Theatrical Experience - B-A-B-Y Baby Edition - Baby Driver

Baby Driver

Director - Edgar Wright

Writer - Edgar Wright

Starring - Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Lily James

Edgar Wright has retired the car chase movie for his work here simply cannot be topped. Wright and company craft absolutely thrilling car chases completely choreographed to the songs Baby (Elgort) cues up on his iPod in a dazzling display of craftsmanship. Baby Driver opens on a heist and chase scene set to "Bellbottoms" by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion setting the bar for the action to come over the next 100 minutes. And oh boy does it ever clear that bar with each subsequent chase. The action largely comes sparingly in the first two-thirds, occurring only when the story dictates they happen, before the large multi-faceted chase involving seemingly every character that takes the entire final third of the film.

Theatrical Experience - Stupendously Wrong Edition - The Book of Henry

The Book of Henry

Director - Colin Trevorrow

Writer - Gregg Hurwitz

Starring - Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher, Jacob Tremblay, Dean Norris, Sarah Silverman, Lee Pace, Maddie Ziegler

Why yes, that is an image of an 11 year old wearing stupid goggles, an old leather hat with a japanese character holding a plunger outside of his magical forest fort and yes, the film tries to use that outfit to set up its emotional climax. No, I have no idea what anybody on set was thinking. From the director of the upcoming Star Wars Episode IX, Colin Trevorrow (I think every Book of Henry review is legally required to mention that) comes what is easily the worst movie of the year so far. A word of warning, this film is best seen cold so I would encourage you to stop reading now, bookmark this page, see the movie, and then come back. This movie is a fucking avalanche of snowballs of bad ideas rolling down a hill barreling into everything incoherently generally making a giant mess.

Netflix Original #6 - Shimmer Lake

Shimmer Lake

Director - Oren Uziel

Writer - Oren Uziel

Starring - Benjamin Walker, Rainn Wilson, Adam Pally, Rob Corddry, Ron Livingston, Wyatt Russell, John Michael Higgins, Stephanie Sigman

"If I ate your mommy's breakfast I'd end up a fat fucking bastard like everyone else in this town."

Schurmann Score - 8/10

Fifth Paragraph: In which Kyle concludes his review

Shimmer Lake is a film that is shot and plotted as a crime thriller but acted and written as a comedy. It is a tough dynamic to pull off but it largely succeeds. Anchored by a strong cast and some great use of reverse chronology, Oren Uziel's directorial debut is the best Netflix original movie to date that is sure to reward multiple rewatches.

Theatrical Experience - Red Door Edition - It Comes at Night

It Comes at Night

Director - Trey Edward Shults

Writer - Trey Edward Shults

Starring - Joel Edgerton, Carmen Ejogo, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Christopher Abbott, Riley Keough

"But just to be safe the red door stays closed and locked all the time."

It Comes at Night is the new horror film from independent studio A24 (Moonlight, The Witch, 20th Century Women, Ex Machina, pretty much every good movie of the last few years) and much like those movies buck expectations in pursuit of greater things Trey Edward Shults has much more in mind than making a standard claustrophobic horror film. Starting with a cold open that reveals what is at stake and how far Paul (Edgerton) and his family are willing to go to preserve themselves Shults never loses his focus on this unit. Paul, his wife Sarah (Ejogo) and their son Travis (Harrison Jr) form an unbreakable unit that prioritizes their own safety and well being above all else.

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.