Category Archives: Reviews

How Much is that Picture in the Window?

steaming Image result for the irishman

depravingly You can tell fall is just around the corner, because the war between Netflix and theater chains has heated up once more.

Last year, the streaming giant took on big studios and exhibitors with its Oscar-winning drama, Roma. This year, they’ve upped the ante with Martin Scorsese’s mob drama The Irishman. The $169 million film will make its world premiere Sept. 27 at the New York Film Festival, where it’s the opening night film. Image result for roma

A month later, it will air on Netflix after talks between the company and major theater chains, including AMC and Cineplex, broke down. For weeks, there had been speculation the Oscar-hungry Netflix would further soften its stance regarding theatrical windows, but it couldn’t reach a compromise with the largest theatrical chains. Instead, The Irishman will open Nov. 1 in select independent cinemas willing to carry the film, thus giving Netflix the right to run for a Best Picture Academy Award. It will debut on Netflix Nov. 27.

Netflix used the same tactic to qualify Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma for Oscar contention. While that film won Cuarón a Best Director statue, Roma did not capture Best Picture. It did, however, spark a high-profile reaction from some of Hollywood’s top directors, including Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg, who argued Netflix should be limited to Emmy competition. But an Academy Board of Governor’s vote earlier this year rejected the rule change, opening the door for the streaming service to continue its Oscar strategy.Image result for spielberg nolan

Last year, Netflix acknowledged the value of the theatrical experience when announcing that Roma and other Oscar hopefuls would play exclusively in cinemas for two to three weeks before being made available to its subscribers. But that wasn’t enough to appease all Oscar voters — or theater chains, which insist on a 90-day window between the time a title opens and is released on home entertainment.

When Roma lost the best picture race, some cited the lack of box office grosses for the snub. After picking up The Irishman when Paramount passed, top Netflix executives and Scorsese himself immediately began a dialogue with theaters to see what could be done for the film, which stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel.

Some thought Scorsese had the clout to broker a peace: He’s been nominated for a Best Director Oscar eight times, more than any other living director. He’s also a powerhouse at the box office; his hits include The Wolf of Wall Street, which grossed nearly $400 million globally, and the Oscar-winning The Departed ($291 million). But no deal could be reached.

Based on the 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, The Irishman tells the deathbed story of a mob hit man who claimed to have had a role in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.Image result for the irishman

Earlier this summer, sources say Netflix offered up a 30-day theatrical window before talks crumbled. While Netflix’s minor expansion of its theatrical window this year suggests it’s willing to inch closer to traditional business models for certain films with awards prospects (Roma‘s exclusive theatrical window was 23 days), that window remains far shorter than exhibitors and studios want.

Netflix is hardly alone in questioning the validity of the traditional 90-day theatrical window, considering that most films earn the majority of their gross in the first 45 days. And with the rise of other streaming services such as Disney+, the debate will undoubtedly grow louder.

In the meantime, without the support of a chain like AMC, Netflix will be relegated to playing its titles in indie cinemas such as the Landmark and Laemmle. (Netflix either rents the locations, known as “four walling,” or pays generous terms.)

Scorsese shot the movie on both film and digital and is relying on Industrial Light & Magic to de-age his principal cast for flashback sequences. The Irishman will play first in cinemas in New York and Los Angeles before expanding into additional markets in the U.S. and the U.K. on Nov. 8. It will further expand on Nov. 15 and Nov. 22, according to Netflix.

They’re the Ones Who Knock

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(Warning: series spoilers ahead)

The last time we saw him, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) was barreling through a chain-link gate in his El Camino, half-laughing, half-crying after being sprung from his neo-Nazi captors by Walter White (Bryan Cranston) in a drug house bloodbath in the Breaking Bad finale.

But where did Jesse go? Did Walter actually die? Ever since the AMC series concluded six years ago, Internet denizens have speculated wildly — musings fueled by rumors that they were working on a new Breaking Bad project.

Wonder no more: Netflix is expected to announce that a Breaking Bad film will arrive in October. Entitled El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, the film has even seen its trailer leaked onto the Internet with a release date, Oct. 11.

The news isn’t official yet, but it was all but confirmed when CNET noticed last week that a placeholder page for the movie popped up on Netflix. The page has since been taken down, but not before exuberant fans got hold of the news. The trailer doesn’t show Pinkman or other Breaking Bad characters; instead, it features only an addict refusing to talk to cops for fear he would be similarly enslaved by drug dealers. “No way I’m helping you people put Jesse Pinkman back inside a cage,” the tweaker says over an ominous score. The synopsis on the now-deleted Netflix page reveals little of the plot: “Fugitive Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) runs from his captors, the law, and his past.”

