EDITORIAL: The Best Films to Ever Show on TV

(Image: Shutterstock)

The Best Films To Ever Show On TV

Watching movies has always been an experience that’s best shared with others. You can watch it with your family or friends, and even while you’re watching alone, you’re sharing this experience with the characters you see on screen. These days, you don’t have to travel all the way to a movie house or rent out tapes as many TV channels show reruns of some of the best films that you can watch with your loved ones in the comfort of your own home.

To know about films and movies that will be shown on TV, OnTVTonight is a guide that you can check. Among different genres of entertainment, here are some of the films that top the list, which you can check out when you’re having a movie marathon:

Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Endgame was released earlier this year, but it has gone over the mark of other top grossing movies in the past years. With a whopping ticket sales of $1.2 billion on its opening weekend, Avengers: Endgame is possibly the most successful Marvel movie so far, in which it follows what happened after the disastrous events caused by Thanos’ snap from the previous movie, Avengers: Infinity War. This movie was much-awaited by Marvel fans and movie enthusiasts alike, and definitely didn’t disappoint its viewers with its flawless CGI, amazing plot, and the magnificent execution of the actors. 

Hugo

One of Martin Scorsese’s movies released in 2011, Hugo has proven to be different from other Scorsese movies that usually revolve around crime, money, and gangsters. Hugo was based on the novel by Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The movie is about a young orphan who lives alone in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris in the 1930s. His job inside the railway station is to oil and maintain the station’s clock but, for him, his job is to protect an automaton and notebook left by his father, who unfortunately, died on a museum fire. In discovering the truth of whether Hugo’s father really left him a message, the story begins to unfold its mystery with the help of a toy shop owner and his granddaughter. In the hands of an excellent director like Scorsese, Hugo deserves to be named as one of the best films in terms of story and technical aspects. 

(Image: Shutterstock)

Vertigo

As one of the most mysterious films of all time, Vertigo, released in 1958, remains as the symbol of the art of mystery and thrill in entertainment even until today. The movie revolves around Scottie, an ex-police officer experiencing vertigo from a traumatic crime chase, was hired to stop his friend’s wife from committing suicide. While doing his job, he inexplicably fell in love with this woman. Weird and unanticipated events start to unravel due to his strange obsessions, and these events marked director Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece. 

The Godfather 

Regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, depicts the story of an Italian mafia family in New York, set in the late 1940s, just after the Second World War. This film won three Oscars in 1972 and has been nominated in seven other categories. Because of its compelling plot, excellent direction, and superb performances, The Godfather is revered to be a classic and continues to serve as a standard that holds the bar for many crime films that have been created and will be created.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Quite ahead of its time, the movie 2001:A Space Odyssey, released in 1958, featured the peak of technology through a leap in space. The mystery and excitement brought about by this movie, along with its revolutionary plot, caught the attention of its audience. A Space Odyssey is about a mysterious space mission involving a group of astronauts led by Dr. Dave Bowman, who experienced a tragic journey through space when their ship’s computer system started to fail. Together, they faced a battle against their greatest mechanical works, which were otherwise created to help them. While it took years to make, the film successfully brought science fiction to film, considering that advanced CGI, cinematography, and movie instruments were still very limited during the time of its release. 

Conclusion

Being one of the best films is not just about a single element, but rather a combination of various factors that can affect the viewers’ perceptions, and even emotions. These films prove that a great movie experience doesn’t have to be something fancy and expensive, but sharing these movies with your loved ones can make it memorable and relatable.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Where'd You Go, Bernadette

(Image by Wilson Webb for Annapurna Pictures)

WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE— 3 STARS

Nearly three-and-a-half years ago when reviewing Everybody Wants Some!!, this writer identified two parallels between which filmmaker Richard Linklater always seems to operate. It was either “free-wheeling fun” or “poignant realism” with “scant middle ground.” Call them Party Linklater and Deep Linklater. The question mark skipped from the title of Where’d You Go, Bernadette can be placed in the sentence of which Linklater did we get? Welcome to the uncharted and unexpected “scant middle ground” where grandiose fiction is the party and odd eccentricity is the depth.

Neurotically charming, yet misshapen in many ways, Where’d You Go, Bernadette is wholly unique from the Texan and Hollywood outsider. The movie has the equal ability to disarm and disgust depending on your perspective or experience with the Maria Semple source material. Non-readers will float with the staccato blustering and the Antarctic kayak currents of fancy. Ardent fans will wonder where all the scintillating mystery went that gave merit to all the haphazard happenings beset on the family of narrator Balakrishna Branch, affectionately known as “Bee” and played by debuting talent Emma Nelson.

