Ian Thomas Malone

Monday

7

March 2022

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COMMENTS

A bad scripts sucks all the air out of Ultrasound

Written by , Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

The success of a magic trick largely hinges on the performer’s ability to keep their audience engaged in the theatre of the moment rather than its mechanics. The thriller genre works in very much the same way. A director can orchestrate all the mind games they want, but the puzzle only works if the viewers have bought into the premise long enough for it to land.

Glen (Vincent Kartheiser) finds himself stranded late at night after running over some pesky nails with his car. A local, Art (Bob Stephenson), takes him in for some hospitality and a strange amount of alcohol before suggesting that Glen sleep with his wife Cyndi (Chelsea Lopez). The situation gets much weirder when Art pops up at Glen’s house a few weeks later, claiming that Cyndi is pregnant with his child.

The narrative gets quite confusing when Katie (Rainey Qualley) seemingly subs in as the new protagonist, a supposedly pregnant woman caught up in an affair with Alex (Chris Gartin), a senator in the middle of a re-election campaign. Glen, Cyndi, and Katie are shown to be part of a medical study run by Shannon (Breeda Wool) and Dr. Connors (Tunde Adebimpe), both carrying the aura of professional gaslighters. The warped sense of reality is equally baffling for the audience and the characters ostensibly set up to serve as the leads.

Director Robert Schroeder and writer Conor Stechschulte, who also authored the graphic novel Generous Bosom that serves as the source material, never really find themselves on the same page. Schroeder impresses with his sleek feature, but Ultrasound suffers from a wooden script and poorly developed characters. The actors, particularly Kartheiser and Wool, do their best to breathe life into one-dimensional people, but they’re never really given much to work with.

The first act is quite boring, a missed opportunity to bond the characters to the audience. Things pick up around the halfway mark, with Schroeder able to show off his talent in a genre that’s ripe for his skillset. The cinematography can only carry things so far though, like being at a boring dinner party in a house with beautiful curtains. Distractions can only fuel you for so long before you’re forced to confront the empty hole where there should be an engaging story.

A leaner cut might produce better results. Ultrasound doesn’t have a strong enough foundation to carry its 103-minute runtime. Psychology aficionados might find plenty to enjoy in Schroeder’s interesting themes, but the narrative can’t sustain the puzzle long enough for a general audience to care.

Friday

4

March 2022

0

COMMENTS

The Batman honors The Dark Knight’s humble origins as The World’s Greatest Detective

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Batman has earned his fair share of nicknames since his 1939 debut. Film has made plenty of time for the parts of Bruce Wayne’s persona that fit monikers like “The Caped Crusader” or “The Dark Knight,” but cinematic depictions of Batman rarely center on the work that earned him the title of “The World’s Greatest Detective.” DC Comics itself owes its name to the impact of its flagship title, Detective Comics, where Gotham’s first son cut his teeth on procedural work rather than punching matches with superpowered villains.

Director Matt Reeves finally provides Batman with a noir mystery fit for the man’s reputation. A Halloween-themed series of murders by The Riddler (Paul Dano) leaves a trail of clues for Batman (Robert Pattinson) and James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) to follow, hoping to foil the puzzle master’s grander ambitions.  The Riddler sets his sights on Gotham’s elite, hoping to snuff out of the corruption of Gotham’s political institutions and police department at the hands of organized crime, particularly Carmine Falcone (John Turturo) and his right-hand man Oswald Cobblepot (Colin Farrell), better known as The Penguin.

The world does not need another Batman origin story, but Reeves breathes so much life into the early days of the Detective’s early career. Set about two years into his mission, Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is not the “billionaire playboy” often depicted on screen. Bruce is hardly much of a person at all, a shell of a man struggling to find his identity outside of the costume, much to the chagrin of his butler and confidant Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis).

Reeves strikes closer to the core of Batman’s ethos than any other live-action depiction, a noir mystery ripe for Gotham’s murky confines. Bruce Wayne lives his life based on a vow he made in the wake of unimaginable horror, before he was even a teenager. There’s a certain absurdity to that reality that Batman films are reluctant to explore. Batman is not someone to idolize, forever doomed to his unwinnable war against crime. He is less a hero than an addict.

