Between Slither and Brightburn, I’ve been curious to see what an Elizabeth Banks horror film would look like. Well, it looks like that dream is coming true with next year’s Cocaine Bear. Based on actual events, Cocaine Bear is the tale of a bear who manages to get a hold of some cocaine and goes wild in the forest. One Part Prophecy, one part The Revenant with a pinch of The Edge and a dash of Cujo, and you’ve got what looks like a fun horror comedy.
Cocaine Bear stars Alden Ehrenreich (Solo), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (ABC’s Modern Family), Margo Martindale (Practical Magic, Justified), Isiah Whitlock, Jr. (Da 5 Bloods), both Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys (The Americans), O’Shea Jackson, Jr. (Ingrid Goes West), and Ray Liotta (Smoking Aces) in one of his final roles.
I was stunned to just hear that Ray Liotta, that massively underrated actor who appeared in some truly great films and who always brought a dangerous but intriguing intensity to every role, died today. He was 67 years old.
I’m going to share two scenes in honor of Ray, I’m sure that others will have more to say. The first scene is from a favorite of Arleigh’s, Field of Dreams. Ray doesn’t say much as Shoeless Joe Jackson but he’s already got that trademark intensity. The second is the final scene from Goodfellas, which features Ray Liotta’s best work of the entire film. The small moment when he briefly acknowledges the camera while getting his newspaper is brilliant.
The Detroit Film Critics Society announced their nominations for the best of 2021 earlier today. It’s an interesting group of nomination, though I would point out that Detroit is usually one of the quirkier of the critics groups. Every awards season, they nominate something or someone unexpected, there’s a brief flurry of excitement, and then everyone moves on.
I guess that’s one reason why I love them.
Anyway, here’s their nominations:
BEST PICTURE
Belfast
CODA
Cyrano
Don’t Look Up
King Richard
BEST DIRECTOR
Sean Baker – Red Rocket
Kenneth Branagh – Belfast
David Lowery – The Green Knight
Adam McKay – Don’t Look Up
Lan-Manuel Miranda – Tick, Tick…Boom!
BEST ACTOR
Nicolas Cage – Pig
Peter Dinklage – Cyrano
Andrew Garfield – Tick, Tick…Boom!
Oscar Isaac – The Card Counter
Will Smith – King Richard
BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain – The Eyes Of Tammy Faye
Alana Haim – Licorice Pizza
Jennifer Hudson – Respect
Nicole Kidman – Being The Ricardos
Kristen Stewart – Spencer
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Jon Bernthal – King Richard
Troy Kotsur – CODA
Jared Leto – House Of Gucci
Ray Liotta – The Many Saints Of Newark
Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power Of The Dog
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Ariana DeBose – West Side Story
Kirsten Dunst – The Power Of The Dog
Aunjanue Ellis – King Richard
Rita Moreno – West Side Story
Diana Rigg – Last Night In Soho
BEST ENSEMBLE
CODA
Don’t Look Up
The French Dispatch
The Harder They Fall
House Of Gucci
BREAKTHROUGH
Alana Haim – Actress – Licorice Pizza
Emilia Jones – Actress – CODA
Woody Norman – Actor – C’mon C’mon
Agathe Rousselle – Actress – Titane
Emma Seligman – Writer/Director – Shiva Baby
BEST USE OF MUSIC/SOUND
Cyrano
In The Heights
Last Night In Soho
Tick, Tick…Boom!
West Side Story
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Don’t Look Up
The French Dispatch
The Harder They Fall
Licorice Pizza
Parallel Mothers
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
CODA
The Green Knight
In The Heights
The Power Of The Dog
Tick, Tick…Boom!
