Elvis
Gillipedia Official Rating: Kentucky
Fried Tom Hanks
Score: 5/10
We’ll start this off by saying Austin
Powers fully deserves his Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Half of his screen
presence is simply smirking toward the camera, but he nails the look, the
moves, and most of the singing is his own. Unfortunately, surrounding his
performance is a bloated movie edited to death without much to say and
suffering a fate of mediocrity. The movie chronicles the entire life of Elvis,
but a huge component of the film is an aspect I wasn’t aware of at all which is
the wishbone relationship with Elvis’ business manager. Manager Colonel Tom
Parker is played by Tom Hanks, and it pains me to say this is where the film’s
cracks loom largest.
We’re introduced to the Colonel on his
death bed recounting his time and egotistically defending his actions by
propelling Elvis to stardom. And Hanks uses a ridiculous Southern accent. I
briefly listened to an interview with the real Colonel, and sure there’s a
definite accent, but the way Hanks’ voice is higher-pitched and the accent
over-the-top is so grating to listen to. And his supporting role is quite
prevalent not only during his scenes, but he also serves as the film’s
narrator.
As the Colonel narrates about success,
we’re thrust into a big Elvis performance which feels like it could’ve been
shot for a music video. There’s lots of energy, many cuts, closeups of Elvis
and his -ahem- sweaty thrusting, and so many shots of screaming young women. So
many shots of them… It all works enough to whet the appetite of what’s to come
from the greatest selling single artist. We then get a taste of Elvis’ humble
beginnings and ties to family and how living around a black community
influenced his musical taste. We also are treated to some singing by Gary
Clark, Jr. There’s shoutouts to Baton Rouge and Shreveport in Louisiana and the
famous Louisiana Hayride show which helped Elvis get discovered. And for over 2
and a half hours, we go through all the typical musical biopic scenes of
success, romance, financials, drug use, and thankfully, great songs.
The Great Gatsby director Baz
Luhrmann wrote and directed this film. You may also remember he did the modern
adaption of Romeo and Juliet with DiCaprio. And he brings that
not-so-subtle directing to this film. It’s incredibly heavy-handed and leaves
zero interpretation up to the audience. There’s also not much to sink your
teeth into anyways. There’s some intrigue on Elvis’ close relationship to his
mother and how the Colonel takes advantage of the gap created once his mother
passes away, but that’s one small piece to a very large puzzle that doesn’t fit
together all that well.
The movie wants to tell so much of
Elvis’ life, and it also wants to have plenty of musical moments. The issue is
that virtually all of it is shot like a music video which becomes exhausting
way too quickly. One video I watched recently talked about how lots of editing
doesn’t equal good editing. And I think that statement fits Elvis in
spades. Outside of the Louisiana Hayride performance that had a buildup of this
unknown artist that has an unexpected effect on the young female crowd, there’s
really only 1 speed throughout the rest of the performances. There’s so many
back and forth shots to Elvis and fans and critics in the crowd, and it’s all
just repeated information. When the emotional expression of a character hasn’t
changed, the only reason to cut back to them would be intentional repetition.
And that is a valid argument to make up to an extent. But when your film
balloons to the length that it is, there has to be purpose in your scenes. We
go through the motions of Elvis’ life in story beats, but we aren’t presented
with overarching goals with the exception of knowing the Colonel is shady but
we don’t know how exactly that will come into play.
I think Elvis has an amazing voice and
has some true classics, and to the film’s credit, it does showcase a strong
catalogue of songs. There will inevitably be comparisons to Bohemian
Rhapsody, and this film honestly didn’t emotionally connect as much as Bohemian
Rhapsody. And that is in part due to the Colonel. He is never presented to
be a likable character, but I never got over Hanks’ voice. Arguably more sinful
than Hanks in this film is the fact that, to my knowledge, there wasn’t a
single peanut butter and banana sandwich consumed. One small detail I remember
hearing about as well was how Elvis had a mini fridge inside his car, and yes
that’s such a tiny thing, but I was really hoping to see that too.
Nevertheless, Powers carries the film, and despite the exhausting quick
editing, another saving grace is the fact that Elvis does in fact have really
good songs. But would I say this movie is worthy of being called a Best Picture
Nominee? Mmmm, I don’t think so.
Bad Boys
Gillipedia Official Rating: Whatcha
gonna do when they come for you? Possibly stop watching before you reach the
credits.
Score: 4/10
This turned out to be Michael Bay’s
feature film directorial debut, and it really set the tone of what to expect
from future films of his (explosions, scantily clad women, and sweeping camera
shots) mostly for the worse. I wish there was a baked in word to describe how I
feel about Bad Boys, but the only thing I can think of right now is that
it’s not good. In fact, it’s very not good.
