The Empty Man (2020) **

 

The story of this film's creation is almost more interesting, and scarier, than the actual movie. Based on a graphic novel, the film was adapted and directed by David Prior, who started shooting back in 2016. Production was delayed a number of times, due to things like weather and studio politics. Around the time Prior was ready to finish the film, 20^th Century Fox got bought out by Disney, and Prior went through a couple of cycles of being rushed by the studio, then being ignored. He had to rush out a version for a test screening, which went horribly, then the studio tried to edit together their own version of the film before handing it back to Prior. Finally completed, the film sat on the shelf for a couple of years. Disney ultimately released it during the pandemic, and it screened for mostly empty theaters. Audiences and critics alike hated it, and the film seemed destined to die in obscurity. In a year when there just aren't many new movies available, however, the film found an audience on streaming services, and it has become something of a cult movie.

The story is about a detective who discovers a secret cult who worship an entity they call “the Empty Man.” The Empty Man can be summoned by blowing on a bottle near a bridge, and he may be the explanation for the deaths of several local teens. But before all that, there's a piece about some hikers in the Himalayas, who stumble upon a deadly curse.

The problem with “The Empty Man” is that it is really 3 movies, and they don't fit together very well. The first half hour, in the Himalayas, is actually a pretty cool, horror short all on its own. Then they abruptly shift to the story of the detective, and it's a pretty typical, derivative horror flick about teens daring each other to summon a murderous entity. Then it segues into the final section, about a secret cult. This is the most intriguing part, as it delves some into the warped-Buddhist, nihilistic philosophy of the cult, and there's an interesting twist to the story. Unfortunately, these 3 story lines are not knitted together well, and they amount to a run time of 2 hours 17 minutes, which is just way more of my life than this film deserves. I feel like there is a good movie in there somewhere, and director David Prior was never given the chance to piece it together. If he were given the opportunity to come back in and edit this thing, separate the wheat from the chaff, and get it down to about 100 minutes, he might come up with a movie that would leave me feeling less, well, empty.

2 stars out of 5

Collateral (2004) ***

 

Michael Mann has not actually directed that many movies, but the ones he has done tend to be pretty good, including “Heat” and “Manhunter.” He may be best known for the TV show, “Miami Vice.” Clearly, this is a guy who knows how to make a tightly-wound, crime thriller. I didn't know “Collateral” was a Michael Mann movie when I clicked on it, though. I just liked the premise.

That premise is that a cab driver (Jamie Foxx) is forced to drive a hit-man (Tom Cruise) around L.A. all night as the killer executes a series of contracts. By the end of the night, they get to know each other pretty well.

It's a fairly simple story that shines because of a terrific cast. Cruise and Foxx are perfect, and they get a hand up from supporting players Mark Ruffalo and Jada Pinkett Smith. The movie is classy, atmospheric, and, honestly, kind of forgettable. I found it on Netflix, read the description, clicked Play, and was about 5 minutes in before I realized I had seen it before. I went ahead and re-watched and enjoyed it, and I'm not sure what says more about the film: that I enjoyed the second viewing or that I had so thoroughly forgotten about the first. I guess I'm going to have to damn this movie with faint praise. “Collateral” isn't perfect, but there is nothing seriously wrong with it. It's just good, popcorn-level entertainment. In these pandemic days of limited new movie options, there is nothing wrong with that.

3 stars out of 5

The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) *****

 

When Judd Apatow made “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” he was not the famous, bankable powerhouse of a director and producer that he is now. He did have a certain amount of cred from his shows “Freaks & Geeks” and “Undeclared,” both short-lived but beloved shows with cult followings. He had even more Hollywood capital after helping produce 2004's “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” which was a critical and commercial success. Apatow was impressed by Steve Carell in the Anchorman movie, and Apatow and Carell wound up getting together to write “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” Apatow's first film to direct.

