Mediocre Movie Club Movie Reviews

2018 Mediocrities

10/30/2018

Best Film

Heat
The Big Sick
The Incredibles 2
The Iron Giant
The Silence of the Lambs - WINNER

Best Director

Brad Bird, The Incredibles 2
Kevin Costner, Dances With Wolves - WINNER
Jonathan Demme, The Silence of the Lambs
Michael Mann, Heat
Steven Soderbergh, Logan Lucky

Best Actor

Robert de Niro, Neil McCauley, Heat
James Franco, Tommy Wiseau, The Disaster Artist
Al Pacino, Vincent Hanna, Heat
Max Records, John Wayne Cleaver, I Am Not a Serial Killer
Denzel Washington, Bleek, Mo' Better Blues - WINNER

Best Actress

Jodie Foster, Clarice Starling, The Silence of the Lambs
Salma Hayek, Beatriz, Beatriz at Dinner
Holly Hunter, Ellen Parr, The Incredibles 2
Frances McDormand, Mildred Hayes, Three Billboards - WINNER
Charlize Theron, Lorraine Broughton, Atomic Blonde

Best Supporting Actress

Ari Graynor, Juliette Danielle, The Disaster Artist
Holly Hunter, Beth, The Big Sick - WINNER
Farrah Mackenzie, Sadie Logan, Logan Lucky
Elizabeth Marvel, Jean Meyerowitz, The Meyerowitz Stories
Emma Thompson, Maureen Meyerowitz, The Meyerowitz Stories

Best Supporting Actor

Daniel Craig, Joe Bang, Logan Lucky
Vin Diesel, Giant, The Iron Giant
Graham Greene, Kicking Bird, Dances With Wolves
Dennis Haysbert, Don Breedan, Heat
Anthony Hopkins, Hannibal Lecter, The Silence of the Lambs - WINNER
Ted Levine, Buffalo Bill, The Silence of the Lambs
Craig Robinson, Curtis, Morris From America

Best Writing

Heat
Logan Lucky
The Big Sick - WINNER
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
The Silence of the Lambs

Worst Movie

Cutthroat Island
Fahrenheit 451
Meagan Leavey
The Magnificent Seven
Tusk - WINNER

Best Scene

Extended stairwell fight, Atomic Blonde
Hanna and McCauley sit down for coffee, Heat
Sadie sings John Denver, Logan Lucky
Jack Jack versus the raccoon, The Incredibles 2 - WINNER
Giant intercepts the nuclear missile, The Iron Giant
Starling first meets Lecter, The Silence of the Lambs
Willoughby coughs blood in Mildred's face, Three Billboards

Best Line

I've always wanted to see the frontier before it's gone. John Dunbar, Dances With Wolves
You can get killed walking your doggie, Vincent Hanna, Heat
It was a tragedy. I mean, we lost 19 of our best guys. Kumail, The Big Sick
Suu-per-man. Giant, The Iron Giant
That is a hard R. Jean Meyerowitz, The Meyerowitz Stories
It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. Buffalo Bill, The Silence of the Lambs - WINNER

Best Pet

Two-Socks, Dances With Wolves
Monkey, Cutthroat Island
Soccer playing robot #8, Lo and Behold
Flower shop pug, The Disaster Artist
Precious, The Silence of the Lambs - WINNER

Most Uncomfortable Moment

Morris bangs his Katrin pillow, Morris From America - WINNER
Morris bombs at the talent show, Morris From America
Casey dances with Hedwig, Split
Tommy films a sex scene, The Disaster Artist
Goodbye Horses, The Silence of the Lambs

0 Comments

Tusk

10/13/2018

1 Comment

D
0.94

An abrasive podcaster undergoes a horrific transformation in isolated Canada.

Directed by Kevin Smith
Starring Justin Long and Michael Parks
Initial Review by Jon Kissel

Kevin Smith’s an acquired taste and for all intents and purposes, seems to be a charming and introspective guy. Coming onto the cinematic scene at the same time as other hyper-loquacious indie directors like Richard Linklater and Quentin Tarantino, he spent his first ten years churning out interconnected comedies that were by turns filthy and eloquent. He also might be a prime example of the truism that a person spends their whole life creating their first thing, and then struggles to replicate it thereafter. Smith’s debut, Clerks, is great, and everything else has lived in its micro-budget shadow. This is especially true with Tusk. The last decade of Smith’s career has found him trying to break away from raunch and into genre with cop buddy comedies and cult shootouts, and Tusk is his largely unsuccessful body horror attempt.

