Tag: Jessica Chastain

‘It Chapter Two’ review — Once a loser, always a loser
It Chapter Two finds the members of the “Loser Club” returning to their hometown to face Pennywise one last time

30-second review: Rather than adding onto and complementing the first movie, It Chapter Two feels bogged down by it. Director Andy Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman try to make the movie funnier, scarier, more intense, and more emotional. As a result, it’s none of those things.

The movie returns to the playbook that made many of the set pieces in the first work and doubles down on each of those elements, which seems instinctive, but instead, it just means each scene is predictable. That coupled with the overreliance on CGI, formless structure, and execssive plotiness makes It Chapter Two an uninspiring conclusion.

Where to watch It Chapter Two: Now playing in theaters.

There’s a recurring joke in It Chapter Two surrounding the grown-up Bill (played by James McAvoy — Jaeden Martell plays him as a teen). After leaving Derry, he went on to become an author, eventually adapting his books into films. However, he’s constantly teased about not knowing how to end his stories. Well, this movie, which completes the story arc started in 2017’s It, has a similar problem.

Andy Muschietti returns to direct the film, which takes place 27 years after the original. As we see in the first 45 minutes, each member of the self-proclaimed “Losers Club” have gone on to achieve relatively normal lives despite the trauma they experienced in their youth. As Mike (Isaiah Mustafa as an adult and Chosen Jacobs as a teen), who never left the town of Derry, Maine, tells them, the further you get from the town the more the memories fade away. But he remembers what happened to them — and it’s happening again.

The first part of the movie is dedicated to Mike getting the gang back together, which includes Bill, his love interest Beverly (Jessica Chastain and Sophia Lillis), fouled-mouth jokester Richie (Bill Hader and Finn Wolfhard), former fat kid (and now hot) Ben (Jay Ryan and Jeremy Ray Taylor), hypochondriac Eddie (James Ransone and Jack Dylan Grazer), and Andy Bean and Wyatt Oleff as Stanley.

While it’s all fun and games at first, Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) quickly starts up his old tricks to torment the gang as they try to figure out how to defeat him. Old memories are rehashed and wounds are reopened as each of the “Losers” face their pasts. Each of them gets their moment. However, the movie doesn’t really explain why each of them needs one. Yes, they all have chips on their shoulder, but each character vignette feels more like a way of letting the starry cast each have their turn in the spotlight. It feels more like filler than an actual plot — which explains the unnecessarily bloated 169-minute runtime.

Isaiah Mustafa, Bill Hader, James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, and Jay Ryan in It Chapter Two. Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Rather than adding onto and complementing the first movie, Chapter Two feels bogged down by it. Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman try to make the movie funnier, scarier, more intense, and more emotional. As a result, it’s none of those things. I liked the first movie quite a bit. Though it isn’t perfect, the plot is more focused and intentional, which makes each scene (and scare) more effective.

Chapter Two returns to the playbook that made many of the set pieces in the first work and doubles down on each of those elements, which seems instinctive, but instead, it just means each scene is predictable. That coupled with the overreliance on CGI makes the movie completely devoid of horror.

Because the middle section drags so much, the plot is stuffed into the first and last 45 minutes. However, there is so much plot — and so much exposition — that we never get a chance to reform the emotional bond with the characters that makes the first so successful. The end of Chapter Two, which should feel triumphant and bittersweet instead feels hollow.

Hader and Ransone do some of the best work of the cast and get chances to flesh out their characters a bit more, especially Hader, though there is some subtext that is a little too subtle to be notable. The rest of the cast, however, never really connect.

If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t mentioned Pennywise, the eponymous “It” much yet. And that’s because he’s less than his already scant screentime in the first movie. Skarsgard is so good in the role, but Muschietti is more obsessed with action-based setpieces than he is actual horror, so he never gets a proper chance to shine.

