Belfast, the latest film from Kenneth Branagh, has been getting rapturous reviews at both the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals. I’ve seen more than one critic say that it’s the first film that they’ve seen over the past few months that they could imagine winning best picture when the Oscars are handed out next year.
And really, I can see their point, even though I have yet to watch the film.
Consider the following:
It’s British.
It’s in black-and-white.
It’s directed by Kenneth Branagh, who some would say is overdue for some Oscar recognition.
It’s a personal film from one of the world’s leading Shakespeareans.
Even though it’s a personal film, it’s also a film about the troubles in Northern Ireland in the 70s and therefore, it’s a film that can probably be interpreted as commenting upon the divisions of the present.
It’s got an amazing cast.
It’s a period film.
Did I mention it’s in black-and-white?
As I said, I haven’t seen the film yet. But the trailer looks amazing so I can’t wait until I do!
Throughout the documentary Val, modern-day Val Kilmer continually assures us that he feels better than he looks.
It’s a sad statement to hear, not just because Val Kilmer is himself admitting that he doesn’t look particularly healthy but also because it shows that Kilmer is very aware that many viewers will take one look at him and believe that his time has passed. Val Kilmer went from being a rising star in the 80s and the 90s to being a Hollywood outcast, largely due to a reputation for being eccentric and difficult to work with. While his legions of fans remembered and continued to celebrate Val Kilmer as Iceman, Jim Morrison and Doc Holliday in Tombstone, the real-life Kilmer was aging, struggling financially, and often appearing in movies that were ignored by the same public who loved his old films. Kilmer started to make a comeback by playing Mark Twain in an acclaimed one man show but a battle with throat cancer left him without his voice and the ability to feed himself. No, Kilmer doesn’t look particularly healthy in Val but, as quickly becomes apparent, his mind is as sharp as ever.
Val is really two documentaries in one. Half of the film is made up of footage of the young Val Kilmer, much of it shot by Kilmer himself. We see him hanging out with an impossible young-looking Sean Penn. We also see some behind-the-scenes footage of Tom Cruise in Top Gun and we’re left to wonder how Tom Cruise can look exactly the same in 2021 as he did in 1986. Kilmer, it turns out, was obsessive about filming his life, leaving you to wonder how much of it was about recording events and how much of it was about maintaining a wall between him and anyone who might get too close. (By filming everything, Kilmer made sure that no one stopped acting.) In the late 80s and early 90s, Kilmer went so far as to film unsolicited audition tapes for the directors with whom he wanted to work. There’s a touching earnestness to the three auditions he filmed for Stanley Kubrick while his attempts to convince Martin Scorsese to cast him in Goodfellas led to Kilmer apparently making a mini-gangster film of his own. In the footage of the young Kilmer, there’s a mix of good-natured arrogance along with an eagerness to please. Kilmer knew he was handsome and he knew he was talented but you get the feeling that what he really wanted were for his filmmaking heroes to acknowledge those things.
The other half of the film features the older Kilmer, humbled by poor health and years of personal struggles. This the Kilmer who can only speak in a rasp of a whisper. The film follows him as he goes from convention to convention, singing pictures for fans who inevitably ask him to write down catchphrases from either Top Gun or Tombstone. Kilmer says that a part of him hates having to work the circuit but, at the same time, he’s obviously and sincerely touched to have so many fans. In one of the films most powerful moments, the older Kilmer watches the younger Kilmer in Tombstone. Though the modern-day Kilmer insists that he’s doing better than he looks, it’s obvious that he’s now very much aware of his own mortality and there are parts of the film that come dangerously close to sounding like a premature eulogy. But when Kilmer watches himself as Doc Holliday, it’s obvious that Kilmer knows that, no matter what the future holds, his performances will live forever.
That said, I imagine that there are a lot of people who will watch this film just to see what Kilmer has to say about his legendary reputation for being difficult. Kilmer admits to being a perfectionist and he says that he sometimes pushed too hard. There’s a montage of various entertainment reporters, all reporting on Kilmer being “difficult” on the sets of Batman Forever and the Island of Dr. Moreau. Kilmer, himself, however doesn’t seem to view himself as being unnecessarily difficult and why should he? While other may have called him eccentric, one gets the feeling that Kilmer would simply say that he was just being himself.
