Review- Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019): Written by Linda Woolverton, Noah Harpster, Micah Fitzerman-Blue, directed by Joachim Ronning. Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sam Riley, Ed Skrein, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Running Time: 118 minutes.

Rating: 2.5/4

               I have made no secret of my utter contempt for the entire "Disney Live-Action Remakes of Animated Classics" enterprise. The very idea of this whole concept directly feeds into longstanding American bias that anything animated is automatically "kid's stuff," i.e. "nothing to be taken seriously or treated like real art." I find this particularly sickening in light of how many of these films are specifically designed to overtake the animated originals as the versions most people see and show their kids, effectively replacing them from popular culture.

               Beyond this insidious aspect, there's also the frustrating fact that most of these remakes just aren't any good. And in nearly all cases, even in the more okay ones, the movies fail to grasp the very concept of remaking something, that being to offer a genuinely new angle on the source material. Such reimaginings of past works can and often do result in new, challenging works of art that stand on their own. Here, though, so many of these films are either nearly shot-for-shot identical to the originals (but, you know, "real," erego, "better") or pretend that they've magically "fixed" any flaws in the animated films by offering pitiful, faux-wokeness in leiu of actual artistic vision.

               There has been one, lone, solitary exception to this Dreck that has so clogged our theaters beyond what the worst Marvel movies could ever do. Ironically, said exception is the very first film released under the newfangled "Live Action Remake" banner: Maleficent, the remake of Sleeping Beauty. Featuring a jaw-dropping, perfect performance by Angelina Jolie in the titular role, Maleficent actually did take a decidedly new perspective on the original fairy tale and stood it on its head, taking one of the drier Disney classics and turning it into an aggressively subversive story of motherhood and female empowerment. Jolie was particularly upfront about making a kew moment for her character a direct metaphor for rape, and the result remains one of the most stunning and forceful moments in her entire career to date.

               Maleficent Two: Pfeiffer's Boogaloo picks up a few years after the events of the first film, which Aurora happily living alongside Maleficent as Queen of the magical Moor. Despite Jolie's wholly justified deposement of the last king, the story of her as the real villain has somehow still seeped its way into the consciousness of the humans. This has started to couple with an increasingly hostile mistrust of all magical creatures throughout the kingdom. Into this volatile mix marches Michelle Pfeiffer, dazzling as the warmongering mother of Prince Phillip. What this kingdom has to do with Sharlto Copley's kingdom from the last film is unclear; borders of states are a rather nebulous concept in this series. Sporting a literal allergy to magic and her own assistant/personal attack dog, Gerda (a scenery-chewing Jenn Murray), Pfeiffer launches a scheme to use the anticipated marriage of Phillip and Aurora to provoke a genocidal war on all the magical entities of the Moor.

               The attentive viewer will know rather quickly where this is all going, as the film never bothers to hides its cards. But that's not the point anyway; this film is content to simply wallow in its bright colors and campy production design, a relentless barrage of style that sets the film apart from its competition. Stuff like a bonkers "loudspeaker" system, or a poison-gas-spewing organ, will be dropped into play without so much as a word of warning. I wish more films had this sort of zany self-confidence.

               The designs are matched by arresting visuals and cinematography, especially in the sequences after Maleficent stumbles into an entire underworld inhabited by her own kin, so-called "Dark Faes." The introductory shots in this section are genuinely beautiful swirls of color and light.

               The sequel, like the first film, also sticks to its guns by focusing squarely on the women as the real movers and shakers of the plot; here, the men have pretty much nothing of consequence to say or do, and the best moments continute to center around Aurora and her adoptive mother, a powerful argument for true family as something born more out of choice and lived experience than of blood.

               All in all, I dig this franchise. It's big, it's bright, it's messy, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it has a commitment to itself that most other studio features lack. This is the one live-action adaptation I'm willing to keep coming back to, if it'll have me.

-Noah Franc

Review: Parasite

Parasite (2019): Written by Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won, directed by Bong Joon-ho. Starring: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, and Park So-dan. Running Time: 132 minutes.