Carell plays the titular virgin, Andy, a sweet, but socially-stunted guy who lives alone and fills his time with nerdy hobbies like collecting action figures. Andy's co-workers at the electronics store consider him a non-entity, but when they learn he is a virgin, they vow to get him laid. The project is full of misadventures, including chest-waxing and a trans prostitute, but the guys do bring Andy out of his shell and allow him to meet Trish (Catherine Keener).

In any rational world, this would be considered a dumb premise for a dumb movie with a dumb title, but “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” is an absolute classic. Why is this? Great writing and great comic acting. Every scene is memorable and quotable, from the speed-dating vignette to the conversation about getting high, getting the munchies, and watching “Gandhi.” The film is raunchy and mostly silly, but it has a heart.

There are no wasted characters in an Apatow film. Co-stars Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, and Romany Malco are all hilarious, but even small roles in this film give the actors a chance to shine. The list of memorable supporting players includes Leslie Mann, Elizabeth Banks, and Jane Lynch. Jonah Hill even makes a tiny, one-scene role memorable.

The films runs pretty long, as do all of Apatow's films, but it doesn't feel long. Truth be told, there probably are several scenes that don't really do anything to move the story along, which could have been cut in the interests of time. A couple of these scenes haven't aged particularly well, including one where Paul Rudd's character, tired of seeing the same Michael McDonald concert playing on all the TVs, threatens to shoot everyone in the store. Mostly, though, the movie is a delight from start to finish, and well worth your two hours. I've lost track of how many times I have watched it, but I know there will be many more!

5 stars out of 5

Vacation Friends (2021) ***

 

Marcus (Lil Rel Howery, from “Get Out”) and Emily (Yvonne Orji, from the show “Insecure”) are a fairly straitlaced, upwardly-mobile couple who get engaged on their vacation in Mexico. Ron (John Cena) and Kyla (Meredith Hagner) witness the proposal and offer to help these complete strangers celebrate. The couples could not be more different. Marcus and Emily, who are black, plan everything carefully, considering the consequences of everything they do. Ron and Kyla, who are white, fly by the seat of their pants, assuming everything will work out. With their laid-back attitudes and their cocaine-laced margaritas, they help Marcus and Emily relax and really enjoy their vacation. The couples wind up becoming as close as you can on a one-week vacation.

Then, it's back to the real world and the lead-up to Marcus and Emily's wedding. The affair is fraught with the usual family stresses. In this case, Emily's family disapproves of Marcus, who comes from a poorer, less refined background, even though he has worked hard and built his own construction company. Despite the tensions, the wedding is set to go off without a hitch until, you guessed it, those old vacation friends show up. Hijinks ensue!

A friend once told me he would love to see a movie where a wacky white person invades the world of a bunch of straitlaced black people and teaches them how to be cool. We've seen the flip side of that a million times, often starring someone like Eddie Murphy or Chris Tucker. “Vacation Friends” is the movie that goes there, flipping the racial script on a familiar story that isn't really about race at all.

Does it work? Yeah, actually, despite the usual ludicrous plot points that we expect in a film like this, “Vacation Friends” winds up being a fun time. That's largely on the merits of the excellent cast, especially John Cena. Anyone who is surprised that professional wrestlers make good actors has never seen professional wrestling. Cena is just the latest in a long line of wrestlers to go from acting in the ring to acting in movies, and I have to say, the guy has a lot of personality. His sheer joy at being alive invites us to drop our expectations and just laugh at the ridiculousness of this otherwise hackneyed film.

“Vacation Friends” was filmed in fits and starts during the pandemic. Given the ongoing worldwide shitshow, they just released it straight to streaming this summer, which wound up being perfect! I would have found the movie underwhelming in a cinema, and under a normal release schedule, I probably would have forgotten about it by the time it hit the streaming services. As it was, seeing the trailer online and then getting to watch it immediately in the comfort of my home? Perfection!

I'm always looking for a deeper meaning in movies where none exists, and “Vacation Friends” made me think this: Maybe a vacation shouldn't just be an escape, destined to end in one or two weeks with a return to the same rut you were in before. Maybe getting away from the house and job should be a chance to change and grow. Maybe what happens on vacation shouldn't stay on vacation!