Bee is the uber-precocious 15-year-old daughter of a pair of brilliant-minded, attracted opposites. Her father is the Microsoft-backed tech innovator Elgin Branch, played by Billy Crudup, earning industry kudos and TED Talk stages with groundbreaking new mind-to-text recognition software. The extroverted and borderline workaholic is matched by his reclusive and agoraphobic wife and Bee’s titular mother, played by Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett and her bangs. Detailed by exposition-minded video essays viewed by characters on screen, Bernadette Fox was once the toast of Los Angeles and the most brilliant architectural design savant of her generation before professional disappointment burned and stomped over her creativity.

LESSON #1: “THE BRAIN IS A DISCOUNTING MECHANISM” — Bernadette’s own explanatory observations of self-diagnosis are fueled by empirical study, plenty of science, and a side of doubting bullshit. It’s true that the brain looks for risk and signals accordingly. To call it a design flaw for danger instead of joy, however, is where you squint at the woman’s nuttiness to a degree. Still, this background and Cate’s delivery of it all sheds light on the movie’s nervous system.

For years, Bernadette has buried herself in two projects: being a mom and endlessly tinkering with restoring a huge derelict old school building into the family’s home in the Seattle burbs. Anxiety has grown into to insomnia and a racing heart during social and domestic confrontations. Her most common clashes are anything requiring Bernadette to interact and keep up with the joneses of the hoity-toity private school Bee attends (something matching of Semple’s inspiration). That judgy crowd is led by the granola and snooty next door neighbor Audrey (Kristen Wiig) and her minion Soo-Lin (TV actress Zoe Chao) who works with Elgin.

LESSON #2: DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES ON FAILING LIVES — We learn a great deal about where Elgin and Bernadette stand in a dynamite sequence of two separated venting sessions. Elgin has approached a psychiatrist (Judy Greer) about how to deal with his wife. In a different location, Bernadette catches up with an old colleague (Laurence Fishburne) that she hasn’t seen in years. Deftly constructed with surgical editing from Linklater regular Sandra Adair, his lament combines with her rant. His conclusion is help while hers is to create, showing just how far apart the two former lovebirds are now.

Outside of her impressionable daughter, Bernadette’s verbose and unrestrained external monologue is received and filtered through “Manjula,” her unseen automated text-to-speech personal assistant service. Even with the prospect of an Antarctic cruise vacation for Bee on the horizon, all of the loose threads of Bernadette’s current course are unraveling to several breaking points. Everyone can see these potential disasters coming except her and the loyal Bee who considers her mother her best friend.

LESSON #3: LOVE SOMEONE’S FLAWS — The movie presents a family that still loves the mess that Bernadette has become. Her husband, for all his worry, remains a willing confidante. The nearly unconditional love between daughter and mother is tremendous. Mom defends her daughter’s independence and the resilient girl gives it right back in the face of the catty other moms. Accepting and inspiring familial love trumps every quirk or mistake and the film forces a great many syrup-coated steps to ensure that happens.

Showing off as much if not more unstable petulance as she did winning the Oscar for Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, Cate Blanchett bring a dizzying level of detail to her characterization of depressed pizzazz and wallowing pluck and play Bernadette Fox. There is never a wasted movement or breath with Cate. This is complete immersion and her vocal and physical expressions and actions of exasperation are fascinating to watch. Sure, maybe we’ve seen this level of difficulty before from the newly-minted 50-year-old, but the capability and brilliance she brings to these odd roles is nearly second to none. Put her right there next to Meryl Streep where her dedication to any and every challenge cannot be questioned.

Across from that celebrated star of rich and storied career heights is Emma Nelson, the rookie in her first movie. Experience be damned, she becomes the emotional linchpin of the whole darn thing. Every arc of personal improvement for Bernadette lifts one for Bee and the first-timer exudes mettle and moxie. Read a little local Chicagoland love from critic colleague Dann Gire of The Daily Herald on this Barrington, Illinois native. That girl is going places besides just her next year of high school.

Admittedly, Where’d You Go, Bernadette is tricky business for Richard Linklater. Semple’s best-seller is a uniquely mystery-driven collection of documents, emails, and transcripts, stuff not easy or clear to translate on screen without heavy narration or the wild visual creativity of something like Searching. Linklater and the Me and Orson Welles screenwriting team of Holly Gent and Vince Palmo bent and stripped away that hop-scotch of truth and “you never know everything” intrigue to fashion something more straight-forward and safe as a character piece narrative. In doing so, the resulting film skimps on opportunities to wreck more havoc in personal lives. The fits and spurts of how far to raise eyebrows comes out in the film’s unevenness. Luckily, the acting is steadfast and satisfying.

LESSON #4: TAKE A JOURNEY OF SELF-DISCOVERY — Critique aside, the clear goal for Linklater was to create or hone something more pleasant than a tawdry yarn of competing gossip. The third act of this movie takes a walkabout-ish excursion and turn for Bernadette and company brings aims positivity to elevate the doldrums of everyone’s downward spiral. Choose your journey to reinvigorate your soul. The Antarctica location doesn’t matter. It’s the fact you take one when you need it most.

