Author Archives: Keith Garlington

REVIEW: “Unicorn Store”

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Brie Larson’s directorial debut “Unicorn Store” is a movie destined to leave some of its audience scratching their heads. Bathed in glitter and pastels and juggling more themes than you would expect, Larson gives us a weird little concoction with a sweet, whimsical flavor that I kinda fell for.

Larson not only directs but stars as Kit, an aspiring artist who has her dreams shattered by her snobbish art professor. Dejected and cash-strapped, she moves back in with her hyper-motivated parents (really funny turns from Joan Cusack and Bradley Whitford). It’s a big blow for a young woman still clinging to her childhood ideals. She finally crawls out of her melancholy, caves to her parents wishes, and joins the uninspired everyday work force.

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Kit lands a job as a temp at a public relations agency, a workplace filled with ambition-quenching monotony and one creepy boss named Gary (a wonderfully absurd Hamish Linklater). Kit tries to assimilate but her rainbow colored dreams are kept alive thanks to a series of elaborate invitation cards that lead her to “The Store”. It’s ran by the truly bizarre Salesman (Samuel L. Jackson) who tells her his shop can provide whatever she needs.

The movie’s title probably gives it away, but Kit asks for a unicorn. A real one mind you although the metaphors are aplenty. The screenplay from newcomer Samantha McIntyre treats Kit with tons of sympathy and respect. She and Larson challenge us to do the same – to look at Kit through an empathetic lens. Everyone in the film wants Kit to change and be someone she isn’t. The exception is Virgil (Mamoudou Athie), a learn-on-the-fly handyman and the lone person who accepts Kit for who she is.

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Larson’s direction makes for a nice behind-the-camera debut. It doesn’t showcase a ton of flair but it’s proficient, nimble, and steady. She doesn’t overreach and has a nice actor-like way of highlighting her characters. That leads to her performance which is warm, charming and utterly convincing. And fans of “Captain Marvel” will instantly recognize the chemistry between Larson and Jackson. This was wrapped up prior to her big Marvel splash, but you can already see how well the two work together. Linklater, Athie, Cusack, and Whitford are all strong in supporting roles. Also toss in a very funny Karan Soni.

“Unicorn Store” slyly straddles the line between celebrating and embracing our inner child and finding identity and fulfillment in the real world. I can see it being too quirky for some. Maybe it is lighthearted to a fault and too optimistic for our cynical current-day climate. But despite its flaws I found it to be warm, charming and packed with a ton of heart and far more laughs than I expected. Even more, it’s a really good performance from Larson and a satisfying directorial debut. I’m anxious to see what she does next.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

3-5-stars

 

First Glance: “Stuber”

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Could this be the start of a new genre – the rideshare action comedy? Who knows, but I wouldn’t be surprised. “Stuber” comes from Canadian filmmaker Michael Dowse and sees Dave Bautista as a hard-boiled LAPD detective teaming up Kumail Nanjiani who play a soft-spoken Uber driver. Not a buddy movie pairing you see every day.

The trailer packs several good laughs. First the concept – a detective who will do anything to get his man, an Uber driver who will do anything for a 5 star rating. There’s potential there. The comic chemistry between Bautista and Nanjiani also looks promising. It looks relentlessly loud and violent, but the comic bits we see are pretty effective.

“Stuber” hits theaters July 12th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or giving it a pass.

Worst to First: Ranking the Films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

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Back in 2016 I set out to rank all of the Marvel movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and beyond. Needless to say there have been several big additions since. So with “Avengers: Endgame” right around the corner what better time to rethink my list with the fresh batch of newcomers included. The only difference is that this time I’m restricting it to the 21 movies of the MCU.

Following the blueprint of my year-end Top 10 list, here is my #11-20:

  • #21 – “Iron Man 3” (2013)
  • #20 – “Thor: The Dark World” (2013)
  • #19 – “Spider-Man: Homecoming” (2017)
  • #18 – “Ant-Man” (2015)
  • #17 – “The Incredible Hulk” (2008)
  • #16 – “Thor: Ragnarok” (2017)
  • #15 – “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015)
  • #14 – “Doctor Strange” (2016)
  • #13 – “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” (2017)
  • #12 – “Iron Man 2” (2010)
  • # 11 – “Ant-Man and the Wasp” (2018)

#10 – “Guardians of the Galaxy” (2014)

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Since doing my Marvel movie ranking in 2016 no movie has risen higher in my estimation than James Gunn’s first “Guardians” film. After another viewing more things clicked into place both storywise and with the humor. The motley cast of characters is the biggest draw and watching this band of misfits come together is a lot of fun.

