“Sound of Metal,” a new drama starring “Rogue One’s” Riz Ahmed, is a cautionary tale about getting what you wish for.
Ahmed is Ruben, a drummer in Blackgammon, a heavy metal duo fronted by his girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke). The pair live in an RV, criss-crossing the country on tour before going into the studio to make an album. He’s an aggressive player, part Lars Ulrich, part Chuck Biscuits, whose booming style is the sound of frustration and bellicosity manifested on stage six nights a week. At a gig in Missouri his ears ring and soon stop working. On stage and off all he hears is a muffled roar. A visit to the doctor reveals he has lost more than seventy percent of his hearing is gone and won’t come back. “Eliminate all exposure to loud noises,” he’s told. “Your first responsibility is to preserve the hearing you have left.”
As he and Lou try and plot a way forward Ruben becomes obsessed with the idea of cochlear implant surgery than accepting his hearing loss. At a cost of $40-$80,000 they are out of reach for now so in the short-term Lou takes Ruben, who has been sober for four years, to a “clean” house, run by deaf counselor Joe (Paul Raci). He’s welcome to stay but this is a solo gig. As Ruben learns how to be deaf Lou must give him space. In the coming weeks anger and dissatisfaction lead to acceptance as he learns about his new life but never lets go of the idea that implants will allow him to return to his old life. “Our main tenet is that deafness is not a handicap,” says Joe, “not something to be fixed.”
“Sound of Metal” makes you walk a mile in Ruben’s shoes. Applying immersive sound design, writer-director Darius Marder toggles between Ruben’s point-of-view and real-world sounds. The muffled sound of the world filtered through his damaged ears portray his sensory deprivation in an intense way. As his desperation and frustration grow the sound design hammers home the devastating effects of hearing loss.
In addition, Marder close captions much of the film, dropping the subtitles when Ruben is learning sign language, once again involving the audience in his learning curve.
As Ruben, Ahmed brings a nervous energy to the role. He’s always in motion, unable to find a still moment for contemplation or acceptance. As his frustration gives way to a reluctant acceptance, he brings us along for the journey, giving us insight into a person’s whose life has been blown apart.
Raci as Joe, a Vietnam vet who lost his hearing in the war emerges as a force. In real life Raci grew up with deaf parents, is a Court Certified American Sign Language interpreter, and the lead singer for a heavy metal band that performs in American Sign Language. With great warmth, tinged with firmness, he steals every scene he’s in.
“Sound of Metal” is specific in its setting but ultimately is a story of accepting the curveballs life throws at you.
If the title itself didn’t give it away, fans of the sappy television hit “This is Us” will know what to expect from “Life Itself.” The new film from “This is Us” guru Dan Fogelman is a Xerox of his TV show. Grab some Kleenexes and cue the schmaltz.
Divided into chapters, Fogelman goes multigenerational in “Life Itself,” guiding us through the lives of a handful of people on a couple of continents. Anxious New Yorker Will (Oscar Isaac) bends his therapist’s (Annette Bening) ear, droning on about his failed marriage to Abby (Olivia Wilde) and Bob Dylan.
Cut to the future. There’s Will and Abby’s daughter Dylan (Olivia Cooke), an angry punk chanteuse who specializes in, SURPRISE, Bob Dylan songs.
Jump across the pond to Spain. There the wealthy Mr. Saccione (Antonio Banderas) promotes one of his workers, Javier (Sergio Peris-Mencheta). With the extra money is able to marry his girlfriend Isabel (Laia Costa), but later a tragedy, witnessed by their son Rodrigo (Àlex Monner), traumatizes the boy. Saccione pays for therapy and later, after some turmoil, pays for Rodrigo to go to school in New York, which co-incidentally is where the story comes full circle.
See how everything connects in the grand soap opera of life?
There’s more. Mandy Patinkin pops up as Will’s father, a cancer diagnosis rocks a family and don’t forget molestation. It’s a litany of tragedy—suicide, mental health issues, abandonment and family dysfunction—that feels like a sappy Afterschool Special written by Nikolai Gogol, coated in a fine dusting of schmaltz. It longs to be a rich, complex look at life, love, loss and olive oil but is instead a metaphorical Crock-Pot—a slow burn of the story that never comes to a boil—that, unlike the one on Fogelman’s TV show, never actually catches fire.