3 stars out of 5

Our Idiot Brother (2011) ****

 

Paul Rudd plays Ned, a laid-back organic farmer with a big heart and a dog named Willie Nelson. Ned goes to jail for selling weed to a uniformed police officer (The cop did say he was having a rough week.), and his simple life falls apart. His hippie girlfriend (Kathryn Hahn) won't take him back when he is released, and to add insult to injury, she insists on keeping Willie Nelson. A defeated-by-life Ned turns to his family. As the title suggests, Ned's 3 sisters (Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, and Emily Mortimer) think he's an idiot, which he is. We soon learn, though, that each of them is an idiot in her own way.

“Our Idiot Brother” is a delight in the same way that "Wanderlust" is; not a coincidence, considering that it features a couple of the same comic geniuses, namely Paul Rudd and Kathryn Hahn. The comedy is goofy and fun, and the story never tries to take more sentimental liberties than it has earned. The supporting cast includes T.J. Miller and the brilliant Steve Coogan, and no one phones it in. The movie was directed by Jesse Peretz, who wrote the screenplay with his sister, Evgenia. Peretz is not a household name, but he has directed shows like “Girls” and “High Fidelity” (the TV version), as well as the excellent movie, "Juliet, Naked."  This movie may not quite reach the comedic perfection of “Wanderlust,” but it's a ton of fun that holds up to repeat viewings.

4 stars out of 5

Stranger Than Fiction (2006) ****

 

This is another movie that snuck by me back when it came out. Truth is, it took me a while to warm up to Will Ferrell. He always seemed to stretch his jokes out a couple of beats too long. So, back in the 'oughts, I wasn't actively avoiding Will Ferrell movies, but I wasn't actively seeking them out, either. Turns out this is one I should have watched.

Ferrell plays Harold Crick, a strait-laced, regimented, single man who works for the IRS. With a rain-man-like capacity for numbers, Harold quietly counts everything, and he does everything the same way from day to day. He sounds like a character in a book, which is exactly what he is. Harold is the main character in the latest project by author Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who is suffering writer's block.

What interrupts Harold's quiet existence is that he starts to hear Karen's narration in his head. He, of course, thinks he is going crazy at first, and a psychiatrist agrees, but Harold correctly guesses that his problem is literary, not psychiatric. He seeks help from the most obvious source, a professor of literature (Dustin Hoffman). Meanwhile, the “plot” of Harold's life brings him a love interest in the form of Maggie Gyllenhaal, but also a shock, as his narrator casually mentions his impending death.

Over the years, I have to come to appreciate Will Ferrell's comedy, but “Stranger Than Fiction” proves that he has some serious dramatic chops. It would have been tempting to either tip too far into pathos with Harold or to ham it up and do typical Will Ferrell gags. Instead, he plays Harold with restraint and subtlety, creating a seriously great, everyman character in the midst of an existential crisis. Ferrell gets a hand up, of course, from an outstanding supporting cast. Thompson, Gyllenhaal, and Hoffman would bring class to any project, and Queen Latifah and Tony Hale (from “Arrested Development”) bring the goods as well.

Writer Zach Helm has created here a very Gogol-esque story in that Harold's circumstances seem quite absurd, but actually stand in for everyone's life. Harold discovers that his fate is not his own, and he desperately reaches out to his creator for mercy. Like Harold,we are each the hero of our own story, and every one of those stories is both a comedy and a tragedy.

4 stars out of 5

28 Days Later (2002) ****1/2

 

I think that I may not have seen this film since it came out, almost 20 years ago. It has aged remarkably well, and it remains one of the classic zombie movies.