#9 – “Captain Marvel” (2019)

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It may still be making money at the box office but for good reason. “Captain Marvel” is another example of the Marvel Studios taking a mid-tier character and making them a significant part of the MCU. It’s a movie with its own special flavor, it features Nick Fury’s meatiest role, and it has one killer cat. Oh, and it also sports a well-cast Oscar-winner as its star.

#8 – “Thor” (2011)

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This is a movie that could have so easily failed. Bringing Thor to the big screen and even attempting to tackle his lore could have been insufferably cheesy. Instead they took just the right approach, introducing the God of Thunder through an often funny ‘fish out of water’ story. And Chris Hemsworth shows himself to be some of the best MCU casting to date.

#7 – “Black Panther” (2018)

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The sheer scope of “Black Panther” is enough to get it top 10 consideration, but this is a movie with so much more to offer. Tops on the list is its fabulous world building. It also gives us a truly great villain, something often missing in many MCU movies. Culturally significant and truly epic in scope and scale.

#6 – “Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011)

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There is so much about this movie that resonated with me. I loved its wonderfully realized period setting. I equally love how it handles the young Steve Rogers character and I’ve always had a soft spot for Red Skull as one Marvel’s top villains. It’s an earnest film with a ton of heart and its one of the MCU origin stories that is full of its own personality.

#5 – “Iron Man” (2008)

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The movie that started it all is also one of the very best the MCU has to offer. “Iron Man” was such a great mix of action and humor plus it features the unexpectedly perfect casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. It’s such a great lead performance and wonderful material to launch the key player who would lead Marvel’s bold new venture.

#4 – “The Avengers” (2012)

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Marvel’s insanely ambitious shared universe first came together in “The Avengers”. It was the initial big ‘event film’ the young MCU had been working towards. And what an absolute blast. With so many character threads and moving parts, it was an incredible accomplishment. It also proved that the MCU was no pipe dream and that there were big things to come.

#3 – “Captain America: Civil War” (2016)

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In many ways this was the Avengers movie I wish “Age of Ultron” had been. Not only did the movie pick up Cap’s individual story (which I think is the MCU’s best) but it shook up the entire universe, setting the stage for some big events to come. Great action, great tension, and some truly great storytelling puts this near the top for me.

#2 – “Avengers: Infinity War” (2018)

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Nearly every single MCU movie for the last several years had been teasing us with what culminated in “Infinity War”. It was a massive undertaking but the results were pretty amazing. And then you have the ending – a wonderfully gutsy and grim way for Marvel to leave their audience hanging and anxiously waiting for “Endgame”.

#1 – “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014)

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When naming my favorite MCU movie there really is no comparison. “Winter Soldier” is based on one of my very favorite comic book storylines and the film does it justice. The Cap films have always put a priority on the human element and this one is no different. I also love the 70’s spy thriller vibe and its heavy use of practical effects and stunt work. The movie clicks from the opening scene to the end credits stinger. It’s easily tops on my list.

REVIEW: “The Highwaymen”

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For me the allure of Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson playing Texas Rangers sent to hunt down the notorious Bonnie and Clyde is undeniable. I’m a long-time fan of Costner who vanished from the screen for a while but seems to have nicely settled into a new stage of his career. And then you have Harrelson – always interesting, always entertaining.

The two pair up in “The Highwaymen”, a period crime thriller that was first pitched as early as 2005. Screenwriter John Fusco’s original vision was to have Paul Newman and Robert Redford play the veteran lawmen. After sitting in development for years with Universal Studios, Netflix acquired the rights in 2017 with two new leads and John Lee Hancock set to direct.

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“The Highwaymen” quickly sets itself up as slow-burning crime investigation thriller. The story starts in 1934, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow having been on the run for over two years. The notorious couple carry out a violent jailbreak at Eastham Prison Farm in Texas. Lee Simmons (the always good John Carroll Lynch), head of the Texas Department of Corrections, urges an image-conscious Governor “Ma” Ferguson (Kathy Bates) to take drastic measures to finally end the murderous crime spree.

Simmons convinces a reluctant Ferguson to hire former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer (Costner) to track down Bonnie and Clyde and “put ’em on the spot” (you can probably guess what that means). An interesting bit of history – Hamer and forty other Rangers resigned after “Ma” Ferguson won a second term. She had been proven corrupt and quickly fired all remaining Rangers replacing them with her own more ‘modern’ law enforcement. Simmons and Fusco use that internal tension several times during the film.

