Tag Archives: Netflix original

How It Ends

Two suspiciously attractive Seattleites are expecting a baby boy and they are happy: yay! Will flies to Chicago to ask for his in-law’s blessing in marriage, despite the fact that he’s, ah, already stormed the beach. An awkward conversation about money ensues and he more or less gets asked to leave.

So, not a success. “Luckily” he gets a second chance. An “event” happened “out west”. Something happened, something catastrophic. He’s on the phone with Samantha when it goes down, but they’re cut off, and she’s scared. The airport shuts down. The roads are immediately impassable. So that leaves Will (Theo James) to traverse America mid- MV5BYTI5OGFjMzctYjQ4My00ZTViLWE2M2YtMmYxYTQ1ZDAzMDEzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODk0NjQxNzY@._V1_ catastrophe (mid-apocalypse?) with his disapproving, openly hostile, not-yet-father-in-law, Tom (Forest Whitaker). Who would have thought that the end of the world would only be the second worst thing that happens to Will today?

[Acting Master Class 101: If you have a wound, you immediately stick your fingers in it so that you can wince and prove to us how painful it is.]

The road to Seattle is paved with hell. Okay, that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but you know, the going is rough. It’s like: murder, murder, murder eVeRy day. Brain-flecked hair, coughing blood, impossible storms, raging fires, fucking over your fellow man, and a vague end of world scenario.

How It Ends sometimes feels like it may never end. It has a pretty good hook but then it meanders in a way that you wouldn’t think possible what with all the mayhem. It almost feels like the director loaded his actors in a car and headed out across Manitoba (standing in for rural Ohio since 1905!) (that was a random date, please don’t pay me any attention) with no destination or conclusion in mind. Which is maybe not the best way to make a movie. But David M. Rosenthal makes sure there’s something menacing and apocalyptic in nearly every scene, and dude knows a thing or two about disaster porn. It should be noted that Sean, an avowed enthusiast of ridiculous premises, said at one point “They’ve overplayed their hand here.” And yeah, the writer is not subtle. The whole thing’s pretty obvious. But did I hate it? No. Not at first. But then it started to end. And the ending just boggles the mind. So that’s my case. I’ll let you, the jury, decide. The prosecution rests.

Extinction

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Poor Peter – the schmuck hasn’t slept well in forever, plagued by nightmares about losing his family in some sort of attack. Michael Pena stars in Netflix’s new sci-fi offering Extinction, and the guy who’s known as the one good thing to come out of Crash is a perfect fit for family man Peter. It possibly doesn’t hurt that his character appears to work on a set that looks like an exact copy of the Van Dyne lab.

Anyway. Both his boss (Mike Colter) and his wife (Lizzy Caplan) urge him to see a sleep specialist and get his shit in order. But Peter starts to wonder if maybe there’s a reason he’s been chosen for these visions. And, for the first time in the history of marriage, it turns out he’s right. An alien invasion interrupts their dinner party and things get to explodey, apocalypty, emergency level so quickly that he doesn’t even get to say I told you so.

It occurs to me that Extinction’s invaders remind me a lot of something that invaded Ottawa this time last summer. We called it La Machine. Basically they’re storeys-tall robot-puppets that stalked the city’s busiest streets.

It looks relatively benign behind Sean at the moment, but you have to see it in action to really get the gist. The spider, which is what I was reminded of in the movie, was joined by a dragon AND THEY WERE NOT FRIENDS. When they met up in the city, they invariably fought.

Sorry for the crummy video, but you can kind of see the people under neath the spider’s body who are controlling its various legs.

Anyway, sorry guys, this was a pretty big sidebar, even for me. Back to the movie.

Extinction isn’t bad, you just have to be willing to hang in during the first half, which is pretty standard, perhaps even subpar fare. At any rate: nothing you haven’t seen before. But there’s some clever foreshadowing that makes the second half much more interesting. It’s probably not a great move to inject the film’s personality into only the back end because lots of viewers won’t stick around long enough to find it. But for those that do, it’s an engaging and curious interpretation that a true sci-fi fan has likely encountered before in some form or another, but this kind of backward and forward thinking is always welcome. Extinction, by Hounds of Love director Ben Young, looks like a thriller, but this is a trick. You’ll have to survive the invasion to find out what’s really going on.

