If you’d happened to watched last year’s crime noir film Motherless Brooklyn and not known the screenwriter or director, I wouldn’t fault you if you expected to see Francis Ford Coppola’s name in the credits, or you figured Martin Scorsese finally made the perfect New York picture. But that’s not what you’ll find, because it not only stars Edward Norton, but he wrote and directed the film–his first director effort. And it’s an exciting, stunning, gritty film. The fact that Motherless Brooklyn is even worthy of comparison might be praise enough for the film and its creator, but it goes a step further and surpasses a film it’s frequently been compared to–Roman Polanski’s Chinatown. The fact that Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and The Irishman were nominated for best film at the Oscars this year, but this wasn’t? That’s a real head-scratcher–or that Norton’s performance as a Tourette’s syndrome-affected private detective trying to find the guys that killed his boss wasn’t even nominated for best actor? Movie lovers and fans of crime noir who missed it should catch its home release. It’s as good as it gets.
No doubt the movies of writer-director Wes Anderson are an acquired taste. Fortunately he exhibits some variety, as we’ve explored before here at borg. Whether it’s Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, or Isle of Dogs, at least one of these films will likely appeal to you. For his next big screen venture, Anderson is taking an anthology angle. The lengthy-titled The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, or just The French Dispatch, for short, doesn’t need to mention Anderson’s name at all. It’s instantly recognizable from his framed cinematography, disturbing bland color hues, and fourth-wall breaking stares from its cast. Yes, there really is a Liberty, Kansas (found in southeast Kansas, population 123). Purportedly inspired by The New Yorker magazine, the film is actually based in a fictional city in France, and follows media types in the latest look at that self-reflective, stark fantasyland found in many Anderson movies.
The anthology element consists of incorporated story threads centered on characters and “stories” played out by Anderson troupe members Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand, and–new to Anderson-land–Jeffrey Wright. Other Anderson familiars include Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, and Jason Schwartzman. Like Woody Allen movies years ago, everyone seems to be flocking to be in the next Anderson picture, so this time that means the likes of Henry Winkler, Willem Dafoe, Anjelica Huston, Benicio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Léa Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Liev Schreiber, and many more. Music is by Alexandre Desplat.
Check out this trailer for the expectedly unusual The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun:
When we created last year’s preview of 2019 movies we were pretty sure we were going to have some great movies this year, but we were surprised by what ended up being the best. All year we tried to keep up with what Hollywood had to offer and homed in on the genre content we thought was worth examining. We went back and looked at it all and pulled together our annual picks in our Best Movies of 2019.
Genredom. As always, we’re after the best genre content of the year–with our top categories from the Best in Movies. There are thousands of other places that cover plain vanilla dramas and the rest of the film world, but here we’re looking for movies we want to watch. What do all of this year’s selections have in common? In addition to those elements that define each part of genredom, each has a good story. Special effects without a good story is not good entertainment, and we saw plenty of films this year that missed that crucial element.
Come back later this month for our print media picks, and our annual borgHall of Fame inductees. And if you missed it, check out our Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroinesof 2019here. Wait no further, here are our movie picks for 2019:
Best Film, Best Superhero Movie, Best Re-Imagining on Film – Shazam!(Warner Bros.). Movies are supposed to be a wonder, right? What brought the magic of the movies back to theaters more than Shazam? Why did DC take so long to adapt a superhero to the scene perfectly? Who cares–they finally did it. Faithful to the character from the #1 selling superhero book of the 1940s, this was the superhero movie many of us have been waiting for for the past 50 years (or more). Full of superhero fun, one of the best training montages ever, Zachary Levi’s boyish hero was perfectly matched to Jack Dylan Grazer’s take on best pal Freddy. It’s also the only superhero movie we can think of that got better as it went along, culminating in a fantastic, satisfying third act and finale. This is what we want more of. And it was the first DC superhero movie of the millennium that could be watched and enjoyed by the entire family. Honorable mention: Glass (Universal), Spider-Man: Far From Home (Sony Pictures).
Best Fantasy Movie, Best Adventure Movie, Best Comedy Movie – Jumanji: The Next Level (Columbia Pictures). The only issue with this film was that its status as a sequel will prompt some to not recognize it for the gigantic success it truly is. With adventure scenes bigger and better than anything in the entire Indiana Jones franchise, two movies in and director Jake Kasdan proved a sequel can actually be as good as the original. The four stars didn’t miss a beat, swapping roles and adding new laughs, and the new characters inside and outside the game were perfectly spliced in to tell a new tale. The bridge crossing scene is now the adventure film scene to beat. An epic fantasy that’s loads of fun. Honorable mention for Best Fantasy Movie: Shazam! (Disney/Marvel), Captain Marvel (Disney/Marvel).
