RENFIELD

Directing: C
Acting: C-
Writing: C-
Cinematography: C+
Editing: C-

Renfield goes from zero to a hundred in about five minutes. That may not be much for a car, but for a a movie, it’s a bit much. It took me about another five minutes to lose my patience with it.

Nicolas Cage has basically made a career of phoning it in, which is ironic for an actor of his proven talents. The guys clearly likes to work, and he gets work plenty, having become one of the most prolific actors alive. I’m not convinced, however, that at this stage in his career he’s much interested in being challenged. In virtually every role, it’s like the director just points his camera at him and lets him do whatever he wants. I’m sure that’s plenty fun for him. For the rest of us, it’s a mixed bag at best.

Here he plays Dracula, in a comedy-horror that leans on the gore for its humor, much like last month’s Cocaine Bear did. The crucial differences are that Cocaine Bear had better dialogue—albeit not by a wide margin—and, perhaps more importantly, better pacing. That movie actually knew how to built tension, ridiculous though it may have been. Renfield just dives right into the wild action sequences, making it more manic than anything else. This movie feels more cocaine-fueled than Cocaine Bear did.

The protagonist, narrator, and title character is Dracula’s “familiar,” or his centuries-old slave, here played by Nicholas Hoult. Somehow he winds up becoming friends with a local New Orleans police officer played by Awkafina, as the only cop in the city who isn’t corrupt. I wonder how the City of New Orleans feels about this depiction.

In director Chris McKay’s version of this story, Renfield gains “a tiny fraction” of Dracula’s power by . . . eating bugs. At first I thought they had to be some kind of special bugs, but no, they can be any average bug. This would include the ants from a young boy’s ant farm. Renfield eats an insect, and suddenly he has superhuman powers.

The script for this movie feels like something no one bothered to proofread. To make matters worse, the editor and makeup artists were evidently entirely unconcerned with continuitiy. Renfield can fight off a whole crowd of attackers, literally make them explode in a fountain of blood and guts, and then emerge without any of it all over him, or even on him at all.

The most disappointing thing about Renfield is that is premise is actually compelling: Renfield is learning he is in a codependent relationship with Dracula, and must figure out how to break free of it—after a ridiculous amount of cartoonish violence, of course. This movie has a few amusing moments, but they almost feel like accidents. It’s not just that I want to write it off as dumb, because even a dumb movie can be well made in the right hands. This movie, on the other hand, is bereft of wit.

There’s a certain infectiousness to how much fun everyone is clearly having, I suppose. There’s even clear intent in how cartoonish it is. And yet: it’s just way too cartoonish, every plot point so wildly contrived it’s genuinely annoying, a complete waste of Shohreh Aghdashloo and Ben Schwartz as local mafia villains, who are so devoid of nuance they literally talk about how much they love violence and evil.

I’m sure some people will be entertained by Renfield. Those people have no standards and no taste. Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh. A more generous read on this movie would be that it’s an homage to mediocrity. The run time is merely 93 minutes and I was more than ready for it to be over after thirty. Why couldn’t they hire whoever cut the trailer to edit the movie? The trailer was far more entertaining, even upon repeat viewings. That is the trick with trailers, though: to dress up a bad movie as something you want to see. It worked on me. I guess you can take this as fair warning: don’t bother with this inept and rote attempt at subverting genre,

Nicolas Cage chews up the scenery, his costars, and any chance of wit.

Overall: C-

HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: A-

Is it sad, or is it a relief, that the powers that be clearly feel no threat at the existence of How to Blow Up a Pipeline? It can be both at once, I suppose. The title can’t be taken too literally—we don’t see any cohesive instructions onscreen. It seems readily apparent that both instruction and inspiration can be found elsewhere. I can’t speak to the Andreas Malm book on which it’s based. Either way, not nearly as many people will see this film as it deserves, and its themes will be preaching to small choirs across the country, who nod their heads in faux “solidarity” while they all go back to the systems in their lives that brought us here.

That’s not a judgement, just a statement. How to Blow Up a Pipeline, as a film, is a statement. Its ensemble cast of characters is a diverse group of young idealists, who have a legitimate claim when they say their destructive acts are done in self-defense. This film is very much in league with the 2020 Kim Stanley Robinson novel The Ministry for the Future, in which, among a multitude of other events, “drone clusters” are used to clog dozens of commercial airplanes around the world on the same day, in an effort to frighten the population into avoiding such a carbon-heavy mode of transportation. The actions of How to Blow Up a Pipeline exist on a far smaller scale, but I have a feeling both are prescient. The longer establishment entities do nothing about climate change, the more radical the responses will become. The same is happening with gun violence protests right now, and climate action is close behind.