The story starts with a group of animal-rights activists, who break into a primate research lab. They release a chimp, ignoring a scientist's warning that the animals are infected with “rage.” 28 days later, a coma patient named Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up alone in a locked hospital room. The place is deserted, and he wanders outside to find London similarly empty. Soon enough, he learns that the city is not totally abandoned. Lurking here and there are twisted, infected people full of blind, murderous rage. They cannot talk, but they can run. Jim finds a small group of survivors with whom to try to escape the city and the infected.

The biggest innovation in zombie lore since brain-eating is the advent of zombies that run fast instead of lurching along in the traditional slow-but-relentless manner. “28 Days Later” is known for its fast zombies, and I have always thought of it as the first “fast zombie” movie, but the internet says that isn't right. Apparently, 1985's “Return of the Living Dead” featured running zombies, and before that, there was an Italian movie called “Nightmare City.” There are also those who will point out that “28 Days Later” stretches the definition of zombies, in that the infected are not actually dead, and, to be fair, the word “zombie” is never used in the film. (For that matter, the word is never used in "Night of the Living Dead," either.) Nonetheless, “28 Days Later” revived the zombie movie, and its sprinting infected are among the most memorable in the genre.

The movie is not a classic simply because its zombies can run. Directed by the great Danny Boyle (“Shallow Grave” “Trainspotting”), the film is tautly crafted from beginning to end. We actually do not see all that much of the infected. Instead, the story depends on its main characters (with strong performances from Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris), and on how they and other survivors react to the epidemic. As in all the best horror films, we see that regular people can be just as monstrous as the monsters.

4.5 stars out of 5

Walk of Shame (2014) ***

 

This was a random Netflix offering that I clicked on because it stars Elizabeth Banks, and I was tired of scrolling through looking for something to watch. It turned out to be pretty entertaining!

Banks Plays Meghan Miles, a local news anchor with national aspirations. When she gets passed over for a nationwide anchor spot, it hits her hard, so she and her friends hit the bar, hard. Meghan winds up going home with the bartender. She wakes in the wee hours and sneaks out of his apartment, only to find that 1) Her car, with her purse inside, has been towed, and 2) She forgot her phone in the guy's apartment, the number of which she can't recall. She does manage to check her voice mail, discovering that the anchorwoman job is back in the mix. In high heels and a slutty dress, she has to make her way across L.A., with no money, phone, or ID. Hijinks ensue!

There's nothing outstanding about “Walk of Shame.” It's just a fun, funny movie that reminds me quite a bit of the 1985 film “After Hours.” Elizabeth Banks is charming and gorgeous, as are Gillian Jacobs and Sarah Wright, who play her friends. Actually, the supporting cast is strong all around, including Willie Garson (from “Sex & the City”) and Da'Vone McDonald (from “Forgetting Sarah Marshal”).

Underneath the comedy, there's a commentary here about how we judge and treat people based on profiling. Meghan is a solid citizen with a good job, but after-hours on the streets of L.A., in a short dress, she looks like a hooker. Without money or her fancy car, she finds herself in need of an act of kindness from a stranger, but citizens and cops alike treat her like they think a hooker deserves to be treated. Meanwhile, the reason Meghan gets another shot at the news job is that the network discovers some racy pictures of her rival. “Walk of Shame” doesn't shove it in your face, but at its core, this is a movie about slut-shaming.

If you wonder why you missed this movie the first time around, it's because it flopped at the box office, and critics hated it. Maybe I'm just swayed by Elizabeth Banks' looks, but I thought it was decently entertaining. I think some critics mistook the satire of sexism for actual sexism. Anyway, “Walk of Shame” is no “Citizen Kane,” but it's a fun time, and nothing to be ashamed of.

3 stars out of 5

Eating Raoul (1982) ****

 

With all the 80's nostalgia today, including the return of mullets and mall-bangs, high-waisted pants, and other perversions, it is easy to forget just how seedy things were in the 80's. The satirical, low-budget, '80s, art film “Eating Raul” paints its time as a period of crime and despair, and at the heart of all this vice...swinging. As the opening narration points out, “It is a known fact that prolonged exposure to just such a psychopathic environment will eventually warp even the most normal and decent among us.”

