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Lifeless ‘GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE’ Lacks Spirit 

There are times as a film critic that I wonder why I allocate my spare time to the watching and writing about movies. This is one such occasion. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is a profoundly bad film, one that seems to be actively sucking the very lifeblood out of the movie industry with its lazy indifference, indifferent storytelling, and filmmaking incompetence. In a way, it’s actually more interesting as a cultural microcosm of the horrors of modern franchise filmmaking writ large. It exists in a world of franchise as mandated IP flexing. Strictly a means to an end. Ostensibly the opposite of a write-off but with the same underlying purpose. Done because it must be done to preserve intellectual property ownership, not because there is any purpose, vision, or passion involved. Read More

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‘GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE’ Goes Full Amblin But Remains Haunted by Mediocrity 

For some inexplicable reason, Ghostbusters just won’t stay dead. The original was a major hit at the summer ’84 box office and earned both critical and fan affection but in the nearly-four decades years since its release, there has been a not-as-well-received sequel, one season of a kids animated series, a failed video game, and two attempts at a reboot/sequel. None of them really connected with the rapidly aging fan base and all have been seen as a disappointing addendum to the popular supernatural comedy that your dad loved so much. Read More

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Out in Theaters: GET ON UP

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Get On Up
doesn’t know how good Chadwick Boseman is. Bursting with energy, filled with soul and one-hundred-and-sixty-nine percent committed, Boseman is a firecracker. Hell, he’s straight dynamite. How appropriate that he plays the man they once called Mr. Dynamite. It’s a certifiable shame then that the movie that surrounds Boseman’s accomplished concerto of a performance is overstuffed, poorly edited and, like the king of soul himself, doesn’t know when to quit.

Tate Taylor‘s (The Help) second feature starts, as all musical biopics apparently must, with the long, lonely saunter up to a final show of sorts. Old and beleaguered with regret, the icon is but a silhouette dwarfed by the enormity of a vacant hallway. Cut to Old Man Brown quite apparently hopped up on something of the Schedule 1 variety ranting at a room full of bootstraps-business folks and waving a shotgun over his head. This made-up Boseman’s all gums and shades but the scene only manages to paint the man as a Looney Tune.

Cut to bedazzled, toe-tapping Brown all get-up and no humility barking at a press conference. Cut to 6-year old Brown and his backwoods family eking by in some pinewood shanty. His momma turns to prostitution and his daddy beats him raw. All he wants is a lullaby. Cut to a teenage Brown stealing a three-piece suit and getting five to 13 years for it. Cut some more.

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Cut, rinse, repeat. Cut, rinse, repeat. It allows for some mighty good scenes but makes for some mighty long-winded ones too. And while there’s lots rave-worthy stuck in there like gummies in a Cadbury Black Forest bar, the convoluted mess that is traveling from one scene to the next is an exercise in reckless abandon.  

If only the editors had the good sense to slash 30 minutes of the film, we could have been dealing with something great. Had he tightened it up like Brown did his facial skin around the 90s, Taylor might have been working towards a gold statue nomination. Trim the fat, Tate. Trim the fat.

As is, Get On Up is a mostly pleasing patchwork of scenes that each contribute to a time, a place, and a feeling that then gets all that jumbled up and mismatched. Elephant heads end up on rhino bodies. A scene where friends feud with no sign of respite fades into them being immeasurably close confidantes. It’s not that we’re not smart enough to connect the dots, it’s that we shouldn’t be forced to do that work for Taylor and co. It’s like watching someone try to piece a puzzle together with one bright, shining star at its center; a star so massive and so bright, it apparently blinds, distorts and sucks in everything around it.

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And boy oh boy is Boseman a star. As the one, the only James Brown, he’s surpassed impersonation, he’s transcended imitation. He lives and breathes James Brown. Every rubbery dance move, every superhuman split is Brown’s. That sagging eye and sneering falsetto; bonafide Brown. His salt-and-pepper speech crackles like a record player. I can’t tell if he’s actually singing or just doing the world’s best lip-synching. In all aspects, he’s Brown reborn.

Usually cloaked in beads of sweat, the character even gestures towards the camera every once in a while, occasionally monologuing in head-shaking fourth-wall breakage, but Boseman’s so catastrophically good that you actually welcome it. And props to the makeup team who for once hit the nail on the head when they age the 32-year old talent well past his prime. He doesn’t look the flour-face abomination that is Leonardo DiCaprio’s J. Edgar. But then again, Brown 55-year old visage looked like a drooping eggplant anyways. He’s a supernova but he’s paying the hefty price of admission for it. You can’t be a sun and not get burned.

But again and again, we must reckon with the fact that Boseman is merely the Shamu to Get On Up‘s Sea World. He’s a mighty presence but you’ll soon discover there’s not much else to the park. His role in Get On Up is the equivalent of using morels to make a cream of mushroom soup. You’ve got the finest ingredient in the world and you’re watering it down with a pool of a blasé, sometimes even flavorless, base.

