More on To Save and Project 2025

Posted on January 27, 2025 by admin

MoMA’s annual To Save and Project not only screens significant film preservation titles, it also showcases the museums, archives, and organizations that select what titles will be restored. Prominent among these are MoMA itself, the Library of Congress, EYE Filmmuseum, the BFI, Cinémathèque Française, and the Film Preservation Society.

Recent years have seen a shift from institutions to individuals as financing has become more difficult. One of the pioneers in individual efforts is Milestone, a company run by Dennis Doros and Amy Heller. Their most recent project, The Annihilation of Fish, brings to the public a key work by filmmaker Charles Burnett.

Ben Model is a familiar figure to MoMA audiences as a piano accompanist for silent films and for his research with Steve Massa in silent film comedy. Through his Undercrank Productions, Model has also released over two dozen titles to home and theatrical markets. Many have been crowdsourced through Kickstarter. Both The Craving and The Post Telegrapher in this year’s TSAP were Undercrank releases.

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival helps finance outside restoration efforts in addition to preserving titles through its offshoot, the San Francisco Film Preserve, currently restoring Victor Fleming’s Hula, among other works. Among their previous releases: the railroading adventure The Signal Tower; the starkly adult Behind the Door; and the “Baby Peggy” short Peg o’ the Mounted, screened at TSAP on January 24.

The festival also featured one of their major projects, The White Heather, restored in conjunction with Eye Filmmuseum. This 1919 feature was directed by Maurice Tourneur under his own production company. Born in France, Tourneur was an actor before finding work as a film director. He moved to New York to work for Éclair. Titles like The Wishing Ring and The Blue Bird were both commercial and artistic successes.

The White Heather was based on an 1897 play about wealthy cads and exploited women. Angus Cameron (Holmes Herbert) fathers a child with housekeeper Marion Hume (Mabel Ballin) while pursuing marriage with a wealthy aristocrat to hide how he has defrauded investors.

Marion’s father James Hume (the sepulchral Spottiswoode Aitken) brings Cameron the court, but the judge rules against him because Marion can’t produce a marriage certificate, lost when her honeymoon yacht sank.

Cameron destroys James Hume financially, leading to his death. Marion and her son are left penniless. It’s up to Cameron groundskeeper Dick Beach (future star John Gilbert) and rich hanger-on Alec (leading man Ralph Graves) to rescue Marion.

Tourneur’s fluid visual style carefully carries viewers through shifting perspectives, each edit swiftly advancing the narrative. He is adept at switching locations, introducing flashbacks, finding intimate gestures within large-scale scenes, and using expressive lighting for psychological insights.

No one could make sense out of a storyline that includes shepherds, brothels, stock markets, brigands, underwater salvage, courtrooms, fox hunts, banquets, sleazy lawyers, and a sort of speakeasy prison with trap doors. Tourneur gives it a go, presenting each far-fetched coincidence and improbable plot twist with gravitas. The result is an entertaining piece of escapist pulp.

This year’s TSAP included features by two of the more important directors from Mexico’s golden age of film: Emilio Fernández (María Candelaria) and Roberto Gavaldón (Adventures of Casanova). The juxtaposition between the two directors—Fernández looking to a glorious pre-colonial past of indigenous supremacy, Gavaldón trying to negotiate with Hollywood’s increasing cultural dominance—captures the struggle to maintain personal vision in an impersonal industry.

Fernández’s life is often described as “colorful.” A political exile, he moved to California, where assorted odd jobs led him to extra and stunt work in Hollywood. Returning to Mexico during an amnesty, he became an actor, screenwriter, and then director. Strongly influenced by Eisenstein and Murnau, he built a repertory company that included actor Pedro Armendáriz, cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, and writer Mauricio Magdaleno.

Dolores del Rio, a star in Hollywood, returned to her native Mexico to play María Candelaria. She’s joined by Armendáriz as Lorenzo, a noble peasant farmer, and Miguel Inclan (another Fernández favorite) as the evil Don Damian. His inability to bed Candelaria leads to increasingly grotesque melodramatic twists. He holds back malaria from the couple, leading to Candelaria’s serious illness and to Lorenzo’s imprisonment for ten years for stealing a bottle of quinine.

Despite the efforts of a tolerant priest and a progressive doctor, Candelaria is stoned to death by backward villagers because she posed for a nude portrait. It doesn’t matter that the artist used a body double: the beauty and nobility of the indigenous can only be met with hostility in the modern world.

Fernández, Armendáriz, and Figueroa would go on to work on The Pearl and John Ford’s The Fugitive, works of dour beauty and heavy-handed determinism.