Pattinson puts forth an absolutely delicious performance. Carrying the weight of uncertainty that hangs over most thirty-somethings trying to find their places in the world, his Bruce chases the high of crime-fighting while slowly grappling with the reality that life cannot be sustained by mere thrills alone. While the film offers Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz) as a potential romantic interest, Batman’s true love in the film is James Gordon, the sole cop to buy into his vigilante mission, not yet the commissioner that Gotham needs him to be.

The film moves with a breezy pace through an overstuffed 176-minute runtime. While Farrell and Turturo make the most of limited screen time to establish their mob underworld, Kravitz barely gets a chance to make her mark as Catwoman, lacking Kyle’s signature suave sense of confidence. While Reeves is clearly saving some powder for future sequels, the third act is far too lackadaisical in its delivery, excessively circling the runway before the credits finally roll.

While all of the principals deliver top-notch performances, Dano’s Riddler begs for a larger piece of the pie than Reeves is ever willing to offer. The overstuffed cast of villains denies its meatiest player much of a role, an interesting take on the idea of less being more. Dano absolutely crushes every single second of his screen time. Batman villains are often defined by excess, but Dano delights in a minimalist take that finds genuine terror in his grounded reflection of reality.

The Batman is a triumph for comic book diehards. Reeves treats his source material with such obvious affection. His depiction of Gotham isn’t quite as cartoonish as Burton’s beautiful sets, nor overly reflective of the real world like Nolan’s. Reeves’ Gotham has a distinct sense of ugliness to its grit, the kind of careful consideration that colorists strive to maintain on each page. There is no “singular” take on Batman, whether on screen or in the comics, but Reeves is clearly striving to be counted among the many artists who have built up Detective Comics over its more than one thousand issues.

Bruce Wayne forever tries to hide his own vulnerability, while never really growing out of the child who watched his own parents’ murder in Crime Alley. Pattinson wears that anguish with every expression, a rare sensitivity sheathed from most leading men in blockbuster films. The world could use with more vulnerability from its costumed adventures. The Batman is a powerful show of force for the genre, displaying the artistic heights one can achieve when deviating from the cookie-cutter formula. You don’t need a shared universe, not when there’s a perfectly good story to soak up the runtime.

Friday

25

February 2022

0

COMMENTS

The Book of Boba Fett never makes the leap from product to art

Written by , Posted in Blog, Pop Culture, Star Wars, TV Reviews

Science fiction often carries its greatest impact through the genre’s ability to invoke a sense of awe and wonder. The cantina scene in the original Star Wars practically changed cinema all its own, a dazzling display of creativity and world-building. Throughout his time at the helm of the franchise, George Lucas placed a heavy emphasis on world-building, to take his audience to places they’ve never seen before.

Disney loves its piles of rocks and sand. As if Tatooine wasn’t enough of a remote desert wasteland, Star Wars threw cheap knockoffs Jakku and Navarro at the audience to switch things up. There’s a certain obvious joke to be made at how Boba Fett saw the show that bears his name co-opted by The Mandalorian, but it was never really his show in the first place. The Book of Boba Fett was always The Book of Tatooine.

Why go to another planet when you can film a whole season using only a sandbox and a green screen? Seven episodes is hardly a long season, but Disney struggled to come up with enough plot for even that amount for its empty shell of a show, choosing instead to give up halfway through in favor of The Mandalorian season 2.5. Apparently that’s life in the streaming era. When things aren’t working, just make episodes of a different show and pretend it’s still The Book of Boba Fett. The whole mess is certainly fitting for a character who had four lines in the original trilogy.

Temuera Morrison can hardly be faulted for an occasionally wooden performance. The Book of Boba Fett never laid out any clear vision for what it wanted Fett to be, a menacing bounty hunter turned morally righteous crime lord. Ming-Na Wen gets even less to work with as Fennec Shand, an alliance seemingly born solely out of the idea that she might be fun for the spin-off.

It’s easy to see the logic. Morrison and Wen have a natural, easy chemistry that was pretty apparent from their first pairing. The premise of the show should have followed suit, staying out of its own way to let two bounty hunters do what they do best. Instead, the gang plot often played second fiddle to Fett’s silly Sarlacc and Tusken Raider flashbacks, dragging down a narrative that never seemed to find its footing. The show even managed to botch introducing a character like Black Krrsantan, popularized in Kieron Gillen’s excellent Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra comics, neutering the wookie in service to absurdly silly Mos Espa politics.

