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Two Cents Gets Pazzo-Apocalyptic with THE NEW BARBARIANS
Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
Drama, Comedy, Romance, Science Fiction, Musical…cinema is filled with grand, sweeping, big tent genres. And yet, so often Cinapse’s particular brand of cinephilia dwells in the subgenres. Too numerous to list, subgenres are where the meat is really added to the bone of deep-cut cinema. And one of the greatest subgenres of them all is the post-apocalyptic picture! This month we’re celebrating the release of author David J. Moore’s World Gone Wild, Restocked and Reloaded 2nd Edition: A Survivor’s Guide to Post-Apocalyptic Movies with a curated selection of some of the Cinapse team’s very favorite and most beloved post-apocalypse films – all of which are highlighted in Moore’s exhaustive love letter!
The Pick: THE NEW BARBARIANS (1983)
This week’s selection ventures into the wild world of Enzo G. Castellari’s The New Barbarians (released Stateside as Warriors of the Wasteland), made in a blitz of Italian dystopian knockoffs that paid more than homage to successful genre blockbusters like The Warriors and The Road Warrior. Set in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, the last stragglers of humanity are divided into two camps: a roaming caravan of hopeful hangers-on and the Templars, a mohawked, leather-bound death cult driven to eradicate what’s left of humanity. Skorpion, an ex-Templar, makes it his mission to protect a lone band of survivors from the Templars’ disturbing antics–and is joined by the badass Fred Williamson as Nadir, whose specialty is delivering a barrage of exploding arrows. A buried Italian treasure rich with low-budget, high-thrills schlock, The New Barbarians feels like a bombastic Europop cover of your favorite post-apocalyptic hits.
Featured Guest
David J. Moore, Excerpt From World Gone Wild, Restocked and Reloaded 2nd Edition: A Survivor’s Guide to Post-Apocalyptic Movies
Pretty well-known for being such a crummy movie, The New Barbarians is silly when at its best and a heavy-handed time-waster the rest of the time. The year is 2019 (a very popular year for post-apocalypse movies) and the gang that controls the wastelands is a group of men who call themselves the Templars. Their leader, One (George Eastman), is someone who holds a grudge against every human being for being the spawn of the men and women who caused the end of civilization. His motto is “hate and exterminate,” which is fine as far as mission statements go, but only two of his men have any lines to say, so we never get a sense of how his philosophy has affected the others. His second-in-command, Shadow (who looks ridiculous), is mostly envious of the power One has over his men, but Mako (who is the first to die, and a clone of Wez from The Road Warrior) is a reckless and violence-loving member who doesn’t seem to have a personal agenda. A former member of their group is a man named Skorpion (Timothy Brent, a.k.a. Giancarlo Prete) who cruises around in a car with a big bubble on the roof. This guy left the group for various reasons, and though he is still a marauder of sorts, he has a code of honor, which another lone warrior of the wastelands named Nadir (Fred Williamson) seems to appreciate. Nadir tropes around wielding a huge bow that shoots explosive arrows, and he always rescues Skorpion when he needs to be. At one point, the Templars (who are all apparently homosexual) capture Skorpion and put him through a torturous rite of initiation, which is to tie a man up and sodomize him, and One more than willingly does the honors. One is just that kind of guy. He says all the best lines: “The world is dead—it raped itself!” There is also a sidekick blonde kid (I call him Slingshot Kid) who fixes cars and outfits Skorpion with a see-through bulletproof body armor.
Enzo G. Castellari made two terrible postapocalypse movies around the same time: this and 1990: Bronx Warriors. Both bear the distinctive mark of an Italian’s idea of what made movies like The Road Warrior and Escape from New York work, but they miss the mark by miles. The look of this movie is not quite apocalyptic, but dreary and drizzly, and there are bodies of water in the distance if you look for them. The vehicles that the Templars drive are too manufactured and clunky to be convincing, and the Templars themselves are stupid looking. The stylistic choices made on this movie are awkward, and the relationships formed and broken in the film are not at all believable. Even the synthesized music by Claudio Simonetti is redundant. Cool poster, though.
The Team
Spencer Brickey
Excited to be ending a month of Mad Max rip-offs with one of my absolute favorite subgenres; Italian rip-offs!
As one would expect, this is piece meal of a few different “inspirations”, with the most obvious one being Star Wars, as we watch our roguish lead take on an army of white armored thugs set on destroying the world. There’s also your classic western stylings throughout, and a scene shot like a disco freakout that is VERY much out of left field (more on that in a bit).
Also to be expected from these rip-offs are the true stars being hidden in supporting roles; Here, it’s George Eastman and Fred Williamson. Williamson seems to have been beamed in from a different film; a bow-carrying, glittery headband-wearing warrior who seduces the ladies and blows up the bad guys. Eastman, on the other hand, understands the assignment completely, as his natural disquieting intensity makes him a creepy screen presence, as he struts around his base, wearing pieces of armor and S&M gear, talking about how he is going to wipe out the world, and take away his nemesis’s dignity.
On that note, (SPOILER FOR SOME FUCKED SHIT) there’s a real, uh, unique perspective present here. Director Enzo Castellari looked at all the S&M gear in those Mad Max films and thought, “what if they were actually into bondage shit?”. All of this leads us to the most out-of-nowhere rape scene ever put to film.Presented like an execution at first, we are instead treated to a 30-second long string of fast cuts across neon lights and clinched jaws as our lead is ceremonially raped by the antagonist in front of a crowd. It is over as soon as it started, and the film returns to a standard hero’s journey soon after that, but it’s kind of impossible to return to “regular programming” after something so sudden and jarring. If you’re an absolute sicko that’s fascinated by cinematic hard left turns like this, it’ll be right up your alley. If not, you’re in for an unpleasant 90 seconds.
The New Barbarians doesn’t really present anything new, and the new stuff it does introduce is problematic, but there is still a charm to these films; non-stop dubbing, goofy action scenes, and incredibly intense violence and gore. I’ll never turn down the opportunity to watch one; you never know what insanity you’ll get!
Ed Travis
Back in the Netflix “discs in the mail” era I luxuriated in Italian crime films and post-apocalyptic Mad Max rip-offs as part of a new sense of freedom that I didn’t need to pay for each rental but rather could see as many movies as possible if I simply watched them fast and returned them fast to Netflix. It was in this era that I fell in love with Mr. Enzo G. Castellari (highlights being Street Law, Keoma, and Inglorious Bastards). In that context, I actually wasn’t the biggest fan of Warriors Of The Wasteland aka The New Barbarians. But this revisit helped me see the film through new eyes and while it’s still dimestore Road Warrior… the more Road Warrior the better in my book. What’s still not great about the film is the location work; the entire thing is shot in a gravel pit, the lead actor being outshined at every moment by Fred Williamson and all the villains and supporting cast, and the hysterical Mad Max Lite post-apocalyptic vehicles. In my man Castellari’s mind, nothing is more futuristic than DOMES! Just slap a dome anywhere you can and call it the apocalypse!
A postapocalyptic, screen-ready, instrument of death from Director George Miller’s seminal motion picture Mad Max. 
A postapocalyptic, screen-ready, instrument of death from Director Enzo Castellari’s similar motion picture The New Barbarians. 
Julian Singleton
I first stumbled upon The New Barbarians in my early 20s during a late-night YouTube crawl, and quickly found myself baffled with delight at this Italian post-apocalyptic fever dream of ramshackle death-trap cars, Queer death cults, and synth-fueled fury.
On its face, Barbarians (released stateside as Warriors of the Wasteland) seems like nothing more than a cheaply made Road Warrior ripoff, made alongside its Warriors mockbuster cousins The Bronx Warriors and Escape from the Bronx in a 6-month period by director Enzo G. Castellari. There’s a stoic, masculine hero, a plucky (if grating) kid mechanic sidekick, a caravan of world-weary survivors, and an endlessly marauding gang of BDSM-inspired villains. But as one progresses through this mucky green “wasteland,” there’s so many bombastic, scrappy moments to love that are wholly this film’s own.
