The Apprentice (2024) - Abbasi and Co. tackle world's most debated man effectively

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Enlarged to the traditional size of Kaiju movie monsters, the three stars threaten to wreak havoc on New York City on this fine poster for Ali Abbasi's The Apprentice

The son of American businessman Fred Trump, Donald Jr. is hellbent on making himself stand out in a way that his perceived let-down pilot brother has neglected, and to boost himself into a New York tycoon and world-famous business leader, he enrolls under the mentorship of local ruthless lawyer Roy Cohn.

 

The Apprentice is written by Gabriel Sherman (Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)) and directed by Iranian-born Danish master filmmaker Ali Abbasi (Shelley (2016)), whose 4th feature it is.

A biopic about the arguably most talked-about and controversial figure worldwide in the last few decades, and then releasing it during the subject's third presidential campaign, is bound to be divisive. The filmmakers have 'attacked' their central character from a critical, leftist position to be sure but to their credit have attempted to tell the story of the 1970s and 1980s arrival of Donald Trump in business without their sentiments and politics sneaking in. Global opinion on Trump is still very much in determination, and will be for his second period as US President 2025-29. This makes for an obstacle for the film, because in essence many audiences will be still too much involved in the ongoing 'Trump reality' to have the reserve and interest to look into a fictional retelling of his past. In any case he is such a behemoth that the film is likely to keep attracting new audiences for the years to come. 

This is of course also based on the fact that The Apprentice is fueled by a strong script and great performances: Sebastian Stan (Ghosted (2023)) arrives in force and is very authentic as Trump; Jeremy Strong (Succession (2018-23)) is intense and highly persuasive as the chameleon-like, powerful Cohn, SPOILER whose AIDS disease renders him an outcast before his death; and Maria Bakalova (Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)) as Donald's first wife Ivana, who is portrayed brilliantly as a flawed but mostly sympathetic woman. Martin Donovan (Tenet (2020)) is a great choice and very good as Fred Trump. The production design and locations are never lacking, but what is lacking in the life of Donald Trump, it seems, is love and sincere affection. A shark-like pursuit of money and power instead rules supreme. This makes his story a fairly dark watch, but the pacing nevertheless keeps it moving well, SPOILER and a darkly humorous, directorially rich flourish in the end is that Abbasi provides a gruelingly visual account of Donald's liposuction and bald spot plastic operations which he cross cuts with Cohn's demise. Appropriately devoid of sentimentality, The Apprentice has an admirable punk rock energy, serious performances and may very well stand the test of time.

 

Related posts:

 

Ali Abbasi: 2022 in films - according to Film Excess 

Holy Spider (2022) - Blood on the hands of Iran's Islamic system and its leaders

Border/Gräns (2018) - The second Lindqvist adaptation is another wtf-experience with muddled implications if any

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 16 mil. $

Box office: 12.1 mil. $ and counting

= Too early to say

[The Apprentice premiered 20 May (Cannes Film Festival, main competition) and runs 123 minutes. Announced in 2018, the film only really came underway when the cast and Abbasi were announced in 2022 and 2023. 15 companies and support bodies were involved in the financing and production of the film. Shooting took place from November 2023 - January 2024 in Ontario, including in Toronto. SPOILER The rape scene was based on Ivana Trump's divorce deposition (under oath) in which she alleged it. She backed away from the allegation 30 years later, during Trump's third presidential campaign. Trump's amphetamine use was detailed in Harry Hurt's biography. The film was attacked by Dan Snyder, one of its financial backers, who had thought it would be a positive account of its subject. His stake was then bought by James Shani and Rich Spirit, already stakeholders in the film. Trump's team unsuccessfully tried to stop it from coming out, while Abbasi invited Trump to see it for himself, getting no response. Trump called the film a "disgusting hatchet job" and the filmmakers "human scum". The film's distribution prospects were made difficult by Trump's looming power, but it was eventually released, just weeks prior to the November 2024 election. The film opened #10 to a 1.6 mil. $ first weekend in 1,740 theaters in North America, its peak there, where it has so far grossed 3.9 mil. $. The film's BoxOfficeMojo site is missing its Danish gross, where it has so far grossed at least 640k $. The film has two announced markets left to release in; Russia and Japan. It lost the Palme d'Or to Anora. Abbasi does not have his next film announced yet. Stan returns in Thunderbolts (2025); Strong in Deliver Me from Nowhere; and Bakalova in Triumph (2024). The Apprentice is certified fresh at 82 % with a 6.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Apprentice?