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Belle
Cryptozoo
Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Flee
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
The Sparks Brothers
Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street
Summer Of Soul
The Many Saints of Newark, which is finally going to be released on October 1st after being delayed by the pandemic, is a prequel to The Sopranos. It features Tony Soprano as a teenager, struggling to decide between entering the family business or going to college and — if The Test Dream episode is to be believed — maybe becoming a teacher or a coach. That’s a big decision for anyone to make. Of course, since The Many Saints of Newark is a prequel, we already know that’s going to happen. That’s kind of the problem with prequels. You can drag out the story for as long as you want but, eventually, you’re going to reach the point where everyone originally came in.
As you may have picked up on, I’m not totally sure that this film is really necessary. As I say this as someone who loves TheSopranos and who is planning on rewatchinng the entire series later in July. Thanks to the show’s use of flashbacks and the scenes of Tony talking to Dr. Melfi, it’s not as if we don’t already know about Tony’s childhood. I’m not sure that there’s a lot for the prequel to show us, beyond maybe clearing up who was actually responsible for the death of Dickie Moltisanti. If Tony ends up killing Dickie, it’ll cast his later treatment (and murder) of Christopher into an entirely new light.
Still, I’m definitely going to watch The Many Saints of Newark when it’s released on October 1st. Vera Farmiga as Livia Soprano seems like perfect casting and I’m also interested in seeing how Michael Gandolfini does at playing the young version of the character made famous by his father, the much-missed James Gandolfini. Apparently, Billy Magnussen will be playing the youngish version of Paulie Walnuts. In what world does Billy Magnussen grow up to be Tony Sirico? Ray Liotta also has a role in The Many Saints of Newark, which feels appropriate considering how much The Sopranos owed to the success of Goodfellas.
The trailer for The Many Saints of Newark was released today. And here it is:
“Oh my God!” I said as I looked at what was new on Netflix, “A Halloween movie starring the guy from Uncut Gems!? THIS IS GOING TO BE INTENSE!”
Of course, as I’m sure you already guessed, Hubie Halloween might as well be taking place in a totally different universe from Uncut Gems. Uncut Gems was an intense drama that starred Adam Sandler as a man so self-destructive that he literally seems to spend the entire movie just daring death to reach out and take him. Hubie Halloween, on the other hand, is fairly laid back comedy featuring Adam Sandler playing yet another well-meaning manchild. The film features supporting performances from all the usual Happy Madison suspects, like Kevin James, Rob Schneider, Steve Buscemi, Tim Meadows, Ben Stiller, Maya Rudolph, Keenan Thompson, and Colin Quinn. It’s sentimental and it’s about thirty minute too long and the humor is often juvenile but also frequently funny.
Adam Sandler plays Hubie, who lives in Salem, Massachusetts with his mother (June Squibb). Hubie is the town eccentric, the type of guy who thinks that he’s protecting the entire town but who mostly just gets on everyone’s nerves. A lot of people make fun of Hubie (who they call Pubie). Pete Landolfa (Ray Liotta) may be mourning the recent death of his father but he still finds time to toss Hubie into an open grave. Not even Father Dave (Michael Chiklis) has much sympathy for Hubie. Hubie is the type of guy who goes down to the local school to give a speech on Halloween safety, just for the students (and teachers) to respond by throwing all of their food at him.
One of the few people who is nice to Hubie is his new neighbor, Walter Lambert (Steve Buscemi). However, Hubie suspects that Walter might be a werewolf and when people start to disappear over the course of Halloween, Hubie suspects that Walter’s responsible. Meanwhile, the police (represented by a heavily bearded Kevin James) thinks that it might be Hubie, seeing as how everyone who has disappeared is also someone who has bullied him.
Then again, Richie Hartman (Rob Schneider) has just escaped from the local mental institution. Could he possibly have something to do with the mysterious happenings in Salem!?