Best Movie Borg, Best Borg Film – Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Carl, Terminator: Dark Fate (Paramount Pictures). It would have been almost impossible for James Cameron and director Tim Miller not to get this right, a new thread through time reuniting Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor and a new T-800 with Arnold back with another take on his greatest borg of all time. New characters and new effects kept the franchise from getting boring, but this was more than just getting by, a big sci-fi spectacle with great cyborg battles, and easily the best cyborg fix this year.
Following up on its successful look behind the entire Star Wars saga in The Moviemaking Magic of Star Wars: Creatures and Aliens (reviewed earlier here at borg), Abrams Books is bringing home the characters of Avengers: Endgame and the Marvel Studios long journey to get there in its new release The Moviemaking Magic of Marvel Studios: Heroes and Villains. Incorporating its trademark interactive Cinemagic features, including booklets, interactive flaps, and accordion fold-out images of the concept art behind every major Marvel Studios superhero, Abrams has nicely timed this book for fans of the franchise who can’t get enough of the latest MCU film. Full of color photographs and interviews with the producers, directors, art designers, costume and prop makers, and special effects magic makers behind the 21 films leading up to Avengers: Endgame, writer Eleni Roussos(The Art of Black Panther, The Art of Thor: Ragnarok) has pulled together behind the scenes insights that offer something new for even the most diehard fan.
Which characters wore practical, real-life costumes and armor, and which required motion capture and/or CGI effects? What was the key element included in Marvel’s Avengers that Joss Whedon required to be added before he agreed to direct the film? What do the contributors agree was the smartest strategic decision made for the Marvel films? How did each artist convert the character from the comic book page to the finally constructed costume that appeared on the big screen? What effects were the most challenging for each film?
Altogether The Moviemaking Magic of Marvel Studios: Heroes and Villains spotlights more than 100 individual superheroes, on-screen support crew, and the most colorful and memorable villains from the series, with significant creative and visionary contributions from Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, directors Anthony Russo, Joss Whedon, and Peyton Reed, visual development executive Ryan Meinerding and artist Andy Park, and costume designers Rebecca Gregg, Laura Jean Shannon, Mayes Rubeo, Alexandra Byrne, Anna B. Sheppard, Judianna Makovsky, Sheldon Differ, Louise Frogley, and Ruth Carter.
In that niche area of dystopian dog movies (that’s the adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and his Dog and… ?), Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs not only soars to the top of the list, it’s a great film in all sorts of categories: it’s new, yet a classic children’s story, it’s a timely political allegory, and it’s a solid movie about dogs. We knew Anderson had a grasp on animals in his surprisingly good Fantastic Mr. Fox, but audiences will soon learn he also understands dogs and dog behavior. The trailers don’t really prepare moviegoers for what lies ahead. Sure, it’s about an island of exiled dogs so of course audiences are in for a bleak ride, complete with at least one dead canine, lots of dogs in peril as well as many mutilated and diseased. Yet Isle of Dogs is surprisingly grand in scope, thought-provoking, and even heartwarming. And epic–don’t be surprised if you start thinking about the closest Martin Scorsese or Stanley Kubrick movie while you’re glued to the screen. Despite some witty dialogue in places from Anderson’s smart script, this is less comedy and more drama than his past efforts.
The dystopian world is better realized, bigger in scope, and yet more personal than typical futurist visions, beyond that dismal hopeless doom of Mad Max, The Postman, Escape From New York, Twelve Monkeys, Snowpiercer, Looper, Logan’s Run, and District 9. Isle of Dogs is probably closer to WALL-E and Planet of the Apes in feel. Isle of Dogs is gloomy and dark and bleak, but it offers a ray of hope for the future from a 12-year-old Japanese boy named Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin) and a freckle-faced, high school exchange student named Tracy from Ohio (Greta Gerwig), both out to defy an autocratic government’s ban on dogs. That’s thanks in major part to the vivid, eye-popping world of future Japan filmed by celebrated Aardman Animations stop-motion cinematographer Tristan Oliver (A Close Shave, The Wrong Trousers, Chicken Run), and the encompassing sounds from this year’s Oscar-winning composer for The Shape of Water, Alexandre Desplat (Harry Potter series, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, The Golden Compass). As to the stop-motion, audiences can marvel at how far Hollywood has come since the Ray Harryhausen era. The film follows Anderson’s design choices first seen in his Fantastic Mr. Fox and only continues to add to the unbelievable magical movements carried forward by Aardman’s achievements. And instead of a typical Romantic, programmatic score, Desplat’s best choices can be found in his use of loud, almost frightening Japanese taiko drums, Fumio Hayasaka’s haunting theme from Seven Samurai, the more celebratory bits from Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije, and a simple recurring dog whistle.
