Review: "Flight"

This review was originally published in my column at Towleroad

Captain Whip

No one can fly a plane like Captain Whip (Denzel Washington). Unfortunately no one can drink like him either. Within the first fifteen or so minutes of Flight, the new drama from Robert Zemeckis, Whip has already downed multiple vodkas, beers, and at least one line of coke. He's high before lift-off; this bender is all on the morning he's piloting 104 souls on a commercial aircraft to Atlanta.

Whip gives drunk driving a whole new vertical meaning.

Captain Whip's flight is, unfortunately, doomed. The unusual crash is very well shot and edited -- a real armrest grabber and apparently it is possible to fly a plane inverted! In the aftermath Whip, his co-workers, multiple lawyers and moneyed executives are engaged in the very tense and very high-stakes legal battle as to the why the plane went down.

"Why?" is an open ended question so let's ask a more specific one...

Click to read more ...

Box Office: Wreck-It, Denzel!

A very strong weekend after a quiet one. Wreck-It Ralph's big showing isn't a surprise given the track record of noisy colorful animated films for kids (i.e. they always open big) and its use of nostalgic characters  to hook parents. Denzel Washington, one of the last true movie stars, can also be counted on for strong openings and Flight is no exception. What did you see this weekend?

Box Office Top Ten
01 WRECK-IT RALPH  $49.1 *NEW* 
02 FLIGHT $25 *NEW* 
03 ARGO  $10.2 (cum. $75.8)
04 MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS $8.2 *NEW* 
05 TAKEN 2  $6  (cum. $125.6)
06 CLOUD ATLAS $5.2 (cum $18.2)
07 HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA $4.5 (cum $137.5)
08 PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 $4.3  (cum $49.5)
09 HERE COMES THE BOOM $3.6 (cum $35.5)
10 SILENT HILL REVELATION $3.3 (cum $13.9)

I saw Flight on Friday night in a crowded theater (review tomorrow) and though the audience seemed to be with it the whole time -- reacting big in all the key places -- as I was leaving I overheard the following conversation between two 20something girls.

OVERHEARD

Girl #1: That was not at all what I was expecting.
Girl #2: I know. It was... [unconvinced] good. I think I need a little more feel-good in my movies.

Curious comment since Flight works overtime and some would say inelegantly in its finale to hurdle its feel-bad problem. But, then again, they have been marketing it with the crash and Denzel's ace flying that's only the beginning of the movie so maybe the audience was expecting something more action-packed and heroic? 

Speaking of heroic feats: Ben Affleck's Argo is losing so little of its audience from week to week that he'll totally have his first $100 million blockbuster soon (The Town came close). And all that from a "prestige" movie, too. His ascendance is nearly complete. All that's left on the road to being a wildly overrated filmmaker (he's good don't get me wrong) is another Oscar. Do you think he'll win it?

Linkfall

My New Plaid Pants "13 Whores of Halloween" a fun countdown of film characters: "Jules" from Cabin in the Woods, "Lucy" from Bram Stoker's Dracula and 11 more!
Star Ledger movies as political propaganda: Won't Back Down, 2016: Obama's America, and more
Pajiba a shirtless link roundup. Why haven't I thought of this? On a content related note: I hadn't heard that Ryan Gosling has left Nicolas Winding Refn's Logan's Run remake. Sad face. But I guess Ryan Gosling, who is 31 going on 32, would already be dead by Logan's Run standards! 
Hollywood Elsewhere on John Goodman's Oscar campaign problem for Flight.

 

After Elton cute and thorough interview with the star of Gayby out actor Matthew Wilkas
The Incredible Suit meets James Bond Daniel Craig in posh hotel as Skyfall takes London by storm 
Fashion It So funny newish tumblr on the costumes in Star Trek: The New Generation. Love how randomly specific the interwebs can be
In Contention looks at all the contenders in the Best Animated Feature race 
/Film gets excited by one random comment from the difficult brilliant genius Paul Thomas Anderson about Chris Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy  
Movie|Line wonders if Idris Elba will win the James Bond role in the future. But why are we talking about this? I want Daniel Craig to keep on running, shooting, fighting, travelling, stripping, and bedding those Bond girls. Don't you?
Cinema Blend ...at any rate, Daniel Craig's possibly final two Bond pictures MIGHT have linked stories, a la Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace 

NYFF: "Flight" & Denzel's Forthcoming 6th Oscar Nom

Michael C here having safely landed at the closing night of the New York Film Festival.

