If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) - Jenkins follows up smash with a delectable period love story

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An intimate couple in love make up this neat poster for Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk

Tish and Fonny are just about to start a family, when he gets arrested for a rape that another man is really guilty of at a time in America (the 1970s) when having black skin was suspicious in itself.

 

If Beale Street Could Talk is written, co-produced and directed by great Floridian filmmaker Barry Jenkins (Medicine for Melancholy (2008)), adapting the same-titled 1974 novel by James Baldwin (Another Country (1962)).

Jenkins follows up his triumphant breakthrough Moonlight (2016) with a more down-toned, good film, which especially lives on its vivid photography (by James Laxton (Mufasa: The Lion King (2024))) and an exceptional score (by Nicholas Britell (Cruella (2021))), which adds sensual and poetic force to the narrative.

KiKi Layne (Coming 2 America (2021)) is excellent, while Stephan James (Babes (2024)) is slightly mannered and insecure in his acting, but the two look fabulous on each other and are enormously sexy. Regina King (Pariah (2015, TV movie)) is terrific as Tish's movingly caring, warm mother.

Although If Beale Street Could Talk ends up feeling slighter than one had hoped, it pulses with love and affection for its material.

 

Related posts:

 

Barry Jenkins: 2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Top 10: Best gay-themed titles

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

The day after ... the Oscars 2017 

Moonlight (2016) - Jenkins and McCraney's powerful and personal coming-of-age romance drama 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the movie here

 

Cost: 12 mil. $

Box office: 20.5 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.70 times its cost)

[If Beale Street Could Talk premiered 9 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 117 minutes. Shooting took place around October 2017 in New York and the Dominican Republic. The film opened #23 to a 224k $ first weekend in 4 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #12 and in 1,018 theaters, grossing 14.9 mil. $ (72.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 2 mil. $ (9.8 %) and France with 815k $ (4 %). The film was nominated for 3 Oscars, winning Best Supporting Actress (King). It lost Best Adapted Screenplay to Charlie Wachtel, Spike Lee, Kevin Willmott and David Rabinowitz for BlacKkKlansman and Score to Ludwig Göransson for Black Panther. It was also nominated for 2 BAFTAs, won 1/3 Golden Globe nominations, 3 Independent Spirit awards, 3 National Board of Review awards and an AFI award, among dozens of other honors. Jenkins returned with The Gaze (2021, video), The Underground Railroad (2021, miniseries) and theatrically with Mufasa: The Lion King (2024). Layne returned in Native Son (2019); James in 21 Bridges (2019). If Beale Street Could Talk is certified fresh at 95 % with an 8.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of If Beale Street Could Talk? 

Hustlers (2019) or, Strip and Rob, Go Girl!

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A string of sexually charged stills of the scantily clad female stars of the film makes up most of this poster for Lorene Scafaria's Hustlers

After the 2008 financial crisis tightened the belt around New York's surviving Wall Street elite, a group of strippers who depended economically on these men decided to go to extremes to keep - and accelerate - their luxurious lifestyles...

Hustlers is written and directed by Lorene Scafaria (Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)), based on the 2015 New York magazine article The Hustlers at Scores by Jessica Pressler.

Can one use stripping as a means to female emancipation, or is the discipline per definition degrading? Scafaria's superficial, consumeristicly fixated bubble of a film asks that question. Hustlers attempts to work as a runaway train that one boards and becomes seduced by, - probably against one's better judgment, - just as the woman characters around Jennifer Lopez's (Out of Sight (1998)) veteran stripper leader do in the movie. Men on Wall Street screw the world over, and women strippers then screw over these men, - that's the story here. Go look in the phonebook for additional depth, if you require it. - It isn't available in Hustlers.

The plot unfolds in snappy, short, unmemorable scenes with lots of sleazy, accompanying hit songs. Hustlers doesn't teach its (presumably mostly young) audience anything; nothing edifying at least. Offensively and decidedly unedifyingly, however, it teaches its viewers that one can get away with a wealth of crime by being a smiling, laughing, over-consuming, attractive stripper, who believes that anything goes in the 'holy' name of women's liberation.

