The Films of 2020: Olympic Dreams (dir by Jeremy Teicher)

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Filmed on location at the 2018 Winter Games, Olympic Dreams tells the story of two lost souls.

Penelope (Alexi Pappas) is a skier who competes early and doesn’t win a medal. Ignored by the media and unsure of how to talk to her fellow athletes (or, for that matter, anyone else that she meets), Penelope is left with little else to do but explore Pyeongchang and have an existential crisis about what the future means. She’s 22, which is an age when many amateur athletes are retiring and transitioning into the next stage of their life. Of course, it would be a lot easier to do that if Penelope was leaving South Korea with a gold medal in her luggage.

Ezra (Nick Kroll) is a dentist who is volunteering at the Olympics. He’s 37 and is having as much of an existential crisis as Penelope. If Penelope’s problem is that she often struggles to talk to other people, Ezra’s problem is that he talks too much. He’s constantly talking but, in the end, he’s just as socially awkward as Penelope.

Eventually, Ezra and Penelope meet and they explore South Korea and they discuss the big issues of life and it looks like they might even be falling in love. Along the way, both Ezra and Penelope also meet and talk to a lot of real-life Olympians, all of whom play themselves.

I have to admit that, at first, I found Olympic Dreams to be a bit off-putting. I was kind of dreading having to watch yet another socially awkward love story and Ezra seemed like such a whiny character that I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend any amount of time dealing with him and his issues. The film had an improvised feel, which was a bit of a mixed blessing. Some people in the film were better at improvising than others. Nick Kroll, for instance, has been performing for a while and obviously knows how to think on his feet. Alexi Pappas was also a surprisingly adroit performer. However, many of the real-life Olympians that they interacted with had this sort of deer-in-the-headlights look about them that made it obvious why they became athletes as opposed to actors.

That said, Olympic Dreams did eventually win me over. Once Ezra stopped complaining all the time and Penelope started to get a little bit more assertive, it became easier to sympathize with the characters and to hope that they managed to find some sort of meaning in their lives. The 2nd half of the film, in which both Ezra and Penelope realized that they were going to have to go back to the “normal” world in just a few more days, was really nicely done and the film’s final shot was far more effective than I was expecting it to be.

Whether intentional or not, Olympic Dreams has a lot in common with Lost In Translation. In fact, I’d argue that it has a bit too much in common with Lost In Translation. Olympic Dreams sometimes seems to be struggling to escape from that earlier film’s shadow. That said, Olympic Dreams is uneven but ultimately effective. And, if nothing else, it’s full of behind-the-scenes footage of the 2018 Winter Games so fans of the Olympics should enjoy it.

The Films of 2020: Mighty Oak (dir by Sean McNamara)

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Mighty Oak tells the story of Army of Love.

Back in the day, Army of Love was an up-and-coming band in Los Angeles. They were led by charismatic frontman Vaughn Jackson (played by Bob Dylan’s incredibly handsome grandson, Levi Dylan) and managed by Vaughn’s overprotective sister, Gina (Jannel Parrish). Unfortunately, one night. they were driving home from a gig when a drunk driver collided with their van. Vaughn was thrown through the windshield and killed. Army of Love went into permanent hiatus.

However, ten years later, Army of Love is back! Gina is once again managing and they’ve got a new lead singer. His name is Oak Scroggins (Tommy Ragen) and he’s ten years old! But he plays guitar and sings like he’s at least in his early 20s! At first, some members of the band are skeptical but everyone is won over once Oak starts to perform. Gina is especially impressed, to the extent that she becomes convinced that Oak is literally Vaughn’s reincarnation.

Of course, Oak’s life isn’t perfect. Despite his talent (or perhaps because of it), he’s a bit of an outcast at school. His father’s dead and his mother is the type of drug addict who misses her son’s musical debut because she’s too busy getting arrested on the California-Mexico border. His grandparents are back in Minnesota and they seem like they mean well but his grandfather has a habit of shouting stuff like, “Kids should be seen not heard!,” so who knows? Can Gina and the band provide Oak with the family that he needs and will Gina ever discover whether or not Oak is actually her dead brother? Watch the film to find out.

