Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is director Cathy Yan’s first feature-length debut and Margot Robbie’s return to Cupic Of Crime herself, Harley Quinn. The film takes place in the loosely connected DC cinematic universe in which the critical flop Suicide Squad introduced Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. This is really her film and even though the titular team of Birds of Prey was the advertised focus of the movie the majority of the runtime is spent with all of these characters either working against or separate from each other. At this point, it should be mentioned that if you want to go into this film without knowing anything about the plot, be warned, there might be slight spoilers ahead.

Alongside Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, there are the three members of the Birds of Prey with Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Dinah Lance/Black Canary and Rosie Perez as Det. Rene Montaya. Although as mentioned before, there’s not a lot of teaming up in this film. It reminded me of Deadpool 2 and that brief fake-out X-Force team-up. X-Force (and the Electrifying Vanishing of a Brad Pitt cameo). Birds of Prey shares quite a few things with the plot and character of the second Deadpool installment. The often unreliable narration with frequent time jumps and freeze frame exposition dumps, a kid being hunted that needs protecting, and a group of misfits teaming up. But at least Harley wasn’t as persistent on the pop culture references.

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Margot Robbie’s charismatic performance and the highly stylized and surprisingly violent fight scenes are the most entertaining aspects of the movie. Even though the overused slow-motion speed ramping does become noticing at times. From Harley Quinn’s psychologically unstable perspective we get an unreliable narrator that jumps back and forth in time as a reflection on Quinn’s incapability to focus on telling a story from beginning to end. Or it might be a way to make this rather simple plot appear to be a bit more than just a dragged out MacGuffin chase featuring one-dimensional secondary characters with motivations like ‘oh no don’t kill the neighbor kid’ or ‘revenge’. Even the most interesting character, which was Winstead’s Helena Bertinelli aka Crossbow Killer aka The Huntress, ended up becoming a comic relief character and wasn’t used up to her true potential.

Birds of Prey left a rather underwhelming impression on me. However, I have to say that Ewan McGregor seemed to have had a blast overacting in every scene he was in. It was honestly the most consistently funny thing for me in the film. When it comes to his character Roman Sionis aka Black Mask there’s not much to mention other than a statement I have previously made about the poking fun at stereotypical movie tropes: just because you acknowledge that your writing is lazy and bad doesn’t make it funny or original.

Child actors are a pet peeve of mine. It wasn’t just the scenes with Ella Jay Basco’s Cassandra Cain that fell flat most of the time. There’s a scene with Ewan McGregor in which his insanity is supposed to be showcased, but all it made me do is cringe and laugh because it was so awkward and misplaced. For Cassandra Cain, the laughable over-the-top acting isn’t an option because her role is to ground Harley and everyone else and be the audiences’ vessel to sanity. But her acting is just straight-up bad and took me out of the story multiple times.

The story goes the way you expect a story like this to go and although I enjoyed the explosion of colors with green and pink everywhere the tonal inconsistencies were too frequent to turn a blind eye.

Should I watch this? If you are been entertained by the likes of Deadpool or got a least a pinch of enjoyment out of Suicide Squad there’s a good chance you are going to enjoy returning to Robbie’s portrayal of Harls. If you, however, disliked the above-mentioned movies I’d suggest skipping this one. It’s fun, dumb and entertaining.

★★☆☆☆

Birds of Prey ranks somewhere in the middle of the post-Nolan Dark Knight trilogy DC movie universe. Most performances are decent at best and the predictable and formulaic plot renders the movie forgettable.

Swiss Release Date: 06.02.2020

Film data: Director: Cathy Yan - Writer: Christina Hodson - Cast: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ewan McGregor, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Derek Wilson, Steven Williams, Chris Messina, Charlene Amoia, Rosie Perez, Ali Wong - USA - 109’

Video and Photo Source: © 2020 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.

2019 was the best cinematic year of the decade, change my mind

A little late but rather later than never I’m sharing my first blog post in the form of a Ranked List of movies from 2019 that I personally enjoyed the most. 

2019 has been my most active year as a movie-goer to date. In fact, I watched over 400 movies, documentaries and short films with about a third of those being 2019 releases. I continued to watch 2019 features well up now, the end of January 2020 due to my initial goal at the beginning of the year to watch as many films released this year as possible. While I noticed just rich and diverse films can be if you look outside mainstream Hollywood and also encountered an abundance of soulless cash grabs that had no other point existing other than making money, which gets frustrating when you are trying to watch them all. Considering that it is my first proper year of seeking art over entertainment when it comes to film my bias towards this cinematic year is founded in these developments. 

