HINDSIGHT IS 2020: SHIRLEY (2020) ** ½

Right from the opening scene you can tell Shirley won’t be just another ordinary biopic.  When Rose (Odessa Young, from the new TV version of The Stand) reads Shirley Jackson’s macabre short story “The Lottery” on a train, it gets her so hot and bothered that she just has to bang her boyfriend (Logan Lerman) in an empty car.  Now, if you’ve ever read “The Lottery”, you know that it isn’t exactly a Harlequin romance novel. 

Anyway, the couple go to stay with Jackson (Elisabeth Moss) and her snobby intellectual husband (Michael Stuhlbarg) on the condition Rose becomes their housemaid.  At first, they get on like oil and water, but eventually Shirley takes a shine to Rose, slowly letting her in on her darker nature that she hides from the world.  However, not only is Shirley using her for the model of the main character in her first novel; she is also making her the target of psychological warfare, which her husband is all too eager to engage in as well. 

Moss is locked in.  She’s much more effective here than she was in grossly overrated The Invisible Man as she dials down her usual hysterics and turns in an unpredictable and edgy performance.  Imagine a crazy cat lady meets Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and that sort of paints the picture.  She makes for a good foil for Young, whose character is tempted by Shirley’s outsider qualities.  The scene where Shirley gleefully invites her to eat possibly poisonous mushrooms is especially memorable. 

Produced by Martin Scorsese, Shirley is ultimately one of those movies that is more marinade than meat.  It offers a snapshot of Jackson’s life and shows that she probably had a screw or two loose.  It also spends as much time glorifying her eccentricities as it does pointing out her contradictions. 

The problem is the movie runs in all sorts of directions at once and never really settles on one approach.  The forbidden love story angle between Rose and Shirley works the best.  The scenes where the screenplay tries to infuse the picture with the same gothic horror touch Jackson gave her work are less effective.  The blurring of fact and fiction is a good idea, but it’s just another narrative trick for the film to juggle, and it’s frankly one it can’t quite handle. 

There’s also an intriguing subplot of Jackson treating her new housekeeper and lover as a character in her own book, bending her and breaking her just because she can.  However, it never truly commits to making Shirley an out-and-out villain, and because of that, the final act winds up being sort of muddled.  The performances are strong enough to keep you watching, but the film itself is far from haunting.

HOT PURSUIT (2015) **

Reese Witherspoon stars as an enthusiastic but dim-witted cop who gets the plum job of escorting a drug dealer’s wife (Sofia Vergara) into the Witness Protection Program.  Naturally, it’s all a set-up and the two barely escape with their lives.  Now, the dirty cops frame them for murder and the duo have to hit the road in order to clear their names. 

On paper, this should’ve been just as bad, if not worse than The Spy Who Dumped Me.  On the plus side, the filmmakers waste no time getting the show on the road.  There is also very little fat on the movie either as Witherspoon and Vergara find themselves in a shootout, chase scene, compromising situation, or sitcom scenario every five minutes or so.  There’s even an occasional laugh or two sprinkled throughout.  I thought it was funny when the usually squeaky-clean Witherspoon inadvertently inhaled a mess of cocaine.  Granted, it’s nowhere near as funny as the similar scene in the legendary Corky Romano, but then again, what could compete with that masterclass of comedic gold? 

The big stumbling block is the two leading ladies are playing essentially shrill and annoying characters.  That doesn’t necessarily prevent them from being likeable, but their grating characterizations keep them at arm’s length from the audience much of the time.  I mean usually when you do these kind of mismatched buddy pictures (even with two women in the leads), they should be… you know… mismatched.  Having both of them being loud and obnoxious borders on overkill.

However, there are a few moments that save it from being totally forgettable.  My favorite bit comes when the ladies have to engage in an impromptu lesbian lovemaking session to distract a farmer brandishing a shotgun.  Even if it is played for laughs, this moment at least helps elevate Hot Pursuit from being merely tepid.

THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME (2018) *

Mila Kunis stars as a woman who gets dumped by her boyfriend (Justin Theroux) who just so happens to be a spy… if you already didn’t infer that from the title.  After he is killed, she comes into possession of a flash drive that several interested parties want for themselves.  It’s then up to Mila and her goofball gal pal (Kate McKinnon) to avoid a bevy of hired assassins and enemy agents to return the info to her ex’s boss (Gillian Anderson). 

The Spy Who Dumped Me has a sitcom premise and a one-joke set-up.  Even then, there aren’t enough laughs to fill a half-hour TV show.  (Heck, there aren’t any laughs to be had at all.)  You would even be pushing it to have a ninety-minute comedy with this sort of plot.  As it stands, the movie clocks in at nearly two hours, much of which is filled with unfunny situations and desperate gags.  Many scenes are needlessly dragged out way too long and don’t really forward the plot.  It sometimes almost feels like you’re watching an assembly cut where every blessed thing that was shot was tossed in there without any consideration whatsoever.    

