Thursday, October 26, 2017

Crisp Criticism - "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)", "Happy Death Day", "Geostorm", "Suburbicon"

by
Julien Faddoul














The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) **

An estranged family gathers together in New York for an event celebrating the artistic work of their father.
An exercise in oscillating inconsequential tenderness with enmity. Some of Baumbach’s interludes are delicious in their depiction of the protracted bitterness often found in scholarly families, others are tired examples of similar or congruent themes. Regardless, the cast is consistently fantastic.

wd – Noah Baumbach
ph – Robbie Ryan
pd – Gerald Sullivan
m – Randy Newman
ed – Jennifer Lame
cos – Joseph G. Aulisi

p – Noah Baumbach, Scott Rudin, Lila Yacoub, Eli Bush

Cast: Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, Elizabeth Marvel, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Grace Van Patten, Judd Hirsch, Adam Driver, Rebecca Miller














Happy Death Day **

A college student must relive the day of her murder over and over again, in a loop that will end only when she discovers her killer's identity.
Essentially a movie about film editing, in which all other cinematic aspects – staging, performance, lighting, design etc. – pale in concordance. The Groundhog Day (1993)/Edge of Tomorrow (2014) premise (more so the latter) is cleverly appropriated to the sorority girl setting and the plot, while ludicrous, imparts just the right aggregate of red herrings for adequate stimulation. As gimmicky slasher films with only mild levels of horror go, this one’s remarkably fun.

d – Christopher Landon
w – Scott Lobdell
ph – Toby Oliver
pd – Cece Destefano
m – Bear McCreary
ed – Gregory Plotkin
cos – Meagan McLaughlin

p – Jason Blum

Cast: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine, Rachel Matthews, Charles Aitken, Rob Mello













Geostorm

When the network of satellites designed to control the global climate starts to attack Earth, it's a race against the clock to uncover the real threat before a worldwide Geostorm wipes out everything.
A disaster film with very few disasters on display, despite the plot’s reliance on their contingency to the point of fruitlessness. Instead, we are mostly saddled with actors shouting either cries for help or lame comedic insults.

d – Dean Devlin
w – Dean Devlin, Paul Guyot
ph – Roberto Schaefer
pd – Kirk M. Petruccelli
m – Lorne Balfe
ed – Chris Lebenzon, John Refoua, Ron Rosen
cos – Susan Matheson

p – David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Dean Devlin

Cast: Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Alexandra Maria Lara, Daniel Wu, Eugenio Derbez, Amr Waked, Adepero Oduye, Andy GarcĂ­a, Ed Harris













Suburbicon

A home invasion rattles a quiet family town in the 1950s.
Hysterical, cringe-inducing attempt by its director to emulate the mood and aesthetic of the Coen brothers, who wrote the original story. Everyone here tries (maybe too hard) at an objective that never becomes clear and the result regrettably falls flat with every beat.

d – George Clooney
w – Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, George Clooney, Grant Heslov
ph – Robert Elswit
pd – Jim Bissell
m – Alexandre Desplat
ed – Stephen Mirrione
cos – Jenny Eagan

p – George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Teddy Schwarzman

Cast: Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac, Glenn Fleshler, Megan Ferguson




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