The Last Movie Star (2017)

Though their are a few later credit's on his IMDb page The Last Movie Star is in effect Burt Reynolds final movie. It's a farewell, an elegy, a mea culpa for a life where many mistakes were made, but where a great deal of public good will still exists towards a man who really embodied what being a movie star could be in the 1970's and 80's. Burt plays a version of himself, a former movie star named Vic Edwards, and the opening sequence of the film really sets up what your getting. It starts with a slightly altered clip of 'Edwards' on a talk show in the 1970's, he's at his prime, he's seemingly joyous, it then cuts to a present day where Vic is in a waiting room at a vets office holding a cancer stricken beagle who has to have put down. Vic's life is morose, but a friend (Chevy Chase) encourages him to accept an invitation to receive a lifetime achievement award at the International Nashville Film Festival, only they have mistaken this for the Nashville International Film Festival, the International Nashville Film Festival turns out to be little more then a bunch of people watching movies in a bar.

The expected recriminations follow and the first part of the film I didn't particularly like, but it really gets into it's own when Vic decides to use the personal assistant he was promised for the weekend (Aril Winter, trying to be as little like Alex Dunphy as possible) to drive him to his home town of Knoxville and take a trip down memory lane and have some misadventures (the real Reynolds was born in Michigan but grew up in Jupiter, Florida). Through his alter ego Reynolds is able to examine his mixed legacy, take a look at the mistakes he made and remind viewers that in spit of that how much we still like him. One of the conceits of the film are dream sequences where Burt is edited into footage from some of his best known films and has conversations with younger versions of himself, from Smokey and the Bandit, and Deliverance. The film isn't in a hurry, Burt has a nice arc, does some solid acting, and its just an enjoyable reminiscence, ending with a shot of Burt's roughish smile. Not a great movie, but a movie I'm glade exists. ***

Blackfish (2013)

Sometimes these very straight forward CNN produced documentaries can be really effective and affecting. Blackfish makes a strong case against the keeping of Orca's aka Killer Whale's in captivity. Focusing principally on a male Orca named Tilikum, who was kept in captivity almost all of his life at various aquatic parks, the film tells of the horrible suffering and conditions of captive Killer Whales, and of the deaths and injuries of trainers over the decades. These whales, mostly well disposed towards humans in the open waters, and even capable of displaying a fondness for them in captivity, simply aren't meant to locked up, and in cramped conditions and forced to do regular shows for tourists, sometimes they just crack. The talking heads are principally former SeaWorld trainers who expresses regret at participating in the exploitation of these very intelligent and graceful beasts. This is pretty gripping, sometimes rather intense viewing, I got to see it on the big screen as part of a local documentary festival and am confident that seeing these animals closer to their actual size added to the viewing experience. ***1/2

Deliverance (1972)

Four Atlanta suburbanites decide to go canoeing on an isolated river in northern Georgia which is soon to be turned into a lake as a result of a new dam. The quartet take a journey into their own collective "heart of darkness" in this iconic film of the early 70's which launched a number of careers, including Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty (Jon Voight is the only then name in the cast). Based on a the 1970 novel of the same name by the poet James Dickey, I didn't expect the film to be this realistic. From what I knew of the film I was expecting essentially a horror movie with a veritable army of inbreed southern backcountry folk laying sage to our protagonists, the movie is richer then that. It is a study of human weakness and strength, of hubris's, ego, moral compromise, and the will to survive. There is more of an epilogue to the thing then I had expected and I liked its interest in gray area's. There is some gorgeous back country scenery and some thrilling and intense bits, its got a lot going for it but I couldn't quite love it. I was expecting to be more harrowed, for it to be more emotionally engulfing, and as a result of this being a smarter and more nuanced then I was expecting I didn't get the emotional pile drive I was bracing for, and so for all its strengths I was a little disappointed. ***1/2

Beyound the Black Rainbow (2010)

After my recent viewing of the 2018 film Mandy I became quite curious to see other films helmed by its director Panos Cosmatos. It turns out that Cosmatos has only one other feature film directing credit, the 2010 Canadian production Beyond the Black Rainbow. Rainbow has many similarities to Mandy, the slow pacing, the violence (though far less of it in this case), science fiction/ fantasy story elements, and both films are set (only principally in Rainbow's case) in the year 1983. In contrast to my viewing experience of Mandy I saw Beyond the Black Rainbow at home, seeing something in the theater, epically when the work is often slow, basically forces continued attention, something I was not able to maintain in this home viewing. I am generally very opposed to multi tasking when viewing a film for the first time, but that was the only way I could get through this movie because it was just so grindingly slow, and I have a far greater tolerance for slow movies then seemingly most people. As a result I mostly skimmed Black Rainbow, so I may have missed some important plot points but I think I got the gist of the thing.