Anderson offers up admirable tributes to Japanese culture and film, everywhere from costume design to modern TV reporting stylings, to Hayao Miyazaki themes and Akira Kurosawa landscapes, to traditional imagery like beautiful ukiyo-e on walls and cherry blossoms floating by at the right time. Isle of Dogs finds a firm footing on the children’s classics shelf of your film library, alongside Roald Dahl’s Mr. Fox but also his Willy Wonka. It also has much in common in tone with Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal. The political allegory is thick and layered, a mix of the nuanced and the obvious, a mirror reflection of society that you’d have found years ago in a Frank Capra movie. Science is mocked, scorned, and worse. Experts are traitorous and immigrants are exiled. It’s also graphic in parts at a baser level, showing an animated meal from a dumpster with creepy crawlies that may make your stomach turn, plus an open chest surgery, bloody, torn body parts, and dogs with missing eyes and open wounds.
It must be hard to portray the art of being a magician on the big screen. The latest effort is The Transporter, The Incredible Hulk, and Clash of the Titans’ director Louis Leterrier’s Now You See Me previewed earlier at borg.comhere. It has much to offer by way of entertainment, the best reward being the cast, which manages to nail that very Las Vegas magic act schtick of “showmanship” that you only see in a good magic act. But can you give a theatrical audience a convincing magic show–actually trick us and surprise us in the same way someone like David Copperfield can make the Statue of Liberty disappear right in front of you, or how Teller distracts as Penn causes the very thing you’re staring at to disappear right before you?
Apparently you can’t do that in the movies–or at least no one has dazzled us in that way yet. But you can at least give us a good show letting us see different styles in which magicians practice their art.
Two recent contenders for the top of the “movies about magicians and magic” list are not at risk of leaving the top because of Now You See Me. The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell, Eddie Marsan, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and The Prestige, starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, and Scarlett Johansson released opposite each other in 2006, take on the same themes. But if you’re deciding between the two we think The Illusionist, from director Neil Burger (Limitless, Divergent) is the better film, over the very typically over-the-top effort by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Trilogy, Man of Steel, Inception) in The Prestige. It’s the payoff of Now You See Me that doesn’t quite cut it, despite some fun theatrics along the way.
It always makes sense to be wary of movies that trickle out to the public in limited release. If you’re not in the movie business, you may also want to be careful about seeing films about the movie business, especially shows about Broadway. Sometimes knowing what is behind the stage door ruins the magic. A Chorus Line, The Player, Barton Fink, are all about staging theater or film. But it often seems like writers choose this topic as a crutch–these are the topics drama college professors praise, of characters full of angst, a script riddled with expletives and characters bantering long speeches full of dialogue and situations calculated to shock and surprise. They hope the industry insiders will latch onto the movie even if the movie-going public could care less. These movies come off as self-indulgent and trite, the stuff of drama school or Summer stock. Birdman unfortunately is another one of those movies.
Michael Keaton plays an actor named Riggan. You would never know Riggan was his name from watching Birdman as it sounds more like Reagan as uttered by the cast. Riggan has some kind of schizophrenia, causing him to think he is being talked to by the Birdman, a costumed character Riggan played that once earned him fame. There’s not enough of the Birdman in the film to understand whether Riggan simply has mental problems or he really has some magical power. Or maybe it’s intended to be allegorical. It’s hard to know. Riggan is trying to produce and act in a play, doing something to get recognized, to make himself relevant, when in fact, he’s still a household name.
Behind Birdman is a variety of movie gimmicks, all arising out of an ambitious director. Ambition is a great thing, to be certain. Yet director Alejandro González Iñárritu throws too much at the audience at once, and although he is certainly getting noticed on the awards front, Birdman doesn’t have the balance to stand the test of time. Slathered in tongue-in-cheek irony, Birdman relies on the misconception that Michael Keaton, who played Batman in real life, is a washed-up has-been who hasn’t had a good job in years and we will all have some nostalgic reaction to this. (In fact, Keaton has hardly seen a year since he started in movies where he wasn’t in one film or another).
So the publicity folks want to spin this film as the next Sunset Boulevard, another story of a has-been actor struggling with self-worth. It’s a mirror image of the New York film and theater industry looking back on itself. A critique? Poking fun? Maybe actors care about that. Maybe producers and movie moguls. But why should audiences? It just doesn’t come close to the subtlety and grand storytelling that made Sunset Boulevard so superb.
