Netflix Original #5 - War Machine

War Machine

Director - David Michod

Writer - David Michod

Starring - Brad Pitt, Anthony Michael Hall, Topher Grace, John Magaro, Emory Cohen, Scoot McNairy

"It's considered, in our culture, a very bad thing to fuck your own mother."

Netflix invested $60 million in this movie. They went out and got a megastar for it. They have promoted the shit out of it, especially compared to the previous movies I've reviewed here. It's got a killer premise: satirical look at the failures of the War in Afghanistan focused on a general stubbornly attempting to make the US plan work. It's got a great cast. In addition to the above names the following people make appearances; Ben Kingsley, Tilda Swinton, Will Poulter, Keith Stanfield, RJ Cyler, Meg Tilly and Josh Stewart. I think you can guess the overall quality of the this film merely by the way I listed all these facts.

Theatrical Experience - Xenomorph Edition - Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Director - Ridley Scott

Writers - John Logan, Dante Harper, Jack Paglen and Michael Green

Starring - Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, Billy Crudup, Amy Seimetz, Demian Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, James Franco

"We don't leave Earth to be safe."

Programming Note: I'm doing something a little different with this post. The first half is going to be a standard review going over the basics of the film and the second half with be a spoilery section because I want to talk about stuff in this movie and this is my blog so I'm going to just do it.

Alien: Covenant or Alien: Michael Fassbender follows in the footsteps of Prometheus in combining larger world-building and philosophizing with the horror thrills expected from an Alien movie. While it still has a few problems Prometheus had, namely characters still make some questionable decisions though none are as egregious as many of the ones from Prometheus. It also doubles the amount of Michael Fassbender giving his a second role, Walter, in addition to a return of David.

Franchise Fast Forward - Alien

Welcome to Franchise Fast Forward a new feature here at the Schurmann Film Blog in which I run thru an entire franchise in quick succession. Look for these periodically whenever I feel like it (as with any and all features and posts here). Up first, to celebrate the release of Alien: Covenant, the Alien franchise. Before you read this and then complain about the lack of the Alien vs. Predator movies let me remind you that a) they suck and b) I'm not gettinior this. So if you really want my thoughts on those terrible movies I'm open to negotiations.

Netflix Original #4 - Mindhorn

Mindhorn

Director - Sean Foley

Writers - Julian Barratt and Simon Farnaby

Starring - Julian Barratt, Essie Davis, Andrea Riseborough, Simon Farnaby, Steve Coogan

"Shoes going on. Shoes on."

Hot Fuzz, Bojack Horseman, The Grinder

Those are the three great comedic achievements that I was reminded of while watching Mindhorn. In this film a washed up actor living the delusional bubble of acclaim about his terrible show that ended 25 years ago (Bojack Horseman) about a fictional police detective gets a call to action to help the real police solve a real crime (The Grinder) in a small British community wherein the scope of the crime is eventually revealed to be far greater than anybody imagined through a generally comedic investigation headed by an outsider to the community (Hot Fuzz). I would love to tell you that Mindhorn lives up to the expectations created by that mess of a sentence because a movie that manages to blend those different threads together would basically be my favourite movie of all time but this one falls well short.

Netflix Original #3 - Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie

Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie

Director - Jeff Garlin

Writers - Jeff Garlin and Andrea Seigel

Starring - Jeff Garlin, Natasha Lyonne, Christine Woods, Timm Sharp, Steven Weber

"You see this guy here, sure but is that the whole story, I mean how do we know this guy doesn't work at a rental car place near the airport, alright, and it's his boss's last day, maybe that guy's name is Roger, Roger loves to golf so he and all his coworkers dress up like Roger, golfers, and you know what Roger always wanted to do, skydivings, so they all get in a car, go over to the airstrip and they get in a skydivings place, they get up to 20000 feet and they get into an argument, maybe it's about a girl, maybe it's about who had the right recipe for a veggie chili, we don't know the answer to that yet, but then an argument breaks out, this guy gets strangled, he gets thrown out of the skydivings place, guess where he lands, of all places, golf course, case closed."

Jeff Garlin considers himself so ugly that the only way he can get people to call him handsome is to write, direct and star in a movie in which his character is literally named "Handsome." You'd think a guy who hangs out with Larry David would have a better self-image. In Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie Garlin plays a homicide detective investigating the murder of his new neighbor's babysitter with the help his partner Det. Scozzari (Lyonne). Ostensibly this is a comedic detective story but the humour is so bland and predictable and the direction so inert and lifeless that it comes across as the longest, most boring pilot for next fall's new hour long detective show on CBS that nobody you know watches.

Theatrical Experience - Palme d'Or Winner Edition - I, Daniel Blake

I, Daniel Blake

Director - Ken Loach

Writer - Paul Laverty

Starring - Dave Johns, Hayley Squires

"It's a monumental farce, isn't it? You sitting there with your friendly name tag on your chest, Ann, opposite a sick man looking for nonexistent jobs, that I can't take anyway."

Ken Loach's Palme d'Or winning I, Daniel Blake is an exercise in crafting sympathy for a protagonist against a supreme, uncaring, systematic antagonist. It is the tale of Daniel Blake (Johns), an old, but not-quite-elderly widowed carpenter recovering from a heart attack who finds himself not cleared for work from his doctors but denied Employment and Support Allowance by a "health care professional" who believes he is not ailing enough to qualify for benefits. Daniel finds himself repeated railing against the welfare system being thrown through various hoops until he can take it no more. This is at it's heart a simple, effective story where we as the audience feel for the plight of the common man against the faceless entity denying him what he rightfully deserves and yet, on the screen it doesn't quite work that way.