Bohica

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Starring:  Josh Hartnett, Sam Shepard, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Ewan MacGregor, Eric Bana

Maybe I'm missing the point of Black Hawk Down.  Ridley Scott's war film documents the failed Mogadishu raid of October 1993 in which U.S. forces, expecting a cakewalk operation, descended upon a meeting of a warlord's lieutenants and met heavy resistance causing numerous casualties.  Many American soldiers were killed and a helicopter was shot down.  Black Hawk Down's technical prowess is not in question, but after a while, the movie is all shooting, blood, and soldiers' body parts being shot off.  It gets boring, and we grow numb to it.

Released three years after Saving Private Ryan broke the mold with its realistic battle sequences, Black Hawk Down upped the ante with little else but all battle sequences.  Saving Private Ryan's opening D-Day battles were shocking and visceral, but then the story took over and there were calms before the storms.  We saw what the story evolved into:  A tale of sacrifice and what it truly means to be the one whom others sacrificed their lives for.  "Earn this" became not just two words, but a challenge to the surviving Private James Francis Ryan.  Black Hawk Down has no such moments, in fact the soldiers themselves are hardly people at all, but simply cogs in a machine.  Maybe that's the point, but it doesn't make for a fully engaging experience.  In a footnote, both movies feature Tom Sizemore.  

Yes, there are breaks in the action where soldiers retreat to base to reload and rethink their strategy, but it's all confusing anyway.  Characters discuss their plan, which goes awry, and then soon after we see a soldier lying dead with his innards exposed for the world to see.  We don't have a point of view where any of this makes sense.  Without the stakes, Black Hawk Down becomes war porn.  (I think I just made that term up). 

Directed by:  Garry Marshall

Starring:  Hilary Swank, Sarah Jessica Parker, Robert DeNiro, Halle Berry, Katherine Heigl, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Sophia Vergara, Josh Duhamel, Hector Elizondo, Michelle Pfeiffer, Zac Efron, Ashton Kutcher, Lea Michele, Ryan Seacrest, Larry Miller, Matthew Broderick, Cherry Jones, John Lithgow

It may take be longer to list the cast of New Year's Eve than it will to write the actual review.  New Year's Eve is the second of Garry Marshall's obscure holiday films (the first was 2010's Valentine's Day) in which a large cast of stars are thrown into a mix of intersecting plots all paying homage to the magic of the holiday.  New Year's Eve's cast includes multiple Oscar winners and nominees, so this isn't a group without talent.  The movie is slight and wants to be loved, but soon there isn't enough room or time for all of these stories competing for the same screen.  Nor do we care enough.

The movie's bloated running time is reflective of having so many A-listers, most involving stories of romance or family love.  Swank is at the center as the boss of the Times Square ball drop with a crisis on her hands:  There is a mechanical issue with the ball and it may not be able to drop in time for midnight.  That and she also has to meet someone before midnight, regardless of whether it costs her this job.  There is also an executive whose car breaks down in Connecticut and needs to get to Manhattan in time for... And a New Year's Eve scrooge who doesn't believe in the power of the New Year, and a harried record company secretary who quits her job and has a courier lead her on a tour of the city, etc., etc.  Oh, and let's not forget the rock star who wants to reconcile with the former girlfriend he jilted last New Year's Eve.  

I could go on and successfully recap the subplots but to what end?  The movie itself is only sporadically intriguing and New Year's Day itself is kind of already over once the clock strikes midnight and the confetti falls over Times Square.  At least on the East Coast.  The actors themselves deserve a celebration by taking this stuff seriously.  

Directed by:  Tom Gormican

Starring:  Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Steve Zahn, Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior

Call Anaconda a reboot, a remake, or a reboot within a remake, but don't call me if they make Anaconda 2.  It's not that Anaconda is terrible.  It's simply routine and uninspired despite Jack Black's and Paul Rudd's best efforts.  I don't recall any groundswell for an Anaconda remake, etc. but here it is anyway.  

Anaconda stars Black and Rudd as Doug and Griff, lifelong friends from Buffalo who team up to reboot Anaconda "indie-style" in the jungles of the Amazon.  Doug films wedding videos but storyboards them as if he were shooting a horror film and Griff is a struggling actor who scores bit parts on TV shows.  Griff tells Doug and his other friends Kenny (Zahn) and Claire (Newton) that he owns the rights to Anaconda, which they believe and start going to work.  