This is kind of a weird movie. Sean McNamara previously directed Soul Surfer, which was such a sincere and unapologetically emotional film that it was pretty much impossible not to love it. Mighty Oak is also extremely sincere and unapologetic but it’s also such a mishmash of different elements and contradictory tones that it’s hard to really know what to make of it. It starts out as a drama and then it becomes a bit of a broad comedy and then it goes back to being a tear jerker and, in the end, it seems to be trying too hard to convince you that reincarnation is a logical solution as opposed to just being wishful thinking. Even if you can buy into the idea that Vaughn was reincarnated as Oak, you also have to be willing to believe that the members of defunct hard rock band wouldn’t have any issue with reforming so that they could back up a ten year old.

That said, it’s difficult to really dislike a film like Mighty Oak. Yes, the plot is a mess and the tone is totally inconsistent and I don’t know much about reincarnation but I’m sure there’s more to the belief than what is presented in this film. But, as I said at the start of this review, the film’s heart appears to be in the right place and everyone involved seems to mean well and there is something to be said for that. It helps that Tommy Ragen is a real-life musical prodigy and that he actually can play the guitar just as well in real life as he does in the film. If nothing else, this elevates the film in a way that casting a typical child actor would not. It’s a silly movie but you can’t deny that Tommy Ragen is a talented kid.

The Films of 2020: Possessor (dir by Brandon Cronenberg)

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough) is a professional assassin.

That really shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. For whatever reason, films about assassins have become very popular over the past few years and those assassins are often women. However, what sets Tasya apart from other assassins is the technique that she uses. Under the direction of Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Tasya can possess someone else’s body. While controlling that other person’s body, Tasya commits her murders and then commits suicide. The host dies while Tasya’s mind returns to her original body. The media then reports that the murder was some sort of random incident and, with the killer dead by their own hand, their true motives will probably never be known. It’s an outlandish premise and yet, it’s one that feels oddly plausible. Most mass shootings and random acts of violence remain a mystery precisely because their perpetrators often take their own lives. Three years after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, we still don’t know why Stephen Paddock opened fire on a music festival in Las Vegas. We’ve become conditioned, I think, to accept that these things just happen.

Wisely, Possessor doesn’t go into too much details about just how exactly Tasya possesses other people. We see that it involves a lot of odd technology and we also discover that Tasya struggles to return to her “normal” self after her mind returns to her body. That’s really all we need to see. Too many films make the mistake of trying to explain all of the little details, as if the audience is going to be concerned as to whether or not a film about possession is 100% plausible. The director of Possessor, Brandon Cronenberg, understands that all he really has to do is make it look convincing. He doesn’t have to explain it and, indeed, there’s much that Cronenberg doesn’t explain.

Tasya’s latest assignment takes her into the body of Colin Tate (Christopher Abbott), who is engaged to marry the daughter of arrogant businessman named John Parse (Sean Bean). Colin and Tasya find themselves fighting for control of Colin’s body. Even while Tasya is setting up the circumstances that will lead to Colin killing both his girlfriend and her father, Colin is resisting and struggling to take control. It all leads to some disturbingly surreal imagery, as well as some shockingly gory violence. There’s a lot of blood in Possessor. Both figuratively and literally, Possessor is a film that’s obsessed with what lies under the skin. Throughout the film, bodies and minds are ripped open and what we discover inside of them is frequently grotesque.

Possessor is a film that raises a lot of questions and which often refuses to provide easy answers. Does Girder sincerely care about Tasya or is she just manipulating her emotions to get the result that she desires? Who exactly does Girder work for? Does Tasya truly want to get back together with her estranged husband, Michael (Rossif Sutherland)? Is Michael as clueless as he seems or does he secretly understand that Tasya is lying whenever she says that she has to go away on business? Possessor is not always an easy film to follow but Cronenberg’s visuals are so strong and the performances are so wonderfully off-center that it remains enthralling regardless of whether or not it always makes it sense. By the time one person is wearing someone else’s face as a mask, it’s pretty much impossible to look away.