Gavaldón was more commercially successful than Fernández and even their contemporary Luis Buñuel. His dark, cynical vision may have been more in tune with audiences than the insistent machismo and nationalism of Fernández, or the casual cruelty of Buñuel.

Gavaldón had a long relationship with Arturo de Córdova, the star of Adventures of Casanova. It’s one of two features Gavaldón made with American financing, this one through Eagle-Lion Films. Also starring Lucille Bremer and B-movie stalwart Turhan Bey, the movie is a delirious fabrication of the famous lover’s life as he sets out to free Sicily from Spanish rule.

Gavaldón would direct some of the strongest features from Mexico’s golden age, La otra and Macario among them. Adventures of Casanova is more of a lark, although everyone seems to be straining to have a good time. Most impressive today in the UCLA Film & Television Archive restoration are the film’s large-scale scenes teeming with extras.

TSAP ends on January 30 with the world premiere of a digital restoration of Charlie Chaplin’s fundraising short The Bond, along with a reconstructed version of his Shoulder Arms.

Photo credits: María Candelaria. 1943. Mexico. Directed by Emilio Fernández. Courtesy Fimoteca UNAM. Adventures of Casanova. 1948. Directed by Roberto Gavaldón. Courtesy UCLA Film & Television Archive.

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Flight Risk review: Demon pilot vs. Deputy Marshall

Posted on January 23, 2025 by admin

With a January release date and a cancelled director, Flight Risk is an easy target for critics. I don’t know why Lionsgate decided to open it during the Bermuda Triangle of theatergoing. And it’s hard to defend Mel Gibson’s off-screen behavior. But as a B-movie, Flight Risk is better than it has to be. Smart, funny at times, and twisty enough, it will entertain you if you let it.

A prologue finds former mob accountant Winston (Topher Grace) hiding out in a remote Alaskan hotel. He’s arrested by U.S. Deputy Marshall Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery), who’s tasked with returning him to Anchorage, where he will be transported to New York to be a key witness in a mobster’s trial.

Madolyn charters a private plane (according to the press notes, a Cessna Grand Caravan) for the two-hour flight to Anchorage. Daryl Booth (Mark Wahlberg), a friendly, folksy pilot, assures them that the trip is an easy one, despite the turbulence and the occasional bird strike.

Troubling inconsistencies pop up. Daryl claims the GPS navigation system is inoperative, and says that the mountains are cutting off radio communication. Handcuffed and manacled in the back seat, Winston notices that the official pilot ID shows a different person.

Blood on Daryl’s sleeve raises Madolyn’s suspicions as well, but before she can do anything Daryl attacks. Madolyn manages to subdue Daryl and handcuff him to the fuselage, but now she has to figure out a way to complete the flight to Anchorage.

Her satellite phone connects Madolyn to a superior, who adds on Hassan, a pilot who will talk her through the rest of the trip. Complications continue: a near brush with a mountaintop, escapes and recaptures, escalating violence, and the possibility that Madolyn is being played by her office.

Taking place mostly within the plane’s cramped interior, Flight Risk is an exercise in shot-listing. How to vary closeups, two-shots, and three-shots in one location brings into play tension, pacing, editing, point-of-view, and other filmmaking concepts that are handled well for the most part.

As a director, Gibson is more than competent, if a little aggressive, with visuals. Shooting in an LED volume, he and his team carefully set out the plane’s geography, pointing out elements that will later come into play, using tight shots to show how little room there is for the characters to operate in, and adding some well-chosen effects exteriors.

Acting is another matter. Topher Grace is a veteran of snarky retorts and comic cowardice, and handles his role with aplomb. Dockery looks game but a little unsure of her action chops.

Wahlberg basically does Mel Gibson in his performance, a choice that negates a lot of the film’s suspense. Sporting a bald wig and spitting out his lines with a fake redneck accent, he’s the weak link in a film that can’t afford any.

Your attitude towards Gibson, and to a lesser extent, Wahlberg, will determine how much you like or hate Flight Risk. Viewed as objectively as possible, it’s an okay escapist thriller with an outstanding action scene at its climax.

Credits: Directed by Mel Gibson. Written by Jared Rosenberg. Produced by John Davis, John Fox, Bruce Davey, Mel Gibson. Director of photography: Johnny Derango. Production designer: David Meyer. Edited by Steven Rosenblum, ACE. Costume designer: Kristen Kopp. Music by Antonio Pinto. Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace.

In theaters 24 January. Photos courtesy of Lionsgate.

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Preserving our film heritage: MoMA’s To Save and Project

Posted on January 20, 2025 by admin

An indispensable part of the film year, MoMA’s To Save and Project showcases significant recent efforts to preserve important works of cinema. Now in its twenty-first year, TSAP offers intriguing glimpses into world cinema as well as the opportunity to reappraise Hollywood’s past.