Kilmer reveals a lot about himself and his career in Val. At the same time, it’s obvious that there are still certain walls that he will never completely let down. When he discusses his family and his childhood, it’s with a mix of regret and a need to believe that things really weren’t as bad as he remembers them being. He talks about how his family fell apart after the death of his brother. His father walked out on the family and, after Val became a star, cheated his son out of a fortune. One would expect Val to rail against his father but instead, Kilmer just accepts it as something that happened. Still, the amateur psychologist will be tempted to say that a lot of Val’s perfectionism came from his desire to please his father. (When Kilmer discusses Iceman in Top Gun, he says that he imagined that Iceman’s competitive nature came from having a father who was never happy with him.) Perhaps the documentary’s most revealing moment comes when we listen to audio of Val Kilmer arguing with director John Frankenheimer on the troubled set of The Island of Dr. Moreau. Kilmer says that he can’t do the scene because he’s too upset over Frankenheimer saying that he was considering walking off the picture. At that moment, one gets the feeling that the film set represented the childhood that Kilmer wanted and working with directors like Frankenheimer and Joel Schumacher threw him back into the mindset of the teen who watched his father walk away when things got too difficult.
Val is a documentary that sticks with you, a mediation of fame, aging, regret, and mortality. (Let it sound too sad to watch, rest assured that Val Kilmer does have a sense of humor and it is on display in the film.) Here’s hoping that Val Kilmer is with us and being difficult for a long time to come.
In a little over a month, No Time To Die is finally going to be released!
Can you believe it? A part of me feels like we’ve been waiting for this film for close to a 100 years. No Time To Die was first announced in 2016 and, like a lot of people, I was surprised and excited to hear that it would be directed by Danny Boyle. Boyle, however, left the film due to creative differences and was replaced by an equally intriguing choice, Cary Joji Fukunaga. All of the behind-the-scene turmoil and the constant rumors of Daniel Craig being tired of playing Bond gave the impression that No Time To Die was a trouble production and the frequent changing of the film’s release date didn’t help. Of course, the truth of the matter is that No Time To Die was one of the many big films that was delayed by the pandemic. Still, it has been six years since James Bond was last seen on a movie screen.
No Time To Die is going to be Daniel Craig’s last outing as Bond. There have been rumors of Craig’s Bond dying and someone else stepping up to assume both his name and his rank. I think it’s more probable that Bond either retires or fakes his own death like Bruce Wayne did at the end of The Dark Knight trilogy. The Craig Bond films have borrowed more from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight films than most critics have acknowledged.
The final trailer for No Time To Die dropped yesterday. It seems to promise a lot of typical Bond stuff — glamorous locales, elaborate action scenes, and Ben Whishaw. It also features Craig’s rather angsty interpretation of Bond. (I’ve always felt that Craig tends to get a little bit too angsty as Bond, to the extent that he actually crossed the line from troubled to whiny in SPECTRE.) Lea Seydoux reprises her SPECTRE love interest role and Christoph Waltz’s Blofeld also makes an appearance in the trailer and it would appear that we’re still doing the whole, “Every Craig film is a part of a bigger story” thing.
Rami Malek is also prominently featured, playing a villain. Hopefully, this villain won’t be another lost relative of Bond’s. That was a narrative decision that made absolutely no sense in SPECTRE….
You may have, at this point, guessed that I’m hoping this film will be more like Casino Royale and Skyfall than like Quantum of Silence and SPECTRE. My feelings on the Craig films have been mixed but I’m an unapologetic fan of the Bond franchise so I can’t wait to finally see the new movie.
No Time To Die will be released on October 8th! I’ll be there!
It’s time for me to do my monthly Oscar predictions. Again, as I’ve said in the past, the majority of these predictions are based on a combination of instinct and wishful thinking. However, the picture may become a bit clearer as early as the end of this week. With the Venice and Telluride film festivals right around the corner and Toronto also swift approaching, critics are finally going to get a chance to see some of the contenders and, as the early reviews come in, it should be easier to pick the probable nominees from the also-rans.
Personally, I will curious to see how people react to Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog. Among the other possibilities that we’ll be hearing about: Spencer, King Richard, Dune, The Lost Daughter, The Last Duel, and Belfast.
If you’re curious to see how my thinking has developed, check out my predictions for March and April and May and June and July!
When she was a teenager, Tara (Catherine Lidstone) was the only witness to the drowning of her brother, John (Michael Blake Kruse). He fell off a bridge after taunting her about her desire to be a professional photographer and telling her that their parents would be forever disappointed in her. Ouch!
Ten years later, Tara is still struggling with her brother’s death. She spends her time vlogging about photography, working a demeaning waitressing job, and carrying on a toxic relationship with Derek (Sam Krumrine). When Tara discovers that Derek has been cheating on her, she starts to spiral into depression. Fortunately, her best friend — Amy (Angela Gulner) — has a solution!
