Weekend Screen Scene - I Want You Back, Blacklight

Romantic comedies are such a well-trod genre that, for the majority of them, it is less about the destination --we all know the destination; it's love--and more about the journey. I Want You Back owes a lot to the rom coms that have come before it (particularity When Harry Met Sally, which itself owed a lot to Woody Allen's oeuvre), but the cast and refreshingly uncynical screenplay by Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger make this comedy the kind you won't regret spending the evening with.

Peter (Charlie Day) and Emma (Jenny Slate) are dumped by their respective partners, Anne (Gina Rodriguez) a dissatisfied with life school teacher, and Noah (Scott Eastwood), an anxious for adulthood personal trainer. When Peter and Emma meet-cute, both crying over their breakups in the stairwell of their office building, they decide to team up and try to break up their ex's new relationships in the hopes it will force them back into their respective arms. A series of awkward and amusing attempts at seduction and bromance follow.

Charlie Day can be an acquired taste. Sometimes his manic energy is so strong it creates a black hole that sucks in all the comedy around him. But he's blessedly restrained in I Want You Back, allowing his fellow castmates to share in the comedic spotlight. I find Jenny Slate immensely charming, and have loved her in everything she's done; someone please give her a series that lasts for several seasons, stat! That likeability is a tremendous asset because even when her character does some morally questionable things, you root for her, and have faith no one is really going to get hurt.

Laughs, tears, and the occasional inexplicable cameo make I Want You Back perfect Valentine's Day viewing, though perhaps a little more so for the brokenhearted than the happily entwined.

 I Want You Back is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Speaking of genres, Liam Neeson movies seem to have emerged as a genre unto themselves. They always, of course, star Liam Neeson. In them, Neeson has some kind of mission, issues with family, and he always possesses a very particular set of skills. Like a rom-com, you pretty much know what you're going to get with a Liam Neeson movie. And for some people, no matter how bad the movie actually is, it will be enough.

I'm not one of those people. Blacklight is cliched, silly, and, the biggest sin of all, boring. Opening with the murder of a politician who is very clearly and uncomfortably modeled after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, before moving on to the rescue of an undercover agent trapped amongst a group of backwoods white supremacists, Blacklight's political viewpoint just gets murkier as its conspiracy plot advances. 

Neeson's OCD FBI agent is there to help reveal the corruption in the bureau, while also, of course, resolving his family issues (strained relationship with his daughter), and using his particular set of skills (a more sadistic, or at least more deadly series of Home Alone-esque booby traps) to off the bad guys. But even a few good car chases and 'splosions aren't enough to make the movie even half-way enjoyable. I don't want Liam Neeson to retire, but perhaps the Liam Neeson genre should.

Blacklight is currently playing in theaters.

Weekend Screen Scene: The Humans, Bruised

If you're looking for the perfect Thanksgiving movie to help you realize your dysfunctional family gathering could be worse, look no further than The Humans, Stephen Karam's screen adaptation of his Tony Award winning play. 

Karam makes his feature film directorial debut with this adaptation, and he does a masterful job of turning the dilapidated New York city apartment setting into a character all its own, with its increasingly dark hallways, dingy windows that never give a clear view of the outside, and seeping walls and ceilings. (Anyone who has lived outside of a big city may wonder "Why would anyone choose to live there??" I, instead, marveled at the apartment's space - two stories!--and wondered about the amount of closets.)

Beanie Feldstein and Steven Yeun play Brigid and Richard, the young couple who have just moved into the apartment, who are hosting Brigid's family for a bare bones Thanksgiving dinner. Richard Jenkins and Jayne Houdyshell are the parents, June Squibb is the grandmother, and Amy Schumer is the sister. As tends to be the case at many a Thanksgiving gathering, family tensions rise, secrets are revealed, and the home they are sitting in may very well be haunted. (OK, that last bit is perhaps a tad less common.)

The cast is universally excellent, and by creating such a vividly realized set, director Karam manages to keep the film from feeling too stagey. It's part family drama, part horror movie, aka...Thanksgiving.

The Humans is currently playing in select theaters and is also streaming on Showtime.