This year’s edition opened with 7th Heaven, Frank Borzage’s 1927 romance. The premiere of a “new, upgraded digital restoration featuring improved image quality, stabilized intertitles, and the original color tints,” the film was shown with both live accompaniment and Fox Studio’s original Movietone score. Having seen previous restorations, I am surprised at what improvements are still possible without losing the movie’s essential film qualities.

TSAP continues to focus on the work of underappreciated directors like Hungarian-born Paul Fejos, represented here by Broadway (1929), a maudlin backstage melodrama enlivened by daring camerawork. Like his Lonesome, Broadway reveals Fejos as a director with vivid ideas but an unsure grasp of how to realize them.

Also returning to MoMA’s screens is the actor and director Lowell Sherman, whose The Greeks Had a Word for Them (1932) is one of the more delightful rediscoveries of the pre-Code era. Sherman, who appears as a womanizing pianist seduced against his will by a wily former showgirl (Broadway legend Ina Claire), directs with a focus and understanding of film language far beyond most of his studio contemporaries. Joining Claire as former chorines on the prowl for wealthy mates are Madge Evans and Joan Blondell. Remarkably mature in its depiction of beddings and betrayals, Greeks is also notable for its determinedly brassiere-free wardrobe.

Anthony Mann’s reputation has undergone a resurgence over the past few decades for his taut film noirs and his series of Westerns with James Stewart. A 4K digital restoration of Bend of the River (1952) makes apparent once again cinematographer Irving Glassberg’s spectacular Technicolor location footage of Oregon’s Mount Hood region.

I knew director Phil Karlson from superb thrillers like Kansas City Confidential and The Phenix City Story. I wasn’t prepared for Gunman’s Walk (1958), a brooding psychological Western about a domineering father (Van Heflin) and his two sons: withdrawn introvert Davy (James Darren) and budding psychopath Ed (Tab Hunter). In contrast to Anthony Mann, who surrounded Stewart with veteran supporting actors, Karlson wasn’t afraid to frontload his Western with teen heartthrobs.

Working from a script by Frank S. Nugent, Karlson uses deliberate pacing that takes the time to celebrate the West. Gunman’s Walk has expansive landscapes, thrilling sequences chasing horses on the range, and realistic accounts stockyards and Indian agencies.

Karlson also addresses just about all the complaints younger viewers make about classic Westerns. Especially for its era, the film is forward thinking about anti-Indian bigotry, age-appropriate romances, glorifying gunplay, and the corrosive effects of wealth. Its clear-eyed but cynical portrayal of a cold-blooded killer presages the work of directors like Ismael Rodríguez (Los hermanos del Hierro / My Son the Hero, 1961) and Sergio Leone.

Another Western in the series was The Post Telegrapher (1912), directed by and starring Francis Ford. Looking like a sullen Edgar Allan Poe, Ford plays the title role in a sort of daze. His costar Ann[a] Little has a refreshingly modern look and style, especially when she dons men’s clothes to impersonate a soldier. In a striking shot, she uses her hat to urge on her horse, her hair flying freely behind her. The film’s sweeping landscapes with their high horizons would become a signature of producer Thomas Ince’s Westerns. The George Lucas to D.W. Griffith’s Francis Ford Coppola, Ince had unerring commercial instincts and an unwillingness to risk his own money on projects.

The Post Telegrapher was shown with a recent discovery, The Craving (1918), restored by the Eye Filmmuseum from the only known surviving print. A cautionary tale about demon alcohol, The Craving was pushed on social media as a “John Ford” film. Younger brother to Francis and by 1919 an established director at Universal, John is listed in the credits as a director. In viewing the film, it’s not clear what his contributions were, other than a family preoccupation with drinking.

An introductory title card singles out how difficult the effects were to achieve, but frankly they’re not very impressive. At least not in this restoration. In several double-exposure sequences, characters are almost transparent in front of backgrounds. Francis Ford spends a lot of time—too much time—observing frolicking “spirits,” tiny women who play in the bubbles of his champagne glass. It’s a technique mastered as early as 1909 in Princess Nicotine, and Ford’s team has little of interest to add to it.

In fact, The Craving was overall a disappointment. In the six years since The Post Telegrapher, Ford seemed to have aged drastically. Even with improved film stock, his features look bloated and blurry, and his acting was stiff and unconvincing. In The Craving you can see someone working out their addiction issues onscreen. What you will not find are indications of how John Ford would become one of the most profound artists in cinema.

More about TSAP, including films by Emilio Fernández and Roberto Gavaldón, in the next roundup. The festival runs through January 30.

Photos (top: The Post Telegrapher; bottom: The Craving) courtesy Undercrank Productions.