There was something oddly depressing about watching Fett and Mando stand in a wide-open street being shot at during the finale, a fitting metaphor for the state of Star Wars under the Disney regime. Both men could easily use their jet packs to seek more advantageous tactical positions, but they don’t, for no reason at all. Too often, The Book of Boba Fett comes across as the product of a brainstorming session that lasted five minutes, with no critical thought or pushback applied to a single decision.

Disney left its content farm out in Tatooine’s suns for far too long, a wilted mess of a commodity masquerading as a television show. What a sad showing, not just for Star Wars, but for art itself. There is no reason on the planet why this show needed to be this bad.

Boba Fett is not the most interesting character in the world. He barely qualifies as an actual character in the original trilogy, an enigma that lent itself well to stories children play with their action figures. That kind of dynamic could have worked well for The Book of Boba Fett, especially with the Nikto gang and their ridiculous speeder bikes that look like toys from a different playset. You could probably make better Boba Fett stories in a local playground sandbox, which just needs a green screen to complete the Tatooine look.

All blockbuster franchises are products, even the ones that are crafted with love. That’s the problem with The Book of Boba Fett. It never looks like something anyone enjoyed making. Star Wars doesn’t need an artistic mandate, but maybe a little effort would be nice. It’s hard not to feel sad that this abomination exists.

Thursday

24

February 2022

0

COMMENTS

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Written by , Posted in Podcast, Star Wars

Grab your porgs and your blue milk! The Last Jedi is a bit of a polarizing film, to say the least. Rian Johnson brought plenty of fascinating ideas to the sequel trilogy’s middle entry, its best by a mile. Ian talks about what she liked about the film, what she would have changed, and the characterization of Luke Skywalker, diving a bit into Luke’s appearances in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.

Ian’s original 2017 review of the film: https://ianthomasmalone.com/2017/12/the-last-jedi-offers-aimless-entertainment/

Ian’s write up of The Phantom Menace that is mentioned in the episode: https://fansided.com/2019/12/16/star-wars-phantom-menace-best-prequel/

 

Wednesday

23

February 2022

0

COMMENTS

Jackass Forever has a lot to teach film franchises about growing up

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Nostalgia wields more capital in entertainment than ever before. Remakes, reboots, and sequels are concepts that have been around for many decades in Hollywood, but the demands of the content mill hoisted up by the streaming industrial complex force additional burdens on what has always been a fairly risk-averse industry. The question of necessity is irrelevant. Jackass is inevitable.

The beauty of Johnny Knoxville’s world is the way he’s fostered a sense of genuine community within his irreverent band of merry pranksters. More than twenty years have passed since the original Jackass TV series ignited a right-wing culture storm against MTV. Most of the cast wear their age on their faces, except maybe Steve-O, who looks better than ever as he approaches fifty. Jackass has always been more than just the pranks, giving their audience reasons to invest in these characters as people.

Director Jeff Tremaine pulls off an incredible feat in Jackass Forever, a production clearly severely restrained by the COVID-19 pandemic. There are no party boy scenes through crowded Tokyo streets, or elaborate stunts designed to bewilder hordes of unsuspecting civilians. Almost all the pranks take place on closed sets, but the production never feels constrained, not when the cast and crew take such joy in every minute of the film’s 96-minute runtime.

The original nine cast members are down two, following the 2011 death of Ryan Dunn and the more recent dismissal of Bam Margera, who makes a brief appearance in the film. Newcomers Jasper Dolphin, Sean “Poopies” McInerney, Zach Holmes, Rachel Wolfson, and Eric Manaka blend in perfectly with the chemistry of the original crew. The narrative isn’t too concerned with passing the baton, not when Knoxville and Tremaine take such pleasure in torturing Ehren McGhehey, Dave England, and Jason “Wee Man” Acuña through more than a few stunts you’d think would have been pawned off on the rookies.

