ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Jacob Sahms

Warner Bros. Round-Up Delivers on 4K HD, Blu

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After a few weeks’ hiatus for moving and changing jobs, I’m back with a home media vengeance – a Warner Bros. explosion of 4K HD and Blu-ray films from the vault, mixed in with several animated films of serious DC Comics caliber. There’s something here for the whole family — especially those who love some of the classics and new classics.

Let’s start with this: The Goonies has now been released on 4K Ultra HD. For someone who hadn’t really ventured into the 4K pool much, it’s spectacular to watch a film like The Goonies in crystal clear translation from the ways I remember the film, watching it as a kid. Yes, there’s a commentary from director Richard Donner from the Hidden Video Treasures, and the story still reflects the coming-of-age bonding adventure that delights. But the movie theater-level clarity? “Hey, you guyyyyyyyys!” Owning one of my favorite films of all time in 4K HD tops this list of goodies. If you’ve seen the adventure in pursuit of One-Eyed Willy’s treasure before or not, watching it like this will make for excellent entertainment – and give you an excuse to show it to the kids.

While everyone remembers that Robert Downey Jr. was Iron Man (and always will be), he’s actually been Sherlock Holmes, too, and a novel one at that. Guy Ritchie’s initial stab at the character, and the sequel A Game of Shadows, have the necessary action to make them a highly worthwhile addition to the collection. Paired with Jude Law as his Watson, Downey Jr. plays Holmes with more of a manly panache than Arthur Conan Doyle likely meant, but who cares? This is a rock’n’rolla version of the character, which certainly played well in theaters, and has a promised third addition coming in 2021, pandemic permitting, right? The action is fast and furious, and the cinematography isn’t far behind — in fact, it’s caught up here incredibly thanks to the latest technology. Throw a punch or watch a rocking carriage wheel and you can see the clarity of each image like it was meant to be seen. Thanks to Ritchie’s already spectacular eye for action, color, and splash, these films are worth watching again — just because they look so good.

Flashing back to the good old days again, Michael shares a ‘heavenly’ John Travolta before the whole Idina Menzel action at the Oscars. This is actually from the Warner Archives vault, and simply Blu-ray, not 4K HD. But it’s a film with a bunch of heart, as some newspaper reporters are sent to find out whether a guy is who he says he is, the archangel Michael. It’s an exploration of faith, of hope, of love – all of the major principles of belief, played out against a wacky backdrop of one lunatic of an angel – making Clarence look like he’s fundamentally normal. Michael has more than a tarnished halo, and he struggles with the same kinds of issues humans do, but you can be sure by the end of this one that the divine will appear one way or another by the end.

Dive deeper still and Academy Award-winner for Best Makeup in 1988, Beetlejuice is a film I haven’t seen in years, but this is Michael Keaton at his wackiest, making his depiction of Bruce Wayne/Batman a year later seem… normal. For fans of the character, you get three episodes of the animated TV show (ran from 1989-91) as a special feature. It’s about poltergeists versus poltergeists and … This one isn’t for everyone, but it’s a different kind of film that you can watch with crystal clarity – and a different kind of different than Michael.

Last but not least are two entries in DC Comics’ feature-length films, Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons and Superman: Man of Tomorrow (4K HD). The first one follows the Teen Titans’ favorite assassin/nemesis Slade Wilson who must fight off the devilish H.I.V.E. to protect his family, showing a tension between the man he is at home and the man he feels like he needs to be to defend his family. It’s definitely a more ‘mature’ DC film (Zach Snyder would love making the live-action version) but fans of Titans will dig it. This one comes with the featurette “Deathstroke: One Man Death Machine.”

And then there’s the Superman feature. The thirty-ninth entry into the DC Animated canon of feature-length films shows Clark Kent early on in his career as Superman, trying to figure out who he is and who he is supposed to be. He’s wrestling with being from another planet and not fitting in – until he realizes that he’s actually more human than he understood, thanks to battles with the alien bounty hunter Lobo, the energy-sucking villain Parasite, and the heroic J’onn J’onzz, Martian Manhunter. Again, 4K HD makes this one beautiful and clear in ways that show a level of detail that can’t be missed. Extra cartoons, sneak peeks, and more add to the complete package.

For those of us who are tired of no theaters and no new content, diving into the 4K HD pool of films from Warner Bros. can certainly provide hours of entertainment to tide us over!