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Brave the Dark review: Teacher saves troubled youth

Posted on January 15, 2025 by admin

A teacher helping a troubled student is one of the more durable film genres. Stand and Deliver, Good Will Hunting, Dangerous Minds, The Great Debaters, To Sir With Love, all the way back to Goodbye, Mr. Chips these largely sentimental dramas proved reliably popular with moviegoers.

Brave the Dark doesn’t have much to add to the formula apart from the conviction of its lead, Jared Harris, and a script that walks a tightrope between objectivity and euphemism.

Released by Angel Studios and co-written by one of the characters depicted in the story, the movie is smoothly entertaining and entirely predictable. It delivers a positive message without acknowledging the more awkward elements of its story. That makes it perfect for viewers who don’t want to be challenged by anything beyond the superficial.

High schooler Nate Williams (Nicholas Hamilton) has hidden from his classmates in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, that he is an orphan living in his car. But Stan Deen (Jared Harris), a teacher and director of school plays, notices that something is wrong. He slips Nate treats like candy bars to help him through classes.

Nate has interests in track and photography, and pursues classmate Tina (Sasha Bhasin). But untrustworthy friends draw him to petty crimes. In a humiliating scene, Nate’s arrested in front of the school for breaking and entering.

Nate takes the blame for his friends’ actions, and as a result faces a long prison sentence. A worried Deen involves himself in the case, contacting Nate’s grandparents. With Deen’s help, Nate avoids prison as long as he reports to a parole officer.

Flashbacks gradually reveal a tragedy in Nate’s past. Furthermore, his grandparents remove him from school and put him to work to pay off his bail.

Instead, Deen takes Nate into his home, where the two form an uneasy relationship. It turns out Deen is still mourning the death of his mother, while Nate’s past makes it impossible for him to trust anyone.

Hemmed in by Deen’s rules, forbidden to date Tina, Nate reverts to causing trouble. After a fight with Deen, Nate even considers suicide. Only when the full story of his past is revealed can the people around him understand how to help.

Although shot on a low budget, Brave the Dark has a good feel for small town Pennsylvania in 1986. Characterizations are adequate, if thin, while the plotting remains relatively realistic. While hardly original, Nate’s struggles build up a fair amount of narrative suspense.

Hamilton, who appeared in the two It features, doesn’t find a way to flesh out Nate’s role. To be honest, it’s a tough part for anyone to play, given the screenplay’s skin-deep approach to real-life incidents.

As Stan Deen, Jared Harris is in desperate need of direction. He wrings his hands, cocks his head, sighs, and generally tries to externalize his character through physical tics. At the same time, no one in the film acknowledges the red flags surrounding Deen.

On one hand, it’s a sign of progress that a film can include a character like Deen without pigeonholing him as gay. On the other hand, the idea of a high-school teacher housing a student in these circumstances is so troubling that it seems both tone-deaf and irresponsible for the filmmakers not to address the subject.

Perhaps that’s because Nate, who later took Deen’s surname, is one of the several screenwriters on this project. Or maybe director Damian Harris decided not to involve his younger brother Jared in those aspects of the story.

Credits: Directed by Damian Harris. Screenplay by Dale G. Bradley, Lynn Robertson-Hay, Nathaniel Deen, John P. Spencer, Damian Harris. Produced by Grant Bradley, Derek Dienner, Dale G. Bradley. Director of photography: Julio Macat. Production designer: Michael C. Stone. Edited by Toby Yates. Cast: Jared Harris, Nicholas Hamilton, Jamie Harris, Sasha Bhasin, Will Price, Kimberly Fairbanks.

Opens theatrically January 24, 2025. Photos courtesy Angel Studios. Photo credit: Joseph Gidjunis.

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The Prosecutor: Donnie Yen action thriller

Posted on January 8, 2025 by admin

Although he keeps threatening to retire, Donnie Yen is back with another well-executed, instantly disposable action thriller. Yen is just about the last old-school action star still putting out product like this: bright, flashy, paper-thin entertainment that walks a tightrope between defending Hong Kong and recognizing its weakened state.

As cop Fok Chi-ho, Yen quits the police force because crooks keep using legal loopholes to escape convictions. He studies seven years to get a law degree and joins the Department of Justice, only to learn that corruption is pervasive. Bucking his bosses, he investigates a drug ring with ties to top government officials.

If this sounds like any Hong Kong police thriller, The Prosecutor plays like one too. That’s not necessarily a criticism. The film reverts to genre tropes at every opportunity. Cops are hardworking but undermined by foolish regulations. Lawyers are stalwart except when they’ve been co-opted by crooks. Gangsters can’t resist superyachts, cigars, loud clothes, and gratuitous violence.

