BAD EDUCATION (US - 2020) Directed by Cory Finley. Written by Mike Makowsky. Cast: Hugh Jackman, Allison Janney, Ray Romano, Geraldine Viswanathan, Alex Wolff, Rafael Casal, Stephen Spinella, Welker White, Annaleigh Ashford, Hari Dhillon, Jeremy Shamos, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Catherine Curtin, Kathrine Narducci, Ray Abruzzo, Kayli Carter, Jimmy Tatro, Pat Healy, Victor Verhaeghe, John Scurti, Larry Romano. (Unrated, 109 mins) Based on Robert Kolker's 2004 New York Magazine article "The Bad Superintendent," BAD EDUCATION chronicles what stands as the largest school system embezzlement--upwards of $11 million-- in US history, a scandal that broke at Roslyn High School in Long Island in 2002. What's so jaw-dropping about what's depicted here is how it was more or less in plain sight, with numerous parties involved, with no one really paying attention to things like a treasurer owning three homes and driving a Jaguar to work every day. Roslyn is a school district on the rise and getting national attention, leading to some rapidly increasing property values, with by-the-book school board president Big Bob Spicer (Ray Romano) a millionaire from his day job selling real estate. But the star of Roslyn is beloved, charismatic superintendent Dr. Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman), an almost god-like figure who's the face of the school system, a former English teacher with a passion for Charles Dickens, and a dedicated educator who always makes time for any student. He offers a quick pull quote about a heavily-hyped, multi-million "skywalk" construction project for the high school to Rachel Bhargava (Geraldine Viswanathan), a junior doing grunt work on the school paper. She says it's just a puff piece because seniors get all the good stories, but the always-inspiring Dr. Tassone reminds her that "it's only a puff piece if you let it be a puff piece," and that a good journalist can turn anything into a substantive story. Curious about some contractor bids on the skywalk contract (and being curtly dismissed when she asks why some of that money isn't going toward replacing the numerous moldy and rotting ceiling tiles throughout the school), Rachel is given the key to the records room by treasurer and assistant superintendent Pamela Gluckin (Allison Janney) and she starts noticing financial inconsistencies, payments for vaguely-defined services to companies with non-existent phone numbers, payments for work that was never done, etc. She keeps digging despite being scolded by senior editor-at-large Nick Fleischman (HEREDITARY's Alex Wolff) that "we're just a school paper...not the New York Times."
But then the shit hits the fan. Gluckin's dumbass son (Jimmy Tatro) makes thousands of dollars worth of purchases at several Ace hardware stores over the course of a day, all for an expensive remodeling project at one of Gluckin's three homes. A store manager alerts Spicer, who has no idea why Gluckin's son would have a school credit card in his own name. An initial probe finds a minimum of $250,000 in misappropriated funds, but that's not counting all of the lost and discarded receipts. Gluckin is thrown under the bus, forced to resign, and deemed a sociopath by Tassone, but her transgressions are only scratching the surface of what's going on with some administrative staff at Roslyn. That's especially true with Tassone, who's also been living on the school's credit line for years and has an endless list of secrets and a partially fabricated past--no spoilers, but no one seems to have any recollection of his wife who "passed away a long time ago"--that he desperately tries to keep a lid on but can't quit behaving in a reckless and stupid fashion. And like Gluckin, he wants the wealth and privilege that Roslynians like Spicer are enjoying, and has grown so accustomed to getting away with it because everyone is so happy and complacent that he's become sloppy and isn't even bothering to cover his tracks anymore.
Oozing charm and slick confidence, and constantly maintaining Tassone's impeccable appearance, Jackman turns in one of his best performances, a complex balancing act that shows Tassone juggling several illusions for years on end while keeping his dark secrets hidden behind a mask--a mask that he symbolically maintains with a touch-up facelift over Christmas break (of course, he puts it on the school's credit card). An indie screened at last year's Toronto Film Festival and picked up by HBO, BAD EDUCATION was written by Mike Makowsky, who attended Roslyn High a few years after the scandal, with the aftershocks still being felt years later. Makowsky and director Cory Finley (THOROUGHBREDS) tell the story in a straightforward and darkly comedic fashion that recalls Alexander Payne's ELECTION, though its humor is less cynical and more just the shock of the events that transpire. It stays generally faithful to the story, though Viswanathan's "Rachel Bhargava" is a fictional composite of several student reporters who secretly did the digging, checked and corroborated their sources, uncovered the extent of the criminal activity, and broke the story in the school's own Hilltop Beacon newspaper.
AT ETERNITY'S GATE (UK/Switzerland/Ireland/US/France - 2018)
Beautiful and ponderous in equal measures, AT ETERNITY'S GATE does have an Oscar-nominated performance by Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh to carry it most of the way. Dafoe is so good--here and in general--that he successfully manages to overcome the major obstacle of being a 62-year-old actor playing someone who died at the age of 37. Directed by artist-turned-filmmaker Julian Schnabel (BASQUIAT, BEFORE NIGHT FALLS, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY), AT ETERNITY'S GATE focuses on the last few months of Van Gogh's life and his artistic obsession, with a lot of time devoted to his almost sycophantic clinging to his successful contemporary Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac). Financially supported by his younger brother Theo (Rupert Friend), Van Gogh and his work would never be recognized in his lifetime, and while Gauguin sees potential, he feels Van Gogh is too erratic and psychologically unstable to focus and think his painting through ("You're changing things so fast that you can't even see what you've done"). It's at Gauguin's suggestion that Van Gogh leaves Paris to find inspiration in Arles in the south of France, and when Gauguin visits him and has to leave to attend to some sales of paintings back home, a devastated Van Gogh melts down and cuts off his left ear to show his devotion. After a stint in a mental hospital, Van Gogh spends his final days on a furious tear of productivity in Auvers-sur-Oise before meeting a tragic end.