High Society (1956) - Diminished returns in glamorous MGM remake

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Bright, glamorous and joyous elements invite from this pleasant poster for Charles Walters' High Society

A loaded, beautiful young woman is remarrying a man who is as interesting as an ironing board.

High Society is written by John Patrick (Born Reckless (1937)), based on the 1939 play The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry (Brights Star (1935)), and directed by Charles Walters (Good News (1947)). It is a remake of The Philadelphia Story (1940).

It is a shallow, almost trite musical comedy with Grace Kelly (High Noon (1952)) as the beauty in question; Bing Crosby (Variety Girl (1947)) as the ex-husband hanging around the palace, and Frank Sinatra (The Joker Is Wild (1957)) as a tabloid journalist, who complicates matters. Everything is quite predictable, and the dialog is not as snappy and funny as one would wish.

On top of that everyone seems to be drunk or hung over in this glamorous fluff about no one being perfect.

 

Related post:

 

Charles Walters: Cimarron (1960) - A fine epic western settler adaptation (co-director)

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 2.8 mil. $

Box office: 8.2 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 2.92 times its cost)

[High Society was released 17 July (USA) and runs 111 minutes. Shooting took place from January - March 1956 in Rhode Island and California, including in Los Angeles. Cole Porter was paid 250k $ for his score for the film, his first in 8 years. The film was the 8th highest-grossing in North America in 1956 with 5.6 mil. $ (68.3 % of the total gross). The Eddie Mannix ledger recounts a profit of 1.1 mil. $. The film was nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Song (True Love by Cole Porter), lost to Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera) by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans from The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Best Score (Musical) (Johnny Green and Saul Chaplin), lost to Alfred Newman and Ken Darby for The King and I. Walters returned with Don't Go Near the Water (1957). Crosby returned in Showdown at Ulcer Gulch (1956, short), The Phil Silvers Show (1957, TV-series) and theatrically in Man on Fire (1957); Sinatra in Johnny Concho (1956); for Kelly High Society was her last film; she retired to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco and be princess there after production finished. High Society is fresh at 82 % with a 7.10/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of High Society?

The Great Gatsby (1974) - Great cast wasted in poorly directed adaptation

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A very classy, deliciously designed poster for Jack Clayton's The Great Gatsby

A bond salesman, who lives in a small Long Island apartment, becomes taken by his loaded neighbor Jay Gatsby, and he spends a good part of one 1920s summer in Gatsby's and other rich people's company.

The Great Gatsby is written by Francis Ford Coppola (The Rain People (1969)), adapting the same-titled 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Beautiful and Damned (1922)), and directed by Jack Clayton (Room at the Top (1959)).

The epochal novel is here transformed into a watered-down, boring, unreasonably long film. One presumption on the part of Clayton is that the grand party scenes are so lively and fascinating that we should just forget the characters and stare at the frivolities for large portions of time.

The four central characters are well-cast, and particularly Bruce Dern (The Big Town (1987)) is outstanding as the ornery bastard Tom Buchanan; but their experiences and feelings never really affect us as audiences. The costumes are lavish, but the direction here is more than dubious. In terms of cinematography The Great Gatsby has way too many zooms and travelings.

SPOILER The scenes of the last ten minutes, - the murder, meeting with Gatsby's father and the funeral, - are not bad, but they regrettably arrive at the end of a mess of a film.

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 7 mil. $ 

Box office: 20.5 mil. $ (North America only)

= Box office success (returned 2.92 times its cost domestically alone)

[The Great Gatsby premiered 27 March (New York) and runs 146 minutes. Coppola replaced Truman Capote as screenwriter but later complained: "The script that I wrote did not get made." Shooting took place from June - September 1973 in Rhode Island, New York and England. The international gross numbers are regrettably not reported online, and so it is hard to say if its success was mostly an American occurrence. The film was nominated for 2 Oscars and won both: For Best Costumes and Score (Nelson Riddle). It also won 1/4 Golden Globe nominations and 3 BAFTAs. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. The-Numbers.com assert that the film has made a further 4.9 mil. $ on a 2013 Blu-ray release domestically. Clayton returned with Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983). Robert Redford (All Is Lost (2013)) returned in The Great Waldo Pepper (1975); Mia Farrow (Hurricane (1979)) in Peter Pan (1976, TV movie) and theatrically in The Haunting of Julia (1977). The Great Gatsby is rotten at 39 % with a 5.00/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Great Gatsby?