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EDITORIAL: Hearing Fear: Why Music is Half the Battle in Horror Movies

(Image: New York Philharmonic)

Hearing Fear: Why Music is Half the Battle in Horror Films

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Horror films rely heavily on sound and music to set the tone. The film score and soundtrack of a horror movie can make or break its capacity to strike fear into the hearts of audiences.

Science of Fear

An episode of No Film School’s “It's Okay to Be Smart” suggests that the way we process sound in a more granular manner than sight stems from early human evolution. In the wild, our highly visceral response to sound helped us to detect and defend against predators. This is probably why the haunting score from Jaws composed by John Williams was very effective in convincing the world that sharks are out to get us. This terrifying bit of music gave Williams the first of his 22 Grammy Awards and the second of his five Oscars.

At the time Jaws was released, William’s orchestra approach was considered unconventional since most of the horror studios have shifted away from orchestra music since World War II. But the gamble paid off, as the iconic main theme perfectly matched the looming approach of a great white shark. This effective use of orchestra instruments in horror can also be heard in Stephen King’s The Shining which in addition used actual recordings of animals screaming to up the ante.

The Art of Uneasiness

The catharsis of a horror film—the death of an antagonist or the sudden revival of a monster—is nothing without the protracted, eerie build up throughout a film. You can hear this in the unnervingly morbid and minor dirges composed by Tyler Bates featured in films like Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects, James Gunn's Slither, and Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead.

Former Marilyn Manson guitarist Tyler Bates has worked on projects like The Exorcist series on Fox and Rob Zombie’s Halloween films. Bates credits two things in his work as a horror film scorer: spending his childhood years living in a haunted house, and his undying love for effects pedals. While the former provides him tons of inspiration for his work, it’s the pedals that have helped him shape the eerie sounds and unexpected riffs that have defined his film scoring career. His favorites include Earthquake Devices’ Rainbow Machine and the DigiTech Whammy, which are featured prominently in his work. His reverberating scores combined with masterfully timed pauses force the audience’s imagination to fill in what’s missing from the scene – striking fear from within.

Narrating Dread

For any film score to be effective, it must function as a wordless narrator that helps the director tell the whole story. More than just background music, horror music is a device that sets the stage for dread, even when accompanied by colorful or hopeful visuals.

The way Netflix’s TV series Stranger Things pays homage to the synthesizer phase of 80s horror is a perfect example. Composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein achieved the show’s infectiously retro score by using Roland’s Juno-106, Korg’s Mono/Poly, the ARP Odyssey, and the Sequential Circuits Prophet, a mainstay in the work of legendary director John Carpenter.

Speaking of legendary, the iconic slashing violin stingers from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho demonstrates how award-winning musician Bernard Herrmann masterfully plays with movie-goers’ sense of comfort. To this day, the squealing strings in the movie’s infamous shower scene evokes fear in a new generation of film fans.

Another notable collaboration between Herrmann and Hitchcock is the narrative scoring in Vertigo, which hooked viewers into the repetitive pattern of romantic obsession which the movie encapsulates. It enabled the protagonist to seamlessly transform in front of the audience’s eyes forcing viewers to relate to but also be repulsed by the changes in the character.

Music matters in horror arguably more than it does in any other film genre. If you want to get over a movie that traumatized you in the past, try watching it with the sound muted. But if you want to keep the fear alive, brace yourself and turn the volume all the way up.

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MOVIE REVIEW: The Peanut Butter Falcon

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THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON— 5 STARS

In helping a fellow man on the lam, Shia LeBeouf’s criminal character Tyler preaches to his runaway tag-along Zak, played by newcomer Zack Gottsagen, that everyone should “have a good story to tell when you die.” There is an empowering “why wait” urgency in Tyler’s plea and credo to live life to the fullest and chase dreams. And, boy, he ain’t lying because the first-time feature filmmakers of The Peanut Butter Falcon, Tyler Nilson and Mike Schwartz, and the kindly Gottsagen, have gone ahead and done it right now. They have made that kind of story on the first try.

LESSON #1: HAVE A GOOD STORY TO TELL WHEN YOU DIE — Let that credo be said again. The Peanut Butter Falcon doesn’t just tell a good story. It tells a great one worthy of attention, praise, and undying appreciation. The purifying freedom that churns throughout this movie could cultivate even the most barren heart. This little lovable film, winner of the Narrative Spotlight Audience Award from the SXSW Film Festival, is the kind of experience that makes one rethink how their own story is going. That is a mighty, motivating accomplishment for something that couldn’t stand out more from the usual summer blockbuster fare.

Zak is a portly young man in his early thirties confined to a North Carolina assisted living home because his immediate family doesn’t have the means or the bother to handle his Down syndrome. He’s embraced in this restrictive environment by cheeky senior citizens and his dedicated counselor and case worker Eleanor, played by a game and tame Dakota Johnson. With limited exposure to the social graces of the outside world, Zak’s grand aspirations come from old VHS wrestling tapes he repeatedly consumes with his old fogie roomie Carl (the magnanimous Bruce Dern). He dreams of someday meeting his hero, “The Salt Water Redneck” (Thomas Haden Church), and attending his professional wrestling school to become a beefy new star of the squared circle.

