This Week in Cinema, I Learned…Jul 28-Aug 03 2024
Written by Cameron Geiser
Welcome to This Week in Cinema, a yearlong film criticism project wherein I will be watching a new film that I haven't seen every single day.
This Week in Cinema I’m straddling two months with two different themes. We’re now coming to an end of the Summer movie season and with it go the buddy cop action flicks, the summer camp adventures, and yes, even the summer romances are now in the rearview mirror. However August brings us to the heights of cinema with the month’s theme acting as a spotlight to honor the masters of cinema. Looking back on this week’s contributions made me realize that the best of both month’s themes are present with these films. The last four films of Summer are The Peanut Butter Falcon, Twins, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, and Days of Thunder. Drama with a call to adventure, an Eighties Comedy starring two bankable stars in Arnold Schwartzenegger and Danny DeVito, The return of Eddie Murphy to his most iconic role, and a Nascar epic starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman that effectively destroyed the 80’s model of business in Hollywood.
In that grouping you essentially have every flavor of Summer film. The final three films however are from three of the finest filmmakers of all time. Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, and Orson Welles. While Passing Fancy and The Men Who Tread on The Tiger’s Tail were passable and charming in their own right, the real star of the week is Orson Welles’ Othello. Welles was always obsessed with the Bard, from childhood to his deathbed, and while this isn't his finest adaptation of Shakespeare (That would be Chimes at Midnight) it is an exemplary effort, and thoroughly entertaining. Next week will continue the trend of looking back over the last century of filmmaking and diving into some of the finest filmmakers' oeuvres.
July 28th
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
3.5/5
Shia LeBeouf has been an actor full of interesting choices over the years. Since being a child actor on the popular tv show Even Stevens, with occasional film roles like his lead performance in Holes, he's been in the limelight for a long time and not every creative project in that time has been a hit. Which brings me to The Peanut Butter Falcon, a surprisingly charming summer road trip flick with heart and a realistic focus on the idea of brotherhood. Zak (Zack Gottsagen) is a young man with down syndrome living at a care facility at the beginning of the film. Zak's sole drive in life is professional wrestling, specifically a wrestling school that his favorite wrestler started just downstate. With a little help from his roommate Carl (Bruce Dern) he escapes into the night.
On the other side of town is Tyler (Shia LeBouf), a crab fisherman on hard times who may or may not have set fire to his competitors fishing gear after they roughed him up. So with both characters on the run, Tyler is a little more than surprised to find Zak hiding out in his boat with “Ratboy” (Yelawolf) and Duncan (John Hawkes) in pursuit. They end up making the best of their situation as circumstances force them together down the river. Zak's caretaker Eleanor (Dakota Johnson) is also in pursuit of Zak, she wants to keep him out of trouble and from being forcibly transferred to a more secure facility that would lessen the quality of his life even further. Overall The Peanut Butter Falcon is a feel good summer adventure with a stellar cast that's worth checking out!
July 29th
Twins (1988)
3/5
Sometimes a comedy with a goofy premise and a couple of talented actors is all you need. Twins is just that. The idea that the man that won several Mr. Universe body-building competitions being a twin with the short, temperamental, and balding Danny DeVito is a fun campy comedic idea. Julius Benedict (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Vincent Benedict (Danny DeVito) both grew up separately, believing each was an only child. Julius grew up in an island paradise, he was the offspring of a revolutionary scientific experiment where six different genius men combined their DNA to create the ultimate man. However, there was an unexpected development- Vincent. All of the negative downsides of this discombobulation of DNA resulted in Vincent's creation.
Once Julius discovers that he isn't alone and has a brother, he sets out to find him. Once together the hijinks begin as Vincent owes a lot of people a lot of money and when the morally righteous Julius sees some goons go after Vincent, he strikes. The real good stuff comes when they both find out that their mother isn't dead as they were told and they unite to find her. Unfortunately the filmmaking side of things isn't that impressive. It's all very workmanlike in execution, and it all works fine enough, but the cinematography, lighting, and musical score are all very bland. Twins is a perfectly enjoyable rainy day comedy, it's worth a watch.
July 30th
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024)
3.5/5
Having now seen Beverly Hills Cop 1 & 2, I was perfectly poised for the release of the new entry in the series. Apologies to fans of the third film in the series but I've been told by many that it's the weakest film in the series and due to that I've chosen to skip it for now. Axel F fits perfectly within the world that the first two films built. It follows the same structure, Axel is in Detroit in Act One and must go back to Beverly Hills due to some sort of crisis. This time around his adult daughter, Jane (Taylour Paige), is in trouble. While the whole broken relationship between legacy characters and their offspring has been overdone in Hollywood over the last two decades, surprisingly it works here. Crucially the film brings back Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and John Taggart (John Ashton) in entertaining side roles that show each character's evolution in that time jump. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F has good action, good comedy, and a great use of that theme song- the biggest let down? This should have been in theaters. If Bad Boys: Ride or Die can thrive in cinemas this summer, Eddie Murphy's best film in years certainly would have made money at the box office.
