This is a nicely evocative video, I think. Las Vegas is the quintessential American city, a celebration of commerce and hospitality that happens to be sitting out in the middle of an inhospitable desert. Vegas could only have been founded in America and it’s only in America that it could have thrived to become the iconic city that it is today.
Of course, I should also mention that, whenever I see any clips of the Las Vegas strip, I automatically think about the movie Casino and the Ace Rothstein Dancers. If I ever go to Vegas, I’m going to let Commissioner Pat Webb know that Sam “Ace” Rothstein has nothing to hide.
Released back in February (just in time for Valentine’s Day!), Cold Pursuit was this year’s Liam Neeson revenge flick.
This time, Neeson played Nels Coxman, a snow plow driver who speaks in a raspy tone of voice and tends to walk around with a thousand-yard stare on his face. After his son is killed by gangsters, Nels sets out for revenge. It turns out that Nels’s father was some sort of mob enforcer so both Nels and his brother (William Forsythe) have apparently inherited the “instinctively know how to kill” gene So, while Nels’s wife (Laura Dern) stays at home and has a nervous breakdown, Nels heads out and starts killing folks. Since the gangsters are led by an idiot named Viking (Tom Bateman), they all assume that they’re being targeted by a rival drug gang, one which is led by a Ute named White Bull (Tom Jackson). So, while the two drug gangs are killing each other off, Nels is busy killing any stragglers that he comes across. It all adds up to a lot of killing.
Cold Pursuit is different from other Liam Neeson revenge films by the fact that it’s an out-and-out parody of the genre. So, while Neeson walks through the film with his usual glum expression and commits all the usual mayhem that we’ve come to expect from a vengeance-driven Neeson, everyone else plays their role as broadly as possible. Tom Bateman leaves not a single piece of scenery unchewed in the role of Viking while Tom Jackson is stoic to the point of insanity in the role of White Bull. Whenever a gangster gets killed, a title card appears, listing his name, his nickname, and his religion. Meanwhile, two cops (Emmy Rossum and John Doman) prove to be comically ineffective.
And I will admit that I did laugh a few times while watching Cold Pursuit. The scene where Neeson asks his brother to explain why everyone has a nickname made me smile. Some of the murders are clever and the action scenes are frequently so over-the-top that you can’t help but be amused by them.
That said, Cold Pursuit didn’t really work for me. I think the problem is that the filmmakers spent so much time trying to parody Neeson’s films that they didn’t consider that the majority of those films are themselves already parodies. I mean, just watch The Commuter and tell me that film isn’t cheerfully winking at the audience. Since Neeson’s screen persona hasn’t really been a serious one for close to ten years now, parodying it isn’t quite the subversive act that Cold Pursuit seems to think it is. The difference between Neeson’s other films and Cold Pursuit is the difference between merely winking at an audience or pulling a gun on an audience while demanding, “LAUGH, DAMN YOU!” Sometimes, the funniest jokes are the ones that you pretend you’re not making.
On the plus side, the film looks gorgeous. It takes place in the Colorado mountains and makes great use of the frozen landscape. And George Fenton’s score is nicely evocative and well-used in the film. Finally, Liam Neeson is always fun to watch, even when it’s in a somewhat flawed film like this one.
That, in itself, is not a surprise. The Upside is about a wealthy, emotionally repressed white man and, if there’s anything we’ve learned from the movies, it’s that wealthy, repressed white people always love opera.
Another things that we’ve learned from the movies is that wealthy, emotionally repressed white people always hire a streetwise person of color to help them learn to appreciate life. This person of color will inevitably not care for all of the opera and will then introduce the wealthy, emotionally repressed white person to their own type of music. If the movie’s a comedy, that music will be rap. If it’s a drama, that music will be jazz. The Upside is a dramedy so the music of emotional liberation is Aretha Franklin.