Parasite/기생충 (Gisaengchung) (2019) or, The Haves and the Have Nots

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+ 3rd Best Movie of the Year

+ Best Crime Drama of the Year + Best Dollar Return of the Year: 22.68 Times the Cost + Best Mega-Hit Movie of the Year + Best Societal Critique of the Year + Best South Korean Movie of the Year 

A mysterious, identity-hiding poster for Bong Joon Ho's Parasite indicates something deeply amiss in the global village

The son of a poor South-Korean family gets an opportunity to teach English to the daughter of a wealthy family, and he is not one to miss a chance to help out his own family, once he enters the much enviable halls of the rich.

Parasite is written by Jin Won Han (Okja (2017), assistant director) and South-Korean master co-writer/director Bong Joon Ho (Barking Dogs Never Bite/Flandersui gae (2000)).
Ho dishes out an original story that is modern while being archetypical at the same time, delving into the unsavory traits of both the poor and the rich in a harsh economic environment that leaves an entire family to punch pizza boxes together in their unsanitary, sub-street level home for food. It in no way idealizes either class, but rather probes how the stark inequality leads to dehumanizing and agonizing behavior and divides between the two, which is always much more pregnant among the poor, - probably only because they are the ones trying to claw their way out of a dump.
Parasite is groundbreaking for its cultural infiltration as a wholly South-Korean film, as it speaks to people all over the globe and will become a touchstone for conversations - also outside of cinema - likely for decades to come. This is due to the big ideas present in it and the poignancy with which it deals with them: The title evokes a brilliant duality, as the story's parasites can be viewed as both the poor, amoral family or the filthy rich, who leech on the labor of thousands for reckless personal gain. The script distinguishes itself also by its strong portrayal of how poverty inevitably degrades and stigmatizes the individual, (SPOILER the sexual scene dealing with the daughter's underwear and the returning point about the stink of the poor work to this end.) These and other scenes show a real understanding of the unenviable situation of poor people.
The script is also inventive, original and brilliant, building up to developments that seem logical story-wise but are nevertheless outrageous and create frantic gushes of suspense, fun and excitement that only the rarest of films succeed in culling forth. The score by Jaeil Jung (Okja (2017)) is simple but great and amplifies the transgressions of the poor family, which to some extent can be excused by their wish to escape poverty. However, even the most sympathetic to the poor must face this family's descend into wicked crime as a means to an end; and it is a separate point of Parasite that extreme inequality inspires cruel crimes. SPOILER Another heartbreaking highlight of the dynamite script has the father of the poor family advising his son that "You can't go wrong with no plans." - The ultimate opportunist but also powerless credo passed from father to son.
The cast is uniformly great: Kang-ho Song (Howling/Ha-wool-ling (2012)) as the poor father; Hye-jin Jang (Mothers/Dangshinui Bootak (2017)) as his ruthless wife; Woo-sik Choi (Monstrum/Mulgoe (2018)) as their son, the initial entry into the rich family's life; Yeo-jeong Jo (Babysitter/Beibishiteo (2016, miniseries)) as the anxious mother of the house; Jeong-eun Lee (Another Child/Miseongnyeon (2019)) as the original housekeeper, and Myeong-hoon Park (Steel FLower/Seutil peullawo (2015)), memorable as her ill-fated husband.
Parasite is a powerful portrait of a modern society at odds with itself; which wants to seem sustainable but isn't. Unjust and unhealthy, its sickness permeates the earth we inhabit as illustrated in one of the film's best sequences, SPOILER as the poor peoples' neighborhood gets flooded by an extreme rain shower that doesn't affect the other class in their privileged hillside home. Perhaps the best image of Parasite is that of the young woman of that family sitting on their toilet, which is just about exploding from blow-back sewage, trying to light a cigarette in the flooded home. This feels very much a terrible and very powerful metaphor for our times and behavior at realizing our destructive impact on mother earth, and the image is a striking, ominous message from a film that is ripe with meanings as well as rich on outstanding work.