In that framework it’s tough to grapple seriously with real-life legal issues. On the other hand, it’s a perfect delivery system for action scenes, which is the real point behind The Prosecutor.

Yen and his stunt team have mastered absurdly intricate action with what looks like a minimum of wire work or special effects. You shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that the investigation involves several complex fights.

One takes place in an alley: cops against thugs on motorbikes. This one’s more a showcase for MC Cheung Tin-fu, playing Yen’s former police colleague, with some outstanding stunts in and around a panel truck.

A fight at a rooftop nightclub uses fire extinguishers as a way to get Yen out of a dead-end situation that should have left him dead. It’s followed by an excellent chase and fight in a multilevel parking lot. Echoes of John Woo’s The Killer with some parkour thrown in.

The final action sequence is Yen’s take on a close quarters fight popular in films like Shang Chi and Don Lee’s third Roundup entry. Yen’s takes place in a subway car against an array of increasingly dangerous foes. It’s hard-hitting and almost credible, with striking visual flourishes.

The Prosecutor suffers from poor writing and Yen’s excesses as a director (notably too many drone shots and some pointed metaphors). To his credit, Yen also includes a couple of well-staged courtroom scenes that pretend to take controversial stances without ruffling any censors.  

If you’re a fan of old-fashioned Hong Kong action, weak plotting is okay as long as the action works. That’s where Yen excels. Forty years into his film career, he’s still beating the competition.

Credits: Directed by Donnie Yen. Written by Edmond Wong. Produced by Yen, Raymond Wong. Director of photography: Noah Wong. Edited by La ka-wing. Cast: Donnie Yen, Julian Cheung, Michael Hui, Francis Ng, MC Cheung Tin-fu, Kent Cheng, Shirley Chan, Sisley Choi.

Photo courtesy WellGo USA Entertainment.

Released theatrically in North America by WellGo USA Entertainment.

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Diner carnage in the slasher thriller Last Straw

Posted on December 28, 2024 by admin

A slasher thriller with solid twists, Last Straw is made with more than enough conviction to satisfy genre fans. Smart cinematography and a strong cast help muscle the movie past troubling gaps in its plotting.

Shot on the cheap in New York’s Hudson River valley, the film is set mostly in a diner as impoverished as its workers. Ed Osborn (Jeremy Sisto) manages a staff of misfits and oddballs, like the aggressive Jake (Taylor Kowalski) and easygoing druggie Bobby (Jojo Otani-Hansen).

Osborn’s daughter Nancy (Jessica Belkin), first eyeing the results of a pregnancy test with despair, has to skip a school party to run the late shift for her dad. That means butting heads with Jake, who pushes her so hard that she fires him right as evening falls.

Last Straw opens with scenes of carnage in the diner: blood-spattered floors and walls, assorted corpses, and a hysterical 911 call describing a massacre. Viewers know what’s going to happen, it’s just a question of how reasonably the movie will take them there. Here’s where director Alan Scott Neal makes some smart decisions.

First, the characters are surprisingly spiky and ornery. If Jake is creepy and meanspirited, Nancy has her own issues. She’s contemptuous of customers, treats the smitten Bobby with barely disguised disdain, and lets anger push her into disastrous decisions. Like confronting four punks on mopeds who throw roadkill at her.

Second, writer Taylor Sardoni gradually but inexorably tightens the screws on Nancy. As night falls, the jump scares increase, the lights fail, the phones drop out.

Third, the plot switches to a new point-of-view around the halfway point. That means shots and scenes from earlier in the movie are reworked from new angles. That can be a sign of desperation in some projects, but it opens this movie up in satisfying ways.

Another plus in the movie’s favor: Andrey Nikolaev’s accomplished cinematography. Nikolaev could teach a master class in using a moving camera to lead viewers. The way the camera pans across windows in a garage, or singles out future weapons in the kitchen, pulls viewers deeper into the story.

Not everything in Last Straw works. The motives of some of Jake’s friends aren’t always credible. One character with disabilities is treated in what feels like an exploitive manner. Subplots, including one involving Nancy’s friend Tabitha (a sadly underused Tara Raani), are dropped with no explanation.

But for the most part, Last Straw hits what viewers want in a slasher movie. Even Nancy’s “mistakes,” like running into a basement when pursued by a killer, pay off in the end.

Credits: Directed by Alan Scott Neal. Screenplay by Taylor Sardoni. Producers: Phil Keefe, Michael Giannone, Sam Slater, Levon Panek, Taylor Sardoni. Exec producers: Gill Holland, John Nylen, Donn Kennedy, Donald Ngai, Chris M. Bonifay, Alan Palomo, Victoria McDevitt, Jonathan Louis Gu, Marko Lisonek, Megan Loughman, Matthew Bronen. Director of photography: Andrey Nikolaev. Production designer: Daniel Prosky. Edited by Nathan Whiteside. Original score by Alan Palomo. Costume designer: Sara Lukaszewski.