There have been plenty of buddy cop
films played to more dramatic and comedic effects with varying degrees of
success. First example of it done well that comes to mind is Jake Gylenhaal and
Michael Pena bantering back and forth but taking a more dramatic turn in End
of Watch. And it pains me to say this, but Martin Lawrence and Will Smith
annoyed me more than anything—it was just them constantly yelling at each other
about the same stupid stuff.
And this tone is set from the first
scene. Our protagonists are driving in Will Smith’s expensive car and give us
some exposition about Lawrence having a family and Smith being more of the
womanizer and being able to afford the car because of his wealthy family. And
it’s not like my ribs are hurting, but I’m not so stiff to say there isn’t at
least a joke or two that will make you laugh. They pull over and get distracted
by a hooker walking in front of them. While they’re distracted, some drug
dealer henchmen hold them at gunpoint. And while I understand this is supposed
to be a comedic movie, the action frustrated me. Because there’s legitimate
situations where it feels like wow, this seems to be like quite the pickle; I
wonder what clever way our characters will think of to get out of the
situation… Not only are the situations not clever, the script never knew how to
fully get the characters out either, so oftentimes it’s just our guys -ahem-
our boys pulling their guns, start shooting, maybe get a guy, and then hiding
for cover as bad guys aim at explodable objects to cause utter chaos.
While Smith and Lawrence yell at each
other, both of them get yelled at by their boss played by the always yelling
Joe Pantoliano (Memento and The Matrix) who is always being
threatened of being demoted by his supervisor. To be fair, Pantoliano’s
best acting trait is his ability to yell. Anyways, a call girl that Smith knew
invites her friend played by Tea Leoni to a job at a guy’s house, but the guy
gets killed by the big not good drug dealers with Leoni narrowly escaping. And
that propels our plot where our heroes try to keep Leoni alive as they try to
figure out this mystery of both who killed her friend, but also a possible
inside job where their bust of large amounts of cocaine are stolen from the police
department.
There’s lots of stuff that doesn’t
make sense in this film, but possibly the biggest question mark here is the
whole setup of Leoni, Lawrence, and Smith. Lawrence goes to try to find Leoni
on his own, and why is he by himself? Pretty sure when he tells Smith about his
plans, Smith says something like, “Nah, I’m good.” Like it’s some really dumb
reason to separate the two, but it is critical for one of the biggest gags of
the whole film. Leoni only will trust Smith’s character because her friend
trusted him, but she never met him, so when Lawrence comes knocking, he quickly
pretends to be Smith to gain her trust. So from this point forth, we have
Lawrence sometimes doing a really bad Smith impression and the gags that come
with the character crossover of living each other’s lives. And again, some of
the jokes that come with this are in fact funny, but the setup of everything is
just so silly. There’s even a scene where Smith and Lawrence go investigate at
a club. First, I don’t remember the logic of why they knew to check it out to
begin with. But anyways, they keep Leoni at Smith’s apartment for her
protection. And then inexplicably, she gets tired of being in this witness
protection, so she just leaves the apartment and then gets caught up in the
action at the club. It’s baffling as to the character motivations because it’s
all just to serve the purpose of oh we need characters to go here and I think
it would be funny or cool if this happened. It’s like there’s lots of dots the
film wanted to hit and didn’t care how it connected them.
Michael Bay has had some really cool
action moments throughout his career. Early on, The Rock was a cool hit,
I was thoroughly impressed by 13 Hours, and even 6 Underground
and Ambulance have their moments. But before he got there, he first did Bad
Boys. I like that there’s some practical stuff, but it’s impossible to
follow closely to what’s happening—there’s simply too main shaky cam shots and
extreme closeups of characters yelling stuff like, “Shoot! Shoot!”
Ultimately, the jokes are too crass,
the characters are non-sensical in what they say and do, and the action doesn’t
hold up decades later. It’s one of those films that you may feel cool for being
able to say you’ve seen if you’re in like middle school, but it won’t impress
many others. I haven’t seen the third film, but for what it’s worth, the sequel
is marginally better.
The French Dispatch
Gillipedia Official Rating: Quirkier
than your middle toe. Don’t ask, I don’t know what I mean by that either, but I
stand behind it.
Score: 9/10
The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel may reign supreme for Wes
Anderson films, but The French Dispatch makes it case for excellency.
This unfortunately was a film released in 2021 when people still weren’t really
back in theaters, and there was so little marketing that hardly anyone watched
this movie. Which is such a shame because it’s an absolute master class. The
directing is top-notch, this is one of Anderson’s best written films, and there
is his signature, symmetrical, and monochromatic color schemes in spades.
The French Dispatch is a newspaper
reporting on French news but is run and edited in the States by Bill Murray.
Upon his character’s death, the rest of the staff releases one final issue, and
the film is split into four parts for the different sections of the paper.
These are self-contained stories with the only overlap being that the
journalists of the titular paper are reporting on the events happening. And
each story is absolutely star-studded too. Again, this movie did not make its
money back, but boy is it beautiful to look at and stuffed with name after name
of Anderson usuals and big names alike.