To be honest, there’s so much more I can criticize and tear apart in It Chapter Two, but I’ll spare you and say this. Clearly, Muschietti had a long list of things he wanted to do and tackle in this movie — and he did all of it. Unfortunately, the movie didn’t need most of it.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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September 9, 2019
2018 Oscar Predictions: Best Actress

Sally Hawkins, Meryl Streep, and Saoirse Ronan lead the packed field for Best Actress

Best Actress started out as one of the most competitive categories at the Oscars this year, but quickly it looks like we’ve found our five nominees. Of all the categories this year, this is the one I’m most confident in predicting — at least the nominations. As for the winner, it’s going to be one of the hardest to predict. Especially considering that of the five expected nominees four of them appear in a Best Picture frontrunner. A feat that hasn’t happened since 2013 and gets even rarer the further you go back. If it does indeed happen, it would be a great way to cap off a year that has seen the most support for female empowerment in recent memory.

Still, the Academy is the Academy and that means that the winner of this category is going to most likely be a young, up and coming actress. That bodes well for Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird), whose performance in Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut has earned her wide acclaim and won her several critic’s awards along the way. It also doesn’t hurt that her film is one of the most acclaimed of the year and is looking more and more like a viable candidate to win Best Picture. However, it’s not your typical Oscar role. It isn’t the watershed performance that Brie Larson or Jennifer Lawrence won for nor the towering one of Meryl Streep or Sandra Bullock. But what she does have going for her is momentum. Between her and Margot Robbie (I, Tonya) the other young and up and coming actress in contention, Ronan is the one that seems to deserve it more at this point in her career. At just 23, she’s looking at her third nomination, is one of the most respected actresses of her age range, and feels overdue despite her young age. If I had to pick a definitive frontrunner, it is her.

But there are also other performances by veterans that in any other year would beget a win. The most likely of those would be Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water). Despite a silent performance and unconventional film, especially for the Oscars, she quickly emerged as a frontrunner early in the season. And it’s not surprising. Though I was more tepid on the film than most, I was enamored by her performance. It’s easily the most overtly emotional of the contenders. However, it does seem a bit too far outside the Academy’s taste to actually win. Though with the changing demographics, who knows what their taste actually is. What she does have going for her is that she hasn’t won like the two other veterans in the category.

Anyone who has seen Steven Spielberg’s latest film agrees on one thing. Meryl Streep (The Post) delivers one of the best performances of her career. While I can’t speak to that yet, from what I know about the role, it’s the kind of towering performance that often wins in this category. Plus, it’s a film that empowers its female protagonist, which will certainly play well in our current climate. However, there are a few things that will get in the way of another Oscar on her mantle. First, and probably most importantly, she won in 2011 for The Iron Lady. Though there have been cases with less time between wins, it’s pretty rare to win another trophy so close to another. It usually takes the perfect conditions to win again. In the case of Hillary Swank’s win for Million Dollar Baby, which came just 5 years after her win for Boys Don’t Cry, she didn’t have much feasible competition and her film was a late-breaking juggernaut. The same goes for Jodie Foster. I don’t think Streep has the right conditions to win, plus there are certainly other alternatives to go with. Especially Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri).

Like Streep, her role is about female empowerment and the movie gives her the room to explore that in a larger than life way. If there is a towering performance this year, it’s this one. However, the film has received significant backlash recently, which has diminished the acclaim it received initially. Unless there is a backlash to the backlash, I don’t see an easy path to a win.

Though I feel pretty confident that these five women are going to be the Best Actress nominees this year. There is always room for a spoiler to surprise in the category. The most vulnerable actress in a contention is probably Robbie, whose film is the most polarizing of the field and will have the least nominations on Oscar nominations morning. If she is pushed out, then Jessica Chastain (Molly’s Game) is most likely to take her spot. She’s an Oscar favorite, landed a Globe nomination (Robbie and Ronan competed in the comedy category), and appears in a film that has received critical acclaim. However, there’s always room for another respected industry veteran like Judi Dench (Victoria & Abdul) or out of left field choice like Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) to surprise.

Check out all our 2018 Oscar Predictions!

