'Get Out' take two: Movie is just as rewarding the second time

The success of Get Out has been so gratifying for me,  even though I had nothing to do with it.

As both an African-American trying to break into the entertainment business and a lover of original, thought-provoking genre cinema, I am both proud of what Jordan Peele did and thrilled that the public has across the board embraced it.

This low budget movie -- with no big name stars -- which dares to say some pretty provocative and insightful things about race, has been widely embraced by the public (it's grossed upwards of $170 million) and has managed to sidestep the inevitable backlash that normally greets break out hits (*cough* La La Land *cough*)

After seeing it the first time I immediately was compelled to see it again in theaters at a later date, I think, because like a lot of viewers. I imagined that some of its first act moments would have new meaning now that I knew the third act revelations.

This blog post will contain SPOILERS, so if you are one of the few people who aren't hip enough to have seen this masterpiece, move along.

First off, I will stay I was and am repeatedly struck by how smart the movie is. Before I saw it this time I saw several trailers that really depressed me. Among them were the smugly self-satisfied big screen Baywatch movie, which seems to want to both poke fun at the campy show but also revel in its same puerile objectification of hot bodies, and even worse Amy Schumer's upcoming comedy Snatched, which seems so culturally tone deaf -- it's about privileged white women who get kidnapped during a getaway in Latin America -- that it seems like it belongs in another decade.

This man deserves an Oscar nomination

Get Out could have been simplistic. I remember being prepared for the white family our hero visits to be closet white supremacists, but the movie took a totally different tack, instead suggesting that this strange society covets aspects of black life in a proprietary way that is extremely problematic but not necessarily about hatred.

The movie is also effortlessly funny and comfortable in its pacing. It is never boring, but unlike so many broader comedies if makes no effort to smother you with "bits." The closest thing to a purely silly joke -- Allison Williams eating individual Fruit Loops while cruising for NCAA athletes -- is so pitch perfect and well earned that the movie gets away with it.

And a word on Allison Williams' performance. I have never watched Girls and likely never will so I have nothing to gauge her work here against, but her role is the one that plays most curiously on second viewing.

Was her rebuff of a traffic cop about not wanting her black boyfriend's identity known, therefore eliminating anyone tracing him back there? Her attempts to play flirt with her boyfriend's best friend (played brilliantly by Lil Rel Howery) also a scheme to lure him to become her next victim?

She has to walk this very careful line between being cute and loyal and yet, also somewhat suspicious. I have heard people claim that they thought she was up to no good from the beginning. But I am not so sure. I remembered wondering if she was "in" on it, but her reactions seemed genuine at the time, but on second viewing there are little hints at a rehearsed nature to her embarrassment at her families' behavior.

There are also other little interesting bits that pay off -- for instance that image of the 'groundskeeper' running -- which is unsettling in both the trailer and the film -- is a callback to the fact that the grandfather (who lives inside him) never quite got over losing to Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympic Games.

And the joys of the movie don't end there -- not that there will ever be a sequel -- but the concept of "The Sunken Place" is very ripe for deeper exploration, as if the idea of this pseudo secret society (which borrows a big from Being John Malcovich) that wants their brain to live on as their bodies give way to father time.

I have no idea if Peele could ever top this film, but he has made a piece of art that will last and stand the test of time, that much I know for sure.

RIP Jonathan Demme: A tribute to his remarkable run as a director

Demme directing Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs

Director Jonathan Demme has died at age 73. I'm sorry to say I wasn't even aware that he had been ill. Demme, despite winning an Academy Award for The Silence of the Lambs was a truly underrated talent. He didn't make all that many films, but he had a remarkable streak of original, eclectic hits that defied any one genre.

I am particularly a big fan of a series of films he made between 1984 and 1993 -- and I will get to those in a moment. Demme was so versatile, he could make documentaries, dramas, comedies and top-notch thrillers. And he always made sure to put interesting characters and faces front in center.

When I think of him as a filmmaker I always remember his dramatic close-ups. The close-up has fallen out of style in recent years, but Demme was never shy about it. He -- like Sergio Leone -- would fill up a frame with an actor's face, often having them address their dialogue to another character straight to camera, lending a kind of intimacy to the performances.

Think about the monologues from Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs, or Tom Hanks' scenes opposite Denzel Washington in Philadelphia. Demme was someone who wasn't afraid to inject big emotions into his scenes and bring a deeply humanistic approach to all his work.