With its emphasis on body horror and loss of identity (as well as its chilly Canadian setting), Possessor has a lot in common with the early work of David Croneberg. That’s perhaps not surprising, considering that Possessor was directed by David’s son, Brandon Cronenberg. Unfortunately, Possessor doesn’t really have the same dry sense of humor that distinguished David Cronenberg’s best films. (David Cronenberg was, in his way, as much of a satirist as a horror director and Possessor doesn’t quite have the same subversive charge as something like Rabid or Shivers.) That said, Possessor is still a fascinating and enthralling film, one that will stick with you long after it ends.

The Films of 2020: Ava (dir by Tate Taylor)

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ava tells story of Ava Faulkner (Jessica Chastain), who has a troubled past, a turbulent present, and an uncertain future.

As we learn via a series of still frames during the film’s opening credits, Ava was the valedictorian of her high school class but her bright future was derailed by her own alcoholism. She killed two of her friends while driving drunk and, presumably to avoid prison, she instead went into the army. In the army, she was noted for being an efficient killer while, at the same time, being a bit unstable. She has issues with authority. Well, don’t we all? When she got out of the army, she was recruited by Duke (John Malkovich), who taught her how to be an international assassin!

Unfortunately, since Ava screwed up her last mission and has gotten into the habit of talking to her targets before she kills them, Simon (Colin Farrell) wants her dead. Simon also used to be a student of Duke’s but now he is Duke’s boss or something. It’s all a bit vague and, to be honest, I found myself spending way too much time trying to figure out the corporate structure of whatever group it was that everyone was supposedly working for. Apparently, Duke works for Simon but Simon still has to get Duke’s permission before trying to kill Ava or, failing that, try to kill Duke so that Duke won’t complain about it. Duke spends a lot of time fishing and Simon spends a lot of time with his adorable family. I liked Simon’s house.

Anyway, Ava has returned to Boston, where she’s trying to reconnect with her family. It turns out that teenage Ava discovered that her father was cheating on her mom and that’s what set Ava on her downward spiral. Mom (Geena Davis) is now a hypercritical semi-recluse. Meanwhile, Ava’s sister, Judy (Jess Wexler), is a singer in a band and she’s engaged to Michael (Common, who, for some reason, keeps getting cast in all of these extremely wimpy roles), who just happens to be Ava’s ex-boyfriend. And Michael is a gambling addict who owes a ton of money to Toni (Joan Chen). It’s hinted that Toni and Ava also have a past but then again, everyone in the film has a past with Ava. It’s get a little bit difficult to keep track of it all.

Ava gets off to a bad start by making us sit through one of Ava’s jobs. She kills an accountant but first she asks him a lot questions about why anyone would want him dead because apparently, she’s an ethical assassin. The scene goes on forever and it features Jessica Chastain trying to speak with an Arkansas accent. Things picked up a bit during the opening credits, which was largely made up of still frames from Ava’s past. However, once the credits ended and the film’s actual story got started, things quickly went back downhill.

The main problem with Ava is one of sensibility. Both Jessica Chastain and director Tate Taylor have totally the wrong sensibility for a film like this. Ava is essentially a work of pulp fiction but Chastain takes herself far too seriously to actually bring a sense of fun to the title role. Meanwhile, Tate Taylor directs as if he’s never had a single subversive thought in his life. (In Taylor’s defense, he was a last minute replacement for the film’s original director, Matthew Newton.) Ava is a film that cries out for a star like Gina Carano and a director like John Stockwell, people who have no hesitation about totally digging in and embracing the silliness of it all. Instead, we get Chastain and Taylor trying to give us a semi-realistic look at a woman battling her addictions and trying make peace with her past. Malkovich, Farrell, and Chen all seem to get the fact that Ava should be a fun B-movie, unfortunately, Taylor and Chastain apparently didn’t get the memo. (Of course, Chastain produced the film so maybe it was her co-stars who didn’t get the memo. Who knows?)

Ava commits the sin of taking itself too seriously. Check out John Stockwell’s In The Blood or Phillip Noyce’s Salt instead.

Guilty Pleasure No. 50: Maid in Manhattan (dir by Wayne Wang)

Posted on December 24, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Whenever I see that the 2002 film, Maid in Manhattan, is going to be playing on HBO or Cinemax, I always think to myself, “I can’t understand why everyone hates on this film. I mean, it’s not that bad. It may be predictable and silly but it’s kind of sweet and Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey have a tame but sexy chemistry.”