Bruised is another directorial debut, this time from Halle Berry, who also stars, as Jackie Justice a former MMA fighter who left the sport after a humiliating defeat, and is attempting to make a comeback.

If that sounds pretty cliched, how about a few more, just to add to the fun? She's also struggling with alcoholism, an abusive partner, and hello! What's this? It's the sudden reappearance of the child she abandoned as an infant! And believe it or not, that isn't the end of the cliches that pepper this predictable tale.

Berry gives a good performance, and the fight sequences are at least well staged. But there is nothing in Bruised that hasn't been done, and done better, in countless sports films that have preceded it.

Bruised is currently streaming on Netflix.

Weekend Screen Scene: The First Wave, Zeros And Ones, Freeland

Watching a documentary about a recent traumatic event - and one that hasn't really ended yet - may not be everyone's entertainment of choice, but in some ways, the events in The First Wave almost feel like ancient history; a glimpse into the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, back when the political divide centered on the disease wasn't quite so endemic.

Director Matthew Heinema was given some pretty intimate access to some of the patients, doctors, and nurses in one of the hardest hit hospitals in New York, and the images and testaments are often difficult to watch. Doctors at the breaking point because everything they know about treating and saving lives too often just doesn't seem to work; patients struggling to recover and gain the most basic functions back, like breathing. It's heartbreaking, but also filled with life affirming moments that make the documentary bearable.

Seeing such images and stories now just makes me wonder if seeing them a year ago could have made a difference. If this country really saw just how horrible things were, over and over on their nightly news, could things have ended up different?

The First Wave is currently playing in select theaters.

Abel Ferrara's new film Zeros and Ones opens and closes with video messages from its star, Ethan Hawke. In the opening message (which was filmed before the movie was made, and was actually used as a promo to gather investors for the film), Hawke talks about being a lifelong fan of Ferrara's, how impressed he was by the script for Zeros and Ones, and how the movie is perfect for these times.

What follows is a confusing and murky mess that will probably only satisfy Ferrara's most devoted fans. Hawke plays twin brothers, a soldier and a revolutionary, both in a locked down Italy under terrorist threat. Filmed during the pandemic, Ferrara takes advantage of the abandoned streets and the real masked and armed military. Add in a relentlessly droning score, and he effectively manifests a genuine feeling of unease, I'll give him that. But the film as a whole is a bit of a headscratcher, and if Hawke's closing video massage after the credits roll is any indication, he feels the same way.

Zeros and Ones is currently available to rent online.

The legalization of marijuana across much of the country has certainly been a happy development for cannabis fans, but what about the small pot growers who relied on their own growing and distribution chains? It's not exactly easy, or cheap, to go legit. The indie drama Freeland is a portrait of one such grower in Humbolt County, Califorian. 

Krisha Fairchild, who was instantly memorable in the 2015 film Krisha, gives an equally impressive performance as Devi, an independent pot grower who is forced to make tough decisions about a future that she's just not prepared for. Directors Mario Furloni and Kate McLean definitely capture the beauty of Northern California, and how idyllic it can be to essentially make a living off your land. But I also appreciated that they didn't shy from depicting the paranoia (that is certainly not helped by getting high on your own supply) just such a lifestyle can result in.

Freeland is currently available to rent online.

Weekend Screen Scene: Finch, 7 Prisoners

Finch had a troubled journey to the small screen. It was filmed back in 2019, and had a few release dates, the last being late 2020, but like many 2020 films, it was pulled. Eventually, it was bought by Apple TV+, where it can be viewed starting today.

It's somewhat surprising, since the film stars the beloved Tom Hanks. Of course who can say whether he's still a box office draw since his last two films were released during a global pandemic. I will say that Finch, while filled with some stunning vistas and good special effects, is perhaps better suited for the small screen, at least right now. I'm not sure venturing out to the theater to watch a movie about the end of the world, where the star coughs up blood and is visibly emaciated is all that appealing?

Instead you can feel uncomfortable, laugh, and cry in the comfort of your own home. And yes, Finch will probably make you cry. Hanks stars as the titular Finch, an engineer, and one of the few survivors of a global climate catastrophe. He designs a humanoid robot for the primary purposes of caring for his dog, Goodyear, after he dies. And Finch is definitely dying. (I will gladly spoil that the dog does NOT die, something I wish I knew before going into the film; it was a needless and distracting concern.)