The Owners Director Shows What Happens When We Lack Real Connection

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French director Julius Berg’s directorial debut provides a cinematic translation of the graphic novel Une nuit de pleine lune by Hermann and Yves H. Starring Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams, the film follows three would-be thieves as they case the home of an elderly couple, who prove to be more dangerous (and more intelligent) than the thieves. Set in a sprawling home in the British countryside, the film builds slowly to a fiery climax.

Berg references the first film he truly loved, E.T. the Extraterrestrial, as a film that the visible part of the story (a lost alien and a boy find friendship) hides the deeper part (how the boy is dealing with the separation of his parents in divorce). It’s not lost on me that his debut film provides us some of the stereotypical elements of a horror/thriller, but that there’s more going on here than just the action on screen.

“The social and generational conflict between the young and old, the poor and rich, plays out here,” Berg explained. “We have this feeling that this old, visibly sweet couple protects a darker secret — that the three young robbers who appear nasty are nothing compared to the people who appear to be victims.”

Berg aimed to build a slow burning plot that keeps the audience waiting. “There’s a versatility to the characters,” he said, “and we need lots of different clues about what is really going on, and only showed them one at a time, slowly. So, some of the real behaviors were hidden, and we’re blind to the true behavior of the couple.”

“One detail isn’t enough to warn the robbers, or us, until it’s too late. They should have been more open-minded and focused on the truth. I wanted to make a psychological thriller that hinges on manipulation.”

When asked what lessons audiences might take away from the film, Berg pauses, before admitting that the young robbers find themselves in trouble because they’ve failed to see the connection between themselves, the other, and the rest of the world. He believes we might even see something of ourselves in the film, and be challenged.

“Maybe viewers can find enough motivation to see the part of the whole world and what their heightened life could be,” mused the director. “A painter can use rich colors, but in collaboration, you can use rich colors that you can’t find on your own. All of us are kind of painters.”

“The couple takes control of the house and turns the tables because they are connected, while the robbers are disconnected. They are able to play with the robbers’ conflict and manipulate them.”

Be warned: The Owners are not what they appear – and arrive in Theaters, On Demand and Digital on September 4, 2020.

Castle Rock: The Complete Second Season

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In the second season collaboration of Stephen King and J.J. Abrams, Lizzy Caplan’s Annie Wilkes is a mentally ill nurse, a murderer, and a woman on the run. She may be so much more than that, too, but that’s the way mysteries work when King and Abrams are up to their normal hijinks. Returning to the same geographical terrain as the story from the first season that embroiled Andre Holland, Bill Skarsgard, and Melanie Lynskey, this one tackles a new mystery and various socio-political topics.

Originally on Hulu, Warner Bros.’ Castle Rock has dark and brooding down to a science. Wilkes doesn’t want to be in Castle Rock, but she’s stuck – just like she’s stuck wrestling with the memories and visions of the past that torment her. She has a daughter to think of – sort of – and her maternal drive impacts the way she sees the world, for better or worse.

Wilkes’ experience of the town is impacted by and impacts the local crime family, led by Pop Merrill (Timothy Robbins, in an interesting twist on King’s cinematic influence). There’s also a conflict both physical and ideological between the Merrills and the Somali community, led by Captain Phillips’ Barkhad Abdi as Abdi Howlwadaag. Howlwadaag’s sister, Nadia (Yusra Warsama), runs the local Salem’s Lot hospital where Wilkes gets a job. Closing the circle makes things even more interesting – Pop Merrill once raised the Howlwadaags as his own children, next to his nephew, Ace (Paul Sparks).

The show explores these interfamilial relationships, and some class and race relations, in a way that gives supernatural accents to all of the dynamics. It’s spooky and crafty and powerful, as King’s work often are, transplanting our expectations to a fantasy world and daring us to make the connections between what we see and what we feel for ourselves.

I wouldn’t want to live in Castle Rock, but it’s certainly a transformative place to visit.

The Hunt: Class Warfare

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Other movies have shown us class warfare: District 9, The Hunger Games, Fight Club, Mad Max, even last year’s Knives Out. But the Universal film that was released early digitally because of COVID-19 is now available for purchase and download, delivering a crazy, violently comic story about the way that classes just can’t get along, in The Hunt.

