Tag Archives: Cate Blanchett

16 Most Anticipated Films of the Rest of 2018

With the collapse of MoviePass over the past few weeks, it looks like I might need to be a little more picky in my choice of movies. I’m still going to hold onto it and I will try to use it as often as they will allow, but with service outages just about every night and no access to new releases, it will definitely be limited. Before the AMC Stubs A-List people come out of the woods to accost me, my closest AMC is about 80 miles away, so that is a no go. I’m waiting to see if Regal announces any plans, but in the meantime, I have signed up for Sinemia which allows me to see three movies a month in any format.

With that in mind, I took a look at all the upcoming films for the remaining five months of 2018 and tried my best to whittle it down to my top 15 most anticipated. There are probably three times this many that I will actually do my best to see. A lot of these only have a limited release announced and the word of mouth before and performance during that run will make the difference in whether they will ever see a national roll out. So this is me doing my part to make sure I get to see them in my neck of the woods. 

Eighth Grade – August 3rd

I figured I would cheat right out of the gate and make this list 16 instead of 15. Technically, this one hit a few theaters in July, but it hasn’t been near me until now. I haven’t seen it yet, but I am really looking forward to it. Comedian Bo Burnham makes his directing debut as we follow teenager Kayla (Elsie Fisher) as she maneuvers transitioning from middle school to high school. From the trailer it looks like something wonderful that I am going to love.

BlacKKKlansman – August 10

Spike Lee’s latest movie, produced by Jordan Peele, follows the true story of a real black police officer, Ron Stallworth, who managed to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan. This is the first I’ve ever seen of John David Washington who stars, but it also stars Topher Grace as David Duke as well as other big names like Adam Driver and Alec Baldwin. This one can join the list of 2018 films with a racially charged message (Sorry to Bother You, Blindspotting, and another coming up on this list).

Searching – August 31

I’ve heard good things about John Cho’s performance in this. It seems like he has the difficult task of holding it all together since it uses the same gimmick that we have seen a couple of times now (Unfriended), the whole movie occurs on a computer screen. 

The Predator – September 14

Director Shane Black (Hawkins from the first Predator movie), has taken the reins of the franchise for its latest chapter. Sure to be an entertaining viewing experience, the movie stars Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Keegan-Michael Key, and Jacob Tremblay.

The House with a Clock in its Walls – September 21

Jack Black is hit or miss. This could be bad like Goosebumps, but the kid actor (Owen Vaccaro) looks good and it seems like a cool concept. I’m more interested in this than the next Fantastic Beasts movie. That’s saying something considering the fact that I’m currently wearing a “Become an Obliviator!” t-shirt. 

First Man – October 12

Ryan Gosling and director Damien Chazelle join forces again after La La Land for this look at Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. With Gosling as Armstrong, the movie delves into the dramatic events leading up to the historic launch.

Bad Times at the El Royale – October 12

Drew Goddard’s (The Cabin in the Woods) latest movie follows the lives of seven troubled strangers as they stay at a rundown hotel in search of redemption. Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth, Jon Hamm, and Dakota Johnson lead this star-studded cast. This could easily be either my favorite of the season or a jumbled mess. There is a thin line between the two.

The Hate U Give – October 19

Based on an acclaimed young adult novel of the same name, we follow Starr (Amandla Stenberg) as she tries to figure out the right path after witnessing her childhood friend die in a fatal shooting by a police officer. It sounds like the teenage version of the recent firestarter, Blindspotting. It looks powerful. 

Can You Ever Forgive Me? – October 19

This is a rare serious role for Melissa McCarthy. I’m always up for watching an actor stretch their creative legs and show me something I haven’t seen before. Apparently, this comes from the true story of author Lee Israel who began forging letters from literary legends when her writing career was in the doldrums. If it’s really good, we could see nominations come award season. 

Bohemian Rhapsody – November 2

Rami Malek (Mr. Robot) plays Queen front-man Freddie Mercury in this look at the band before its legendary Live Aid concert. Queen is usually my answer when asked for my favorite band, and Mercury is a very interesting figure that should make for a good watch. If all goes according to plan, Malek is looking at some major award season consideration for this one.

The Sisters Brothers – November

The Sisters Brothers are John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix. That’s enough to get me interested, but it looks like a dark comedy. This could easily be the year the John C. Reilly really breaks out. I’ve been waiting for it since Walk Hard.

Ralph Breaks the Internet – November 21

Six years after the original, Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) head off on a new adventure. This time they discover what’s out in the internet after finding a pathway through a wi-fi router. I’m hoping this is a sequel more like Incredibles 2 than Cars 2 or worse The Emoji Movie. It looks funny from the trailer and the internet creates a lot of fodder for humor, but my worry is that with as quickly as things move on the internet, this could feel stale by the time it hits DVD. 