Working from a script co-written with 87-year-old Jean-Claude Carriere, a frequent Luis Bunuel collaborator (DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID, BELLE DE JOUR, THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE) still going strong as he approaches the seventh decade of his screenwriting career, Schnabel often stages his scenes as painterly images, where the screen starts to take on the look and texture of a Van Gogh work, a technique that's reminiscent of but not quite as immersive as Lech Majewski's 2011 film THE MILL AND THE CROSS. Elsewhere, Van Gogh's increasingly fragile mental state is conveyed by the intentional repetition of many lines of dialogue just seconds apart and in a series of distorted camera angles, blurred images, extreme close-ups, and shaky-cam that wouldn't be out of place in a found-footage horror film. Falling on the side of esoteric in comparison to the 1956 Hollywood biopic LUST FOR LIFE, with Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh, James Donald as Theo, and an Oscar-winning Anthony Quinn as Gauguin (or even Robert Altman's pre-comeback 1990 film VINCENT & THEO, with Tim Roth as Van Gogh, Paul Rhys as Theo, and Wladimir Yordanoff as Gauguin), but AT ETERNITY'S GATE is sometimes standoffish to a fault, with Schnabel's techniques growing self-indulgent and tedious after a while. Not surprisingly, it works best when he takes a break from the directorial wankery and lets Dafoe work his magic, whether it's a long monologue or in scenes with Isaac, Friend, Mads Mikkelsen as a priest counseling Van Gogh at the mental hospital, and Emmanuelle Seigner as Madame Ginoux, the "Woman from Arles" who inspired Van Gogh's famed series of "L'Arlesienne" paintings. (PG-13, 111 mins)
THE FRONT RUNNER (US/Canada - 2018)
Hitting a handful of theaters on Election Day 2018, THE FRONT RUNNER didn't really catch on and only got a half-hearted, 800-screen rollout from Sony over the next couple of weeks, its gross stalling at $2 million and the film completely forgotten by December. A chronicle of the three weeks leading up to Colorado senator Gary Hart's withdrawal from the 1988 Presidential campaign over allegations of an affair with Donna Rice, THE FRONT RUNNER isn't very subtle about making connections to present-day issues, particularly in an embarrassingly heavy-handed scene late in the film between two Washington Post reporters. Hart, played here by Hugh Jackman, doesn't think the public cares about allegations and politicians' private lives, but as his campaign manager Bill Dixon (J.K. Simmons, cast radically against type as "J.K. Simmons") tells him, "It's not '72." In the Senate for 15 years and losing the 1984 Democratic nomination to Walter Mondale, Hart's political star was on the rise, and going into 1988, he was posited as the front runner until a Washington Post reporter (Mamoudou Athie) brings up a brief separation from his wife Lee (Vera Farmiga) several years earlier. Already whispered about in political circles as a womanizer, Hart doesn't even mask his indignation and invites the press to "follow me around, put a tail on me...they'll be very bored." Following an anonymous tip, a pair of Miami Herald reporters, Tom Fiedler (Steve Zissis) and Jim Savage (BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD creator Mike Judge) do just that and see Rice (Sara Paxton) visiting Hart at his D.C. townhouse. The senator insists she was there for a job interview, though it soon surfaces that they met a short time earlier in Miami on a crowded booze cruise arranged by Hart's lobbyist friend Billy Broadhurst (Toby Huss), on a yacht prophetically christened "Monkey Business."
A relatively tame preview of the media circus that was the Clinton era, the Gary Hart scandal is generally considered ground zero of tabloid journalism working its way into present-day politics. Director/co-writer Jason Reitman (JUNO, UP IN THE AIR) wants to fashion THE FRONT RUNNER as a rallying cry against the 24/7 cable news coverage that was on the horizon, but the end result is superficial and strangely aloof. It takes neither a methodical, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN approach nor one of satire along the lines of VICE. It's just...there. It gets off to a clunky, plodding start and takes a while to recover and find its footing (it doesn't help that every other character seems to be named "Bill" or "Bob"), and keeps everyone at a distance, never really getting into the heads of Hart or his family, with everything reduced to melodramatic proclamations like "The public doesn't care about this!" from Hart and "I told you to never embarrass me!" from Lee. Jackman does what he can with the shallow script (he's very good in a scene where Hart talks a nervous young journalist through some mid-flight turbulence), Alfred Molina is badly miscast as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, and Paxton has some good moments with Hart's sympathetic top female campaign staffer (Molly Ephraim) who's quietly resentful that Hart is abandoning her to a media that paints her as a bimbo. But much of this ultimately rings hollow if you're aware that Ephraim's character, like the Post reporter played by Athie along with several others, is a composite or an outright fictional creation. There's a few worthwhile bits early on, like Hart and Rice's first meeting during the loud and rambunctious booze cruise, with their conversation barely audible and being drowned out by Boston's "Long Time" (watch Jackson's face when Hart first sees her and immediately turns on the charm), but THE FRONT RUNNER plays like a forgettable HBO biopic, offering about as much insight into the scandal and its impact on future political news coverage as Gary Hart's Wikipedia entry. (R, 113 mins)
THE BOUNCER (France/Belgium - 2018; US release 2019)
Released in Europe last summer as LUKAS, THE BOUNCER finds Jean-Claude Van Damme in the kind of serious actor mode he's generally avoided since his 2008 meta arthouse confessional JCVD. It comes at the right time, as he's really been skidding in his headlining action vehicles of late, littered with forgettable duds like POUND OF FLESH, KILL 'EM ALL and BLACK WATER in between the rebooted KICKBOXER nostalgia trips. Dumped on US VOD in early January, the French-Belgian co-production THE BOUNCER is a bit different from the film's LUKAS cut in that it's shortened by several minutes and all of the characters have been dubbed into English, where LUKAS had a mix of English, French, and Flemish. Van Damme is speaking both English and French in the overseas LUKAS trailer, but it's all English in THE BOUNCER, and while he's dubbing himself, the obvious revoicing of the French-speaking actors does this version a bit of a disservice. That hiccup aside, THE BOUNCER is Van Damme's best film in years, a surprising departure in a grim, gritty, somber character piece with shocking bursts of violence and some Alfonso Cuaron-inspired tracking shots and unbroken takes by director Julian Leclercq (CHRYSALIS). In Brussels, Lukas (Van Damme) is a bouncer in a club that looks like a Gaspar Noe wet dream. He's tossing out an unruly patron for roughing up a waitress, and a scuffle ensues when the kid plays the "Do you know who I am?" card, ending up with a serious head injury after taking a swing at Lukas, and even though he was defending himself, Lukas still gets fired. He's a widower and single dad with a vague past as a bodyguard in South Africa, struggling to get by and raise his eight-year-old daughter Sarah (Alice Verset). Though he's a loving and doting father, he has no job skills other than beating the shit out of people, and as a result, he ends up looking for work as a bouncer at a strip joint where the job interview consists of six guys locked in a dimly-lit, Tyler Durden-esque basement and the last man standing gets the job. Of course, Lukas gets the job.
