In an apocalyptic world Paul (Cage) and his two sons live a normal farm life during daylight hours and lock themselves into their fortress home during the night, when fuzzy anorexic creatures with extreme dental abnormalities roam in the darkness to kill and feed on humans.
The acting is very good with excellent visuals, but the story is weak on details and inspiration. An OK movie dreaming of a sequel which will never happen.
The name of this movie intrigued me since it was never actually referenced unless I missed it. Arcadia is a district in the central Peloponnesian plane of ancient Greece, which meant refuge or an idyllic place. A place of refuge seems applicable for this movie but not a safe refuge. Or it could just be the city of Arcadia NE of Los Angeles.
Source: IMDb. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Wikipedia. Graphic: Movie poster for Arcadian.
In the late 1800s U.S. Calvary Captain Joseph Blocker (Bale) is ordered, as a final assignment before retirement, to escort his battlefield enemy, Cheyenne Chief Yellow Hawk (Studi) from New Mexico to his home in Montana. The trip north is filled with anger and violence with reconciliation between whites and reds a distant probability.
The movie is exceptionally well acted along with gorgeous and stunning photography and as a bonus Cooper added a deft piece from matinee westerns of yore to the movie by having Ryan Bingham perform his original song “How Shall a Sparrow Fly” while also playing the part of Calvary Sergeant Paul Malloy. I haven’t witnessed a singing, acting role since John Ford’s “Rio Grande” film starring John Wayne where Ken Curtis of “Gunsmoke” fame sang with his fellow “Sons of the Pioneers“.
The movie’s Achilles’ heel is the story, worthy of an eighth-grade film project; bland, risk-free, and unsatisfying with all plot lines stuck in neutral not able to engage either the characters or the audience.
While waiting for Dune Part 2 I’ve been catching up on Josh Brolin movies. This is a don’t blink movie. There are enough jigsaw pieces to the plot that it takes almost till the end of the movie to put all the pieces back together and it is likely that a few pieces will remain hidden under the table, because well, you blinked.
Plot synopsis: Chinatown meets Big Lebowski. Inherent Vice comes in third.
Definition of Inherent Vice for the curious:
Inherent vice, aka a latent defect, refers to a natural characteristic of goods or property that can cause them to deteriorate, become damaged, or spoil. Insurance companies typically exclude coverage for losses resulting from this inherent quality or defect. Here are some examples where an inherent vice exclusion would apply:
Books: If books deteriorate due to acid in the paper from the manufacturing process.
Film: When film deteriorates over time due to instability of the chemicals it contains.
Food: If food deteriorates due to improper storage temperatures.
Grain: Spontaneous fermentation or combustion of improperly dried grain.
In essence, inherent vice is a hidden flaw or characteristic that makes the item an unacceptable risk for carriers or insurers. It is usually an insurance exclusion for marine policies.
Written by: Richard Wenk–Based on Gun Monkeys by Victor Gischler
Music by: Fil Eisler
Cast: Pierce Brosnan–James Caan–Morena Baccarin
Film Locations: USA
Budget: $16 million
Worldwide Box Office: —
Fast Charlie is directed by Australian Philip Noyce whose best work revolves around the action, crime, and thriller genres. His oeuvre includes the 1992 Patriot Games, the 1994 Clear and Present Danger, and the 1999 The Bone Collector. Pierce Brosnan was Noyce’s first choice as Charlie due to gun skills and his acting abilities–Bond, James Bond. Brosnan does seem a natural in this film even though his interpretation of a southern accent is so heavy the vowels just drag into next week with a possible nap needed along the way. Never mind that the actual local New Orleans’ accent is closer to Jersey speak than a Charleston drawl.
Pierce Brosnan is Charlie Swift, a fixer, a concierge as he refers to himself when asked. If a problem requires that people disappear, he’s the man, the hitman to be exact. Charlie’s first hit in the movie is for money. After that they are for honor and revenge with the order being negotiable. Along the way he finally discovers the rational for his dream retirement in the hills and vineyards of Tuscany, Italy.
Brosnan sums up the movie his way, explaining the movie with a bit of inside baseball jargon thrown in for good measure: ‘Charlie is a little bit more of a chamber piece because of the tonality of his life and wanting to be as authentic as possible within the setting. When the curtain goes up, you really are in a specific place and time. It’s a more interior piece. But then of course, you put the gun in his hand, and he has to go shoot people.‘ Not sure what all that means except maybe it describes a swiftly made, low budget action movie that works.
