Category Archives: Film

Film, Movie Reviews

Movie review: ‘Tomb Raider’ feels familiar, but still entertains

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VIDEO: Watch Tim’s review of “Tomb Raider” with Adrienne Broaddus on KARE-TV.

“Tomb Raider” (PG-13)

Alicia Vikander establishes a winning presence right off the bat in “Tomb Raider,” a familiar-feeling yet entertaining action adventure that reboots the Lara Croft film series originated by Angelina Jolie in 2001. A prequel to the story of Lara Croft based on the hit video game series, “Tomb Raider,” while not groundbreaking, certainly shows promise as it lays a solid foundation for what promises to be more than a one-and-done movie franchise.

“The Danish Girl” Oscar winner Vikander stars as Lara Croft, the wayward daughter of Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West), a wealthy British businessman who vanished without a trace when Lara was a mid-teen. Even though she wants nothing to do with her inheritance, Lara is forced to reluctantly meet with her father’s business subordinates, who give her a puzzle box that contains a clue to the gateway of her father’s secret life as an archaeologist. It seems before he disappeared, Richard found the mystery location of an ancient tomb of a Japanese queen that possesses supernatural powers; and since she is born with the same sense of curiosity as her father, Lara uses his maps and research in hopes of finding him.

Related: Alicia Vikander talks ‘The Danish Girl’

While “Tomb Raider” plays out like an “Indiana Jones” movie, the narrative differs in that Lara isn’t in the game to seek treasure, but rather embarks on the adventure to find the person she treasures the most. That’s not to say the film avoids ancient tomb that Richard was seeking in the first place; because there’s another archaeologist, Mathias Vogel (the always great Walton Goggins) who is working for a mysterious conglomerate that aims to use the tomb’s powers for sinister purposes.

While the film is a bit slow out of the gate, “Tomb Raider” gets more engaging as it goes along and hits its strike in the latter half of the film when Lara reaches her island destination. It’s there were Vikander gets a workout in a variety of harrowing action scenes, proving that she has the wherewithal to succeed in any film genre. The great thing about the film is, while its based on a video game, it doesn’t feel like a video game. Grounded in memorable performances by Vikander, Goggins, West and the always wonderful Kristin Scott Thomas in a pivotal role, “Tomb Raider” has weight, which is essential should the film series evolve into the franchise that it aspires to be.


AUDIO: Hear Tim’s review of “Tomb Raider” with Tom Barnard on “The KQ92 Morning Show” (segment begins 3 minutes in).

Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for The KQ92 Morning Show,” “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC), WCCO Radio, WJON-AM, 103.7-FM, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere.

Copyright 2018 DirectConversations.com

Tim Burton Book 2
Click book cover for info on how to buy!
Film, Movie Reviews

Movie review: ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ lost in space

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“A Wrinkle in Time” (PG)

There’s a lot of plot that needs to be ironed out in Disney’s new big-budget adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic 1962 children’s novel “A Wrinkle in Time,” and despite the well-intentioned efforts of director Ava DuVernay, the film struggles to find a way to come together in a cohesive manner.

Storm Reid stars as Meg Murry, the young daughter of scientists Alex and Kate Murry (Chris Pine and Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who has clearly inherited her father’s expansive knowledge of astrophysics. Alex’s obsession, however, with the space-time continuum leads to his mysterious disappearance, plunging Meg into four-year funk that suddenly changes when three celestial beings, Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey), Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) and Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) turn up in her backyard with the promising information about the location of her father.

Accompanied by her brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) and friend Calvin (Levi Miller), Meg embarks with the otherworldly beings on fantastical trek that transcends the boundaries of space and time. The voyage leads them to different planets and ultimately, the dark world known as The It that is holding Alex captive, where she must use her mind to defeat evil if her father is ever to be freed.