It turns out that Amy’s family owns a really nice house on the beach! Amy suggests that she and Tara spend a weekend up there, without phones, without WiFi, without any connection to the outside world. (Sure, how could that go wrong?) Tara is reluctant but she finally agrees to Amy’s plans.
At first, it seems like the perfect getaway. The house is big. The scenery is beautiful. And yet, Tara can’t help but feel that something is amiss. She hears strange sounds in the house. Some of her possessions end up disappearing. Even though she’s with her best friend, it soon becomes clear that there are some unspoken tensions between Amy and Tara. Amy is sick of Tara feeling sorry for herself. Tara feels that Amy is spoiled and has never had to struggle. Fortunately, since it’s only the two of them, they should be able to work through any issues pretty easily, right?
Then, Lucas (Peter Porte) shows up. Lucas is handsome and charming and really good at fixing things. He also says that he just happens to be a huge fan of one of Tara’s favorite books, Wild by Cheryl Strayed. When Amy says that she’s never heard of the book, Tara says, in shock, “But I did a whole vlog about it!” Hmmmm…..
Soon, Lucas is staying in the house with Tara and Amy. Tara likes him. Amy likes him. Does Lucas have an agenda of his own?
Of course, he does! And, let’s be honest, you figured that out as soon as I mentioned him. As I’ve said before, the best Lifetime films are always a little bit predictable. You don’t necessarily watch these films to be shocked. You watch them so that you can talk back to the screen as the characters in the movie make the most obvious mistakes possible. That’s part of the fun of a good Lifetime film. From the minute that Lucas shows up, it’s obvious that he’s not just some innocent hiker who happened to stumble across the beach house. It’s obvious to everyone but Tara and Amy.
But that doesn’t really matter. Though it may be predictable, Dead In The Water is still a lot of fun. In fact, it’s probably one of the more enjoyable films that I’ve seen on Lifetime recently. This film delivers exactly what you want from a movie like this — attractive people in attractive locations dealing with sudden melodrama and a lot of sexual tension. Director Nanea Miyata does a good job of generating suspense, especially early on in the film when Tara is struggling to figure out whether or not there’s really someone in the house or if her own paranoia is getting the better of her. In the two main roles, Angela Gulner and Catherine Lidstone both give good performances. You believe them as best friends, right down to their occasional disagreements. Seriously, the occasional disagreements are a key part of having a best friend. You love them even when you know you’re driving them crazy.
Dead In The Water was a lot of fun. Keep an eye out for it.
Doomsday Mom is a Lifetime true crime film, based on the disappearance of 16 year-old Tylee Ryan and 7 year-old J.J. Vallow and the subsequent arrest of their mother, Lori Vallow, and her new husband, Chad Daybell. Both Lori and Chad were heavily involved in the Doomsday movement, the belief that the end times were quickly approaching and that only the righteous would be saved. (Hence the title, Doomsday Mom.) Apparently, before the children disappeared, Lori and Chad had said that they had become demonically-possessed zombies. While the police were investigating the disappearances of Tylee and J.J., they also uncovered evidence that suggested that Lori and Chad may have been involved in several more deaths and attempted murders, including those of Lori’s ex-husband and her brother and Chad’s first wife.
It’s a disturbing story but it’s also one that hasn’t been resolved yet. Both Lori and Chad are currently in prison, awaiting trial. While the state of Idaho has ruled the Lori is not mentally competent enough to stand trial for murdering her children, the state of Arizona has still indicted her for attempting to kill one of her ex-husbands. Meanwhile, Chad will be facing the death penalty when his trial finally begins. Because neither has been convicted of any crime, they are still considered to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. If they are found guilty, there’s still the question of how many of the mysterious deaths that occurred within their orbit were the result of foul playe and how many were just coincidences. (Lori’s brother, for instance, died at a rather convenient time for Lori but everyone still seems to agree that he had been in poor health long before Lori even met Chad.) There’s also the question of whether or not Lori is actually legally insane or if she’s just faking it to get out of being sent to death row.
That proves to be a bit of a problem for Doomsday Mom, which is a film that suggests a lot of things but can’t actually come out and take a definite stand on anything, beyond the fact that Lori and Chad were a creepy couple who believed in some strange things. Though the film clearly believes that both Lori and Chad are guilty, it still has to try to maintain some sort of ambiguity. Hence, we learn that people have died but we never learn much about the circumstances of their death. We learn that Tylee was rebelling against her mother’s strict rules but we don’t learn much details about those rules, beyond Lori insisting that Tylee stay home to babysit so that Lori could go to church whenever she felt like it. We don’t see much of Chad’s first wife, nor do we learn much about his family.