Like Father

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Rachel, a workaholic, gets left at the altar by stinky Owen who never deserved her anyway. But that’s only the second worst thing that happens to her that day: her estranged father, a shithead who doesn’t even have cupholders, crashes her wedding and witnesses her heartbreak and humiliation. Ouch.

Rachel (Kristen Bell) compounds the chaos by agreeing to go drinking with dad Harry (Kelsey Grammer) and in their inebriation, they somehow end up on the cruise that was meant to be her honeymoon. Drama!

Rachel and Harry make loads of friends on their weird little daddy-daughter cruise (including a dashing, divorced Canadian) but will they help their rapprochement or MV5BNzI2MTc5OTEyOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjE1NjIwNjM@._V1_SX1500_CR0,0,1500,999_AL_ drive them further apart? Oh who am I kidding – there’s isn’t a single inch of this movie you don’t see coming, but somehow I don’t mind the cornball cutesie comedy of it all because Grammer and Bell have such a sweet chemistry between them. There’s pretty much nothing of Bell’s that I won’t give a go, she’s so luminous and honest and I just find her enjoyable and I’m pretty sure that would be true even if she was changing a tire, or the laundry, or her mind for the 15th time as we stand outside the movie theatre in the rain.

Like Father was written and directed by the dashing Canadian’s wife, Lauren Miller Rogen, who I only know from Hilarity for Charity, a comedy event that fund-raises for her Alzheimer’s foundation, which does spectacular work. I think it’s cool that she’s testing out her talents and interests, and Netflix is a good place for a budding director (she’s only got a couple of shorts that are more than a decade old under her belt) to gain some experience. And even if she’s a noob, she’s clearly been around film making for some time, and for every generic scene there’s just a hint of something better.

Although, to be fair, as the daughter of an estranged father, there’s pretty much no amount of sequined blazers that have the power to reunite us. But even a cold, dark heart like mine can be made slightly lukewarm by the power of forgiveness and karaoke.

Father of the Year

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Of course it’s bad.

If you know that this is the new David Spade movie on Netflix this week, then you know it’s bad and you don’t need my review to tell you that.

But perhaps, like me, you watched it anyway.

The movie just throws you into the “action” (generous description), to the point that I wondered if we’d accidentally fast-forwarded the first 10 minutes or so.

Ben has apparently just finished college, and was even the “valatetorian.” He’s spending his summer with his pathetic excuse for a father (Spade) before going to NYC to claim his dream job because he’s smart and capable and his life is going in the right direction. MV5BNTQ5MDQxMDg3NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjA1MzY3NTM@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1497,1000_AL_ His best friend Larry’s life is not, but they’re goddamn 22 years old, and I can’t even imagine being that young and worrying that my life wasn’t totally together yet. And anyway, when you’re measuring yourself against the fathers available for comparison, you win every time. Ben’s dad, David Spade, is a Boston red neck with no money, no plan, no prospects. Larry’s dad (Nat Faxon) is so spineless he can’t even stand up to his 8 year old son, let alone his wife.

Is it inevitable that Ben’s dad and Larry’s dad will fight, because their sons have an ongoing bet as to which father would kick the other’s ass? I mean, yeah, I guess it is, since that’s really the whole point and plot of the movie. They wonder whose dad would win in a fight, and then we find out.

This movie is 100% dumb and you don’t feel good about laughing at the few jokes that land, but you do, because you’re desperate to be even just slightly rewarded for putting in a solid 94 minutes when you knew damn well this movie was shite. Why do we do it then? Because Adam Sandler (he produces) has never asked much of us. He goes on, brain goes off, and we get the miserable experience we deserve.

The Laws of Thermodynamics

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The actual laws of thermodynamics, in case you need a refresher:

energy cannot be created or destroyed
the entropy of any isolated system always increases
the entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero

Manel, a neurotic scientist, is out of his depth when he dates his dream girl, Elena, a MV5BNDdmOGMyNzUtY2JjMi00OGIzLThmYmItNWJlMTg3ZGU5Nzk0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTA0MjU0Ng@@._V1_ beautiful model. So he seeks comfort in his precious laws of thermodynamics to reassure himself that love is just another quantifiable thing, an equation he can puzzle out and make sense of. But the more that real life seeps in, the harder he has to spin things to keep the laws working for him.

