I just read Popwell’s excellent review of 2015’s Hardcore Henry, which nails the film’s exhilaratingly progressive approach to the action genre — including a nice comparison to 2006’s Jason Statham vehicle Crank, which had a similar effect on me when I saw it for the first time.
Properly inspired, I decided to try my hand at this film critic thing, but with a slight twist: I’m going to review three new films out this month — but only one that I’ve actually seen.
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First, some thoughts on the current No. 1 film at the box office: A Quiet Place, written, directed by and starring John Krasinski, and co-starring his real-life wife Emily Blunt.(Warning, major, MAJOR spoilers ahead. In fact, I’m about to spoil the whole goddamn movie.)
Now the wife dragged me to see this, and having sat through my share of Chris Pratt movies I was loathe to give 24 of my hard-earned dollars to Jim from The Office. But no one wants to have a bad time at the movies, so I tried going in with an open mind.
You probably know the premise: Aliens have invaded Earth. They’re fast, powerful and voracious, but they’re also sightless and have no sense of smell, so they can only locate their prey by sound. Deep in the woods, a family tries to survive by teaching their children to live without making any noise. This is great wish fulfillment for parents in the audience, and there are some decent moments of suspense in the early going.
But it must be said that this “don’t make a sound or you’re dead” gimmick was just employed in 2016’s Don’t Breathe — and frankly it wore a bit thin for me about halfway through that picture.
My interest in A Quiet Place really began to sink, though, when the cinema sins started piling up like so many discarded edamame skins. I’ll spare you the complete list and skip to the biggest one. The story begins only three months after the invasion, but there’s no indication of any organized police, government or military response, just some perfunctory newspaper headlines taped to a wall. For all we’re led to believe, these aliens have somehow managed to vanquish all the world’s militaries and scientific experts in a mere 89 days.
OK, they must be some pretty indestructible creatures, you’d think. Yet about 10 minutes from the end of the film, when one of the aliens finally gets close to the wife, she picks up a rifle and kills it with a couple shots. Now it was my turn to show great bravery by staying silent, because every fiber in my being wanted to shout out, “You mean they could have just shot the goddamn things all along?!!”
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OK, let’s get to a more worthy picture: Chappaquiddick. Now, I haven’t seen this film — we used our monthly movie splurge on A Quiet Place. So why should you spend your time and money on this film? I’ll tell you why: If Tonya effing Harding gets an Oscar-nominated biopic on the big screen starring one of the hottest actresses around, then poor Mary Jo Kopechne sure as HELL deserves her moment in the sun, that’s why.I grew up knowing about Chappaquiddick, but like much of America I found a way to forgive Ted Kennedy, probably because I wanted him in the Senate. He spoke beautifully, he was on the right side of the issues — and after all, who doesn’t have a few skeletons in their closet?
But now that we’re all “woke,” it seems almost compulsory to revisit this tale, which is as tawdry as it is timely. Chappaquiddick reportedly does a good job of sticking to the facts, so all one has to do is watch this shocking series of events and it becomes instantly clear why we keep electing some of the most immoral people in America to some of our most important jobs.
This movie helps explain why almost 30 years after Chappaquiddick, Bill Clinton saw his approval ratings go UP after committing deeds that would’ve had any Republican president tarred, feathered and demoted to substitute crossing guard in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It explains why Bill and Hillary together were able to maintain a stranglehold on the largest political party in America despite a decades-long corruption spree that made Nixon look like Ward Cleaver.
Others have written eloquently about Chappaquiddick as a reckoning for liberals, but lest anyone think this is partisan, I believe Chappaquiddick also helps explain how Bush, Cheney, et al got off scot-free after committing war crimes against millions of people in Iraq — a sovereign country that never attacked us — based on a completely made-up story without a shred of evidence to support it.
And yes, most topically of all, it explains why the Republican Party has allowed Trump to get away with. . . whatever the hell it is he’s doing.
We keep treating these people like some kind of gods, when they just work for us.
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I’ve yet to watch our final picture either, as it’s only airing on too-pricey HBO, but I’m dying to see it eventually, as it presents a once-in-a-lifetime melding of actor and subject in the most incredible case of dream casting since Gary Cooper played Lou Gehrig:
Al Pacino IS Brent Musburger in. . . MUSBURGER.
I hear it’s a warts-and-all portrayal, so I hope to see all the fascinating episodes from Brent’s storied career. . . the early years in Montana pounding out minor league baseball copy on an old Royal typewriter, when he first gained fame as the youngest man in history to credibly wear a fedora with the brim pulled down. . . the torrid affair with Phyllis George in the late ’70s. . . his high-living heyday as a man-about-Manhattan in the go-go ’80s. . . and of course his notorious fistfight with Jimmy “The Greek Stereotype” Snyder.
One can only sit atwitter with anticipatory wonderment at the thought of how Sonny Corleone and Attica Al will pull of the phonetic gymnastics of such inimitable Musburgerisms as “You are looking live at (fill in stadium name)” and — my favorite — the homespun “We’ve got a dandy brewin’!”
So again, though I haven’t actually seen it, I’m sure that with all the sorrow and seriousness in the news these days, enjoying this brief escape into the trivial, light-hearted world of sports will be just what the doctor ordered!
You two should do point/counterpoint reviews!
Dear Mr. Rabbit,
Your review of A QUIET PLACE would only make sense if THAT was one of the films you didn’t actually see. Throughout A QUIET PLACE, it’s important to the plot to remember that, even if one was able to take down a single creature with a firearm, the noise of that would instantly bring the other creatures faster than a human can respond. Now, since the creatures move with lightning speed, and since this is not a movie about a family of sharp-shooters who can keep calm, take aim at impossibly fast-moving aliens who can bust through any structure, including a metal silo, it is only logical that the family would adapt in the ways that they did. Until the last moments of the film, it is not known to the characters that the creatures’ proximity to the daughter’s latest hearing device had the effect of incapacitating the creatures long enough to accurately shoot the creature in the head… Upon realizing the phenomenon the hearing device caused, the mother instantly and confidently embraced the opportunity to summon all the remaining creatures in the area. Prior to that, and without the deafening force-field slowing the creatures, shooting them was not an option for this family.
I had my own problems with the film; none of which outweighed my enjoyment of it as a whole. But the “cinema sin” you described only reveals your disconnect with the what their reality really required, in terms of best chance of survival. In a real scenario where THOSE specific creatures invaded Earth, everything would break down, including all attempts to organize any kind of eradication. It would be worldwide chaos. We only see newspapers in their town that date up until delivery ceases. That makes sense. It doesn’t mean there’s no further efforts or news.. it just means there’s no further paper circulation there in that remote town… draw you own logical conclusions about that. The movie can’t do EVERYTHING for you. That’s what common sense is for, my dear husband. And for the record, I didn’t “DRAG” you to see that movie… remember, I wanted to see UNSANE.