In a film he directed, Sean Penn (The Indian Runner, The Crossing Guard) picked a fine time to put himself in front of the camera for the first time. Flag Day is just Penn’s sixth directing effort and only his second since 2007’s Into the Wild, which he has openly admitted is the pinnacle of his Hollywood career. That’s crazy for someone who won an Oscar for Best Actor just a few years earlier (Mystic River) and again a year later (Milk). In an interview promoting Flag Day, I read that Penn had written two books and would have continued to write more had they had the same success. However, with those novels faltering, perhaps he felt directing gave Penn more autonomy than directing and that this is how he wanted his accomplishments to be with his work behind the lens rather than in front of it.
Category Archives: Genre
Joe Bell (2020)
Sometimes, when producing a movie, it depends on having a great story; other times, it depends on having a great cast. Of course, many other factors can make or break a film, but let’s concentrate on these first two and ask a simple but essential question. What happens when you potentially have the first two, but they conflict? I believe that director Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard, Monsters and Men) likely faced that decision in Joe Bell. Here, he had the true story of a father walking from his hometown in Oregon to New York City to raise awareness for bullying after Jadin (Reid Miller), his openly gay 15-year-old son, committed suicide after being repeatedly tormented at school because of his sexual orientation.
Stillwater (2021)
Inspired loosely by the story of an American college student accused of murder in a foreign country but proclaiming her innocence while studying abroad, director Tom McCarthy tries to recapture the magic of Spotlight in Stillwater, his first effort since 2015’s Best Picture Winner. Many of us (not including me) remember the Amanda Knox story from 20 years ago. Knox, studying abroad in Italy, was convicted of killing her roommate. She spent four years in prison before ultimately being acquitted by the Italian Supreme Court. McCarthy’s film is far from a true story, though this might be his second Best Picture nominee in five years if it had been. However, as a work of fiction, it leans too heavily on implausibility and story convenience. It doesn’t make it a better or worse movie per se. But it does make it slightly less believable.
Old (2021)
So highly ambitious, so incredibly flawed, but oh so engrossing is M. Night Shyamalan’s (Signs, The Sixth Sense) return to form in his latest mind-**** Old. Suppose you’re new to Shyamalan (which I would understand if you are a bit younger and have avoided all of his critical flops since 2002’s Signs); Old might be the coolest thing you’ve ever seen. For the rest of us, we know that somewhere in the film will have a twist. It’s a matter of either trying to figure it out (which is something we inherently do now) or trying to enjoy the ride. I attempted to do both. I succeeded in enjoying the ride. I did not figure out the twist. There’s also the idea that Shyamalan might try to do one of these types of movies without a twist so it can also be something that plays in your mind. All in all, I was able to set aside all of the many, many imperfections associated with Old and appreciate it for what it was worth and then some.
Wrong Turn (2021)
I recall watching the original Wrong Turn movie in the movie theater in 2003. I enjoyed the movie so much that I bought the DVD when I discovered it in the previously viewed movie bin a few years later. I went over fifteen years between viewings because I wanted to wait for that perfect dark and stormy night to revisit this gem of a film that introduced me to the slasher movie genre. Unfortunately, my rewatch fell flat. I thought the movie was so poorly made and cheesy that I couldn’t believe I had initially been spooked by it. However, looking back, I realize it was because I had nothing to compare it to. Of course, there were Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween, but those were established franchises long before I was born. And honestly, I had no interest in watching any of these.