Using the rules of thermodynamics as a construct for “solving” love is interesting, at least at first. Eventually it involves more shoe-horning than any script worth its salt really should, and the effort becomes tiresome.

Vito Sanz and Berta Vazquez are perfectly charming and thanks to them, I can kind of see how a playing, witty movie like this might have worked. But whatever lightning bot of creativity struck at the outset, it faded quite quickly and it fails even at sustaining what it started with. I was unconvinced and unimpressed by this film unfortunately – maybe it works in theory, but the proof is kind of painful to watch.

Set It Up

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Two harried, 20-something assistants work for different demanding bosses in the same Manhattan building. Harper (Zoey Deutch) admires her boss, Kirsten (Lucy Liu), who is a sports reporter. Harper wants to be a writer too but so far she spends her days fetching lunch and racking up steps on Kirsten’s fitbit. Charlie (Glen Powell) is eagerly awaiting his promotion but is still just Rick’s (Taye Diggs) overworked assistant. When Harper and Charlie meet in the lobby of their building, they determine that the only way to free themselves from the shackles of serfdom is to set up their bosses romantically. And it works!

The catch is – and you won’t believe this – Harper and Charlie fall in love themselves while orchestrating this love match between their bosses. Who would have thought (other than every single one of you, plus your grandmas, plus the ghosts of your grandmas’ mid-century pet parakeets).

Set It Up is the original Netflix film billed as the rom-com to save all rom-coms. Were rom-coms an endangered species? The good ones seem all but extinct. And I’m not sure this one changed my mind about that. But it’s not terrible. It’s not as cornball cheesy as these things tend to be. The stars are charming and dripping with chemistry. But it MV5BYmQyM2Q0NzgtZTAxNi00OTk3LTg4NjItM2E2YmE5MGM5YWI2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTc5OTMwOTQ@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1499,1000_AL_ (1) doesn’t have a unique voice or anything that super sets it apart. It’s comfort food: the kind of mac and cheese you might bring to a potluck. Not gourmet. Not lobster mac. Not truffle mac. It probably doesn’t even have gouda. But it’s warm and creamy and just gooey enough to convince you you want it. Rom-coms are predicable almost by definition. We know they’re going to get together; the “fun” is in how they get together.

Zoey Deutch is cute and glowing and perky and seemingly born to be the quirky, sweet romantic lead (her mother is Lea Thompson). Glen Powell, who previously played John Glenn and has the smug, handsome face of an astronaut, is a good match for her, although he’s the matte paint to her gloss. Tituss Burgess, in little more than a cameo, is high-impact nonetheless, and makes an excellent case for giving him a starring role, stat. But I didn’t get a Tituss Burgess movie, I got two white actors with blindingly white smiles in roles I’ve seen dozens of times before, sometimes done better, and sometimes worse. That’s not a ringing endorsement of a movie, but ringing would be a bit over-the-top for a movie you see coming from 95 miles away. This is a tepid endorsement in 12 point, Times New Roman, which is what it deserves and all I can give.

A Futile and Stupid Gesture

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A Futile and Stupid Gesture is a Netflix original film that takes some chances. Netflix knows it has some leeway for experimenting in film, and this one was a particularly obvious choice for a little outside-the-boxing. It’s a biopic of sorts for Doug Kenney, the founder of National Lampoon. He was a funny guy who coloured outside the lines and this movie is a fitting tribute to him; it keeps you guessing.

Told in retrospect and narrated by an older, wiser, omniscient Doug Kenney (played by Martin Mull) who watches the events of his life unfold with a little disdain and a huge grain of salt. This device allows for a fair amount of editorializing and joke making at his own expense.

Will Forte plays Kenney, ages 18-33, and despite the fact that he’s 46 in real life, he’s a A-Futile-and-Stupid-Gesture-trailer-700x300 great choice. He can pull off the sadness and the savage humour, playing it straight, breaking the fourth wall, talking directly to us, talking to himself. Doug Kenney was the Harvard editor of the Lampoon, and he had such an epically good time just fucking around with his good buddy Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) he decided to just keep it going and took their little humour magazine national. And as if the phenomenal success of the National Lampoon wasn’t enough, they expanded into radio shows, during which they enlisted the talents of Chevy Chase, Harold Ramis, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner. And then they started writing movies like Animal House and Caddyshack. And while some might feel content with having their dreams come true and writing the most successful comedy movie EVER, Kenney never can be. He tries to fill the hole in his heart by shooting stuff up his nose. It’s a circuitous route that doesn’t work very well, but not for lack of trying.

