Tag: Rachel McAdams

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Now Playing in Memphis: From Book Clubs to Blackberries

Book Club: The Next Chapter

Silver foxes Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen head out on a bachelorette party trip to Europe in Book Club: The Next Chapter, a sequel to the 2018 sleeper hit comedy. Craig T. Nelson rand Don Johnson also reprise their roles as frigid husband and seasoned himbo with whom our heroines must negotiate new relationships. 

Before Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to the world in 2008, there was the Blackberry. Known to its army of corporate users as the “crackberry,” it demonstrated both the advantages and disadvantages of 24/7 connectivity long before the first Instagram post. Blackberry by indie filmmaker Matt Johnson tells the story of Research In Motion, the company who ruled the mobile world in the Bush era. Wary of another disingenuous hagiography of a tech oligarch? Don’t worry, this one’s a comedy!

Charlie Day, star of the TV comedy staple “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” makes his film-directing debut by biting the hand that feeds him. For Fool’s Paradise he enlisted Ken Jeong, John Malkovich, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, Jason Sudeikis, Edie Falco, Jason Bateman, Common, and a whole bunch more, to satirize showbiz as it is practiced today. You can be excused if you get a strong Being There vibe from this one.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 represents the end of an era for Marvel and Disney. The main cast is retiring, and director James Gunn is moving to helm the rival DC movies. The Memphis Flyer‘s Sam Cicci says “Guardians Vol. 3 is the most creative Marvel film in years, a fitting end to Gunn’s time with Disney.” So far it’s pulled in $365 million worldwide, and shows no signs of stopping.

Judy Blume’s revolutionary young adult novel Are You There Go? It’s Me Margaret gets a worthy adaptation from director Kelly Fremon Craig and Simpsons producer James L. Brooks. Abby Ryder Fortson stars as Margaret, the confused middle-schooler who must navigate a move to the suburbs, puberty, and religious doubt all at once. Rachel McAdams and Memphian Kathy Bates give excellent support as Margaret’s mother and grandmother. Read my review, then watch the trailer.

Sam Raimi’s pioneering horror-comedy franchise continues its perfect record with new director Lee Cronin in Evil Dead Rise. This one’s definitely more scary than funny, but Cronin nails the franchise’s irreverent tone, and Alyssa Sullivan kills as a single mom possessed by demons who stalks a haunted apartment building. A must-see for horror fans, this one’s got legs.

South Korean director Hong Sang-soo and his frequent collaborator Kwan Hae-hyo are back together with Walk Up. Indie Memphis screens this affecting slice-of-life film, which premiered to laurels at the Toronto Film Festival, at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 17 at Studio on the Square.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

 What’s the beeping noise in the distance? It’s the sound of The Super Mario Bros. Movie collecting coins. You just saw Guardians, but you can’t get enough Chris Pratt? Good news! You can hear him phoning it in as Mario in this animated adaptation that has earned enough to build Princess Peach a very nice castle. 

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

Well, the book banners are at it again. Since the good ol’ U.S. of A. was founded by a diverse (from a theological perspective, anyway) group who had just witnessed a couple hundred years of bloody religious civil war in England, freedoms of belief and expression were enshrined as fundamental rights in the new country. So those who would impose their religion on others start by whipping up moral panics about “pornography! In the schools!”

Long before the words “Ron DeSantis” first passed fascist lips, they came for Judy Blume. Her 1970 middle-school coming-of-age novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. has everything: frank talk about sex, a skeptical view of religion, and worst of all, a female protagonist learning about her period. The horror! Children should know nothing about sex except that God hates you for it.

The bannings in the 1970s made it a widely read Gen X classic. Blume resisted offers from Hollywood until The Simpsons executive producer James L. Brooks and director Kelly Fremon Craig finally convinced her it was time to film the unfilmable.

Rachel McAdams as Barbara Simon and Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret Simon in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

We first meet Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) having the time of her life at summer camp. When she returns home to her mother Barbara (Rachel McAdams) and father Herb (Benny Safdie), she’s quick to notice something is afoot. Grandma Sylvia (Kathy Bates) blurts out the news: Dad got a promotion and the family is moving from Brooklyn to the suburbs of New Jersey.