Nobody could have landed that plane like I did.”

That’s the mantra the Denzel Washington’s Captain Whip Whitaker repeats throughout Robert Zemeckis’ Flight to absolve himself of any guilt. He has a strong case to make. Nobody can deny that all ninety-six passengers on his plane would be dead were it not for his brilliant unorthodox piloting after the plane dropped into an uncontrolled dive without warning. But how does that heroism hold up when evidence begins to surface that Whitaker was not only several sheets to the wind that morning but also blasted on coke? Can he be both a national hero and a national disgrace? Does the former negate the latter? Would he have even attempted anything so crazy were he cold sober?

Understandably, Flight’s ad campaign focuses on the breathtaking crash material and on that score Zemeckis doesn’t disappoint. He delivers the most thrilling action sequence since the Dubai Tower scene in last year’s Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. What mass audiences may be surprised to discover is that the spectacle is only the opening act, the catalyst for a bruising character study. And despite some hiccups along the way it is an effective one. I don’t know screenwriter John Gatnis’s personal history but he has the addiction material down cold.

He's already got two but is a third on the way?I do not speak lightly when I say that this is one of Denzel Washington’s best performances. He elevates the material at every turn with a riveting, nuanced turn that is not the least bit concerned with whether or not we like this guy. Mostly we don't. There is a scene that should lock up Denzel’s sixth Oscar nod (and possibly his third win) where he mercilessly manipulates an attendant from the doomed flight into perjuring herself for his sake. I was going to write that his actions in the scene are shameless but actually it’s the opposite. The look on Whitaker’s eyes suggests the shame is eating him alive. 

Of course the other big headline here is that Flight marks Robert Zemekis’s first live action movie after a twelve-year stint as the premiere director of motion capture films for which the public was not clamoring. Surprisingly, his time away on the Island of Mocap Toys has actually appeared to increase his skill with small-scale human drama. It is tough to recall any dramatic moments from his previous films as powerful as the best moments in Flight. Maybe all those hours spent watching actors in lycra suits emote at ping pong balls on sticks left him hungry for the simple elegance of actors acting on a real live set. 

I would love to report that at all of Flight were as good as its best moments, but the film can't keep out of its own way. The screenplay saddles itself with a creaky subplot involving Whitaker’s relationship with a recovering addict he meets at the hospital (Kelly Reilly, fine in an ill-conceived part) so we can touch on a lot addiction cliches that were not going missed. The film would veer into melodrama more than once were it not for Washington's skill and restraint. On top of this a layer of clunky religious symbolism is piled on with all the subtlety of the plane crash sequence, literally so when the wing of the plane shears the steeple off a church on the way down. It’s almost as the filmmakers were worried they were being too smart for too long, and threw in some broad, obvious strokes so as not to leave the slower viewers behind. There is especially apparent in Flight's reliance on cringingly on-the-nose music cues throughout: John Goodman’s smarmy drug pusher is accompanied by “Sympathy for the Devil”, Washington pours booze down the sink to “Ain’t No Sunshine”, and so on. 

So Flight squanders some its impact with a few hamfisted moves. That is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Denzel's performance alone justifies a trip to the theater, and when you factor in the tiptop supporting cast, the thrilling crash sequence and story that rings true whenever it can find its groove and you’ve got what amounts to a compelling mixed bag. Just don’t expect smooth flying the whole way through. B-

More NYFF
Amour & No Two Strong Foreign Oscar Contenders
Holy Motors Must See Madhouse
Lincoln's Noisy "Secret" Debut
The Bay An Eco Conscious Slither
The Paperboy & the Power of Nicole Kidman's Crotch 
Room 237 The Cult of The Shining's Overlook Hotel  
Bwakaw is a Film Festival's Best Friend
Frances Ha, Dazzling Brooklyn Snapshot
Barbara Cold War Slow Burn
Our Children's Death March 
Hyde Park on Hudson Historical Fluff

Related
Double Oscar Winners Denzel & More

148 Days Til Oscar Nominations!

Do you ever marvel at the countdown clock in the lefthand sidebar and think "Wow, only ___ days until Oscar nominations!". I know I do. As of right now there are only 148 days and some hours left until Oscar nominations. 21 weeks! That means the universe has plenty of time to back me up on my current predictions or destroy them savagely. Either way is fun for me which is, I suppose, why I've never been able to quit predicting Hollywood's High Holy Night.