Director David Wain assembles an incredible ensemble to help him out, and by incredible I mean, lots of recognizable faces, but not necessarily well-suited for the parts. Joel McHale gets to play Chevy Chase, and even though the two were on a TV show together for many years, it’s like McHale doesn’t realize he’s a real person with tonnes of footage on which he could base his performance. Instead he does Joel McHale in a bad wig and unless someone is loudly calling him Chevy, I forget which one he’s supposed to be.

I admire this movie more than I like it. I think it’s okay, and at times quite funny, and probably worth a watch if you don’t mind weird stuff. But the thing is, the writers and director are a complete mismatch. The writing is unconventional and wacky and striving for something extra but the director is a little more conservative and a little less inspired so the whole thing just sort of clashes awkwardly. Forte and Gleeson are kind of wonderful though – maybe a little futile, but definitely not stupid.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

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The Meyerowitz family is fractured. Danny (Adam Sandler) is a self-described ‘extremely good parker’ with little else on the horizon. A loving dad and devoted house husband, his life is in transition now that he and his wife are separating and his only daughter is off to college. Moving in with his estranged father Harold (Dustin Hoffman) seems like an opportunity to get to know him, except it turns out that feeling’s not mutual.

Harold abandoned Danny and daughter Jean (Elizabeth Marvel) in favour of a new family when they were quite young. He’s never acted as a real father to them and even now he’s mostly only interested in what they can do for him. Not to mention the complicating factor of his alcoholic wife Maureen (Emma Thompson) who MV5BN2M5YzA2ODAtOTNmMi00MGYyLWIxYWYtY2M2NmE4ZGE1ODQ1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjAwODA4Mw@@._V1_ inserts herself into cramped dynamics like she’s determined to put the Wicked back into Step Mother. Both throw out the red carpet when favoured son Matthew (Ben Stiller) makes a reluctant appearance. Harold has fostered a competitive streak between his children by different mothers but they otherwise aren’t close. So when their father’s life and career necessitate them pulling together, it’s a little awkward. Actually, it’s extremely awkward and kind of heart breaking. Because they aren’t bad people, they’ve just been starved of their father’s love and have no idea how to act like a family now that there’s no real chance that things will ever be different.

This being a Noah Baumbach work, the comedy isn’t broad, but it is damn funny. When I finished it (a Netflix original) I immediately wanted to restart it, just to catch all the amazing little asides and offhand jokes that are so casually but expertly tossed out.

Although Harold is a self-absorbed contrarian, he’s not quite despicable in the hands of Dustin Hoffman and his grizzled white beard. Adam Sandler gives a nuanced performance that’ll make you believe in him as an actor once again – and it’s been a good long while since that’s been true. Actually, there are loads of big names, some in pretty small roles, but everyone is kind of spectacular in this. Having recently had no patience for Golden Exits at the New Hampshire Film Festival, I wondered if the our film lexicon was finally full to bursting with movies about privileged white people whining about their lives. But the family dysfunction in The Meyerowitz Stories feels relatable and authentic and the characters are trying too hard to be decent people in the face of it all: I kind of loved it. It’s amazing how many years later childhood resentments and jealousies can bubble to the surface, but this is the kind of movie that makes us all feel “Same” in one way or another, and it just feels good and cathartic that we aren’t alone.

Little Evil

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Little Evil is not an exceptional entry into the genre, but it’s a quirky little horror-comedy hybrid that’s just clever enough. This film is of the ‘possessed child’ variety but the focus is on Gary (Adam Scott), the demon child’s stepdad. Step-parenting is hard, y’all! And it’s slightly harder when your new wife’s kid is the spawn of satan. You really get put through the ringer. And of course his Mom (Evangeline Lilly) is always going to take her darling son’s side – how dare you suggest that he might be, you know – a little evil? He’s an angel! Besides, how much trouble can a 6 year old really get into, even if he is the Antichrist?