With Carl’s kindred spirit help, Zak makes a midnight escape from the facility and, by the next morning, hides on a small fishing boat near the coastal marshes of the Outer Banks. The person dashing in to take the helm of that boat is Tyler. He is a hard luck thief running away from the rural retribution coming to him for stealing and destroying the crab pots of John Hawkes’ local heavy Duncan. Tyler’s poor choices are a result of a self-induced downward spiral fueled by the reeling loss of his big brother Mark (Jon Bernthal, seen in flashback).

Having pity for the sorry stowaway clad in nothing but his skivvies, Tyler sees the shared circumstances of escape and loneliness and takes Zak under his wing of guidance. As “two bandits on the run” scrounging for supplies and hammering together a makeshift raft, Tyler promises to get Zak to the downstate wrestling school to meet his hero on his way to his own exodus to Florida. From there, their shared quality time and humorous kinship create the rooting wonders to behold in The Peanut Butter Falcon.

LESSON #2: DON’T SAY “RETARD” — First things first, Zak (and Zack Gottsagen) is not retarded. The people that care to understand him and his abnormality push back against those who label him wrongly. The Peanut Butter Falcon grants viewers a Down syndrome character with wants and needs no different or less than many of our own, and that’s a beautiful stance to see.

Film role opportunities and casting representation for actors with disabilities might just be harder than any of the other hashtagged or flag-waving demographics out there. The list of active Down syndrome actors is awfully short. This a rare and rich leading role and Zack Gottsagen does not wither under this level of spotlight and commitment. His character may be getting his hand held throughout the world, but Gottsagen takes his own confident steps to assert his talent. No impediments can hide his endearing charm, comic timing, and screen presence. For that and not any label, Zack Gottsagen deserves supporting actor awards consideration at the end of the year for embodying one of the most memorable movie characters in recent memory.

LESSON #3: THE PROTECTIVE BENEFIT OF FRIENDSHIP — Tyler watches over Zak like a treasure. Bound by a secret handshake, he teaches the newbie how to swim, drink moonshine, and shoot a shotgun. On the rhapsodic side, Tyler challenges Zak’s heart and shows him how to make rules and know the difference between good guys and bad guys. In doing so, he’s training his impressionable companion how to be a hero (adopting the title moniker), which sculpts character without fancy tools better than Bob Villa builds houses.

The resurrected Shia LeBeouf radiates in this role. Here now at 33 years old, the actor’s frenetic nature is harnessed perfectly as a hair trigger for caring and defense as Tyler. His dedication in this movie fleshes out the best and most natural LeBeouf has been in years, maybe ever. Like Jake Gyllenhaal a few years ahead of him, Shia LeBeouf has always given his all even in sh-tty movies, but, if he keeps this up (and the upcoming autobiographical Honey Boy, written by his own hand, looks to do just that), he’s going to emerge as something special. If the likes of Clooney and McConaughey can wash off the stinker periods on their resumes, so can Shia LeBeouf.

LESSON #4: FRIENDS ARE THE FAMILY YOU CHOOSE — The surprising and lasting resonance of The Peanut Butter Falcon is watching Tyler and Zak merge their goals together. What began as happenstance evolves to feel like destiny. They choose each other after the rest of the people around them in life, including true family, have left or discarded them. Both have gained an unlikely best friend in each other and the healing support that comes from that kind of union.

Simply put, The Peanut Butter Falcon is a collection of fantastic creative choices. TV cinematographer Nigel Bluck broadens his lens to include the pleasant sun-lit surroundings of the Georgia shooting locations from high and low with excellent framing variety. The bluegrass musical palette composed by Jonathan Sadoff (Ingrid Goes West), supervisor Zachary Dawes (True Detective), and two members of the Grammy-award winning folk act Punch Brothers, fiddler Gabe Witcher and banjo player Noam Pikelny, settles into its setting and couldn’t be more fitting. Beyond the technical marks, story again wins.

Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz have made an exceptional adventure that emphasizes people over spectacle. The tonal details in every narrative corner are positively winsome and carry their own uniqueness. What stands on one side as a hard journey of loss and those connected emotions gets distilled into a sweet odyssey of positive and lifting resilience. To close with one more pep talk exemplar, Shia’s Tyler asks Zak which kind of heart does he have, a Down’s one or a real one. The actions that unfold for the characters earn the latter. This movie and the disarming force of its substance does the very same.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Blinded by the Light

(Image by Nick Wall and courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment)

Official selection of the 7th Chicago Critics Film Festival

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT— 4 STARS

A person’s good memory can retrace the exact moment of something the person would go on to adore the rest of their lives. That first taste could come from a food, a person, or a work of art. The sensory explosion of that debut experience cements itself like a core memory from Inside Out. When journalist Sarfraz Manzoor was a beleaguered teen, it was Bruce Springsteen’s “Promised Land.” It came to him on a hand-me-down cassette tape from a schoolmate that he puts into his Sony Walkman while he is frustratingly in the act of trashing his accumulated poetry and written work to give up on his dream. This spark occurs during the hurricane-force winds of what became the Great Storm of 1987 as it blew through his home of Luton, England. Talk about nearly literal lightning in a bottle.

