My Day with Film (Tuesday, 12/13/16)

Tuesday, 12/13/16


Dear Diary,

The big news story of the day is that the embargo lifted on reviews for ROGUE ONE and COLLATERAL BEAUTY. Everyone around the internet is scrambling to either avoid spoilers or find out as much as they can before going in. Why on Earth would you do that??

I got some words down about Will Smith's latest which can be read here. Thoughts on ROGUE ONE will be coming this week after I see it. I should have something out in time for everyone planning to attend screenings over the weekend.

As I sat down to write my thoughts about COLLATERAL BEAUTY, I also thought about when I should review MANCHESTER BY THE SEA now that I've seen it. I don't think I'm going to on the blog, and here's why:

Full disclosure - I've had a bit of a hard time this year finding a steady job. I've been a college graduate for a year now, and I'm still trying to carve out a direction for myself going forward. If I could make a living writing about movies and podcasting all day, I'd do it in a heartbeat. That's part of what I hoped to accomplish with these daily diary entries. I believe, and other people around me have said (unless they're just being nice), that I have a unique perspective, and people have gravitated towards that. My audience, however big or small, is still an audience, and I love all of you for reading, listening to and supporting me over the past couple of years. I am going to continue writing as much as I can, but I need to buckle in and focus on starting a career. That said, I don't think I'll be reviewing anything aside from brand-new or early releases. That is, if I can have something available to you during the first weekend of release, I'll do it. Otherwise I'm going to focus my attention elsewhere.

The Reel Movies Podcast will continue, and I should have the last episode of 2016 out next week. I'm not giving up; just simply shifting priorities.

I will simply say that MANCHESTER BY THE SEA is magnificent and, I think, one of the finest American-made dramas of the past 20 years. Casey Affleck is as good as you've heard playing a man stuck in arrested development who suddenly finds himself as the guardian to his nephew after the boy's father dies. Michelle Williams has a small, relatively thankless role that doesn't blossom into anything particularly memorable until she confronts Affleck's character one last time before the ending. The kid, Lucas Hedges, deserves every "Breakout performance" award coming his way for his role as young Patrick. I'll probably have more to say on a future podcast episode, so stay tuned, or feel free to discuss with me on social media.

The next big thing I've seen today is a new poster for TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT, courtesy of Michael Bay and Paramount Pictures.

Apparently last week's trailer debut was one of the most successful of the social media era, garnering over 200 million views in under 7 days. It's pretty impressive that half of those views happened within the first 36 hours of the trailer's release.

It seems that as much as everyone loves to shit on Michael Bay and the TRANSFORMERS movies, the market for them is insatiable.


Until tomorrow,

BC

"Collateral Beauty" Review

Collateral Beauty comes from an original screenplay written by Allan Loeb (21, Here Comes the Boom). Based on the trailers, you'd think this was inspired by some Dickensian novel ripe for favorable comparisons to A Christmas Carol or even, at the very least, to Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life. Director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) helms a tear-jerking soap opera of a film about coping with loss that is well beneath the abilities of its talented cast. Collateral Beauty is so corny and so blatantly Oscar-baity that even the third act twist does little to rescue it from insipidity.

Having said this, Will Smith hands in what may be his finest performance to date as Howard, an advertising executive struggling to get over the death of his six-year-old daughter. His personal relationships have withered as a result, threatening his stake in his business and leaving his colleagues (Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Pena) scrambling to find a solution. Howard copes by writing and mailing letters to what he claims are life's three most crucial absolutes - Love, Death and Time. "We long for love, we wish we had more time, and we fear death," he says.

To pull Howard out of this funk, Whit (Norton), Claire (Winslet) and Simon (Pena) hire three struggling stage actors - Brigitte (Helen Mirren, as a struggling stage actor? Seriously?), Amy (Keira Knightley) and Raffi (Jacob Latimore) - to portray Death, Love and Time respectively. They are tasked with confronting Howard and coaching him through the grieving process, trying to get him to see the beauty of life's gifts. But the one who finally gets Howard over the hump is Madeleine (Naomi Harris), a counselor who heads a support group for parents of deceased children.

All this sounds fine and fun and innocent enough until you figure out that all the characters only speak to each other in platitudes. Every line of dialogue in Loeb's script feels like either an empty quip or some emotional speech. The film tries to say poignant things, but it just comes off cloying. Real people don't talk this way, and that, to me, feels like the wrong way to approach a film with a subject as sensitive as the death of a child. Michael Pena works in a handful of funny moments, but they're not enough to save the movie.

Collateral Beauty is designed to make you cry in the same mindlessly cornball way as beach literature. One way or another you'll feel drained by the end - either of emotion or sanity. In this case, it may be both.

C- (For Will Smith's performance only)