Current Predictions (1/2/18):

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post

Other Contenders:

Jessica Chastain, Molly’s Game
Judi Dench, Victoria & Abdul
Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman
Diane Kruger, In the Fade
Carey Mulligan, Mudbound
Emma Stone, Battle of the Sexes
Daniela Vega, A Fantastic Woman
Kate Winslet, Wonder Wheel

September 6, 2017
A Most Violent Year Movie Review — Smart and gripping, one of the best films of the year

A great homage to the 70s crime films, A Most Violent Year doesn’t need flash to be an intense thriller

There’s a scene about a third of the way through A Most Violent Year that outlines exactly what the movie is about. After striking a deer on their way home from a dinner, Abel (Oscar Isaac) gets out of the car to put the animal out of its misery. He stares at the helpless creature for a couple seconds before gun shots are heard. His wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) shot the deer, possibly to excess, while Abel just stood aside. It’s a simple scene, but you don’t really know its purpose until after it’s over. That is the beauty of the film and J.C. Chandor as a screenwriter and director. He gives enough exposition to his audience to ensure that they can follow the story at hand, but he maintains an ambiguity that keeps us hooked. He keeps us at arms length to let us decide for ourselves what his films are really about.

A Most Violent Year will be best enjoyed if you know little about the plot of the film. I say this about a lot of movies, but I highly urge you to maybe skip reading the synopsis on this one. Why? It so adroitly sets up its story, characters, and plot that if you know anything ahead of time part of the charm is taken away. All you need to know is that 1981 was one of the most violent years in the history of New York City and Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac), his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain), and their heating business are being dragged into it.

The film takes place at a very specific time in both period and style. It may be set in 1981, a time when New York was a lot more gritty (I know, it’s hard to imagine) and unforgiving than now, but the film is stylistically very similar to films of the 70s, one of the greatest decades for cinema. The decade produced some of the best films of all time, however films like The Godfather and Taxi Driver are some of the most memorable. It was a time when the subject matter was as dark as the films’ dimly lit sets and their muted color palettes relied on tones only the earth could provide. The mafia ruled the screens and honor and tradition were the main points of conflict. This is why A Most Violent Year succeeds. It is able to so adroitly replicate the slow, but emotional taxing, burn of those films.

Yes, the film may be slow, but you’ll never be jaded. J.C Chandor controls the screen with his gripping atmosphere that keeps you guessing. You can never truly rest because the stakes are never lessened, the threats never dissipated, and the enemies never eliminated. What I’ve continually noticed from Chandor is that he doesn’t need a lot to speak thousands in his films. He thrives on the simplicity of dialogue and the simplicity of direction. However, he never shies away from the occasional moments of high intensity action.

If Chandor is responsible for the body of the film, then the head and heart belong to the Oscar-worthy performances by Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain. There aren’t many dramatics in the film. The characters are very calculating in all their actions, as are the actors. Isaac has the makings of a young Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino, but so many lines come very close to a “you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married” type delivery on some lines of dialogue that you could even say some Marlon Brando comes through.

I’m hesitant to call the movie a “gangster film” since Abel spends so much of the movie trying to dodge the title, so instead I’m going to consider a social commentary on violence. Between Isaac’s Abel and Chastain’s Ana we get two very specific opinions on its use, however the film goes so much further than that. Like I said, it’s what you make of it.

What I thought the film was trying to say is going to be different from what you think. In my opinion, when you throw in David Oyelowo’s Lawrence and Elyes Gabel’s Julian, the film becomes a look at success and what will be done to obtain it. It looks at the cruelty of the “American dream.” There’s an immigrant Abel who worked an honest living to obtain his father-in-law’s company. Julian, also an immigrant, who thinks that he’s entitled to the American dream. Then Lawrence, who’s true motivations I’m going to hold off on.

A Most Violent Year is going to go over some people’s heads. What they will see on screen is a boring crime film that doesn’t even have real gangsters in it. They’ll be looking for The Sopranos, but they’ll get something completely different. It’s when you realize that under the dimly lit sets and the bleak color palettes that you realize the movie is as manipulative as its characters.

January 16, 2015
Interstellar Movie Review — Christopher Nolan’s most epic, but human movie yet

Interstellar is a visual masterpiece that has a human touch that propels it to greatness. It is perhaps one of the best space movies ever made.

Christopher Nolan isn’t one known to be taciturn when it comes to his movies. Even his smaller movies like Momento have grand structures bolstering their simple plots. However, Interstellar is easily is first brush with the epic — unless you consider the full Dark Knight trilogy as one. On paper, it should not work. A sweeping narrative covering different times and worlds would be eaten up by audiences. That’s why Gravity found so much success financially and at the Oscars. But Nolan does something completely different with Interstellar. He introduces science in a way that isn’t watered down or ignored. His film, according to astrophysicists, is completely plausible. Though that fact makes the movie a hard one to digest for viewers, the end result is an incredible study of human nature and our desire to survive.