For one–there’s commitment to the bit. Every character and contraption has explosive fuel in its veins, rigged to slow-motion explode at the slightest provocation. Many of these moments come from Fred Williamson’s badass bow-slinger Nadir, a fellow scavenger who rocks gold-plated armor and a gauntlet full of bomb-tipped arrows. If things don’t explode, they slice and dice; every car has some gonzo addition that stabs, burns, or mows down anything in its path, often accompanied by some Looney Tunes sound effects. The whole affair plays out not like Road Warrior, but the frenzied recap of a George Miller movie by a kid hopped up on sugar and adrenaline (or the screenwriter of Fast Five). Most of the film’s inventions feel so alien and impractical, from the bubble-domes on nearly every car to the way tents are constucted out of the flimsiest plastic pool floats. There isn’t a dedication to coherent world-building within the universe of the film, just what seems to have been readily available to the production at hand. Yet what Castellari and team are able to throw together with the barest of resources is itself a testament to Barbarians’ journeyman ingenuity, and the film ultimately delights audiences on a base, satisfying primal level. Barbarians is the kind of film where a dude’s head exploding after being hit with an arrow is met with either eye-popping guffaws or fist-pumping cheers.
The Templars also stand out as a refreshing antagonist in this genre wasteland, defined not by the usual desire to rebuild the world in their image but by their mission to finish the destruction the Apocalypse began. Reflecting the film’s sparse production resources, there’s little for these survivors to fight over, let alone live for—making the Templars’ scorched-earth philosophy feel disturbingly coherent as our heroes fight back for survival. While the film’s creators surely didn’t intend such depth–and its practice is viscerally reprehensible–the Templars’ warped embrace of hedonistic and exploitative sexual violence as a tool of control adds even more disturbing layers of unsettling nihilism to their ideology of ensuring humanity’s stagnation rather than its renewal. It’s a layer of fatalism that feels distinctly Queer in its rage and transgression, spitting in the face of the hopeful “go forth and multiply” mandate that usually closes out post-apocalyptic fare. more overt here than in the subtle coding of, say, The Road Warrior. This grotesquely memorable aspect of The New Barbarians ultimately becomes emblematic of the film’s unabashed commitment to the ethos of its homemade apocalypse.
Justin Harlan
Do you like lavender mohawks, huge shoulder pads, and decapitations? Do you also love child mechanics, horrible sound design, and exploding body parts? Well, have I got the film for you.
If looking for any depth, substance, or much discernible plot – look elsewhere. But if you want quirky and unique style, fun early 80s effects, bizarre costuming choices, and Fred “The Hammer” Williamson – look no further.
It’s hard for me to write with any real focus, because, to me, this film is essentially just dumb fun. I enjoyed it but mostly for its nonsensical design decisions and fun kills. Then again, what else can we really ask for in a post-apocalyptic ripoff exploitation film?
…YOU KNOW THAT’S ACTUALLY A CHRISTMAS MOVIE, RIGHT?
To ring in the Holiday Season, the Cinapse team has assembled all of our favorite movies full of Holiday Cheer–all while pretending to be anything but a Christmas movie. Our list for Noel Actually includes Sylvester Stallone action epics, Medieval twists of fate, a whimsical anime take on the Biblical Magi, the rebirth of Humanity, and of course, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman–ensuring December has a wide spectrum of cinema for the nice and naughty alike to enjoy.
Join us by contacting our team or emailing [email protected]!
12/2 – Cobra
12/9 – The Green Knight
12/16 – Tokyo Godfathers
12/23 – Children of Men
12/30 – Batman Returns
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MOANA 2 is a Wild Adventure that’s a Shadow of its Legacy
JOURNEY TO THE FAR SEAS — In Walt Disney Animation Studios’ all-new feature film “Moana 2,” Moana (voice of Auli‘i Cravalho) must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she’s ever faced. Directed by David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller, and produced by Christina Chen and Yvett Merino, “Moana 2” features music by Grammy® winners Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, Grammy nominee Opetaia Foa‘i, and three-time Grammy winner Mark Mancina. The all-new feature film opens in theaters on Nov. 27, 2024. © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved. It’s New Years Eve, 2016. Two months earlier, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. My fiance and I are interested in going to see a movie, but not much is out that both of us that interested in. We decide to go see the newest film from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Moana. What follows is one of the most profound theater going experiences of my life. A beautiful film, Moana washes over me, causing me to cry within five minutes. I am taken by its beautiful depiction of a mythical Pacific Islands adventure, but also by its message of bravery and pushing beyond the known horizon. It ended up being my favorite film of the year, and has since cemented itself as amongst my favorite Disney movies.
Flash forward to today. Donald Trump has just been elected president. I have married my fiance and we have two amazing kids. They have watched Moana times more times than I can count. And now a new adventure of Moana and the trickster demi-god Maui has come to theaters with Moana 2, and it is… okay. Good even. But there is just something missing.
Digging into the history of Moana 2 it’s not hard to see some of the seams. Originally planned as a series for Disney+, production was pivoted into having a handful of episodes to be combined to create a full feature film. This echoes the tradition of Disney’s parade of straight-to-video sequels from the mid-1990s, most notably Return of Jafar which was literally a pilot for a cartoon series, and by the metric Moana 2 is phenomenal. As stitched together episodes of a proposed television series, it is admirable how it captures the lush beauty of the original while injecting a greater sense of fun and broad slapstick. But as the official first follow-up of the original, it falls well short of the mark the series has set.
The story picks up three years after the original, with Moana (voiced again by Auliʻi Cravalho) now serving as a wayfinder for her island nation of Motunui. She has been searching for signs of other islands, as a way to build connections with other people. When she finds evidence of other people, she gets a vision from her ancestors about Motufetu, a famed island that was lost long ago. With a new adventure before her, and after building a quirky crew to travel with her, Moana sets off to create a new alliance with the other islands.
MAUI IS BACK – Walt Disney Animation Studios’ all-new feature film “Moana 2” reunites Moana with Maui (voice of Dwayne Johnson) three years later for an expansive new voyage to the far seas of Oceania. Directed by David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller, and produced by Christina Chen and Yvett Merino, “Moana 2” features music by Grammy® winners Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, Grammy nominee Opetaia Foa‘i, and three-time Grammy winner Mark Mancina. The all-new feature film opens in theaters on Nov. 27, 2024. © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Along the way, Moana is of course reunited with Maui (Dwayne Johnson reprising perhaps the best role of his career), whose relationship is deepened on their journey. She also comes across the Kakamora, coconut-clad mute pirates. She has to descend into another black-light lit land of monsters, and then find a creative means of escape. In general, the film follows a structure that echoes many of the moment-to-moment action of the original.
And thus lays the problem with Moana 2. It is perhaps unfair if inevitable to compare a sequel to its direct predecessor, especially when its legacy is a modern-day masterpiece. But Moana 2 doesn’t do itself any favors by having so many points that you can compare directly to the original, and in every film-to-film comparison it falters. Which is unfortunate, because on its own Moana 2 is a fun adventure with charm and humor that consistently works. It is only when you have to do the work of comparing it to the original does disappointment creep in.
In an entertainment climate where it constantly feels like television series would be better served as tightening down to a movie, it is odd to long for the series version of Moana 2. But it is hard to get past the lingering feeling that by condensing, aspects of the film were lost. There is a new character introduced in the middle act of the film, one of the stronger original aspects of the movie, that disappears for the final act; this makes sense if you can see the stitch point where one episode ended and another began. In the context of a film, it feels incomplete and strange, as if there was a promise made to the audience that was never fulfilled.
