The good thing about the movies this time of year is the number that are well worth seeing. Studios send their best. Many are after awards consideration. Among the films I review today there are Golden Globe nominees, honorees for other awards and at least one “best of the year” candidate.
Here’s the list:
The Big Short: 4 stars
Joy: 3
The Hateful Eight: 2 ½
Concussion: 3
Point Break: 2 ½
Daddy’s Home --
THE BIG SHORT: What do you do if you’re known mostly for directing Anchorman and other Will Ferrell comedies and you want to up your game? If you’re Adam McKay you take on a most difficult topic, the financial meltdown of 2008, and create the smartest film of the season and one of the best of the year. You make it both explanatory and highly entertaining by lacing it with the irreverent humor you’re used to. Often that’s with wisecracks and sometimes by stopping everything for a definition. Margot Robbie explains sub-prime mortgages from a bubble bath, chef Anthony Bourdain talks CDOs and who better to define synthetic CDOs than Selena Gomez? Between the laughs, you’ll feel the anger about the greed, stupidity and compliance that resulted in five trillion dollars worth of losses.
The story, taken from the best-selling book by Michael Lewis, shows us four fund managers who predicted the collapse and made money by betting against it. Christian Bale plays heavy-metal music in his office and reads the market signs. Ryan Gosling takes note over at Deutschebank’s US office and Steve Carell at the private hedge fund he runs. Brad Pitt plays a guy who abandoned Wall Street but agrees to help with his insider knowledge. They’re all based on real people but here they’re given different names. Carell gets sputtery indignant about corruption. His visit to Florida is particularly enlightening when he sees mortgage defaults, a trio of brokers bragging about their sales and a stripper who owns five houses and a condo. The film shows that real estate frenzy accurately but neglects to mention there were others who saw the housing bubble would burst. It’s also thin on the morality of making money off other people’s losses. But it takes a powerful blast at the system that caused those losses. (International Village and suburban theatres) 4 out of 5
JOY: This one examines the lower rungs of American capitalism but also in a zany tone. And with Jennifer Lawrence in the lead, you also get a large sidebar of woman makes it in a man’s world. Though for the longest time that’s depicted as an uphill struggle.
Lawrence plays Joy Mangano, the real-life but fictionalized star of TV shopping channels and inventor of dozens of home convenience items. The focus is on her biggest, the Miracle Mop, so called because “it’s better than any other mop out there.” She gets to go on TV herself to sell it, after pressuring an executive (Bradley Cooper), sells many but still has to fight off bankruptcy and a patent fraud. She also has to regain the creative energy she had as a little girl, which we see in flashbacks, and work around both interference and guidance from her dysfunctional family. That’s includes her ex-husband (Edgar Ramirez) and her father (Robert DeNiro), both living in the basement, her soap-opera addicted mother (Virginia Madsen) an ever-supportive grandmother and a competitive sister. Also a complaining widow with investment money (Isabella Rossellini). Against all that, Joy has an ordeal to take charge of her life. David O. Russell, directing Lawrence and Cooper for a third time, creates a magical tone that’s perfect for the holidays but also light and not too substantial. It’s an easy acting job for Lawrence. (Scotiabank and suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
THE HATEFUL EIGHT: In this, his new one, Quentin Tarantino gives his critics all the ammunition they need to skewer him once again and those of us who defend him nothing to offer in return. This is a very long, bloated talk fest with an unusually big heaping of the perversity he loves. His taste for revenge motivates all sorts of sadistic talk and behavior. That’s common in his movies. This time I can’t figure out what it’s in aid of. What is this movie about? As close as I can figure it might be that anyone can be a racist. That gives Tarantino license to go wild with the “n” word but again for what purpose?
It’s a western of sorts, set not long after the Civil War. Two bounty hunters (Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell), a prisoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh), two other men and two bodies arrive by stagecoach to sit out a blizzard at a roadhouse. By then, we’ve already spent a half hour watching them argue in Tarantino’s glib and stylized dialogue about true vs frontier justice. Now they join a grumpy old general (Bruce Dern), a voluble Englishman (Tim Roth), a bitter cowboy (Michael Madsen) and a timid Mexican (Demián Bichir) for hours more (and often nasty) chatter. Also a mystery, who poisoned the coffee and why? And who can stay alive the longest? Jennifer gets an elbow to the mouth, blood spewed on her face and other painful assaults. Jackson gets off one of the nastiest stories ever. No one is enobled in any way. But Tarantino indulges himself by sending this out as a three-hour epic, in extra-wide screen, with an overture and an intermission. Film like Ben Hur and Spartacus used to get that, but they were spectacles. This film is mostly set in one room. The first half is all talk (fans get bored); the second starts with a promising flashback and then descends into gross violence. What for? A 20-minute shorter version is coming next week. (Park Theatre) 2 ½ out of 5
CONCUSSION: It’s the hottest issue in sports these days. Just two days ago, $16 million in grants were handed out in the U.S. for research into it and less than a month ago BC’s Health Minister said there’s no plan here for legislation like Ontario has brought in. The subject is the long-term effect of repeated blows to the head in contact sports. It’s a big concern both on the pro level and in youth sports. Where did this come from? This film shows where but with less uproar than you’d expect.
Will Smith plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian immigrant working as a pathologist in Pittsburg when a revered former football player committed suicide after years of erratic behavior and homelessness. Omalu did the autopsy, didn’t rush it as told but detected odd abnormalities in the brain. He examined other victims and with encouragement from his boss (Albert Brooks) and a former team doctor (Alec Baldwin) gave the syndrome a name – chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE—and published his results. All three men were consultants on the film so I believe most of it although it seems a stretch when the film shows the National Football League and even the US government coming after them. The tone stays sensibly informative and a bit dry throughout. Smith puts on a perfect Nigerian accent to play the rather reserved doctor. Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays his future-wife, probably to humanize him though showing his private life is hardly necessary here. The story is strong on its own. (International Village and suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
POINT BREAK: A much loved cult film from the 1990s, with Patrick Swayze already a star and Keanu Reeves about to become one, is re-made for our time. Edgar Ramirez and Luke Bracey take their place and the bank-robbing surfers are now enthusiasts of extreme sports of all kinds. Motocross, snowboarding, wingsuit flying, rock climbing, and surfing the largest waves ever seen. They’re all here.
A couple of problems though. They’re all here too long. Ericson Core, the director is a cinematographer. He puts up those pictures much longer than we want them. There are too many sports and as the film goes through them one by one it becomes tedious. The story loses us because it stops being clear. Bracey, as Utah, joins the FBI, infiltrates the gang of extreme sports guys and befriends their leader, Bodhi (Ramirez) to learn why he’s acting like a Robin Hood figure attacking multinational companies and rewarding poor people. A quasi-mystical search for enlightenment by completing an eight-leg extreme sports ordeal is somehow involved but the help-the-poor motivation drifts away. Sending a rock-slide down on an open pit mine doesn’t qualify in my mind. Though the film is virile and the sports are stunning, that background gets confused. The original had a quirky charm. This one is somber and far less fun. (Scotiabank and suburban theatres) 2 ½ out of 5
Also now playing …
DADDY’S HOME: Maybe it’s a case of writing what you know but so many family films from Hollywood these days are about divorce. This comedy seems to put a new twist on it. Will Ferrell plays a radio-station executive and a stepdad to two kids. He’s doing a good job at both until his wife’s ex (Mark Wahlberg) shows up and wants to re-connect with his children. Competion ensues between sensible dad and good-time dad. I haven’t seen it but have heard it’s quite good, and much more family-friendly than your usual Ferrell or Wahlberg movie. (International Village and suburban theatres)