1 Comment

Brawl in Cell Block 99

10/5/2018

0 Comments

B-

2.67

A low-level criminal has to fight his way through prison before misery befalls his kidnapped wife.

Directed by S. Craig Zahler
Starring Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, and Don Johnson
Initial Review by Jon Kissel

S. Craig Zahler continues his efforts to bring exploitation films back from the 70’s with Brawl in Cell Block 99, a sickeningly violent prison flick and follow-up to the equally queasy Bone Tomahawk. I’m not terribly familiar with exploitation cinema, but like pornography, one just knows it when they see it. They feature extreme human behavior, prefer cool and reject beauty or elegance, have stylized dialogue, and fashion antagonists from pure evil. Tarantino does a more refined version of this, having been raised on exploitation films. The Tipper Gore-esque knock on early Tarantino was that he’s overly violent, an inaccurate accusation in at least his first three films. Tarantino pans away from ears getting chopped off, but no one could say the same of Zahler. He stares violence in the face, taking in every compound fracture and bone crunch. The result is a nigh-unrecommendable film, his second in a row. The sick feeling in one’s stomach after the credits isn’t necessarily something I want other people to experience.

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The Burbs

9/27/2018

1 Comment

C
2.00

Suburbanites suspect their reclusive neighbors of malfeasance.

Directed by Joe Dante
Starring Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, and Carrie Fisher
Initial Review by Jon Kissel

Directing a film is often as simple as maintaining a tone. I can’t remember where I heard that, whether it was on one of the half dozen film podcasts I listen to or if it was in an interview with someone (maybe the Coen brothers), but it’s a sentiment that rings true. Keeping the mood consistent and establishing a world that a film’s events can credibly occur in both fall under the umbrella of tone, and it’s a particular aspect of filmmaking that Joe Dante has never considered. We’ve previously discussed his Explorers, with its jarring third act spent amongst corny aliens. I only recently saw Gremlins for the first time, a film that wants to be a horror comedy but also contains a reaction shot to a fuzzy puppet when a character laments how her dad suffocated in a chimney during an elaborate Christmas prank. Both of those films are on solid ground when it comes to premise, but the tone is out of control. The same is true of The Burbs, a cogent satire with a vast distance between how it’s interpreting its characters and how they’re coming across. This is one more Dante film that has no idea what it wants to be.

1 Comment

High Noon

9/14/2018

1 Comment

B-
2.83

A frontier lawman tries to rustle up a posse to fend off an incoming outlaw.

Directed by Fred Zinneman
Starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly
Initial Review by Jon Kissel

Classic production code films are always hard to evaluate. It’s possible the viewer has seen dozens of iterations and imitators without knowing it, robbing the classic of any originality it would’ve had at its premiere. The workarounds required by morality censors give writers and directors hurdles that don’t improve their films thanks to an extra degree of difficulty. These kinds of films have a cadence all their own, a stilted way of speaking that can be hard to ignore. Subtlety seems to be a thing that doesn’t get introduced to American cinema til the incorporation of Italian neo-realism and the looming French New Wave. I don’t feel like I’m too far out on a limb when I say that Hollywood film was an art form with plenty of room to run in the early 50’s. The film that gets me thinking about mid-century movies is High Noon, the Western as anti-McCarthy parable. It has all the aforementioned crutches that keep it from my rating it as a great film, though I can admire it as something with a perspective and a legacy.

1 Comment

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2018 Mediocrities

Tusk

D
0.94

Brawl in Cell Block 99

B-

2.67

The Burbs

C
2.00

High Noon

B-
2.83

Authors

Categories

Archives

2018 Mediocrities

Tusk

D0.94

Brawl in Cell Block 99

B-2.67

The Burbs

C2.00

High Noon

B-​2.83

Authors

Categories

Archives

D
0.94

B-

2.67

C
2.00

B-
2.83