The club is owned by Jan Dekkers (Sam Louwyck of EX-DRUMMER), who's known in the Brussels underworld as "The Dutchman" and is running a counterfeiting ring. This puts Lukas in the sights of ambitious cop Maxim Zeroual (Sami Bouajila), who offers to take care of the pending assault charges from his last job if he works as an informant supplying information about The Dutchman and his chief henchman Geert (Kevin Janssens of REVENGE). Story-wise, THE BOUNCER doesn't really bring anything new to the table, but director Leclercq succeeds in creating a bleak and oppressive atmosphere as Lukas gets in too deep, with Van Damme turning in an effective and very internalized performance and using every line and wrinkle in his aged, weathered face to convey just how weary and tired and beaten-down-by-life Lukas has become. During the '00s when he was cranking out some quality DTV actioners and nobody was paying any attention, Van Damme very quietly became a character actor disguised as an action star. Lately, he's been coasting, but THE BOUNCER is a welcome look at the direction his career should've taken after JCVD. That's why it's too bad the only version that's available stateside has all of his scenes with Bouajila and young Verset dubbed into English (quite badly in Bouajila's case) when they were in French in the LUKAS cut. Still, THE BOUNCER is a must-see for JCVD fans interested in seeing him stretch beyond the confines of his usual Redbox fare. He's a much better actor than he's ever gotten credit for being. (R, 87 mins)
LOGAN (US - 2017) Directed by James Mangold. Written by Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green. Cast: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Richard E. Grant, Eriq La Salle, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Elise Neal, Quincy Fouse, Rey Gallegos, Daniel Bernhardt, Jason Genao. (R, 137 mins) I hit a wall with Marvel and DC movies about a year ago with the realization that I just didn't care about them anymore. LOGAN seems to be cognizant of that sentiment as it's a comic book movie like no other, one that seems designed for people who are tired of the same old comic book movies. It's a risky proposition for something so commercial to go so defiantly against expectations. An established, moneymaking franchise hasn't wandered this far in an unforeseen direction since UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING. For starters, LOGAN is the most graphically gory film of its type since the 2008 cult classic PUNISHER: WAR ZONE, almost playing at times like it comes from an alternate universe where Mel Gibson was hired to direct THE PASSION OF THE WOLVERINE. It's doubtful that this move into hard-R territory would've been possibly without the huge success of the smug and douchey DEADPOOL, but that's where the comparisons end. A deconstruction of its franchise's own mythology and a downbeat, mournful elegy of the dark side of heroism inspired by Mark Millar's Old Man Logan comics series, the ambitious LOGAN is cerebral and audacious, an outside-the-box attempt at exploring the psychology of a scant few lost and broken X-Men who are the last of their kind and know the end is near. It's visceral, bleak, and uncompromising, with director/co-writer James Mangold taking a more personal thematic approach to this than he did on 2013's little-loved THE WOLVERINE, which he took on as more of a gun-for-hire job after Darren Aronofsky quit during pre-production. The Logan of LOGAN is more in line with other Mangold protagonists like Sylvester Stallone's Freddy Heflin in COP LAND and Christian Bale's one-legged Civil War vet in 3:10 TO YUMA: sad, bitter, burned-out and beaten down by life, and generally just going through the motions until something comes along that inspires them to give a shit again.
LOGAN takes place in 2029, years after nearly all of the X-Men have died off and 25 years since the last mutant was born. James Howlett, aka Logan (Hugh Jackman) is a disheveled alcoholic dividing his time between driving a limo in El Paso and scoring seizure medication for Prof. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who's holed up an an abandoned factory in the outskirts of a small Mexican town just south of the border. Now 90, Xavier is suffering from a degenerative brain disease that causes him to lose control of his telepathic powers without proper meds, which are getting more expensive by the day. The pair share their living space with albino mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchant), who takes care of housekeeping duties like Felix Unger to Logan's Oscar Madison. Logan is contacted by Gabriella (Elizabeth Rodriguez), who wants him to drive young Laura (Dafne Keen) to North Dakota where she's to meet some other young mutants and cross the border into Canada. Logan is incredulous, as no mutants have been born in nearly three decades, but when Gabriella is killed and he realizes that Laura is being targeted by a heavily-armed security force with cybernetic right arms led by Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), he ends up on the run with Xavier and the child in tow. Pierce is employed by Transigen, a company ostensibly conducting pediatric cancer research at a medical facility in Mexico, but they're really breeding a new strain of mutant using the DNA of X-Men like Logan. Judging from her retractable knuckle blades, Xavier immediately concludes that Logan's DNA was used to father Laura. With Pierce abducting an ailing Caliban and forcing him to use his powers to track them down, Logan, Xavier, and Laura form a tentative three-generational family unit, with Xavier reminding the misanthropic Logan "This is what life looks like...people love each other...you should take notice."