I usually enjoy Kunis’ work, but she is sorely miscast as the everywoman who is suddenly thrust into a world of international intrigue and must go from Plain Jane to Jane Bond.  Even the reliably hilarious McKinnon fails to generate any laughs as Kunis’ bestie who tags along for the ride.  Since she wasn’t given much to work with, she just resorts to a lot of unfunny mugging, which is often painful to sit through.  Theroux is ideally cast as the secret agent, although he isn’t around long enough to leave much of an impression one way or another. 

Maybe the problem is that the action stuff hews closer to the Jason Bourne movies than the James Bond franchise.  I mean there was a spy series that knew how to balance laughs and thrills.  The Bourne-style action scenes don’t mesh at all with the lame humor and McKinnon’s shenanigans, and even when they do introduce some Bond-inspired gadgets, it’s too little, too late.  It would be one thing if the movie swung for the fences and went for gross-out gags the way The Brothers Grimsby did.  Unfortunately, this just feels like The Heat with a license to kill.

AKA:  Bad Spies. 

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: THE OUTPOST (2020) ***

The Outpost tells the true story of heroic soldiers stationed in an outpost in Afghanistan.  Despite the fact the place is a logistical nightmare and nearly impossible to defend, the grunts stick to their mission of easing tensions with the locals.  When the Taliban finally attacks, the soldiers rise to the occasion and fight back against unbeatable odds to hold their position. 

On the surface, The Outpost looks like it’s going to be one of those generic DTV war movies that your grandfather would watch.  I was a bit worried in the beginning as the character introductions were done in the form of title cards with their names on it.  I usually hate this form of shorthand, but it made sense since there are so many characters on the base, and it’s a little hard to keep track of everyone.  

I was also concerned by the fact that the cast was mostly comprised of sons of much better-known actors.  The offspring of Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, and Mick Jagger are in this movie, which was enough to make me kind of wish their respective fathers had made a similar film together forty years earlier.  We even get the grandsons of Richard Attenborough and Alan Alda in there as well.  This rampant nepotism gave me the feeling this was going to be a modern-day version of those old DTV action movies in which sons and brothers of more famous movie stars were passed off as real actors.  I mean the biggest name in the cast is The Lord of the Rings’ Orlando Bloom, who gets the “And” billing on the poster, so you can probably guess what happens to him early on.

The first half is kind of ambling and episodic, which didn’t do much for my confidence.  Also, the ham-fisted dialogue like, “We can’t argue and fight” that’s supposed to be profound, comes off as clunky.  Once the proverbial shit hits the fan, the movie, like the soldiers it honors, digs deep and goes above and beyond the call of duty.

I guess I shouldn’t have doubted director Rod Lurie.  I’m a big fan of The Last Castle and I appreciated his Straw Dogs remake more than most.  Although the early sequences are a tad scattershot, he does a fine job at creating suspenseful battle sequences once the film goes all-in on the action.  His “You are There” camerawork heightens the suspense without resorting to the typical shaky-cam stuff that ruins most movies.  I can’t quite put it on the same pedestal as Saving Private Ryan, but there are certainly some harrowing moments that echo that classic.

Once the attack begins, the movie really kicks into overdrive.  The characters who at this point were a bit interchangeable, come into focus.  This is the kind of film I like where the characters are defined by their actions and not dialogue.  The performances are all fine, with Scott Eastwood being a standout and delivering a bit of his old man’s squinty-eyed charm. 

At its heart, The Outpost is a memorial to the men who served.  Mostly though it plays like a modernized B war picture.  I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way, either.  I’m talking about the kind that Sam Fuller used to make (there’s even a character named “Griff”), when men were men, and the film was as tough as the soldiers it depicted.  It’s fine tribute to the men that fell in battle while simultaneously being a compelling war movie. 

42ND STREET FOREVER! VOLUME 1: HORROR ON 42ND STREET (2004) *** ½

This excellent trailer compilation was released by Ban 1 Productions.  It is unrelated to the identically titled 42^nd Street Forever line that was put out by Synapse the following year.  However, it’s just as good, if not better than the compilations found in that series. 

Despite the subtitle, “Horror on 42^nd Street”, there are plenty of non-horror films featured.  In fact, about halfway through, there is a big shift in tone as we get a slew of trailers for skin flicks and nudie movies.  Some may be a little disappointed by the bait-and-switch, but since the other non-horror trailers mostly consist of oddities, time capsules, and actioners, it’s okay by me. 