Food is running out. The world is becoming overpopulated. The Yankees look nothing more than a high school baseball team. A crop blight is threatening the very existence of the human race. Nolan drops into this terrifyingly realistic future plagued with dust storms and the risk of the world simply ending within grasp. With this, the nation turns its attention to farmers and away from the sciences and engineers to save the world.

Check Out: “Sleeping Giants” Book Review: A Unique, Engaging Sci-fi Thriller

However, Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) who was once a pilot for NASA, maintains his faith in STEM. After a dust storm, a mysterious gravitational disturbance leads him back to the formerly disbanded agency. He discovers that NASA, led by Dr. Brand (Nolan regular Michael Caine) and his daughter Dr. Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) have discovered a wormhole. “One system with three potential worlds,” as Amelia puts. it. Something, or someone, has given the human race a chance to live by presenting them with potential new planets to call home.

Cooper is given the seemingly possible decision to leave his children forever, potentially, or save the humanity from extinction. Choosing the latter, he embarks into an incredible mission on the ship Endurance. He, along with Amelia, Dr. Doyle (Wes Bently), and Dr. Romilly (David Gyasi) set off to assess the three worlds to choose where to start a new civilization.

Back on earth, Murphy Cooper (Jessica Chastain), who grows up while her father is gone, begins to help Dr. Brand determine the formula to get humans off of earth in a mass exodus.

While wormholes and other worlds seem like the work of science fiction, the science is very real. Though throughout the movie it sometimes gets a little confusing, with a little thinking you can piece it together. Essentially, it’s the Neil DeGrasse Tyson of movies. The science is explained in a non-condescending way.

One of the most surprising elements of Interstellar is not the story or the science, but the sentimentality. It’s shockingly emotional and often heartbreaking. In fact, parts of it gutted me. Whether it’s surprising because of the director or the premise is anybody’s guess. However, the grasp it has on humanity is both refreshing and welcome. Especially in the science fiction genre, a human factor is usually missing. But Nolan and the screenplay exhibit human nature for all its beauty and destruction.

We have an innate desire to survive. That’s why the people on earth in Interstellar begin to lose faith in the dream to leave the planet. They are thinking of how they can solve the problems on Earth. The very idea of the movie is thinking of a way to save our race. However, the movie explores the selfish motivations we also innately have. The way it is explored is surprising and devastating.

But it’s not just the screenplay and direction that exudes that. The ensemble was tasked with accessing emotions that humans would actually feel in these situations. Overall, the entire cast is phenomenal. However, there are three standouts for me. The first is Matthew McConaughey. I think it’s very unfortunate that he won his Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club. Not to take away from that performance. His performance in Interstellar is an incredible meditation on one of the hardest questions for humans: how much will you sacrifice for the greater good. There is no better way to show this than when he is watching messages from his kids as the years go by. This is the best performance of his career.

Check Out: “Arrival” Movie Review: One of the Best Sci-Fi Movies of the Decade

The other two performances that stood out were the two actresses that portrayed Murph. Mackenzie Foy breaks any stigma surrounding child actors with a really naturalistic and heartbreaking performance. She has these knowing gazes that foreshadow the scientific curiosity that follows her throughout her life. Jessica Chastain is an incredible presence as the older Murph. She carries over the knowing gazes, but adds the emotional baggage of years of abandonment by Coop. It is easily one of her most memorable performances.

Masterpiece isn’t a word I take lightly. I’ve said it in probably two reviews on this blog (Boyhood and Moonlight – the former I’m less inclined to continue using that phrase). However, I’d call Interstellar a masterpiece of filmmaking. It’s as grand as it is introspective and as grounded as it is existential. By the end of the nearly three-hour running time — it goes by in a flash — you feel as if you’ve experienced something that is so rarely captured on film. If not for the plot or performances, watch it for the stunning visuals that haven’t been seen on the silver screen since perhaps 2001: A Space Odyssey. I think a decade from now we’re going to look back and wonder how we fell asleep to such a grand and sweeping epic.

★★★★★ out of 5

Get Interstellar on DVD, Blu-Ray, or Digital on Amazon or stream for free with Amazon Prime!

January 16, 2017