The characters are the key component of LOGAN, but it doesn't skimp on the action. The trio has several run-ins with Pierce and his employer, chief villain and asshole geneticist Dr. Zander Rice (Richard E. Grant), there's a terrific car chase, and there's a couple appearances by Wolverine clone X-24, also played by Jackman. The level of violence in LOGAN is sure to surprise even the most jaded moviegoers: between the two of them, Logan and Laura stab, skewer, slice, dice, decapitate, and disembowel everyone Transigen sends their way, tallying up a body count that makes John Wick look like a hesitant rookie. While it meets the action content requirement, LOGAN is about the people, and even though it functions as a standalone work, this is a film that couldn't have been made had Jackman and Stewart not had so much experience with these characters. They've inhabited these characters through multiple installments and the audience knows them so well over the last 17 years that the more serious approach carries significant emotional weight. Like Clint Eastwood's reformed killer William Munny in UNFORGIVEN, Jackman's Logan subverts expectations and serves as a genre commentary on itself (in addition to Logan being an outcast who has no place in the world, there's additional western motifs that Mangold drives home by showing Xavier and Laura watching SHANE on TV). Logan is dying from the slow poisoning caused by the adamantium that makes up his claws and runs through his body. He knows the end is near for him, Xavier, and Caliban and that when they die, the X-Men die with them, even if they live on in the "bullshit" comic books that Logan sees wherever he goes. The bond that he and Xavier form with Laura gives him a reason to live, a reason to do what's right before the lights go out on a life that's seen too much pain and death. Of course, doing so requires doling out more pain and death, and therein lies the conundrum. Jackman and Stewart are so good in LOGAN that they warrant legitimate Oscar consideration, though it'll never happen. They're matched by an impressive Keen in her movie debut. She has no dialogue for the first 3/4 of the film and instead relies on facial expressions and the most penetrating, "don't fuck with me" side-eye you'll ever see. This kid has an intimidating look to her that goes way past "resting bitchface." LOGAN is an instant classic of its kind, the most extreme superhero bloodbath since PUNISHER: WAR ZONE, the best serious genre offering since THE DARK KNIGHT, and a thoughtful and often profoundly moving drama that looks at the last days of dying legend. One of the best films of 2017.
CHAPPIE (US - 2015) Directed by Neill Blomkamp. Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell. Cast: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver, Ninja, Yo-Landi Vi$$er, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Brandon Auret, Jason Cope, Johnny Selema, Maurice Carpede. (R, 120 mins)
When DISTRICT 9 opened to rave reviews in 2009 and eventually landed a Best Picture Oscar nomination, it appeared as if South African writer/director and Peter Jackson protege Neill Blomkamp, making his feature debut, was going to be the next major name in sci-fi/fantasy cinema. His long-delayed sophomore effort ELYSIUM bowed in summer 2013 to mixed reviews and has seen its reputation plummet in the ensuing year and a half. ELYSIUM was heavy-handed in its politicizing, but flaws and all, it generally worked for me, and it's entirely possible that the scorn it received was just a matter of balancing out some of the overabundance of praise heaped on DISTRICT 9--a fine film, but one with plenty of its own problems. It was a situation reminiscent of Neil Marshall, feted as horror's latest wunderkind after THE DESCENT in 2005, but whose 2008 follow-up DOOMSDAY, an entertaining, John Carpenter and George Miller-inspired mix tape of '80s cult action and horror, ended up being an expensive flop dismissed and despised by fans who just didn't seem to get it. Not to sound all "haters gonna hate," but I'm still not sure what the DOOMSDAY audiences wanted that Marshall failed to deliver. The situation is similar to what Blomkamp got with ELYSIUM: some gripes and complaints that snowballed into a borderline irrational pile-on.
If anything might retroactively win over the ELYSIUM haters, it's Blomkamp's latest film CHAPPIE, the kind of misbegotten disaster that would derail a career in decades past. CHAPPIE is the work of a filmmaker who's bought into entirely too much of his own press, an agonizingly self-indulgent misfire that manages to get almost everything appallingly wrong. The tone of the film changes from scene to scene: sometimes it's a hyper-violent action movie, then it's practically a kiddie movie, then hopelessly maudlin, then stacked with half-assed political and religious subtext. Like its protagonist, Blomkamp seems to have the attention-span of a little kid, with the bulk of CHAPPIE coming off like a remake of ROBOCOP starring Johnny Five from SHORT CIRCUIT, and after cribbing from everything from BLADE RUNNER to PINOCCHIO, Blomkamp finally cashes out and ends up ripping off himself by turning it into a revamp of DISTRICT 9 with robots. There's precious little to praise and there's no way to sugarcoat it: CHAPPIE is incredibly and aggressively terrible.
An expansion of Blomkamp's 2004 short film TETRA VAAL, CHAPPIE is set a few years in the future in a Johannesburg that looks almost like a crime-plagued wasteland. In 2016, the government authorized the use of "Scouts," police robots designed and programmed by Deon Wilson (Dev Patel), an engineer with the Halliburton-like Tetravaal Corporation. The Scouts have drastically reduced the crime rate, driving the company's stock through the roof, making Wilson the golden boy of Tetravaal CEO Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver). That doesn't go over well with Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman), another Tetravaal engineer whose own militarized security program--giant ED-209-like war robots controlled via neural transmitters and called "Moose"--has its funding almost completely eliminated in favor of the Scouts. Wilson has been working on a program that creates a thinking consciousness in the Scouts, allowing them to form opinions and appreciate the finer things in life. Wilson's proposal is instantly rejected by the bottom-line-driven Bradley (one of the few good lines in the film is an incredulous Bradley laughing in Wilson's face and saying "Do you realize you just came to the CEO of a publicly-traded weapons corporation and pitched a robot that can write poems?"), which doesn't stop him from stealing Scout unit #22, one that's constantly in the facility for repairs and has finally been so damaged that it's earned a spot on the scrap heap, to attempt to run the artificial intelligence program on it himself. That plan falls apart when Wilson is carjacked by a trio of criminals--Amerika (Jose Pablo Cantillo), and Ninja and Yo-Landi, played by Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er of the South African rap group Die Antwoord--who targeted Wilson and hope to get him to reprogram the junked Scout so it can help them in some heists they need to engineer in order for Ninja to pay back the money he owes to scuzzy crime boss Hippo (Brandon Auret). Wilson runs the A.I. program and Chappie (voiced and motion-captured by Blomkamp regular Sharlto Copley) is essentially a helpless child who quickly finds his way, even calling Yo-Landi and Ninja "Mommy" and "Daddy" respectively.
