FANTASTIC BEASTS: A Worthy HARRY POTTER Spin-Off

Opening tonight in No-Maj land at a muliplex near you:

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM
(Dir. David Yates, 2016)

Where to find them is in a suitcase owned by a one Mr. Newt Scamander, who we meet just off the boat in New York in 1926 at the beginning of this spin-off of the HARRY POTTER series, which takes place 70 years before our young hero Harry first picks up a wand.

Scamander, portrayed by Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne as a nervous, awkward bloke who even acknowledges that people find him annoying, gets caught up in mayhem at a bank in an amusing opening sequence in which his suitcase of crazy creatures gets mistakenly switched with one owned by Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) that contains pastries (Kowalski was at the bank trying to get a loan to open a bakery).

We learn that while in Britain folks without magical abilities are called “Muggles,” in America they are dubbed “No-Majs.”

Witnessing this event and recognizing Scamander as a wizard is a witch by the name of Porpentina “Tina” Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), who takes in Scamander to the offices of theMagical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA), but the President of the division, Seraphina Picquery (Carmen Ejogo) isn’t interested in the arrest because Tina was just demoted to the Wand Permit Office.

However, Colin Farrell as Percival Graves, the Director of Magical Security, is intrigued about the contents of Scamander’s suitcase, which at the moment is causing more mayhem back at Kowalski’s apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

After restoring the damage to the building, Newt and Tina gather Kowalski and the suitcase and make their way to Tina’s apartment where we meet Tina’s younger sister, Queenie Goldstein (actress/singer Alison Sudol), another witch who can read minds. Later that night, Scamander uses the suitcase as a portal to another dimension which contains a zoo of all of Scamander’s surreal, colorful creatures. Kowalski is stunned by what he sees, but saddened to learn that at the end of the adventure he’ll have to be obliviated, which means that his memory of his experience with his new friends will be wiped clean.

Meanwhile, another No-Maj, Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton), leader of the New Salem Philanthropic Society (a.k.a. the Second Salemers) rails against the existence of witches and Wizards, while her kids, Creedence and Modesty (Ezra Miller and Faith Wood-Blagrove) suspiciously sulk behind her.

There is also another subplot involving Jon Voight as Henry Shaw Sr., a newspaper mogul whose slick senator son, Henry Jr. (Josh Cowdery) is running for re-election, but despite a lively rally scene they don’t factor in much (probably just here to set some of the scene for the sequels).

The movie’s second half concerns Newt, Tina, Jacob, and Queenie working together to find one of the missing beasts and to stop a dark force called an Obscurial, which appears as an eerie, black cloud, from destroying the city. This, of course, involves an AVENGERS amount of city destruction via CGI that is seamlessly impressive but no match for what’s onscreen in DOCTOR STRANGE.

FANTASTIC BEASTS began life as a plot-less Hogwarts textbook that J.K. Rowlings wrote under the pseudonym of Scamander as a sideline enhancement to the Harry Potter book series. Here Rowlings fleshes the concept out into her first screenplay adaptation, which is proposed to be the first in a five part series.

Not sure how I feel about a second franchise sprouting out of what was a 128-page book – echoes of the bloated film trilogy made out of “The Hobbit” – but if Yates can keep the quality control in check like he does here, it could make for a very fun ride.

For Yates, who has directed four of the HARRY POTTER films, has fashioned a worthy, witty spinoff that has a lot of charm, visual splendor, and likable characters (especially Fogler, who steals the film from his fellow cast members throughout) to carry us through its two hour and thirteen minute running time, in which only a few scenes drag.

Now, I’ve only read the first Harry Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, but I’ve seen all of the movies and for the most part enjoyed them. I may even agree with the AV Club’s Noel Murray, who in this fine essay, argues that the series might be “the best sustained exercise in fantasy literature adaptation in Hollywood history.”

Not sure if this prequel series will reach that height, but its first installment, FANTASTIC BEASTS, works both as an extension of the HP series’ ethos, and as a piece of standalone entertainment. Many may be cynical about Warner Brothers milking this particular magical cash cow, but I believe Rowlings and Yates will prove that their vision is big enough to sustain another round of magical storytelling.