Cast: Jessica Belkin, Taylor Kowalski, Glen Gould, Jo-Jo Otani-Hansen, Chris Lopes, Michael Giannone, Tara Raani, Jeremy Sisto.

Streaming in Shudder. Photos courtesy AC3 Media.

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Saving the Planet through “Rewilding”

Posted on October 1, 2024 by admin

Environmental docs tend to throw out a litany of ecological horrors that leave viewers feeling helpless. Escape from Extinction: Rewilding takes a different approach. Using case studies from around the globe, the film suggests that we have the power to improve our environment.

Narrated by Meryl Streep, Escape from Extinction follows a typical wildlife formula made up of nature footage, archival footage, and talking heads. The flow of voices and imagery is overwhelming at times, diluting the impact of the messages the filmmakers are trying to deliver.

Their warnings are dire: one million species will go extinct in the next year. Acid is destroying kelp forests off the California coast. Algae blooms threaten wildlife in Florida waters. The imagery is alarmist: wounded or killed animals, clear-cut forests, polluted waters.

Writers Alex Vincent Blumberg and Peter Meadows then turn to success stories, like Rwanda. The site of 1994’s tragedy in which 800,000 were killed within 100 days, the country has undergone a transformation.

Part of that is due to the government’s efforts to shore up ecotourism. Officials have enlarged the Akagera National Park after it has shrunk to one-third of its size. They have imported lions and black rhinos to restock the wildlife populations.

After corporate agriculture damaged farmland in Bolivia, institutions like Lor Parque have taken steps to revive ecosystems, protecting habitats for blue throated macaws, for example.

Scientists realized that healthy kelp forests rely on sea otters to survive. But sea otters were hunted almost to extinction. By reintroducing them to Pacific waters, scientists have raised their population to some 3000.

Seagrass in Florida, a vital source of food for manatees, has been erased by algae blooms. Volunteers now vacuum algae by hand from the sea floor, and plant eelgrass to help stabilize the ecosystem.

In her voiceover, Streep notes that “rewilding” also means dealing with invasive species. For example, rabbits and especially cane toads have wreaked havoc with Australian wildlife. Hippos who escaped from their shelters in Colombia have led to 500 human fatalities a year.

Escape from Extinction acknowledges conflicts among zoologists. Some didn’t want the extinct Asiatic cheetah in India replaced by African cheetahs. There are arguments over giraffes, wolves, and other wildlife species.

Confrontations with poachers and repressive governments have led to the deaths of over 2000 environmental activists.

But director Matthew R. Brady ends Escape from Extinction on positive notes, allowing scientists to point to potential solutions that can lead to positive results.

Brady’s technique raises questions. The use of archival footage can be confusing. The narration can be cagey. A statement that two-thirds of the land mass of Antarctica is “affected by human activity” is accompanied by shots of collapsed oil tanks, but without proper IDs, viewers can’t be sure of the connection.

Some shots driven by visual effects have misleading sounds attached to them, like chainsaws droning behind disappearing forests. Besides, some would argue that clear-cutting makes sense in certain situations. To be fair, many documentarians take similar approaches. Strict accuracy may be more difficult to achieve, but makes for stronger films.

The main argument against Escape from Extinction is that it feels like a PowerPoint presentation buttressed by talking heads. It’s hard to disagree with the messages here, but the way they are not always presented are in the most effective ways.

Credits

Director: Matthew R. Brady. Writers: Alex Vincent Blumberg and Peter Meadows. Voiceover: Meryl Streep.

In theaters now.

Photos courtesy MRB Productions. Top: baby hippo and mother. Middle: Filming in Akagera National Park. Bottom: Filming in Volcanoes National Park.

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Wolfs review: The Cinema of Privilege

Posted on September 24, 2024 by admin

The conmen from Oceans Eleven have aged out of the rackets, lost their girlfriends, and have been forced into real jobs to make ends meet. That’s the basic premise of Wolfs, a lazy bromance that rests on the fading charms of its two leads.

At least since Pulp Fiction, the “cleaner” has become a fixture in the hit man genre. It’s a role George Clooney can play to perfection (cf. Michael Clayton).

Grizzled, stocky, nursing a bad back, Clooney’s Jack in Wolfs is reaching the end of his career. Although proud of his reputation, he’s started cutting corners and relying on tricks to get him through assignments.

