Month: August 2016

Slow West – My favorite narrative film from the 2015 Sundance Film Festival

moviemavengal2 Comments

2015-05-11-1431344951-6115353-slowest3Slow West was my favorite narrative film of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.  This past weekend there were two things that made me think back to this excellent film.  I was visiting with someone at a party who asked me about my favorite films at Sundance, and I read an old article in EW about Rogue One.

03-rogue-one.w529.h352

I had no idea before I saw this picture that Ben Mendelsohn who was the villain in Slow West is the Empire evil general of Rogue One.

Ben Mendelsohn had two films at the 2015 Sundance.  Slow West and the not quite as good gambling drama Mississippi Grind with Ryan Reynolds.  I’ll never forget that he wore the huge bearskin coat from Slow West to the premiere.

SlowWest_trailer

Slow West is a Western, the debut feature film of English director John Maclean.  It was filmed in New Zealand to stand in for the American West of the late 19th century.  The scenery is drop dead gorgeous.  (Seriously, if you ever have the opportunity, GO to New Zealand.  The mountain range near Queenstown is called The Incredibles for a reason.)

Slow west one

Of course, the taciturn Michael Fassbender is perfect to play Silas, a loner bounty hunter in the old West, He has the presence to express much while saying nothing, like the perfect Western hero.

Kodi Smit-McPhee (who I saw in the futuristic set Western Young Ones at the 2014 Sundance fest) plays Jay, a young nobleman on the search for his lost love. He is fresh off the boat from Scotland, and Silas rescues him , and then offers his services as protector for a steep fee.

30-slow-west.w750.h560.2x

The movie moves at a measured pace as they travel together, punctuated with startling action scenes — all the more startling coming suddenly out of the slow quiet we have been lulled into.  I really liked the relationship that develops between the green romantic Jay and the reserved jaded Silas.

slow-west-sff01

Along their journey, they run into the gang of another bounty hunter, played by Ben Mendelsohn in an outrageous big bearskin coat,. (The actor wore the very coat to the premiere). We find out that there is a huge bounty on the girl that Jay is infatuated with, and her father, and there are many bounty hunters looking for the pair. Silas is among them, although he hides that fact from young Jay.

caren-with-a-gun

What I loved about Slow West is how it took the audience expectations of what happens in the Western genre, and turned them on their head. The final climax shoot out scene, which we all see coming, goes nothing like what I expected, and I loved the movie for it. I won’t spoil it by listing in detail what surprised me, but I especially loved that Rose (the object of Jay’s infatuation) was quite simply kick ass and no damsel in distress.  Rose is played by Caren Pistorius, who will appear again with Fassbender later this year in The Light Between Oceans.

Slow-West

While you could complain that Slow West was too slow in parts, I felt like it just added to the impact of the action scenes and the New Zealand scenery was gorgeously shot. It’s hard to believe that this is the debut feature of director/writer John Maclean. It well deserved the World Cinema Dramatic Jury prize it won at Sundance.  I’m a huge Michael Fassbender fan, and this is one of my all time favorite Fassbender films, and he’s been in so many good ones.

Slow West is available now for rental on Amazon Video (it’s free with Amazon Prime) and on Google Play.

Five stars out of five.

Bad Moms – I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time

moviemavengal2 Comments
BAD MOMS
BAD MOMS

I had almost forgotten that a friend had organized a group outing to see Bad Moms at our local theater that has waiters to take food orders (and alcohol!).  The waitress told me there were 150 women and ONE man in the audience.  One poor husband had come along (and he was in line behind us!).  It was a raucous crowd.  I laughed SO HARD partly because I was in an audience full of moms.  (And the dirty martini helped, too!)   I’m not sure the movie will be nearly as funny to wider audiences.  Mila Kunis is the lead and a mom with two middle schoolers (supposedly she got pregnant in the film at 20.)  I know she’s a mom in real life, but she still seemed too young an actress for kids that age.