When Adam Sandler won his Indie Spirit Award for Uncut Gems, he infamously announced that, if he didn’t get an Oscar nomination, he would get back at the Academy by making the worst film of all time. Well, Sandler was snubbed the Academy. (Though Sandler deserved that nomination — and probably nominations for The Meyerowtiz Stories, Funny People, and Punch-Drunk Love as well — it’s pretty obvious that the Academy is never going to nominate the star of That’s My Boy and Jack and Jill.) However, Hubie Halloween is certainly not the worst film ever made. It’s actually a rather likable and sweet-natured comedy, one in which the humor is definitely juvenile but, in contrast to some of the other Happy Madison comedies, never really mean-spirited. In many ways, it’s a perfect Netflix film. It’s good enough to keep you entertained while, at the same time, you don’t necessarily have to really pay attention to every minute of the film to get it. It’s the epitome of the type of film that you can watch while doing something else.
One of the main complaints that’s always lodged against Sandler is that he primarily just makes movies so that he can hang out with his friends and get paid for it. There’s a certain amount of truth to that statement and that, more than anything, explains why Sandler’s filmography tends to be so frustratingly uneven. The cast of Hubie Halloween looks like they had a lot of fun making it. Fortunately, in this case, that sense of fun actually translates onto the screen. Steve Buscemi, June Squibb, and particularly Ray Liotta all seem to be having a ball getting to parody their own dramatic images.
Admittedly, Hubie Halloween is not a film that sticks with you. It won’t make you laugh as much as Happy Gilmore and it won’t leave you stunned like Uncut Gems. But, for what it is, it’s just likable enough to be entertaining.
Nick Tellis (Jason Patric) is an undercover narcotics agent who has spent the last year under investigation for a shooting that went wrong. Nick was firing his gun at a fleeing drug dealer but he hit a pregnant woman instead. After 18 months of being caught in administrative limbo, Nick is made an offer. It’s thought that, with his knowledge of Detroit’s crime and drug scene, that he might be uniquely suited to investigate the murder of another undercover agent, Michael Calvess. Nick agrees but, in return, he wants a desk job. He’s got a wife and a baby and he’s tired of putting his life on the line for nothing. Nick also wants to work with Detective Henry Oak (Ray Liotta). Oak was one of the original investigators of Calvess’s murder. Nick is warned that Oak has a reputation for being unstable and out-of-control. Nick isn’t fazed because he has the same reputation.
Oak turns out to be more than just out of control. He is the epitome of a bad cop, beating suspects and thinking nothing of threatening to kill a man unless he confesses. However, Oak gets results. Oak suggests that you can’t fight crime in Detroit if you play by the rules and Narc is the type of grim and gritty film that doesn’t give you any reason to think that Oak is incorrect. Oak and Nick investigate Calvess’s death and both of them discover that the department would rather just sweep the case under the rug than actually discover what really happened. The department just wants someone that they can pin the crime on, not the truth. Even after the case is officially declared as being closed, Nick and Oak continue their investigation. Nick, however, starts to suspect that Oak knows more about Calvess’s death than he’s willing to admit.
Narc opens with an amazingly shot chase scene that will leave you breathless and then it just keeps going without once letting up on the intensity. Narc is a grim and violent film about two damaged men trying to solve a case that no one else cares about. Jason Patric has never been better than he was in Narc and, while Ray Liotta has played his share of unstable cops, he takes things to whole other level with Narc. Director Joe Carnahan does such a good job of capturing the decay and desperation of life in Detroit that, even while you’re worried that both Nick and Oak are going to end up going too far in their pursuit of what they consider to be justice, you still can’t help but feel that they’ve both got a point. Who plays by the rules when the world’s on fire?
The Oscar nominations were announced earlier today and, as happens every year, some of the nominations were met with acclaim while others left observers scratching their heads. Right now, on twitter, there’s a fierce debate going on between those who think Joker deserved all of its nominations and those who believe that the Academy has once again deliberately snubbed women and people of color.