Crystal Creasey (Betty Gilpin) is our “heroine.” But the opening moments (after a bit of unnecessary preface) of the film, as various lower class/middle class people find themselves awake in the country/forrest, gagged and previously drugged, are … frantic. We think we’re being shown who the main “good guy” is and BANG! they’re dead. Then, we think we recognize someone and … BANG!

I know, I know, this is horror, but somehow it comes across more reasonably as something that COULD happen than some of the regular style thrillers we’re spoonfed each year. Seriously, the star holds onto the outside of a plane! No, he survived his 17th car crash this movie! Yes, he found the only magazine of ammunition that fits that particular brand of gun. No, in The Hunt, we’re challenged to consider what it means to survive – and how the metaphor of class warfare plays out.

If the politics are stretched and pulled all over the place, that’s okay. It’s enough for us to consider what it looks like for us to really consider a human’s worth – and whether that human has a right to free speech or not. It’s a stunning situation, that while this is played out as a class thing, it could very well be about race or religion or anything else. We don’t think our words matter, that we can safely lob grenades on social media and not pay for them – but they do. And on the other side, we think that our feelings give us a right to attack back, to hit harder – and we overreact.

The Hunt will mess with you – but no lie, it’s pretty entertaining. And for a guy who can’t stand horror, it kept me captivated until the very end. Is there a sequel? Who knows. Did we really think we’d get multiple helpings of The Purge?

Space Force: Netflix Spoofs Space Workspace

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If Steve Carrell’s Michael Scott had cursed more and been in charge of the new presidential directives to put boots in space, The Office would be Space Force. Here, Carrell is General Mark R. Naird, the Chief of Space Operations. He’s a hardworking soldier who has always played fair, hoping to one day direct the operations of the Air Force but now stuck with the unenviable role of putting Americans in space.

Netflix’s Space Force dusts off the workplace jokes but sends them into space so that the levels of humor are out of this world (groan). John Malkovich is Dr. Adrian Mallory, the scientist who actually knows how space efforts should work and who wrestles with his issues of inadequacy (thanks to the lack of respect he gets from Naird and others). Two other hapless souls, Ben Schwartz plays F. Tony Scarapiducci the poor soul in charge of social media for Space Force and Tawny Newsome plays Naird’s driver/helicopter pilot Angela Ali. Throw in some political conflicts (Noah Emmerich, Jane Lynch, and Patrick Warburton play other military branch heads) and plenty of family drama (Naird has a teenage daughter), and this really is a top-level workplace comedy.

While the workplace material has typical moments, there’s more here given that we’re talking about a based-in-reality-space exploration. Naird has to try to negotiate communication with a chimpronaut (a chimp in space) and deal with ridiculous technology that malfunctions as often as your cellphone. His daughter wrestles with being the daughter of a general. The opportunity to show inter-agency/branch conflict lends itself to myriad storylines, not to mention all the political asides that slide in to each episode. It’s like a crazy blend of insanity that allows us to watch comedians we know and love in completely different roles — and it rockets off in wildly, different directions.

Sure, network TV may be grinding it out thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Netflix is still rocking it.

The Lovebirds: Love in the Frying Pan

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Netflix’s latest straight-to-streaming films are certainly rivaling what’s available in theaters. Too soon? In the romantic comedy The Lovebirds, Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani play a pair of lovers falling out of love who end up stuck in a murder mystery involving a secret cult and some bumbling drug dealers. Some of it doesn’t make any sense at all, but under the direction of Nanjiani’s partner on The Big Sick, Michael Showalter, the film is funnier than expected.

While The Big Sick and Stuber are Nanjiani’s cinematic claims to fame so far (he’ll be in The Eternals whenever that films), and some audiences have seen him in Silicon Valley, his latest film has more in line with Steve Carrell and Tina Fey’s Date Night or Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams’ Game Night. Instead of a married couple out on a rare date or a couple involved in a couples’ group trying out games, Nanjiani and Rae’s Jibran and Leslie are a couple on the rocks, aware that the lifestyle they’ve been living as newly-in-love isn’t sustainable.

Then, disaster or some twist of fate depending on your perspective intervenes strikes and they accidentally hit a cyclist, get commandeered by a cop, and find themselves embroiled in a murder investigation. They are able to take shots at racial profiling, class warfare, and more, as they outrun the bad guys and the good guys, and try to figure out how to clear their names (I think). But the truth is that they never seem to be quite clear on where they’re headed, and it doesn’t really matter.

