Nerve

First Hit:  I sat down in my seat with a bit of apprehension, and this all changed as soon as the film rolled, it was a blast.

This film could have easily been a bomb. But what kept it from being a dud was the explosion of characters, “watchers” and “players”.

The main character Vee (Emma Roberts) who is the beautiful girl, who doesn’t know her beauty and she hides in the background. She's a watcher and engaged with people but through her creative (although we don’t see much of it) side as a photographer.

Her BFF is Sydney (Emily Meade), a risk taking girl that does what she can for attention. Yes, she's a player and it is obvious that by playing "Nerve" she attempts to convince herself and others that she is not insecure.

"Nerve" is like the old "Truth or Dare" game but the difference is that there is no "truth" in "Nerve"; it is all "dare". It has been created anonymously by a group of hackers/programmers on the dark web, and it invites anyone to be a player or watcher. The more dares completed and the more complex dares a player attempts to "complete", the more money the player can win.

If the watcher’s like you, you win more money for completing the dare. Watchers get to watch you do the dare live on any device. Emma gets goaded to becoming a player by Sydney and because her fear is real and it puts her outside her comfort zone, she instantly becomes a favorite of watchers.

The watchers hook her up with Ian (Dave Franco) and together they take on the dares presented to them. One that touched me was riding a motorcycle together with the driver blind. It touched me only because I was in a passenger car in my late teens with the driver’s eyes were covered by a back seat passenger who shouted out driving commands. It only lasted about 2 minutes on a quiet, no traffic street, but it was a bit nerve-racking.

Anyway the contest to win the big prize becomes engaging for the watchers with Vee and Ian as a team, Sydney and Ty (Colson Baker AKA Machine Gun Kelly) as the other front runners. Many of the dares are difficult to watch, some are inventive, while others are a bit odd. The intenseness and playfulness of each dare was well shot and most of the dialogue fit the players generational sound and meaning. This film was fun.

Roberts was spot on perfect. Her growing into a player worked well as her inner strength came through. Meade was really strong as the girl craving for attention but, in the end, still had heart. Franco was great and it was nice to see him in a non-comedic role. He brought charm to his character. Baker was perfectly intense as was needed. Miles Heizer as Tommy, Vee’s friend, was charmingly protective of Vee reflecting his hidden love for her. Juliette Lewis as Roberts' mother was wonderful. Jessica Sharzer wrote a script that was spot-on to the time, place, and feel of the characters and their situations. Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman did a wonderful job of directing this with intense and thoughtful scenes. They got great performances out of the actors and script.

Overall:  This film surprised me with how good and fun it was to watch.

Holmes

First Hit:  A slow meandering beginning that builds momentum towards being a more interesting film at the end.

This film is about forgiveness, aging, kindness, facts and uncovering the real story of Sherlock Holmes.

We meet Sherlock (Ian McKellen) when he’s 93 years old. He’s retired, has difficulty remembering things, his housekeeper Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney) and her son Roger (Milo Parker) are his only touch with the outside world.

He thinks that Mr. Watson reimagined his detective exploits into interesting books/stories. He’s hung up on his last case, what happened, and why he quit being a detective.

The film traces brief memories of what happened and when we do the film transports us back to that time. McKellen plays both parts and it almost works. Him being the doddering forgetful old man and the younger Sherlock who is logical and only thinking about and using the facts to deduce his actions. When he realizes the times in his life he could have been more compassionate, the film softens and lands beautifully.

McKellen was great as a 93 year old man whose faculties are failing him. His covering up his forgetfulness (looking at his sleeve for the boy’s name) juxtaposed with the times he’s feeling full of himself (swimming with Roger) was really good. Linney did great in a very restrained role where she eventually embraces her lot as Holmes rewards her loyalty. Parker was very strong as the curious, inventive, thoughtful, and independent boy and friend of Holmes. He was the best part of the film. Mitch Cullin and Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a up and down script, which at times was too doddering. Bill Condon did a great job of sharing the beautiful English countryside and some of the interior shots were very effective. The story was too slow to start which I think he could have made different.

