Since its enthusiastic premiere earlier this month at the Venice Film Festival, Pablo Larrain’s “Spencer” has become one of the most talked about movies of the Fall movie season. Most of the excitement has centered around Kristen Stewart’s highly acclaimed portrayal of Diana, Princess of Wales. Today Neon dropped the first full trailer and there’s a lot to like in what it shows us.
Larrain, who also directed 2016’s “Jackie”, brings along his unique and arresting style which can be cause for both curiosity and caution. We trailer is filled with striking camera shots and leaves the impression that the film will be leaning heavily on Stewart. There is an eye-catching supporting corps including Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, and Jack Farthing. Count me among the group who is excited to see how this plays out.
“Spencer” lands in theaters November 5th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” has been scheduled and then delayed and then rescheduled and then delayed and then moved up (did I miss anything?). Now it looks like it is finally hitting theaters next week and to get ready, Sony released four new posters. Up to this point the posters for the Venom sequel have been fantastic. These four…meh. Take a look and tell me what you think.
DIRECTOR – Andy Serkis
WRITER – Kelly Marcel
STARRING – Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris, Reid Scott, Stephen Graham
In 1999 the National Football League was taken by surprise by Kurt Warner, an undrafted quarterback who went from bagging groceries to becoming NFL MVP, Super Bowl Champion, Super Bowl MVP, and an NFL Hall of Famer. He would run the high-powered offense known as “The Greatest Show on Turf” and for twelve seasons he left his mark. He was also known as a man of resilient faith – something that led to becoming one of the most inspirational success stories in football history.
It seems inevitable that there would a Kurt Warner biopic at some point and it comes with “American Underdog”. Warner is played by Zachary Levi with Anna Paquin playing his wife Brenda and Dennis Quaid playing Rams head coach Dick Vermeil. The first trailer has all the traditional markings of a sports biopic. But as someone who was pretty invested in Warner’s amazing story, I’m anxious to give it a try.
“American Underdog” hits theaters December 25th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
New on Netflix this weekend is Antoine Fuqua’s “The Guilty”, an American remake of a terrific 2018 Danish film from director Gustav Möller. “The Guilty” is an interesting choice for Fuqua and dramatically different than the more action-oriented movies the filmmaker is known for. To his credit, Fuqua captures much of the taut tension of the original film and he manages the single-setting challenges well enough.
The entire film takes place in a 911 dispatch center where Joe Baylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) works as an operator. I won’t say too much about him considering a healthy chunk of the movie is spent unwrapping his troubled character over the course of one eventful night. Suffice it to say, he’s been taken off the streets pending an upcoming trial for [REDACTED]. The stress from his looming court date along with his recent split with his wife has Joe on edge.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
Joe’s evening takes a dramatic turn when he receives a call from a little girl named Abby (voiced by Christiana Montoya) who tells him her mother Emily (Riley Keough) has been kidnapped. Joe makes a promise to Abby that she will see her mother again. He then spends the rest of the night trying to keep his promise. Meanwhile Joe’s personal story gets messier as his own problems begin to fester. He’s in a mess as evident by the pesky Los Angeles Times reporter (Edi Patterson) who keeps calling. “I just want you to be able to tell your side of the story,” she claims.
The vast majority of the running time plays out over telephones and police radios. Fuqua does a sufficient job building suspenseful but has a hard time keeping the tension ratcheted up throughout the tight 90 minutes. The story (from screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto) unfolds at a pretty good pace, and we get some good voice work from Keough, Ethan Hawke, Paul Dano, Peter Saarsgard, and Eli Goree.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
Unfortunately the last 20 minutes sees the film’s central conceit begin to fizzle. It’s not helped by Gyllenhaal’s character who is relentlessly volatile, unlikable, and ever stressed to the point of almost snapping. The performance is solid, but Gyllenhaal is asked to portray Joe with such aggression that it’s almost impossible to connect with him.
Fuqua does add some interesting touches, such as setting his movie to the backdrop of the California wildfires. But no matter how hard the film tries, it’s never able to muster the same intensity or humanity as its Danish inspiration. Perhaps seeing the 2018 film set my expectations at a certain level. Fuqua’s version, though entertaining to a point, simply doesn’t have the same spark and ends up being a pretty pale comparison. “The Guilty” premieres Friday (September 24th) on Netflix.
In “Finch” a man, his dog and an android take a road-trip. Ok, so there’s more to the upcoming post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama than that, but that’s a key part of the shiny new trailer released yesterday from Apple TV+. If I haven’t sold you yet, how about this – the man is played by Tom Hanks. I don’t know about you, but that’s enough to get me excited.