FootnoteA
This is a movie to let go of your world for an hour and a half. There are no big messages to ponder. No hidden meaning to watch for. Just a good story with a no-hole plot, competent to particularly good acting and no extraneous scenes directing. There will be no awards for this flick, but the audience doesn’t care. As Glenn Kenny over at RogerEbert.com succinctly explains, “This is the farthest thing in the cinematic firmament from a world-changer you can imagine, but as an evening’s entertainment, it’ll more than do.“
On a final note, James Caan, 82, Sonny Corleone of The Godfather fame, gave his final performance in Fast Charlie. Filming for the movie began in April of 2022 and Caan passed away in July of 2022. Go out doing what you love. RIP.
Awards: Best Actress–Best Supporting Actor, Academy Awards; Best Actress–Best Picture–Best Screenplay–Best Supporting Actor, Golden Globe Awards; and many others.
How I missed this movie for 7 years is mystery but I’m glad I found it. The movie won multiple major Academy and Golden Globe Awards and it didn’t even register within my sphere of consciousness. Of course, if I paid any attention, which I don’t, to Hollywood award shows I may have caught it. But any who, I saw a mention about the movie online while browsing and decided to give it view. I’m probably the only person on the planet that hasn’t watched this movie but on the off chance you haven’t, you should.
After Coen Brother’s 1996 black comedy crime film: ‘Fargo‘, ‘Three Billboards‘ brings another black comedy crime film without the Coens but thankfully with Joel Coen’s spouse, the fantastically wonderful actress, Frances McDormand to the screen. McDormand takes the lead role in ‘Three Billboards‘, as she did in ‘Fargo‘, and turns in a engrousing performance as a grieving and scheming mother earning her the Academy and Golden Globes Best Actress awards in the process.
‘Three Billboards‘ was written and directed by Martin McDonagh in which he garnered the 2017 Golden Globe Best Screenplay for the movie. He followed up this film with the 2022 movie ‘The Banshees of Inisherin‘ which won the 2022 Golden Globe for Best Movie. In both movies McDonagh brings his trademark dark humor cloaked in a drama to the big screen. Tragedy is a better genre fit for McDonagh’s work but that term seems to belong to a time long passed.
FootnoteA
Frances McDormand, as Mildred, is a mother looking for closure over her daughter’s rape and murder in the small town of Ebbing, Missouri. After many months of waiting for the local authorities to solve the crimes she grows despondent and desperate over the lack of progress in apprehending, or at a minimum, identifying a suspect and begins to take matters into her own hands.
This movie hits on all cylinders, the screenplay, direction, cinematography which is beautiful, and acting all come together to produce a mostly coherent story with multiple sub-plots that are a feast for your senses and emotions. The only ding I have is that towards the end of the movie McDonagh introduces a twist in the plot that makes very little sense unless they were planning for a sequel, or it is a deus ex machina solution to an intractable plot problem. It is a minor irritation but in its defense, without the twist the final scene would have been very different and likely not as fullfilling.
On an extraneous side note, as with ‘Fargo‘ which was filmed mainly in multiple locations in Minnesota, ‘Three Billboards’ was filmed in multiple locations in North Carolina. Movies are for believers.
Awards: — Nominated Hollywood Critics Association Midseason Awards
Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie
Written by: Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen
Music by: Lorne Balfe
Cast: Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg
Film Locations: England — Italy — Norway — UAE
Budget: $291 million
Worldwide Box Office: $567.5 million
AI is aware. Cruise is there. An artificial intelligence called the ‘Entity’ is learning and moving for ultimate control, but it is afraid. All the branches of the Entity’s probability tree lead to success except the ones sprouting Ethan Hunt.
This is the seventh ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise movie with the eighth, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Two set for release in June of 2024.
I’m going to depart from my usual thoroughly researched and long-winded reviews and say with absolute conviction–watch this movie and leave it at that. It’s the best action movie since Blade Runner 2049 (Harrison Ford should have quit when he was ahead) in 2017. Every piece in this flick is solid; directing, acting, writing, camera, and music. There was one hole in the plot, but I will leave it to you to find. Also, early in the film there appeared to be a glitch in the CGI rendering involving Cruise’s chin, but I will have to watch it again to see if it was real or just my imagination.
One last thing. There is a major train scene in the movie using a steam locomotive which intrigued me due to their extreme scarcity in world today. So, I checked it out. The steam locomotive used in the movie was a specially built replica, three were built, of a Class 52 locomotive, a type of German steam engine that operated from 1942 to 1962. The replicas were constructed by The Steam Workshop in the UK, and then transported to Norway for filming.
Awards: — Nominated for Best Summer Blockbuster Trailer
Directed by: Steven Caple Jr.