Which is to say, How to Blow Up a Pipeline currently exists largely under the radar, but the type of action it depicts won’t for long. These characters all have plausible, real-world motivations for what they do, from the young woman (American Honey’s Sasha Lane) with Leukemia as a result of growing up near a chemical refinery, to the Texas father and husband (Jake Weary) who has been forced out of his home by “eminent domain” to make way for the construction of the titular oil pipeline.

These two wind up as part of an activist—or terrorist, depending on your angle of view—group through a series of degrees of separation, including Marcus Scribner as a member of a documentary crew recording the displaced Texas family’s story; Ariela Barer as best friend to Sasha Lane, having grown up together in the same neighborhood; Jayme Lawson as Lane’s reluctant participant girlfriend; Euphoria’s Lukas Gage as a Portland protester and Kristine Froseth as his girlfriend who may or may not be acting as informant to the FBI; and Forrest Goodluck as the disaffected North Dakotan who has taught himself bomb assembly.

Most of How to Blow Up a Pipeline is very procedural, effectively tense thanks to the urgency of Daniel Goldhaber’s direction, and we meet all these people right as they are kicking their plan into action. We then see them follow it through to its conclusion, and the only time we really learn anything about them on an individual level is as, every ten or fifteen minutes, they each get a turn with a flashback that fleshes out each of their motives.

And this movie is clearly on their side, even when one or two of them argues against their tactics. The point that taking action within the system isn’t working is valid. These young adults know that what they’re doing is dangerous, that cutting off a vital line to literal power will hurt the livelihoods of people not that different from them. The specific plan carried out here is sound, and once its conclusion is reached, there’s an undeniable thrill to it.

There are moments when it feels a bit like the dialogue lacks depth. But then you remember how young, and to varying degrees desperate, these kids are. This is how such people would actually be talking to each other. The narrative thread wraps itself up a little too cleanly for plausibility, but that is also how movie making works: if you want a point to get made, you make it by also creating solid entertainment. How to Blow Up a Pipleline works very well on both tracks.

Hmm well I guess that’s how you do it.

Overall: B+

AIR

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

There’s a reason Air isn’t called Air Jordan, and it’s because this movie is not about Michael Jordan. Director Ben Affleck and debut feature writer Alex Convery are actually fairly pointed about this, having cast Damian Delano Young as Jordan, only showing him onscreen briefly, even in scenes where he’s an essential member of the group present, and granting him maybe one actual line of dialogue.

This is actually the story of Nike. Nike the shoe, Nike the brand. Maybe it’s the story of the company’s second wind, the thing that catapulted it into the global business stratosphere: how Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) convinced Michael Jordan to sign a historically lucrative endorsement deal, by going through his mother, Deloris (Viola Davis). The whole thing is set in 1984, which the movie never, ever lets you forget, from its production design to its costume design to its soundtrack.

All of that dressing makes Air seem a whole lot cooler than it really is. If Air proves anything, it’s that it’s never the story itself that makes a story great, but how it’s told. To be clear: this is. movie about a basketball endorsement deal, and I am a person that should never particularly interest. And yet, I was fully engaged—even though it could be argued this film is just a two-hour commercial for shoes, and shoes that have no need for any extra marketing. And yet: a good story is a good story, and it can in the right hands it can be a great story.

I hestiate to call this story great. It’s just far better than anyone could reasonably have expected it to be, especially after a trailer was released that made it look like a standard-issue TV movie that would have been right at home on HBO twenty or thirty years ago. The performances are solid yet fairly unremarkable all around. Side note: it’s curious that no one seems to be giving Matt Damon any shit for wearing a fat suit for this part. Maybe it’s just because this is still a mid-tier movie, not really an awards contender, so no one is coming out of the woodwork to declare it overrated. Then again, it’s early yet. And Viola Davis in particular is very good here, but then, she always is.

Affleck cast himself as Nike CEO Phil Knight, and his depiction here is how I learned he was apparently known for resting his bare feet upon his desk. I can only imagine directing oneself in a film to be a difficult task, and here he’s . . . fine. I’ll say his directing is better than his performance. Because I still kind of can’t believe how entertaining I found this movie. The cast is a comfortable hang, from atypical parts for both Chris Tucker and Marlon Wayans, to Jason Bateman as a bit of a hit-or-miss marketer, to Matthew Maher as the designer of the shoe.