Perhaps in the transition into a film, something was lost or condensed. But the end result feels like a shadow of what had come before, having the shape and general feel right, but never quite measures up to unreasonable expectations.
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Indian Cinema Roundup, Financial Crimes Edition: ZEBRA and MECHANIC ROCKY
This week I’m taking a look at a couple of Telugu language films which have just landed in US theaters, each a twisty, high concept story serving up a dizzying blend of genres. Taking inspiration from real life current events and “ripped from the headlines” concepts, both feature plots centered around financial fraud, but served up in the most entertaining way possible.
Be sure to check out the linked trailers; as I feel both are an easy sell based on the pulsating soundtracks, clever narratives, and engaging characters.
ZEBRA – directed by Eashvar Karthic
Surya (Satyadev) is a bank employee who has familiarized with the intricacies of the banking system, and occasionally helps out desperate individuals who need help by exploiting loopholes in the system to, for example, return stolen and misplaced moneys. His Robin Hood-esque activities land him in dire circumstances though, when he’s discovered stealing back funds from a gangster in the employ of Aahdi (Dhanajaya), a no-nonsense supervilllain-esque crime boss.
The sum isn’t the issue; it’s the insult. The discovery of the act embarrasses criminal boss Aadhi while doing live negotiation in a high-level meeting with a rival and potential business partner, causing him to lose face.
The violent and unpredictable Aadhi then makes life hell for Surya and his colleague friends, including his fiancee Swathi (Priya Shankar) and best pal “Buddy” (the very funny Satya Akkala, whose performance I would describe as an Indian Dennis Nedry, in both appearance and manner).
Surya is given a short few days’ deadline to pay Aadhi back the sizeable sum (about $600,000), leading the desperate trio of friends to take drastic measures – including engaging the services of the notorious gambler Baba (Sathyaraj in a scene-stealing supporting role), and ultimately deciding to rob their own bank – allowing the film to climax with a superbly entertaining heist.
The camera is in love with the characters, heroes and villains alike, making them pop off the screen exuding badassery, set to funky, hard-driving Indian hip-hop. You don’t need to be familiar with these stars or even with Indian films or culture in general – the coolness is apparent, and absolutely translates universally.
If you’ve seen RRR, you might recall how the second half pulls a fast one on the audience, revealing more information that reframes an antagonist as a hero. ZEBRA tries to pull off a similar twist but it’s far less convincing or welcome.
Aside from that critique and the absurdly flexible morality which drives it, this movie is an incredibly fun and layered treat with a smart script, a fair amount of action, and a terrific cast of colorful and likeable characters.
MECHANIC ROCKY – directed by Ravi Teja Mullapudi
Interestingly, Mechanic Rocky treads similar ground with its story centered around insurance fraud. While that might not sound inherently interesting, it’s another enjoyable mishmash of romantic comedy, musical, crime, and action.
Rakesh (Vishwak Sen), aka “Rocky”, is a mechanic in the employ of his family’s garage, which has also expanded into a driving school. But with the sudden passing of his father (Naresh), the business faces an uncertain fate, and seems poised to get overtaken by a ruthless developer (Sunil), who has long had designs on the property but failed to convince pops to sell.
The story is narrated by Rocky as described to a Maya (Shraddha Srinath), a pretty girl who may just be his last customer. Rocky describes his story of everything leading up to his current desperate situation – including his relationship with his dad, and a failed romance with the one that got away – the ravishing Priya (Meenakshi Chaudhary), the sister of his best pal from his school days.
An apparent typo on his dad’s insurance policy dictated his sole beneficiary as “Rajesh” rather than Rakesh, so Rocky and Maya (who is in the biz) conspire to fix the mistake – that is, to engage in insurance fraud.
But this is an Indian comedy so nothing’s quite what it seems and things will get shaken up and turned around with big twists and stunning revelations – starting with the duo getting caught, making things much, much worse.
Mechanic Rocky leans hard into the musical aspect of the film, with a handful of show-stopping song and dance sequences with music by Jakes Bejoy. It’s lighter in tone and violence than ZEBRA, keeping things in “PG” territory but still having a fun time (an opening suicide which sets certain plot elements into motion being the harshest exception – it’s upsetting but not graphic).
It’s not quite as slick as ZEBRA, which is my favorite from this pairing, but Mechanic Rocky is a very charming action musical with a keen sense of fun and an escalating series of game-changing twists.
In one of the film’s best sequences, Rocky’s helping a customer who’s in a rush to get some dents out of his car, when he’s suddenly attacked by thugs once again trying to coerce him to sell the property. Determined to satisfy his customer to whom he promised a 10-minute turnaround, he staves of the attackers, strategically slamming them into the vehicle so as to pop out the dents.
I’m into it.
A/V Out
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Criterion Review: THE SHAPE OF WATER [4K UHD]
![Criterion Review: THE SHAPE OF WATER [4K UHD]](https://i0.wp.com/cinapse.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/ShapeofWaterCover.png?resize=1140%2C641&ssl=1)
Guillermo Del Toro’s Best Picture-winning Cold War fable still spins magic with a new Criterion package
Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute janitor at a top-secret research facility in 1960s Baltimore, leads a quiet, lonely life brightened by friendships with coworker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and reclusive artist Giles (Richard Jenkins). The arrival of a mysterious amphibious Creature (Doug Jones) floods Elisa with a new purpose. She begins a caring bond with the captive “asset,” whose mute isolation mirrors Elisa’s own: a relationship that gradually blossoms into something romantic and defiant of societal norms. As the US Government plans to kill the Creature for research and to prevent it from falling into Soviet hands, Elisa enlists Zelda and Giles in a daring rescue. However, Strickland (Michael Shannon), the facility’s ruthless head, is determined to enforce order and stop them at any cost.
Guillermo Del Toro’s films captivate with lead characters who challenge the very fabric of the worlds they inhabit. From the imaginative Ofelia in Pan’s Labyrinth’s Franco-era Spain to the defiant Pinocchio in Mussolini-era Italy, Del Toro’s protagonists possess an innate drive to defy the oppressive norms around them. Even characters like Edith Cushing in Crimson Peak or Stan Carlisle in Nightmare Alley, shaped by rigid, immobilizing societies like 1880s high society or Depression-era America, pivot against the currents of their environments. This rebellion bears both beauty and tragedy, transforming the characters and the worlds they disrupt – often at the Atlantean cost of these leads’ unwavering dedication to their ideals.
The world of The Shape of Water is steeped in the lofty ideals of 1960s American exceptionalism, built on a foundation of rigid conformity. Strickland, the story’s villain (yet a hero in any other story), embodies this ideal: a suburban patriarch with a shiny new Cadillac, rewarded by society for enforcing strict order at work and home. In stark contrast, those relegated to society’s margins sustain the very world that ignores them. Giles, a commercial artist, lives on the fringes—pushed out of his ad firm for failing to adapt to photography and for his perceived flaws (Homosexuality? Alcoholism? Take your pick.). Reduced to freelance work, he paints idealized families selling mundane products like green Jell-O, who he struggles to make look even happier even as they sport unnatural, artificial smiles. Elisa and Zelda, a mute woman and a Black woman, toil as unseen janitors in Strickland’s research facility by night, ensuring the spotless environment that daytime workers take for granted. In Del Toro’s Baltimore, perpetually soaked in rain and firelight, the very conformity that America prizes is sustained by the sacrifices of those it refuses to acknowledge—people whose value lies in work that must appear, like magic, without them ever being seen or heard.