Rumors of the film were further confirmed in an interview Paul gave to the New York Times, which ran an article Saturday about the series and the show’s legacy. “It’s a chapter of Breaking Bad that I didn’t realize that I wanted,” Paul told the Times about another chapter in the story. “And now that I have it, I’m so happy that it’s here.”

Paul also recalled early conversations with series creator Vince Gilligan, who will direct the film. “I would follow him into a fire,” he said, adding, “I was so happy that Vince wanted to take me on this journey.”

In interviews earlier this month, Bob Odenkirk, star of the Breaking Bad prequel series Better Call Saul, added to the rumor mill. He told /Film that the movie was shot secretly under the guise of an indie film called Greenbrier. In addition, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Odenkirk spoke briefly about the movie. “I’ve heard so many different things about it, but I am excited about the Breaking Bad movie. I can’t wait to see it…I don’t know what people know and don’t know. I find it hard to believe you don’t know it was shot. They did it. You know what I mean? How is that a secret? But it is. They’ve done an amazing job of keeping it a secret.”

No word on whether Cranston will be involved in the movie, though some fans have speculated that he may have survived the fusillade of bullets that ended the series — and, ostensibly, his character. And given Gilligan’s fondness for timelines that leapfrog from past to present, Walter White may again be the one who knocks.

The Netflix announcement is expected Monday.

‘Hot Air’ Quickly Runs Out of Steam

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In 2013, Steve Coogan starred in a gem of a movie, Alan Partridge, about a self-centered disc jockey struggling with age, sagging ratings and the looming reality that a new generation had left him behind. While he played an egomaniac, the film deftly offset Partridge’s boorishness with sincere British charm — along with perhaps the best driving-and-singing scene ever captured on screen.Image result for alan partridge driving

In Hot Air, Coogan plays a similar character, just without the charm and the one-man carpool karaoke. And the loss is a crippling one.

Less a comedy than a broad swipe at America’s talk radio landscape and its right-wing followers, Air takes aim at everything from hypocritical Evangelicals to homophobic xenophobes to gun-toting proponents of a border wall. More troubling, it seems to call for the eradication of talk shows that echo those sentiments with an odd catch phrase: “Talk isn’t cheap. It’s toxic.” The result is 100  minutes of, well, hot air.

Coogan plays Lionel Macomb, a Limbaugh-esque radio personality whose world is capsized when his mixed-race niece Tess (Taylor Russell) unexpectedly enters his life. On top of his personal life’s upheaval, Lionel’s protege, Gareth Whitely (Skylar Astin),  is gaining on him in the ratings with a soft, fuzzy and bland brand of conservatism, threatening Lionel’s 20-year reign at the top of the radio heap.

Directed by Frank Coraci, who helmed Adam Sandler’s hits The Waterboy and The Wedding Singer, Air seems determined to take Coogan out of his affable screen persona and turn him into a modern-day Howard Beale, the darkly funny news anchor played by Peter Finch in 1976’s Network. But instead of earning followers with his anthemic “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Macomb comes off as simply mad as hell. Air may see itself styled after Network, but its cliched dialogue plays more like a Network trailer.Image result for network howard beale

“You’ve done well for yourself telling other people how to think,” a character tells Macomb, a thinly-veiled shot at at Limbaugh’s “ditto heads,” fans accused of having no thoughts of their own until given conservative marching orders.

It amounts to a wasted opportunity to take a darkly comic look and the incendiary, polarized landscape of American politics. And it doesn’t help that Coraci overloads the film with unnecessary plot strands, including Macomb’s strained romantic relationship with  Valerie (Neve Campbell), a publicist who is trying to save her boss’ career while opening his heart.

Campbell and Russell do a serviceable job in the limited space they’re granted in an anemic script by first-time screenwriter Will Reichel, and Astin aptly plays a double-talker who uses the Bible for ratings, not redemption. But it’s undeniably Coogan’s movie, and he gets some laughs when he gets behind the microphone. Too bad he’s undercut by an American accent that slips in and out of his natural British cadence.

Earlier this year, Coogan faced a real-life scare: The comedian, known for being a lead foot behind the wheel, faced a six-month driving suspension for speeding through a British thoroughfare in his Porsche. After Coogan explained that driving was integral to his upcoming Alan Partridge travelogue TV series, the judge lessened the suspension to two months and told the actor to lay off the gas pedal. He probably should have suggested Coogan lay off the politics, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwuy4hHO3YQ