While the family is still unpacking, neighbor Nancy (Elle Graham) introduces herself. Margaret is attracted to her new friend’s self-confidence, and she gets a boost when Nancy asks her to join her girl gang. But navigating her new school’s social scene becomes Margaret’s minefield.

Meanwhile, a long-simmering situation in Margaret’s family life is coming to a boil. Barbara’s Christian fundamentalist parents disowned her when she married Herb, who is Jewish. Margaret must choose which religious tradition she wants to join, if any. Margaret prays her own way in private, and her missives to God give the film narrative structure. When Margaret finds out why she’s never met her grandparents, it fills her with horror — the more she sees of religion, the less she wants to do with it.

Craig nails the feel of the wood-paneled 1970s. Her technique is conservative, compared to The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Eighth Grade. It’s the acting that sends this adaptation into greatness. Fortson’s performance is wise beyond its years, and Graham’s a natural. Craig’s screenplay increases the role of Barbara, and McAdams makes a meal of it.

Margaret’s choices — to be a mean girl or not; to be Jewish, Christian, or none of the above; to be fake and popular or risk being real; being forced to choose between competing branches of her family — are so universal that they transcend the 20th-century setting. What has scared the pearl-clutching book banners for 50 years is that Margaret makes her own choices for her own reasons and lives more or less happily ever after. That kind of freedom is not something the reactionary mind welcomes.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Now playing
Multiple locations

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Now Playing in Memphis: Are You There God? It’s Me, Uma

Perpetually controversial and long thought unfilmable, Judy Blume’s 1970 novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. finally gets a big screen adaptation courtesy of writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig. Margaret (Ant-Man‘s Abby Ryder Fortson) is the daughter of an interfaith marriage who rejects both of her parents’ religions while negotiating impending puberty. Rachel McAdams plays Margaret’s mother Barbara, and Memphian Kathy Bates co-stars as Margaret’s conservative Christian grandmother.

London-based screenwriter Nida Manzoor makes her directorial debut with Polite Society. Ria (Bridgerton‘s Priya Kansara) is an aspiring stunt performer whose sister Lena (Umbrella Academy‘s Ritu Arya) is about to get married. But fiancée Salim (Akshaye Khanna) has a family secret, and it ain’t pretty. This one’s giving off strong droll-British-comedy vibes, and I’m here for it.

The full title of our next one says it all, really. Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World. Khris Davis from Judas and the Black Messiah stars as the beloved fighter and grilling enthusiast.

It’s the 10th anniversary of the Time Warp Drive-In, the classic movie collaboration between Black Lodge, filmmaker Mike McCarthy, and Malco Theater’s Summer Drive-In. To celebrate, they’re bringing back of their most popular programs. This month, it’s Quintessential Quintin: The Early Films of the Tarantino Universe. That means the wound-up neo-noir Reservoir Dogs, the Tarantino-penned Tony Scott classic True Romance, and, of course, the 1994 Palme D’Or winner, Pulp Fiction. Check out the original trailer, which looks just as radical today as it did back then. The films roll at sundown (7:45 p.m.) at the drive-in.

This week marks the 40th anniversary of two completely different films. The first is British music video director Adrian Lyne’s feature film breakthrough Flashdance. Jennifer Beals manages to be convincing as a welder in a steel mill who dreams of becoming a dancer. She’s moonlighting as a cabaret dancer when she meets a cute guy named Nick (Michael Nouri) who also happens to be her boss. It was a huge hit in 1983, but many more people saw the music videos that it spawned than sat through it in a theater. Flashdance will screen at the Malco Paradiso on Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m.

Flashdance‘s competition that weekend was a little movie called Return of the Jedi. George Lucas’ original title was Revenge of the Jedi, before someone pointed out that seeking revenge was more of a Sith thing.

The new name was better suited to a film whose hero finally wins by negating the premise and refusing to fight any more Star Wars.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Spotlight

2015 has been a big year for movies about journalism. We’ve had a journalist try to get inside the mind of novelist David Foster Wallace in The End Of The Tour, a journalist get snookered by a manipulative psychopath in True Story, and superstar journalists fall for black propaganda in Truth. Director Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight is the best of the batch.