LESSON #1: RETRACE YOUR FIRST EXPERIENCE OF INSPIRING PASSION — Up to that windy evening scene described above and the character-strengthening sunlight that follows in Gurinder Chadha’s Blinded by the Light, one cannot help but fondly remember their own similar momentous introductions. What was it for you? When did it happen for you in your life? Where were you when it came to you? How did you feel? How does your obsessive passion still make you feel?

Hell no, you don’t have to be a superfan of Springsteen to enjoy Blinded by the Light, but it sure helps. Even if The Boss is not your ideal vibe, the sprightly emotions on-screen cannot help but target and trigger your own matching passionate feelings for whatever you revere that answers the questions of Lesson #1. Following the affable and lovingly-composed musical worship recently achieved by Yesterday earlier this summer, welcome to your next toe-tapping crowd pleaser to close the summer of 2019.

Newcomer TV actor Viveik Kalra (Next of Kin) blows the doors of the neighborhood in his feature film debut playing Javed, a dramatized composite of Manzoor. In 1987, he is 16 and a minority Pakistani resident in the blue collar Luton town during the lean Thatcher years of economic downturn and unemployment hardship. His bread-winning and opinionated father Malik (Kulvinder Ghir) has lost his job at the General Motors factory, forcing the rest of the family, including his wife and Javed’s two sisters to scrounge for extended work to help pay the bills. With university dreams that reach beyond family traditions and fatherly approval, Javed feels “born in the wrong time to the wrong family.”

Javed is a diary keeper, poet, and bullying victim with one good friend in the form of garage band leader and neighbor Matt (up-and-coming Game of Thrones alum Dean-Charles Chapman, soon to be seen in Sam Mendes’ 1917). The depressing stuff Javed writes about his oppressive traditional boundaries and Cold War nuclear fears may be turn-offs for potential song lyrics for Matt, but they have an artful talent that impresses his writing teacher Miss Clay (Hayley Atwell). She challenges him to break out more and to “tell the world something it needs to hear” through his thoughts and the stands he needs to take. Javed also befriends his Sikh classmate Roops (Aaron Phagura) while sharing the common plight of racial and religious bigotry from the blue-collared ruffians of Luton.

The hopes and dreams that were initially rudderless for Javed find a moral and motivating compass in the form of the Bruce Springsteen tape lent to him from Roops. From “Promised Land” and “Dancing in the Dark” to this film’s very title tune, Javed may be encountering Bruce years after his peak popularity while his peers indulge in 80s pop, but the thunderstruck emerging writer sees his own working class parallels to the New Jersey ones coming from Bruce’s warbling. Javed begins to emulate Springsteen’s iconic look and build his own postered shrine at home. He even begins taking Bruce’s weathered lyrics as philosophy for a finishing essay at school.

LESSON #2: FIND MUSIC THAT TALKS TO YOU — Javed reaches many levels of affirmation in Bruce Springsteen’s music. He didn’t know music could do that. Artistic inspiration can indeed be a soul-fortifying difference maker when the themes or words held dear hit so close to home that they feel written or constructed with you, and you alone, in mind. Hopefully, each viewer of the film and reader of this review has a go-to music genre or stable of favorite artists that do the same for you. When you find that, share it too.

All of this becomes a complete confidence booster and doubt destroyer for Javed. Those victories come out in the movie through raucous outward expression and showmanship led by Kalra. What begins as animated typewriter-fonted lyrics projected around the actor in dreamy scenes of intently listened absorption turn into his own unbridled flash mob of one dancing and prancing in the hard-luck streets. His stepping and sauntering “Thunder Road” and “Born to Run” outpourings become shows of two with Roops and then three with the captured eye of his activist girlfriend Eliza, played by Nell Williams, yet another discovered newcomer in this movie. These extended sequences highlight the hard work and bountiful cinematography of Ben Smithard (Goodbye Christopher Robin) and the kinetic editing of Justin Krish (Bend it Like Beckham).

The choreographed musical elements of Blinded by the Light are dazzling. They have their own narrative spontaneity that does not take away from the strong sense of social commentary matching the era and the struggles of immigrant diversity still present today. That layer from Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) is immensely valuable. The musical celebrations come from a level of sky-high whimsy that is infectiously entertaining. Morphing from awkward teen inching through the bottom rungs to a stratosphere of new confidence, Viveik Kalra shows off explosive talent that is a joy to watch. When he starts to sing, the whole picture soars. You’re going to remember that young man and where you saw him first.