You don’t have to overtax the Google machine to find negative comments about being on set with Steven Spielberg. Type in “working with Steven Spielberg” and in 0.57 seconds 20,900,000 results appear, including an article where Shia LaBeouf rants, “He’s less a director than he is a f—ing company.”
LaBeouf’s resume is dotted with Spielberg-produced or -directed films like Disturbia, Transformers, Eagle Eye and, most famously, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but if Spielberg ever does the same search it’s unlikely they’ll ever pair up again. “You get there, and you realize you’re not meeting the Spielberg you dream of,” LaBeouf told Variety. “You’re meeting a different Spielberg, who is in a different stage in his career.”
But that’s pretty much it for the negativity. There’s a story about Crispin Glover suing Spielberg for using his likeness in Back to the Future Part II and the critical drone that his films are overly sentimental, but primarily it’s LaBeouf against Spielberg and the world. Most of his other co-workers have nothing but praise for the filmmaker Empire magazine ranked as the greatest film director of all time.
This weekend he returns to theatres with Ready Player One, a sci-fi film that brings a virtual reality world called the OASIS to vivid life. Star Tye Sheridan calls the director a great and passionate collaborator who makes everyone feel equal on set. Co-star Ralph Ineson calls Spielberg “one of the most iconic figures of the last 100 years,” adding that it was difficult to takes notes from him on set. “When he is speaking to you your mind vaguely goes blank the first few times because your internal monologue just goes, ‘My god, Steven Spielberg is giving me a note.’ And then you realize you haven’t actually heard the note.”
All directors give suggestions on set, but it seems it’s the way Spielberg speaks to his actors that sets him apart.
Ed Burns remembers making a mess of several takes on the set of Saving Private Ryan to the point where Tom Hanks said to him, “I’ve seen you act before, and this isn’t acting.” Afraid he would be replaced, he got nervous and continued to blow take after take but Spielberg didn’t offer guidance. Two weeks passed. The cast started laying bets on who would be fired first.
Turns out, no one was fired and Burns learned a lesson he would later take into his own directorial efforts like Sidewalks of New York. The actor reports that Spielberg said, “I like to give my actors three takes to figure it out. If I step in after the first take and give you a note, especially with young actors, you’ll hear me rather than your own voice.”
Burns calls the experience “a life changer” adding it taught him that being a director is “about knowing when to give direction.”
The superstar director says the listening lesson was learned early in life. “From a very young age my parents taught me probably the most valuable lesson of my life: Sometimes it’s better not to talk, but to listen.”
There’s someone else Spielberg keeps in mind when making a film. “I always like to think of the audience when I am directing. Because I am the audience.”
In brand crazy Hollywood “Ready Player One,” the new sci fi film from Steven Spielberg, is an everything-old-is-new-again hybrid. Based on the novel of the same name from author Ernest Cline it’s not a reboot or reimagining of a comic book or old film. It’s an original story that may appeal to folks who say the movies only recycle ideas. At the same time it’s stuffed to the gills with enough pop culture icons to warm the hearts of any nostalgic moviegoer.
It’s 2045 and the world is a mess. Cities are a hodgepodge of dystopian horrors, overcrowded, polluted and corrupt. For the people, whatever joy can be mined from the desolate, depressing life comes from immersing themselves in a virtual reality world called OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation). “Except for eating, sleeping and bathroom breaks,” says Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), “everyone does everything in the OASIS.” Based on 1980s movies, pop culture and videogames, it’s a technological escape from the all-too-real societal ills that make life miserable. “These days reality,” Wade says, “is a bummer.”