Robin Hood – November 21

Taron Edgerton as Robin of Locksley back from the crusades with Jamie Foxx as his trainer/sidekick? Sign me up! We might be in for the best Robin Hood movie since Men in Tights.

Mortal Engines – December 14

Based on the Philip Reeve book, and written for the screen by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, this film is set in a world where cities are forced to move around in a constant chase to avoid being overthrown. Essentially, this is a real life game of Agar.io. It looks amazing, but if it is too complicated, it could end up like Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. It also doesn’t really have many big names to anchor it except Jackson and Hugo Weaving. 

Alita: Battle Angel – December 21

I got worried when this film moved from a July date all the way back to December. Hopefully, this was so it could get away from juggernaut tentpole films and find a better viewership. I’m not familiar with the original manga also known as Gunnm, by Yukito Kushiro, but James Cameron has apparently been attempting to get a film adaptation made for several years. Now he has finally produced it with Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) directing. It looks like we can expect some amazing visuals. Let’s just hope this movie about a fighting cyborg girl has a bit more heart and substance than the Ghost in the Shell remake. 

Welcome to Marwen – December 21

Based on the intriguing 2010 documentary, Marwencol, about how a man copes with a brain injury through creating a 1/6th scale World War II-era town in his backyard, Robert Zemeckis takes that story and glosses it up with CGI. It stars Steve Carell in the lead role. I expect this to be top of some best of lists at the end of the year. But Zemeckis’ barbie doll CGI could turn some away. Only time will tell. 

Which of these is your most anticipated? What did I miss? Venom? Into the Spiderverse? Let me know what you’re looking forward to in the comments section below!

New on Blu – Knight of Cups

There are plenty of Blu-rays being released today, but only one of consequence that I would even consider picking up. And no, it’s not Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. 

Knight of Cups

Once there was a young prince whose father, the king of the East, sent him down into Egypt to find a pearl. But when the prince arrived, the people poured him a cup. Drinking it, he forgot he was the son of a king, forgot about the pearl and fell into a deep sleep.

Terrence Malick has been a Hollywood figure for over 4 decades. in a bit of a slump with his last two films. To the Wonder (2012) and Knight of Cups (2015) have not received favorable reviews from the very same critics who previously lauded Malick for being visionary in films like, Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978), or Tree of Life (2011).

To me, this latest film sounds like an allegorical retelling of some of Solomon’s wisdom. We see in the trailer a man who is indulging in a wild search for satisfaction in everything that the world has to offer. I haven’t had a chance to check out Knight of Cups yet, so I may be grabbing this Blu-ray this week. Whether it is his best film or his worst, anything made by Malick is dozens of times better than much of the rest of the garbage that is being released this weekend.

Once I see it, I will weigh in with my review. Have you seen Knight of Cups? What do you think of Terrence Malick? Sound off in the comments below.

Carol (2015)

I am so conflicted about this movie. it is sitting on top of many critics best of the year list, Cate Blanchett is almost certainly going to win an Oscar for her titular role, and while I don’t think it is necessarily a bad movie I am certainly unconvinced of its apparent brilliance.

carol3Carol is a fictional story based upon a novel written by Patricia Highsmith. This is the same author who wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train. The novel, “The Price of Salt” was written under a pseudonym, Claire Morgan, perhaps because Highsmith was concerned about the backlash of writing a lesbian love story in 1952, but almost certainly because she drew so much of the meat of the story from her own life. Read how The New Yorker tells the story behind the story.

December of 1948, Patricia Highsmith was a twenty-seven-year-old aspiring writer with a murderous imagination and an outsized talent for seducing women. Her first novel, “Strangers on a Train,” was complete, but it would be more than a year before it was published. A Texas native with thick black hair and feral good looks, Highsmith made a habit of standing at attention when a woman walked into the room. That Christmas season, she was working behind the toy counter at Bloomingdale’s, in Manhattan, in order to help pay for psychoanalysis. She wanted to explore the sharp ambivalence she felt about marrying her fiancé, a novelist named Marc Brandel. Highsmith was a Barnard graduate, and, like many sophisticates at the time, she viewed homosexuality as a psychological defect that could be fixed; yet she had enough self-respect and sexual appetite to reject any attempt to fix her own. When her analyst suggested that she join a therapy group of “married women who are latent homosexuals,” Highsmith wrote in her diary, “Perhaps I shall amuse myself by seducing a couple of them.” She never married Brandel—or anyone else.

carol2One day, a woman in a mink coat drifted into the toy department. Highsmith later recalled, “Perhaps I noticed her because she was alone, or because a mink coat was a rarity, and because she was blondish and seemed to give off light.” Like Alfred Hitchcock, Highsmith was captivated by frosty blondes, all the more so if they were married and rich. The shopper, who slapped her gloves into one hand as she scanned the merchandise, made Highsmith feel “odd and swimmy in the head, near to fainting yet at the same time uplifted.” With an abstracted air, the woman, Mrs. E. R. Senn, bought a doll from Highsmith.

