of including so much story. A bit of a letdown, but not a waste of time. **½

Wonder Woman

Here’s a dicier one for me to discuss. I saw this film far past its release date, and I acknowledge that I am late to the discussion of women in cinema. I cannot deny that Wonder Woman is an empowering motion picture. Especially in the craft green-lit by director Patty Jenkins - the range of costumes, from the fantastical to the dashing of WWI by Lindy Hemming, the array of sound designs that best stylized the universe - we feel a love for the film, by the film.

Yet, despite the necessity and urgency I felt, it equally felt as if it were all too forced. Jenkins’ action sequences are truly a spectacle, but the speechmaking and political simplification of war and peace detracted from the movie. I am one for idealism, to be sure. I believe in hope, just as Wonder Woman does. But the most bothersome bug is that it seems as though Wonder Woman could not be truly appreciated - as a film and as a character - without the comparative gaze of the male characters. Wonder Woman doesn't get the chance to stand as her own representation of womanhood without the lens which men see her. It is not that I believe Wonder Woman is not a great independent character; I do. It is that Jenkins sends mixed messages that suggest her self-sufficiency has nowhere to grow.

I still enjoyed and appreciated the picture. Above all else, it is one that has gotten me mulling it around. **1/2

All in all, not the best summer for the movies. Prayers for fall, readers. Prayers for fall.