There’s not a single cliche that goes unused in The Upside. Actually, I take that back. As opposed to so many other films of this short, Phillip (Bryan Cranston) does not start the film as a politically incorrect bigot, which means that we’re spared of any cringey scenes of Philip trying to bait Dell (Kevin Hart) by being casually racist. Otherwise, every cliche imaginable is present in The Upside and it all gets to be a bit much after a while. I’m sure that the film means well and there’s a part of me that felt a little bit guilty about not liking it but seriously, this is one of those movie’s that just keeps coming at you.
Phillip is a paraplegic who wants to die, though not before listening to a lot of opera. Dell is an ex-con who needs to find a job so his parole doesn’t get revoked. Yvonne (Nicole Kidman) is Phillip’s personal assistant. She’s obviously in love with Phillip, though for some reason this fact is never acknowledged until the end of the film.
Together …. they solve crimes!
No, actually, they all become friends and learn the importance of celebrating life. It’s a good lesson to learn, make no mistake. But it’s just all so predictable that it’s hard not to resent just how thoroughly and blatantly the film insists on trying to manipulate you. You get the feeling that the filmmakers didn’t have any faith in their audience’s capability to feel empathy. Director Neil Burger did such a great job with Limitlessbut, with this film, he seems to have lost his sense of pacing. The movie drags from one heartwarming cliche to another, without any hints of the type of quirky self-awareness that would help to make those cliches easier to digest.
Bryan Cranston’s a great actor but, perhaps realizing that he’s merely playing a more a benign version of Walter White, he seems a bit bored here while Nicole Kidman is sabotaged by a script that doesn’t allow her to do much other than reproachfully shake her head. Kevin Hart, however, actually gives a pretty good performance, one that suggests that he actually has a lot of potential as a dramatic actor. The character may be a stereotype but Hart at least brings a bit of energy to the film.
The Upside came out this January and it was actually a modest box office hit. I imagine that a lot of people loved this film for the exact reason that I disliked it. The film’s just too predictable for me to embrace The Upside.
What happened to summer this year? Seriously, it’s just kind of flying by. We’ve got August and then the first half of September and then it’s going to be Autumn again! Get out there and enjoy yourselves while you still can!
Today’s music video of the day is all about summer. It captures a few essential truths. Number one, it’s fun to get undressed in public. Number two, if you take off enough clothes while walking down the street, some dude with a saxophone will undoubtedly start following you. What I like about this video is how everyone is both intrigued and annoyed by the saxophone player. This is a video that just captures what it’s like to be young and have your entire future ahead of you. It also captures the feeling of summer!
This video was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who apparently has directed a few films as well. No, not the Resident Evil films. That’s a different Paul Anderson, all together.
Blanck Mass is back with another unsettling video!
(That’s not a surprise. Blanck Mass kinda specializes in being unsettling.)
This video, which features a retro tv studio going crazy over some sexy apples, feels like a bit of an homage to the early work of David Cronenberg. Keep your eyes open and you’ll even spot a paperback novelization of Videodrome. And, of course, just the idea of loving being a parasite is a very Cronenbergian concept.
Sometimes, you hear about a film and you just know that it’s either going to be brilliant or it’s going to be disaster.
Take 1917, for instance. The film is World War I epic and right now, a lot of people are predicting that it’s destined for Oscar glory. I’m one of those people and I’ve said that despite not having seen the film. What we do know about the film sounds intriguing. Apparently, much like Hitchcock’s Rope and Birdman, the film is being put together to appear as if it’s just one, long continuous shot, without any breaks, with the idea being that 1917 is going to an immersive film about the horrors of war. While the film’s two leads are played by unknowns, supporting roles have been taken by Colin Firth, Mark Strong, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Sounds pretty good, right?
Here’s my concern. The film is being directed by Sam Mendes, who is one of the most pretentious filmmakers of all time. Mendes did brilliant work with Skyfall but have you tried to sit through American Beauty or Away We Go recently?
Anyway, I hope that 1917 lives up to the promise of its premise and that we get the Mendes of Skyfall as opposed to the Mendes of SPECTRE. The trailer looks good and here it is:
I like today’s music video of the day because it has a perverse retro feel to it. Like if you go to a cabin in the woods and find a dusty old VHS tape sitting in the back of a cubbyhole, this is probably what you would see after watching the tape. And then I assume that little girl from The Ring would show up.