 

Related post:

 

Lorene Scafaria: The Meddler (2015) - Stars elevate Scafaria's mother-daughter romcom

 

Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: 20.7 mil. $

Box office: 157.5 mil. $

= Huge hit (returned 7.60 times its cost)

[Hustlers premiered 7 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 110 minutes. Lopez was paid 9 mil. $ for her performance. Shooting took place from March - May 2019 in New York. The film opened #2, behind It Chapter Two, to a 33.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it remained in the top 5 for another 3 weekends (#5-#2-#4), grossing 104.9 mil. $ (66.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 9.4 mil. $ (6 %) and Australia with 6.5 mil. $ (4.1 %). The studio reportedly spent 38 mil. $ promoting the film. It was nominated for a Golden Globe and 3 Independent Spirit awards, among many other honors. It additionally made a reported 5.5 mil. $ on the North-American home video market. Scafaria returned with Succession (2021-23) but has has yet to make her theatrical return. Lopez returned in 6 short and music video credits prior to her theatrical return in Marry Me (2022); Constance Wu (Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022)) in Fresh off the Boat (2015-20)), with a voice performance in Wish Dragon (2021) and with a physical theatrical performance in I Was a Simple Man (2021). Hustlers is certified fresh at 87 % with a 7.30/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hustlers?

Her (2013) - Jonze's disheartening hipster sci-fi romance

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Star Joaquin Phoenix's giant face with hipster mustache and a red shirt against a pink background makes up this simple poster for Spike Jonze's Her

In the near future, urbanite Theodore  works his way towards finalizing his divorce, while he falls in love with an OS (an artificial intelligence operative system) by the name Samantha.

 

Her is written, co-produced and directed by New-Yorker master filmmaker Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich (1999)), whose 4th feature it is.

Joaquin Phoenix (Signs (2002)) impresses again in a very intimate and sympathetic performance here; and Scarlett Johansson (Ghost in the Shell (2017)) is also outstanding in an unusually strong voice performance as Samantha. Chris Pratt (Passengers (2016)), Olivia Wilde (Life Itself (2018)) and Rooney Mara (Una (2016)) are fine, but it is especially Amy Adams (Lullaby (2014)) that one comes to care about here, although I enjoyed Phoenix and Adams as a couple more in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012).

Her relies on a distinctive and interesting story, which nevertheless has sides to it that bother me: Firstly it is, and continues to be, freaky to fall in love with a computer's voice, (even if Johansson does that voice.) The film shows friendship and romantic relationships incisively, - their weaknesses, frailties and misunderstandings especially, - which is implicitly why people in this really quite disheartening future turn away from each other. Jonze's version of the future is a well-dressed, smoothie-drinking, conflict-averse construction, - a hipster dream/nightmare, which seems incomplete to me: too slick and attractive. And the perspectives in previous Jonze films (his debut Being John Malkovich for one) simply reach farther.

 

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Spike Jonze: The day after ... The Oscars 2014

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2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Adaptation (2002) or, Charlie Kaufman's Fictional Life 

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Top 10: Best fantasy movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Being John Malkovich (1999) - Jonze, Kaufman and Malkovich's great triumph 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 23 mil. $

Box office: 48.5 mil. $

= Flop (returned 2.10 times its cost)