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SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS: An Amusingly Meta-Minded Dog Napping Caper

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (Dir. Martin McDonagh, 2012)

It’s not often that a film lives up to the potential of its cast and premise, but SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS does both, and it does something even rarer - it does the “meta” thing right.

Martin McDonagh’s first full length feature, 2008’s IN BRUGES, leaned a little towards meta with lines like “This is the Shootout” and it’s finale taking place on a film set, but here, in his bloody brilliant second film, the Irish writer/director really goes for the gusto in narrative deconstruction.

Colin Farrell, who also starred in IN BRUGES, plays an alcoholic Los Angeles-based writer living working on a screenplay called, you guessed it, “Seven Psychopaths.” Farrell happens to have a few questionable friends including the not-playing-with-a-full-deck Sam Rockwell who’s in the dognapping business with the eccentric ascot-wearing Christopher Walken.

Rockwell, whose fearlessly unhinged and hilarious performance steals the movie, makes the mistake of kidnapping the beloved shih tzu belonging to a ruthless gangster (Woody Harrelson), and this sets off a series of murders, conversations, and stories told through flashbacks – all of which Farrell is considering to add to his script.

If you find yourself thinking that the females in the cast (Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko, and Gabourey Sidibe) are given short shrift, don’t worry, the folks in the film agree as we witness them discuss how Farrell’s female characters are weak.

The finale in the desert (at Joshua Tree National Park) may seem equally as obvious (someone even calls it “the perfect place for a shootout”), but the playful tone doesn’t feel forced and the winks at the audience didn’t make me cringe like in, say, Shane Black’s lesser equally meta-minded KISS KISS BANG BANG (2005).

In the best way possible, there are shades of Tarantino in the hitman banter and comic use of violence, and the Coen Brothers in the increasing absurdity of the situations as they pile on top of each other.

Great grizzled appearances by Harry Dean Stanton and Tom Waits, mostly appearing in the moody recollections that are intertwined with the film’s ongoing scenarios, give “Seven Psychopaths” a bit of gravitas that elevates the material above what usually passes for edgy comedy at the multiplexes these days.

Sometimes it seems as if SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS may be too much in its own comfort zone, but when it’s as cozily clever, and enjoyably in the know as it often is, McDonagh’s movie plays to its strengths more than it reveals its limitations. Or maybe, I was laughing too much to notice them.

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The TOTAL RECALL remake really ain’t right

TOTAL RECALL (Dir. Len Wiseman, 2012)

With its dark rainy dystopian cityscape full of video-billboards, flying cars, cyberpunk people with neon umbrellas, and Asian architecture, one could be forgiven for thinking in the first five minutes that this is a remake of a different Philip K. Dick adaptation: BLADE RUNNER.

But then what little plot there is kicks in and we are stuck inside this big over-caffeinated mess of a movie that’s a much looser take on the 1966 short story (“We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”) than the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenneger/Paul Verhoeven version.

In this one, which takes place in 2084 (the same year the ’90 one was), Colin Farrell plays Doug Quaid, a robot factory assembly line worker married to Kate Beckinsale, who decides to give a memory-implanting service, the Rekall company, a whirl.

Things get all screwy and the secret agent vacation he’s purchasing reveals that he actually is a secret agent named Hauser, a bad ass who didn’t even know he was (see: Jason Bourne) that can kick the asses of legions of robo-cops.

So from there it’s essentially a bunch of high octane fight and chase sequences tied together by the thin thread of what used to be a cool sci-fi scenario.

Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston livens things up a bit, but his role as the evil Prime Minister who is after Farrell is as generically written as every other element here. Of course, Cranston has a convoluted political plan to, uh, let’s just say to rule the planet and become the all-being master of time, space and dimension. Yeah, let’s go with that.

Jessica Biel, who obviously has the same hair dresser as Beckinsale, who is just here to add more sexy acrobatics to this only action-minded atrocity.