For an appreciation, here is a look back my favorite films of his:

Stop Making Sense (1984) - One of the best concert films of all time, featuring one of (if not the best) new wave band of all time. Demme stages this rocking documentary beautifully, starting with David Byrne alone on stage doing his quirky schtick, and with each new song he is joined by another band member, until the final numbers where the stage is filled with percussionists, singers and dancers and the whole thing feels so alive and infectious

Something Wild (1986) - A sexy and unpredictable black comedy featuring star-making roles for Jeff Daniels, Ray Liotta and Melanie Griffith. This is one of those often overlooked gems that is ripe for rediscovery. Daniels plays a bored executive who gets caught up in the hijinks of a flighty woman (Griffith) that danger has a way of finding. The movie has a funky 1980s feel and it walks a delicate line between laughter and violence.

Swimming to Cambodia (1987) - The documentary that made Spaulding Gray a breakout star. The whole film is one enthralling and invigorating monologue, delivered by the silver-tongued and silver-haired gray. Demme adds so dramatic sound and visual effects, but never distracts from Gray's wonderful storytelling which really opens up what a movie can be.

Married to the Mob (1988) - This mob comedy, starring an against type Michelle Pfeiffer, could have been a silly farce, but Demme's direction keeps it grounded. Pfeiffer plays a recently widowed gangster's wife who is now a target for FBI investigators and her ex's old pals. Amazing music, costume and set design, and energetic performances make this another delightful 80s keeper.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - Understandably, Demme's best known film and biggest hit. It's a flawless thriller, brilliantly constructed, performed and executed. It's also never gratuitous, despite its grisly subject matter (sadistic serial killers). So much more power is derived from what you don't see and this is something the inferior sequels failed to understand. One of the most quotable and memorable movies of the past 30 years.

Philadelphia (1993) - While some aspects of this AIDS drama are dated now, there is no denying what a groundbreaking and important film it was when it first came out. Besides establishing Tom Hanks as a serious dramatic actor, the movie also humanized the gay community and the AIDS crisis at a vital point and helped move the national conversation to some degree from fear to empathy. The all-star cast all has moments to shine, but its the connection between Hanks (as attorney dying from the diseased) and Denzel Washington as his initially prejudiced attorney that give this film its real power.

'Never Seen It' - Episode 15 - It's not tumor, it's 'Kindergarten Cop'

Hey millennials, before Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor of California and a perpetual thorn in the side of Trump, he used to be the biggest movie star on the planet. And he occasionally made movies that somewhat veered away from his action persona into broad comedy.

Whether those outings were entirely successful is a big question, and my wife and I took our first shot at this genre of 'Ahnold' films by watching one of his biggest hit: the 1990 movie Kindergarten Cop.

We've both seen scenes from it over the years, but for whatever reason never took it in as a whole. So here are our first thoughts after watching it separately and coming together to take it on for the first time.

Needless to say we found this movie more than a little bit problematic. This is one of those movies where people probably remember individual lines (the famous "it's not a tumor") but not necessarily much of the substance of it.

For the initiated and the uninitiated, here's our take:


'NEVER SEEN IT' EPISODES:

Episode 1: Some King of Wonderful
Episode 2: XXX
Episode 3: Varsity Blues
Episode 4: Xanadu
Episode 5: An Affair to Remember
Episode 6: Blue Steel
Episode 7: Spy Kids
Episode 8: The Frisco Kid
Episode 9: Rising Sun
Episode 10: The Conjuring 2
Episode 11: Zootopia
Episode 12: Fear
Episode 13: The Cell
Episode 14: Nocturnal Animals

Stay tuned for more!

In honor of 4/20: My favorite cinematic trip is '2001'

The supposed "trippy-ness" of movies can often be an unbearable cliche. I have not (yet) watched The Wizard of Oz set to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. I have never, quite frankly, tripped while watching a film -- so perhaps I haven't really lived.

Still, it being 4/20 and all, I figured I would indulge this aspect of the filmgoing experience, especially since some have argued that it can enhance of detract from viewing something, depending on your point of view. When I have been, let's say enamored, I have not tended to go for the comedic fare -- although I will say that it struck just the right balance for me to enjoy both Hot Tub Time Machine and MacGruber, two ridiculous movies that I contend are just as funny if you're sober.

And tonight I am partaking in one of Cheech and Chong's best Nice Dreams, but really more as homage to their legendary status than as a drug-fueled excursion.