The 1963 film Palm Springs Weekend asks the question, “When is a beach film not a beach film?”
When it takes place in the freaking desert!
That’s right, Palm Springs Weekend takes place in the middle of the California desert. There’s no ocean in sight nor are there any beaches on which to frolic. Instead, there’s just a cheap motel and a swimming pool. That said, Palm Springs Weekend pretty much follows the same formula as all of the beach films that were released in the early 60s. A group of college students hop on a bus and head off for the weekend. One student is wacky. One student is rich, wild, and dangerous to know. And, of course, one student is clean-cut, responsible, boring, asexual, and studious and all about doing the right thing.
Troy Donahue, the blandest teen idol of all time, plays the clean-cut student. His name is Jim and he’s a college basketball star. Even when he’s on the bus traveling to Palm Springs, he’s still got a book to study. Jim’s the type who wears a suit and a tie to the pool. He ends up falling in love with Bunny Dixon (Stefanie Powers) and the two of them spend a lot of time talking about sex in the most chaste way possible. Bunny’s father (played by Andrew Duggan) is the chief of police and he doesn’t want any crazy college kids causing trouble in his town! Well, it’s a pretty good thing that all he has to worry about is Troy Donaue asking his daughter if she wants to take a moonlight stroll in the middle of the desert.
(Trust me. I’ve spent enough time in the desert to know that the last thing you want to do when you live near rattlesnakes is take a moonlight stroll.)
Jim’s best friend is Biff (Jerry Van Dyke). Biff is the wacky college student, which means that he plays the ukulele and he gets all the comedic moments. In this film, that amounts to getting babysitting an annoying boy and, at one point, falling into an extremely sudsy pool. Luckily, Jim’s there to deliver CPR, which leads to soap bubbles floating out of Biff’s mouth and …. you know what? I’m tired of writing about Biff.
Anyway, Biff and Jim really aren’t that important. The entire film pretty much belongs to Robert Conrad and Connie Stevens, largely because they’re the only two actors who are allowed to break out of the trap of always either being bumbling and innocent or dramatic and self-righteous. Robert Conrad plays Eric Dean, who is a spoiled rich kid who owns an expensive and fast car and who is basically a fun-loving sociopath. Meanwhile, Connie Stevens plays Gail, who is a high senior and who is pretending to be a college student. And while the film insists that we should somehow be disappointed in Gail because she’s acting wild and breaking curfew and doing more than just talking about whether or not it’s appropriate to kiss on the first date, she’s actually the most compelling character in the film because, at the very least, she’s actually setting her own rules and making her own decisions. Since Palm Springs Weekend was made in 1963, it ultimately feels the need to try to punish Gail for thinking for herself but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still a far more interesting character than the blandly innocent Bunny. Gail’s a rebel. Gail’s the future. All hail Gail!
Anyway, Palm Springs Weekend is pretty forgettable and it’s never as much fun as any of AIP’s old Beach Party films. That said, I’d still recommend it if you’re a history nerd like me. It’s definitely a film of its time, a time capsule of an era.
So, I just finished watching the trailer for The Lighthouse and I am now officially excited!
Robert Eggers previously directed one of the best horror films in recent memory, The Witch. Well, he’s back now with The Lighthouse, a black-and-white film about two men (Willem DaFoe and Robert Pattinson), one lighthouse, and one secret. The trailer is wonderfully creepy and the black-and-white cinematography is gorgeous. I can’t wait to see this film!
Queen & Slim is a film that’s been getting of positive buzz. Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith play a couple on a first date whose lives are turned upside down when they’re pulled over by a racist cop. The cop ends up dead and Kaluua and Turner-Smith end up on the run.
And here’s the just-released trailer!
Queen & Slim will be released in November, just in time for Oscar season. Judging from the trailer, this film is either going to be very powerful or way too heavy-handed. Daniel Kaluuya is probably one of the most interesting actors around right now so I’m always happy to see anything he’s involved with.
