The 2020 Mid-Year Movie Report – Part 2

July 17, 2020

OK, we’re back for part two of my thoughts on the year so far in movies.  If you missed part one, you can find it here.  Let’s jump right in.

Two Satires That Worked – Bad Education and Irresistible

I’m all for a good satire or storyline that is clearly a farce – a combination of serious topics, sprinkled with some dark humor and some silliness to lighten the mood.  There were a few that I saw this year that I would put in this category.  The first one that I thought was well-executed was Bad Education, the true story of a private school embezzlement scandal on Long Island.  You have two Hollywood heavyweights (Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney) in the leading roles and they were both excellent (although Janney’s Long Island accent was a little too thick for my liking).  Also impressive was newcomer Geraldine Viswanathan as the high school reporter investigating the misdeeds of the school administrators.  Available on HBO Max.  The other film in this genre that I liked was Irresistible, the political satire written and directed by comedian Jon Stewart, former host of The Daily Show.  Steve Carell plays a Democratic political operative sent to a small town in Wisconsin to convince a conservative former marine (played by Chris Cooper) to run for mayor as a Democrat, thinking it will help sway middle American voters to come back to the Democrat party after the 2016 election.  Rose Byrne plays a Republican strategist brought in to help re-elect the mayor and keep the Republican base on their side.  Carell and Byrne have great chemistry as long-time rivals, the story is solid (although a little preachy at times), and there are a lot of laughs, especially at the expense of Carell as the “fish out of water big city guy” in a small town.  This was a planned theatrical release that had to move to video on demand.  This is a good time to discuss how VOD has been going the last few months.  Overall some titles have been doing very well, but to me the interesting part will be how the studios handle price point decisions.  Some movies have been released with a price as low as $5 to rent, where some of the bigger titles have been as high as $20.  It’s unchartered territory for the studios to decide what the “right” price is (price elasticity for you economics majors).    Irresistible came out at $20 and I rationalized paying the price because it’s about what we would have paid at a theater for two of us to see it.  But if I’m lukewarm about my desire to see a movie, I’ll wait for the price to come down.  You see, I inherited the frugal gene from my Dad, who used to always say that he’s like the birdies – “Cheap, Cheap, Cheap.”  Irresistible is available to rent on Amazon. 

And One That Didn’t – Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

When I saw this trailer, my first thought was “Yikes, this might be corny”, but decided to give it a shot.  After watching the movie, my first thought was “Netflix will keep writing as many checks as they can to produce new content with big stars.”  If you’re going to go for the silly story, you’ve got to have perfect execution – premise, screenplay, and most importantly, the cast.  The premise here is about the annual music competition Eurovision (which I didn’t realize was a big deal in Europe) and the journey of a musical duo from Iceland who enter the competition.  Will Ferrell (who co-wrote the screenplay) and Rachel McAdams play Fire Saga, the Iceland singers, who everyone agrees are terrible.  They get into the big competition through a technicality and try to prove everyone wrong on their way to the finals.  This movie isn’t terrible – I was just disappointed.  There are a few very funny moments here and there, McAdams is very good, and the Icelandic landscape with beautiful.  I just had a problem with Ferrell and I think it’s because I’m just getting tired of his schtick.  I liked him on Saturday Night Live, and thought Old School and Anchorman were good, but that was over 15 years ago.  He seems to be doing the same old tired act in everything he does these days.   After watching this, I wondered if this would have been better with a different actor in his role, or if Ferrell had done this movie 15 years ago.  While this wasn’t for me, if you love Will Ferrell, you will probably like this one.  Available on Netflix.

Inspiring True Story – The Banker

While we’ve seen movies like this before (underdog beats the odds to persevere and succeed), I really liked this one due primarily to the performances by the lead actors – Anthony Mackie (one of the best in the business these days) and the great Samuel L. Jackson.  Mackie plays a real estate investor, who partners with Jackson’s character to build a real estate and banking business, fighting and dodging racist roadblocks along the way.  This is based on a true story and premiered in March after a tumultuous few months late last year.  The Banker was one of the first films acquired by Apple for its new streaming platform.  Shortly before its scheduled release in December, a story was published that accused the son of Mackie’s character, a co-producer on the film, of sexual abuse.  The release was postponed until March, where it was in theaters for a few weeks before the shutdown.  The Banker is a nice, uplifting story with some good performances.  Available on Apple TV+.