It's a hokey concept at best that never properly channels its excess of uneven tones in an orderly or coherent fashion. Chappie looks like a cute robot, with antennae that resemble bunny ears, but who thought it was a good idea to put a kiddie-looking robot in an R-rated action movie with copious F-bombs and graphic violence? CHAPPIE goes straight downhill when Ninja and Amerika teach Chappie to be "gangster," as the sentient Scout spends the rest of the film strutting around with a cartoonish swagger, assorted bling (like a gold chain that reads "Hustler"), and a "$" spray-painted on his helmet, and calling people "fuckmother." Perhaps it's meant to be funny--the audience was laughing out loud when Chappie suddenly commandeers Wilson's van for a car chase--but the rest of the film isn't. Weaver is appropriately bitch-on-wheelsy as the tough CEO, but she can play that role in her sleep, while Jackman has what it takes to make a formidable villain but his character makes no sense at all, and I'm not just referring to his pointless mullet. Moore is said to be ex-military, but he's a scientist who wears cargo shorts to work and carries a gun in a holster even when he's in the office at his cubicle. He assaults Wilson--smacking him in the head with the gun--in the office in front of everyone and goes back to his desk, with no consequences. And when a security team is sent out to find the renegade Chappie, it's Moore who's leading the assault unit. What is his job, exactly? And how does he expect to get away with switching the entire Scout patrol offline, sending Johannesburg into violent, anarchic chaos as a way to convince Bradley that it's time to unleash the Moose, when he sabotages the program from his own lab, via his own computer, using his own password?
Despite being the best-known cast members, Jackman, Weaver, and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE's Patel all have supporting roles as Blomkamp inexplicably makes the criminal trio the de facto leads. Ninja and Vi$$er have more screen time than anyone, and while Copley's vocal performance is as annoying as many of his recent acting turns, it's the Die Antwoord duo who earn the top acting dishonors. A little of these two goes a long way, and Blomkamp grants them entirely too much wiggle room. It's one thing to have their songs throughout the film, and another to have them playing characters who share their own names, but why is Ninja wearing a Ninja shirt with his own image and "Die Antwoord" on it? I can see that kind of self-aggrandizing nonsense happening in a no-budget Albert Pyun movie where Big Pun plays a gangsta wearing a Big Pun shirt, but here? And Yo-Landi's bedroom--the criminals live in what looks like a partially demolished building--has Die Antwoord publicity shots all over the wall. If Blomkamp is a Die Antwoord superfan and wants to hang with them, that's great. But putting them front and center in a $50 million Hollywood movie--surprisingly low-budget by today's standards--is distracting stunt-casting at its most ill-conceived. Blomkamp presumably learned his lesson, as reports surfaced that Ninja was nothing short of an abrasive, uncooperative asshole during production--clashing the most with Cantillo, a veteran, professional actor--prompting Blomkamp to retool the script to reduce Ninja's role and the need for his presence on set. By the end of the shoot, Blomkamp reached his breaking point with Ninja and was quoted as saying "I don't ever want to be in the same room with him again." Frankly, the idea of Blomkamp and Ninja having a combative Werner Herzog-Klaus Kinski working relationship is fascinating. Let's hope some behind-the-scenes meltdowns were caught by the making-of crew, because that's certain to be better than anything that ended up in CHAPPIE. It's difficult to ascertain right now if Blomkamp is a one-trick pony just three films in, but CHAPPIE is so alarmingly bad that perhaps we should hold off on getting too excited about his being handed the ALIEN franchise.
X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (US/UK - 2014) Directed by Bryan Singer. Written by Simon Kinberg. Cast: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry, Ellen Page, Anna Paquin, Peter Dinklage, Nicholas Hoult, Shawn Ashmore, Fan Bingbing, Omar Sy, Evan Peters, Josh Helman, Daniel Cudmore, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Michael Lerner, Mark Camacho. (PG-13, 131 mins)
Director Bryan Singer's return to the X-MEN universe for the first time since 2003's X2 is a loose adaptation of a 1981 storyline in The Uncanny X-Men and brings together both the original cast and their X-MEN: FIRST CLASS counterparts in a gathering the likes of which we haven't seen since Yes' 1991 album Union. Singer and screenwriter Simon Kinberg somehow manage to keep the multiple plot threads coherent for the most part, though if you aren't up to speed on your X-MEN lore, there's a good chance you'll be a bit lost here and there, as DAYS OF FUTURE PAST serves as a sequel to both 2006's X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and 2011's X-MEN: FIRST CLASS.
Opening in a dystopian future where robots known as Sentinels are waging war on mutants, DOFP has Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) sending the consciousness of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back to 1973 so he can stop the assassination of Sentinel creator and Nixon cabinet member Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) at the hands of Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). As it plays out in their current timeline, Trask dies a hero, and Mystique is captured, with her DNA being used to help create the mutant-hunting Sentinels killing them in the future. Wolverine is advised by Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) to track down their younger selves in 1973 for assistance. Young Xavier (James McAvoy) is a despondent recluse being cared for by Hank/Beast (Nicholas Hoult) in the decrepit Xavier School, while young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is being held in a enclosed prison deep beneath the Pentagon. Wolverine, Xavier, and Beast enlist the aid of Quicksilver (Evan Peters) to infiltrate the Pentagon and extract Magneto in what's probably the film's most inspired sequence, boasting an unforgettable use of Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle." Once freed, it doesn't take Magneto long for his evil ways to take control, often working at cross purposes with Mystique, who has her reasons for killing Trask, who isn't the noble altruist that history has purported him to be.