Of course, then I watch the film and I discover that Maid in Manhattan is not the film where Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey fall in love. That’s The Wedding Planner. Instead, Maid in Manhattan is the one where Jennifer Lopez is a maid who works in a big fancy hotel and who is a single mother to a precocious child who is obsessed with Richard Nixon. Maid in Manhattan is also the one where Jennifer Lopez falls in love with Ralph Fiennes. Fiennes plays a candidate for the U.S. Senate. Everyone is worried that he’ll never make it to Washington if people discover that his girlfriend is a maid. I think his bigger problem is that he’s a Republican running for the U.S. Senate in New York. (At least, I assume he’s a Republican because — as we learn from his conversations with Lopez’s son — he certainly seems to know a lot about and be rather sympathetic to Richard Nixon.)

I still like Maid in Manhattan, though perhaps not as sincerely as I like The Wedding Planner. Some of that is because Maid in Manhattan takes place during the Christmas season and I love a good wintry romance. Some of it is because this is probably the only mainstream film to feature people discussing the good points of Richard Nixon. There’s the fact that Jennifer Lopez is always perfectly cast as someone determined to make something out of her life, regardless of whether or not the world supports her or not. She’s always had the ability to make steely ambition sympathetic and that’s a good ability to have when you’re playing a maid who is determined to get promoted into management.

Finally, there’s the odd romantic pairing of Ralph Fiennes and Jennifer Lopez. It’s one of those things that shouldn’t work and yet, strangely, it does. Fiennes always brings a certain off-center, neurotic energy to his performances, which not only explains why he’s played so many villains but also why it’s strange to see him starring in a romantic comedy. And yet, that odd energy is exactly what Maid in Manhattan needs. It keeps the viewer on their toes and it makes the surprising discovery that Fiennes and Lopez have romantic chemistry all the more rewarding.

Don’t get me wrong, of course. This is a deeply silly movie and there’s a lot of less than sparkling dialogue and the plot falls apart if you even start to think about it. The entire story revolves around mistaken identity, with Fiennes not realizing that Jennifer Lopez is a maid and …. well, it’s all a bit unnecessarily complicated. The film also takes Fiennes’s political aspirations a bit too seriously. It’s not quite as bad the whole thing with Matt Damon running for the Senate in The Adjustment Bureau (“Due to his charming concession speech, he will someday be elected President,” — whatever, Beto) but it gets close.

But, still — I love romance and I love New York and the pairing of Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes in Maid in Manhattan is just too strange (and oddly effective) for me to resist.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Get Ready For Christmas With Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny!

Posted on December 24, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Patrick tried to warn me.

When I told him that I was planning on watching 1972 film, Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny, he warned me that it would totally change the way that I viewed Christmas and probably not for the better. But, you know me. When I get an idea in my head, I simply have to do it.

Despite all the warnings, I watched Santa and the Ice Creamy Bunny. I made Jeff and my friends Johnny and Jim watch it with me. Leonard nearly joined us but he was smart enough to think twice. Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny was like nothing that any of us had ever seen before. We all just kind of watched it like, “What the Hell is happening?!”

The plot — well, who knows? Apparently, Santa is stuck in Florida and he calls a bunch of kids to come help him out. It turns out that the kids are pretty stupid so not only do they fail to rescue Santa but Santa also has to tell them a story to keep their spirits up. The version that we watched featured the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Apparently, there’s another version that features Thumbelina. Regardless, Santa was probably doing some pretty serious drugs when he came up with the story.

Eventually, a human-bunny hybrid shows up and helps Santa transport back to North Pole. Christmas is saved!

Interestingly enough, it’s never really explained how Santa came to be stuck in Florida in the first place. Santa gives off a definite beach bum vibe and …. well, there’s a part of me that kind of doubts whether or not Santa was actually Santa Claus at all! For all we know, he could just be some jerk with a sleigh and red suit. That said, the Ice Cream Bunny was definitely for real.