What does matter here is that the two of them find that the things that were pushing them toward breakup were less important, and the things they had in common were much more important. It’s a question of whether or not the frying pan (or the fire) will refine them and make them better, or cause them to crash and burn even more dramatically. It’s comedic genius — but it’s also a reminder that what threatens us and challenges us often brings out the best in us.

Sure, it’s profane and flip and raucous. Netflix has delivered a theatrical quality comedy that’s sure to entertain, and maybe even show us a thing or two about our own relationships.

Tin Cup: Hole in One? #TBT

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Ron Shelton once teamed with Kevin Costner to deliver one of the top-10 sports films of all time (and the second-best baseball film to star Costner) with Bull Durham. As a one-time minor league baseball player, Shelton was hardwired to tell that story, but he wasn’t done. He also wrote (and directed or produced) White Men Can’t Jump, Blue Chips, Play it to the Bone, and another sports-themed collaboration with Costner, Tin Cup.

Roy McAvoy (Costner) is working as a golf pro at a driving range in West Texas because he lacked the motivation to maximize his talent on the PGA Tour. When his former teammate David Simms (Don Johnson) and Simms’ girlfriend, Dr. Molly Griswold (Rene Russo), show up, Griswold to get a golf lesson and Simms to use McAvoy as a caddy, the plot thickens. McAvoy falls for Griswold, too, and challenges Simms’ pride by calling his ability into question on a 230-yard shot that McAvoy makes while the crowd at a benefit event watches. Simms fires McAvoy, and McAvoy decides to try and qualify for the US Open with the help of Griswold as his shrink and his buddy Romeo Posar (Cheech Marin) as his caddy.

Stereotypical sports moments galore! Sexy romance! Funny asides! Shelton’s formula is pretty much that of the correct chemistry into every sports fan’s heart, and Tin Cup is no different.

In between comparing golf to poetry (yep, that’s in here), McAvoy says things like, “If I had to do it again, I’d still hit that shot,” and Romeo says back, “Man, you’d bury yourself alive just to prove you could hold the shovel.” McAvoy is both deep (“When a defining moment comes along you define the moment or the moment defines you”) and shallow (“Well, if you can remove the sexual overtones and add a golf theme, then Romeo, I am your Juliet” to Romeo).

Of course, the golf isn’t bad either, thanks to golf “consultant” Gary McCord who supplied some of the more exceptional (the truth is always stranger than fiction) moments on the course, and coached Costner up so that he actually looks and plays like a golfer – even hitting many of the shots during filming. That’s the one thing that the true sports fan is looking for — the moment when the film actually captures the reality of the sport they love – and Tin Cup does just that.

Thanks to Warner Archives, fans can now own the film on Blu-ray. Putt away!

The Mask of Zorro: Banderas in 4K HD!

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In between GoldenEye and Casino Royale, director Martin Campbell dropped two other throwback films of another franchise, that of the swashbuckling vigilante from Spanish California, Don Diego de la Vega AKA Zorro. Zorro debuted in a 1919 novel by Johnston McCulley, but a 1920 Douglas Fairbanks film sent McCulley into a forty-year stint writing more stories that spawned live-action television shows, animated series, and films in multiple countries and languages. Today, Sony delivered two films starring the dashing Antonio Banderas on 4K HD, The Mask of Zorro and The Legend of Zorro.

In the first, de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins) escapes from prison, looking to avenge his wife’s death and reconnect the daughter he never really knew, Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Issues are of course plentiful as Elena has been taken in as the daughter of Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson), a corrupt businessman/politician playing a dangerous game with Mexican general Santa Anna. Set against the backdrop of the Mexican-American War, the first film is exciting, dramatic, and stylish, as Banderas’ thief-turned-apprentice assumes the role of the masked vigilante fighting the corrupt government and fighting on behalf of the people who deserve better.

In the second, nine movie years later, Zorro continues to fight for justice, but society seems to be moving on from needing Zorro and Banderas’ masked hero is forced to find new ways to fight. Of course, Zeta-Jones returned — and a new villain, Rufus Sewell’s Count Armand, tries to meddle (and profit) in the conflict between the Union and the Confederacy in the Civil War. (A younger Michael Emerson gets in on the act here, too.) Unfortunately, there are two many convolutions to this one, and it just pales in comparison to the first. (It still more than doubled its budget in income.)

