Posts Tagged ‘Here’

LOOKING BACK AT 2024: THE “NAUGHTY” AND “NICE” LISTS! NOW THE NAUGHTY!

I take a look back at the year that was at the movies. From an apocalyptic musical and a haunted pool to a sinfully dull exorcism movie and mysterious masked marauders, the movies gifted us the best and worst–the naughty and nice, the champagne and lumps of coal–of what Hollywood and elsewhere has to offer.

Here is the Naughty List, a compendium of my least favorite films of the year, presented alphabetically.

“Argylle” has so many twists, not even Chubby Checker could keep up. It is an outrageous, twisty-turny idea trapped in a movie that is afraid to really cut loose.

Amy Winehouse was a singular artist, a fearless performer who made her own rules, and dug deep to create her art. So, it’s a shame her biopic “Back to Black” is such a standard cautionary tale that only skims the surface.

“Borderlands” shares the bright and bold aesthetic from the video games that inspired it but smooths down the rough edges of the game, leaving behind a PG13 rated movie that is neither fan service or anything new.

“The Crow” is back, but, unfortunately, never really takes flight. For a movie about soulmates, and with a villain who dooms souls to hell, the new film feels soulless.

“Damaged” is a feature film that feels like episodic television, right up to a cliffhanger-y ending that should come with a “To Be Continued” end credit.

For all the free-wheeling vibes the movie emits, Ethan Coen’s “Drive-Away Dolls” is a bit of a slog, even at its abbreviated 84 minute runtime.

“The End” is an audacious film, with very committed performances from the cast, but this bleak study of guilt becomes overwhelmed by pretension and wears out its welcome well before the end credits roll.

Russell Crowe’s considerable star power goes a long way to keep “The Exorcism” watchable, but the film’s lack of overall lack of drama and scares is a sin. 

“The Fabulous Four” means well but is a less than fabulous film that doesn’t deliver the goods.

The Quebec-set “French Girl” may be the only rom com to feature Mixed Martial Arts as a plot point. Other than that, it’s a standard romantic comedy, heavy on the romance but light on the comedy. 

“Here” is ambitious, but its technical aspects, like the dead-eyed digital de-aging of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, overwhelms whatever heart is embedded in the story.

For better and for worse, “Joker: Folie à Deux” mixes romance and show tunes with law and order in what may be the bleakest jukebox musical ever. It is ambitious and bold, like All That Jazz filtered through a funhouse mirror, but it’s also frustrating.

Origin stories are tough, and unfortunately, “Madame Web” isn’t up to the task. By the time the end credits roll, you’ll wish you had the power to see into the future, like Cassandra Webb, so you’d know to skip this one.

“Megalopolis” is idiosyncratic a movie as we’re likely to see this year.

Drenched in metaphor and allegory, the dark comedy “Mother, Couch” breathes the same air as Charlie Kaufman and Ari Aster, but director Niclas Larsson allows the metaphysical aspects of the movie to overwhelm the story’s true emotion.

The idea of drowning is terrifying, especially if someone or something is pulling at your legs, or pushing your head under the surface, but in “Night Swim” you’ll find yourself playing Marco Polo in search of actual scares.

A Christmas movie with product placement for the whole family, from Hot Wheels to Bulleit Bourbon, “Red One” a formulaic action film, with generic CGI battles and Johnson in automaton mode.

In “The Strangers: Chapter One,” irector Renny Harlin squeezes whatever juice is left out of The Strangers IP, building a bit of tension here and there, but the film’s slow pace, repetitive action and decidedly non-gruesome violence sucks away the menace of the premise.

CTV ATLANTIC: RICHARD AND TODD BATTIS ON NEW MOVIES IN THEATRES!

I join CTV Atlantic anchor to talk about the family drama “Here,” the odd couple “A Real Pain” and the courtroom drama “Juror #2.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

YOU TUBE: THREE MOVIES/THIRTY SECONDS! FAST REVIEWS FOR BUSY PEOPLE!

Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to tie a bowtie! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the family drama “Here,” the odd couple “A Real Pain” and the courtroom drama “Juror #2.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

HERE: 1 ½ STARS. “technical prowess overwhelms the heart embedded in the story.”

SYNOPSIS: In “Here,” a new, experimental intergenerational family drama starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and now playing in theatres, director Robert Zemeckis sets a century of love, loss and life in the living room of a one-hundred-year-old American home.

CAST: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, and Kelly Reilly. Directed by Robert Zemeckis.

REVIEW: At one point near the end of “Here,” Richard Young (Tom Hanks) says, “Time flies,” as he reflects on his daughter’s progress in life. In reply, his increasingly exasperated wife Margaret (Robin Wright) snaps, “You always say things that are kind of obvious.”

Richard is not alone in the expression of easy platitudes. Director Robert Zemeckis may be daring in his use of “Here’s” technology, but the story takes no chances.

Based on the 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, the film chronicles thousands of years, on one piece of land, from rampaging dinosaurs to the building of a house in 1900 whose front room provides the location for 99.9% of the action. With the camera locked into position, Zemeckis ping pongs through history, focusing on three generations of the Young family in the one setting.

Major historical events are seen on television, or heard on the radio, but this isn’t a history lesson, it’s an “if these walls could talk” look at the lives lived in the cozy home. It’s a clever idea, but you can’t help but wish “Here” would narrow its focus. The constant transition from one era to the next prevents any one of the stories to work up a head of steam or make us care about the characters.

From a technical point of view, Zemeckis’s transition from one time frame to the next are sometimes clever—a Halloween party, with Richard dressed as Benjamin Franklin, that morphs into a colonial era scene works—and sometimes silly, as in the scene where a leaking roof, dripping puddles on the floor, transitions into Maragret’s water breaking on the same spot. It’s in those moments, and there are many of them, that the movie feels trapped, unable to cast off the restraints of its concept and truly come to life.

Most of the families on display are given a short shrift. The Harter’s (Michelle Dockery and Gwilym Lee) turn of the century story, for example, is meant to provide some emotional heft but falls short because of the film’s inability to make us care much about characters we hardly know. I would have liked more time with Leo and Stella Beekman (David Fynn and Ophelia Lovibond), the inventor and pin-up model who make the most of their vignettes, but the brief glimpses of their free-spirited time in the house are short lived.

It is nice to see Hanks and Wright together, but for much of the runtime they are rendered digitally de-aged and dead-eyed, which takes some of the fun out of the “Forrest Gump” reunion.

“Here” is ambitious, but its technical prowess overwhelms whatever heart is embedded in the story.