A major sequence that features a chase through a ginormous elevator system made of accelerating cubicles gets close to being exciting, but the clutter of fast-acting CGI and overabundance of washed out looking backgrounds kept me from being in the moment with the characters.

To be fair, Farrell does a good job with what he’s given. He’s a guy that gets more interestingly nuanced as he gets older - I really hope to see him in something more interesting soon.

The humorless nature of this movie is disheartening because the 1990 original had a satisfying satirical spark to it, and it had the smarts to keep the sleaziness at bay until the second half on Mars.

This one doesn’t go to Mars, but this starts off sleazy - for example the infamous three-breasted prostitute (yeah, no way they could leave her out) is brought out much earlier. Why wait, right?

One of the biggest laughs in the whole movie was in the first few seconds when the name of one of the production companies appeared: Original Film. Yeah, as if!

Never thought I’d laud a over 2 decades old somewhat schlocky Schwarzegger movie so much, but before this new Wiseman-helmed waste - the Verhoeven version wasn’t close to being a classic.

After seeing this though, it sure as hell looks like one.

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The Ballad Of Bad Blake

CRAZY HEART (Dir. Scott Cooper, 2009)

Early this week Jeff Bridges scored his fifth Oscar nomination for his role as Bad Blake, a crusty Kris Kristopherson-ish country music artist on the comeback circuit. Surprisingly, at least to me, not one of those nominations was for “The Dude” – the iconic Coen Brothers character in THE BIG LEBOWSKI that completely reshaped Bridges’ career despite the fact that he had done much major work in the 30 years before that.

When Bad Blake shows up to perform at a dive bowling alley early in CRAZY HEART, one can’t help but sense the shadow of “The Dude.”

It’s felt again when Blake fishes his sunglasses out of a trash can he just puked in, and then there’s the way he passes out when he’s inebriated – yep, there’s a man for his time and place.

But make no mistake - Bad Blake is not “The Dude.”

He’s played by the same scruffy aging actor, sure, but Blake is not a comical creation. He’s a hybrid of country music clichés that somehow become a living breathing believable entity – a singer songwriter trapped in one of his own hurting heart songs. He lives gig to gig, bottle to bottle, groupie to groupie, etc.

Maggie Gyllenhall also picked up an Academy Award nomination with her fine though transparent part as a journalist doing a story on Blake. She has a kid (Jack Nation) which the grizzled journeyman bonds with on a morning after the mismatched pair sleep together. Gyllenhall knows Blake is bad for her, but she’s touched by his affection and the idea that he writes songs in her presence.



If you want to go the Western route in this synopsis you could say that as an old guitar slinger Blake has to contend with a young hot kid on the scene; a Keith Urban-esque former protégé played by Colin Farrell. Farrell’s handles his role with aplomb (he provides his own vocals like Bridges) and it’s nice that he doesn’t turn out to be a cutthroat adversary – that would’ve been way too predictable. Sadly, way too predictable describes the rest of the narrative arc.

Nothing happens in CRAZY HEART that you wouldn’t expect with this material. Every element is measured out in a sensible quantity and every set piece falls into its predetermined place, yet the film has a raw appeal. That credit goes completely to Bridges.

Whether character actor or unlikely leading man, Bridges has a charisma that goes deeper than just “The Dude” abiding. His smiling eyes light up his face even when his mouth is agape in a hopeless expression of not quite processing what’s just happened in front of him. When Gyllenhall comes to her senses about having Bad Blake in her life and tells him not to come around anymore, the look on his face alone should win him the Oscar.

Robert Duvall shows up seemingly to remind us of the similar character he played in TENDER MERCIES. Duvall, who seems to be living cameo to cameo these days (see THE ROAD), is a father figure to Blake and has one of the film’s best moments singing a sweet acapella version of Billy Ray Shaver’s “Live Forever” in a tranquil fishing scene.