LESSON #3: THE BRILLIANCE OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN — Even if you weren’t a Bruce Springsteen fan going into Blinded by the Light, the film will change your opinion of him and his work. His lyrics truly do strike soulful heartstrings for the middle class man regardless of their foreign geography or demographics. With lines like “talk about a dream, try to make it real” and many others, you are guaranteed to pick up a higher respect for the performer who still sells out crowds to this day because of this commoner appeal.

BONUS:

Enjoy this Q&A with Blinded by the Light star Viveik Kalra from the film’s Chicago premiere at the 7th Chicago Critics Film Festival:

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#816)

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REWIND REVIEW: Avengers: Endgame

(Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios)

For an occasional new segment, Every Movie Has a Lesson will cover upcoming home media releases combining an “overdue” or “rewind” film review, complete with life lessons, and an unboxed look at special features.

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AVENGERS: ENDGAME

Arriving on home media this week from Disney and Marvel Studios is their colossal blockbuster coda Avengers: Endgame starring everyone who’s everyone from the collective Marvel Cinematic Universe that has been built with tidy and patient blueprints since 2008. Time travel tropes aside, you couldn’t have asked for a better swan song of satisfaction than this big finish. Watch for it arriving in physical media form on store shelves Tuesday, August 13th after an extremely successful theatrical run. With today’s money, it finished as the #2 domestic grosser of all-time and the #1 total international performer. This is a pretty customary disc release, and one has to think Disney has something more complete, expansive, and expensive planned somewhere were all 20+ of these gems land in one monster set. Until then, enjoy the basics.

LATE HOMEWORK EXCUSE:  

None! I was on the front line seeing this Marvel Cinematic Universe epic in advance, and I’ll re-spin little excerpts from my full review as we go.

ANTICIPATORY SET AND PRIOR KNOWLEDGE:

Arriving in their own proverbial “Pit of Despair,” the movie itself and the hopes of all living individuals are on the backs of those among Earth’s Mightiest Heroes who did not get turned to dust at the snap of the Mad Titan Thanos’s (Josh Brolin) Infinity Gauntlet-reinforced fingers. Twenty-two days have passed and the earthbound survivors, led by charter members Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) are joined by Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and War Machine (Don Cheadle), quake under the enormity of their defeat. Drifting in space with exhausted survival resources on the dead stick that is Peter Quill’s former Milano craft, an emaciated Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) do the same light years away with even less hope.

 The post-apocalyptic survivors of what has been named “The Vanishing” by the common citizens have to continue their lives and leadership without those who were lost, including many loved ones. Leading MCU series screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely put ample dwelling time towards this profound lament. With resolve, it becomes about accepting loss and growing from it, even with as one character admits “all kinds of stubborn” regressive actions. There is a future and they have to do something with it. Wallowing in guilt is not one of those somethings.

What will have to stand as a limited cavalry arrives in the form of a gone-rogue Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), the paged Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), and an escaped Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), who has found an exit from the Quantum Realm he was stranded in during Ant-Man and the Wasp just before the cataclysmic ash. While Danvers brings cosmic might that could make more than a few things right, it’s Ant-Man who may have discovered the real linchpin loophole. His wing-and-a-prayer (call it what it really is: a scheme) involves time travel and represents a chance (an extremely risky one, naturally) for everyone to correct what went horribly wrong.

(Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios)

MY TAKE:

Folks, with a universe and property this big, we have reached a saturation point and commitment level where fan service is necessary. That’s right. What some have called pandering should actually be seen as one of the many objectives in an invested and vetted blockbuster like this one. It is to a point where the course of things is thematically and tonally misaligned without those inclusions. Not every piece of fandom has earned that. This one has. Avengers: Endgame is unabashedly a three-hour festival of celebrating all the dream fulfillment of past and present for this deep roster of beloved characters. The wow moments come often and hit both the jaw-drop and stand-up-and-cheer levels. Enjoy the hell out of those highlights.

Through the amplified production values, levels of fan service, all of the matched climactic stakes carried over from Infinity War, and the layers of executed denouement occurring here, what you are watching is a true “coda”. For those light on the lexicon, the range of the term’s definition can be merged into “a concluding part of a dramatic work that is formally distinct from the main structure” and “serves to round out, conclude, or summarize.” Avengers: Endgame is not a pivot point, but a grand finale eleven years in the making. True to the blueprint, it is hard to imagine a more gratifying and rewarding summit.

4 STARS

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EXTRA CREDIT:

(Image: cover-addict.com)

As aforementioned, this first-run Avengers: Endgame home media release is customary. If you translate to “customary” as basic, you would be accurate. With the size of the film itself, all of the bonus features require a second disc. The movie is available in Blu-ray/digital and 4K/Blu-ray/Digital sets with those identification trims and color schemes. Let’s look inside.