[Her premiered 12 October (New York Film Festival) and runs 126 minutes. Jonze had had the first idea for the film in the early 2000s when first encountering an early AI voice system. He later based much of the script on his divorce from Sofia Coppola in 2003. Shooting took place in 'mid 2012' in Shanghai, China and in California, including in Los Angeles. Samantha Morton voiced Samantha but was replaced with Johansson in post production. The film opened #23 to a 260k $ first weekend in 6 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #10 and in 1,729 theaters, grossing 25.5 mil. $ (52.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 3 mil. $ (6.2 %) and Italy with 2.7 mil. $ (5.6 %). It was nominated for 5 Oscars, winning for Best Original Screenplay. It lost Best Picture to 12 Years a Slave, Production Design to The Great Gatsby, Song (The Moon Song by Karen O and Jonze) to Let It Go from Frozen by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez and Score (Will Butler, Owen Pallett) to Steven Price for Gravity. It also won an AFI award, 1/3 Golden Globe nominations, was nominated for a Grammy and won 2 National Board of Review awards, among many other honors. The film additionally made in excess of 4.9 mil. $ on home video copies in North America. Jonze has returned with 12 shorts, music videos, a documentary etc. but no feature since. Phoenix returned in Inherent Vice (2014); Adams in American Hustle (2013); and Johansson in Street of Dreams (2013, video) and HitRECord on TV (2014, TV-series) prior to her theatrical return in Chef (2014). Her is certified fresh at 94 % with a 8.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Her?

The Master (2012) - Anderson's stunning post-war reflection

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Reality splinters surreally on this ocean blue poster for Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master

After World War II a drunken US navy marine heads back home from the Pacific and encounters difficulties fitting back into society, until he happens upon a charismatic 'master', Lancaster Dodd, who is leading a new religion known as 'the Cause'.

The Master is written and directed by Californian master filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (Hard Eight (1996)), whose 5th feature it is.
It is an inspired film, and it is partly inspired by the foundation of L. Ron Hubbard's bizarre Church of Scientology. (Other interesting sources of inspiration for The Master include Thomas Pynchon's novel V. (1963), the life story of author John Steinbeck, drunken Navy stories told to Anderson by terminally ill actor Jason Robards during filming of Magnolia (1999) and more.)
The film has a beautiful, cinematic and slightly unnerving image side (remarkable, mostly 65 mm photography by Mihai Malaimare Jr. (Nina (2016))) and a typically challenging (for a P.T. Anderson movie) score (by Jonny Greenwood (We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011)), who also did the incredible score for Anderson's preceding masterpiece There Will Be Blood (2007).) It is accompanied by masterful performances from Joaquin Phoenix (Signs (2002)), whose pitch black portrayal of a particular kind of lost soul drunk is superb, and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Leap of Faith (1992)), equally superb as choleric spiritual leader/con man Dodd. Amy Adams (Sunshine Cleaning (2008)) is adorable in the most sizeable supporting part, and forces like Laura Dern (Cold Pursuit (2019)) and Rami Malek (24 (2010, TV-series)) are icing on the cake.
The Master is a thought-provoking, dashing film of a seducer of minds.

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Phantom Thread (2017) - Anderson's exquisite drama of an English dressmaker and his Alma 
Boogie Nights (1997) - Anderson's irresistable porn 'Casino' 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 32 mil. $
Box office: 28.2 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.88 times its cost)
[The Master premiered 1 September (Venice Film Festival) and runs 137 minutes. Anderson had reportedly had the idea for the film for 12 years before writing it. He also incorporated scenes from an early draft of his There Will Be Blood script. Collaboration with Universal Pictures to finance broke down. Hoffman suggested Anderson focus more on the sailor character than Dodd. It was the first film to be shot on 65 mm since Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996). Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, Nevada and in Hawaii from June - September (2011). Anderson has said that Phoenix stayed in character for the entire three month shoot. The film opened #19 to a 736k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #7 and in 864 theaters (different weeks), grossing 16.3 mil. $ (57.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 2.2 mil. $ (7.8 %) and Italy with 1.8 mil. $ (6.4 %). The film was nominated for 3 Oscars, winning none: It lost Best Actor (Phoenix) to Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, Supporting Actor (Hoffman) to Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained, and Supporting Actress (Adams) to Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables. The film was also nominated for 3 Golden Globes, 4 BAFTAs, won 3 awards in Venice and several other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to 2 notches lower than this one. Anderson has said that The Master is his favorite among his own films and expressed his pride in it. Anderson returned with Back Beyond (2013, short), Fiona Apple: Hot Knife (2013, music video) and theatrically with Inherent Vice (2014). Phoenix returned in Back Beyond (2013, short) and theatrically in The Immigrant (2013); Hoffman in A Late Quartet (2012) and Adams in Trouble with the Curve (2012). The Master is certified fresh at 85 % with an 8.11/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Master?