No for me I like to go cerebral and there is no film in recent memory that gets my brain firing on all cylinders quite like Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It's not even my favorite Kubrick film, that'd be The Shining, but his epic sci-fi meditation keeps getting better and more profound each time I see it, and I remember it being particularly arrested that last time I watched it, when I was in a particular state of bliss.

This is not like a groundbreaking observation. The film's success when it first came out back in 1968 was due in part to the stoner culture's embrace of it, it did not get rave reviews from most mainstream critics who found its cold detachment and unorthodox storytelling off-putting.

But, just like all of Kubrick films, it has become widely embraced now as one of the greatest films of all time, routinely ranking near on within the top 20.

Why has the movie help up so well? I think it has a timeless quality. The special effects are still really awesome, and the film's empty spaces -- which confounded 1968 audiences -- can and have been filled with all sorts of hidden, deeper meanings by audiences which have obsessively consumed it.

It's a movie that makes you think -- not just about what you're watching -- but the nature of the universe, about the inherent violence of man (and whether it really is inherent) and the future of our world. I have no idea what quite a bit of it really means, but that is part of the fun of it.

I get chatty when I am under the influence -- I love to get into impassioned, if not entirely articulate, debates about subjects both profound and perfunctory. 2001, despite its minimalism, feels like a profound movie -- it's not pretentious at all either -- just grand in terms of its ambition, pacing and symbolism.

Not only was the film ahead of its time in terms of predicting our technological advances -- it also takes subtle shots at our burgeoning culture of cold commercialism and the tension between automation and humanity.

When I'm in that state I like to have my mind stimulated and blown, and if you are celebrating this faux holiday today I couldn't recommend this one more.

Why Walter Matthau is my kind of leading man

Walter Matthau was a one-of-a-kind kind of movie star. Modern audiences, if they're familiar with him at all, probably know him best for his late career Grumpy Old Men comedies, but he had a long and fruitful, acclaimed career before that as both a character actor but also, most curiously as an orthodox leading man.

Matthau was by no means traditionally handsome, he was preternaturally elderly-looking with a unique, goofy-sounding voice. He would almost certainly never get the lead role in any movie today, but there was a time when he was bankable, and even more important -- he was cool.

In the 1970s in particular, he had a great run of badass, but lovable roles as the hero of some quirky genre films.

And while Matthau was never going to seduce the leading lady or take center stage in a stunt-heavy action sequence, he brought an authentic, and wonderfully world-weary presence and gravitas to nearly ever role he played.

For instance there's 1973's Charley Varrick, where he plays an aging thief who must improvise to survive after his latest heist goes tragically wrong. His performance as Varrick is sly and sardonic, but never silly, And by the end of the film (where he has to square off against a very scary Joe Don Baker) he comes across as a totally credible tough guy in an action film.

In the classic 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, (which was remade into a subpar film starring Denzel Washington) Matthau is a politically incorrect, blue collar New York City transit cop. He would at first appear to be no match for Robert Shaw's ruthless villain, but he relies on his wits and his instincts to get to the bottom of a high stakes hostage situation on an underground subway train.

And then there's the beloved hit comedy film The Bad News Bears, not an action picture obviously, but a lot more sophisticated than the usual family fare, too. Matthau's iconic hero -- the appropriately named Morris Buttermaker -- is a truly grizzled drunk, a deeply flawed character who has no business watching children, but becomes unexpectedly good at it, when they inspire his natural competitive instincts (he played an ex-pro who's fallen from grace).

Matthau's great run culminated with 1980's Hopscotch, not a masterpiece, but a charming little movie which derives most of his pleasures for the fact that it casts the jowly actor as a CIA smoothie even though he looks and sounds the way he does.

Like I said earlier, modern Hollywood would have no patience for someone as unconventional as Matthau. And that's a real shame. The character in his face, voice, even gait -- make him stand out in any movie, and with so many bland leading men trying to seize the movie star mantle and failing, perhaps because they have no distinct style or equality.

Meanwhile a special brand of movie star in Matthau mold is dying a slow death. With the notable of exception of Jeff Goldbum -- who is uniquely himself -- that he brings a smile to my face whenever he pops up on screen. He too is no typical movie star -- but boy, is he one.

More, please.

'Colossal' is not the cute movie it's being advertised to be

Colossal is definitely not the movie that it's advertised to be. It's got a clever, original premise -- which I presume is why it's enjoyed mostly good reviews -- but the execution is all over the place and the tone grows from jarring to off-putting fairly quickly.