Jackass Forever harnesses the spirit of the franchise with its eyes set squarely on the present. More than a few major franchises should take note of the way Tremaine and Knoxville navigate their own lore. Chris Pontius at one point notes that the older guys have paid their dues, but all frat houses need to put on a show to get people to come to the party. The Jackass crew keep innovating, refusing to rest on the laurels of nostalgia they’ve crafted over the past twenty years.

There’s a certain beauty in the way that Jackass blends the old with the new. You can theoretically put just about anyone up on a chair to get punched in the nuts by MMA legend Francis Ngannou, but the laughs hit harder from a place of comradery. It might feel a little weird to think of the Jackass crew as a family, but that’s the spirit of the home that Dickhouse Productions built. It feels good to see these guys again, knowing that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Time is catching up to Knoxville and the crew. The mishaps are a bit harder to watch, knowing the mileage that the performers have put on their bodies. More than a decade removed from Jackass 3D, Tremaine understood the necessity of new faces to help recapture the franchise’s spirit that helped define popular culture in the post-9/11 era. You can play around with nostalgia without being stuck in the past. Jackass Forever proves how much gas this series has left in the tank, even as many of the performers would be wise to cut down on hospital visits at their ages.

Friday

18

February 2022

0

COMMENTS

Law & Order hasn’t changed a bit

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Streaming television barely existed when the original Law & Order wrapped up its first run in 2010. For all the ways the TV landscape has changed in the past twelve years, the broadcast networks have still largely carried on with business as usual. NBC deprived Law & Order of the chance to surpass Gunsmoke as the longest-running live-action series of all time, a milestone later toppled by its own spinoff, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Longevity has become quite common on network television, with many shows within reach of a record that held for more than four decades.

Crime procedurals, a genre older than television itself, remain network television’s bread and butter. Whatever threats streaming posed to lucrative syndication packages haven’t exactly stifled their population, an abundant modern landscape that owes much to Dick Wolf and the format he perfected. Law & Order returns to a television world that’s largely still defined by its legacy.

There have been dozens of reboots, revivals, and sequel series over the past few years, an industry increasingly looking to nostalgia rather than innovation. The rigidity of Law & Order’s format hardly allows the show to spend much time looking inward at its own zeitgeist, not when investigation and prosecution have to share the same single episode. There simply isn’t time for the kind of existential introspection other shows like And Just Like That are forced to confront.

Dick Wolf assembled a pretty impressive cast for his revival. Longtime TV veterans Camryn Manheim, Hugh Dancy, and Jeffrey Donovan join L&O veterans Sam Waterston and Anthony Anderson. The main cast is rounded out by Odelya Halevi, the sole relative unknown performer, an unusual dynamic for a series with a format so recognizable that it’s hardly in need of star power.

There is much to enjoy in seeing so many TV stars play within the rigid confines of Law & Order’s meticulous structure. The pacing is a bit off, particularly with the detectives, whose scenes feel quite rushed. The original L&O has never cared much for character development, especially compared to SVU or entries in Wolf’s related Chicago franchise, putting strain on efforts to define Donovan’s Detective Frank Cosgrove as a shady cop willing to skirt professional lines to nail a suspect.

Efforts to comment on police brutality and racial injustice largely land with a thud. No one should be surprised that Law & Order remains unabashedly pro-cop, albeit from a position of increased self-awareness. The awkward balancing act between the blue line and the show’s penchant for “ripped from the headlines” social issues is most apparent through Anderson and Donovan’s awkward chemistry, the latter channeling his Burn Notice flair a bit too often when everyone else seems to have understood the assignment.

Dancy is the real standout of the twenty-first season. As ADA Nolan Price, Dancy has a bit more space to explore the philosophy of justice than the detectives, a far meatier role than what’s tolerated for Manheim, Anderson, and Donovan. Waterston predictably hasn’t lost a beat as McCoy, enjoying the backseat role of DA that he assumed in the original one’s final few years.

Resisting evolution at all costs, Law & Order’s top-notch cast gives viewers more than enough reason to tune in for the revival. It is the exact same show it’s always been, perhaps armed with too impressive an arsenal of performers for a bare-boned procedural. The actors bring their A-game in service to largely one-dimensional characters.

