Review: "Irresistible"

I always thought Jon Stewart was overrated as a TV fake news host, but he’s turning out to be a pretty decent filmmaker.

His fine directorial effort, “Rosewater,” had an international backdrop and didn’t get seen by too many people. Stewart’s second, “Irresistible,” is a sharp political satire that takes aim at the money, hype and competition-for-competition’s-sake mentality that drives our electoral system.

Political comedy/dramas are a fraught cinematic subspecies that’s been historically hit or miss, and as a result have fallen out of favor these days. “Long Shot,” “Vice” and “The Campaign” are the only ones I can immediately recall from the last few years, and they range from decent-ish to plain awful.

Stewart (who also wrote the screenplay) manages to avoid a big pitfall by casting Steve Carell as the lead, a scheming Democratic campaign veteran named Gary Zimmer. Gary represents pretty much everything wrong with American politics, and yet we can’t help liking him. It’s tough to march through an entire movie not being able to stand your main character.

As the story opens, the Hillary Clinton campaign has crashed to earth and the Democratic party is in a shambles, looking for any kind of win. Gary, who used to work for Bill, comes up with the idea of backing a conservative-leaning candidate in the heartland to show everybody the Dems can have a broad tent that includes guys with pickups and rifles.

When Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper) makes an impassioned speech at his town council about not excluding illegal immigrants and a video of it goes viral, Gary knows he’s found his man. Jack looks straight of central casting in the Gary Cooper mold -- a farmer, retired Marine colonel and widower, doesn’t talk a lot but is a fountain of homespun wisdom when he does.

(Though I’ve never met a farmer who uses that much hair product.)

Soon Gary has arrived in tiny Deerwaken, Wis., to convince Jack to run for mayor against the incumbent (Brent Sexton). Jack resists, but agrees on one condition: that Gary himself run the campaign. Soon Gary has brought his entire army of high-priced consultants, pollsters and other experts to run a Senate-level campaign in a town of 5,000 people.

The first half or so of the movie is fun and light and terrific. Stewart gleefully mocks pretty much everybody, from both political parties to the hapless media, who are depicted as being like that dog from “Up” -- clueless and easily distracted. Meanwhile, the townsfolk are authentic and humble and nice as pie.

I appreciated “Irresistible” for not always choosing the most obvious direction, like having Gary go all “Local Hero” and fall in love with the backward ways (to jet-setters like him) of Wisconsin. There’s also a bit of romantic interest with Jack’s plucky daughter, Diana (Mackenzie Davis), who likes to point out Gary’s condescending ways with a smile and some light flirting. She’s a lot younger than Gary, but Hollywood has its ways of glossing over such things.

Probably the film’s biggest failing is re-introducing the character of Faith Brewster, an utterly soulless GOP operative played by Rose Byrne. She beat Gary in the last election, and midway through the movie arrives with her own forces to put down Jack’s nascent campaign, because apparently flipping one mayoral seat in Wisconsin will start a national trend, or something.

Gary and Faith once had a thing with each other, so it immediately becomes a tit-for-tat exchange -- Faith brings in some big-name donors, so Gary does too, etc. Lots of insults and sexual innuendo fly around. It all has a very sitcom-y feel and belongs in another, lesser movie.

Holding it all together is Carell, who has that rare, mysterious ability to play off-putting (“The Office”) or even nasty (“Vice”) characters and come across as appealing. Gary is a jerk, but (unlike Faith) he’s a jerk who doesn’t realize he’s being a jerk, and if it’s pointed out to him can be redeemed, if only for a while.

Stewart gets a little preachy and self-righteous toward the end because, well, he’s Jon Stewart and that’s his bag. But missteps aside I found “Irresistible” to be a fun, smart and even occasionally delightful send-up of a problem everybody sees but pretends not to.

Review: "Tully"

Director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody broke out together with the release of “Juno” 11 years ago, establishing themselves as important filmmakers while still in their 20s. Their follow-up together, 2011’s “Young Adult,” starring Charlize Theron as a woman stuck on life’s launching pad, disappointed.

Since then, their careers have fluttered in fading notoriety, with Reitman’s “Labor Day” becoming a cinematic laughing stock -- unfairly, imho -- while Cody has largely moved to television (which isn’t the big step down it used to be).

They’re back for a third time, again with Theron, for “Tully.” I don’t know if it will revive their names as A-list filmmakers, but it’s a smart and sensitive portrait of the trials of motherhood, along with a few developments we don’t see coming.

