Pixar’s Existential ‘SOUL’ Sparks Curiosity, Purpose

December 7, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Angela Bassett, Daveed Diggs, Jaime Foxx, Kemp Powers, Pete Docter, Pixar, Quest Love, Richard Ayoade, Soul, Tina Fey 1 Comment

As life-affirming and unabashedly profound as it is cerebrally curious and gorgeously animated, Pete Docter’s Soul is yet another Pixar masterwork. Easily the best output from the once-flawless studio since 2015’s Inside Out (also directed by Docter), Soul also ranks amongst Pixar’s best work to date, putting it in league with Toy Story 3, Ratatouille, Up, and Wall-E. Since their acquisition by Disney, Pixar has placed an increased focus on franchising, churning out decent-enough sequels but letting the once limitless creativity that once defined them fall by the wayside. As sequels began to dominate their slate, that spark of creativity dimmed. Though he hadn’t changed, that little Pixar light had a little less bounce in him. Expectations of grandeur lowered in sync. With Inside Out, Pixar nouveau reasserted themselves as a house of bold choices that played to the adults in the audience just as much as the children and Soul affirms this direction with its every fiber. Read More

Aching ‘NOMADLAND’ Retires Myth of American Exceptionalism

December 2, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Chloé Zhao, Frances McDormand, Jessica Bruder, Nomadland, Out in Theaters, Reviews 1 Comment

Leave it to a Chinese native to cut to the very soul of the American heartland. Inspired by Jessica Bruder’s 2017 nonfiction work “Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century,” Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner Nomadland sees director Chloé Zhao (The Rider) sharpen her skill as an exposer of marginalized American truths. A ruminant tone-poem about frontierism and the warpath of capitalism on the old and aging, Nomadland uses the visual poetry of the American midwest as a backdrop for her story about Fern, a widowed gig-worker wandering the states in the run-down van she calls home. Read More

Bold and Boundless ‘BLACK BEAR’ Boggles the Brain

November 30, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Aubrey Plaza, Black Bear, Christopher Abbott, Lawrence Michael Levine, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Sarah Gadon 1 Comment

What begins inauspiciously as a nervy tableau about an unhappily married couple unmoored by the arrival of a duplicitous and tempestuous female boarder soon spins into a bizarre anti-anthology that breaks as many rules of traditional-storytelling as it can in its bewildering and enchanting 104 minutes. Writer and director Lawrence Michael Levine (Wild Canaries) sets out to defy the logic of filmmaking grammar, having his principal cast play variants of different characters without stopping to explain the leaps from one storyline to the next. In essence, Black Bear refuses to be caged. To any one style, to any one genre, to any one story. In a nutshell, it is a relationship drama meets a dark comedy meets an artistic deconstruction meets a survival story. Though certain to confuse and frustrate viewers looking for a more linear and easy-to-define cinematic experience, Black Bear remains a daring and boldly-acted pièce de résistance from a filmmaker disinterested in falling in line and fully committed to braving the wilderness of going it alone. Read More

‘SOUND OF METAL’ a Blaring Ode to Reshaped Identity

November 16, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Darius Marder, Derek Cianfrance, Lauren Ridloff, Mathieu Amalric, Olivia Cooke, Out in Theaters, Paul Raci, Reviews, Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal 1 Comment

There is little in the world more violent to your hearing than a drum set. I can attest to that fact from personal experience. Starting from a wee middle schooler on a janky kit and building out my skill and hardware into high school and throughout college, I played drums in too many bands to count. Stuffed into basements, tight rehearsal spaces, and cobbled practice rooms, playing bars, sweaty venues and ill-acoustic’ed house parties, the young musician that I was was nevertheless opposed to earplugs. It muffled the sound. Made it harder to sync with the rest of the rhythm section. Killed the raw unbridled thrash of it all. Of the sprawling army of musicians I have played with over the years, too many have adopted this same misguided mantra: earplugs just aren’t rock and roll. Read More

Earning Its Lumps, ‘FATMAN’ Is Neither Naughty Nor Nice Enough

November 9, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Chance Hurstfield, Christmas, Eshom Nelms, Fatman, Ian Nelms, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Mel Gibson, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Shaun Benson, Walton Goggins Leave a comment

Fatman’s bizarro Christmas movie pitch is multifaceted in its oddness. Mel Gibson plays a weathered and worn right-wing version of Chris Cringle. Ole Santa slams brews at the local bar, shoots cans off barbed wire fences and uses his omniscience to scare a tempted husband off the scent of an inviting barmaid. You see, Santa is losing the faith as the parents of the world create fewer and fewer children deserving of Christmas presents and his government-contracted paycheck reflects this shortage of joy. Enter a rich, entitled mob boss of a 10-year old brat (Chance Hurstfield) who has tired of coal in his stocking and so hires a holiday-obsessed assassin (played by Walton Goggins) to claim the head of the Fatman as retribution. Read More