Overall:  A strong good film, but not in the upper echelon.

A Bigger Splash

First Hit:  This film lacked clarity of purpose partially because the actors and characters weren't well mixed in this uninteresting story.

The film starts with the illusion that Tilda Swinton (as Marianne Lane) is a middle age rock star still able to bring in stadium full audiences.

Attempting to convince the audience through brief clips of a stadium filled with rock fans, the band on the stage, and Lane, with a black wig, comes out to the microphone was inadequate. We don’t hear her sing nor do we hear her music.

This lacked credibility, and Swinton’s look and presence didn’t carry the energy of a stadium filling rock star. The audience is asked to take this at face value, what makes this worse is that we do not get to hear her speak because she’s just had throat surgery and isn’t supposed to speak so her character's story is limited.

Because she has these two strikes against her, it is like the old saying, "two wrongs to make a right". She’s vacationing with her husband Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts) at some unknown rural (possibly Mediterranean) location where the village is small and population sparse.

Unbeknownst to Paul and Marianne, her old boyfriend and former music producer Harry Hawkes (Ralph Fiennes) is coming to visit them. Harry talks all the time and he’s full of hyper energy, takes over every conversation, and makes a big scene everywhere he is.

Although Marianne is more interested in seeing Hawkes, Paul,  even though he and Harry are lifelong friends, doesn't. Overall, it appears they’d rather not have him as a guest, but no one stops the madness. The madness begins at one of the first scenes when they pick him up at the airport by surprising them by bringing his underage unknown daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson).

The rest of the film attempts to extrapolate each of their personalities given their restricted behavior. However, I never felt that their relationships with themselves were real or flushed out, nor were their connections with each other valid. One of the few good scenes was Harry’s lip-syncing and dancing to the Rolling Stones' classic song “Emotional Rescue”.

One of the more painful scenes was the horrible karaoke singing and dancing by Harry and Marianne in a local bar.

Swinton was miscast in this role because there is just no way she resembled or acted as a stadium rock and roll star. Adding to this that she wasn’t supposed to speak, which added to the difficulty in making her believable. Fiennes was also miscast as there is no way he could pull off being this obnoxious, unthinking, arrogant, producer. He carries too much integrity and therefore it didn’t work. Schoenaerts was good and the best part of the film. His character was believable as a brooding, somewhat depressive, friend and mate of Harry and Marianne respectively. Johnson was mediocre as the young girl who was manipulative and questioning of her father and his friends. She didn’t make me believe her as a seductress – it was way to obvious. David Kajganich wrote a very mediocre screenplay that didn’t really dive into the characters and their history. Every setup of the character's history seemed too overt and lacking curiosity. A film audience needs to be curious about the characters. Luca Guadagnino directed this and probably made the most of the story as written. The casting was, for the most part, poor.

Overall:  I was bored by the story, actors, and the way this film unfolded.

10 Cloverfield Lane

First Hit:  I went from engage, to disappointment and disbelief, and finally to satisfied.

This film generated a range of feelings within me; from great story with belief and possibility all the way to disbelief while bordering on “give me a break”. In the end it does redeem itself.

The story begins with Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) packing up and leaving her apartment and life with Ben (voice of Bradley Cooper). Driving to an unknown location she gets into a car accident.

She wakes up chained to a bed with Howard (John Goodman) as her captor. He tells her that there has been an apocalypse in the world outside and he’s saved her by bringing her into his underground bunker.

Howard introduces her to Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.) who, as she finds out, has chosen to be in the bunker. She hears cars and other noises above her, so she tries to escape only to find someone suffering outside the bunker.

At this point there are a lot of stories floating around in my head about where this film is heading. Then about 15 - 20 minutes before the end, I went into disbelief and disappointment about where the story has taken us, but at the end, I realized that I liked and believed the point of the story and how we got there.

Winstead is very strong as the everyday person finding her strength and being willing to move past her previous fears. Goodman is equally strong as someone who is definitely on his own agenda and belief system which may be true and skewed view. Gallagher Jr. was very good as the other person in the bunker. Josh Campbell and Matthew Stuecken wrote this story that almost fell off the rails. Dan Trachtenberg did a great job creating an intense environment in a closed space. The set was really good.