Costner shows us an abrasive, hard-edged Frank Hamer (love the performance). He’s a principled man clearly bitter over the dismissal of the Rangers but driven by the death of other lawmen to put an end to the Barrow gang. Hamer hesitantly brings along his old partner Maney Gault (Harrelson) and the pair begin studying the gangs patterns and following their blood trail through the lower Midwest. Harrelson is a nice complement to Costner, working at a different temperature and offering a needed balance to their mission.

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It’s not a stretch to call this an inadvertent companion piece to Arthur Penn’s beloved 1967 picture “Bonnie and Clyde”. Penn painted a somewhat romanticized portrait of the Barrow gang while “The Highwaymen” distinctly looks from the lawmen’s perspective. It allows for a critical view of the rogue couple’s cult-like following and of how cultural fame is often rooted in absurdity. Glamorizing news stories, skewed comparisons to Robin Hood, young women dressing like Bonnie Parker. “They’re more adored than movie stars” one character mutters.

Admittedly there is an old-fashioned flavor to “The Highwaymen” that is sure to push some people away. You see it in how it tells its story and even in how it’s made. I get the inevitable complaints of “too slow” and “not enough action”. Yet I found myself loving it – the slow burn, the prickly Costner, the subtle moral questions it tosses out there. It all works, like a cool flashback to a classic film style I’ve never grown tired of. But how will that play today? It will be interesting to see.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

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REVIEW: “Shazam!” (2019)

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I feel the need to start off with a confession. After seeing the first trailer for DC’s “Shazam!” I pounced on the opportunity to voice my skepticism. It wasn’t due to a desire to be some kind of contrarian. I genuinely disliked DC’s decision to make a joke out of a truly iconic character. You could say I was armed and ready to push back hard on this movie.

Funny thing though, despite my prefabricated negativity, it was hard to hate on the trailer too much. It’s star Zachary Levi is a genuinely likable guy and it did sport some humorous ‘reluctant superhero’ moments. I kept thinking of Will Smith’s “Hancock” except actually funny. But enough about the trailer. What about the actual movie itself? Let’s say it lands somewhere in the middle.

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“Shazam!” is the seventh film in the DC Extended Universe and easily the most light-hearted of the bunch. The heads at DC Films seem to have panicked and pivoted to making their movies much more MCU-like instead of carving out a their own unique identity. I actually appreciated their darker and more serious tone as it offered a different flavor to the superhero genre.

David Sandberg, known more for his work in horror, directs from a screenplay written by Henry Gayden. He opens with a prologue featuring Djimon Hounsou as a wizard decked in full Gandalf the Grey garb. He basically serves as a crash course on the Shazam lore you’ll need for the two-plus hours that follow. We get things like the Rock of Eternity, the Eye of Envy, the Seven Deadly Sins each in monster form. You know, the normal stuff.

Now jump ahead to present day Philadelphia where teenaged Billy Batson (Asher Angel) has ran away from one foster family after another. Child services gives him one more chance, putting him in a group home ran by Victor and Rosa Vazquez (sweetly played by Cooper Andrews and Marta Milans). But Billy has no interest in a new family. Instead he’s intent on finding his birth mother who he was separated from as a child.

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The house is made up of a fairly interesting array of characters. None are particularly deep but they serve their purposes. His gabby, superhero enthusiast roommate Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) gets most of the scenes. He’s a little annoying but proves to be a big help after Billy magically encounters the wizard from the prologue who imbues him superhuman powers in the form of a super-buff adult body (played by Zachary Levi). It’s Freddy who helps him sort through his crazy new abilities.

But every hero needs a villain, right? Mark Strong can make the silliest material seem menacing and here he plays Thaddeus Sivana, a power-hungry baddie with serious daddy issues. In the prologue we see him encountering the aforementioned wizard as a child. But he was deemed unworthy of the power Billy now possesses and has been seeking the way back to the wizard’s realm ever since. And once he gets wind of Billy, well he begins doing bad guy things.

While Strong’s performance is fun, as villains go the movie version of Sivana is pretty shallow. Instead of giving him any meaningful depth Sandberg digs his heels into the comedy element of his story. It turns out to be a double-edged sword. Some of the film’s most playful moments are its best. Take when Shazam/Billy and Freddy are going through their checklist of superpowers testing every one. And much of it too the smile-inducing “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen.