There’s no question that “A Wrinkle in Time” is stunning piece of work from a visual standpoint, as DuVernay does her best to describe L’Engle’s intricately detailed source material. But where the visuals excel the narrative falters, where the discussion of tesseracts (“tessering” is the term they use for traveling) and quantum physics quickly becomes confused and offers no solutions to move the plot forward in meaningful and sensible way.

Instead, the film takes on bizarre if not creepy tones at times, and even without the weirdness, the film is way too cerebral for its intended kid audience (if not the adults accompanying them). The ambitious concept worked wonders for Christopher Nolan with “Interstellar,” but as for “A Wrinkle in Time,” DuVernay is lost in space.

Lammometer: 5 (out of 10)

Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for The KQ92 Morning Show,” “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC), WCCO-AM, WJON-AM, 103.7-FM The Loon, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere.

Copyright 2018 DirectConversations.com

Film, Movie Reviews

Oscar picks: ‘Shape’ to stay above water … barely

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The 90th annual Academy Awards ceremony is Sunday, and you can bet some people will be solely tuning in to see if there will be a screw-up as monumental as last year’s Best Picture envelope fiasco. That’s unlikely, but with any luck, host Jimmy Kimmel will have fun with the faux pas all night long. The show simply needs something out of the ordinary, because with the predictability of this year’s nominations, the show, barring a couple of potential upsets, is shaping up to be another 3 1/2-hour Academy borefest.

Despite the formulas pundits put into play to make their picks, predicting the winners of the Oscars doesn’t take much homework. Basically, ignore the awards handed out by the critics and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (the members of which hand out the Global Globes), because journalists don’t vote on the Oscars. Instead, the trends lie with industry awards – the Producers Guild of America, the Director’s Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television Awards – because some, but not all, are voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

With that, making this year’s picks quickly fell into place. Here are my predictions and some potential upsets.

Best Supporting Actor nominees:  Willem Dafoe, “The Florida Project”; Woody Harrelson, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”; Richard Jenkins, “The Shape of Water”; Christopher Plummer, “All the Money in the World”; Sam Rockwell, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Will win: Sam Rockwell, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Possible upset: Willem Dafoe, “The Florida Project”

MORE: Hear Tim’s Oscar picks on KQRS-FM, WCCO-AM and “The BS Show with Bob Sansevere.”

Best Supporting Actress nominees: Mary J. Blige, “Mudbound”; Allison Janney, “I, Tonya”; Lesley Manville, “Phantom Thread”; Laurie Metcalf, “Lady Bird”; Octavia Spencer, “The Shape of Water”

Will win: Allison Janney

Possible upset: Laurie Metcalf, “Lady Bird”

Best Actor nominees: Timothée Chalamet, “Call Me by Your Name”; Daniel Day-Lewis, “Phantom Thread”; Daniel Kaluuya, “Get Out”; Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour”; Denzel Washington, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”

Will win: Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour”

Possible upset: Not a chance. Oldman is due for what is easily the best performance of the year.

Best Actress nominees: Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”; Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”; Margot Robbie, “I, Tonya”; Saoirse Ronan, “Lady Bird”; Meryl Streep, “The Post”

Will win: Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Possible upset: Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”

Best Picture nominees:

“Call Me by Your Name”; “Darkest Hour”; “Dunkirk”; “Get Out”; “Lady Bird”; “Phantom Thread”; “The Post”; “The Shape of Water”; “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Will win: “The Shape of Water”

Possible upset: “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” The recent claims that writer-director Guillermo del Toro lifting the story from the 1969 play “Let Me Hear You Whisper” (just in time for voting!) may come back to bite “The Shape of Water.” A harbinger of that will be if Christopher Nolan upsets del Toro for Best Director. Nolan winning wouldn’t be a huge shame. Nolan is way, way overdue and deserves the honor for the expert direction on “Dunkirk.”

Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for The KQ92 Morning Show,” “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC), WCCO Radio, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere.