The Cinematic Equivalent of the Phrase “Spooky Season”, ‘COME PLAY’ A Scare-Free Dud

October 28, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Azhy Robertson, Come Play, Gillian Jacobs, Horror, Jacob Chase, John Gallagher Jr., Out in Theaters, Reviews 1 Comment

Continuing in the not-so-grand tradition of horror shorts adapted into feature films, Come Play attempts to breathe more life into its premise of a gangly boogeyman named Larry. Operative word being “attempts”. Jacob Chase writes and directs, stretching his five-minute viral short “Larry” into 100 minutes of humdrum haunting. Stretching and pulling to fill it with air but not necessarily more flavor, Chase works his material like taffy. And like the sugary confection, Come Play is little more than horror empty calories, another slickly-made PG-13 studio dud that fails to scare up much reaction or leave much of an impression. Read More

Cohen Evolves as ’BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM’ Offers an Outrageous and Hopeful Coda for Election Year US and A

October 21, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Anthony Hines, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Comedy, Dan Mazer, Dan Swimer, Erica Rivinoja, Jena Friedman, Lee Kern, Maria Bakalova, Nina Pedrad, Peter Baynham, Sacha Baron Cohen 1 Comment

Let’s get to the question that many are asking out of the way up top: is Borat Subsequent Moviefilm as good as the original? No. It’s certainly not. It isn’t really in the same league. But is that even really a fair question? Borat remains a generational comedy; a beloved favorite that’s held up as a cinematic standard to this day. Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2006 shockumentary is still such a comedic mainstay a decade and a half later that it’s still quoted regularly (who amongst us can muster the courage to say “my wife” not in Borat speak?) and has gone on to spawn an entire subgenre of cringe gotcha comedy, setting the table for the illustrious careers of protégés like Nathan Fielder and Eric Andre. Perhaps the better and more reasonable question then is: is Borat Subsequent Moviefilm a worthy and worthwhile follow-up? I would venture yes. Very much so. Read More

Benson and Moorhead’s ‘SYNCHRONIC’ A Grizzly, Drug-Induced Time Travel Mission

October 20, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Aaron Moorhead, Aaron Morehead, Ally Ioannides, Anthony Mackie, Horror, Jamie Dorian, Justin Benson, Katie Aselton, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Science Fiction, Synchronic 1 Comment

Hard-drinking New Orleans EMT Steve (Anthony Mackie) is having a hard go of it. In addition to a recent brain terminal cancer diagnosis, his line of work keeps putting him face-to-face with a series of strange and horrific accidents, such as a guy run through with a ceremonial sword, a raving woman with an anachronistic snake bite, and a man found dismembered down an elevator shaft with a grin stretched across his face. A stark reminder of his impending demise, the series of grizzly deaths seem connected to a new designer drug called Synchronic, from which the new film from visionaries Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead takes its name. Read More

‘THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7’ A Timely, Effective But Unremarkable Courtroom Trial

October 15, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Aaron Sorkin, Alex Sharp, Eddie Redmayne, Frank Langella, Jeremy Strong, John Carroll Lynch, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Michael Keaton, Netflix, Out in Theaters, Phedon Papamichael, Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II 3 Comments

Aaron Sorkin lives and dies by the legal pen. Dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s within his characters’ puffed-up political proceedings or as they finesse through complex legalese is the writer-turned-director’s bread and butter. As a writer, no one can alchemize technical jargon and otherwise boring statistician noise into storytelling gold quite like Sorkin. Within the exhibits of his great successes, nothing towers higher than The Social Network, though dedicated fans of The West Wing would gladly point to that popular and long-standing series as the high watermark of his career. Read More

NIGHTSTREAM 2020: ’LAPSIS’ Gives Financial Dystopia A Mindbending Makeover

October 11, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Babe Howard, Dean Imperial, Lapsis, Madeline Wise, Nightstream, Nightstream 2020, Noah Hutton, Reviews, Sci-Fi Leave a comment

As boldly original a work of socially-conscience science fiction as we’re likely to see this year, Noah Hutton’s Lapsis is a stunning vision of financial dystopia that pokes at corporate injustice and tech-driven everyman ennui. Plopping a poignant deconstruction of the myth of getting ahead vis-a-vis head down labor atop a tight-constructed, well-realized sandbox, Lapsis unravels like a mystery box with something actually worthwhile at its center. Stylistically and visually similar to Charlie Brooker’s tech-driven worlds of Black Mirror, Lapsis imagines an alternative present-day where a new technology called Quantum has altered the fabric of modern society. Read More