As for me, I’m just shaking my head at all the nominations for Marriage Story. I get the feeling that, out of all of the recently unveiled best picture nominees, Marriage Story is the one that we will have forgotten about within the next year. It’s an acclaimed film and I’m happy that Scarlett Johansson finally got a nominations (two nominations, as a matter of fact, as she was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Jojo Rabbit) but, in the end, Marriage Story feels rather hollow.
Marriage Story is about the end of a marriage. Charlie Barber (Adam Driver) is a New York-based theatrical director. Nicole Barber (Scarlett Johansson) is his wife. Nicole is an actress who, before she married Charlie, was best known for appearing topless in a teen comedy. Charlie is often credited with having resurrected her career. On the surface, they’re the perfect New York couple. However, when we first meet them, their marriage is coming to an end. Charlie, we learn, cheated on Nicole with a production assistant. Nicole wants to go to Los Angeles so that she can star in a television series and have a career that’s not dependent upon her husband. Caught in the middle of all this is their son, Henry (Azhy Robertson).
At first, Charlie and Nicole agree to an amicable split, one with no lawyers and no accusations. That doesn’t last. Nicole hires the cheerfully ruthless Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern). Charlie, after moving out to Los Angeles, finds himself torn between hiring either the the kindly (but ineffectual) Bert Spitz (Alan Alda, in a role he was born to play) or the somewhat sinister (but definitely effective) Jay Marotta (Ray Liotta, also in a role that he was born to play). While both Charlie and Nicole try (and often) fail to maintain a civil relationship for Henry’s sake, their attorneys go to war.
There’s a lot of good things to be said about Marriage Story. Though I think that his truly award-worthy work for 2019 was not in this film but instead in The Report, Adam Driver does a good job with role of Charlie. Scarlett Johansson, who has so often been unfairly overlooked at awards time, again proves herself to be one of the best actresses around. Dern, Alda, and Liotta are well-cast as three very different (but very recognizable) attorneys. Noah Baumbach’s script has several good lines. The scene where Nicole’s sister is awkwardly recruited to serve Charlie with the divorce papers is both funny and cringey. The much-acclaimed scene where Charlie and Nicole go from having a polite (if awkward) conversation to yelling at each other is definitely effective even if it’s power has been diluted by it’s subsequent reinvention as a twitter meme.
That said, Marriage Story ultimately left me feeling dissatisfied. It’s pretty much an open secret that the film is based on Noah Baumbach’s divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh and, watching the film, you can’t help but feel that you’re only getting one side of a very complex story. My first warning sign came when Nicole left for Los Angeles and the film cut to her on the set for her new television series. Marriage Story goes so overboard in portraying Nicole’s show as being vapid and silly that you can’t help but feel that we’re meant to look down on Nicole for abandoning Charlie’s avant-garde theater productions to star in it. We’re meant to say, “She gave up Broadway so she could star in some second-rate Marvel show!?” From the claim that no one took Nicole seriously until Charlie married her to it’s portrayal of her being easily manipulated by her attorney, there’s a pettiness to the film’s portrayal of Nicole.
As for Charlie, he’s presented as being flawed but, as the film progresses, it’s hard not to notice that almost all of his flaws can also serve as a humble brag. He’s a little dorky, He’s too intense. He works too hard. Sometimes, he has a hard time not being the director. Almost all of Charlie’s flaws are the type of stuff that people mention in job interviews whenever they’re asked to name their biggest weakness. “Well, I guess I am a bit of a perfectionist, sometimes….” It’s hard not to feel that, despite a few scenes where Nicole gets to open up, the film is really only interested in Charlie’s perspective. By the end of the film, Marriage Story reduces Nicole to merely being an obstacle standing in the way of Charlie and his son and it’s hard not to feel that both the character and the actress who plays her deserves better than that. The film goes from being Marriage Story to simply being Charlie’s Story.
While you’re watching the film, it’s easy to get swept up in Driver and Johansson’s performances. It’s only afterwards, when you really think about it, that you come to realize that Marriage Story doesn’t really add up to much. It’s a good acting exercise and I’m sure that it will be popular among community theater actors who have been asked to prepare a monologue for their next audition. But the whole is ultimately far less than the sum of its parts.