The Nicest Surprise – Driveways

You won’t find any special effects or action sequences in this film.  It’s just a nice, quiet story of a mother, her son and a war veteran, who find each other and develop a nice friendship.  Hong Chau (who won accolades for her role in Downsizing and the recent HBO limited series Watchmen) plays a woman who travels to a small town in New York to clean out the house of her recently deceased sister.  She spends the summer at the house with her young son, who strikes up a friendship with the Korean War vet who lives next door, played by Brian Dennehy, in one of his last roles before he passed away.  The screenplay and the subtle performances of the three lead characters make this a nice movie.  I watched this one through a Virtual Cinema, which is a relatively new process to rent a movie.  Instead of watching through a streaming service, you rent the movie from a website that partners with small theaters around the country.  When you make your purchase, you pick a theater you want to support and that theater gets a portion of your ticket proceeds.  It’s a nice way to help local theaters in these tough times.  I could see the virtual cinema process taking off in the future, but it needs a more streamlined solution – right now it’s a hodgepodge of individual distributors, partnering with different technology platforms, so it’s still a little clunky.  Driveways is now available to rent on Amazon.

Best Filmmaker Debuts – Miss Juneteenth and The Vast of Night 

Whenever I am going into a new movie, I try to find out a little about the plot, but not too much – you want to have a general sense of what to expect, but don’t want to get it spoiled.  I’ll talk more about this next week when I cover one of my favorite movies of the year so far.  One aspect of a film that I like to know about is if it’s a big movie or a small movie and by that label, I mean relative budget size and people involved.  It helps me set my expectations for what I am about to watch.  For instance, I recently discovered Christopher Nolan’s first film, Following.  It was a black and white 70 minute noir film that he made on a shoestring budget.  Knowing that going in, I couldn’t possibly compare it to his bigger films like Inception or Interstellar.  I’ll share more of my thoughts about Nolan’s films down the road if Tenet ever comes out.  I raise this point because, similar to Driveways, these two films were quieter stories that I was able to watch to not only evaluate the story and acting performances, but also the choices the directors made, recognizing the challenges first-time directors face.  Miss Juneteenth is the story of a woman, struggling to make ends meet in Fort Worth, Texas, who tries to relive her glory days as the winner of the Miss Juneteenth pageant by entering her daughter in this year’s contest.  It’s a story of someone coming to grips that her life didn’t turn out how she thought it would, all while trying to establish a connection with her daughter.  Ultimately, she realizes that the connection is there, it just might not be on her original terms.  This is a very good debut by writer-director Channing Godfrey Peoples and features great performances by the leads Nicole Beharie (as the mom) and Alexis Chikaeze (as the daughter).  Available to rent on Amazon.   Another debut that I liked was The Vast of Night, a science-fiction mystery set in a small town in 1950s New Mexico.  It follows two friends – a radio disc jockey (Everett) and a switchboard operator (Fay) who hear a strange sound over a phone line, which could be an extraterrestrial communication.  The two travel around town and investigate the sound, interacting with family members and friends along the way.  What drives this film is not any special effects (despite the premise) – it’s the two main characters interacting in rapid-fire dialogue, and the filmmaking technique, which includes a truly impressive long tracking shot through the town.  An excellent first-time effort from director Andrew Patterson, who also co-wrote the script.  Available on Amazon Prime.

For the Fan of Kick-Ass Action Movies – The Old Guard

We’ll wrap this week up with a fun movie that just came out.  I’m not usually one for action movies or superhero movies, but this one was excellent.  I watched this for two reasons – the first was the great reviews I read when it was released and the second was because Charlize Theron is the lead and she is usually excellent in everything she does.  She plays the leader of a group of immortal warriors who have been helping save lives across the world for centuries.  They discover a new recruit, who has just learned about her abilities and is taken under Theron’s wing when she joins the group.  You may wonder where the suspense could come in when the main characters can’t die – well, they are targeted by a pharmaceutical company who wants to capture them to learn what makes them tick, so they can leverage this knowledge into a profitable endeavor.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this one – it is one of my favorites that I’ve seen this year and will definitely be on the short list of films I will rewatch at some point.  One word of warning – the action sequences are pretty violent and bloody, in case that bothers you.  Available on Netflix.

That’s it for this week – thanks again for reading.  If you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe here.  I’ll be back next week for my last in the series on the year in movies so far, including my favorite films that I’ve seen.