One mistake of Anaconda is how the movie Doug and Griff are making doesn't seem indie at all.  I reflected on Dolemite Is My Name (2019), in which Ray Ray Moore (played by Eddie Murphy) decides to make a low-budget film which was poor quality, but teemed with the energy of a man trying to reverse his fortunes.  Any positives that can be gained from Anaconda is that we're rooting for this group to change their own lives, but the movie they're filming should've been Ed Wood-light.  The process should've been the story, but instead we're treated to boring subplots involving illegal gold miners and a massive snake which terrorizes the region.  I wanted to tell these tangents that they're in the wrong movie and belong in a different one.

There is one funny line in which Kenny discusses being "Buffalo Sober", which means that he sticks to beer and wine only, with occasional forays into "not hard" liquors.  The movie doesn't build on that, but instead relegates the funny Zahn to a footnote.  

Directed by: Josh Safdie

Starring:  Timothee Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin O'Leary, Fran Drescher, Odessa A'Zion, Tyler Okonma, Sandra Bernhard

Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme is a story of a cocky ping-pong player circa 1952 who is convinced so thoroughly of his greatness that he forgets to win the tournament he's competing in.  He's too busy trying to woo actress Kay Stone (Paltrow) and enter into a business deal with her husband Milton Rockwell (O'Leary), who sees the overbearing Marty Mauser (Chalamet) as a way for him to sell pens in Japan.  Marty thinks performing in halftime shows at Harlem Globetrotter games is beneath him, but he has to find a way to earn a living in between tournaments, especially after being waxed by a Japanese player who uses a different type of paddle.

Safdie's movie is one of relentless motion.  Marty is forever looking for the next scheme or angle to make some money he didn't earn, with the promise that his future winnings will more than pay for the investment in him.  He also tries to avoid Rachel (A'Zion), with whom he was having a fling and is now eight months pregnant with Marty's child.  Marty denies this, of course, because she's married and it's probably her husband's...or so he hopes.  His next obsession is to travel to Japan to take on Endo, the now national hero who is the pride of Japan after decimating Marty in London.  Marty's post-match (and frankly pre-match) behavior has enraged tournament organizers to the point that he's banned from the Japanese tourney.  

The escalating series of adventures, some of which are deadly, Marty finds himself in is at the heart of Marty Supreme.  We question how Marty doesn't just collapse under the pressure he's putting on himself to live up to his self-billing, and how Rachel can still love him even though he's mostly unlovable.  Timothee Chalamet, very likely to nab a third Oscar nomination for Best Actor here, goes all-in and isn't afraid to be unlikable while still being fascinating at the same time.  We can't stop watching him, and we may even feel sorry for him if he lets us.  The supporting cast also doesn't just sit back and allow Marty to run all over them.  Kay is surely attracted to Marty, but doesn't see him as a suitable replacement for her prick of a husband.  Paltrow finds herself in a pickle of her own choosing, while O'Leary maintains a commanding screen presence as a character not a million miles removed from his Shark Tank persona.

I don't know how much I buy Marty's turnaround in the final twenty minutes.  The ending feels forced, as if a happy ending was needed to make the journey worth it.  But for most of Marty Supreme, the best moments are when Marty acts as the scheming, conniving jerk who is always looking for the next sucker to help enrich him.  

Directed by:  Paul Feig

Starring:  Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Elizabeth Perkins, Indiana Elle, Michele Morrone

The Housemaid's trailer may remind viewers of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), in which a sinister housemaid infiltrates a suburban family for her own nefarious reasons.  Not to spoil anything, but this is thankfully not the case, and in fact Millie (Sweeney) accepts the live-in housemaid position for a wealthy Long Island family because she lives in her car and needs a job and residence in order to stay on parole.  She spends a good portion of the movie trying to go with the flow while dealing with the temperamental Nina (Seyfried), who abuses and gaslights Millie because she's rumored to have spent time in a mental institution.  We see this is likely true, but then The Housemaid flips the switch and makes the villain someone else entirely, although not exactly surprisingly.

The poor guy who referees the tug-of-war between Nina and Millie is Nina's husband Andrew (Sklenar), who is saintly in his dealings with his erratic wife.  He's perfect in every way, but we know someone like him is too good to be true.  No one can be this patient and forgiving unless he's hiding a darker side.  The Housemaid's structure and lengthy running time allow us to deduce that all is not well with either Nina or Andrew.  Their perfect home is just the setting for turmoil which Millie finds herself in the middle of.  But Millie is not immune to troubles either, as we learn.

Most of the fun we relish in The Housemaid is contained in its changing viewpoint and the suspense in building to the inevitable outcome.  Sweeney is deferential and quiet because she needs the job and Nina knows it; allowing her to use Millie to her advantage.  What is Nina's endgame?  Or Andrew's, aside from becoming intimate with the help?  Millie goes along to get along until she is placed in a deadly situation in which she has to revert to her violent past.  Is the ending too neat and frankly unbelievable?  Yes, but part of the fun of Paul Feig's The Housemaid is getting to that point.  By then, we're invested and we can forgive it its trespasses. 