Written by: Joby Harold–Darnell Metayer–Josh Peters–Eric Hoeber–Jon Hoeber
Music by: Jongnic Bontemps
Cast: Anthony Ramos–Dominque Fishback–Peter Cullen–Ron Perlman–Peter Dinklage
Film Locations: United States–Peru–Canada
Budget: $195-200 million
Worldwide Box Office: $436.7 million
Maximals, robotic animals, join forces with the Autobots to battle the ruthless mechanoid Terrorcons who are attempting to bring their master, Unicron, a planet eating god, to Earth.
This is the seventh ‘Transformer’ franchise movie with two more in development plus an animated prequel planned for 2024 release. It is debatable whether the franchise can survive this painful ‘Fall of the Beast’. If it does survive, they need to bring in a whole new crew for the subsequent releases and relegate this movie’s crop of personalities to daytime TV or better yet, Saturday morning cartoons.
There is absolutely no talent or passion on display anywhere in this movie. There is no direction apparent, just a series of shots randomly glued together. There is no acting, just the reading of lines for both the human and the voice over roles. The screenplay was a committee effort of giggling adolescents. Even the CGI scenes are inferior to the standards of today. This is not a $200 million movie.
If you have moved past the age and mental maturity of a 12-year-old, this movie is not something you need to spend 2 hours of your life on.
Written by: Guy Ritchie – Ivan Atkinson – John Friedberg – Josh Berger
Music by: Christopher Benstead
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal – Dar Salim – Emily Beecham –Jonny Lee Miller
Film Locations: Spain
Budget: $55 million
Worldwide Box Office: $17.5 million
American Army Sergeant John Kinley, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, and his Afghan interpreter Ahmed, played by Dar Salim take on the Taliban in a war-time tale of trust earned and promises kept.
I watched this movie because Guy Ritchie’s name was all over it. Director, writer, producer, even in the title: Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant. I suppose if you direct, write, and produce the movie you can put your name in the title. His past movies: Snatch, RocknRolla, Sherlock, The Gentleman, and others have complex, Rube Goldberg plots, twists within twists with tongue planted firmly in the cheek. I loved them and I wanted more Guy Ritchie movies. I expected more of the same with The Covenant and received nothing of the sort. The Covenant is a drama with a little war, a little action, and a little suspense thrown in. If Ritchie’s name weren’t all over the film you would not know it was a Ritchie film, which I guess explains why he put his name in the title. But it is a movie worthy of Ritchie’s name and fame.
The Covenant is Christopher Benstead’s fourth movie composing the music and score for Ritchie’s movies which included: The Gentlemen, Wrath of Man, and Aladdin. This movie’s play list:
A Horse With No Name – America
Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress) – The Hollies
Truth – Alex Ebert
Toshna Ye Abem Shoda – Mehri Maftun
Say What You Want – White Denim
Thunder Continues In The Aftermath – Laurie Anderson & The Kronos Quartet
Darkness Falls – Margaret Lewis
Farkhâr Chi Khush-u Khush Havây Dâra Janam – Rahim Takhari
Darkness Falls and Thunder Continues are perfectly placed and worth the price of admission.
I’m ambivalent towards Jake Gyllenhaal, his acting skills, not him personally. Not that he can’t act, he can but his character portrayals always seem a bit off, not what your mind is expecting, especially in his nut case roles. In End of Watch and Nightcrawler he never fully captures the essence of his character. In places he is holding back emotionally, in other scenes he has gone too far but in the wrong direction. In The Covenant he manages a more consistent character portrayal and in the last battle scene he captures the moment with body language and facial expressions. No words needed.
The script is solid and concise without any major plot holes. Having someone with military experience to parse the script would have been helpful in a few of the scenes where Sgt. Kinley and Ahmed are evading capture through the mountains and foothills of Afghanistan. When you’re running for your lives, sitting down in the open when you have trees for cover seems ill-advised.
These negatives are mostly trivial though. The script, the direction, the camera work, the acting is all done well, not exceptional but certainly above average.
In the final scenes of the Benghazi movie, 13 Hours, the protagonists note that the Arab attack against the embassy compound must have required weeks if not months of advanced planning. A subtle message but one that called out the lie of the US administration’s stance that the attack was reaction to an anti-Islam movie the day before in Egypt. In the final scene of The Covenant a statement, posted on screen, revealed that in the aftermath of the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, over 300 Afghan interpreters affiliated with the U.S. military were murdered by the Taliban terrorists, with thousands more still in hiding. Again, a subtle message dealing with the lack of foresight and due diligence concerning the US administration’s Afghan withdrawal plans and execution.