When OASIS creator James Halliday (Mark Rylance) died he created a way for Watts and his on-line Gunter pals—egg hunters—to find a way out of their IRL problems. The creator left behind an Easter Egg—if you don’t know that an Easter Egg is a hidden game message or image, give up now—amongst the game’s familiar pop culture characters. Whoever finds the three keys that unlock the Easter Egg will inherit the OASIS empire. Money, power, the whole nine yards. Watts, who lives in a vertical trailer park called The Stacks in Columbus, Ohio, along with his digital team the High Five, work to navigate the game and change their lives. In a race against time, they must beat the Sixers, an army of gamers employed by evil corporation Innovative Online Industries, in a war for control of the future.
Think your kids spend too much time playing video games? Get a load of Wade, Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), Aech (Lena Waithe), Daito (Win Morisaki) and Shoto (Philip Zhao). This crowd are best friends, although for most of the movie they have never met on terra ferma. They spend all their time on line, forming friendships, falling in love and eventually fighting for their real life lives.
“Ready Player One” takes off like a rocket. There’s a lot of set-up and Spielberg finds a way to impart information and keep it lively. He fills the screen with an industrial view of the future, contrasting Wade’s dour real life with his vivid on line adventures, visually developing the push and pull between reality and virtual reality that fuels the film’s story. A wild car race, featuring Freddy Krueger, King Kong and the Batmobile, establishes the OASIS in a way that the minutes of exposition surrounding it never could. It also establishes the film’s love of spectacle over story.
Spielberg dives deep into the VR world, intoxicated by the endless possibilities of mixing-and-matching pop culture iconography with an adventure story. When Wade says, “The limit of reality is your own imagination,” he could very well be talking to the director. The result is a frenetic film that is fun for a while but the whimsy soon gets bogged down with feverish detail. It’s a little too long, there’s too much exposition, too many twists for a story that can be boiled down to the notion that we should spend more time in the real world.
A tribute to “The Shining” is often quite fun and there are moments of levity but it isn’t about anything other than the adventure. The commentary on our own virtual lives are never expanded upon. Of a spark of on-line love between Art3mis and Wade, who hadn’t yet met outside OASIS, Art3mis says, “You only see what I want you to see. You don’t know me.” It’s a good starting point for a conversation about what happens when avatars become real people but instead we get more exposition.
“Ready Player One” is pure escapism that begs the question, Will there ever be a video game movie that really works? The function of storytelling is vastly different between videogames and film and yet filmmakers try for a amalgam, the best of both worlds. What we usually end up with is what Steven Spielberg finds in his treatment of “Ready Player One,” a film that honours the spirit of the games at the expense of great storytelling.
“The Limehouse Golem” is a slice of Victorian Grand-Guignol gaslight horror that owes a debt to Jack the Ripper and to the great Hammer films of he 1960s.
London’s fog-drenched Limehouse district is in the spell of a serial killer who leaves behind mutilated bodies and cryptic messages written in his victim’s blood. The ritualistic killings are so savage, so inhuman the press presume they could only be the work of an ancient evil, the Golem.
Stumped, Scotland Yard assigns Inspector Kildare (Bill Nighy) to the case. Brilliant but troubled, the veteran policeman immediately starts putting clues together even though he knows his superiors think the case is unsolvable. His first break comes with the discovery of a diary of the Golem’s crimes, written in his own hand, kept in the reading room of a library. On the day of the last entry, September 24, only four men where in the reading room, music hall comedian Dan Leno (Douglas Booth), German philosopher Karl Marx, novelist George Gissing and playwright John Cree (Sam Reid).
They each become suspects but high on his list is Cree, a pompous failed playwright poisoned by his wife Elizabeth (Olivia Cooke) on the night of the last Golem murder. The Inspector is convinced she knew he was the killer and poisoned him to stop the carnage. Now he must go full Sherlock to prove that, solve the case and save Elizabeth from the gallows.
“The Limehouse Golem” is a lurid piece of work. Handsomely decked out with fine period details and sumptuous production design, it lures you in with “Masterpiece Theatre” style only to make a sharp U-turn into Hammer Horror territory. Victims are sawn into pieces, beheaded and generally ripped to pieces in ways that would make Jack the Ripper envious. It’s gory and gruesome but what it isn’t is a thriller. Despite a labyrinthine story structure—there’s more flashbacks than you can throw a dismembered head at—the good Inspector seems to be the only one who doesn’t know who the killer is.