Directed by: Noah Baumbach

Starring:  George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Riley Keough, Stacy Keach, Jim Broadbent, Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Grace Edwards

Jay Kelly (Clooney) is played by George Clooney as an aging movie star who begins to question whether fame was worth the price he's paid in his personal life.  He's an amiable person, but his pursuit of glory comes at a price to himself, his family, and those who work for him like his loyal manager Ronnie (Sandler) and publicist Liz (Dern).  Even they start questioning how much more they can sacrifice for the man who pays their bills.  Noah Baumbach's movie doesn't necessarily cover new ground, but it approaches the topic with sensitivity and with the understanding that 99.9 % of the world's actors wish they had Jay Kelly's problems. 

Jay finished wrapping a movie when he learns the director who discovered him, Peter Schneider (Broadbent) has died.  Jay then feels pangs of guilt when he recalls a conversation six months earlier when Peter begged him to assist in his comeback film which Jay declined.  Peter cast Jay in his first movie after Jay accompanied his friend Tim (Crudup) to an audition and was asked to read.  This caused years of pent-up bitterness in Tim which manifests itself during a get-together with Jay at a Hollywood bar.  Their conversation is civil and reminiscent, but we sense Tim resents Jay and later he admits to hating him.  "You stole my life," Tim says before starting a fistfight which may or may not cause Jay publicity headaches down the road. 

Jay wants to spend time with his daughter Daisy (Edwards), who intends to travel around Europe during the summer before freshman year of college.  She says she wants to see the world, but we know she doesn't want to see her father.  Jay's oldest daughter Jessica (Keough) has already become estranged from her dad.  Jay decides to follow Daisy to Italy, where he will reluctantly participate in a lifetime tribute orchestrated by Ronnie.  Ronnie is having problems at home, but it is apparent he has had many such problems over the years which he pushed aside for Jay's needs.  How much more will Ronnie continue to put his client's needs over his own?  Liz decides she's had enough and her exit scene is one in which she literally and figuratively gets off the train as far as Jay is concerned.

Jay is not an overbearing jerk, just someone who doesn't realize his own selfishness until it's staring him in the face.  He's aloof to the damage he has caused to those who love him.  He justifies it in a confessional phone call to Jessica, who has long since estranged herself from him because she knows him so well, maybe even too well.  Clooney gives us a Jay Kelly who is of course good-looking and suave, but also one capable of introspection and emotional intelligence.   The issue becomes whether such traits have come too late to allow for reconciliation.  The conclusion of Jay Kelly takes place at the tribute to Kelly where he asks himself whether he can do a retake, almost as if he wanted to reshoot a scene which wasn't perfect.  Then he realizes he cannot and no reboots are possible, even in Hollywood.  

Directed by: Rian Johnson

Starring:  Daniel Craig, Josh O'Connor, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Thomas Haden Church, Josh Brolin, Andrew Scott, Jeffrey Wright, Mila Kunis, Daryl McCormack, Cailee Spaeny

Wake Up Dead Man isn't simply a murder mystery, which would be compelling enough, but delves into spirituality and morality in the wake of modern politics.  What's the Catholic Church's place in all of this?  Wake Up Dead Man, in the best Agatha Christie tradition, rounds up a stellar cast and has them all appear guilty and motivated in the murder of rabid Monsignor Wicks (Brolin), who is found stabbed to death in his church.  Detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) is on the case and is soon interrogating everyone while navigating the story's twists and turns, of which there are many as per usual in this genre.

Craig approaches Blanc with more of a playfulness than in the previous two Knives Out iterations.  O'Connor's Father Jud does more of the heavy lifting as he assists Blanc in the investigation.  There is no shortage of suspects among the church's dwindling parishioners including Wicks' lifelong, loyal secretary Martha (Close), a controversial town doctor (Renner), the quiet groundskeeper (Church), an author looking for inspiration for his next novel (Scott), another woman who believes Wicks can cure her constant pain (Spaeny), and the list goes on.  

Then about halfway through, Wake Up Dead Man throws a curveball which I won't reveal but makes a certain amount of sense considering Wicks is murdered on Good Friday.  This crime seems to be the most puzzling to Blanc and may contain spiritual or miraculous elements.   Is what happens a true miracle or another plot?  No matter what, Wake Up Dead Man, even with its length which could've been trimmed by about fifteen minutes, continues the Knives Out tradition faithfully.