Jack and I really liked this bio-pic about John Callahan (1951-2010), an alcoholic quadriplegic cartoonist often published in the New Yorker magazine. Joaquin Phoenix (last blogged for Irrational Man) gives an outstanding (!) performance as Callahan, as does Jonah Hill (most recently in Hail, Caesar!) as his sponsor. Bad hair (Callahan was a redhead and Phoenix's skin tones do not match the ginger tresses) notwithstanding, the two men transform into their characters (photo), especially slimmed-down Hill as the calm, gay Donnie. Among the large cast we also have Jack Black (last blogged for The Polka King) as Callahan's drinking buddy Dexter and Rooney Mara (most recently in A Ghost Story) as Annu, a woman who meets Callahan in the hospital after his accident in 1972.
Robin Williams optioned Callahan's 1990 autobiography of the same name in the late 90s to star in with Gus Van Sant (last blogged for Promised Land) attached as director/writer and "story by" credits for Jack Gibson and William Andrew Eatman (no other credits for the latter two). I'm not sure why that didn't get made before Williams' (1951-2014) death, but Van Sant, Gibson, and Eatman are still credited on this version. The script has plenty of humor mixed in with the pathos, including Callahan's driving his motorized wheelchair so fast we predicted more mayhem than actually happens. Van Sant has a cameo as the Willamette Week Editor.
The title comes from one of Callahan's cartoons, which you can see here. As a loyal New Yorker subscriber for decades, I'm quite familiar with his work. Plenty of his other cartoons are in the movie, some of which are animated. He also wrote a second autobiography, Will the Real John Callahan Please Stand Up?
Composer Danny Elfman's (most recently scored The End of the Tour) original score can be streamed either from this youtube playlist with commercials or, for Amazon Prime members, from this link. The songs are listed here, and Callahan singing his own composition, Texas When You Go, is on all three lists.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences, averaging 75 and 74%, aren't running (sorry!) (I think Callahan would appreciate it) to promote this and, anyway, it's gone from our neck of the woods. We saw it five weeks ago. But I recommend you check it out when it's released streaming and on disc in October 2018.
Thursday, August 30, 2018
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Here's another one Jack and I loved--a story of a man trying to make a living in Oakland--commentary on race, class, and corporate greed mixed with fantasy. There is a big twist just after the middle of the movie which I will not spoil. Fair warning: don't leave your seat.
Lakeith Stanfield (last blogged in Get Out) is terrific as our hero Cassius and Tessa Thompson (most recently in Annihilation) is fierce and radiant as his girlfriend Detroit. Terry Crews (88 episodes of Everybody Hates Chris, five episodes of The Newsroom, 112 episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and a small part in Deadpool 2) is predictably exasperated as Cassius' uncle. Danny Glover (last in Complete Unknown) plays a co-worker, Omari Hardwick (mentioned in Middle of Nowhere) is a mystery man named Mr. ___, and Armie Hammer (most recently in Final Portrait) is the manic boss.
It's no mystery that Cassius gets ahead by using a "white voice" to get ahead in telemarketing. And it's very funny that the filmmakers actually dubbed in David Cross (last in Kill Your Darlings) for Cassius' white voice and Patton Oswalt (after I wrote about him in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, he's done a lot of movies and TV, most of which I haven't seen, but we're big fans and saw his stand-up comedy set, both live and on Netflix) for Mr. ___'s white voice.
Director/writer Boots Riley, frontman of the hip hop band The Coup, put so many details in the script, his first, that it was published in Dave Eggers' magazine McSweeney's in 2014. Then Riley was invited to workshop that script at the Sundance Institute. On a road trip, Jack and I listened to Marc Maron's podcast WTF with Riley as a guest (Riley's hour-long interview begins at 37:00--the Bobcat Goldthwait part that precedes it is good too), which put the movie at the top of our list six weeks ago before a whole lot of summer traveling. Note, the podcast, like the movie, is R rated for language and sexual themes.
The music is exciting, credited to Riley, The Coup, Tune-Yards, and Merrill Garbus (who is a member of Tune-Yards). This spotify playlist is supposed to be the official soundtrack. Every song has lyrics/rap so I have to turn it way down so as not to get distracted while I write. But I remember we both liked it a lot. You may get confused in google searches, because The Coup released a hip hop album called Sorry to Bother You before the movie was made.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics, at 94%, are more in line with us than its audiences, averaging only 63. It's still playing in limited release in these parts and is estimated to come out streaming and on disc in October 2018. We recommend it highly.
Lakeith Stanfield (last blogged in Get Out) is terrific as our hero Cassius and Tessa Thompson (most recently in Annihilation) is fierce and radiant as his girlfriend Detroit. Terry Crews (88 episodes of Everybody Hates Chris, five episodes of The Newsroom, 112 episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and a small part in Deadpool 2) is predictably exasperated as Cassius' uncle. Danny Glover (last in Complete Unknown) plays a co-worker, Omari Hardwick (mentioned in Middle of Nowhere) is a mystery man named Mr. ___, and Armie Hammer (most recently in Final Portrait) is the manic boss.