The only feature on the main disc with the movie is a spirited commentary from the directing team of Anthony and Joe Russo and the writing team of Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus. It’s admittedly rare to see a Disney film without ads and trailers, but this behemoth jumps straight to the steak. For the length of this movie, the volume of insights and nuggets is enormous and their collective enthusiasm and expertise comes through after working together for nearly eight straight years across two Captain America films (Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War) and now two Avengers flicks (Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame). Their mood and message is quite unified and celebratory. They knew they were onto something special and they show a great deal of respect for the work of others that made the final product soar. This is easily the most recommended feature of the disc release.

The second/bonus disc contains seven short featurettes, a handful of deleted scenes, and a gag reel. Most folks flock straight to the deleted scenes hoping some jaw-dropped deletion could have improved the final film. For this Avengers: Endgame release there are only six deleted scenes included. None of them are longer than two minutes and most are shorter than one. Five of them are little trimmed extensions of existing scenes, like Pepper and Tony in the cabin or Rocket ragging other characters, where a throwaway barb, joke, or aside was cut for leanness. All were wise cuts.

The one deleted scene that will get disc buyers talking is the sixth and final one, “Avengers Take a Knee.” The scene in question has been making the YouTube rounds and shows a different and more immediate tribute gesture, a reverse standing ovation if you will, to Tony on the battlefield instead of the lake funeral later. I think the cabin version works better and is a more unique shot to include more people. This cut was the right call too.

Finally, looking into the creation spaces, the seven featurettes offered on this disc total a slim 46 minutes. The only real attempt at behind-the-scenes insight for this specific movie comes in a brief five-minute spotlight of the Russo Brothers. Their back-to-back shooting ambition made this happen, but you would have loved to see more than five minutes for a true and immersive making-of documentary.

By far, the most endearing one is “Remembering Stan Lee.” Collecting his own interview bits from his many appearances, this seven-minute look back at the self-described “ham” and “common denominator” who started so much of this on the printed page could have easily went 70 minutes with no complaints. To see so much of the filmmaking and acting talent share in his gee-whiz fun and kiss the ring was lovely. The dream fulfillment of all this began with Stan Lee. The second best goes to a quick celebration for the “Women of the MCU.” An all-too-brief five minutes combines the collected brevity of the many actresses that have become inspirations for both representation and their own fictional character strength for gender equality. From Evangeline Lilly and Brie Larson all the way to Danai Gurira and Gwyneth Paltrow, all push the importance with great pride.

After the creative tributes, the final five featurettes focus on single characters and their respective performers. “Bro Thor” gives a short look at Chris Hemsworth getting the chance to try something physically and emotionally different with the disheveled God of Thunder from Avengers: Endgame. The other three retrace character arcs for Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Widow that go all the way back to their casting (via casting director Sarah Finn) hires with the MCU. Naturally, the top-billed Robert Downey, Jr. gets the leadoff spot with a feature on his unconventional casting and forthright perfection for the role. The largest chunk of time (12 minutes) goes to engaging and moral backbone that was Chris Evans as Captain America. The Black Widow short nicely revels in celebrating Scarlett Johansson’s movie-to-movie shifts of complexity.

Once again, this all feels normal and meager. There has to be a bigger treasure trove of production footage and facts than these assembled. Never the less, this is the big hit many will want it looks pristine on a home screen. Welcome to the big ending and keep coming back to it on your own couch instead of waiting for Disney+ rotation.

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#816)

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MOVIE REVIEW: Luce

(Image courtesy of NEON)

Official selection of the 7th Chicago Critics Film Festival

LUCE— 5 STARS

LESSON #1: POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE TEACHER-STUDENT INTERACTION — Reflect for a moment at this onset of what you were like in high school. Were you destined for great things, a work in progress, or unfortunately somewhere less than that? Did any teacher push or inspire you or did you will yourself? Think about how you talked to your teachers. Were your interactions good or bad? In return, think about how your teachers talked to you. Were they supportive or difficult? Did either of side really tell it like it was or did both teacher and student dance around what they really wanted to say with pleasantries and boundaries of discipline? This is the angry arena of Julius Onah’s Luce.

Percolating like a caustic chemical reaction, the morality play of Luce brashley destroys any such limitations of language and interaction. Not to get entirely Biblical, but the intensity of this movie would light the well-worn 1 Corinthians 13:11 verse of “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways” on fire. Because, by the time you get to the twelfth verse next that says “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall fully know, even as I have been fully known” you’re going to need help bringing your jaw up off the floor with this movie.

Luce dangles the future of one young man between the precarious pendulum swinging from struggle to success and back. Kelvin Harrison, Jr. of It Comes at Night plays high school valedictorian senior Luce Edgar. He is the paradigm of emergent perfection in the eyes of his teachers as an accomplished learner, athlete, debater, and peer leader. He is also a miraculous case of rescue and rehabilitation. Luce spent the elementary years of his life subjected to the war-torn horrors of his native Eritrea before being adopted by the upper-crust Peter and Amy Edger (dual Oscar nominees Tim Roth and Naomi Watts). It took years of counseling and careful parenting to reach this stable point.