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But eventually the whole ‘kid in an adult body’ wears a little thin. And when so much time is put into youthful frolicking, it’s hard to buy into his sudden shift to superhero. Not to mention the tonal clashes particularly as the movie transitions back-and-forth between Billy’s angle and Sivana’s. It’s tough to balance Shazam flossing (that’s a dance for you older folk) with a demon creature chomping someone’s head off.

There is no denying that “Shazam!” has charm and heart. You also can’t help but enjoy the fun and energetic Zachary Levi, padded suit and all. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that the original Captain Marvel (sorry MCU, it’s true) deserved a better movie. A part of me thinks “Shazam!” would work better as an all-out spoof instead of attempting a balancing act. Then again I would probably push back on that even harder. So we are left with a fun but lightweight DC installment that uses a ton of humor to mask its otherwise noticeable flaws.

VERDICT – 3 STARS

3-stars

 

REVIEW: “The Best of Enemies” (2019)

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File this one under ‘too crazy not to be true’. The deep personal friendship between outspoken civil rights activist Ann Atwater and Ku Klux Klan leader turned fellow civil rights activist C.P. Ellis is as inspiring as it is extraordinary. The new drama “The Best of Enemies” tells their remarkable story which is nothing short of improbable.

The film is based on Osha Gray Davidson’s 1996 book The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South. It marks the feature film debut for Robin Bissell who directs and wrote the screenplay. Bissell spent a ton of time with Atwater learning from her experiences and getting valuable input. The two became close with Atwater giving Bissell’s script her enthusiastic stamp of approval. Sadly she would pass away in June of 2016.

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The film is driven by two equally big yet equally fabulous performances. Taraji P. Henson loses herself playing Atwater, a single mother raising her children in the powder keg that was 1971 Durham, North Carolina. A notorious fireball (even earning herself the nickname Roughhouse Annie), she was an ardent community organizer and the face of a local hard-working activist group.

C.P. Ellis is played by the always fiercely committed Sam Rockwell. In Bissell’s telling Ellis runs a small full service gas station (he was actually a college maintenance man) which barely offers enough income to support his wife and kids. But people around town mostly know him as the president of Durham’s chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. This earns him the respect of the prejudiced white community, understandably draws the ire of the black community, and sets him up as a puppet for opportunistic local politicians.

A suspicious fire at a black elementary school pushes integration to the forefront of local conversation. The white supremacists see it as segregation’s last stand and they have a stacked City Council to back them. The outspoken Atwater leads the other side who are willing to defend their children and their rights regardless of the cost. As the threat of violence intensifies Bill Riddick (a pitch-perfect Babou Ceesay), a lawyer and organizer from Raleigh, is brought in to mediate a 10-day “Save Our Schools” community summit to find a public resolution. I bet you can guess who he chooses as his co-chairs?

Bissell’s script tees up several big scenes especially for Henson. They certainly come across as attention-getters but it helps that Henson knocks it out of the park. She’s also given some meaty monologues which not only highlights the performance, but shows Bissell’s smart handling of dialogue. Sure they can be a bit on-the-nose, but they always feel genuine and in tune with the characters and story.

The second half shifts more of its focus to Ellis and not because of some racially insensitive preference of the filmmaker (I’ve actually seen that intimated). Ellis’ transformation is not only key to where the story is going but true to the real-life relationship at the film’s center. Bissell doesn’t sugarcoat Ellis’ deep-rooted prejudice, but he does give Ellis some emotional complexities and personal insecurities which paint him as more than your run-of-the-mill stereotype. Rockwell is superb.

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Other strengths of the film – I like how it captures the early seventies southern setting complete with its boiling racial tensions. The ugliness of white supremacy and the powerful influence the Klan still brandished is captured and conveyed in a palpable way. I also can’t say enough about the supporting cast. Ceesay, Anne Heche, Wes Bentley, Bruce McGill, and John Gallagher, Jr. all deliver. My only real beefs – There are second half stretches where we simply don’t get enough of Henson. And at just over 130 minutes couldn’t a little more time be given to the personal side of Ellis and Atwater’s budding friendship?

It’s pretty easy to predict some of the reactions “The Best of Enemies” is sure to provoke. Expect plenty of critical snark and quick dismissals along with the inevitable “white savior” tag (I’m sorry, but if the film has a true “savior” its Bill Riddick). Sadly, for some it doesn’t matter how much truth is in the storytelling. Unless the film is blistering, brash and screaming at the top of its lungs it won’t penetrate those looking at this subject matter through their own specific prism. That’s a shame because the harsh labels and strange readings can’t keep this from being a thoughtful and worthwhile picture. And boy is there room for its message, especially in today’s far-from-colorblind society.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

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