Perhaps most importantly, we don’t really learn much about Lori and Chad’s doomsday beliefs, beyond the fact that they were convinced the world was ending and that the people around them were being possessed by demons. The film suggests that both of them were motivated by their own ego. Lori and Chad enjoyed being mini-celebs in the Doomsday movement. But, by not exploring how they came to have such beliefs in the first place, it’s hard not to feel that the film is refusing to give us some very important clues to understanding how all of these murders could have occurred in the first place. Presumably because the question of Lori’s mental competence is still in the air, the film cannot take a clear stand on whether Lori really believes all of the things that she says or if she’s just using all of the doomsday talk as a cover for her own selfishness. As often when happens when a film about a true crime case is rushed into production, Doomsday Mom often leaves the viewer with a number of unanswered questions.
On a positive note, both Lauren Lee Smith and Marc Blucas are chilling in the roles of Lori and Chad. Smith, in particular, is frightening as she switches from being a normal, overprotective mother to a wild-eyed religious fanatic, seemingly at random. Playing the role of the concerned grandparents of the missing children, Patrick Duffy and Linda Purl do a great job of capturing their desperation as they start to realize that, despite all of their hopes and efforts, they will probably never see their grandchildren again. The scene were they learn the fate of Tylee and J.J. is poignantly portrayed by both Duffy and Purl.
I always have a slightly problem with films like Doomsday Mom. I’m not a fan of rushing films into production to take advantage of a tragedy still being in the news. But Doomsday Mom is a well-acted and well-directed film, even if it can’t provide us with the answers that we may be looking for.
I had a long day on Wednesday so I unwound the only way that seemed appropriate. I watched Road House, the classic film in which Patrick Swayze plays Dalton. Dalton is the second-greatest bouncer of all time. Who is the greatest? None other than Dalton’s mentor, Wade Garrett!
Now, there’s a lot of reasons to love Road House but the performance of Sam Elliott in the role of Wade Garrett is definitely one of them. If you don’t cry a little when Ben Gazzara’s goons murder old Wade, you just don’t have a heart. In the end, of course, Wade’s bloody corpse gets left on top of the bar and, honestly, I think that’s the way Wade would want to go.
Anyway, watching RoadHouse reminded me of just how awesome Sam Elliott is so I decided to follow it up by watching another Sam Elliott film, one that I had previously DVR’d off of TMC last week. Filmed in 1975 and released in ’76, Lifeguard features a youngish Sam Elliott as the title character. Even though the lifeguard in question might be named Rick Carlson, it’s hard not to think of this film as essentially being Wade Garrett: The Early Years.
When Lifeguardopens, Rick Carlson is 32 years old. He’s been a lifeguard since he graduated high school. In his youth, he was a championship-winning surfer. Now, he’s an aging beach bum who is content to spend both the summer and the winter sitting in his lifeguard tower, watching life on the beach and occasionally saving someone from drowning. Rick has a small apartment, several girlfriends, and a legion of adoring fans. Younger lifeguards like Chris (Parker Stevenson, who would later co-star on Baywatch) view him as being a mentor. Beachgoers view him as being an authority figure, the type that can go to if the surfers are being obnoxious or if some old perv is wandering around exposing himself. 17 year-old Wendy (Kathleen Quinlan) flirts with him and, against his better instincts and common sense, Rick often flirts back. Despite a bit of gray in his hair and the fact that he gets winded a bit easier, Rick is still living the same life that he was living when he first graduated high school and he’s happy with that.
Or, at least, he is until he gets an invitation to his 15 year high school reunion and he discovers that everyone else is actually living a real life with real responsibilities. When he discovers that his former girlfriend, Cathy (Anne Archer), is now divorced, Rick starts to think about what could have been. When another former high school friend, Larry (Stephen Young), offers Rick a high-paying job selling cars, Rick finds himself wondering if it’s time to leave the beach and finally get a “real” job.