Overall:  This film was on the edge of falling over a cliff, but, in the end, stays upright.

The Hateful Eight

First Hit:  A very well shot film that had out loud moments of laughs punctuated on all sides with gore.

Violence is one thing you can depend on in a Quentin Tarantino (Writer and Director) film.

There is no disappoint in this film on that note. Everyone in this film gets a bullet or two. There are also moments of out loud laughs. Some of those laughs come at the expense of absurdity (John “The Hangman” Ruth speaking with Daisy Domergue) while others driven by outlandishly pointed dialogue (Major Marquis Warren speaking with General Sandy Smithers). However, my favorite set of laughs were the issues with closing the door – laughed each time even when I knew it was coming.

There are moments in the dialogue where it seemed that it was being pushed out by the actors and therefore I lost engagement, however those moments were few and far between. Most of the time, the dialogue was so strong, good, and well executed that I was totally immersed in the play of the words.

There is no faulting in any way, shape, or form, the absolutely beauty of the pictures presented on the screen. Even if you don’t like seeing violence, one cannot fault the beautiful way it was shot.

The outside shots of Wyoming, spectacular. The cabin’s close quarters could have felt small and confining, however the film’s format allowed for the real feeling of one large open room for eight people to the interact in and you were there voyeuristically. The storyline around the use of the word "nigger" was OK, not great, as I keep hoping we’ve moved beyond the derogatory use of this term.

Here is it used emphatically to make a point and to paint the connotation of its ugliness when used. The story didn’t hide itself well because both Ruth (Kurt Russell) and Major Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) telegraphed the problem about why all these people were in the cabin without the cabin’s owner being present.

Although there were a number of “Acts”, I’m not sure why the 3rd was so long in comparison. There was an obvious break part way through the third.

Lastly, I’d heard that the film was designed to be shown with a 10 – 15 minute intermission. Our theater did not do this and ran the 187 minute film straight through. Not that I needed or wanted an intermission – I personally don’t like them – despite its length, time went quickly while allowing each scene to breathe and develop.

As Major Warren said at one point:  “… let’s slow it down… let’s slow it way down.”

Jackson was bombastically present in this role as if it was made for him. When he’s laying out a lengthy discourse about his being on the right side of justice, he’s perfect. His eyes telegraph his intense nature. Russell was effortlessly and gruffly suspicious. Wrapped up in a large coat, hat lowered on his forehead, and a face full of hair he was an impeccable rendition of a lone bounty hunter. Jennifer Jason Leigh was oddly amazing as a wanted woman being brought to justice by Ruth. Like a caged cat, her defiance of her keeper, and her hatred towards blacks spewed forth in hisses. Truly a remarkable performance (Oscar worthy). Walter Goggins as newly appointed Sheriff Chris Mannix was very strong as he vacillated between being weak to get an advantage or strong when he was in control of varying situations in the cabin. Demian Bichir as Bob, the suspicious Mexican holding down Minnie’s, was very good stirring the soup of dialogue from time to time. Tim Roth as Oswaldo Mobray the man who hangs people dispassionately was very strong. Interesting that his take so reminded me of Christoph Waltz, that it was a bit eerie. The part could have been done by Waltz but his power would have been too much for the film. Michael Madsen as Joe Gage the quite brooding man with semi-hidden agenda was wonderful. Bruce Dern was great as the old Southern General Sandy Smithers. James Parks as stage coach driver O.B. Jackson was very good especially in the scene when he comes back from the outhouse after dumping the guns in the hole.  Channing Tatum as Jody was great to see. It isn’t often that Tatum plays a heavy and he did this well. Tarantino wrote a mostly wonderful fleshed out script. There were a couple of times where it felt forced or a little stilted coming from the actors, but overall it was very strong. The direction was superb. The camera angles, the broad vista shots, mixed with the wide 70mm lens showing the dance of each of the characters was perfect. The dark humor mixed in with intense situational dialogue was great.

Overall:  This is a strong 8th film by Tarantino and helps his resume.