That’s where the movie really soars - music-wise. T. Bone Burnett, along with Ryan Bingham and Stephen Bruton (a former Kristopherson band mate who died last year) crafted an authentic batch of songs that often made me forget the film’s story shortcomings. 

There's also well chosen songs like Waylon Jennings' obvious but apt "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" and Townes Van Zandt's "If I Needed Someone" to round out the mix. Maybe it’s a great soundtrack in search of a great film which doesn’t quite materialize, but it’s a sturdy set however you cut it.

So, CRAZY HEART or, as I call it, "The Ballad Of Bad Blake", contains an Oscar worthy performance, good songs, and an incredibly predictable yet still endearing premise. I can abide with that.

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Ledger’s Last Film: Good But Not Great Gilliam

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS 
(Dir. Terry Gilliam, 2009)

Terry Gilliam is infamous for problems plaguing (and sometimes halting) many of the productions of his fantastically far-fetched films, but as I'm sure folks reading this well know, none have been hit harder than this one. The untimely death of Heath Ledger midway through shooting threatened to squash the project, but Gilliam came up with a solution to cast three of Ledger’s acting peers to fill in for his remaining scenes.

It helps the conceit that in the story Ledger’s character steps through a magic mirror into another world in which he could be somewhat plausibly changed into another person. It also helps that the 3 actors filling in just happen to be very big names in the business: Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell.

Given these circumstances, the finished film works better than it has a right to. Working with a much lower budget than before, Gilliam knows how to draw an audience in to a strange setting, one that’s familiar to fans with its ratty stage folk and tall tales that just might be true. 

In the title role, Christopher Plummer, made to look ten times scragglier than usual, leads a group of show folks making their way around modern day London in a make-shift stage vehicle. The group is made up of the Doctor’s daughter (Lily Cole), a clever but neurotic magician (Andrew Garfield), and an out-spoken dwarf (Verne Troyer) who has many of the films best lines.

Plummer tells his daughter (and us) his bizarre back story (well, bizarre if you’ve never seen a Gilliam film before) involving a deal with the Devil (a terrific Tom Waits) and the darkening of his visions. When crossing a bridge in the middle of the night the traveling troupe comes across Ledger hanging from a noose. They get him down and find he’s still alive. 

When he comes to the next day he asks where he is. Troyer answers: “Geographically, in the Northern Hemisphere. Socially, on the margins. Narratively, with some way to go.”

Ledger has no memory of his life before his suicide attempt so he joins the Imaginarium players, soon making changes to their set and presentation. A crumbled newspaper page blowing around the rubble of the seedy dank underworld they call home reminds Ledger of his shady background, but he continues to go along with the troupe especially after learning that the Doctor’s Imaginarium is no scam.

The film beautifully builds up to when Ledger first goes through the mirror and the transition to Johnny Depp is successfully smooth. Depp has the briefest bit of the guest replacement actors, but makes the most of it with his patented eyebrow exercises and dance moves. 

Jude Law and Colin Farrell are well suited for the smarmy greedy parts of Ledger’s personality that emerge in further mirror excursions if indeed that’s what they were supposed to symbolize.

Such errant elements in the second half don’t gel well and key plot points are muddled or clumsily glossed over, but that Gilliam was able to complete this film to as coherent as it is makes up for a great deal of defects.

THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN is the closest relative IMAGINARIUM has in Gilliam’s canon. 

Both deal with wizened old men spinning legends out of their outrageous realities; performing their fables on the sideshow circuit, laying in wait for fortune or death - or both. IMAGINARIUM has a much lower budget that MUNCHAUSEN, yet it benefits from less aesthetic indulgence and its smaller scale gives it more intimacy.

It’s far from Gilliam’s best movie, and it’s far from Ledger’s best performance, but as a salvaged final project, I’m glad THE IMAGINARIUM exists. 

It’s a mixed bag of a movie (and may still have been had Ledger lived), but it’s a still a fairly fun film and a fitting tribute. At the end we are told that this is “A film from Heath Ledger and friends.” I know it's lame to say that 'it's the thought that counts', but dammit - it counts the most here.

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