Lifeguard is an episodic film, a mix of comedy and drama that has an unexpectedly melancholy feel to it. For the most part, the film asks us to sympathize with Rick’s desire to spend the rest of his life on the beach but, at the same time, it also doesn’t deny that there are drawbacks to Rick’s lifestyle. Rick’s living the life he wants but he’s largely doing so alone, unable to build up any sort of personal connection with anyone who isn’t 16 years younger than him. Interestingly enough, for a film called Lifeguard, we really don’t see Rick rescuing many people or doing anything else that you might expect to see a lifeguard doing. Modern viewers will probably spend the entire movie waiting for Rick to give a speech about why being a lifeguard is a holy calling but that moment never happens. Instead, it’s pretty clear that Rick mostly just enjoys hanging out at the beach and being a lifeguard allows him to get paid to do just that. Watching the film, I could not help but compare Rick’s laid back attitude to the overly earnest lifeguards who populated Baywatch. Mitch Buchannon would have kicked Rick off the beach for not taking the job seriously enough. As well, as opposed to the vibrant cinematography that we’ve come to expect from beach movies, the visual style of Lifeguard is often moody and underlit. At times, the beach itself looks like it’s suffering from an existential crisis. The sand looks dull. The skies above the water often appear to be gray and full of clouds. Rick has apparently decided to spend the rest of his life on the ugliest beach in California.
It’s a flawed film, to be sure. The attempts to mix drama and comedy often lead to uneven results and Anne Archer, Parker Stevenson, and Stephen Young are stuck with underwritten characters. (The film’s script especially lets Young down, making Larry such an obnoxious character that it’s hard to believe that he and Rick would have ever been friends in the firs place.) When the film does work, it’s due to the performances of Kathleen Quinlan and Sam Elliot. Though her character is a cliché (the rebellious teenager who isn’t as worldly as she thinks she is), Quinlan does a good job of giving the character a personality that makes her more than just a stock temptation.
The film belongs, of course, to Sam Elliott and he is perfectly cast. As he would do decades later in The Hero, Elliott does a wonderful job of suggesting the little doubts that lurk underneath the laid back surface of his character. His strongest moment occurs not on the beach but when Rick goes to his high school reunion and realizes that he no longer fits in with his former classmates, all of whom have careers and families. Rick goes from being cocky to insecure in a matter of minutes and Elliott captures Rick’s emotions beautifully. At that moment, it’s hard not to feel sorry for Rick. One can understand why he’s tempted to leave the beach for the real world but, at the same time, one can also see that Rick understands that it might be too late for him to do so. He’s spent the last 15 years in a perpetual adolescence and the rest of the world has moved on. Elliott perfectly captures the moment when Rick realizes that his happiness has come with a price. Rick is a flawed (if ultimately good) person but Sam Elliott gives a flawless performance in the role. Just as surely was Wade Garrett rescued Dalton when Wesley’s men tried to stop the beer delivery, Sam Elliott saves Lifeguard.
The trailer for Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog is here and I couldn’t be more excited!
Having recently read the Tomas Savage-authored novel that this film is based on, I have to say that the trailer perfectly captures the story’s ominous atmosphere. Kirsten Dunst appears to be the perfect choice for Rose and, though I had some doubts when the casting was announced, Benedict Cumberbatch appears to be properly menacing and charismatic in the role of Phil.
Jesse Plemons isn’t really highlighted in this trailer but I think he might be the actor who walks away with the most acclaim. The role of George Burbank feels like it was written for Plemons. I can’t wait to see what he does with it.
The Power of the Dog will soon premiere on Netflix! Judging by the trailer, it may be one worth seeing on the big screen.
Mayday is due to be released on October 1st. Personally, I would have held off until next May but what do I know? The film is about Anna, who is transported to a fantasy world where she becomes a part of an all-girl army, just to discover that she’s not really into killing and war.
Will pacifism win the day? I guess we’ll find out in October!
A few days ago, the trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home supposedly leaked online. I say “supposedly” because I would honestly be shocked at the idea of anything in the world of entertainment happening without Disney somehow knowing about it beforehand.
Anyway, I held off on sharing the leaked trailer because I have integrity or something. Or maybe I was just scared I would get sued or the site would be taken down. I don’t know. I held off for some reason. But now that the trailer has been officially released …. well, here it is:
Apparently, Peter’s life has gotten difficult now that the world knows that he’s Spider-Man. Since Tony Stark is dead and Robert Downey, Jr. would probably demand too much money to play Tony’s hitherto unknown twin brother, Peter decides to get a new bearded mentor but, in typical Peter fashion, he screws up Dr. Strange’s spell by talking too much and soon, universes are literally colliding.
If I sound like I’m being snarky, that’s just the way I always sound. I love these movies in all of their occasionally silly glory and I’m really looking forward to Spider-Man: No Way Home. I really enjoyed the previous two movies and this trailer is certainly more entertaining than the one that dropped for TheEternals. I actually think that Tom Holland and Benedict Cumberbatch have the potential to be a pretty good team. Plus, I know a lot of our readers are probably really excited about Alfred Molina showing up there at the end. Will the other Spider-Men make an appearance? We’ll find out soon.
Through the Shattered Lens 