The
Cycling Reporter
This is the shortest segment featuring
Owen Wilson really setting the stage for what ride you’re in for for the rest
of the film. He rides around a small town, sometimes narrating, sometimes
talking directly to the camera. We’re shown how the town looked in the past
versus changes to it now, and it’s some of the first instances of The French
Dispatch’s quirks of storytelling as well as the mesmerizing way Anderson
shoots every shot. Where the first film in this review is shot to death, and in
Bad Boys there’s sometimes little thought to the composition of a shot,
it feels like there’s purpose in every frame, every set decoration, costume,
and where each character—whether main or extra—is placed. We’re also treated to
a fantastic score by Alexandre Desplat.
The
Concrete Masterpiece
This might be my favorite segment.
It’s also where the movie earns its R rating. Lea Seydoux poses nude for art in
multiple scenes. Not only is it never shot in a sexual or exploitative nature,
it fits perfectly in Anderson’s quirky world where it mocks abstract artwork
that is sold for exuberant prices because a few elites tell people it’s worth
that much.
Adrien Brody is so enamored by Benicio
Del Toro’s artistic ability that he commissions him to work on a new series. So
influential, Del Toro’s work is discussed in like a seminar hosted by Tilda
Swinton—an actress born for director Anderson’s quirky style. There’s narration
in place in every story by the journalists, and Swinton is that narrator here.
We soon become aware that not only is Seydoux acting as Del Toro’s muse, but
she is also his prison guard. When Brody first arrives to discuss his plans
with Del Toro, there are quick exchanges among the characters; however, the
majority of the narrative and humor is driven by the eyes. It’s incredible how
much story and humor is told here and throughout the movie simply with body
movement. What Anderson does incredibly well with his intricately designed sets
is know where to place movement. There’s always plenty of symmetry in how he
frames a shot, so he directs the audience’s attention by only having a small
section of the frame moving at a time. In the case of this particular scene, it’s
mostly just Brody, Seydoux, and Del Toro, so there’s lots of closeup shots with
the story told through the eyes—the way Del Toro looks over to Seydoux and she
subtly nods or blinks her approval for him to move forward with any deal.
From there, Anderson satirizes the way
some art is given value over others, and the big opening once the pieces are
done is a highlight scene.
Revisions
of a Manifesto
Frances McDormand is our journalist
for this section as she details her influence over disputes between young
rebellions and government. She repeatedly and humorously talks about her
journalist integrity by staying neutral, and then she proceeds to offer her
advise to Timothee Chalamet, the leader of one side. Instead of gory action
scene or large rebellions like the one from Les Miserables, it’s more of
a battle of wits here, sprinklings of chess playing and manifesto reading. I
found it absolutely hilarious the way sides would try skimming sections being
referenced in the manifesto by literally mumbling through their readings.
There’s lots of cameos from great
actors here, but I’d argue the combination of McDormand and Chalamet fits
Anderson’s style the best in how they interact with each other. The dialogue is
quick, the messaging is interesting, and it’s one of the funnier sections of
the film. At first I found myself wondering what the real point of this movie
was, but as you dive into the meatier sections of the film, you worry less
about overall structure and find yourself simply enjoying the mostly
self-contained narratives for what they are. There aren’t any clear high or
lowlights, and that works to The French Dispatch’s advantage of
consistently keeping the audience engaged through this pretty brisk film.
The
Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner
Our final segment is by the
self-critical Jeffrey Wright—a consistently underrated actor. Placing this
section last makes the most sense as it’s the one that also references the relationship
among the editor and journalists the most; Wright has a sense of obligation and
even pride for Murray giving him a chance to write. And Wright does write which
is the right thing to do—dare I say a rite of passage.
The pacing is also quickest here.
There’s a peculiar chef, the commissioner, and a dinner that is interrupted by
kidnappers taking the commissioner’s son. This leads to a car chase that turns
to an almost cartoon-style 2D animation that still feels completely aligned
with Anderson’s vision—he did direct Isle of Dogs and Fantastic Mr.
Fox after all. Not to be outdone by the other sections, there’s actors
galore here including Saiorse Ronan in a deviously small role. In fact, if you’re
using this review to determine how many big actors have roles here, you’re
wasting your breath because I probably haven’t even named half of the actors
that I recognized in this film.
This last section I’d argue is the
most artistic of them all with the most development in terms of Wright
reflecting back on this piece and its influences on himself. I’m someone that
enjoys being able to recognize familiar faces in films, and this film has that
in spades, in clubs, and more. But if you don’t have an interesting surrounding story, that
shine only goes so far. Not only is this a quick film separated into sections
each with their own intrigue, but it continues Anderson’s incredible eye for
framing and one of the best scores in his films ever. The fact that this film wasn’t
nominated for anything like director, production design, editing, or score is
absolutely criminal. The French Dispatch was one of the best films of 2021,
and it’s a shame I waited this long to watch it and that it was overlooked by so
many when it came out.
