Archive | August, 2021

Flag Day

20 Aug

‘Flag Day’: Penn raises ‘Flim-Flam’ flags aplenty, acting with family in another daughter’s memoir

By Tom Meek Thursday, August 19, 2021

About every five years, Academy Award-winning actor Sean Penn takes the director’s chair for a tight focus on those struggling mightily in small arenas. Many of these lo-fi, big-themed efforts come with some heavy-duty thespian firepower. For his directorial debut, “The Indian Runner” (1991), Penn was blessed with a cast that included Viggo Mortensen, David Morse, Charles Bronson, Sandy Dennis and Benicio Del Toro, as well as Dennis Hopper; afterward he teamed up with Jack Nicholson for “The Crossing Guard” (1995) and “The Pledge” (2001). Here the film’s more of a family affair in which Penn’s real-life children, Dylan and Hopper, play his onscreen progeny. The cast has some A-list names too with Regina King, Josh Brolin and Eddie Marsan in the mix, but in parts so small that if you close your eyes for a few seconds you might miss them. 

Adapted from Jennifer Vogel’s 2005 memoir “Flim-Flam Man: The True Story of My Father’s Counterfeit Life” (script by Jez Butterworth, a co-writer on “Black Mass” and “Ford v Ferrari”), “Flag Day” depicts the tumult of a father-daughter relationship across decades. Penn plays the titular con man, with his daughter portraying the young Jennifer Vogel. The film’s an earnest but rambling mess that draws you in with its shaggy-dog charms and wisps of mystery but pushes you out with jerky POV shifts and scenes of characters just screaming and shouting at each other without saying anything or furthering the narrative – my guess would be improv gone wrong. Told mostly through Jennifer’s gaze, the film occasionally (and jarringly) jumps to Penn’s John off on his own doing some pseudo-sociopathic activity. He has an abode with windows papered up as if he were a vampire, an empty briefcase he takes to his nonexistent job each day and is always looking over his shoulder. Over the years Jennifer often finds John in a “business meetings” with Hell’s Angels-like ruffians from which he often comes out bloodied. John’s a talker, always spinning and not quite dad-of-the-year material, but by comparison with his ex-wife Patty (Katheryn Winnick, “Vikings” and “Big Sky”), a lethargic alcoholic who could not get out of bed in the early years, he seems like a better choice at least to Jennifer. She seeks him out after mom’s creepy new beau tries to crawl into bed with her and mom, in the aftermath, sides with her man.

Just what John is up to is never made clear. It should be a major distraction, but when the late-teens Jennifer comes back to roost with him, the film becomes more about the two of them trying to get a leg up on life together and less about the dubious schemes John sets up while Jennifer is at work (as an intern and then journalist at Minnesota’s City Pages, where I also wrote). The film becomes a bittersweet waltz of hope, heartbreak and delusion, and a deeply intimate one. Penn, embracing the ’70s and ’80s setting, shoots for that lived-in indie look and at times evokes the gritty realism of John Cassavetes; at other, more lyrical turns he projects the dreamy idealism of Terrence Malick. It’s an arty endeavor, but not one that endears.

As far as Penn’s directorial efforts go, “Flag Day” is a step up from his 2016 misfire “The Last Face,” starring then-girlfriend Charlize Theron, his son Hopper and Javier Bardem, but still a lesser effort and a long way away from his 2007 high, “Into the Wild.”

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CODA

12 Aug

‘Coda’: This Child of Deaf Adults is called to sing in a family drama from Cambridge’s Sian Heder

By Tom Meek Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Cambridge Rindge and Latin grad Sian Heder connects old and new with local color and universal language in “Coda,” a heartwarming English-language adaptation of the 2014 French film “La Famille Bélier” about an aurally able girl from a deaf family with a desire to sing. Forget France, we’re in old-school Gloucester for this spin, hanging on the working-class side of town the way Kenneth Lonergan’s award-winning “Manchester by the Sea” (2016) did. It’s a rewarding transposition for us locals.

The acronym of the title is “Children of Deaf Adults.” Here that’s Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones, “High-Rise”) a Gloucester High student who lives with mom Jackie (Marlee Matlin), dad Frank (Troy Kotsur) and older brother Leo (Daniel Durant) – all three deaf. The Rossis are a fishing family; Ruby works the boat early in the morn and, understandably exhausted, nods off in class. Mean, more-well off girls give her a hard time and form a barrier to her afar crush, Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), one of the popular kids, but Ruby finds an in when she learns he’s signed up for choir. Ruby, ever singing on the boat and at home, follows suit.

“Coda” moves in a fairly predictable arc, but it does so sans apology and it does so well. Plot threads include the struggles of the the small Gloucester fisherman to remain relevant in changing times and the quiet, ongoing struggle for the hearing-impaired to not be brushed aside. That latter is at once moving and has many clever, gut-tickling moments, such as when Ruby must translate to a doctor about mom and dad’s burning loin issues – Frank signs that his balls are on fire. The doctor explains it’s just jock itch from the sea and humidity, and that the two should lay off sex for a while. That comes as something of a relief for Ruby because mom and dad are usually at it, and loudly so, when friends or Miles stop by.