But enough of the rambling, for that you will have to tune into my Podcast Quiet On Set released every Monday morning on your favorite podcast app. (plug plug)

My honorable mentions include Pain and Glory, Waves, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, John Wick 3, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Honey Boy, The Farewell, The Art of Self-Defense, Midsommar, Booksmart, Avengers: Endgame, Jojo Rabbit and 1917. The fact that these movies could have been someone else’s Top10 sums up my feelings about this year in film.

#10 - Knives Out

Rian Johnson's latest outing after his fan dividing take on Star Wars The Last Jedi is a whodunnit with enough twists and turns on the murder mystery genre to entertain any audience. Johnson’s characters reflect the contemporary US in an over the top manner while still keeping withing its tonal balance. A sequel was already announced and I am looking forward to what writer/director Rian Johnson has in store next.

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#9 - I Lost My Body

I Lost My Body is my favorite animated feature of the year. It's a French independently produced film written and directed by Jérémy Clapin. A touching story about touch itself and a split narrative between Naoufel and his hand, on two different timelines, and I have never rooted for a cut off hand more than this film. Beautifully animated and a great score and sound make this a must-see for anyone who wants more than another Pixar or Disney sequel of an existing IP.

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#8 - Sound Of Metal

Sound of Metal has unfortunately not been picked up by any other distributors making it almost impossible to watch this if you did not manage to catch it at a festival as I did. We follow the life of heavy-metal drummer Ruben as he starts to lose his hearing and struggles to accept his fate. The most notable aspect of the filmmaking is the incredible sound design and the captivating performance of Riz Ahmed. This is also Darius Mader’s first feature debut after being a writer on The Place Beyond the Pines and a Documentary called Loot.

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#7 - The Irishman

The three and a half-hour epic from director Scorsese and cast De Niro, Pacino and Pesci is a film about legacy, friendship and reflecting back onto life. It feels deeply personal to Scorsese and De Niro as they themselves approach the later stage of their own lives and I was profoundly moved. I enjoy epic stories like this quite a lot and I champion Scorsese to take the leap of faith to rejuvenate his lead actors through CGI in almost every scene. The film certainly dips into the Uncanny Valley a few too many times for the effect to be completely seamless but by that point, I was too invested in the story for it to be a serious distraction.

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#6 - The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers' second cinematic feature isn’t anything short of a masterpiece. Let’s in the 1890s on a New England island it follow two lighthouse keepers, both named Thomas, (Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe) as they struggle to maintain their sanity whilst being stuck together in a lighthouse on a remote island. The film is visually stunning in it’s black and white 1:19:1 aspect ratio (almost a square) and is crowned with brilliant performances by Robert Pattinson and especially Willem Dafoe, who brings a career-best performance. Go see it on the biggest and best screen possible as the darker scenes work best when a screen is truly black.

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#5 - Little Women

Little Women tells the story of Jo March and her three sisters as she writes a story about them growing up. It is fascinating to watch Gerwig's nuanced work as she’s able to adapt a story about someone telling a story while doing a companion piece in its cinematic form by reflecting on conventions about women in stories. That process happens in the form of Jo’s struggle to write her own story by rejecting conventions and norms set by the publisher. But is it much different nowadays? There’s even an argument to be made that the film itself is being controlled by what the audience is accustomed to experience. Do we as an audience sublimely want our expectation of a happy ending in the form of ‘and they lived happily ever after’ to be met at the end of the film? I love how Gerwig played with that concept of the story shifting in an unnatural way for Jo’s character as if the story told in her book forces the film to reflect that in it’s final few moments. I also enjoyed the frequent jumps back and forth in time because it helped to solidify and ground these characters One notable scene is the transition to Meg’s wedding. Even if you have not read the novel by Louise May Alcott or seen any of the many previous adaptations like me, this film nonetheless stands on its own feet as an individual piece of art with great performances from Ronan and Pugh especially. Also, who doesn’t love themselves as a little bit of Chalamet in their life?

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#4 - Marriage Story

Marriage Story is a love story about a couple getting divorced. I absolutely adore the screenplay, the performances by Adam Driver, Scarlett Johnasson and Laura Dern. Moreover, the score and the direction in the blocking and staging do not fail to impress. Noah Baumbach manages to write and direct his best film to date with an introspective and intimate story of a family going through a divorce at its center. It was produced by Netflix and there’s honestly no reason to keep on reading this blog post if you have not seen it yet.

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#3 - Uncut Gems

Uncut Gems is best described in one word: AAAAAH! Throughout its entire 2h+ runtime it doesn’t let you breathe and constantly throws you at yet another problem Howard created for himself. He continues to cheat himself out of a confrontation by stumbling into two more he created from his last fuck up. A film that’s been in the works for over ten years has seen the light of day and stars Adam Sandler in his arguably career-best performance. Plus; aren’t we all excited for those four Netflix films he signed on to do due to the lack of recognition at the 92nd Academy Awards?