The Boston Globe‘s Spotlight team consisted of four investigative reporters: Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James), Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), and Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams). We first meet the team in 2001, as new editor Martin Baron (Liev Schreiber) takes over at the paper. Baron pushes the team of reporters, whose specialty is in-depth, long-form stories, to look into the long-simmering reports of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy in the Boston area. As Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) says, Baron is from out of town and Jewish and so has no preconceived notions about the church’s oversized role in Boston civic affairs. But once he gets Robinson and his team rolling, they methodically uncover a much bigger story than they set out to write: thousands of children, both boys and girls, who had been molested by Catholic priests all over the world, and the church’s sophisticated and pervasive efforts to bury the story and pressure the kids and their parents into lowball settlements and nondisclosure agreements.

Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, and Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight

Journalists used to be common heroes of films. Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, is a newspaper man, for example. But after hitting its peak in the 1970s with All The President’s Men, the stereotype of the crusading journalist slowly soured onscreen into the rumor-grubbing, ethically challenged hack. Spotlight is very much in the tradition of All The President’s Men, using the tricks of the police procedural to dramatize the often tedious job of the investigative reporter. Like a good episode of Law and Order, it’s the bit parts that make it work, such as Neal Huff as the manic advocate Phil Saviano. Michael Cyril Creighton is especially good as recovering victim Joe Crowley, who sums up the awful effect the predatory pedophiles had on the children’s long-term mental health: “It was the first time in my life anyone had told me it was OK to be gay. And it was a priest.”

Keaton, Ruffalo, and McAdams are all extremely good as the core of the reporting team, but the entire ensemble is strong, especially Schreiber, whose low-key portrayal of the editor Baron keeps you guessing right up until the story is published. McCarthy, who co-wrote the script with Josh Singer, manages to tell a dense story with a triple-digit cast of characters while maintaining tension and keeping the pace lively. There are a few missteps, like a late Christmas montage set to a children’s choir singing “Silent Night,” but the overall effect is tight and occasionally moving. For journalists and people who care about democracy and the value of open society, Spotlight is a master class on how things should be done.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

New Year’s Notebook

Over the holiday break, my family and I watched a lot movies on television. Well, sometimes, I watched; other times, I was just in the room reading or scanning the internet on my laptop.

This was the case when my wife was watching The Notebook, though I did watch whenever Rachel McAdams was on-screen. (Wowzah.) It’s a weepy love story that follows a couple from first infatuation to old age and death. One of the big plot twists is that the mother of the young heroine intercepts 365 letters (one a day, for a year) from her daughter’s would-be suitor in an attempt to stop their affair.

It made me think about how ludicrous such a plot device would be today. The young lovers would have exchanged 365 texts in the first week of their separation. Their Facebook friends would know all the details. There would be romantic Instagram pictures of the places they’d been.

A mother has no power over two 20-somethings’ ability to communicate with each other in 2015. We are all — or most of us, anyway — part of the human hive now.

Nearly every day, I wish a happy birthday to someone, sometimes to a person I haven’t seen in years. It’s not because I’m a thoughtful, conscientious friend to hundreds of people; it’s because Facebook helpfully reminds me whose birthday it is each morning. This, I think, is a good thing. Sure, some of the birthday wishes are somewhat pro forma, but who doesn’t like to be remembered on their birthday? It’s an easy way to be kind.

Social media pulls us together in odd and sometimes delightful ways. I was sitting at a club bar listening to music a couple weeks ago, and I realized the fellow next to me was a Facebook friend I’d never really met in person. We have lots of mutual friends, and I enjoy his wit on Twitter and Facebook, and we’d exchanged pleasantries online. I may have even wished him happy birthday. Who knows?

“How’s it going, Dave?” I said.

“Hey, great, Bruce. How are you?” he replied, not missing a beat. Instant recognition, and an ensuing conversation that flowed as smoothly as beer into a glass. At some level, we already knew each other, though not “in real life.” This, too, is a good thing, I think.

As a new year begins, I find myself hopeful — perhaps naively so — that these sorts of social connections will help us bridge our differences — in age, race, gender, politics. Becoming social media “friends” is the new version of exchanging business cards, except we have the opportunity to continue to communicate, to read each others’ opinions, to see who has a sense of humor, to learn who has an off-putting ego, to find out who’s a sucker for foolish memes, who’s an undiscovered writer.

Sometimes, “real life” is what you make it. As is a new year. Onward.