Related posts:

Bong Joon Ho: The day after ... the 2020 Oscars 

2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Reportedly 11.4 mil. $
Box office: 201.4 mil. $ and counting
= Mega-hit (has returned 17.66 times its cost so far)
[Parasite premiered 21 May (Cannes Film Festival, France, in competition) and runs 132 minutes. Inspirations for the script includes the classic South-Korean film The Housemaid (1960) and the true case of Christine and Léa Papin, two live-in maids that killed their employers in 1930s France. Shooting took place for 124 days from May - September 2018 in South Korea, including Seoul. Both the rich and poor family's homes were built entirely for the film. The film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. It opened #14 to a 393k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, the best per-theater average there since La La Land (2016). It peaked in its so far 19 week release in North America after the Oscars at #7 and has grossed 45.8 mil. $ (22.7 % of the total gross) there to date. In South Korea, the film's biggest market, the film opened to 20.7 mil. $ and grossed 72.9 mil. $ (36.2 %). After North America as 2nd biggest comes Japan with 22.6 mil. $ (11.2 %). The film is also getting released in a black and white version in some markets. As the first Korean film ever, Parasite was Oscar-nominated; in fact for 4 Oscars, winning all 4: Best Picture, - first time ever gone to a non-English language film, - Director, Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film. The film also won 1/3 Golden Globe nominations, 2/4 BAFTA nominations, an AFI award, 5/12 Blue Dragon award (South Korea's leading awards), was nominated for a César award, won a David di Donatello award, an Independent Spirit award, a National Board of Review award and countless other honors. IMDb's users have voted the film in at #21 on the site's Top 250, sitting between Se7en (1995) and City of God (2002). A US-made HBO spin-off series is in the making. Ho's next project is not announced yet. Song returned in The King's Letters (2019); Jo in Beautiful World/Areumdaun Sesang (2019, TV-series) and Woman of 9.9 Billion (2019-00); and Choi in The Divine Fury/Saja (2019). Parasite is certified fresh at 99 % with a 9.37/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Parasite?

Elysium (2013) - Blomkamp's second feature is a pompous, tedious sci-fi exercise

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Matt Damon is bald, wears strange metallic extensions and finds himself in space on this poster for Neill Blomkamp's Elysium

In the year 2154, the world is a miserable place, where people speak Spanish, are dirty and poor, listen to bad hiphop and all dream of escaping to the space station Elysium, where the rich few live a jet set life, wearing white clothes and speaking French.

This ridiculously shallow premise is rolled out here as a highly improbable future scenario, as simplistic as it is dumb. Elysium is written and directed by Neill Blomkamp (Chappie (2015)), whose sci-fi sensation debut District 9 (2009) also really wasn't my cup of tea. 
Jodie Foster (Paper Moon (1974), TV-series) gets wasted in the part of the tough space leader. Matt Damon (Gerry (2002)) is boring in the lead and goes into a predictable Bourne fist fight mode a while into Elysium. Blomkamp's District 9 star and fellow South-African Sharlto Copley (Europa Report (2013)) plays an off-putting villain here.
Elysium's implicit societal critique and warnings lie comfortably in the same shallow, unapplicable, leftist vein as District 9, where Blomkamp's opinions are still expressed rather weakly and without binding him to anything really. Above all this space actioner is unmerited and enormously dull.

Related posts:

Neill Blomkamp: 2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
District 9 (2009) - Blomkamp's strenuous, sci-fi-dressed Johannesburg squalor

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 115 mil. $
Box office: 286.1 mil. $
= Minor flop (according to Film Excess' ratio standards; according to Sony, it made an 18 mil. $ profit)
[Elysium premiered 7 August (Taiwan) and runs 109 minutes. Blomkamp has stated that although the film is set far in the future, the themes of immigration, overpopulation, health care, worker exploitation, social class issues and the justice system are meant as comments on the world of today. Blomkamp initially wanted South-African rapper Watkin Tudor Jones for the lead, then Eminem. None proved possible, and Damon was the third choice. He shaved his head for the film. Shooting took place in British Colombia, Canada, including Vancouver, and in Mexico City, Mexico from July - September 2011 with re-shoots in October 2012. A screenplay copyright infringement lawsuit was filed against Elysium's producers in 2013, but its conclusion has not been made public. The film opened #1 to a 29.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for one more week (#3) and grossed 93 mil. $ (32.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 25.6 mil. $ (8.9 %) and Russia with 15.8 mil. $ (5.5 %). Although its gross makes it a minor flop according to Film Excess' ratio standards, the 2013 Sony hack revealed that Sony itself assessed that the film made an 18 mil. $ profit. Blomkamp admitted in 2015 about Elysium that he "fucked it up" because his script "just wasn't there; the story wasn't fully there." He returned with Chappie (2015), and Damon returned in The Zero Theorem (2013). Elysium is fresh at 67 % with a 6.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Elysium?