Foxcatcher (2014) - Fine performances in Miller's strange true-crime sports drama

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+ Best Pennsylvania Movie of the Year + Best True-Crime Movie of the Year

Its three great, striking-looking stars in matching tracksuits against a dramatic painting of a hunting eagle sets a stark tone on this poster for Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher

Olympic gold-winning wrestler Mark Schultz is approached by a weird, eccentric multi-millionaire named John du Pont, who wants to create the national wrestling team around Schultz at his Pennsylvania mansion.

Foxcatcher is written by E. Max Frye (Amos & Andrew (1993)) and Dan Futterman (In Treatment (2010, TV-series)), based on a true story, and directed by great New-Yorker filmmaker Bennett Miller (Capote (2005)).
Miller succeeds in creating a really strange atmosphere, which also remains tense, and at times feels grotesque. We are kept intrigued by this highly curious story by his direction and fine performances from the three male leads and Sienna Miller (21 Bridges (2019)). Steve Carell (Evan Almighty (2007)) has a very odd first major dramatic role in du Pont.
In the end it is somewhat unsatisfying that Foxcatcher, - which is the mysterious name given to du Pont's wrestling team, - doesn't illuminate more of du Pont and Schultz: Where they both victims of abuse as children? Does du Pont violate Schultz? Perhaps out of a lack of certain real-life proof these questions remain unanswered, leaving Foxcatcher a fascinatingly strange film but also one with a frustrating degree of benightedness to it.

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2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Moneyball (2011) - Miller makes compelling baseball movie history 
Capote (2005) - The writing of one of the 20th century's finest non-fiction crime novels comes to life 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 24 mil. $
Box office: 19.2 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.8 times its cost)
[Foxcatcher premiered 19 May (Cannes Film Festival, in competition) and runs 134 minutes. Miller acquired the rights to the story in 2010 and began development with Gary Oldman as the first choice to play du Pont. Shooting took place in Virginia and Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh, from October 2012 - January 2013. Subsequent to the events shown in the film, du Pont spent almost 15 years in prison before dying there at age 72 in 2010. The real Mark Schultz supported the making of the film, was then incensed by it, and then retracted his critique, calling it instead "a miracle." The film opened #24 to a 270k $ first weekend in 6 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #13 and in 759 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 12 mil. $ (62.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 2.5 mil. $ (13 % ) and France with 1 mil. $ (5.2 %). The film was nominated for 5 Oscars, winning none: It lost Best Actor (Carell) to Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything, Supporting Actor (Mark Ruffalo (Apartment 12 (2000))) to J.K. Simmons in Whiplash, Director to Alejandro González Iñárritu for Birdman, Original Screenplay also to Birdman and Makeup and Hairstyling to The Grand Budapest Hotel. It won the directing award at Cannes, was nominated for 3 Golden Globes and 2 BAFTAs, won an AFI award and an Independent Spirit award and many other honors. Miller is still just scheduled to return with A Christmas Carrol for troubled Annapurna Pictures. Carell returned in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (2014); Channing Tatum (The Hateful Eight (2015)) in 22 Jump Street (2014); Ruffalo in The Normal Heart (2014, TV movie) and theatrically in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). Foxcatcher is certified fresh at 88 % with a 7.89/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Foxcatcher?