The film is directed by Miguel Sapochnik (“Game of Thrones”) who turns earth into a dry desolate wasteland. It’s where Hanks, an inventor, befriends a stray dog and builds them an android companion. But when a deadly storm approaches, the unorthodox three amigos are forced to flee. Their journey to a safer place is filled with all sorts of natural and unnatural threats. Sounds thrilling. But the trailer also shows sweetness and a lot of heart. Sounds great.
“Finch” premieres on Apple TV+ November 5th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
Those of us who were around in the late 1970’s through the 1980’s will certainly remember Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, the hosts of the immensely popular television ‘ministry’ The PTL Club. Starting out of a small North Carolina studio, the Bakkers grew their small show into its own international television network. They even launched a 2500-acre theme park and resort. The couple’s lavish lifestyle was enough to rouse suspicion, but it was Jim Bakker’s sex scandals and coverups that eventually brought the powerful hucksters to their knees.
The new film “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” comes from director Michael Showalter working from a script by Abe Sylvia. It’s an adaptation of a 2000 documentary of the same name and sees Andrew Garfield and Jessica Chastain stepping into the roles of the televangelist power couple. The trailers for the film were both fascinating and curious, taking what looked to be a very sympathetic approach to Tammy Faye. While Jim Bakker was clearly a corrupt and contemptible charlatan, Tammy Faye’s hands weren’t exactly clean. So it made sense to wonder if the movie would paint us the full picture or was it up to something else?
Image Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
It turns out “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” goes all-in, not just to gain our sympathies for Tammy Faye, but also in portraying her as one of Jim Bakker’s countless victims. She’s yet another person hoodwinked by Jim’s lust for wealth and power.
But there’s an unavoidable side effect to the movie’s staunch commitment to redeeming Tammy Faye’s image. The filmmakers are so aggressive in their attempts at shielding her from any culpability that they make her into a dimwit. Garfield’s Jim Bakker is so overtly and transparently a fraud to the point of being a caricature. Yet the film shows Tammy Faye standing by him, soaking up the posh amenities, but oblivious to her husband and ministry partner’s glaring corruption? That’s a leap of faith I could never take.
The movie’s two stars make for a captivating pair and there is certainly plenty of juicy material to cover. But “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” rarely gets out of standard by-the-book biopic mode. And in the rare instances where it does, the scenes more closely resemble an extended Saturday Night Live skit. Chastain goes big and gives a performance that’s captivating, a little wacky at times, but easily the film’s biggest strength. She pours herself into the titular character and as much as the Academy loves transformative work, Chastain should be a lock for an Oscar nomination.
The story starts in 1952, before the trademark thick eyelashes caked in mascara. There we see Tammy Faye as a little girl in International Falls, Minnesota. The movie wastes no time hopping to her bible college days in Minneapolis where she first meets and falls for an ambitious young Jim Bakker. Two scenes later the couple are married and starting a traveling ministry spreading their health and wealth prosperity gospel across the Bible Belt.
While in real-life Tammy Faye did more than her share of mangling scripture to lure in donors in an effort to support their opulent lifestyles, the movie paints her as well-meaning bystander. Instead it’s all Jim’s rabid thirst for money and prominence that led to their downfall. Especially after getting a taste of television on Pat Robertson’s CBN network. Before you know it Jim and Tammy Faye form their own TV channel out of a baby blue Charlotte, North Carolina studio – enter the PTL Network.
Image Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
The movie doesn’t go into much detail about how the Bakkers managed to get from TV show hosts, to network owners, to building their own theme park and resort in Fort Mill, South Carolina all by 1985. It’s content with making quick stops along the timeline, each stop showing Jim’s ever-growing self-obsession while Tammy SLOWLY starts to realize the obvious. And of course their empire eventually crumbles in a heap of adultery, drug addiction, and fraud.
There are several other elements that either need more attention or just don’t work at all. There’s Tammy Faye’s undercooked relationship with her stern and unsupportive mother (a really good Cherry Jones). There’s Tammy’s clumsily written and out of the blue affair with her here-and-gone record producer (Mark Wystrach). There’s Vincent D’Onofrio’s wacky impersonation of Jerry Fallwell. And then you have the final 20 minutes that loses steam before ending with an especially strange final musical number.
”The Eyes of Tammy Faye” ends up being a bewildering mixed bag. In their efforts to rewrite Tammy Faye Bakker, the filmmakers leave us nothing but the appearance of humanity. They scrub clean most of her sins, and manage to shift the blame for the ones they do show. So we end up with a portrayal that neglects the very thing that would have made it interesting. It’s a shame because this truly is a showcase for Chastain who’s up to the task but isn’t given the material to match. ”The Eyes of Tammy Faye” opens in theaters this weekend.
Keith & the Movies 