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The latest film releases include Caught Stealing, The Roses, The Toxic Avenger, and A Little Prayer. Weighing in are William Bibbiani, film critic for The Wrap and co-host of the Critically Acclaimed Network podcast, and Katie Walsh, film reviewer for the Tribune News Service and The Los Angeles Times.
Caught Stealing
Based on Charlie Houston’s novel of the same name, a bartender volunteers to watch his neighbor’s cat and is pulled into the criminal underworld of 1990s New York. This stars Austin Butler, Zoe Kravitz and Matt Smith.
Walsh: “Not only is it set in 1998, but it has that real late ‘90s Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, that snarky, hyper-violent, fun, super-stylized crime caper type of film. So it's giving a lot of throwback energy on two levels. … I don't know if everyone is just having so much nostalgia for this pre-9/11, pre-smartphone era, but I had a blast just sinking into this authentic facsimile of the Lower East Side in the late ‘90s. … I think [director Darren Aronofsky] does a good job of recreating it. … He's always been an actor's director, and I think he lets Austin Butler shine in a way that we have not previously seen him do. … I had a good time with this. I do think it suffers from this desensitization to this really brutal violence, and there are some hackneyed storytelling choices, but I had fun with it for the most part.”
Bibbiani: “The thing with Darren Aronofsky is that if you look at the rest of his movies, it feels like he just loves punishing his audience. … Mother is a panic attack in cinematic form. Caught Stealing … it's violent, but it's cartoon violent. A guy gets his kidney out, and then proceeds to sprint down New York City, and fall off of stuff, and nothing bad happens to him. It's not very plausible. But it's so un-Darren Aronofsky, for the most part. I wonder if this is like a Paul Thomas Anderson, Paul W.S. Anderson kind of thing. And this is actually Darren W.S. Aronofsky who directed this. And it's all a huge misunderstanding, which, if that's the case, this new Darren Aronofsky has got some real talent.”
The Roses
A high-achieving couple (Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch) goes through a messy divorce. This is a remake of Danny DeVito’s 1989 movie The War of the Roses, which was itself adapted from a novel by Warren Adler.
Bibbiani: “[Director Jay Roach] really wants us to believe that the venom these two have for each other was completely avoidable, and that they actually really wanted it to work out. And it's genuinely tragic that marriage has devolved to this degree. And I actually think that's a level of nuance that Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman are very, very good at bringing out. Unfortunately, the whole movie doesn't quite live up to that. And unfortunately, one of my favorite comedians is a part of that. Kate McKinnon plays Andy Samberg’s wife in this movie, and she is in a completely different film. Every time she's in the movie, it feels like the level of quasi-realism that Jay Roach is trying to craft, where you really believe in this relationship completely, falls apart. So he doesn't have, as a filmmaker, a perfect handle on this material. But when it works, it works really, really well. And I think Cumberbatch and Colman are really delightful.”
Walsh: “The script is written by Tony McNamara … so it's this incredible florid language of insults and backstabbing, and all of their banter is just so terrifically scripted, and you would not want to hear it from anyone other than Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, just their facility with language and tone. … But there is a sort of element of ‘do they hate each other or are they just British?’ … I had a hard time discerning: A) do they love each other? B) Do they hate each other? So it felt to me a little bit disposable, like I had fun in the moment, and then it evaporates on contact.”
The Toxic Avenger
In this remake of the ‘80s cult classic movie from Troma Films, Peter Dinklage plays a janitor who transforms into a mutant vigilante after a freak accident.
Bibbiani: “Peter Dinklage is really, really delightful in the lead role. … Kudos to [director] Macon Blair. He understands that although you can look at The Toxic Avenger, and go, ‘This is silly, this is nonsense,’ there is a real heart to it. And he really brings that out. There's actual pathos in this when people aren't spewing blood and peeing on things. … This movie was made several years ago and couldn't find a distributor, allegedly, because of how violent it was. They are fools. This movie is a genuine cult treat, and I hope a lot of people see it.”
A Little Prayer
A man suspects his son is having an affair and weighs whether to intervene.
Walsh: “It truly expresses this full tapestry of the human experience, whether it's love or disappointment or sorrow, tragedy, jealousy, but done in this really subtle, beautiful, quiet way. David Strathairn is just spectacular in this as a father who realizes that his son is not a good person, or has made some really bad decisions, and has harmed some of the women in his life, whether it's through adultery, cheating, manipulation. And this son and the daughter-in-law … live with him and his wife. … They also have this troubled daughter. … It's worth checking out because it is just really beautifully, subtly written and acted. And you don't see a lot of films like this anymore.” |
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