While Strickland’s rewarded with his shiny car and suburban home, Elisa, Zelda, and Giles are threatened with punishment if they take any action against the world they live in, even if it’s to get something they desperately want. A mute woman, gay man, and Black woman each have their livelihoods threatened at some point in the film–and whether it’s the torture of an amphibian being in front of them, the eviction of Black customers from a pie shop, or the hosing of Civil Rights demonstrators on TV, they’re are often encouraged to turn a blind eye to others’ suffering if it means their status-quo doesn’t become threatened.
It’s what makes The Shape of Water’s biologically defiant romance resonate even harder on a societal level: that despite the initial instinct to be repulsed by the love that Elisa and the Creature grow to have for one another, it’s the one sincere act within Del Toro’s achingly artificial 1960s America that makes the most sense. It lovingly refers to the technicolor controversies of Douglas Sirk melodramas like All that Heaven Allows as much as it does to the transgressive work of Baltimore’s other defiant resident, John Waters. Elisa and the Creature love each other for all of the flaws that waking society rejects, finding joy and passion in them instead. In one of the most moving usages of American Sign Language in film, Elisa’s gradual building of communication with the Creature allows her to build a physical language and connection with this person that doesn’t rely on an intermediary or highlight a perceived lack of communication on her part. While they may only be small words at first, the Creature is the only being in the film that directly communicates with Elisa the way she communicates with the world. It’s another tender aspect of how neither Elisa nor the Creature deserve this world – but they sincerely deserve each other.
The ripple effect of such dramatic sincerity is evident in the moral transformations of those in Elisa’s life. Zelda gets the courage to openly defy her cowardly husband when he betrays the people she values, while Giles is determined to protect the real, threatened love Elisa and the Creature share after Giles is disillusioned by the bigotry of his one-sided love interest. Even Dmitri (Michael Stuhlbarg), a Russian mole within the facility, is moved by the genuine compassion between them – leading him to take a country-defying stand. While Dmitri sees the Creature as something “intricate and beautiful,” so does he see this love which has thrived regardless of borders and politics.
The romance between Elisa and the Creature is the only thing that makes sense in a world that, for all of its uniformity, makes even less sense the longer we stare at the “ugliness” it tries to cover up. It’s embodied in the rotting fingers on Strickland’s hand, bandaged up and treated by the best medicine society has to offer, yet can’t help but sickeningly rot away as the film goes on. Strickland can’t cope with or understand someone like Elisa. At every turn, he undermines her abilities or fetishizes her disabilities, and believes he can approximate her inherent goodness with a cursory read through The Power of Positive Thinking. Strickland’s only instinct when faced with someone like Elisa is to reduce every aspect of who she is–another part of reality that must bend shape to his will.
But in this world, one that requires people to take specific roles (shapes?), what scares people like Strickland and inspires others like Zelda, Giles, and Dmitri is how Elisa and the Creature’s passion for one another seems inherently boundless. At first, Elisa’s own instinct is to keep the Creature alive in her tiny bathtub, but she grows to realize how their love bursts like water from her flooded bathroom, bound for something as open as the Atlantic Ocean. There are flirtations with tragedy, hearkening back to other Del Toro films that see innocence snuffed out or unmoored from the dangers of life with the deliverance of death. But I’m so grateful that that instinct doesn’t win out here. To do so would be to fall victim in these times to the same quiet compliance of these characters early on in The Shape of Water. Instead, this romance is destined to thrive where land and the petty political squabbles upon them stop, where passions run deep in unpredictable waters.
It’s crushing to say that The Shape of Water’s social relevance looms even greater with America’s incoming administration, but this new release by Criterion will hopefully inspire even more audiences to adopt such steadfast dedication to inspirational ideals in the face of institutional cruelty.
Video/Audio
Criterion presents The Shape of Water in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio in 4K on the UHD disc and 1080p HD on the accompanying Blu-ray Disc, accompanied by a 5.1-channel surround DTS-HD Master Audio track on both discs. The transfer is up-converted from the film’s 3.4K-resolution digital materials, which were used for the film’s previous 4K UHD from Searchlight Pictures. English SDH subtitles are provided for the feature film.
Like their other fantastic Guillermo Del Toro releases in the Collection, Criterion’s A/V package for The Shape of Water features a reverent transfer for the film. Originally intended to be shot in black-and-white before leaning into the lush colors of Douglas Sirk melodrama, any release of The Shape of Water needs to provide a vibrant palette to accurately represent cinematographer Dan Laustsen’s visuals. While the otherworldly, almost-undersea green remains the base color for most shots, there’s equal attention paid to fiery, warm reds and yellows and chilly blues. Black and white levels run the spectrum from harsh, angular extremes in darkness or sharp facial highlights or on a gentle gradient in mysterious shadows.
The full-channel audio track places dialogue at a premium, retaining an immersive quality as dialogue balances across available speaker channels. The track shines during sequences set in Elisa’s research facility, with ambient mechanical groans, the ripples of the Creature’s pool, and the strings, piano, and bowed vibraphone of Alexandre Desplat’s whimsically romantic score.
Special Features
All Special Features are included on the Blu-ray Disc.
- Fable on Film: In a new conversation recorded in 2024 exclusively for this release, writer-director Del Toro joins David Lowery (The Green Knight, A Ghost Story) to discuss Del Toro’s origins for The Shape of Water (a failed steamy pitch for a Creature From the Black Lagoon reboot at Universal), how Del Toro spun a budgetary need to shoot in color into loving inspiration by filmmakers like Douglas Sirk and Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, a mutual love for Creature designer Millicent Patrick, teases of a black-and-white version of the film, how the film provides a “corrective” to other Beauty and the Beast stories, and much more.
- Pamphlet featuring an essay by film critic Carlos Aguilar discussing the nature of Del Toro’s recurring “imperfect outsiders” as protagonists, the meticulous directorial control that shapes the worlds around them, and The Shape of Water’s inherited position as a story of rebellion against crippling societal norms both in the midst of the Cold War and the Civil Rights movement as well as in the wake of Donald Trump’s first year in the American Presidency.
The remaining special features are ported over from Searchlight Pictures’ previous release of The Shape of Water on UHD and Blu-ray, listed below:
- A Fairy Tale for Troubled Times: A half-hour 4-part documentary featuring interviews with The Shape of Water’s cast and crew, covering the lifespan of the film from conception to release–including a fascinating featurette on the design of Doug Jones’ Creature from real-world inspirations to the practicality of the costume’s design on set.
- Anatomy of a Scene (Prologue & The Dance): Del Toro guides viewers through two key sequences in the film, including storyboards, behind-the-scenes featurettes (including the dry-for-wet process), Del Toro’s philosophies on executing the difference between fantasy and reality.
- Shaping the Waves – A Conversation with James Jean: Los Angeles artist Jean discusses the aspects of The Shape of Water that inspired him regarding the creation of the film’s marketing materials and in-film charcoal drawings.
- Masterclass – The Shape of Water: Del Toro and additional crew members have an engaging, meticulous discussion about the technical wizardry behind The Shape of Water’s behind-the-scenes departments.
- Trailers for The Shape of Water’s theatrical release.
The Shape of Water is now available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection.
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Movie Review: THE PIANO LESSON
One of the Year’s Best Films Just Quietly Hit Netflix
Guillermo del Toro once said, “History is ultimately an inventory of ghosts.”
Given enough time and accumulated experience, any family can lay claim to a whole litany of potential specters, either in the literal sense of loved ones or hated ones that have passed on, or in the sense of opportunities lost and chances missed that you might grieve as if they were a living soul come and gone.
This past weekend, Netflix quietly released The Piano Lesson, a new adaptation of the acclaimed August Wilson play directed by Malcolm Washington (son of Denzel) and starring John David Washington (son of Denzel), Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Deadwyler, Ray Fisher, Corey Hawkins, and Michael Potts as the scattered members of a family with such an anguished history that it takes some doing to determine which specific ghost is currently doing the haunted.