Oscar winner Matlin (“Children of a Lesser God”) is the big name here and she’s brash, funny and vulnerable as Jackie, but the real tour de force is Kotsur as Frank. The two have perfect chemistry, blasting heavy metal out of their pickup – another one of the many cringeworthy moments Ruby endures with warmth in her heart. The two actors are deaf in real life, as is Durant (effective as the big brother arriving into manhood). Heder was determined to use hearing-impaired actors not only for authenticity but because the are underrepresented on film.

Heder who struggled as an actor after graduating Carnegie Mellon University, got a CV bounce and access from writing on “Orange is the New Black.” Her directorial debut “Tallulah” (2016) was another tight, situation-driven female journey staring Ellen Page as an adrift young woman who intervenes dramatically on behalf of the toddler of an inattentive and over-privileged mother. Both films are deeply nested in their protagonist’s view and dilemmas. “Coda” is a more typical drama, but it’s also shows the director deepening her art. She and the cast hit all the right notes, making an old tune hip and catchy again.

Local note: Heder’s parents are local artists Mags Harries and Lajos Héder. Harries is responsible for “Glove Cycle,” the bronze mitts that adorn the endless escalator in the Porter Square T station.

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The Suicide Squad

8 Aug

‘The Suicide Squad’: Supervillains born to lose get their chance like James Gunn’s ‘Guardians’

By Tom Meek Wednesday, August 4, 2021

With this semi-reboot of DC’s Suicide Squad concept, the whole riveting potential of Harley Quinn still remains to be realized – and perhaps never will be. “The Suicide Squad,” not to be confused with “Suicide Squad,” is a step up from that disappointing 2016 entry point as well as “Birds of Prey” (2020), the muddled feminist take designed to let Margot Robbie take her Harley out for a wide-open spin. The carrot here is that it’s helmed by James Gunn, the once lo-fi auteur of gore and superhero quirk (“Slither” and “Super”) who rose to mainstream notoriety with the marvelously offbeat Marvel Universe entry “Guardians of the Galaxy” (2014). It’s wildly intriguing, if curious, to see him on the DC side of things, but what better hand to give a boost to a floundering franchise holding tight to the blood-splattered dress of its all-star player?

That said, Robbie’s maniacally mercurial – and damn lethal – Quinn is a supporting player here, which is good and bad. Good in that she’s a lightning bolt of frenetic energy in every scene she’s in. Bad in that when she’s not onscreen, the film ebbs noticeably. Also, at more than two hours, the film feels way too long for what it is. It begins with the snazzy pop that Gunn was able to maintain throughout the entirety of his two “Guardians” chapters as a squad of convicts with special skills (“odd” would be the better word) is led by patriotic jarhead Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Quinn to a beach landing on Corto Maltese, a fictitious South American country. In their charge there’s a Laplander with a catchy accent and a big javelin (Flula Borg), a soldier with detachable arms (Nathan Fillion), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney, playing the part again), SNLer Pete Davidson as Blackguard, the fly in the ointment, Gunn regular Michael Rooker with glorious, flowing Edgar Winter-like locks as Savant and a giant CGI weasel. The landing’s something of a D-Day, with few besides Quinn making it to the next stage. 

Gunn, playing with us, rewinds to the assembly of the team by government handler Amanda Waller (Oscar winner Viola Davis, also back again). There we learn that the team, known as Team One, really was a “Suicide Squad”; it was a distraction and fodder so Team Two, led reluctantly by Bloodsport (Idris Elba), a dead shot with an arsenal of firearms neatly attached to his body armor, could slip in sans bloodbath. His squad is equally as ragtag, with John Cena growing his acting chops as Peacemaker, a sardonic arms and demolition expert, and the straight-faced Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), who can toss toxic dots at adversaries and whose mommy issues nearly upstage Quinn. There’s also a waif known as the Ratcatcher (Daniela Melchior) who can summon a horde of rats, and King Shark, aka Nanaue, the half-man, half-shark voiced by Sylvester Stallone and a likable oaf when not chomping on human flesh – I really wanted a Land Shark joke, which would have been justified by Davidson’s inclusion. Speaking of humor, the reason the United States wants to infiltrate Corto Maltese is something called Project Starfish, for an ever-transforming extraterrestrial housed in a castle-like silo by a mad scientist called The Thinker (Peter Capaldi), who has brain bulbs or whatnot sticking out of his head and looks like the unholy fusion of Hellraiser and Doc from the “Back to the Future” films. Getting back to that joke, Peacemaker remarks that “in prison, a starfish is another name for butthole.” He later says he’d eat a beach full of penises to do his duty for country. Yeah, a lot of the gags miss wide, which is why you’re only too happy when Quinn drops back in the game.

From a sociopolitical angle you could argue that the film shines a light on the long-running exploitation of developing Latin countries by U.S. and other Western interests. Naturally, there’s also those home-bred despots looking to fulfill their megalomaniacal whims – the killing of women and children being a moral threshold for some of the Squad, and a shrug and whatever for others. The movie’s supposed to be Elba’s, and while his Bloodsport’s sword-waving with Peacemaker is puckishly good second-tier fun, the shine here is Quinn. No Quinn, no movie. In the grand finale the Squad is confronted with said starfish, something of a cross between a kaiju and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. It’s not a shark jump, but it does underscore the missed opportunity.

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