Wiener-Dog (2016) - Solondz's incisive and funny dog saga dramedy

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+ Most Under-Appreciated Movie of the Year + Best Dramedy of the Year + Best Dog Movie of the Year

A wiener-dog's butt features prominently on this pastel-colored poster for Todd Solodz's Wiener-Dog

We follow a wiener-dog, who incurs a nervous stomach from living with an overly modern, clean family and gets rescued from a lethal injection by a young woman, Dawn Wiener, who eventually gives it away to a couple who both have Downs syndrome. After a short break, the film moves to screenwriting teacher Dave Schmerz in New York, who also owns a wiener-dog. The last story concerns an old, untalkative woman, who has named her wiener-dog Cancer.

Master writer-director Todd Solondz (Happiness (1998)) returns with something worthwhile here after years of works of lesser quality (Palindromes (2004), Life During Wartime (2009) and his most negligible effort to date, Dark Horse (2011)). Wiener-Dog is a darkly funny, cinematic salute to peculiarly shaped, sausage-like wiener-dogs everywhere.
As usual, Solondz satirizes and spikes his country and its unintelligent, superficial, indifferent, greedy, selfish and joyless populace, (as seen from Solondz's perspective.) Here he does so with a strong cast of Tracy Letts (The Lovers (2017)), Julie Delpy (Sunny Side Up (1994)), Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha (2012)), Kieran Culkin (The Cider House Rules (1999)), Zosia Mamet (Bleeding Heart (2015)) and Ellen Burstyn (The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2004, TV movie)) all giving sound, fine performances. Also good are Keaton Nigel Cooke (American Masters (2016, TV documentary) as the boy of the first family, Connor Long (Actor Martinez (2016)) and Bridget Brown (LOL (2012)) as the lovely couple with Downs and Danny DeVito (Drowning Mona (2000)), who is a standout as Dave Schmerz, a man who gets ridiculed and shoved towards early retirement along with his priceless 'what-if; then-what' teaching dogma.
Wiener-Dog also has a wonderful country song about its title animal, (The Ballad of Wiener-Dog, sung by Eric Morris (Blue Bloods (2011-12, actor)), lyrics by Marc Shaiman (Hairspray (2007, composer)) and Scott Wittman (Smash (2012, TV-series, composer)). It is an acidic, harsh gumball of a dramedy, constructed by Solondz at his most hostile towards modern Western society, which he derides as if from a great distance. His hostility towards the way the modern world and its people function, as he sees it and them, is quite unique. The characters throughout Wiener-Dog are fairly well drawn, and I would have followed them for longer. For a film about a notoriously elongated dog also known as a dachshund, Wiener-Dog, regrettably, is a bit short.

Related post:

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 726k $
= Uncertain (but most likely a huge flop)
[Wiener-Dog premiered 22 January (Sundance) and runs 88 minutes. The film ties to Solondz's second film, the great Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) in that it reconnects us to the lead character of that film, Dawn Wiener, who is now portrayed by Gerwig, (original star Heather Matarazzo declined to star in Wiener-Dog.) The story is intended to be about one dachshund's journey from owner to owner, although I didn't realize this during watching it. Filming took place in 30 days from June - July 2015 in New York on an undisclosed but low budget. Brie Larson filmed a scene for the film, which was cut out. At the film's Sundance premiere, some audiences booed and walked out SPOILER by the film's end, in which the wiener-dog suffers a violent death. Some of these 'animal lovers' also subsequently attempted to spoil the film online, proving, perhaps, that Sundance can also be a ridiculous venue for opening a film. Amazon bought the distribution rights for the film for an undisclosed 7-figure sum. It opened #44 to a 24k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #34 and in 73 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 470k $ (64.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 112k $ (15.4 %) and Russia with 111k $ (15.3 %). Only 5 foreign markets have their grosses made public; the film had a few more, but they may have had too insignificant grosses to be posted. If assumed made a a very small 1 mil. $ budget, the film would count as a huge flop. Solondz is in pre-production with his next film, Love Child (2018) starring Penélope Cruz and Edgar Ramirez. Wiener-Dog is certified fresh at 77 % with a 6.7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Wiener-Dog?