Like helping politician Margaret (Amy Ryan), stuck with the body of a male prostitute in an expensive hotel suite. Jack is about to go into his routine when they are interrupted by Nick (Brad Pitt), a rival cleaner hired by the hotel’s security chief Pamela (voiced by Frances McDormand).

Turns out the incident was recorded on the hotel’s many video cameras. What’s more, Kid (Austin Abrams), the prostitute, was carrying a backpack filled with drugs. Jack and Nick have to return the drugs as well as dispose of Kid’s body.

Spoiler alert to anyone who hasn’t seen the trailer: Kid isn’t dead, just nearly comatose from a drug OD. When he springs back to life from the trunk of Jack’s car, Wolfs pretends it’s livening up too. There’s a prolonged chase through the streets of a snowy Chinatown Manhattan at night, allowing cinematographer Larkin Seiple many glistening compositions at the expense of momentum and plausibility.

Because if Jack and Nick don’t catch Kid, there’s no more movie. Not that much happens when they do. A stop at an illicit medical clinic. A visit to an ethnic wedding. Empty warehouses. Dark streets. In the meantime Jack and Nick share war stories, forming a grudging respect for each other.

The bantering between Clooney and Pitt is a retread of their Oceans schtick, minus the fabulous supporting cast and intricate enough plotting. Here they’re on automatic, Pitt in particular shambling through his part like he’s done for the past ten years, Clooney putting in just enough effort to keep our sympathy.

Face it, celebrities — no matter how big — teasing each other does not make a movie. Or at least not a good movie. Writer and director Jon Watts (behind the Spider-Man trilogy and a couple of episodes of The Old Man) leans on the meta by pretending that dialogue with “old,” “past his prime,” etc., refers to the leads’ movie careers. But meta doesn’t make a dull plot more interesting. When all else fails, Watts turns to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for plot twists.

Reviews like this don’t mean anything to the filmmakers; considering their past successes, they aren’t about to listen to criticism. That’s the cinema of privilege, the sense that filmmakers have earned the right to do whatever they want. Clooney’s by no means the worst example, and for the most part I applaud his choices. He’s capable of better work.

Credits Directed by Jon Watts. Written by Jon Watts. Produced by George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Dianne McGunigle, Jon Watts. Director of photography: Larkin Seiple. Edited by Andrew Weisblum. Music by Theodore Shapiro. Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams, Poorna Jagannathan.

Streaming on Apple TV+ Photo Apple TV+

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Review: Protocol 7 says vaccines might be dangerous

Posted on September 5, 2024 by admin

Based on real-life events, Protocol 7 uses staged re-enactments to make the case that pharmaceutical giant Merck doctored test results to sell potentially dangerous mumps vaccine. Director and co-writer Andy Wakefield tackles an important story, but tells it with little finesse and less clarity.

During a business meeting in a corporate conference room, Dr. Errani (Eric Roberts) warns Stone (Alec Rayme) that if results for the company’s MMR mumps vaccine don’t improve, the FDA will not approve the drug. Stone in turn tells lab rat Kirk (Harrison Tipping) to do anything necessary to get better scores.

Schilling (Josh Murray), a former Merck employee, approaches disgraced Dr. Jay (Matthew Marsden) at an alternative health convention. Schilling hands over stolen lab records that prove Merck has been lying about its MMR vaccine. Jay overcomes his initial reluctance to compile a compelling case against Merck.

It takes lawyer Lexi Koprowski (Rachel Whittle) to bring the case to the next level. Unable to bear children herself, Lexi and her husband Josh (R. Brandon Johnson) adopt Ishal (Christopher Robert Scott), an at-risk child from Africa. A series of vaccine shots render Ishal autistic.

Searching for answers, Lexi learns about the Merck lab reports from Jay. It will take many setbacks and reversals until Lexi and her legal team confront Merck officials in a deposition.

Getting to that point requires swirling time and plotline shifts that make the story unnecessarily confusing. It doesn’t help that the screenwriters can’t name names due to sealed evidence in ongoing lawsuits. Merck is the only entity to come under fire. The characters are amalgams, not real people. The villains in particular are drawn with very broad strokes.

That said, Whittle makes a sympathetic protagonist, seemingly out of her depth until the final legal scenes. It’s during the depositions that Protocol 7 comes alive, with Eric Roberts giving a master class in obfuscation as an executive trying desperately not to be pinned down.

Until that scene, Protocol 7 is a series of disconnected glimpses of failing marriages, bad medical decisions, and montages of lab procedures. Viewers are never quite sure who the characters actually are or what they do. It’s not even clear where or when the story is taking place.

It’s easy to fault the fractured editing, the off-center photography, the poor performances, and the obscure screenwriting. However, there is a more fundamental flaw to Protocol 7.