CHART UPDATES

Best Picture & Best Director - The Great Gatsby and Baz Luhrmann exit the charts, both moving to summer 2013. And though I never had faith in Gatsby as an actual finalist (the book is too perfect as a book) what can rush in to replace it on the charts? The race is still wide open as it should be.

Gatsby will sit this particular party out. He'll throw his own next Summer

But from where I sit though I'm sure some will disagree, the franchise hopefuls are toast. A lot of people still think that The Gidling of the Lord of the Rings Lily: Part 1 of 3 will factor in but Oscar is not Emmy and LotR is not The West Wing. Fantasy is still a novelty for Oscar voters and I can't imagine that handing the last one 11 Oscars won't feel like enough of a reward for Jackson & Middle Earth. Yes, they've had a decade long breather but I figure the only way The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is competing for the top prize is if people go crazier for it than the original trilogy. And that would be an unexpected journey. 

Meanwhile I suspect that The Avengers and The Dark Knight Concludes Divisively will have a rough time making it through the wild rapids of winter campaigning and I don't expect either of them in the big show beyond a few craft nods. I don't even have faith in the eagerly awaited Django Unchained as an Oscar hopeful. Quentin Tarantino, when he leans toward retro remixes of less prestigious film genres, is just not necessarily for them (see: Jackie Brown, Kill Bill). Yes,  he leans towards that.. always... and he has made two big Oscar hits. But Pulp Fiction was the kind of pop-cultural zeitgeist breakthrough that's impossible to ignore and Inglourious Basterds was a WW II fantasy and Oscar does his own share of fantasizing about that.

All of this nitpicking doubt leads me to believe that Beasts of the Southern Wild, a movie that doesn't look much like an Oscar film (yay!), is on its way to locked up status as an Oscar film. While it didn't become the crossover hit we'd hoped it would, it's done well enough financially to ride the "beloved indie / critical darling" into the mainstream competition for gold. (Think Winter's Bone.)

Best Actor - It's been 11 years since Denzel Washington won his second Oscar and in that whole time he hasn't done anything worth Oscar's time. Will they welcome him back if Flight is a big hit?

What's Denzel's poison? And was he drinking it before the Flight?

poll by twiigs.com

The way I see it mainstream dramas that become big hits are shoo in for Oscar play. Oscar likes drama best and when films without genre trappings that are intended for adults soar at the box office, they join in the applause. I'm feeling it'll hit. Just a feeling.

But the big question in Best Actor is whether the Weinstein's will try to convince AMPAS voters that Joaquin Phoenix is "supporting" Phillip Seymour Hoffman (or the other way around) in The Master. If they risk a double lead campaign and the film is the critical mega-success the internet seems to be expecting, could they be the first Actor Pair since *gulp* Amadeus (twenty-eight years ago) to hog 40% of the shortlist? It's hilarious (and depressing) to view Amadeus in retrospect and know that campaign teams would try to pretend that Salieri or Mozart were "supporting" players in their own riveting brutal musical duet. 

Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress -- We discussed these last week here. 

Best Supporting Actor - This category hasn't come into focus yet which should make the fall extra exciting. So for the moment, you can predict just about anything (at least here) and feel like a true psychic. You can feel like a psychic right up until the moment the films open and prove you wrong! But the foggy nature of the Supporting goods me wonder if I'm not underestimating those that have already arrived and delighted (like Matthew McConaughey and Michael Fassbender) despite the lowbrow nature of their roles... at least accordingi to Oscar's general aesthetics.

Ruth E Carter, two time Oscar nominees, doing retro-chic looks for Sparkle

Best Visuals and Best Aurals - UPDATES STILL IN PROGRESS -- THIS TAKES TIME.
The latest film to enter the ring visually and aurally is the Motown musical Sparkle (my review tomorrow) and while I don't expect Oscar play anywhere stranger things have happened in the below the line categories. 

Screenplay, Animated, Foreign Film and the Complete Prediction Chart. Check them out and report back.