It’s easy to describe most of Alexander Payne’s filmography
as “white dudes learn an important lesson: the movie.” And to that end, his
latest, Downsizing, feels right at home among titles like
Election and Nebraska. Where it stands
out is that it finds the director splashing around in the science fiction pool for
the first time. The film bears an intriguing satiric premise, tips its hat to
all manner of interesting thematic concerns related to that conceit, and begins
with promise, only to shit the bed in complete, spectacular, baffling fashion.
Suburbicon finds frequent Coen Brothers
collaborator George Clooney doing his best impersonation of the filmmaking
siblings. Actually, I hope it’s not his best impersonation or we’ve got
problems. Behind the camera, Clooney so obviously apes his pals that his film
has no personality of its own.
Shows about tiny houses are all the rage on deep-dive cable
home improvement channels. But Alexander Payne’s Downsizing
takes that to a whole new level. It’s one of my most anticipated movies still
to come in 2017, and it just premiered at the Venice Film Festival. To mark the
occasion, we also have a short burst of footage to look at.
Not content with being a huge star, aging more gracefully
than any human ever to live, and selling his tequila brand for a billion dollars, George Clooney continues to make the rest of us mere mortals look like
turds by directing movies. His latest, the Coen Brothers-scripted
Suburbicon is one we’ve been keeping an eye on. The first
trailer just dropped and it’s pretty much what you expect, and I mean that in a
good way. Check it out.
Back in 2007, on the press trail stumping for The
Bourne Ultimatum, the third in the then-trilogy of espionage
actioners, Matt Damon appeared on The Daily Show. In the course
of the conversation, the actor said he and director Paul Greengrass, who also
helmed The Bourne Supremacy, joked that the next movie would
be called The Bourne Redundancy. It’s been nine years, with an
attempted franchise reboot sandwiched in the middle (2012’s lackluster
The Bourne Legacy), but with the simply titled
Jason Bourne, Damon and Greengrass finally delivered on that
promise, in spirit if not in name.
Does the world need another
Bourne movie? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean we’re not
getting one, and that doesn’t mean I’m not going to watch the shit out of
Jason Bourne when it drops this summer. That was going to
happen anyway, but with the first trailer hitting the airwaves, and looking
like what you hope to see from a movie about a badass amnesiac spy, I just
might get excited for this one.
In recent days, getting excited over a Ridley Scott film has
become a dicey proposition. Exodus: Gods and Kings was just
terrible; The Counselor was meh to the highest degree, even
with that bonkers car-humping scene; and while I dig Prometheus
(despite myriad programs, it’s a gorgeous, moody film), it’s a hugely flawed
movie. Still, it's hard not to feel at least a twinge of glee when the guy
behind Alien and Blade Runner makes a
sci-fi movie, and his latest, The Martian, is a movie you
should be stoked about, and it ranks among the year's, and the director’s best.
Being stuck alone on Mars must suck. That’s the general
feeling you get from the new trailer for Ridley Scott’s The Martian. But Matt Damon isn’t going to take that situation lying
down, and he’s going to science the shit out of this and find a way to survive.
Ridley Scott’s last few movies have been less than stellar.
Exodus: Gods and Kings is just bad, and while I’m one of
Prometheus’ defenders, it’s a film with
tons of major problems. That said, he’s still a damn
cinematic treasure, and I was pumped for his latest, The
Martian, even before this awesome new trailer dropped.
Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium isn’t going to
sneak up on anyone like his last film, District 9. That
film, his feature length directorial debut, put him squarely on the map, and
marked any future endeavors as movies to keep an eye on, especially for sci-fi
fans. Neither is Elysium going to surprise anyone. If you’ve
seen District 9, have a sense for the politically dense
stories Blomkamp favors, and have paid any attention to the promotional buildup
towards the film, you know precisely what you’re in for. This time around,
Blomkamp has a budget, some major celebrities on his side, and, unfortunately,
a script that lacks anything that resembles subtlety.