Not that I’ll ever go out of my way to watch it again. But, not every good movie has to be rewatchable. Would I recommend it? Well, there’s a lot to recommend it, actually. If you have particular interest in basketball and basketball history, the commercial angle here notwithstanding, you’d probably enjoy Air. If you like Ben Affleck or Matt Damon or Viola Davis, that alone would sufficiently recommend it. If you’re a fan of shoes, and particularly the lore and history of Nike, the same applies. Maybe that’s what gives this movie broad appeal, it’s many points of entry.

If you’re fairly indifferent to all of those things, however, you’d be fine skipping it. I can’t say I’d have missed anything all that special had I never watched this movie. Having decided to see it, on the other hand, I did find myself pleasantly surprised by it.

Sometimes you just have to talk to the right people.

Overall: B

A THOUSAND AND ONE

Directing: A
Acting: A
Writing: A
Cinematography: A
Editing: A

The film industry has such a long history of churning out mediocrity and retreads of the same tired concepts, there are times when one wonders if it’s even possible for anyone to come up with anything original anymore. And then, every once in a while, a film comes along with such a singular vision that it can restore faith in the power and potential of cinema.

A Thousand and One is one of those films. Rarely does such a vividly drawn portrait so effectively occupy the gray areas of life and history. In this case, writer-director A.V. Rockwell proves to be such a talent with a first feature film that I can’t even say she has potential. She’s already realized it. I can only say that I already breathlessly await whatever she makes next, and if she doesn’t have a vastly accomplished career ahead of her, we will have all been criminally deprived.

I loved everything about this movie, which is set in New York City in three different parts: 1994, 2001, and 2005. Rockwell isn’t so much interested in specific pivotal moments in New York historty—no mention of 9/11 here—as she is painting a portrait of a city in flux, bringing changes that do no favors to the characters on whom she focuses. A Thousand and One, whose title refers to the apartment number where young mother Inez (Teyana Taylor, a revelation of rough screen chemistry) and her son Terry live, is packed with establishing shots of Manhattan and Harlem, many of them high drone shots, for once never used to show off. Each shot serves the story here, giving us a sense of place, along with carefully curated clips of mayor speeches of the time. We hear pontifications on so-called “improving people’s lives,” while we see, for instance, a young teen Terry become subject to the city’s infamous “stop and frisk” program.

It’s rare that I am this impressed by a film’s overall casting, but it must be called out here. Terry is depicted by three different young actors: Aaron Kingsley Adetola as him at six years old; Aven Courtey at thirteen; Josiah Cross at seventeen. Each actor has a distinct manner and presence, and yet they perfectly complement each other as the same character at different ages, different stages of his development as a quiet, withdrawn young man, almost embarrassed by his own intellect. I was deeply impressed by all of them.

Still, Teyana Taylor is the star performer here, from the jump as a young mother who, instead of leaving her son to the foster care system, takes him home with her shortly after her release from jail. We learn she is 22 years old, and as an older woman gives her a break and rents a room to her, she admonishes her to “act like an adult.” All I could think about is how young 22 really is. Inez makes decisions that are very bad on paper, but are easy to empathize with.

And then: while we rightly expect the abduction of the young boy to bring quickly tragic consequences—we actually see Terry grow up with her. Over time, the building begins to crumble with age. The single White character with any real lines is a new landlord who is deceptively helpful at first, ultimately telling Inez she’ll need to “clear out” for a month or two in order for the necessary repairs to get done.

Near the end, A Thousand and One takes a shocking turn that I truly did not see coming, and which poses a sudden challenge to that aforementioned easy empathy. Things aren’t quite as surprisingly simple as it seemed to be, for eleven years. It’s rare that a film covering such a time span is so precisely well told, but editors Sabine Hoffman (Passing) and Kristan Sprague (Judas and the Black Messiah) are masters of their craft.

This film features characters audiences never get to see in cinema, lived-in neighborhoods of Black communities with multidimensional individuals as compelling as they are flawed, earnest and uncertainly principled, both products of and transcendent of their environments. Terry finds himself with a stepfather who is clearly much older than Inez, named Lucky (William Catlett), who makes some very common mistakes but is never villainized. He is only ever nurturing toward Terry, and you can’t help but root for the relationships between all three of these characters to work out in one way or another.

Out of everyone, it’s Inez who comes closest to being a villain, and yet we seem to understand every decision she makes, even potentially dangerous ones. A Thousand and One isn’t quite a tale of redemption, but rather one of hard-won love and affection. “Damaged people don’t know how to love each other,” Inez says to Lucky. “That’s all.” Except there’s more love around her than she realizes, and plenty to go around for films like this one.

Broken people try to keep their creations intact.

Overall: A