It’s as if the editors found his each and every scene too indispensable to hack so they just shrugged and left it all in there. But you’ve got to trim even the prized rose if you want to win the trophy. Taylor seems too scared to bust out even the measliest of trimmers and ends up stabbing himself in the foot for it. His repetition of form is so ad nauseum that you’d think the prankster was trying to rickroll us. But goddammit if Boseman is not his savior; his knight is shining purple sequin. He’s so good, I can’t help but hyperbolize some more.

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As Brown, Boseman’s got the magnetism of Tom Cruise, the jitters of Jagger, the paranoia of Scarface, the drive of Jordan Belfort and the moves that only Brown can call his own. He’s plays the Godfather of Soul like a black Marlon Brando. Commitment is his cup of tea. You believe it when he tells you he feels good. He even manages to dance circles around Academy Award-nominated co-stars Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis. And how perfectly suiting for a story about a man who the world could never keep up with.

And as much as it’s the story of Brown’s triumph, it’s also the story of his defeat. About his pride getting in the way of friends and family. About his shark and minnow relationship with Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis) and how that would become the defining relationship in a string of failed ones. After all, you can move a million miles a minute but what’s all that fancy footwork worth if you don’t have anyone to share it with at the end of the day?

C+

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Out in Theaters: TAMMY

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Begin Again played with alcoholism; Tammy’s the kind of movie that’s alcoholic. The whole thing seems inebriated, like it was shot with a camera in one hand and a shot of booze in the other. Never mind that Susan Sarandon spends the film chugging whiskey and brews, or that Melissa McCarthy can’t seem to make it a mile without blowing something up. People you watched in movies back in the ‘80s and ‘90s keep popping up in random places as if you stepped into a bizarro Hollywood career rehab. Hey guys, wanna fit Dan Aykroyd in this movie? What about Gary Cole? Sure. Screw it.

Watching old people make whoopee isn’t fun for anyone. Neither is diabetes. Tammy has a lot of both, usually at the same time. There’s a lot of amusement mixed in with things you’d rather not think about: unemployment, aging, prison. If you want to watch someone crash a jet-ski, you might as well watch America’s Funniest Home Videos and skip Ben Falcone’s hour-and-a-half long road-trip comedy.

I went into Tammy expecting fat jokes and toilet humor. There are a lot of both, but they’re not as bad as you’d think. McCarthy turns a lot of nothing into something. The film opens with her crashing into a CGI deer. Nothing’s funny about it, but the film draws it out for a minute. She recovers: after getting fired from her job at KFC-esque “Topperjacks,” where everyone dresses like a rodeo clown in parachute jumpsuits, she throws a tantrum. As a glorified loser she plays up the moment, throwing burgers and insults. She heads home to find her husband (Nat Faxon) eating a romantic dinner with the next door neighbor (Toni Colette). You don’t want to feel bad for her, but she turns up the embarrassment. It’s sweaty comedy: she has to burn a lot of calories to get any laughs, but damn it does she try hard.

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At first you don’t know what to think about Susan Sarandon as McCarthy’s drunken grandma. Sarandon’s made her career playing a mom—it’s difficult to imagine her suffering as a Grandma. When she heads out to road-trip to Niagara Falls with McCarthy and pulls out the liquor, you can still see the youth in her smile. Along the way they keep getting into crazier situations: jet-ski’s get Viking burials at an all-Lesbian 4th of July party, cars get blown up, the two end up in jail. At one point McCarthy holds up a Topperjacks with a paper bag on her head and a rolled up bag covering a finger gun—all this just to bail Sarandon out. The two go back—hostile paper bags on heads—to return the money.

Awkward romance finds itself in this film too. Sarandon hooks up with the aforementioned Gary Cole in the back of a car while McCarthy and Cole’s son (Mark Duplass) sit on the trunk. They move to a hotel room and McCarthy’s left to sleep outside. Amidst the old people fornicating, Duplass’s character falls for McCarthy’s wacky charm and somehow a relationship develops. This is awkward on many levels, and doesn’t really make any sense. McCarthy’s Tammy has absolutely nothing going for her, so why would Duplass’ character have any interest at all?

As much as it struggles with itself, Tammy is brutally honest. Though there’s a lot of heavy topics packed in, the film knows how to turn the discomfort into candid comedy. Kathy Bates and Sandra Oh play a lesbian couple with a passion for explosions. They make light of their struggle as a same-sex couple, and it’s genuinely funny even in its seriousness. Bates brings a lot to her role and delivers some touching moments. Sarandon’s alcoholism breeds some comedy within the sadness too.

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Hidden in all the fat jokes and potty humor is a vulnerable McCarthy, who knows how to take it and when to give it out. Though there are a lot of dumb jokes you’d expect from an Adam McKay/Will Ferrell produced comedy, there are some gems too. Her robbery antics at the Topperjacks struggling to jump over the counter and stealing hot pies gets a giggle. Her dance to “Thrift Shop” collects a grin. McCarthy puts the belly in belly laugh.

Wickedly funny at points, there’s a lot of internal strife—you know where Tammy wants to go but it takes the long way there. Despite its simplicity, McCarthy and Sarandon are quirky and fun, though far from smart. Who figured Sarandon would have any sort of comic timing? They’re not the first pair you’d want to road trip with, but at least they’re something to laugh at. If anything, Tammy is a reminder that no matter how bad life gets, it can always get a lot worse. 

C

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