99e58ff3fb9373b5bb8760617c7674f23bddd0d1 Director Eli Craig clearly has some fondness for the genre, and little odes to other possessed-kid movies pop up from time to time. Another thing that pops up is Craig’s own mother, Sally Field, as a social worker who thinks Gary just isn’t trying hard enough. It’s a small but terrific role for her – possibly the kind of role only her son could ask her to play.

The film’s weakness is that it never fully embraces its own identity. It doesn’t go full goofy, but it can never be full horror. The result is perfectly watchable but a little frustrating knowing what it might otherwise have been. It also sort of neglects little Lucas (Owen Atlas, the titular Evil himself). We don’t know him well enough to judge whether he truly wants to bury people alive, or whether he’s just not fond of Mom’s string of boyfriends. Our early impression is that he likes to dress like he’s in ACDC and he’s mostly silent, only talking through a creepy goat hand puppet. He’s only just turned 6, still small enough for us to feel naturally protective over, so if you want me to contemplate stabbing him through his unholy heart, you’d better give me good reason and some to spare.

All in, this is a fairly throwaway movie. The beats are familiar, it’s just that Gary’s merry band of misfits consists of a step-dad support group. There are some laughs to be had here, and if you’re a fan of horror, it’s fun to play Where’s Waldo with the references. This is Netflix original content, and it’s streaming there right now.

Cannes Snobbery

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Some people think that Netflix is saving the movie industry. Others think it’s killing it. I think neither is true, that all Netflix is is the future. Or rather, Netflix is now. The movie industry is changing and has changed. Some directors insist that their art can only be experienced on a big screen, others are embracing the flexibility that comes with a Netflix carte blanche. But Cannes, a major French film festival, has inserted itself into the discourse, reluctantly agreeing to include two Netflix titles in this year’s lineup, but insisting that next year’s rules will be different and only movies intended for a theatrical release will earn slots in their programming.

Amazon also earned boos from critics at its Cannes screening, this despite the fact that Amazon does partner up to bring some of its titles to the cinema, like last year’s Oscar contender, Manchester By The Sea. This year Amazon brought Wonderstruck to Cannes by the acclaimed director of Carol, Todd Haynes. Of Amazon, Haynes noted “The film division at Amazon is made up of true cineastes who love movies and really want to try and provide opportunity for independent film visions to find their footing in a vastly shifting market. They love cinema.”

Netflix makes movies and series for its at-home audience who pay a subscription fee that includes original content. At TIFF 2016, I saw 2 Netflix films (Mascots and Blue Jay) and found them to be just as worthy as any other content on offer. At this year’s Oscars, Netflix garnered a nomination for Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th, and a win for its short documentary, The White Helmets. Traditional or not, Netflix movies do hold up.

Cannes jury president Pedro Almodovar doesn’t like it and made his position clear with this opening statement: “I personally do not conceive, not only the Palme d’Or, any other prize being given to a film and not being able to see this film on a big screen. The size [of the screen] should not be smaller than the chair on which you’re sitting. It should not be part of your everyday setting. You must feel small and humble in front of the image that’s here.” Fellow jury member Will Smith clashed with him on this, defending the streaming service “In my house, Netflix has been nothing but an absolute benefit. They get to see films they absolutely wouldn’t have seen. Netflix brings a great connectivity. There are movies that are not on a screen within 8,000 miles of them. They get to find those artists.” And that’s true: Netflix is a boon to indie gems and hard-to-find documentaries. It also allows people who find the cost of theatre-going restrictive to watch movies at home for a reasonable price. Of course, Netflix just so happens to be the distributor of Smith’s next big-budget movie, Bright.

And that’s the thing about Netflix today: it’s going after the big guns. For its first-ever Cannes screening, Netflix chose Okja, a film by the South Korean director of Snowpiercer, Bong Joon-ho. Okja stars Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Lily Collins, and Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s no slouch. Of the controversy, Joon-ho was typically humble: “I’m just happy he will watch this movie tonight. He can say anything—I’m fine. I loved working with Netflix. They gave me great support — the budget for this film is considerable. Giving such a budget to a director isn’t very common.” And Swinton was also quick to make light of the situation, saying “The truth is, we didn’t actually come here for prizes.” Okja received a four-minute standing ovation after its screening.

Later this festival, Netflix will screen the second of its two titles, Noah Baumback’s The Meyerowitz Stories, about a fractured family reuniting, starring Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Candice Bergen, Ben Stiller, and Netflix darling Adam Sandler.