The show nailed its one mandatory objective for a revival. This feels exactly like old-school Law & Order. The cast is way more stacked than it needs to be, but that’s also part of the beauty. TV doesn’t need more Law & Order the same way it doesn’t need more seasons of SVU, NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy, or any other show that’s gone on way too long. Necessity doesn’t factor into this equation.

It’s not perfect, but it is very fun. Law & Order reminds its viewers of the simple pleasure of sitting down in front of your TV for an hour of predictable, satisfying entertainment. There are better shows out there, but there’s a reason L&O airs a billion times a day. Like a perfect black dress, Dick Wolf reminds us that classic never goes out of style.

Tuesday

15

February 2022

0

COMMENTS

Transgender Storytime: Breakups

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We’re back! ITM talks about some personal news that rocked her post-Rankin/Bass holiday festivities. Breakups are terrible. Transgender people can go through much of our lives thinking we’re unlovable, which certainly does not reflect reality. ITM offers some reflections that might be useful for trans or cis people in similar boats. There’s always a new adventure on the horizon, as long as you keep throwing yourself out there.

Episode image is a picture taken two days after the bombshell news. 

Wednesday

26

January 2022

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Blood

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Grief is a challenging subject to depict on film. The confines of a feature-length runtime can rarely capture the grating, all-encompassing dread that feels like it can go on forever. Films cannot go on forever, a notion that the movie Blood seems desperate to challenge.

Chloe (Carla Juri) is a recently widowed photographer living in Japan for a job. An old friend Toshi (Takashi Ueno), a musician, offers a quiet of companionship as Chloe slowly works her way through her grief. Despite the language barrier, Chloe finds connections in her growing community, often through a dance class or conversations with friends, even when the whole party can’t necessarily understand every word.

Director Bradley Rust Gray marches to the beat of his own drum through the narrative, loose strands of plot that only loosely come together to form a cohesive story. The slice-of-life format has a few plot lines throughout the 111-minute runtime, but Gray is mostly concerned with the quiet moments in Chloe’s journey. Life doesn’t fit neatly into boxes.

Blood is singularly focused in its purpose. Gray’s style is bound to rub people the wrong way, but there is plenty of beauty in his confident work. In some cases, he’s a bit overconfident, particularly toward the third act, which revisits many of his earlier themes without bringing anything new to the table.

There are several points where it’s easy to get frustrated by the glacier-slow pacing dragged out by an indulgent runtime. Blood is often quite boring. When you’re trying to move on in life, sometimes boring is just what you need.

It’s not perfectly true to say that Gray’s ends justify the means. The film should definitely cut at least fifteen minutes to fix the pacing issues, but the drawn-out sequences do enhance the special moments, capturing the subtle power of recovery in action or the power of human nature to connect in spite of whatever barriers stand in the way. There’s no formula to grief, certainly no a-ha moment where all the pain goes away.

There is, however, a day where things feel better than the last. Gray’s narrative understands that simple truth. Blood isn’t going to be for everyone. It’s a beautifully shot film that shines with its themes. Juri and Ueno are so sweet together, with an effortless sense of chemistry. The film isn’t the easiest experience in the world, but the performances and the cinematography serve the themes in such a way that makes you glad you put in the effort to sit through it.

Tuesday

25

January 2022

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Am I OK?

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Thirty used to represent some kind of milestone, however arbitrary, for the time in life when you’re sort of supposed to have your affairs mildly figured out, least in theory. The real world doesn’t really work that way. There’s no timer that starts buzzing if you find yourself growing old without a semblance of stability. The film Am I Ok? spends its runtime floating around this orbit, trying to make sense of a world that never has any easy answers.

Lucy (Dakota Johnson) works as a receptionist at a spa, a thirty-two-year-old who approaches life with the cautious reservation of someone just out of college. Lucy struggles to open up to anyone other than her best friend Jane (Sonoya Mizuno), who’s got a steady boyfriend and a cozy marketing job. Jane tries to help Lucy break out of her shell, particularly with regard to her sexuality. Jane’s company offers her an enticing opportunity across the pond in her native London, threatening to upend the most important relationship in either woman’s life.

