The Consultant
When Christoph Waltz is at his best playing a villain in films like Inglorious Basterds, he presents as gentle and almost naively sweet before revealing an endless capacity for cruelty. At his worst, as with his Blofeld, he presents as all menace and violence and ends up with the effectiveness of a kitten. The former is delightful to behold; the latter can crash an entire film. Unfortunately, The Consultant forces Waltz to be the menacing kitten. Continue Reading →
Dead for a Dollar
Watch afterBullet Train (2022),
StarringWillem Dafoe,
With the exception of Clint Eastwood, Walter Hill is the contemporary filmmaker most closely associated with what was once the most American of film genres, the Western. They've been in relatively short supply for the last 50-odd years, but with projects like The Long Riders, Geronimo, Wild Bill, Broken Trail, and the pilot episode of Deadwood (not to mention modern-set takes on the form like Extreme Prejudice and Last Man Standing), Hill’s been doing what he can to keep the form and its traditions alive. His latest, Dead for a Dollar (his first film in six years), is unlikely to spur a revival anytime soon and its bypassing of theaters for a VOD release all but ensures that it will be overlooked by all but his most dedicated fans. The good news is that those fans—and any others who should come across it—will be rewarded with a sturdy, entertaining work that overcomes its occasionally apparent budget constraints to serve as a welcome reminder that Hill remains one of the most fascinating genre filmmakers of our time. Continue Reading →
The French Dispatch
SimilarBed and Board (1970), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006),
Boys Don't Cry (1999) Driving Miss Daisy (1989), My Own Private Idaho (1991), Natural Born Killers (1994), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004),
Watch afterDune (2021), The Power of the Dog (2021),
StarringFisher Stevens, Owen Wilson, Toheeb Jimoh, Willem Dafoe,
StudioSearchlight Pictures,
This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Chicago International Film Festival. Continue Reading →
No Time to Die
SimilarChildren of Men (2006),
Watch afterDune (2021), Eternals (2021), Free Guy (2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021),
To speak of No Time to Die is to speak of what came before it. Of course, that sounds obvious in theory; the Daniel Craig era of 007 comes to an end here. They lightly tied into each other until Spectre drunkenly tried and failed at deepening the mythology. While the quality of the films varied, at least they were all distinct. It's been fifteen years and five movies -- now it all comes to a head, the stakes ostensibly high and the emotions primed to be deeper. And yet, against all odds, Cary Joji Fukunaga's offering to the franchise is derivative enough of its most recent predecessors to fumble conceptually and concretely. Continue Reading →