It's no mystery that Cassius gets ahead by using a "white voice" to get ahead in telemarketing. And it's very funny that the filmmakers actually dubbed in David Cross (last in Kill Your Darlings) for Cassius' white voice and Patton Oswalt (after I wrote about him in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, he's done a lot of movies and TV, most of which I haven't seen, but we're big fans and saw his stand-up comedy set, both live and on Netflix) for Mr. ___'s white voice.
Director/writer Boots Riley, frontman of the hip hop band The Coup, put so many details in the script, his first, that it was published in Dave Eggers' magazine McSweeney's in 2014. Then Riley was invited to workshop that script at the Sundance Institute. On a road trip, Jack and I listened to Marc Maron's podcast WTF with Riley as a guest (Riley's hour-long interview begins at 37:00--the Bobcat Goldthwait part that precedes it is good too), which put the movie at the top of our list six weeks ago before a whole lot of summer traveling. Note, the podcast, like the movie, is R rated for language and sexual themes.
The music is exciting, credited to Riley, The Coup, Tune-Yards, and Merrill Garbus (who is a member of Tune-Yards). This spotify playlist is supposed to be the official soundtrack. Every song has lyrics/rap so I have to turn it way down so as not to get distracted while I write. But I remember we both liked it a lot. You may get confused in google searches, because The Coup released a hip hop album called Sorry to Bother You before the movie was made.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics, at 94%, are more in line with us than its audiences, averaging only 63. It's still playing in limited release in these parts and is estimated to come out streaming and on disc in October 2018. We recommend it highly.
BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Deb and I really liked this powerful story about Colorado Springs' first black policeman infiltrating the KKK in the 1970s. It's terrific, funny, and moving, based on the memoir by Ron Stallworth.
John David Washington (son of Denzel, he was in Malcolm X (1992), which came out when he was eight, and 37 episodes of Ballers, which I haven't seen) is very good as Stallworth, as is Adam Driver (before I mentioned him in The Meyerowitz Stories, I wrote about him in Logan Lucky) as Stallworth's colleague Flip Zimmerman. The lovely Laura Harrier (Peter Parker's crush in Spider-Man: Homecoming, though I neglected to say so) is appropriately intense as head of the Black Student Union and Stallworth's love interest Patrice. Topher Grace (profiled in Truth) is quite convincing as KKK leader David Duke, and Paul Walter Hauser adds comic relief to the hatred, as he added it to the stupidity in I, Tonya.
Director/co-writer Spike Lee (last blogged for Chi-Raq) co-writes with his Chi-Raq collaborator Kevin Willmott as well as Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz, both making their feature debuts.
The overt racism of many of the characters was hard to watch for this liberal white person, but it's nothing new for Lee, whose movie Bamboozled (2000) was about someone who thought a blackface minstrel TV show would be a disaster, but, like Springtime for Hitler in The Producers, was a hit.
Sorry to Bother You director/writer Boots Riley has taken exception to the artistic license of the BlacKkKlansman filmmakers, which is detailed in a very long, spoiler-filled Slate article (don't read it before watching the movie unless you've read the book). Neither Deb nor I knew exactly when the movie was supposed to take place. Apparently Stallworth's work was in 1979 but the movie is set in 1972. The huge afro hairdos are outstanding, as is a long dance number to Too Late to Turn Back Now by Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose.
Speaking of music, you can stream Terence Blanchard's (most recently in these pages for Black or White and Chi-Raq--he's a frequent composer for Lee) original score from this link on spotify and many of the songs from this page.
95% of Rotten Tomatoes' critics aren't wrong, nor are 80% of its audiences. I was so excited to see this when we got back home that I didn't wait for Jack and watched it Sunday when he was busy. He'll catch up.
John David Washington (son of Denzel, he was in Malcolm X (1992), which came out when he was eight, and 37 episodes of Ballers, which I haven't seen) is very good as Stallworth, as is Adam Driver (before I mentioned him in The Meyerowitz Stories, I wrote about him in Logan Lucky) as Stallworth's colleague Flip Zimmerman. The lovely Laura Harrier (Peter Parker's crush in Spider-Man: Homecoming, though I neglected to say so) is appropriately intense as head of the Black Student Union and Stallworth's love interest Patrice. Topher Grace (profiled in Truth) is quite convincing as KKK leader David Duke, and Paul Walter Hauser adds comic relief to the hatred, as he added it to the stupidity in I, Tonya.
Director/co-writer Spike Lee (last blogged for Chi-Raq) co-writes with his Chi-Raq collaborator Kevin Willmott as well as Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz, both making their feature debuts.
The overt racism of many of the characters was hard to watch for this liberal white person, but it's nothing new for Lee, whose movie Bamboozled (2000) was about someone who thought a blackface minstrel TV show would be a disaster, but, like Springtime for Hitler in The Producers, was a hit.
Speaking of music, you can stream Terence Blanchard's (most recently in these pages for Black or White and Chi-Raq--he's a frequent composer for Lee) original score from this link on spotify and many of the songs from this page.
95% of Rotten Tomatoes' critics aren't wrong, nor are 80% of its audiences. I was so excited to see this when we got back home that I didn't wait for Jack and watched it Sunday when he was busy. He'll catch up.
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