July 31st
Days of Thunder (1990)
4/5
Late last year one of the YouTubers I generally try to keep up with, Patrick H. Willems, made a video essay titled How One Movie Killed The 1980s. That video detailed the extent to which Tony Scott's Nascar Epic essentially soured Hollywood on the standard business model of the previous decade. Since then I've made a mental note to keep Days of Thunder as the final Summer film selection due to this. With a stellar cast including the likes of Tom Cruise in the lead role, Nicole Kidman, Michael Rooker, Cary Elwes, and John C. Reilly all in supporting roles- its a huge asset that Tony Scott utilizes quite well. Days of Thunder has a fairly predictable story at its core of striving to be the best in a given sport or trade and the troubles that come with those high reaching goals. However the beauty of the film lies in the cinematography, the gorgeous framing and blocking in nearly every scene, and the absolutely thrilling race and crash sequences. Days of Thunder may not put you in awe or connect with you on a deeper level, but it's a perfectly enjoyable tale about the world of stock car racing.
August 1st
Passing Fancy (1933)
3/5
Oh to see such a good cinematic friend once again. Watching a Yasujiro Ozu film really feels like a welcoming celluloid hug at this point in my life. I started watching Ozu films with his legendary Tokyo Story and worked my way chronologically towards his final films, the master period of his work as a filmmaker. Truly, these films; Good Morning, Floating Weeds, and An Autumn Afternoon in particular, have affected me in ways I thought impossible within the cinematic medium. Ever since then I have made it a goal to eventually work my way through Ozu’s oeuvre. Which brings me to Passing Fancy. It’s a mostly lighthearted tale about the relationship between a father and a son, a very familiar path that Ozu has walked many times before and after Passing Fancy. Being a silent film I was surprised with how much dialogue made it into the picture, I’m still quite impressed with the cinematic feats of the Silent Era. If you’ve seen an Ozu film, Passing Fancy will be very familiar to most of his work, but if you’re not as immersed in the filmmaker’s filmography, this wouldn’t be a bad way into his work. This silent film has just enough heart and grit at its core to make this one worthwhile, but there are better Ozu films out there as well.
August 2nd
The Men Who Tread on The Tiger’s Tail (1945)
2.5/5
I believe that there's a high likelihood that Akira Kurosawa could be considered the finest film director if not of all time, then at least of the twentieth century. That's probably not the most revolutionary statement in all of film criticism, but Kurosawa was so damn good at what he did that nearly every single film he made was either groundbreaking in some shape or simply very entertaining while maintaining high levels of thoroughly titillating artistic expression. Which is why I was a little let down by The Men Who Tread on The Tiger’s Tail, his shortest film at about an hour long, and an adaptation of an old Japanese Kabuki Theatre piece. There's certainly value to be found in the film. If you're paying attention you can practically see the bones of Seven Samurai being formed by this film's structure and scripting.
It's a simple tale of a disgraced Japanese general traveling with his loyal retainers through a mountain pass operated by their enemies. In order to pass unharmed they disguise themselves as monks and effectively bypass the checkpoint with moments of tension, but mostly with ease. That's pretty much the whole story. There's not much done on the filmmaking side of things to stand out, but it's all generally effective. However the pacing is abysmal and some things didn't translate well, but I'm chalking that part up to the 79 year difference in time and my own lack of cultural awareness on a deeper level. It wasn't painful, but I wouldn't recommend starting with this film as your entry into Akira Kurosawa's filmography. I would actually recommend Yojimbo, Rashomon, or Ikiru as your initial entry point to Kurosawa.
August 3rd
Othello (1955)
5/5
Orson Welles made three films related to the work of Shakespeare in his time, of which I have now seen two. Othello is a simple but intricate tragedy surrounding the themes of love, jealousy, suspicion, paranoia, and manipulation. Essentially, the quick version of the story is that Othello (Orson Welles) secretly marries Desdemona (Suzanne Cloutier) and her former suitor Roderigo (Robert Coote) takes umbrage with this development. He unites with Iago (Micheál MacLiammóir) who has his own grudge against Othello and they conspire to ruin the couple. While there is obviously more to the story than that, that's the gist of it. With the way Welles took on this arduous production with its many many problems, it's truly amazing the outcome turned out this good!
I highly recommend reading an article called Othello: In Pieces By Geoffrey O’Brien published by The Criterion Collection's online magazine called the Current. It goes in depth about the trials and tribulations of the production and that gives the film another layer of mystifying awe. There were more than a few times when I questioned “How in the hell did they do that?” The framing, blocking, cinematography, abstract set design at times, and the use of language- all of these aspects of the final film are so truly mesmerizing that I couldn't give it anything less than a perfect score. If you're interested in learning more about Orson Welles I must recommend Simon Callow's multi-book biography about Welles' life. To give you an idea of how far Callow goes into detail, he began these books in 1995, there are three books published and he's still working on the fourth, and final, book and each one is a goliath of nonfiction. I highly recommend both the books and Othello the film.
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.