Speaking of normal and decent, Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov play Paul and Mary Bland, a straight-laced couple whose sex life Mary sums up thusly: “I'm not against a little hugging and kissing once in a while.” The Blands long to open a restaurant in the country, but lack the funds for the down payment. Meanwhile, they are very uncomfortable in a city that is being taken over by swingers. One sex-crazed partier gets lost on his way to an orgy and wanders into the Blands' apartment. He tries to rape Mary, and Paul gets home just in time to stop the attack, accidentally killing the swinger. Unsure what to do, they search him, and discover several hundred dollars.

From the seeds of this discovery grows an idea: The Blands will lure swingers to their home and murder them for their cash. The plan works great until a Chicano burglar named Raoul discovers their game, and cuts himself in on the action.

Made on a budget of only $500,000, this absurdist, black comedy delights not because of its amoral, lurid themes, but because of the ultimate innocence of its main characters. Paul and Mary are prissy prudes, but they aren't especially judgmental or hostile to those around them. It is only after repeated harassment and assaults by the depraved sex addicts and criminals in their city that they stumble into the amoral world of murder for profit. Even then, they retain a level of innocence that makes them more sympathetic than the warped orgy-goers and muggers who populate their version of L.A. This same innocence is found in the best character in the movie, Doris the Dominatrix, who cracks a mean whip at parties, but at home is just a sweet, pretty, suburban mom.

If you enjoy kooky, absurd, low-budget films, then this one should definitely go on your list. It's darkly funny and ultimately satisfying. Finally, “Eating Raul” begs the question, “What kind of wine pairs well with Puerto Rican food?”

4 stars out of 5

The Hustler (1961) ***** and The Color of Money (1986) ****

 

Most authors, if they are going to write a sequel to a successful novel, try to get the sequel out pretty quickly, but not Walter Tevis. After the success of his first novel, 1959's The Hustler, Tevis waited 25 years to write The Color of Money. Both novels were quickly optioned for films, and the result is a pair of movies separated by 25 years that make great back-to-back viewing today.

“The Hustler” introduces Fast Eddie Felson, a talented pool player for whom pool is just a means to an end, and the end is money. With his partner, Charlie (Myron McCormick), he hustles around from town to town, pool hall to pool hall. They earn a hundred bucks here and there hustling local players, but there is a part of Eddie that wants more. His goal is to play high stakes pool with the legendary Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). To beat Fats, Eddie has to defeat his own demons, including a self-destructive, self-sabotaging streak.

The film is in beautiful black-and-white, featuring outstanding performances from George C. Scott as a professional gambler who grooms Eddie, from Piper Laurie as a damaged love interest, and from Newman himself. 

 

 

“The Color of Money” picks up 25 years later, and Eddie has changed his hustle, now making a living as a whiskey salesman. He no longer plays pool, but he spends a lot of time in bars, where a lot of pool gets played. He keeps his hand in the game by backing talented, younger players. This is where he meets Vincent (Tom Cruise), a cocky player who is the biggest pure talent Eddie has seen. Vincent is aces at the game, but he knows nothing about the hustle, about how to lose occasionally to keep the other players betting. Eddie takes him under his wing and teaches him the ropes, until he starts to wonder if he has created a monster.

This isn't quite on the level of “The Hustler,” but it's still an outstanding movie, with great performances from Newman and Cruise, as well as their beautiful co-star, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.

If you have ever shot a game of pool in a bar, these movies are required viewing. Both films showcase the game beautifully, and the actors, particularly Gleason and Cruise, do some of their own shots. Both movies ushered in their own resurgence of the sport, with increased sales of tables and cues. They aren't just sports movies, though. These are well-told human stories about excellence and obsession, that can be enjoyed by anyone. I highly recommend watching them in close succession. Together, they make a satisfying tale of redemption spanning decades.

The Hustler - 5 stars out of 5

The Color of Money - 4 stars out of 5