Here are the 2019 Indie Spirit Award nominations! These nominations are meant to honor the best independent films of 2019 and their announcement marks the official beginning of awards season (at least as far as this sight is concerned!) I hate to say it but I still need to see quite a few of the films nominated below so, for now, I’ll hold off on any editorial commentary.
For those looking for some sort of evidence of how the Oscar nominations can go, the Independent Spirit Awards can be an iffy precursor, just because several of the expensive, major studio contenders aren’t eligible to nominated. (For instance, neither The Irishman nor Once Upon A Time In Hollywood were eligible.) That said, for the record, the two biggest Spirit nominees are The Lighthouse and Uncut Gems. Waves and The Farewell, which have been the center of considerable Oscar speculation, did not do as strongly in the nominations as many people apparently expected. Make of that what you will!
Here are the nominees!
Best Supporting Female
Jennifer Lopez – HUSTLERS
Taylor Russell – WAVES
Zhao Shuzhen – THE FAREWELL
Lauren “Lolo” Spencer – GIVE ME LIBERTY
Octavia Spencer – LUCE
Best Supporting Male
Willem Dafoe – THE LIGHTHOUSE
Noah Jupe – HONEY BOY
Shia Labeouf – HONEY BOY
Jonathan Majors – THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO
Wendell Pierce – BURNING CANE
Best Screenplay
Noah Baumbach – MARRIAGE STORY
Jason Begue, Shawn Snyder – TO DUST
Ronald Bronstein, Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie – UNCUT GEMS
Chinonye Chukwu – CLEMENCY
Tarell Alvin Mccraney – HIGH FLYING BIRD
Best First Screenplay
Fredrica Bailey, Stefon Bristol – SEE YOU YESTERDAY
Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen – DRIVEWAYS
Bridget Savage Cole, Danielle Krudy – BLOW THE MAN DOWN
Jocelyn Deboer, Dawn Luebbe – GREENER GRASS
James Montague, Craig W. Sanger – THE VAST OF NIGHT
Best Cinematography
Todd Banhazl – HUSTLERS
Jarin Blaschke – THE LIGHTHOUSE
Natasha Braier – HONEY BOY
Chananun Chotrungroj – THE THIRD WIFE
Pawel Pogorzelski – MIDSOMMAR
Best Editing
Julie Béziau – THE THIRD WIFE
Ronald Bronstein, Benny Safdie – UNCUT GEMS
Tyler L. Cook – SWORD OF TRUST
Louise Ford – THE LIGHTHOUSE
Kirill Mikhanovsky – GIVE ME LIBERTY
Best International Film
INVISIBLE LIFE, Brazil
LES MISERABLES, France
PARASITE, South Korea
PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE, France
RETABLO, Peru
THE SOUVENIR, United Kingdom
Best Documentary (Award given to the director and producer)
AMERICAN FACTORY
APOLLO 11
FOR SAMA
HONEYLAND
ISLAND OF THE HUNGRY GHOSTS
The John Cassavetes Award is presented to the best feature made for under $500,000 and is given to the writer, director, and producer. 2020 #SpiritAwards Nominees are:
BURNING CANE
COLEWELL
GIVE ME LIBERTY
PREMATURE
WILD NIGHTS WITH EMILY
Best Female Lead
Karen Allen – COLEWELL
Hong Chau – DRIVEWAYS
Elisabeth Moss – HER SMELL
Mary Kay Place – DIANE
Alfre Woodard – CLEMENCY
Renée Zellweger – JUDY
Best Male Lead
Chris Galust – GIVE ME LIBERTY
Kelvin Harrison Jr., – LUCE
Robert Pattinson – THE LIGHTHOUSE
Adam Sandler – UNCUT GEMS
Matthias Schoenaerts – THE MUSTANG
Best First Feature (Award given to the director and producer)
BOOKSMART
THE CLIMB
DIANE
THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO
THE MUSTANG
SEE YOU YESTERDAY
Best Feature [award given to the producer(s)]
A HIDDEN LIFE
CLEMENCY
THE FAREWELL
MARRIAGE STORY
UNCUT GEMS
Best Director
Robert Eggers – THE LIGHTHOUSE
Alma Har’el – HONEY BOY
Julius Onah – LUCE
Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie – UNCUT GEMS
Lorene Scafaria – HUSTLERS
The Robert Altman Award is given to the ensemble cast, director & casting director of one film: MARRIAGE STORY – Noah Baumbach, Douglas Aibel, Francine Maisler, Alan Alda, Laura Dern, Adam Driver, Julie Hagerty, Scarlett Johansson, Ray Liotta, Azhy Robertson, Merritt Wever
The Truer Than Fiction Award, in its 25th year, is for emerging directors of non-fiction features and includes an unrestricted grant. Finalists: Khalik Allah – BLACK MOTHER Davy Rothbart – 17 BLOCKS Nadia Shihab – JADDOLAND Erick Stoll & Chase Whiteside – AMÉRICA
The Producers Award, now in its 23rd year, honors emerging producers who demonstrate creativity, tenacity and vision, despite highly limited resources. The award includes an unrestricted grant. These are the finalists: Mollye Asher Krista Parris Ryan Zacarias
The Someone To Watch Award, in its 26th year, recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision and includes an unrestricted grant. The finalists are: Rashaad Ernesto Green – PREMATURE Ash Mayfair – THE THIRD WIFE Joe Talbot – THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO
The Bonnie Award will recognize a mid-career female director with a $50,000 unrestricted grant. The 2020 Film Independent #SpiritAwards Bonnie Award finalists are: MarielleHeller KellyReichardt LuluWang
The upscale and complacent life of Michael and Karen Carr (Kurt Russell and Madeleine Stowe) is interrupted one night when a burglar breaks into their home via their skylight. The intruder briefly holds a knife to Karen’s throat before taking off. Shaken by the encounter, the Carrs are very happy when a seemingly friendly cop, Officer Pete Davis (Ray Liotta). offers to help them cut through all the red tape and get a security system installed in their house.
At first glance, Pete seems like the perfect cop but actually, he’s a mentally unstable fascist who quickly becomes obsessed with Karen. When Pete offers Michael his nightstick so that Michael can use it on the man who earlier broke into his house, Michael refuses. That’s all that Pete needs to see to decide that Michael’s not a real man and that Karen would be better off with him. Even after Michael orders Pete to stay away from his home, Pete continues to drop by so that he can spy on the couple. When Michael complains, Pete frames him by planting cocaine at his house. When Michael says that he’s innocent, no one believes him. Why would they? Pete’s a decorated cop who is keeping the streets safe. Michael is just a homeowner. While Michael sits in jail, the increasingly violent and unhinged Pete makes plans to make Karen his own.
“Who watches the watchmen?” as the old saying goes. Unlawful Entry is an efficient and no-nonsense thriller that was ahead of its time as far as its portrayal of a policeman abusing his authority is concerned. Jonathan Kaplan was trained in the Roger Corman school of filmmaking so he doesn’t waste any time getting to the story and he even finds a role for Dick Miller. Ray Liotta, fresh off of his performance in Goodfellas, is perfectly cast as the manipulative and misogynistic Pete while Kurt Russell is once again the ideal everyman. Madeleine Stowe, who was one of the best actresses of the 90s, does not get to do much beyond be menaced but she does it well. Whatever happened to Madeleine Stowe? Kurt Russell’s career is still going strong and Ray Liotta still appears regularly in gangster movies and Chantix commercials. Isn’t it about time for a Madeleine Stowe comeback?