But have no doubt: This is indeed a haunted house.
Sitting at the intersection of theater and cinema, fusing a verbose family melodrama with the visual language of a ghost story direct from a Conjuring sequel, The Piano Lesson is one of the year’s best films.
One of the ten plays in August Wilson’s legendary Pittsburgh Cycle (two of which, Fences and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, have already been brought to screen by Denzel Washington, serving as producer/director/star of Fences and producer on Ma Rainey’s and this film) The Piano Lesson centers on a feud between Berniece Charles (Deadwyler) and her brother Boy Willie (David Washington) over the fate of a prized family heirloom: the exquisitely hand-carved piano currently gathering dust in Berniece’s living room.
It’s 1936 and slavery is a barely faded memory. A former slaveowner by the name of Sutter has recently died, freeing up his land for auction. Boy Willie plans to sell the piano and use that money to purchase the land which his family formerly tended to when they were enslaved. But Berniece refuses to be parted from the piano: Not only has blood and life been spent in the claiming of the instrument, but their family history is literally carved into the piano’s body.
Sitting ringside to this contest are uncles Doaker (Jackson) and Wining (pronounced ‘whining’) Boy (Pitts), Willie’s affable pal Lymon (Fisher), and aspiring preacher/aspiring claimant to Berniece’s hand Avery (Hawkins).
As far as set-ups go, it’s a doozy. The conflict that Wilson lays out is perfectly conceived so that both perspectives make complete sense even as they are fundamentally incompatible. Of course you understand why Willie would endeavor to use the piano to rewrite history and build a brighter life and future. But of course you also understand why Berniece feels such a profound connection to the piano as a link to the past, especially after Doaker lays out the tragic history behind the piano, its carvings, and the method by which the Charles family obtained it. There’s no ‘wrong’ and no ‘right’ to this, just two people with irreconcilable attitudes for how to deal with the legacy of pain they’ve been handed to live with.
You don’t need me to extoll the virtues of August Wilson’s playwriting (unless you do, in which case: He was good at it) and The Piano Lesson is, by my understanding, largely faithful to the dialogue and action of the text. This is crackling, masterful dialogue, delivered by an ensemble all playing to the best of their abilities (much of the cast already worked with this material during an acclaimed Broadway revival in 2022).
But how does it play (haha) as a movie? It is, after all, 2.5 hours largely spent in a single room. This the third Denzel-produced go-round with adapting Wilson to the screen, and as with both Fences and Ma Rainey, you can at times feel Piano straining to open the world of the story up beyond the structures and limitations of a stage-bound work. Because the cast is operating at such a high level, and because the cramped, murky set works well with the Gothic-adjacent tale being told, you can’t help but feel a sense of deflation whenever Piano leaves the house for interstitial sequences of the characters going about their lives and routines before returning home for another round of fireworks.
As director, Macolm Washington has the confidence to keep that straining to a minimum. Whereas Fences and Ma Rainey often felt like they were putting in too much work to add variety to where the verbal duels unfolded, Malcolm finds the cinema within a contained space. Without calling attention to his camera, he keeps the images dynamic, using the blocking and layout of the ensemble in relation to one another to inform his frames. The camera is always keeping track of who is in command of which scene, and to where/who the momentum is shifting to any given time.
Nowhere does the cinema come through more loud and clear than in maybe the film’s standout sequence: A late night drinking session between Boy Willie, Doaker, Wining Boy, and Lymon. Everyone is sitting except for Willie, with his boundless energies and enthusiasms, doing laps around the table and stirring the pot. They’re trading stories about a prison farm where each man has spent time, cracking jokes and busting balls, having a fine time of it. Then Willie starts up singing a work song from those days in the prison field until one by one the other men start joining in. Director Washington and editor Leslie Jones (not the Ghostbuster) give this scene a rhythmic pulse, cutting on stomping feet and pounding hands, the pace growing faster and faster as emotion overtakes each man until the singalong has become an exorcism: eyes fill with tears, necks go taut, voices choke and fill with rage and pain finally Finally FINALLY being set loose even if only for a moment, only for the space of a song.
With a film like this, there’s nowhere for a weak cast member to hide. Fortunately, everyone in The Piano Lesson elevates their craft to meet this material at its level. It took me a minute to adjust to the drawling voice Ray Fisher is doing, but once I got used to it, the boundless warmth and longing of his performance shone through.
Lymon and Avery are the outside perspectives on the Charles’s family conflict, and Corey Hawkins turns in a masterclass of reaction shots and double-takes to add much needed levity to the often fraught proceedings.
Danielle Deadwyler has been quietly assembling a filmography that’s just one excellent performance after another, and here she holds the center of the movie down as the immovable object around which everyone else orbits. In a movie stuffed with big men giving big performances, Deadwyler exerts a quiet power. And when her reserve does falter, it’s all the more impactful.
As the more or less permanently soused Wining Boy, Michael Potts gets some of the broadest material in the film, but Potts works a magic trick by keeping even the showiest and loudest moments tied to a recognizably human and deeply sad core.
And what is there to say about Samuel L. Jackson? That he’s one of the best actors alive, if not ever? That should go without saying, but Samuel L. Jackson is such a ubiquitous presence in cinema that it can feel like we forget just how special an actor he is. So, just to say it and be sure that it has been said: Samuel L. Jackson is one of the best actors alive, if not ever, and he is magnificent in The Piano Lesson. Doaker is the quietest, calmest figure in the whole story, and yet Jackson is never not in command of any scene he’s in. Without doing anything to grab attention from his cast mates, Jackson understands perfectly the iconic weight he carries on screen and uses that innate power to control the volume of his every scene. The way he sits in a chair, the way he holds himself, the tilt of his head, it’s brilliant Big Screen acting even in a movie that was made for streaming.
So let’s talk about John David Washington for a second.
I’ve been a fan of the guy for a little while now, he is The Protagonist after all, but it’s no great leap to describe this as the best performance I’ve seen from him so far. Boy Willie is by turns a pure-hearted dreamer and an opportunistic snake in the grass. He never stops talking and never stops moving, charming enough to dominate an easy mark like Lymon but not enough to fully bend the world to his demands. He’s smart enough to understand the game is rigged, but not quite capable enough to cheat back or start his own game. John David understands everything that is likable and compelling about Boy Willie while also unapologetically owning everything craven and pathetic about him.
While John David Washington doesn’t especially resemble Denzel all that much, there are overlaps in the way father and son move and speak. It’s noteworthy in the abstract in other roles but here it really stands out given the connection with Fences.
If Fences was about a middle-aged man raging against the cycles of disappointment and failure that resulted in what he conceives as a wasted life, The Piano Lesson is about a younger man’s desperation to break those cycles before they have the chance to claim him. That thematic throughline was already there in Wilson’s work, but seeing it played out in the performances of father and son only underscores the wrenching emotion these characters are struggling with.
Not everything in The Piano Lesson fully works. A late in the game ghostly occurrence is realized with special effects one step removed from an early Supernatural episode, and the second half of the film drags a bit as the characters splinter into smaller groups meaning you go long stretches without the more lively influences keeping things heated.
But The Piano Lesson brings it all together for a grand slam of a cathartic finale that aims to leave audiences spellbound and speechless as John David Washington murmurs the story’s hopeful but broken-hearted punchline.
Netflix doesn’t seem all-too interested in getting the word out about it, but The Piano Lesson is one of the year’s best films, and you should make the time to watch it as soon as possible.