Rating: 4/4

               Parasite is one of those gloriously confident movies that is excellent enough in its first half, building out a powerfully solid character drama about class conflict and envy, until it flips the script on the unsuspecting viewer halfway through and goes all-out bonkers until the very end. This movie could have settled down and still been great. Instead, Bong Joon-ho and his crew went for broke and ended up creating a Goddamn masterpiece, easily one of the best films of 2019 and one that I am confident will be the center of thinkpieces for years to come.

               Much in the veign of last year's Shoplifters, which also happened to win the Palme d'Or same as this film, the Kim family lives a hand-to-mouth existence on the very edge of society, constantly scrabbling to piece together enough money and food to live. The parallels are not 100% exact, of course, but both films have a very similar vibe in the opening scenes, as we are thoroughly drawn into the world these characters inhabit and get a small feel for who each member of the family is and what they have to do to survive, as well as the sort of indignities they regularly have to stoically face down.

               At the start of the film, said survival is centered around the whole family making boxes for a local pizza service. Things start to change, slowly at first, and then all at once, when the son, Ki-woo, lands a temporary gig tutoring a rich schoolgirl. And it is not to be missed that her family is very, very rich; there are many shots dedicated to showing the size and space and excessiveness of the strange, super-modern house the girl's family, the Parks, resides in. The difference between this 21st-century palace and the filthy, bug-infested basement the Kims live in could not be more stark.

               Piece by piece, the Kims take advantage of the amusingly detached naievity of the Parks to insert themselves more and more into their lives. First the son starts tutoring the family's daughter (and they start dating to boot). Then Ki-woo pulls in his sister to teach art to the Parks' son. Then they contrive to get both the father's driver and the mother's housekeeper fired, eventually to be replaced by- you guessed it- the elder Kims. Though we are watching a devious form of identity fraud being committed, much like with the Ocean franchise there is such deft skill, such joi de vivre, in how confidently Ki-woo and his family put each piece of their plan into place, that you can't help but root for them. The Kims are just so much fun; the actors are charming, funny, empathetic, and have incredible chemistry.

               Obviously, as with all the best laid plans o' mice and men, things will not go quite as the Kims planned, but the details of when, why, and how exactly things goes tits-up I would not dare even hint at; this movie is a joy to experience cold, one of the most thrilling and gripping theatrical experiences I've had in a long time. Beyond the excellent acting, the movie boasts one of the year's best musical scores and dynamite cinematography, with a wealth of storytelling packed into the framing of every shot.

               This is, of course, a film about class and economic disparity, much like Joon-ho's also-excellent Snowpiercer, albeit with a *touch more subtelty about itself. There is hours worth of commentary in how the film uses its characterizations of and interactions between the rich and poor characters to comment on how, in a society built upon the fetishization of wealth and "success," those with less are increasingly prompted toward internalized self-loathing, rather than to question how, exactly, the social structures around them lead to circumstances where some can have so much and others so little.

               The visual metaphors get especially potent during a key sequence where, during a heavy rainstorm, the Parks' house remains warm, cozy, and dry, while the back alley where the Kim's basement apartment lies is completely flooded out. It's so bad that their toilet starts to literally spew up shit, the ultimate symbol of the refuse of the high society above them being inflicted on those below who have, in any reasonable sense, done nothing to warrant it. A moment that follows, where Ki-woo is being invited by the Parks to a fancy party while sitting in an emergency shelter- while wearing smelly, donated clothes to boot- is so perfect as to defy description.

               I find it particularly interesting to think about how it is never discussed what the rich characters actually do for a living. There is no effort to establish what, exactly, any of these people have done to earn or merit such wealth, or if it's merely inheritance. In effect, the movie's lack of interest in these details is a quiet commentary that it doesn't matter what the rish do; they have wealth, they know it, and that's all that matters. With the Kims, on the other hand, we either see directly or hear about many of the odd jobs they've all done through the years to make ends meet, from cab driving, to sports, to pizza delivery, to the military.

               There is not a single part of this entire film that was not thoroughly planned for maximum effect. Parasite lands each scene with devastating impact, creating a gripping cinematic experience that only grows in the mind the more you think about it afterwards. It is for experiences such as this that we go to the movies.

-Noah Franc