That night, Highsmith wrote an eight-page outline for a novel: a love story about Therese Belivet, a diffident nineteen-year-old who lives on her own in New York City, and Carol Aird, a wealthy suburban wife and mother in her thirties. Highsmith conjured what Therese would feel upon catching her first glimpse of Carol: “I see her the same instant she sees me, and instantly, I love her. Instantly, I am terrified, because I know she knows I am terrified and that I love her. Though there are seven girls between us, I know, she knows, she will come to me and have me wait on her.”

carol4So you now know the basic story behind Carol. A doe-eyed young shopgirl struggles with her identity as she befriends and begins to fall in love with an upper-class older woman going through a difficult divorce. It is such a simple premise for a film, and in today’s world of legalized gay marriage and homosexual characters on seemingly every television show it could have felt trite and boring. But this is not a 2016 retelling of a 1950s story. This is a 1950s film, and if we were able to take a Delorean back to 1955 and present Carol it would be apparent that this film is right on the cutting edge.

I have told my wife while playing those silly would you rather type games that if given the choice of just about any era in history, I think I might step into the 1950s. It was such an elegant time. Everything was ordered and in its place. We had just won World War II and the country was in a time of growth and prosperity. There were values which governed the society. I think of The Andy Griffith show and Leave it to Beaver. I think I could have fit very well in that time period. However, I also know that the image that I have of that time is completely created by Hollywood and television. I don’t know what it was like to really live in that environment, but I can only imagine that with the hard swing that the culture took in the 1960s that the 1950s were working too hard to keep everyone confined in their perfectly manicured and carefully constructed social norms.

Carol5I’m not sure why this movie is titled Carol. To me, Carol (Cate Blanchett) had a much less interesting role in the film than that of Therese (Rooney Mara). Therese grows before our eyes while Carol is set in her ways before we ever meet her. Certainly, both characters stories unfold before us throughout the film, but if I had to pick a lead and supporting character, I’m choosing Therese as the lead. I mean there is no doubt that the author placed herself in the story as her. And although Carol suffers more dramatic hurdles and setbacks I felt much more connected to Therese and her internal struggle.

I always feel like I have missed something whenever I go so strongly against the grain of other film critics, but in this case I have to say that I did not feel a great deal of chemistry between Mara and Blanchett. I could see the tortured look on Mara’s face as she struggled with her identity but I did not see any of the attraction that was supposed to lie beneath that struggle. I could look at the pained and frustrated expressions on the face of, Carol’s soon to be ex-husband, Harge and I was there I could feel his struggle to love and difficult woman who is slipping away from him. It baffles me to think that Cate Blanchett nearly has this Oscar in the bag for a role that felt very phony to me. In fact, everything else in the film feels ultra realistic, but the titular character left me feeling flat.

The first hour of this film feels so slow and deliberate with almost exclusive use of motionless camera shots, wide pans, combined with drastic closeups. This was very intentional by Director Todd Haynes, who previously filmed this era with a keen eye in Far from Heaven. But this dramatic shift in pace takes a while to get used to. I found myself feeling kind of bored and was itching to check my phone or something, but it struck me that Haynes was purposefully trying to bring the viewers into the 1950s even if for just a few hours. Not just through set design which was superb but in pacing and feel. This was a time without television, internet, and mobile devices, an age where an electric train set or a hand-painted porcelain doll was the Christmas gift of choice. Much of the film would be spent in silence were in not for the ethereal quality of the soundtrack provided by the illustrious Carter Burwell. There is not a lot of dialogue, mostly long shots of faces and reactions, glances and lingering touches. I felt it was appropriate that the studio created a beautiful wordless trailer for the film. It really seems to fit the film and encapsulates the desire of the film maker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF1YIF_FknI

However, as beautiful as this film was. I can’t help but think that Haynes did not go far enough. I wish that he had gone the whole way and made a film that might have passed the 1950s Hays code. The scene in the department store is nearly perfect. These two ladies are connected by a glance and it is broken too quickly. There is an awkward conversation about a girl who didn’t play with dolls and the purchase of a train set as a Christmas present for a little girl. I wish the film would have left us in that 1950s world instead of giving us a completely unnecessary shot of Rooney Mara having her shirt pulled open. Perhaps I am far too old fashioned, but I just miss the days when there were things that were considered taboo. And it took a very deft director’s hand to carefully navigate and hint at something as taboo as a lesbian love story. Unfortunately, we live in an anything goes type of climate today and after the first hour of navigating awkward conversations and couples fighting about former relationships I thought that Haynes might just produce a subtle and authentic period piece which addressed the elephant in the room without shooting him dead. But instead, I’m just left longing for Audrey Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, and Jimmy Stewart.