As Patrick already pointed out in his review of the film, Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny is not a particularly good film but I do feel like it’s one that everyone should watch at least one. It’s just so weird. Plus, if you watch the version with Jack and the Beanstalk, you will totally get the giant’s theme song stuck in your head.

So, with all that in mind, please enjoy Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny!

Music Video of the Day: Run Rudolph Run by Chuck Berry (2020, dir by ????)

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This song was actually recorded in 1958 and Chuck Berry died in 2017 so this video is a little bit late on both accounts but no matter! Even in cartoon form, Chuck Berry looks like a god of rock and Santa might want to redesign his own sleigh and turn it into a convertible. Seriously, a flying convertible is always going to be impressive.

It’s a good song and a cute video. Watch it because it’s Christmas.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: High and Dry, covered by Rosie Carney (2020, dir by Rosie Carney)

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This, of course, is a cover of Radiohead’s High and Dry. I like the song, I like the cover, and I especially like the atmospheric video.

Enjoy!

Holiday Film Review: A Very British Christmas (dir by Steven Nesbit)

Posted on December 11, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2019’s A Very British Christmas tells the story of Jessica (Rachel Shenton), a world-famous singer who misses her flight to Vienna and somehow ends up stuck in a small country village in England. Now, to be honest, I’m not really sure how Jessica missed her flight or why she ended up in that village. I probably missed some important dialogue in the beginning to explain the problem with the flight and arriving in the village had something to do with getting too relaxed on a train. But, to be honest, in the grand scheme of the film’s overall story, it really doesn’t matter why she’s in the village or why she missed her plane.

Instead, what’s important is that it’s nearly Christmas and Jessica needs a place to stay. Fortunately, the local B&B is owned by a handsome widower named Andrew (Mark Killeen). Andrew lives with his adorable daughter and his caring mother. He’s not only a perfect host but he’s also an aspiring artist and he’s also the one man in the village who can hopefully convince the rest of the landowners not to sell out to a mining company….

Does all this sound familiar? This may be a very British Christmas but it’s also a very Hallmark-y Christmas, even though this is not technically a Hallmark film. That said, it has everything that you would typically expect from a Hallmark Christmas film. Rachel and Andrew fall in love. They do Christmas stuff. They tour the countryside. Rachel has to decide whether to stay in the village or to leave so that she can continue with her career. You already know what’s going to happen.

I have to admit that I do wish that the film had been a bit more British. Nowadays, when I hear the term “Very British,” I assume that means that there will at least be a fierce debate over Brexit, a good deal of casual profanity, and a lot of football talk. Instead, this movie takes place in the type of British village that we Americans like to fantasize about, the place where all of the streets are cobblestone, all the citizens are friendly and earnest and everyone has mince pies for breakfast.

That said, it’s a sweet movie and, if you like this sort of thing, you should enjoy A Very British Christmas. The scenery is nice, the actors are all likable, and the Christmas cheer cannot be denied. One thing that I particularly appreciated about this film is that Rachel wasn’t presented as being someone who hated Christmas or who needed a man to show her how to embrace the holiday spirit. Instead, Rachel pretty much falls in love with both the village and the B&B as soon as she sees it. She’s not a snob or a cynic who needs be taught the importance of family and love. Instead, she’s a nice person who meets a bunch of other nice people in a nice village and they all have a nice holiday. You may have noticed that the key word here is “nice.” There’s no darkness to be found in A Very British Christmas. Andrew is a surprisingly cheerful widower and everything pretty much works out wonderfully for everyone. Yay!

Music Video of the Day: Let It Snow, performed by Goo Goo Dolls (2020, dir by Raul Gonzo)

Posted on December 11, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Seriously, I hope we get some snow down here in Texas this year. I can’t remember the last time it actually snowed here by I know that it’s been at least a year. I don’t think we’ve had any serious snow since 2016 and that’s really not fair. For me, there’s nothing frightful about snow. Instead, it’s something that I see so rarely that I can’t help but think of it as being a reward. I want a nice, cold Christmas and I want a sudden snow storm and I want to look outside and see a bunch of people building snowmen out in their front yards.

It won’t happen by a girl can dream.

And we can also listen to yet another cover of Let It Snow, this one by Goo Goo Dolls.

Enjoy!