Most of the narrative focuses on Lucy’s sexual exploration. She bonds with a flirty coworker Britt (Kiersey Clemons), the kind of bubbly type A personality that makes for a perfect crush. Despite Johnson and Mizuno’s new-perfect chemistry, directors Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne keep the two separated for much of the narrative, perhaps a necessary decision for Lucy’s growth that unfortunately blunts a bit of the film’s abundant charm.

LGBTQ audiences deserve material that advances our storytelling beyond the rudimentary mechanics of coming out narratives, which have been grossly over-represented in film. It’s not completely fair to label Am I OK? as a coming-out film, belonging more to the broader coming-of-age genre. From a plot perspective, Notaro and Allynne offer up little to distinguish their film from countless other quirky indie stories we’ve all seen before.

Johnson ensures that whatever Am I OK? lacks in originality is made up for with the film’s abundant heart. Notaro and Allyne approach their story with such love and care that the breezy 86-minute runtime flies by. This film is not destined to blow many people away, but it’s bound to charm its audience through its rock-solid execution.

Notaro is one of the most gifted minds currently crafting comedy, a thoughtful, welcoming voice in this often-jaded modern landscape. The writing in Am I OK? lacks any real substantive on what it means to rediscover your sexuality in your thirties, a shame considering the talent behind the camera. Perhaps fitting given its title, the film never really strives to be more than just okay. A charming experience, if not a bit of a shame.

Tuesday

25

January 2022

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Palm Trees and Power Lines

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It can be really easy to look at a toxic relationship, one of your own or maybe a friend’s, in hindsight and wonder how the hell any of that mess came to exist in the first place. The world is full of manipulative men with keen understandings of the mechanics of grooming. The film Palm Trees and Power Lines takes its audience on a step-by-step journey through these ugly, all-too-common scenarios.

Lea (Lily McInerny) is a quiet seventeen-year-old living in a boring coastal town in Southern California. The weather is great, leaving tanning and swimming as the sole bits of respite from the anxieties that often define one’s teenage years. Lea’s friend group is pretty unspectacular, especially the boys, who can’t even make it through a diner meal without reminding the world of their glaring immaturity.

One night, after being stuck with the diner tab after the boys ran out, Lea meets Tom (Jonathan Tucker), who offers her a ride home. Despite being double her age, Tom takes an interest in Lea, a courtship full of predictable red flags. The inherent creepiness of the situation never quite disappears from the screen, but Tom is charming enough to kind of set himself apart in a town with literally nothing else to offer.

Director Jamie Dack focuses her narrative on the banality of evil. Tom is a quiet sort of monster, a kind face that masks a graduate degree in gaslighting. Tucker pours his heart and soul into the role, keeping an undercurrent of tension flowing through Dack’s glacier-paced film.

Making her feature film debut, McInerny delivers a powerfully reserved performance that’s absolutely perfect for the narrative. Lea is an extremely frustrating character, full of bad decisions that make you want to yell at the TV, yet McInerny always sells the inherent plausibility of this train wreck of a relationship.

Dack seems to have set out with the singular goal of answering the age-old questions that always seem to pop up after these disasters unfold. “How could you not have known?” The 110-minute runtime uses practically every second to take the audience step-by-step into precisely how someone falls under the spell of an absolute monster.

Painfully effective in its messaging, Dack undercuts her feature with a bloated runtime that diminishes her leads’ incredible performances. Palm Trees and Power Lines accomplishes its goals in a way that eludes most features that set out to educate rather than entertain. It is a tremendous piece of filmmaking that would land a let better with twenty minutes shaved off its second half. Dack never quite knows when she’s already achieved her points.

In many ways, Palm Trees and Power Lines dares to be hated. Lea receives almost no character development, a dynamic hardly helped by a half-baked subplot involving her mother (Gretchen Mol). The narrative doesn’t exactly need to work hard to sell its seventeen-year-old grooming victim to the audience, but Dack’s feature is also a bit too bare-bones for its length, growing tedious when it should be moving.

Dack’s work finds itself belonging to the category of moving films you’d never want to watch a second time. The flawed execution can make it pretty hard to watch a first as well, but McInerny and Tucker find ample opportunities to reward the audience’s patience. Dack has such a firm grasp on her intentions, an impressive piece of filmmaking. Palm Trees and Power Lines won’t be for everyone, but the arduous journey does come with its payoffs.