LESSON #2: THE PRESSURES SADDLED ON A MODEL STUDENT — Seemingly everyone, from administrators to classmates, looks at Luce with dreamy wonder and speaks all the cliches of “special,” “important,” “bright future,” and “going places.” Encircling and expected perfection like that is hard to maintain, no matter the strength of the student. One screw-up can crumble all of that good will and blow away the protective fog of one’s reputation. Superficial affluence like that becomes too important, and the stresses on Luce show and push him to darker outlets.

All genuflect to his soaring potential save one. The person who is most critical of Luce is his history and government teacher Harriet Wilson, played by Oscar winner Octavia Spencer. The complementary pedestal she puts him on to motivate his more slack peers masks a subtle side-eyed shade that festers inside. In her eyes, he’s too perfect and hiding something.

LESSON #3: THE ERRORS OF TOKENISM — But it’s not just Luce that incurs the vexation of Ms. Wilson. From her learned perch of politics, she holds different kids to different standards, and they all know it. One student voices “We all exist to justify her belief of the world,” a stance that plays benefits against responsibilities. The labels of tokenism based on surface level traits Ms. Wilson hampers her students with strip away freedom, trust, strength, and individuality.

A provocative final essay on Pan-African revolutionary Frantz Fanon voicing parallel violence from Luce and a privacy-breaking locker search discovery of illegal fireworks seized by Ms. Wilson sets her red-flag-sewing loom into mass production. By the time, Ms. Wilson calls Amy Edgar to report her findings and concerns, the throbbing bass of the musical score from the duo of Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury overwhelms our ears and ratchets up the tension. It’s the first raised eyebrow of many to follow as all involved, led by Watts’ loyal mother, begin to investigate the polished reputation that may or may not define Luce Edgar.

The enigmas revealed by the spiraling escalation of manipulative confrontations are incredible in Luce. Through the masterful mystery of folding facades written by director Julius Onah and playwright/writer J.C. Lee of How to Get Away With Murder, there is a feverish anticipation of who’s going to turn, who’s going to crack, who’s going to fall, and who’s going to rise. The tension present is unpredictable and captivating.

LESSON #4: VENDETTAS ARE PROBLEMATIC — Simmering behind classroom smiles, what the mounting drama of Luce becomes is a straight-up vendetta, one between teacher and student. The bloodless lines of bitterness fortify to hurt people and force chosen sides. This is a saint versus a monster, with little middle, and a guessing game of which one is really which. It’s a battle the actors sell without flaw.

Cinematographer Larkin Seiple (Swiss Army Man) hits the actors, and us, right between the eyes with slow dolly movements when presenting these faces of guilt or innocence. Kelvin Harrison, Jr. gives, in this writer’s opinion, the best lead acting effort so far this year with every calming smile of confidence and every bead of nervous sweat. We don’t know if we’re looking at the unseen and brewing trouble of a radical terrorist or the fortitude of a champion. That’s all Kelvin and his outstanding control of composure.

His will is matched by the turbulence unfurled by Octavia Spencer. She dramatically cuts down her overused Hattie McDaniel-esque exasperated maven act we’ve seen too much of in films like The Shape of Water and Hidden Figures since her Academy Award victory for The Help. Here in Luce, she squeezes every ounce of crumbling poise to poke and prod the situation with needle after needle of frazzled nerves. She’s a brilliant foil to Harrison.

The direction from Onah, in a reclamation project of his own after The Cloverfield Paradox disaster, captures each of these powerful performances. The tone of this move evokes something akin to David Fincher’s style of suspense and that’s a glorious thing. The material deeper than this premise provides these opponents with beguiling subplots (a mentally ill sister for her and a damaged ex-girlfriend for him) that become layers of motivations and compulsions. Harrison and Spencer should earn serious Oscar consideration for their accomplishments, as should as Onah and Lee. That compelling and inescapable score from Barrow and Salisbury (Annihilation) deserves merited consideration as well. All in all, this writer is dying to see how Luce plays against a potentially jaded public audience just in time for back-to-school season.

LESSON #5: ARE KIDS PRODUCTS OF THEIR ENVIRONMENT? — The reflective implications of the movie are ominous, to say the least. Noted educational author Jonothan Kozol has seven theories on learning and this school-teacher-by-day film critic sees bits of each one spun and challenged in Luce, from warping the value of the “American Dream,” opportunity, and social consensus to the disparaging environment, culture, and human nature seeds and triggers that either enhance or prohibit learning. Luce is unequivocally brazen with its volatile elements of societal commentary. This all may be played as improbable high theater, but it has balls to twist our “but what if it really went down” sensibilities and fears. Few films come along with that kind of depth and weight.

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#815)

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