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SCARFACE (1932): A Proto Action, Pre-Code, Seminal Gangster Film Hits 4K [Criterion Review]
![SCARFACE (1932): A Proto Action, Pre-Code, Seminal Gangster Film Hits 4K [Criterion Review]](https://i0.wp.com/cinapse.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Scarface-Machine-Gun.jpg?resize=1140%2C855&ssl=1)
Criterion Collection “This picture is an indictment of gang rule in America and of the callous indifference of the government to this constantly increasing menace to our safety and our liberty. Every incident in this picture is the reproduction of an actual occurrence, and the purpose of this picture is to demand of the government: ‘What are you going to do about it?’ The government is your government. What are YOU going to do about it?”
Fascinatingly at war with itself, Howard Hawks’ massively influential gangster film kicks off with the above title cards (a bit of a “retweet ≠ endorsement” sentiment) before blasting us away with a wild and thrilling gangster epic that plays like a proto action film with chase scenes, gun battles, and even comedic one-liners. I won’t pretend to know a lot about 1930s Hollywood, but it seems that Scarface hitting in 1932 is very important to understanding the title cards and depictions of violence and avarice that Hawks displays here. From what I understand, the infamous “Hayes Code” was actually in place beginning in 1930, but wasn’t widely enforced until 1934. So here comes Scarface, right smack in the middle of that period, undoubtedly depicting a level of violence and sensuality that would not be allowed just a few years later, but also falling victim to some of the censorship that was to come. “This picture is an indictment” has to be telegraphed straight from the opening, but also Hawks was forced to add in some sequences and even a bastardized ending (which is thankfully only on this release as a bonus feature and not in the final cut of the film) where the state must explicitly punish our protagonist Tony Camonte (Paul Muni) for his sins.
Of course, this film would be remade 50 years later by Brian De Palma in the 1983 Al Pacino cocaine trade epic set in Miami. That film is much better known to today’s audiences and had its own incredible cultural impact, not the least of which is on hip hop culture. Having never seen this 1930s film before, but having grown up steeped in hip hop and gangster movies, I was pleasantly surprised to see just how much of not merely the ethos of the 1930s film, but direct references (“The World Is Yours”) have lived on from 1932’s historical work to, say, Nas.
But aside from the historical context stuff, which is pretty fascinating, Scarface stood out to me most as a rip roaring old Hollywood action film! I adore action cinema so deeply that it likely colors the lens through which I see a lot of life. But from what I understand thanks to some of Criterion’s aces bonus content on this disc, I’m not entirely wrong to view this as an action movie. Apparently Hawks’ funding for the film was coming partly from eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and when Hughes saw speeding cars crashing and machine guns spitting, he told Hawks he wanted more and more and more of that!
Criterion Collection Paul Muni plays Tony Camonte as a larger than life, id-driven man-child who always knows what he wants and always does whatever it takes to get it, damn the consequences (nay, never even considering the consequences). An anti-hero to the extreme, we’re charmed by Tony’s pursuits just as we are by modern gangsters. We want to see his rise. The world IS his. But we also know being driven by id and taking everything around you for your own selfish pleasures leads to consequences. (Well, as I type this post 2024 election… maybe we don’t know this?) Fascinatingly, Johnny Lovo, the crime boss Tony is destined to eclipse from the moment we meet him, is played by Osgood Perkins; father of Anthony, grandfather of Longlegs director Oz. (Yet more real world cultural impact of Scarface).
Tony may or may not know he’s destined to cast aside his boss because he’s not much of a planner. But by the time Tony discovers the invention of the handheld machine gun, his iconic line “Get out of my way, Johnny, I’m gonna spit”, followed by childlike joy at unloading a machine gun, foretells Johnny’s doom and Tony’s violent rise. Also caught up in Tony’s conquests are Poppy (Karen Morley) as Johnny’s girl (for now), and ‘Cesca (Ann Dvorak), Tony’s sister and seeming unrequited love interest. Even Tony’s illiterate and comically idiotic “receptionist” Angelo (Vince Barnett) will get caught up in the consequences of Tony’s pursuits, but not before ensuring we get some bizarre comedic set pieces that further portend the era of Schwarzenegger comedy thrown into our violent action opuses.
Criterion Collection The rise and fall gangster epic is well trodden territory for us here in 2024. Hell, gangster cinema is its own subgenre. But there’s no doubt that Scarface, along with other 1930s films like Public Enemy and Little Caesar (which need to be next on my to watch list), built the template that we’re still rabidly consuming today. Special thanks to the Howards Hawks and Hughes for sparking the trend of “more, more, more” in our crime epics.
The Package
Scarface was one of those Criterion titles that came along which I chose to take on in order to expand my cinematic knowledge. In other words, I didn’t know much about it and decided to undertake this review as yet another opportunity to allow Criterion to “take me to school”. But homework cinema this is not, and I was greatly entertained by the movie itself, and not disappointed in the supplemental material that Criterion created for this release. The highlight is an extended conversation between author Megan Abbott and Bill Hader (the genius behind Barry). This is a lovely conversation simply lavishing praise upon the film, exploring its nooks and crannies, from people who know what they’re talking about. I learned a lot and enjoyed every second. You’ll also get a video essay about the use of sound and editing in the film from Lea Jacobs, and a liner notes essay from Imogen Sara Smith.
I did watch the 4K disc (the bonus features are on the Blu-ray disc), and while it looks pretty great for a film from 1932, I’m not sure my eye could tell how much the digital restoration benefitted from the 4K presentation.
And I’m Out.
Scarface hit 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Criterion on Nov. 12th, 2024.
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Once More into the Fray with GLADIATOR II – Spoiler Free!
Are you still entertained? (Yes, I Am)
(This review dances around a major plot point which is thinly veiled at best, and which most of you have probably already figured out – but hey, I’m doing my part to try to help you go in unspoiled).
It’s not something I would’ve ever expected to say, but – Gladiator II is here! 24 years after the original, an unlikely sequel has manifested. Like Blade Runner 2040, and to a lesser extent Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, it finds Ridley Scott returning to his roots and creating a rather unexpected – but in no way unwelcome – followup to one of his best films.
Gladiator II‘s arrival has been prefaced by some chuckle-worthy attempts to discredit its historical accuracy, as if anyone were under the impression it were anything but fiction. The original Gladiator is such a hallowed favorite and proven classic that I think people may have forgotten its tone and slightly elevated its sense of gravitas in our memory. It’s a gorgeous film, but in no way ponderous or pretentious – or particularly historical. It’s a very action-packed, very mainstream banger of a fictional narrative that happens to be set in ancient Rome around 180 AD.
In that tradition, Gladiator II mostly lives up to the original. While it’s not quite as good, this is a sequel that works, even if it probably shouldn’t.
Echoing aspects of the original film, the film is centered on a young man name Hanno (Paul Mescal) who lives in peace with is wife in North Africa. When the Romans, under the command of General Acacius (Pedro Pascal), attack his seaside city, he leads the desperate attempt to rebuff the invaders. But the city falls, his wife is killed, and he ends up captured and shipped to Rome, eventually catching the eye of the wily Macrinus (Denzel Washington), who purchases him and trains him as a gladiator.
Unsurprisingly, Denzel’s performance is a major highlight, and his role reminds me of some of the conniving characters in Game of Thrones, like Peter Baelish – he’s clearly a flawed person and in pursuit of his own personal ends, but despite being unquestionably slimy, his manner is nevertheless quite charming and good-humored, and a total pleasure to watch. It’s not immediately clear if he’s a friend or foe, but either way he has a certain allure.
Hanno’s tale echoes aspects of Maximus: a brave commander turned gladiator whose success in the arena will capture the attention and respect of the Roman people in a time of cruelty (now under the leadership of the twin emperors Geta and Caracalla, played with convincing detestability by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger.
As film goes on, his tale will intertwine more closely to the original – for the ghost of Maximus still holds power 20 year later. General Acacius, on whom Hanno has sworn revenge, is the husband of Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla, making her return. Lucilla sees the fighting spirit of Maximus in Hanno, but that’s pitted against his thirst for revenge against her own husband.