Films like this, full of action, swordplay and explosions are well worth seeing in high def and the 4K HD provides a stunning ability to do that. Fun for the whole family (okay, it’s a bit violent), the films of Zorro provide an awesome reminder of our obligation to defend the innocent and fight for the oppressed. Time travel back to old California – and leave the mark of the Z!

Like a Boss: Beauty’s Only Skin Deep

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Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne star in Paramount’s latest comedy, as Mia Carter and Mel Paige, co-owners of Mel & Mia’s, a cosmetics company who sell out to beauty mogul Claire Luna (Salma Hayek), and then discover they aren’t willing out to give up the control she demands. As Luna works to drive a spike between the two life-long friends, they battle to find their common ground and determine the best way forward.

In the brash, bold comedy, two women get to ad-lib their way through raunchy territory that has mostly been the territory of male actors. It is funny (and crude) as they way in on the men in their lives, and the business they’ve made their own for years. But the truth is that underneath all of that still beats the heart of the buddy comedy where invariably two friends are drawn apart, until finding themselves boomeranging back together against a common enemy. It’s predictable and a bit insane, but it’ll have the right earmarked notes to entertain a crowd looking for some laugh-outloud moments.

What’s also at stake here that’s less superficial: the idea that Claire sees beauty as what women hide about themselves and Mel & Mia see as highlighting the true beauty that women have innately. Jimmy O. Yang and Ryan Hansen play two competitor cosmetic stylists who represent the vibe that Claire is going for, and the Mel & Mia showdown with them is visually (and verbally) entertaining. That’s solid stuff — even when we realize that a man directed this, and men wrote it — providing a reminder that the film seems intent to unpack, that women are forced to play in a man’s world. Ironic, don’t you think?

In a shutdown world without much new entertainment coming your way, Like a Boss provides theater-level entertainment with some comic hitters like Byrne and Haddish. It’ll raise some questions, but I doubt it will answer them for you.

A few special features like “Get Some”, deleted scenes, and a look at their co-workers on the film are included on the Blu-ray.

Self Isolation Film Festival: The Town

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I don’t know why I love The Town so much.

Maybe it’s because it’s so Boston, the biggest city near where I grew up in Rhode Island.

Maybe it’s because it’s an exciting, tense film based on Chris Hogan’s book.

Maybe it’s because it’s full of strong performances by actors like Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner (nominated for an Academy Award for supporting actor, just years after his nomination for The Hurt Locker), Jon Hamm, Titus Welliver, Chris Cooper, and the late Peter Posthwaite.

It could be all of those things, but I don’t think it’s any of those by themselves.

I think it’s all of them tied into the story of a man who wants so badly to leave his past life behind and just doesn’t know how.

The film tells the story of four Boston best friends, “Doug” MacRay (Affleck), “Jem” Coughlin (Renner), “Gloansy” MacGloan (Slaine), and “Dez” Elden (Owen Burke), who pull bank and armored car heists orchestrated by Fergie Colm (Posthwaite), outside of their Charleston neighborhood. When they discover that a recently robbed bank’s assistant manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall), lives near them, MacRay infiltrates her life to keep Coughlin from doing something more violent to her.

As Claire’s goodness begins to chip away at the life MacRay has come to expect for himself, Affleck’s intelligent but trapped robber finds the noose around him getting tighter as FBI Agent Frawley (Hamm) and Dino Ciampa (Welliver), a local-turned-law enforcement officer, close in on his crew. Frustrated by the unwavering eye of the FBI and his growing tension with Coughlin, MacRay begins to plan his escape from Boston and the life of crime he inherited from his father. Unfortunately, leaving home is never quite as easy as you’d expect.

Exploring themes of justice, violence, redemption, and forgiveness, The Town has been one of the few films that I find myself watching again every few years. While we know that MacRay is a bad guy, he’s not a villain — he’s a guy we can see trapped in a world that he never wanted to be in, rolling back through stories told to the moment when he lost his mother. It’s a Western with Old Testament ideals, calling us to consider how far we’d go to extricate ourselves from bad decisions and old habits.

And in the end, we’re left with this hopeful ideal, this reminder that things will one day be better, as MacRay says:

“I’ll see you again.. this side or the other.”