It’s a brave and unexpected movie, and Theron is magnificent in another career-turning role.

After getting lean and spare to play a one-armed warrior in “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Theron reportedly gained 50 pounds to portray Marlo, a woman of about age 40 who is giving birth to her third (unplanned) child. At first I thought it was very convincing prosthetics, but the former model went all the way to personify a very convincing postpartum body.

At one point, a completely frazzled Marlo has a drink spilled on her while eating dinner with the children, as her husband, Drew (Ron Livingston), returns from another of many business trips. Completely at the end of her rope, she nonchalantly strips off the sopping shirt to reveal a mammoth maternity bra and mottled belly.

“Mommy, what’s wrong with your body?” her oldest, Sarah (Lia Frankland), asks in the sweetest tone.

In addition to the baby, Marlo also struggles with her kindergartner, Jonah (Asher Miles Fallica), who has serious anxiety issues that cause him to be a disruption at school, and everywhere. The fact he’s undiagnosed, but universally described as “quirky,” only heightens the challenge.

Marlo and Drew have a typical three-kids relationship: someone’s always coming or going, they’re always running late and marital intimacy has been moved to the back burner, and then off the burner to the counter, and then put away in the fridge. Drew seems like a decent guy, but he works all the time, and when he’s home he’s helping with the kids or playing video games.

The primary relationship in the story is between Marlo and Tully, the young “night nanny” who has been hired by Marlo’s wealthy brother (Mark Duplass) as a baby shower gift. This is a person who takes care of the baby so mom and dad can sleep.

(Well, let’s face it, dads: so mom can sleep.)

Tully, played by Mackenzie Davis, is energetic and earnest, endlessly helpful and supportive. She not only watches the baby, she cleans up the house and bakes cupcakes, too. And she initiates a friendship with Marlo that allows the mom to perk up out of her litany of exhaustion and underappreciation.

There’s a lot of bright humor in the film, courtesy of Cody. I loved this exchange in which the two women discuss Marlo’s pre-marriage sex life:

“I rode every horse on the merry-go-round.”
“So which horse is Drew?”
“Drew is… the bench.”

I don’t want to give away too much, but suffice it to say the new friendship proceeds in surprising ways. Marlo struggles with the monotony of parenthood, but Tully advises her that kids need their moms to be “dull and constant.”

I have a number of married friends who have chosen not to have children. “Tully” is the sort of movie that would only validate their decisions, as it depicts parenthood in all its horrible, depressing, exhilarating glory. The truth is Furioso may have been tougher than Mad Max, but someone like Marlo is more than their match.
 

Video review: "Blade Runner 2049"

“Blade Runner 2049” was my favorite film of 2014, mostly because “Blade Runner” is one of my most cherished movies ever, and I did not expect any sequel to do it justice. So I was gobsmacked to encounter a film that is a completely seamless revisit to the dystopian future envisioned by author Philip K. Dick, now 30 years further down a dark road.

Two things usually doom sequels: being too bold, or not bold enough. Most go the latter way, simply trying to reboot all the elements that made the first movie a success, without really moving the ball downfield from a storytelling example. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is a good recent example, as it’s basically a remake of “A New Hope.”

When other filmmakers take over a franchise, they often want to put their own stamp on it, coming up with crazy concoctions that don’t mesh with the original material. This was the danger with “Blade Runner 2049,” with Denis Villeneuve taking over the director’s chair from Ridley Scott.

And yet the new movie looks, feels and sounds very much like the child of “Blade Runner.” Once again, it’s set in a world where bioengineered “replicants” serve as the virtual slaves of an uncaring human populous. Ryan Gosling plays K, a replicant Los Angeles police detective who’s really little more than a paid assassin of other “skin jobs” like himself who have wandered off the plantation.

He uncovers a plot that takes him right up to the very top of the corridors of power, where mega-tycoon Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) wants to launch the replicant trade to off-world markets. His very able assistant, Luv (an arresting Sylvia Hoeks), is put onto the case.

Harrison Ford returns as Deckard, the iconic blade runner from the first film, whom K encounters about halfway through in a clash of generations that’s every bit as electric as we’d hoped.

Ana de Armas plays Joi, K’s holographic “wife.” Manufactured by Niander’s omnipresent corporation, we suspect that Joi is merely another construct designed to keep the replicant workforce docile. But their love seems very real, indeed.

Beautifully shot by cinematographer Roger Deakins – his long-delayed Academy Award seems finally assured – “Blade Runner 2049” is a beautiful, disturbing look into a future that at times seems all too plausible.