The complete rundown features:  Freaks, The Crippled Masters, The Mutations, Aroused, Invitation to Ruin (which looks amazing), Skidoo, The Wild Scene, The Wild Eye, The Animals, a double feature of Hookers Revenge and The Photographer’s Model (AKA:  Thriller:  A Cruel Picture and The House of Whipcord, respectively), Vigilante Force, Fighting Mad (two different trailers are shown back-to-back), Welcome Home Brother Charles, Shantytown Honeymoon (AKA:  Honey Britches), The House of Missing Girls, The Sins of the Daughter, School Girl Bride, Josie’s Castle (AKA:  Teenage Divorcee), Chatterbox, a double feature of The Blood Spattered Bride and I Dismember Mama (a classic staple of many a trailer compilation), two previews for Carnivorous (AKA:  Jungle Holocaust), The Food of the Gods, Tales of the Bizarre (AKA:  Bizarre), The Devil’s Rain, Black Christmas, The Legend of Boggy Creek, Creature with the Blue Hand, Mark of the Witch, Mark of the Devil 2, Virgin Witch, a double feature for Women and Bloody Terror and Night of Bloody Horror, The Revenge of the Blood Beast, Wonder Women, Savage Sisters, and a German trailer for Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom. 

With a collection like that in your arsenal, it’s hard not to be impressed.  Even if they play a little loose with the “horror” label, 42^nd Street Forever! Volume 1:  Horror on 42^nd Street is a blast from start to finish.  Any trailer compilation fan worth their salt will want to get their hands on this one.

PREVUES OF COMING ATTRACTIONS VOL. 2: BLAXPLOITEASIN’ (2009) ***

From the makers of Prevues of Coming Attractions Vol. 1:  Giallorama comes another collection of exploitation movie trailers.  This time around, the focus is on the Blaxploitation trend of the ‘70s.  At seventy-one minutes, it makes for a breezy recap of the genre, but I for one was hoping for something a bit more thorough and exhaustive. 

I don’t really have a problem with the trailers that we do get.  (Even though many of them have appeared on countless other compilations before.)  I mean, it’s hard to complain when you have a nice mix of Blaxploitation classics like Blacula, Foxy Brown, and Dolemite as well as some more obscure titles such as Honky, Black Girl, and Cool Breeze.  However, there are some notable omissions that are sorely missed.  While we do have the trailer for Shaft, there is no mention of Shaft’s Big Score or Shaft in Africa.  Additionally, the absence of both Super Fly and Super Fly TNT is quite glaring.

On the plus side, the trailers are shown in chronological order, which is a big plus.  This helps to showcase the growth of the genre and how it progressed (or regressed depending on your point of view) from dramatic fare like They Call Me Mister Tibbs! to more exploitative stuff like Mandingo.  Despite the quibbles I have with the collection, I must admit that the chronological approach works much better than the random assemblage of trailers found in most compilations.

In case you’re wondering, here’s the complete trailer line-up:  They Call Me Mister Tibbs!, Honky, Shaft, Black Girl, Blacula, Cool Breeze, Cleopatra Jones, Coffy, Savage!, Scream Blacula Scream, Sweet Jesus Preacherman, Black Samson, Foxy Brown, Mean Mother, Sugar Hill, Truck Turner, The Black Gestapo, Boss, Bucktown, Dolemite, Friday Foster (“Never Fear!  Pam Grier is Here!”), Mandingo, Sheba Baby, Take a Hard Ride, Welcome Home Brother Charles (AKA:  Soul Vengeance), Black Shampoo, Dr. Black Mr. Hyde, The Human Tornado, The Guy from Harlem, and Disco Godfather. 

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: CAPONE (2020) ** ½

After spending ten years in prison for tax evasion, disgraced gangster Al Capone (Tom Hardy) is released from jail.  His body riddled with syphilis, the Feds allow him to live out his final days in seclusion in his Florida mansion.  While Capone’s mental and physical state deteriorates, he is haunted by his past and comes to terms with his encroaching demise. 

Capone is a really odd mix of genres.  At its heart, it’s a gangster movie, but it feels more like a ghost story.  Imagine The Shining Meets A Christmas Carol starring Scarface and that sort of paints the picture.  While it’s kind of plodding and uneven, the film is just weird enough to keep you watching. 

Hardy’s performance is really something too.  In fact, it’s pretty much the whole show.  He snarls, screams, pisses, shits, drools, and farts his way through the film.  Many movies shit the bed figuratively.  This one does it literally.  His funky cadence and growly delivery often makes him sound like the love child of Popeye the Sailor Man and the Tasmanian Devil.  (He even spends a good chunk of the movie with a carrot sticking out of his mouth just like Bugs Bunny.)  Hardy is one of those guys like Nicolas Cage who creates such a memorable, offbeat character that it often doesn’t matter if the finished film itself is any good or not (this one is a toss-up).  However, he’s so out there that you can’t help but keep watching.  Any actor who shits himself not once but THREE times in a performance probably deserves some kind of award. 

The rest of the cast is basically playing catch-up to his antics.  Linda Cardellini has the thankless role of his wife, Kyle McLachlan is his doctor, and Matt Dillon shows up for a bit as his fishing buddy.  I like all these actors, but they just aren’t in the same movie as Hardy.

Writer/director/editor Josh Trank also made that awful Fantastic Four movie.  He was about to make a Boba Fett flick too before he shot himself in the foot on social media.  Capone is his comeback film of sorts.  It’s not exactly good, however it’s just too weird and eccentric to completely dismiss.  It’s just out there enough to make me curious to see what he does next.

AKA:  Fonzo.