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#2 - The Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Most. Beautiful. Film. of 2019. I could honestly put this film on without any sound and still call it a masterpiece. Céline Sciamma’s story of a female painter obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman reluctant to be painted. It might sound like there isn’t much to this simple plot, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Portrait de la jeune fillle en feu opens on the portrait of the lady on fire. First of all, that painting alone is a work of art, let alone what proceeds in the following two hours of this excellently written and performed masterpiece and once you get to the ending(s), you long to go back to feel again what the characters evoked in you. Fun fact: the film was shot in 8k and you can tell. I can’t wait for my 4k Blue-Ray to arrive when it gets released in March this year.

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#1 - Parasite

Parasite was my introduction to South Korean cinema and Boon Joon-Ho’s impressive filmography. After my first watch, I already knew that this would be at the top of the list no matter what comes out for the rest of the year. Even though Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a close second. It’s probably the easiest film to recommend on this list just because it is incredibly entertaining, perfectly paced, well written and acted and shifts genre as smoothly as chameleons change colors. If you weren’t able to catch it in cinemas, don’t worry because it’s set to be released on blue-ray or you can rent it online already. If your still not convinced that you would enjoy a Korean movie with subtitles then I am going to let Joon-Ho speak for himself.

“Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” - Boon-Joon-Ho

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I hoped this list underlined my statement of 2019 being the best year of films of the 2010s. Even though I didn’t compare this year to other great years like 2014 and 2017 for example, I was pleasantly surprised to see two ‘foreign’ films, produced outside the Hollywood system to be at the top of my list. I can’t wait to explore more than what Hollywood has to offer this year and in the future. Maybe I spiked your interest in a film you weren’t aware of on not convinced if it’s worth the watch.

Dolitte Does Little For Me

Robert Downey Jr. portrays the charismatic children’s book hero Dr. Dolittle, a physician with the ability to talk to animals. In his first role outside the MCU since 2014’s The Judge, RDJ teams up with writer/director Stephen Gaghan instead of the Avengers to bring us a family adventure nobody really asked for.

Dolittle’s production process was reportedly a huge mess in the editing room because of Gaghan's lack of previsualization. Throughout the 100 minute runtime, there are several sequences in which Robert Downey Jr.’s character isn’t even looking at the right spot. It feels like a big chunk of the work was simply handed off to the animators to figure out where animals would end up in shots that weren’t properly blocked and staged for them. All the conversations between the animals and Dolittle are noticeably disjointed and lack chemistry and cohesion between the animated and real-life characters.  There’s a scene between Emma Thompon’s duck and RDJ in which he just stares of into the distance even though the duck is right in front of him. The voice acting cast for the animals is impressive with the likes of Emma Thompson, Rami Malek, John Cena, Kumail Najiani, Octavia Spencer, Tom Holland, and Ralph Fiennes. However, all of these (mostly) great actors are heavily underutilized in the plot and undercut by the limitations of realistic animal animations. I personally don’t think that the use of talking animals will ever work outside of animated films and silly kids movies, but if definitely does not work in Dolittle.

When it comes to story it is basically an exact copy of Up just with fewer balloons and therefore less fun. We do get John Cena as a cuddly polar bear, but even that can’t prevent this ship from sinking. There’s the reluctant hero, who shuts down after the death of his wife until a young kid comes along and he sneaks onto the journey with him. They run into talking furry creatures and eventually complete the adventure that Dolittle's dead wife wasn’t able to complete.

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This visualization of the relationship between the animals and Doctor Dolittle is a really helpful reminder for the waste of talent on this production. Honestly, I probably would have enjoyed it more if they went full-on Cats and morphed these stars into their animal counterparts. Now that would have been something. Even more of a fever dream, but certainly entertaining.

For anyone still indecisive about whether they should give this a chance or not, I want to highlight a scene in which a tiger named Barry, voiced by Ralph Fiennes, is kicked in his groins and yells “My Barry Berries!”.

★☆☆☆☆

Dolittle falls short on almost every level. It lacks humor, charm, and originality and wastes a star-filled cast in favor of a simple cash-grab

Swiss Release Date: 30.01.2020

Film data: Dolittle - Regie: Stephen Gaghan - Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Harry Collett, Rami Malek, Michael Sheen, Emma Thompson, Antonio Banderas, Octavia Spencer, Carmel Laniado, John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, Jessie Buckley, Jim Broadbent, Ralph Fiennes, Tom Holland, Kasia Smutniak, Selena Gomez - USA - 101 Minuten


Source for Pictures and Trailer: Universal Pictures International Switzerland / COPYRIGHT © 2020 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS and PERFECT UNIVERSE INVESTMENT INC. All Rights Reserved.