Written by: Shay Hatten, Michael Finch, Derek Kolstad (creator of characters)
Music by: Tyler Bates – Joel J. Richard
Cast: Keanu Reeves – Ian McShane – Donnie Yen – Hiroyuki Sanada – Bill Skarsgard
Film Locations: France – Germany – Japan – Jordan – USA
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide Box Office: $430 million
Nobody give me trouble ’cause they know I got it made I’m bad, I’m nationwide Well I’m bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, I’m nationwide
ZZ Top – I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide – 1979 – Deguello Album
John Wick wants his freedom back. He skips the nationwide bit, goes worldwide in Chapter 4 against the High Table and he’s bad, sooo bad as in he’s really good, and the movie is good; all is good. Make that better than good. Better than the previous three, which were also really good. Do yourself a favor and watch.
The core team is back for Chapter 4. Chad Stahelski directs again as he did in the first three Wick movies. Stahelski, a former stunt coordinator and stuntman, co-founder of design company 87Eleven, debuted as a director in the first John Wick garnering several Best First Feature awards. He is producing the upcoming Ballerina, a John Wick spinoff set in a time between John Wick Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick Chapter 4.
Shay Hattan returns as screenwriter as he was in Chapter 3. Although only 29 years old or 30 depending on who you ask, Hattan has already established himself as a force in Hollywood. His upcoming writing projects include Ballerina and Rebel Moon, a sci-fi, space action movie.
Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard served up the music for all four movies. Bates has also worked on the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Deadpool 2, Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw. In his past life he wrote, produced, and played guitar for the band Marilyn Manson. Richard’s efforts beyond the Wick movies are mostly confined to movie shorts and tv series which include The Andromeda Strain and Quantico.
Reeves, Reddick, and McShane keep it fun and tite. Reeves is John Wick. It is his role, and it will be a long time before they find someone else to play the role, if ever. Wick will endure — as long as Disney never buys the rights to the franchise.
Just for fun Reeves as John Wick spoke 511 words in the first movie which ran for 101 minutes. Normal speech is 100-130 words per minute. 380 words in the second movie with a duration of 122 minutes. An unknown number in the third movie and 380 words again in Chapter 4 which came in at 169 minutes. If Reeves and Eastwood ever team up, they could do an entire movie without saying a word.
Ian McShane was an excellent choice as the manager of The Continental. British suave, debonair, unflappable but the years are taking their toll. He will be 81 in September of 2023.
Lance Reddick died on 17 March 2023 at the age of sixty. Much too short of a time on this planet, much too soon to leave. RIP.
Fishburne contines in his role as the Bowery King but only in a few quick scenes well into this movie plus the closing scene. His first scene in Chapter 4 where he delivers a ‘I am God’ speech is perplexing. This scene could have been pared down by two thirds without any loss of continuity or meaning.
Long live John Wick. If spinoffs are the answer, I’ll take ’em and it will be good.
Awards: Fantasia International Film Festival 2022 — Best International Feature Award
Directed by: Franklin Ritch
Written by: Franklin Ritch
Music by: —
Cast: Tatum Matthews, David Girard, Sinda Nichols, Franklin Ritch, Lance Henriksen
Film Locations: —
Budget: Low Budget
Worldwide Box Office: Limited Release – Unknown
The beginning of the movie finds a computer programmer, Gareth played by Franklin Ritch, being interrogated by government agents questioning his ties to various pedophiles operating around the world. As the scene progresses, we learn that the programmer has created an artificial intelligence program represented by a nine-year-old girl avatar named Cherry. She entices, online, child molesters and pedophiles, learns their identities, and reports them, through Gareth, to the authorities.
The movie is divided into three main scenes progressing linearly in time. The first scene opens with Gareth in his early to mid-twenties. The second scene is 15 years into the future with the same actors aged 15 additional years except Cherry who is still nine years old. The final scene is even further into future where Gareth is an old man played by Lance Henriksen. Cherry hasn’t aged a day.
I found the choice of Henriksen to play Gareth simply sublime. He played a synthetic human named Bishop with a heroic ‘heart’ in the 1986 movie Aliens and the living human Bishop with an evil heart in the 1992 Alien 3 movie.
For a low budget movie everything is done right, almost to perfection. The only quibble is Sinda Nichols’ over the top acting in the opening scenes but that is more of a ding on the screenplay and direction rather than the performance. Tatum Matthew’s acting is very good considering her age. She maintains a slight mechanical inflected voice throughout the movie which seems fitting for a computer-generated delivery.
This movie is worth your investment of 93 minutes not just because it is well done but also there is some thinking to be done. The thinking isn’t heavy. It just comes along for the ride. A few of the same questions addressed in the Alien movies, and others, by Henriksen’s Bishop roles are reprised in The Artifice Girl. Are humans good or evil for creating Cherry? Is Cherry ultimately evil or good? Do humans understand the consequences of AI? Should you do something just because you can?
(Picture above left: Tatum Matthews age 14. Picture above right is Lance Henriksen age 83.)
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