The wild plot also works in the JFK assassination, the Watergate tapes (Mark Camacho is a peculiar-looking Nixon), SANFORD AND SON, and some time-travel comic relief as Wolverine adjusts to life in 1973. Other than Jackman's Wolverine, who acts as a bridge between the two casts, the focus is more on the FIRST CLASS end of things, with the original cast not having a whole lot to do after the opening sequence other than pop up periodically to remind the audience that they're still there as they bide their time until a climactic showdown with some Sentinels. McKellen and Stewart look dour and concerned, Page's Kitty Pryde (it's Kitty, not Wolverine, who goes back in time in the comic book source story) does little more than rub her hands on future Wolverine's temples as she guides his soul into the past, Halle Berry's Storm has maybe three lines of dialogue, and a prominently-billed Anna Paquin returns--if you can call it that--as Rogue, a central character in the first film but now reduced to a two-second walk-on without even a clear view of her face (Singer decided to cut all of her scenes, but they'll be included on the Blu-ray release). Other than Wolverine and a brief face-to-face with young and old Professor Xavier, there's no interaction between the originals and the First Class. Jackman, McAvoy, and Hoult make a great team, and Peters almost manages to steal the film with his Quicksilver antics (after the brilliant Pentagon escape sequence, you'll wish Peters was in the movie more). The X-Men vs. Magneto vs. Mystique vs. the Sentinels showdown on the White House lawn is a superbly crafted set piece, even if one element makes it bit too reminiscent of the stadium destruction from Bane in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. It's not perfect, and CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER is looking even better as the year goes on, but X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is an ambitious return to the franchise for Singer, and it gets the job done as enjoyably huge big-screen summer entertainment.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve. Written by Aaron Guzikowski. Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano, Len Cariou, Wayne Duvall, David Dastmalchian, Dylan Minnette, Zoe Borde, Erin Gerasimovich, Kyla Drew Simmons. (R, 153 mins)
PRISONERS, the English-language debut of Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve (INCENDIES), is a riveting but frequently frustrating thriller that suffers from its own lofty ambitions. Scripted by Aaron Guzikowski (CONTRABAND), it works very well as a thriller, but doesn't seem content with just being a thriller. It wants to make big statements and grand proclamations, but doesn't really do anything with them. When it focuses on being a "movie," which is what it does most of the time, it's a superbly-crafted genre piece. When it focuses on being a "film," it often succumbs to heavy-handedness. Villeneuve is an excellent filmmaker, but he comes off as a bit of a snob. I get the feeling that he finds multiplex genre fare beneath him and tries to make this more "significant" than it needs to be, starting with its unwieldy and sometimes cumbersome 153-minute running time. It's never dull, but it probably could've been just as effective at a more streamlined 120 or so minutes. It's almost as if the film is long so it would be interpreted as "important."
The film opens with deeply-religious family man Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) talking his teenage son Ralph (Dylan Minnette) through his first deer kill with a recitation of the Lord's Prayer. So, right away, we have religion and guns, and Dover also owns his own small carpentry business. That, along with his fortifying his basement into a survivalist compound, is essentially informing us that Keller is a guy who probably watches a lot of Fox News. Keller and his family--there's also wife Grace (Maria Bello) and young daughter Anna (Erin Gerasimovich)--spend Thanksgiving with their friends the Birches from down the street--Franklin (Terrence Howard), his wife Nancy (Viola Davis), teenage daughter Eliza (Zoe Borde) and young daughter Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons). As the day goes on, Anna and Joy walk down to the Dover house but never make it. Both disappear and Ralph remembers them playing near a parked RV that's now nowhere to be found. The police are called, and Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) and some officers find the RV at a truck stop, with mentally-challenged Alex Jones (Paul Dano) behind the wheel. Alex doesn't have the capacity to answer any questions and with no evidence on him or in the RV, the cops can only hold him for 48 hours. After Alex is released into the custody of his aunt Holly (Melissa Leo), Loki starts knocking on the doors of all the sex offenders in the area, trying to find any new potential leads, and inadvertently stumbling on to a second mystery involving a rotting corpse in the basement of a convicted pedophile priest (Len Cariou), as well as a local weirdo (David Dastmalchian) who's frequently observed buying little girl's clothing at a secondhand store. Meanwhile, an enraged Keller is convinced Alex knows where the girls are...so convinced, in fact, that he abducts Alex and holds him captive in a vacant, decrepit apartment building that was left to him by his late father, and proceeds to spend several days brutally and mercilessly beating and torturing him to get the information he wants.
For the most part, Jackman convincingly sells Keller's rage, but there are some scenes where he's a little too over-the-top, and Guzikowski's script makes the daring decision to spend a little time almost attempting to turn Keller into not the villain, but a villain, especially when his own actions start to impede Loki's investigation. But it's here where the problems start. It takes people way too long to comment on a high-profile kidnapping suspect going missing for days. And how long does Keller expect to get away with what he's doing when he parks his work truck with his name on the side of it near the abandoned building? And of course the recovering alcoholic Keller falls off the wagon (with the requisite brown paper bag) and of course Grace disappears into a haze of sleeping pills and anti-depressants as Bello spends most of the remainder of the film asleep in bed. The filmmakers don't spend much time at all addressing the grief of the Birch family, but then, they don't have a patriarch who's paranoid and close to foaming at the mouth even on his best days. It's by design that Howard's Franklin is supposed to be the voice of reason against Keller's all-consuming quest for Biblical vengeance, but the film sometimes forgets that two families are in pain here.
PRISONERS goes into some unexpectedly dark places for a mainstream, big-studio movie, but I found myself most intrigued by Gyllenhaal's Detective Loki and wished that we learned more about his backstory. Introduced eating Thanksgiving dinner alone at a Chinese buffet, Loki, with his intense blinking tic, zodiac tats on his knuckles, a Freemason ring and neck tat, and awkwardly-fitting shirts that are at least a size too small, is one of the strangest heroes to come down the pike in a while. He sometimes lets his inexperience show (he tails Keller at one point, but gets made when he ends up blocking traffic and people start laying on their horns), and he's also dangerously impulsive, has no qualms about telling his captain (Wayne Duvall) what he thinks ("Hey, Captain...why don't you do me a favor and go fuck yourself?"), and is a loner on the force who doesn't seem to interact very well with his colleagues. We don't learn much about Loki's obviously troubled past other than an offhand remark about spending time in a boys' home. That, and he seems to really personally dislike Cariou's pedophile priest, so interpret that how you will. Loki's an odd, fascinating character and we're intentionally kept at a distance with him, yet Gyllenhaal utilizes his skills as an actor to bring added dimensions to him (Gyllenhaal has said in interviews that the blinking tic was his own idea). It's an awards-caliber performance, and the actor's best since David Fincher's 2007 masterpiece ZODIAC.