As with the original film, the violent action sequences both in and out of the arena are quite sensational, as is the score by Harry Gregson-Williams (taking the reins from Hans Zimmer).
The only aspect of the film that I felt didn’t even begin to live up to the original was in Hanno’s rapport with his fellow gladiators. Maximus developed palpable friendships with characters like those played by Djimon Hounsou and Ralf Moeller. Not only could you could see how he rose in stature to earn the admiration and devotion of his fellow fighters, but his companions were also some of the most enjoyable and lovable characters in the movie with genuine humor, rapport and pathos. Without this attention to the supporting characters, a similar arc in II feels limp and unearned by comparison.
No, Gladiator II isn’t as good as the original, but neither is it an unworthy followup. I enjoyed it immensely and the action alone makes this one to catch theatrically on the big screen.
A/V Out
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WICKED is the Perfect Rest Cure for an Exhausted Society
“Listen to me. You can do anything.”
I somewhat recall seeing Wicked on the stage in London for my birthday back in 2008. It was my first birthday living in that city and the biggest stage production I had ever seen in my life up to that point. My best friend, who was living in Oxford at the time, came over and treated us to some pretty good seats for the show I had heard so much about. However, apart from a single joke (which I was happy to see made it into the movie version), I remember virtually nothing from the experience; not the names of the characters, not the plot turns, not the cavalcade of songs. Every time I heard about Wicked in the years after, I couldn’t help but wonder why this was. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Wicked; I just flat-out couldn’t remember anything about it. Eventually, I just had to admit that, for whatever reason, it just wasn’t the time for me to absorb that story. Now, years later, the fact that Wicked has now emerged as one of the best of 2024 proves that time has come.
Based on both Gregory Maguire’s novel and the long-running stage musical, Wicked tells the story of how a young woman named Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) became known to everyone in the magical land of Oz as the Wicked Witch of the West. Beginning with her entrance into Shiz University, we see her and future Good Witch Glinda (Ariana Grande) become an unlikely pair of friends as they find themselves embarking on an adventure to see the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum).
It’s a bit of an understatement to say that director Jon M. Chu was faced with one of the tallest orders in Hollywood when it came to adapting such a popular musical for the big screen. Yet, the director has seemed to pull it off at every turn. Wicked is the kind of lavish and thrilling movie spectacle everyone is hoping it would be. The musical numbers, which alternate between huge ballads and uptempo showstoppers, are positively sprawling. Each song is so well choreographed and takes place in a set more elaborate than the last while doing proper duty in moving the story along. The effects (practical and otherwise) have no chance of being outdone by the music as Oz has come to glorious life with a design that swallows the audience into that world from the very first shot. There has been some bemoaning (particularly from the 90-minute movie crowd) that at two hours and forty minutes, Wicked is too long of a movie to bear, especially when considering the fact that this is only the first part of the story. Make no mistake, Chu has got such a firm handle on the movie’s pacing, moving the proceedings along at just the right speed, that its nearly three-hour runtime feels like merely a fraction of that.
Wicked is so incredibly well-executed from top to bottom. Feelings of exuberance and exhilaration are at literally every turn for what is undeniably one of the most monumental movie experiences of the year. What’s most remarkable, however, is that within the large-scale world of Wicked, is a story full of intimate character moments. After being forced to room together, we initially see Elphaba and Glinda take a dislike to one another before an event happens. In one of the key moments of the film, we see both characters begin a transformation that changes not only who they are and how we now see them, but also alters the kind of movie we are now watching. As previously mentioned, the pair become friends, establishing a bond that quickly takes its place as one of the movie’s key driving forces. From then on, Wicked becomes a lesson in empathy, a movie that takes the time in the midst of all the fun to point out the value of actually exploring who a person really is versus who the world would assume them to be. These lessons flow throughout in a way that thankfully never ventures into the realm of self-righteousness, but instead are presented in ways that are both simple and honest.
Despite all of the movie’s plentiful delights, Wicked wouldn’t work without the right leads at the forefront, which it thankfully has. Erivo’s soulful performance shows just how much Elphaba has been carrying internally and the actress’ endlessly expressive eyes and mannerisms help us understand her character’s true self. She pairs well with Grande, who is a true marvel as Glinda, hitting every comedic beat with expert timing and delivery, while also giving her character genuine depth. Apart from a miscast Goldblum as the famous wizard, the rest of the supporting players, including Michelle Yeoh as the head of the university, Peter Dinklage voicing a professor who also happens to be a goat, and Jonathan Bailey as both girls’ love interest, all leave their mark and add to the overall enjoyment.
As someone who partakes in karaoke quite regularly, I can’t tell you how many renditions of “Defying Gravity” (arguably Wicked’s most famous song) have taken place in my presence. Yet much like my experience with the stage production, I never quite felt like I really heard the song. Despite seeing it performed by a variety of singers (including some of my own friends) I must have decided early on that it wasn’t for me. Typically, whenever someone got up to belt it out, I would either distract myself with my phone or head to the bar for another drink. Seeing the song be brought to glorious life on the screen made me actually listen to it for the first time and I finally heard what so many had before me. I finally heard the story of Wicked encapsulated in the music and lyrics, the sense of adventure, bravery, conviction, humanity, and the importance of the kind of bond that can exist between two friends which can never be overestimated.
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Movie Review: A REAL PAIN Is A Real Pleasure
Writer/Director/Star Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin Navigate Rocky Road of Comedy/Drama
Who’s in more pain: The guy who holds nothing back, or the guy who keeps everything inside?
If it seems odd for a comedy to have such a heavy question at its center, that’s all part of the magic trick that Jesse Eisenberg has pulled off as writer/director/star of A Real Pain. While it may seem counterintuitive to make a road comedy about a couple American cousins going on a Holocaust tour in Poland, Eisenberg’s film is attuned to the ways that laughter can percolate on the other side of discomfort and/or outright tragedy.
But A Real Pain is also very much aware of the ways in which the brightest smiles and broadest laughs can serve as masks for deep wells of feeling, a disparity it engages and provokes in dozens of different forms across its compact 90 minute runtime. The result is a small gem of a movie, consistent in its humor and boundlessly surprising in its humanity.
A Real Pain centers on two American cousins: David (Eisenberg) and Benjy (Kieran Culkin). Essentially raised as brothers, they’ve grown into two very different men: David is a happily married father, yet he walks through the world in a near-permanent flinch.
Benjy, meanwhile, is everything that David wants to be: Effortlessly charming and personable, able to make profound connections with other people in a matter of seconds. But that extroversion comes with its own downsides. Words spew out of Benjy’s mouth at a mile a minute pace, totally unfiltered and unencumbered by anything like social decorum. If David has closed himself off from feeling too much, Benjy feels everything too deeply and projects that feeling back out far too loudly.
Together, the duo travel around Poland with a tour group, exploring the culture and legacy of the recently departed grandmother whose death haunts both men. Benjy especially has been left unmoored and aimless after the loss of someone so clearly central to his life, and David clearly hopes that this trip will galvanize his cousin back into a more proactive manner of living.
The tour is led by trivia-minded guide James (Will Sharpe) and includes the compassionate Marcia, (Jennifer Grey, and yes that’s the dirty dancing, Ferris Bueller bullying Jennifer Grey) Rwandan genocide survivor Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan) and Midwestern couple Diane (Daniel Oreskes) and Mark (Liza Sadovy).
There’s plenty of heavy subject matter to be dealt with, in both the contemporary struggles of these men and the historical atrocities that frame their family’s history. There is indeed quote a lot of, ahem, real pain at the soul of A Real Pain. But it needs be said that Eisenberg did not construct this film to wallow in griefs both historical and all-too present. Instead, he’s built the film as a lowkey hangout pleasure. The frame overflows with color, lavishing the Polish cityscapes and countryside with a romantic glow even as cinematographer Michal Dymek (a Warsaw native) zeroes in on the specificities of local life that don’t usually catch the Hollywood eye.