Video bonus features are quite expansive, with a decent amount of goodies on the DVD version and even more for the Blu-ray combo pack.

The DVD includes six making-of mini-documentaries that combine together to form “Blade Runner 101.” These include “Blade Runners,” “The Replicant Evolution,” “The Rise of Wallace Corp,” “Welcome to 2049,” “Joi” and “Within the Skies.”

Upgrade to the Blu-ray, and you add another special feature, “Designing the World of Blade Runner 2049.”

Most intriguing are three prologue pieces that explore the world between 2019, when the original “Blade Runner” was set, and the new one we see. They are “2022: Black Out,” “2036: Nexus Dawn” and “2048: Nowhere to Run.”

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Review: "Blade Runner 2049"

The truth: I didn’t really want a “Blade Runner” sequel.

Just as I did not want to see a live-action version of “The Lord of the Rings,” or a reboot of the “Mad Max” franchises. And yet I love those movies now, offshoots of things I cherished as a youngster -- edging to the point of favoring the new over the old, if my middle-aged self was unflinchingly honest with my teen me.

So: “Blade Runner 2049” is the finest film I’ve seen this 2017.

It’s brilliant, disturbing, sad, beautiful, tragic and filled with tempered joy. It continues the journey of a dystopian, not-so-distant future of bioengineered humans made to be servants of genuine ones, and how each struggles at the shackles that bind them together.

This is the rare sequel that is an extension which is both logically and emotionally sound. Having watched it, I can’t imagine it beginning, or ending, another way.

The film manages to introduce us to a new hunter of replicants, played by Ryan Gosling, while reuniting us with Deckard, as Harrison Ford reprises one of his most indelible roles. “I had your job once… I was good at it,” Deckard taunts upon their first meeting. It’s a titanic clash of generations, quite literally.

My suspicion arose chiefly because the sequel, which is set 30 years later than the original and arrives 35 years after, is not directed by Ridley Scott, who’s still around and quite busy at nearly age 80. Yet Denis Villeneuve (“Prisoners”) has perfectly captured the qualities that made the 1982 film so vivid and groundbreaking -- the sense of alienation, the way life is devalued simply because of its origin, the invasion of commerce into every corner of our lives.

Things are helped immensely by the return of original script man Hampton Fancher, joined by Michael Green, working from the novel by Philip K. Dick. (Though ever more loosely, it must be said.)

In this version, there is no question about the nature of Gosling’s blade runner: he is a replicant who hunts his own kind. Known by his serial number, KD6-3.7, or simply “K,” he moves freely among normal humans with a gun, an LAPD badge and all the powers that come with those tokens. Though he is (almost literally) spat upon by other police officers.

While on a routine “retirement” of an old-model replicant (Dave Bautista), K makes a discovery that sets off a world of strife. The old Tyrell corporation that created the first replicants, aka “skin jobs,” is long defunct. But Niander Wallace, a power-mad blind oracle played by Jared Leto, has crafted new replicants more pliable and palatable, which makes his otherworldly ambitions possible.

K’s boss, Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright), whom he addresses as “madam,” wants K to cover the whole thing up. But Niander’s right-hand replicant, Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), is ordered to follow the follower. She possesses an arresting combination of contempt and empathy for the humans who created people like her.

K has a quiet, constrained life, complete with a hologram wife to keep him from wanting more than the routine of ceaseless murder. Joi (Ana de Armas) is fully emotionally connected to him, even though she’s another product of Wallace’s omnipresent corporation. K uses his bonus for successful retirements to buy Joi an “emanator,” which allows her to leave their apartment and have some semblance of corporeal existence.

Slaves of slaves -- so where do the boundaries of servitude begin and end? These are the sorts of vexing thoughts the film raises for us.

Appropriately, this is one of the most hauntingly beautiful films ever made. Cinematography legend Roger Deakins gives us slants of organic light contrasted with inky pools of darkness, vivid colors, blasted landscapes and tactile displays of proffered flesh. Nominated 13 times for an Oscar without winning, Deakins may finally get his due.

At nearly three hours long, “Blade Runner 2049” is not an endless parade of action. People who have not seen the original movie in a while may be surprised in revisiting it how deliberate and contemplative the film is. Likewise, its cinematic inheritor blends moments of gripping violence with languid stretches where the characters just look, and are looked upon, think and react.

Rather than slowing things down, these sequences give the movie its rightful sense of weight and purpose. Here is the uninvited sequel, now indispensable.