Directed by James Mangold. Written by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank. Cast: Hugh Jackman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Famke Janssen, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Will Yun Lee, Haruhiko Yamanouchi, Brian Tee, Ken Yamamura. (PG-13, 125 mins)
A largely stand-alone adventure for the most iconic character in the X-MEN canon, THE WOLVERINE draws a bit from events in 2006's X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and the Silver Samurai makes an appearance, though with a significant change to his identity so as to thoroughly enrage the purists. Hugh Jackman turns in his toughest, grittiest performance yet as Logan, introduced living in the wilds of the Yukon and haunted by visions of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) trying to coerce him into joining her in death. This is not possible for the immortal Logan, who's then brought to Japan by spunky sword-fighter Yukio (Rila Fukushima), a mutant with the ability to see when someone will die. Yukio has been sent by dying tech giant CEO Master Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), who was rescued from the Nagasaki bomb by Logan during WWII. Logan's been told that Yashida wants to personally thank him for saving his life all those years ago, but his real intention is to harness Logan's immortal life force and allow the pained ronin--masterless samurai--to live a normal life and to grow old and die. Yashida fears for the safety of his beloved granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) and distrusts his duplicitous son Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada), who has already committed Mariko to an arranged marriage with promising politico Mori (Brian Tee). Yashida dies and yakuza thugs ambush the funeral, kidnapping Mariko, sending Logan and Yukio into action. Logan finds Mariko and the two go on the run, with yakuza and ninjas in hot pursuit, but Logan finds himself in a weakened state, his abilities partially drained by the lethal Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), incognito as Yashida's oncologist.
A somewhat draggy middle is surrounded by a rousing first and third act, with several intense fight and action sequences, most notably Logan and a yakuza battling it out atop a bullet train going 200 mph. The funeral ambush is another memorable set piece, as well as the final showdown between Logan and the Silver Samurai, introduced much later in the film and with a surprising true identity. Jackman is a lot of fun here, playing Logan at his absolute crankiest and least patient. He's given terrific support by a tremendously appealing Fukushima, a beautifully odd-looking young actress who resembles an anime character come to life. It's great to see '80s Eurocult/Italian post-nuke fixture Yamanouchi (ENDGAME, THE NEW GLADIATORS, 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK, 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS) getting some significant screen time in a huge Hollywood blockbuster, and only Russian actress Khodchenkova seems like the weak link in the ensemble. An award-winning actress in Russia, Khodchenkova is hampered by playing the film's most weakly-constructed character and by the obvious fact that her entire performance has been awkwardly dubbed over by someone else, so distractingly at times that it's very likely this was a rushed, eleventh-hour decision by the filmmakers. She certainly has the screen presence, so if her performance is lacking, it may not be entirely her fault.
The film was originally set to be helmed by PI and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM director Darren Aronofsky, who bowed out and was eventually replaced by the unlikely James Mangold, director of COP LAND, GIRL INTERRUPTED, WALK THE LINE, and the remake of 3:10 TO YUMA. More at home with character-driven drama, Mangold handles massive action sequences quite well, but as far as superhero movies go, this is comparatively smaller and more character-based, so perhaps he's not as unusual a choice as one might think. If anything, THE WOLVERINE deserves some credit for being the first big superhero/sci-fi event movie of the summer to not resort to climactic 9/11 disaster-porn imagery and benefits nicely from its unique Japan setting. The script is credited to Mark Bomback (UNSTOPPABLE) and veteran screenwriter Scott Frank (OUT OF SIGHT, MINORITY REPORT, THE LOOKOUT), though they reworked an early draft by an uncredited Christopher McQuarrie (THE USUAL SUSPECTS), who was attached when Aronofsky was supposed to direct it. THE WOLVERINE could use some tightening in the midsection, and runs a little long at just over two hours, but if you're burned-out with the same old blurrily-edited schtick in big-screen superhero cinema and if your eyes just glaze over at the thought of more dull and interchangeable CGI destruction, then this welcome change-of-pace may have come along at just the right time in the summer.
Directed by Peter Farrelly, Steven Brill, Will Graham, Steve Carr, Griffin Dunne, James Duffy, Jonathan Van Tulleken, Elizabeth Banks, Patrik Forsberg, Brett Ratner, Rusty Cundieff, James Gunn. Cast: Dennis Quaid, Greg Kinnear, Common, Seth MacFarlane, Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber, Anna Faris, Chris Pratt, J.B. Smoove, Emma Stone, Kieran Culkin, Richard Gere, Kate Bosworth, Jack McBrayer, Aasif Mandvi, Justin Long, Jason Sudeikis, Uma Thurman, Kristen Bell, Bobby Cannavale, Leslie Bibb, John Hodgman, Katrina Bowden, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jimmy Bennett, Patrick Warburton, Matt Walsh, Seann William Scott, Johnny Knoxville, Gerard Butler, Halle Berry, Stephen Merchant, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Terrence Howard, Elizabeth Banks, Josh Duhamel. (R, 94 mins)
The extremely R-rated sketch comedy MOVIE 43 boasts what might be the most overqualified cast ever assembled for the sole purpose of thoroughly embarrassing themselves. The project was headed by Peter Farrelly, who gathered eleven other directors and a total of 18 writers to put together what probably seemed like a good idea in theory: get an incredible amount of A-list movie and TV stars together for a modern take on raunchy 1970s sketch comedies like THE GROOVE TUBE (1974), IF YOU DON'T STOP...YOU'LL GO BLIND (1975), CAN I DO IT...TIL I NEED GLASSES? (1977), JOKES MY FOLKS NEVER TOLD ME (1978), and the subgenre's standard-bearer, THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE (1977). It's hard to believe that this much talent could be squandered so badly, but MOVIE 43 only has a couple of good ideas and a total of about five decent laughs throughout. I don't think it's being too demanding to have expected a little more than that. A joke occasionally lands and only sticks out because what's around it is so depressing and dismal. Entire segments go by where you can't help but ask yourself "What was the endgame here? What is the joke?"