And it’s funny! Really, earnestly, consistently funny. It helps that Eisenberg and Culkin are the driving force of every scene. They share an effortless chemistry that really does convey a meaningful lifetime bond. Both men have honed their craft to its top form over the course of their careers and bring everything they have to their respective characters. Eisenberg is better at playing discomfort than almost anyone, able to use the barest of twitches or eyebrow lifts to convey volumes of panic.
As for Culkin, it will come as a shock to no one who has seen his work in anything from Scott Pilgrim to Succession that the man can volley foulmouthed punchlines with the best of them. But he’s also tapped into a vein of of raw nerve mania that comes as a surprise even to those already familiar with Roman Roy.
Eisenberg’s script has the generosity to give killer moments to the whole ensemble, letting each character have their own distinct point of view and comedic game. It’s especially lovely to see Grey in such a prominent role again, playing equal parts salty and compassionate.
As a director, Eisenberg favors keeping as many actors in frame as he can, giving his ensemble the space to dictate the pacing and rhythms of a scene. But he’s also not settling for a point-and-shoot/figure it out in the edit looseness. In maybe the film’s centerpiece sequence, Eisenberg delivers a powerhouse monologue while sitting at the head of a table. As he finally vents the repressed emotion that’s been curdling in his heart since before the film even began, the camera gradually moves in tighter, trapping you in this space with David as he can’t help from oversharing. When Eisenberg does finally cut, he uses the cutaways to not only capture the reaction to this speech from the ensemble, but to utilize the broken time and empty space of the frame to steadily build the tension of when Benjy is going to drop in and overhear his cousin’s purge.
All that being said, Eisenberg’s most effective weapon is maybe just the performance that Culkin gives here. As Benjy, he is so unbelievably charming and funny and sensitive…until the wrong mood strikes him and he becomes unconscionably rude and nasty. Culkin makes a meal out of fitting those contradictions together inside the skin of this man, fully embodying everything charming and alluring about Benjy while also owning everything monstrous and infuriating about him.
While A Real Pain grapples with heavy subject matter, Eisenberg is careful to never let grandiosity overwhelm his story. This trip is probably not the most important week in the lives of these men. There are no grand epiphanies or revelations. Lives are not changed, except perhaps in imperceptible shifts that will only manifest long after the movie ends. Hell, maybe Eisenberg can get the gang back together in a decade for a Before Sunset-style check-in to see what, if anything, these two have actually learned from this shared experience.
By keeping the scope narrow and the histrionics in check, A Real Pain never feels like it is grasping for cheap, Oscar-bait pomposity or importance. Instead the emotions it conjures up, be they painful or not, are understated and deeply earned.
You might even say: Real.
A Real Pain is currently in theaters.
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What Happened in GLADIATOR Echoes in Eternity…and in GLADIATOR II
A remix and retcon of the original that pales in comparison
A good sequel is often tasked with a fine balancing act. Maintain enough of the elements that made the first film successful, but add in new ideas to make it fresh and impactful all over again. Gladiator II is a curious beast, where its strengths essentially lie in a play by play remix of the first film’s emotionally driven action set pieces, and its weakness lies in the clunky plot maneuvering to tee them up.
Picking up around 20 years after the event of the first film, the dream of Rome has turned into a nightmare, as twin Emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) have brought cruelty and corruption to bear. Intent on solidifying their legacy, they have charged General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) to expand Rome’s borders. The latest target is the African city of Numidia, a bastion whose defense is led by an adoptive son Hanno (Paul Mescal). The cities inhabitants, including his ill-fated wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen) are unaware of his true identity as Lucius, son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and true heir to the Empire. Sequestered away after the events of the first film for his protection, lost to another continent, and now dragged back home in chains as a prisoner of war to be sold at a slave market. His festering resentment for Rome, and palpable anger is noted by local power-player Macrinus (Denzel Washington) who puts him into the gladiator pits, and soon starts to leverage his desire for revenge against Acacius as a means to stir up political chaos, and elevate his own position within the empire.
Yes, that young doe-eyed boy from the first film (played by Spencer Treat Clark) is all grown up. A rough around the edges man, whose moral code stems from his memories of the honorable acts of one Maximus Decimus Meridius (the OG, Russell Crowe). His life mirrors that of Maximus. Battle hardened from his time overseas, now losing the his love to the greed and corruptive sprawl of Rome, dragged in chains to the arena, and coming to realize that his path through the games doesn’t just take him to simple revenge, but a chance to make a difference by ridding Rome of the tyranny at its core.
The script from David Scarpa is utterly beholden to the original. Plot beats, supporting players, character motivations, set pieces, all feel recycled. In true sequel style, things are bigger for instance now instead of one Emperor, we have two. The plot elements and especially the actions sequences also replicate similar beats in the rise of Maximus in the eyes of his fellow gladiators, and the people of Rome, only now it’s Lucius. Instead of a towering man to fight, we have a towering man atop a rhino. Instead of a chariot historical reenactment with chariots in the coliseum, we have one with boats (and sharks!). The action in these set pieces is vibrant and compellingly composed, so it feels off to to nit pick these elements too much, but these grander feats lack the emotional heft of the first film. An effort to address this, and tie the film more closely to its predecessor comes with a retcon of Lucius’s parentage. While there’s a logic to this, the execution doesn’t just fall flat, but actually feels egregious as it only serves to sully the nobility of Maximus that was so carefully sketched out in the original. Compounding matter is the film’s conceit that the sacrifice witnessed in the first film didn’t amount to much. Maximus is mentioned in hushed tones, and the reason seems largely so they can allow the whole scenario to just play out all over again.
An element that offers some opportunity for advancement is in exploring the corruption that has started to consume the Empire from the inside, and we’re not just talking about the syphilis addled brains of one of the Emperors. The political maneuvering of Lucilla and Acacius and the rallying of senators to reclaim Rome for the people is overly simplified and dealt with in a rather blasé manner. Lucilla holding a sprig of lavender under her nose is as subtle as the film gets when pointing out the rot that festers in Rome.
Tonally, the film aims for gruff seriousness with occasional forays into melodrama. This is largely centered around the personal journey of Lucius. Mescal’s shifts from stirring leading man, to frankly spoken working class fellow are as ungainly as the rest of the film, but when settled, his allure is palpable. Pascal, usually a bright spot in any project, is a subdued presence which is appropriate for the role, but feels a misuse of his talents. Side characters and plots plunge the film into the welcome respite of good, campy fun which comes courtesy of some key performances. Quinn and Hechinger plunder some of the more notorious elements of Roman Emperors to craft an unhinged and erratic pairing. Two Brits standout in Matt Lucas (as the coliseum announcer) and Tim McInnerny (Blackadder) as the sniveling and pliable Senator Thraex. The real plaudits must be reserved for Denzel Washington who is operating on a different level to everyone else, grabbing every moment, and relishing every line, as a low level mover and shaker who exploits the situation and people involved tin an attempt to elevate himself to the highest stage in Rome.
Gladiator II is a muddled swing, but its a swing nonetheless. An attempt by Ridley Scott (who just turned 86) to revisit one of his films on a grander scale, and like in The Last Duel and Napoleon, allow him to explore ideas of power and legacy. But in this the film falters, doing a disservice to the politicking and family drama. Perhaps an extended cut (which Scott is infamous for delivering) could give a more well developed, and well rounded experience that the lopsided effort here. Many will revel in the chance to revisit Scott’s Rome, but the more discerning eye will see Gladiator II for what it is, a reworking of the first film with a updated façade. An echo of greatness, nothing more.
Gladiator II hits theaters on November 22nd