BAD-MOMS
Mila discovers her husband masturbating to a woman on the internet and kicks him out.  She’s trying to handle single motherhood of a son and a daughter, while being harrassed by the bully PTA president (Christina Applegate in a delicious turn, with Jada Pinkett Smith as one of her posse.)
33CC579A00000578-3572095-Dietary_requirements_At_a_specially_called_PTA_meeting_Applegate-a-65_1462315160671
After a blowup at an interminable PTA meeting on a bake sale (boy, have I sat through those!), she becomes friends with moms played by Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn.
000223148-bad-moms
My favorite scene had them going on a drunken rampage through a supermarket.  They mix mudslides in a milk jug, and flip one dollar bills to the teenage boy clerk.  I was practically on the floor laughing at that point.
Of course Mila runs for PTA President, dates the hot widower, and somehow supports her family with a three day a week part time job.  Yep.  It’s a fantasy film.
It was a great girls night out film to see together.  I just don’t know if it would be quite as funny to non-moms.  For me, a mother for 24 years, I was laughing so hard I practically peed my pants.  But my sons would have zero interest in this film.  Still, it’s nice to have a comedy for adults.  All the actresses were great and very funny, and thank you filmmakers for that hot widower sex scene.
Interesting that the film was written and directed by two men.  The end credits showed each actress with their own real mom, talking about embarrassing bad mom moments.
Three and a half stars out of five.

Dishoom – Varun shines in this enjoyable buddy cop action flick

moviemavengal1 Comment

dishoom-trailer-759

Dishoom was exactly what it was advertised to be — a silly fun somewhat comedic action flick.  Varun Dhawan and John Abraham are odd couple buddy cops directed by Varun’s brother Rohit Dhawan.  It wasn’t the greatest flick, but it was an enjoyable time pass.

John Abraham’s tough guy custom agent is introduced to us kicking a guy out of an elevator because the poor guy dared to ask him to not smoke.  Funny enough.  But the next scene was problematic, as Kathy of AccessBollywood.net points out.  John discovers his girlfriend is cheating on him, and holds a gun to her head to get the lover to come out of hiding.  Completely unnecessary.  There are plenty of other scenes to establish how John Abraham’s character doesn’t play by the rules, and this threatened violence against women is jarring and the one off moment of the movie.

The star player of the Indian cricket team has been captured in an unnamed Mid-Eastern country.  John is sent to solve the case and avoid an international incident.  Varun is a rookie cop not trusted with more than picking up the captains kids and groceries.  He’s an interesting character, a Muslim NRI who jumps at the chance to serve India even though he was born abroad.  (And in a running gag, he’s searching for a bride from India.)

6-John-Abraham-And-Varun-Dhawan-Shows-Off-Bare-Abs-To-Woo-Their-Fans

Basically, I think Varun Dhawan is the Zac Efron of Bollywood.  He’s fantastic with the music numbers, was introduced in a high school musical, and is trying to transition to more mature adult roles.  (And he has a nice six pack like Zac.)  But he’s still the young kid in this movie, an eager hyper puppy jumping around the stoic John Abraham.  He’s one of the best things about the movie, and I love his chemistry with John.

Z7Z_jsn

The plot doesn’t make a lot of sense.   Villain Akshaye Khanna is angry at the cricket player for losing him money or not throwing a game.  Or something.  It doesn’t really matter.  It’s just fun to see Akshaye embracing character roles, and I welcome his return to Hindi films.  He’s sort of the Mark Strong of Bollywood (looks a bit like him, too.)

Jacqueline-Fernandez-Super-Hot-Wallpaper-HD-Images-Dishoom

Jacqueline Fernandez has a fun time as a thief who gets caught up in the plot.  She has a great number, sometimes dancing with Varun, and dancing mostly around John.

The cameos were some of my favorite moments.  Akshay is gay, super wealthy and sports a man bun.  He’s hysterical and obviously relishes playing against type.  This selfie with the cricket player is a highlight:

Akshay-Kumar-Saqib-Dishoom

Buddy cop films have a long tradition in Hollywood, with one suffering stoic partner and the hyper funny one.  There need to be more in Bollywood like this.  There’s so many super cop solo hero films, but having two leads play off each other is great.  Dishoom was a light fun summer flick.  But it could have been a bit better.  My attention lagged a bit in the second half.

1469506394_varun-dhawan-parineeti-chopra-dishoom-song-jaaneman-aah

But the very end and the final credit song has the last fun cameo — Parineeti Chopra.  Loved their number together!

Three stars out of five.