Farrelly handled the main storyline, which has Dennis Quaid as a washed-up director in skinny jeans and a Justin Bieber cut barging into studio exec Greg Kinnear's office and pitching him an idea for a sketch movie. And that's the premise. So, we get Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman on a blind date, where she discovers that he has a scrotum dangling from his neck. Things briefly pick up with an interesting idea that's one of the very few examples of MOVIE 43 doing something edgy and daring: Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber play homeschooling parents who want their teenage son to have the complete high school experience, so they regularly subject him to bullying and insults for starters, then throwing a huge party and not inviting him, culminating in Mom trying to make out with him and Dad making a pass at him, all to give him that special "awkward first time" opportunity that all teenagers should have. It's a funny idea, but the writers and segment director Will Graham don't really know where to take it, so it ultimately fizzles, but it's one of the only examples of MOVIE 43 trying to do something. Next, it's Anna Faris asking boyfriend Chris Pratt to "poop" on her (not even the great J.B. Smoove of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM can save this one, telling Pratt to eat beefy bean burritos with guacamole to "add some color" to it). Supermarket checkout clerk Kieran Culkin and ex-girlfriend Emma Stone have an intense erotic conversation, unaware that the intercom is picking it up and it's being pumped through the store (Stone: "Do you still like fingers in your butthole?" Culkin: "I want to give you a hickey on your vagina"). Then, Richard Gere is the CEO of a company facing lawsuits over their "iBabe" music player, which is a life-sized replica of a woman, prompting teenage boys to mutilate their penises because of a cooling fan that's in the "lower quadrant." I think the joke is that none of the execs except Kate Bosworth saw that this would be a problem. Next up, Robin (Justin Long) is at a speed date when Batman (Jason Sudeikis, who has a few amusing lines) shows up to cock-block him. Kristen Bell is Supergirl, Uma Thurman is Lois Lane, and Leslie Bibb is Wonder Woman. Then there's a painfully unfunny commercial about "Machine Kids," that shows people getting mad at vending machines, ATMs, and copiers and being told that little kids are inside operating them (I don't know what the joke is, either).
Chloe Grace Moretz is at boyfriend Jimmy Bennett's house when she gets her first period, prompting Bennett, older brother Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and their dad Patrick Warburton to freak out. Then there's a Tampax commercial with a CGI'd shark eating a female swimmer (because of the blood and the...yeah, you know). Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville are roommates who kidnap a foul-mouthed leprechaun (Gerard Butler's face CGI'd on to a smaller body) in a segment directed by Brett Ratner (it's a cliche to bag on Ratner at this point, but when there are four people credited as "Brett Ratner's assistants" for a contribution this miniscule, he's pretty much asking for it). Things get better for a short while with Halle Berry and Stephen Merchant on a blind date that turns into an increasingly ridiculous, rude, and politically incorrect game of Truth or Dare. It's another example of a solid idea without a punchline, but there are some amusing gags and this particular segment is comic genius compared to the several that preceded it, even with Oscar winner Berry mashing guacamole with her (stunt) breast and inserting a turkey baster filled with hot sauce into her vagina. Terrence Howard is the coach of a black college basketball team in 1959, where his game plan is essentially "You're black...they're white. This ain't hockey!" It's a one-joke premise that wears out its welcome fairly quickly, but it's not awful and it's nice to see segment director Rusty Cundieff (FEAR OF A BLACK HAT, TALES FROM THE HOOD) working on the big screen again. MOVIE 43 finally ends with a laughless offering from the otherwise dependable James Gunn, with Elizabeth Banks (who directed the Moretz/period segment) battling a jealous, gay, masturbating, animated cat named Beezil for the affection of boyfriend Josh Duhamel.
Other than the Watts/Schreiber "Homeschooling" and the Berry/Merchant "Blind Date," there's not much humor to be found in MOVIE 43. It's more concerned with shock value, which can be funny, but there's just nothing for these people to work with here. If they wanted to be edgy, the filmmakers needed to bring more to the table than diarrhea, menstrual blood, and a nutsack dangling from Hugh Jackman's neck. Even something as simple as having Gere make a gerbil joke would've demonstrated that they were trying and anything was fair game. But really, 15 years after THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and we're still getting "jizz as hair gel" jokes? Is MOVIE 43 as apocalyptically bad as many critics have said? Is it "the CITIZEN KANE of bad movies"? No, not even close. Oh, make no mistake...it's terrible, and easily one of 2013's worst films, though I'm sure it won't be the worst. I laughed a few times and it's still better than, say, any spoof movie by Friedberg & Seltzer, the Antichrists behind DATE MOVIE and MEET THE SPARTANS. No, MOVIE 43's biggest crime is amassing an IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD-sized cast (and JERSEY SHORE's Snooki) and thinking the shock and the novelty of these people making genitalia and bodily-function jokes would be enough.
MOVIE 43 was shot over a period of three years, and worked on whenever actors or directors had time in their schedules. The version released overseas omits the wraparound segments with Quaid and Kinnear and substitutes it with three teenagers scouring the internet for something called "Movie 43," reputed to be the world's filthiest film. That at least explains the title, which means nothing in the context of the US release. Two additional segments were shot but ultimately not included: one directed by Bob Odenkirk, with Julianne Moore and Tony Shalhoub as parents being interviewed about their missing daughter (funny!) and one with Anton Yelchin as a necrophiliac, which begs the question of how bad they must've been if they were deemed unworthy of MOVIE 43. I'm sure those will end up on the inevitable "Unrated and Unacceptable!" (or some such nonsense) version on DVD/Blu-ray, but for now, the biggest winners of MOVIE 43 have to be Julianne Moore, Tony Shalhoub, and Anton Yelchin.
Thanks to John Charles for the tip on the alternate version.