The movie is about a teenage girl (Eva Allan) kept at a research facility run by a vaguely Scientology type group who is testing her for psychic abilities. Eva has a sadistic over sear (Michael Rogers) who at first I thought might be her father, but glancing at the Wikipedia page he is not. The relationship between Eva and Michael is much like the relationship between 11 and Matthew Modine in Strangers Things, even though this movie pre-dates that show by half a decade. The film also evokes a number of other movies and directors in motifs and images, major among these are 2001: A Space Odyssey, Day of the Dead, and the work of David Lynch. The movies got an interesting look and the pacing works at times, but on the whole there is just much to much of it, and far too little happens over too long a period of screen time to maintain my interest. Cosmatos certainly has his tropes and areas of film making interest and I'd be curious to see him continue to explorer those, at least one more time, so given the blahaness of Beyond the Black Rainbow as a film viewing experience for me the best spin I can put on it is that with Mandy at least we know he's improving as a director. *1/2 (I would give this * but I'm giving him some credit for the visuals and overall oddness).

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Closing up another embarrassing gap in my movie knowledge, I of course was quite familiar with When Harry Met Sally in the abstract, I recall for instance a running gage about it on an episode of Dave's World back in the mid 90's. Perhaps the ultimate married persons romantic comedy everything works in When Harry Met Sally, the story, the writing, the directing, the humor, the pacing and most of all the performances. Meg Ryan is of course adorable, Billy Crystal utterly charming, Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby great in support. It's an enjoyable stroll of a movie, with just enough tension to keep from being too pat and too safe. Complete with a solid affecting arc, and the snippets from (actors playing) older couples telling true stories of how they got together is a nice little extra. Seldom is a romantic comedy truly great, but this one is. ****

You Were Never Really Here (2017)

Based on the 2013 novella of the same name by Jonathan Ames, You Were Never Really Here stars Joaquin Phoenix as Joe, a New Yorker whose traumatic childhood and war experiences produced profound psychological stress which he channels through his job rescuing women from human trafficking. On a job to rescue the daughter of a New York state senator things take an unexpected turn and Joe finds himself forced on the run, with everyone he loves in life in potential danger. At first I was not liking this movie, its more then a little jarring and scant on the narrative details, but you spend enough time with this character and the creepy world he forces himself to enter and the mood of the piece has an affect. The scene of the rescue of the little girl from the townhouse "club'', shown as black and white security camera footage, with the 50's song 'Angel Baby' playing in the background, that's a unique type of creepy. The emotional distance of the characters in the piece seems fitting, what a difficult world, what a trail to attempt to do good there, the long term impact on the human soul of seeing the things Joe must have seen, I can hardly even fathom. There is a fair amount of Taxi Driver in evocation here, though kind of inverted, but You Were Never Really Here is still a unique work, with a topicality that you fear is just beneath the surface and likely more prevalent then one could stand to contemplate. ***1/2

The Dead Don't Die (2019)

The single biggest question your likely to have at the end of  The Dead Don't Die, the new, extremely dry and fatalistic zombie comedy from veteran indie director Jim Jarmusch, is why make this movie? That's a question Rolling Stone asked him, his replay "I just wanted to do something silly." The hipster director has had a historically slanted perspective on genera types, he's made a psychedelic western with Johnny Depp (Dead Man) a Samurai/mobster cross (Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai) and even a vampire love story (The Only Lovers Left Alive). So while Jarmsuch is on record as not being much of a zombie fan, there is a certain odd logic in his making this movie.

The film boasts a large cast of recognizable names, many of them Jarmusch regulars, including Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tom Waits, Tilda Swenton, and Iggy Pop. Selena Gomez of all people is in this. The interplay of the various performers is the most interesting part of the movie, there is a very comfortable almost family feel radiating from the cast. There is some political humor, the reanimating of corpses comes about a side effect of the Earth being thrown off its axis as a result of "polar fracking", and Steve Buscemi's farmer Miller wears a "Make America White Again" hat.

When it comes to the zombies themselves the main joke of the film may be that Jarmusch really doesn't have anything new to say about zombies, he knows that, and that's why its funny. Being a comedy one really can't help but think a bit of Shaun of the Dead, but this is really more of a George Romero nod then anything. It's set in Pennsylvania, the opening scene is in a cemetery, the zombies are drawn to things they did in life, the social commentary has been done before, and that's Jarmusch's commentary on that. You follow various small groups, and most everybody dies, the film leans into its fatalism and gallows humor, there is a certain detachment and bland acceptance of doom, which the more I think about it the more I like it.

What is most distinctive about the film is its forth wall breaking, which I had heard about before and  wasn't sure how much I'd like, but I came to find it rather endearing. A meandering and winkingly lite apocalypse film The Dead Don't Die is likely an acquired taste. It's a zombie movie that comes across bemused by the fact that it is a zombie movie, and while it's seemingly structured as any other run of the mill zombie pic, in it's very low key way it manages to almost transcend what its parodying, and then doesn't because that's funnier. ***