On the plus side “The Limehouse Golem” has great performances—does Nighy ever disappoint?—and paints a vivid picture of Victorian music hall, onstage and off. The bawdy nature of the shows nicely compliments the theatrical nature of the killings, helping to create an otherworldly, weird atmosphere.
“The Limehouse Golem” isn’t much of a penny dreadful thriller—there’s too many red-herrings for that—but it does spill enough of the red stuff to satisfy fans of Victorian horror.
With a title like “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” you know the new movie starring Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler and Olivia Cooke, is likely to be sad. It is sad to be sure but it’s never maudlin or melodramatic and that sets it apart from most other teenage coming-of-age tragedies.
Mann plays Greg, a self-described “terminally awkward” high school senior “with a face like a groundhog.” His main goal is to get through the remainder of his last year in high school without hideously embarrassing himself. Flying under the radar at school means he has few friends and the one he has, Earl (Cyler), he describes as “a business associate.” When classmate Rachel (Cooke) is diagnosed with leukemia Greg’s mom (Connie Britton) insists he reach out to her and he begins a relationship different than any he’s had before.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking Greg and Rachel fall in love and he helps her through her illness but you’re off base. That’s what would happen in most other young adult stories. “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” takes pains to remind the audience that this isn’t a “sappy love story.” Instead it is a richly painted portrait of a connection between two people that transcends puppy love or a teenage crush.
Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon embraces the YA form—there are chapter titles like The Part Where I Panic Out of Sheer Awkwardness, strange cinematography and quirky characters—but never fails to elevate the story past melodrama to melancholy, from humorous to honest. It’s a tricky balancing act, aided by terrific performances from his young cast.
“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” is whimsical, funny and heartbreaking often in the same scene. It’s a charmer of a film that sets the bar pretty high for future young adult coming of age stories.
“Ouija” is scary, but not scary like Dracula, Edgar Allen Poe or hungry zombies. No, “Ouija” is scary because as I watched it I could feel my life slipping away, second-by-second, for ninety excruciating minutes.
The first Ouija board with an alphabet on it was patented in 1890. In the late 1960s they became a household item when Hasbro’s Parker Brothers began marketing them in 1966. If you haven’t played with one, you’ve certainly seen a witchboard in the movies and know when teens start ouijiing spiritual strife is just around the corner.
The trouble in “Ouija” begins when Debbie (Shelley Hennig) breaks the first rule of witchboarding: Never play alone. She pays a heavy price for her spiritual disobedience and soon her group of good-looking friends is gathered at her funeral. “She said she’d see us the next day,” says BFF Laine (Olivia Cooke). “Why would she say that?” We’ll never know… unless Laine pulls out the Ouija Board! Using Debbie’s board Laine and pals try and contact their dearly departed’s spirit, but instead unleash a demonic terror that threatens all of their lives.
As scary as you would imagine a horror film inspired by a board game to be, “Ouija” is a mishmash of demonology, Japanese horror and so many slasher movie tropes they owe John Carpenter and Wes Craven a writing credit. The blonde girl dies first, there’s spooky stuff in the attic and the plucky heroine outlives almost everyone. At least there’s very little found footage.
The movie is 5% jump scares, those unexpected loud noises that make you twitch in your seat, 67% set-up and 28% strange glances. As Laine, Debbie’s intrepid best friend, Cooke does most of the heavy lifting. She keeps the action (such that it is) moving forward all the while displaying her mastery of the concerned look. With a furrowed brow and a determined attitude she tracks down the mystery behind her friend’s death, but mostly she just looks concerned.
More annoying than the blank stares is the movie’s habit of telling the audience the most obvious of details. “She played it alone,” whispers Laine in amazement over a shot of, you guessed it, Debbie going solo on the Ouija board. Over footage of Deb saying she found the board in the attic Laine helpfully adds, “She found it in her house!” Instead of telling us something useful, or interesting, the film makes sure that no detail, no matter how small, is commented on.
You won’t need spiritual help to figure out whether to see “Ouija” or not. The planchette (the ouija’s triangular pointer) is aimed at “No.”