Copyright 2018 DirectConversations.com

Film, Interviews

Interview: Oscar nominee J. Miles Dale talks ‘The Shape of Water’

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There’s no question that director Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy romance “The Shape of Water” has received a lot of love this awards season, including the Directors Guild of America award for del Toro, and the best picture trophy from the Producers Guild of America for the filmmaker and his fellow producer, J. Miles Dale.

And yet, while “The Shape of Water” is up for a leading 13 Academy Awards Sunday, including nominations for Best Picture, Best Director for del Toro and Best Actress for Sally Hawkins, Dale said there truly is no better honor for any filmmaker as the heartfelt feedback he’s heard from fans about how deeply moved they were by the film.

“It’s gratifying that the movie is resonating with audiences. It has universal themes, no doubt, with love, tolerance and inclusion and all those things,” Dale said in a recent phone conversation from Los Angeles. “But I think what the movie has really going for it is nobody goes into it knowing what it’s going to be. Sure, from the trailer you can think, ‘Ah, it’s a Cold War thriller’ and it’s a little bit ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon,’ but I don’t think anybody is ready for where the love story lands. So, it’s really satisfying to see that people really get the movie, and maybe how it helps move the needle a bit with how they treat other people.”

Co-written by del Toro and Vanessa Taylor, “The Shape of Water” follows the unlikely path of Elisa Esposito (Hawkins), a mute janitor in a top-secret government research facility at the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s who forms a unique bond with an amphibious creature (del Toro’s longtime collaborator Doug Jones) with human characteristics. Finding a way to effectively communicate with the creature, Elisa’s love for the amphibious being grows, but since he’s being subjected to torturous experiments by the leader of the research project, Col. Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), Elisa must formulate a daring escape for the creature from the facility before he faces a certain death.

Dale — who previously collaborated with del Toro as producers on the 2013 Andy Muschietti-directed, Jessica Chastain thriller “Mama” and most recently, as a producer and director on the del Toro-produced FX horror series “The Strain” — said pitching “The Shape of Water” to its studio, Fox Searchlight, wasn’t that difficult. That’s a pretty startling revelation, considering the film’s unconventional interspecies romance narrative — a narrative that ventures to daring, if not unfathomable lengths before all its pieces intersect and flow into the film’s genius conclusion.

“It’s funny, because I have made many jokes about how it should have been a hard pitch, but it actually wasn’t,” Dale said. “To Guillermo’s credit, he took them out to the museum that he has in his house in the San Fernando Valley, so he pitched it in the context of his incredible museum.”

Dale is speaking of Bleak House, where del Toro houses countless artifacts from horror, sci-fi and fantasy films and television series, as well as other mediums. The atmosphere of Bleak House (despite the foreboding implication of its name) no doubt enhanced del Toro’s pitch to Fox Searchlight’s executives.

“They loved it off the top. They saw the beauty of the idea from the beginning,” Dale said. “It should have been harder than it was. If he pitched it to the studio anywhere else, it probably would have been difficult. But Searchlight has been incredible partner and they’re not afraid to take chances, especially with great, visionary filmmakers, and I think they saw the opportunity to do something with Guillermo that was unique instead of fearing it.”

Doug Jones in 'The Shape of Water' (photo: Fox Searchlight)

Dale believes by showcasing his otherworldly artifacts for Fox Searchlight, the studio fully realized the commonality that exists within many great filmmakers: a passion for the work not only because they know the material, but because they’re fans of it. And with the artifacts that he harbors in Bleak House, as well as a film collection that includes the “Hellboy” films and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” del Toro is completely at home with “The Shape of Water,” Dale said.

“What (Bleak House) really drives home is that Guillermo is such a fan,” Dale enthused. “He’s really just a fanboy who’s found his way. It’s cool that he has that purity of spirit. He’s dyed-in-the-wool with this. He’s not into sports or anything else. He’s all-in on arts and culture and spends half his money on movie props.”

Copyright 2018 DirectConversations.com

Tim Burton Book 2
Click book cover for info on how to buy!