Wakefield and his team skirt the issue of whether or not they are pro- or anti-vaccine. Like The China Syndrome, Protocol 7 wants to blame corporate corruption for a grave injustice instead of examining how that injustice came to be. Unfortunately, the tone of the film and the way its characters are portrayed are overwhelmingly anti-vaccine. At the same time, the filmmakers pretend they’re not anti-vaccine, just against the illegal, deadly ones. (Just like The China Syndrome wasn’t against nuclear power plants, only the ones that threatened to explode.) Hard-core anti-vaxxers can’t make that distinction.

Credits

Directed by Andy Wakefield. Written by Andy Wakefield, Terry Rossio. Produced by Joey Vasatka, Brian Wendel, Darren Lutz, Tina Lutz. Executive producers: Marcel Jahnke, Andy Wakefield. Cinematographer: Jordan Bogart. Production designer: Bill Swang. Original score by Will Taylor. Cast: Rachel Whittle, Matthew Marsden, Josh Murray, R. Brandon Johnson, Eric Roberts, Alec Rayme, Harrison Tipping, Christopher Robert Scott.

Distributed by Abramorama. Currently streaming. Photos courtesy Abramorama.

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Crescent City review: Murder in Little Rock

Posted on August 20, 2024 by admin

Powerful casting helps compensate for weak writing in Crescent City, a mean-spirited film noir set in Little Rock, Arkansas. Familiar faces like Terence Howard, Esai Morales, and an effective Alec Baldwin have no trouble navigating the twists and turns in Rich Ronat’s script. If only they had better material to work with.

Spoiler alert: I’m not sure director RJ Collins always shows a scene honestly, especially once flashbacks come into play. Alfred Hitchcock famously toyed with unreliable scenes in Stage Fright, but it’s a tough strategy to justify (and one he abandoned quickly).

So stipulated, Crescent City opens with the drugging and murder of a cheating husband, whose decapitated corpse is discovered by cops Brian Sutter (Terrence Howard) and Luke Carson (Esai Morales). It’s the third murder in the area, suggesting a serial killer. As a result, their boss, Captain Howell (Alec Baldwin), assigns them a new partner, Jaclyn Waters (Nicky Whelan), a blonde originally from Australia.

Waters is actually an Internal Affairs agent investigating a shooting in which a teenager was killed during a drug bust. Brian, clearly suffering from some form of PTSD, has debilitating fits about the incident. Luke is hiding his own secrets. In a bizarre scene, we watch him rape the hostess of a local bar in a bathroom.

Brian’s wife is upset that he refuses to go to counseling. She’d been even angrier if she knew that Brian and Jackie are having an affair. They meet near the spot of one of the murders, and as the story unfolds Brian realizes he is being set up as a fall guy for the killer.

The most interesting thing about Brian is that he isn’t very bright. (No one is in Crescent City, apart from Baldwin’s Howell, a profane but clever cop who figures out the plot before his cops do.) Brian presents himself as a father figure with strong religious ties, leading to emotional conflicts that affect his work.

He’s also not a very good cop, missing glaring clues and giving inept interrogations. Howard adopts a thick accent that makes Brian seem even less intelligent.

Give credit to the filmmakers for being willing to go darker than necessary. With its corrupt cops, sex clubs, and deserted alleys, Crescent City presents Little Rock as a sort of minor league New Orleans, minus the bayous, food, and music. The atmosphere is moody and decadent enough to satisfy noir fans, but the plot keeps veering into strange digressions.

The filmmakers introduce a sex website with connections to Brian’s church, but fail to do anything with it. Or with an abuse victim who commits suicide. Or a murder victim from a Sex Anonymous group. Instead we get a couple of reasonably steamy sex scenes, a lot of bickering between Brian and Luke, and more red flags than viewers really need.

Baldwin is quick and efficient, Morales adds welcome depravity to his character, and Whelan somehow manages to fit her Australian cop into a deep South milieu. And Maria Camila Giraldo shines in a thankless role as a cop who turns up at every Little Rock homicide. But Crescent City adds up to less than the sum of its parts.

Credits

Director: RJ Collins. Writer: Rich Ronat. Producers: Denise Loren, Eduard Osipov, Vince Jolivette, David Lipper, Robert A. Daly, Jr. Director of photography Alex Salahi. Edited by Eric Potter. Production designer: Julian Brown. Cast: Terrence Howard, Esai Morales, Nicky Whelan, Alec Baldwin, Michael Sirow, Weston Cage Coppola, Rose Lane Sanfilippo, Maria Camila Giraldo.

In theaters, on digital and on demand. Photos courtesy Lionsgate. Top: Howard, Whelan. Bottom: Howard, Giraldo, Morales.

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