There's a lot wrong with Finch, things like tremendous plot holes, a lack of world building, and an overall maudlin sensibility. But two things save it. One is Hanks, who remains an engaging screen presence you can't help but root for. And the other is the robot "Jeff," who is voiced (and was performed on set) by Caleb Landry Jones. This came as a complete surprise to me because I best remember Jones as the loathsome and villainous brother in Get Out. But his Jeff starts as a robot that sounds like your typical Stephen Hawkins-voiced stiff, but eventually grows into the equivalent of a precocious child, eager to learn and please his father, making plenty of mistakes along the way. Ultimately, I couldn't help but find this flawed robot, and this flawed film, endearing.

Finch is currently streaming on Apple TV+.

Alexandre Moratto's 7 Prisoners is a brutal drama examining modern day slavery and human trafficking in São Paulo, Brazil. Christian Malheiros stars as Mateus, a rural teenager who, along with a several other young men, accept a job offer in the city. Once there, they are overworked, denied pay, and locked into their sleeping quarters, essentially prisoners. Any attempts to escape are thwarted by their tyrannical boss, Luca (Rodrigo Santoro) who controls them via violence, and the threat of violence against their families back home. 

Malheiros is excellent as Mateus, the defaco leader of the group who quickly learns that survival depends on a certain level of duplicity, and that a shitty boss probably has someone even shittier above him. 7 Prisoners is a depressing but effective dramatization of the evils of human trafficking and the capitalist system that allows these, and often more subtle crimes against workers, to continue.

7 Prisoners is currently playing in select theaters and will begin streaming on Netflix on November 11th.

Weekend Screen Scene: A Mouthful Of Air, Women Is Losers

Amanda Seyfried stars as a children's book author dealing with post-partum depression in the difficult drama A Mouthful of Air. 

It's a difficult in a number of ways. For one, it's a topic, like many topics centered on women, that too often gets relegated to the realm of Lifetime, seldom making it into studio pictures. And it's a difficult topic to depict, as many stories of mental illness can be. How do you properly convey an inner turmoil that can often be so deep and hidden via a medium that depends on the visual?

First time director Amy Koppleman, who also wrote the screenplay, which is based on her 2003 novel of the same name, chooses to keep most of that turmoil hidden. From the start, we don't really know how new mom Julie (Amanda Seyfried) is feeling, we only see how she is reacting to her feelings, when she attempts suicide in the early moments of the film. We then see how those around her react to that attempt, and some of those reactions are shocking, like when her sister-in-law (Jennifer Carpenter) yells at Julie for being thoughtless; do you know her brother is still scrubbing blood out of the carpet!?

Thankfully, Julie's husband (Finn Wittrock) is more understanding, and when she gets pregnant again, he's the one who insists she stays on her medication, while she is more fearful about what the medication may do to her child, and her own ability to breastfeed. Seyfried gives a great performance, and when the film does depict her moments of mental and parental exhaustion, she is wholly convincing. She shines in a film that is too often frustratingly opaque.

A Mouthful of Air is now playing in select theaters.

Women Is Losers is another movie about the hardships of motherhood, and if these two movies have taught me anything, it's that I should never regret not having children.

Women Is Losers instantly won me over, at least partially, with its early 1970's San Francisco setting, even if the film makes no real attempt to depict that era of the city accurately. This is actually something the film apologies for, right off the bat, as characters break the fourth wall, explaining that their small budget didn't allow for much in the way of street dressing, or glamorous lighting. (There's no excusing the era-inappropriate hairstyling though. But I digress.)

Breaking the fourth wall happens a lot, with the film's single mother heroine Celina (Lorenza Izzo) often speaking directly to the viewer about the inequities that women, especially women of color, had to face in that era, and pointedly calling out where things have not really changed. It's a little gimmicky, and gives the film the feeling of a stage play, but for the most part it didn't bother me. The strong cast, which includes Simu Liu, Liza Weil, Stephen Bauer, but particularly Lorenza Izzo, helps carry the film over its bumpier and cliched moments.

Women Is Losers is currently streaming on HBO Max.