I was prepared to really like this movie. Unlike a lot of people, I've never had a particularly deep-seated revulsion for Anne Hathaway. I quite liked her Oscar-nominated performance in Rachel Getting Married and I thought she nearly stole The Dark Knight Rises with a surprisingly sexy performance as Catwoman. But I also see that she is not for everyone's tastes.

I get that she has that "lead in the high school play" vibe about her -- but I believe she is talented, and she may be the best part of this film, although her character is not really all that fully realized.

She is supposed to be an alcoholic burnout who returns to her hometown after being callously booted out by her obnoxious boyfriend. If you've seen the amusing trailer, you'll know she connects with what seems to be an affable old friend (played by a woefully miscast Jason Sudekis) and soon learns that her physical behavior in a certain space at a certain time of day channels the behavior of a giant monster terrorizing South Korea.

Anne Hathaway

This is all handled in a lowkey, manner-of-fact way that I appreciated. But eventually the plot takes some twists and turns which really took me out of the movie and made certain characters irredeemable to me.

This wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the film had a more acerbic, bleak sensibility from the beginning (like Young Adult, a movie which reportedly inspired it) but the shift here doesn't feel earned, so when the film enters darker territory (and some uncomfortable violence) I was turned off.

While I appreciate that this is a movie that has some really broad ideas in it, I also think it's a little too all over the map. I never felt emotionally invested in the characters, and for a movie that is at least ostensibly a comedy, I barely chuckled throughout.

Frankly, I am kind of shocked by the raves this movie has been receiving. It's well-made, and it definitely deserves kudos for trying to tell an ambitious story -- but if I am watching a movie and trying to understand what genre it is, it can't be all that effective.

I'm curious, also, whether this film will create any Hathaway converts. She has a way with neurotic, damaged characters, and perhaps some viewers can relate better to unresolved childhood grievances and angst than I did.

For me Colossal is an interesting misfire, a movie unsure of what is trying to do, but that somehow seems to wow a lot of people who see it.

Carrie Fisher's 'Star Wars' swan song will hopefully be fitting

Star Wars fans got a surprising bit of news this week from the late Carrie Fisher's brother. He revealed that this sister, who died suddenly last year, would not only be appearing in The Last Jedi (due out later this year) but also the still untitled Episode IX, which will complete this new trilogy of movies.

What is even more surprising, especially in light of Rogue One's controversial but I thought effective use of special effects to bring Peter Cushing back from the dead and to render a younger Princess Leia, apparently Fisher's performance will be without the aid of technical enhancement.

This comes as a shock -- but a welcome one. Apparently Carrie Fisher completed work on not just The Last Jedi, but at the very least shot some scenes for the the follow-up film.

Therefore, for those of who wanted to see her deliver fully realized on-screen performances in her most iconic role, one last time, this is huge and welcome news.

Now, so much about the new trilogy is shrouded in mystery. The Force Awakens was immensely satisfying, but like many Star Wars films, it left many unanswered questions and cliffhangers in the minds of audiences. Who are Rey's parents? What has Luke been up to all this time? Where's Lando? I could go and on.

Carrie Fisher, I felt, was not used enough. Now, Mark Hamill only appeared in the final shot of the film, and didn't utter word, so this is all relative. But I do hope that in the ensuing films Princess Leia-now-General Leia, would have more to do.

Seeing as she will be starting The Last Jedi not only estranged from her twin brother but effectively widowed due to the loss of her longtime love and companion Han Solo, she should have a lot of powerful notes to play.

I've always thought he character's arc over the first trilogy is one of the coolest and most underrated. She went from someone who was being rescued to someone doing the rescuing, and if Return of the Jedi is be believed, she was at least starting to get in touch with her own innate abilities when it came to the force.

The Force Awakens didn't address that at all, and perhaps the new films won't either, but I think whatever she does will have even more weight and power now, especially since, tragically, we know that we have already lost Fisher, a groundbreaking writer and feminist hero.

It's hard not to feel emotional about this stuff. The premature death of Heath Ledger leant even more power and mystery to his off-the-charts performance in The Dark Knight. Even the death of Paul Walker, made the last Fast & Furious movie feel like more than the sum of its parts.

Star Wars is probably always going to have a rabid, built-in fanbase, especially now that the product is starting to consistently live up the hype.

But Carrie Fisher is not someone who can be easily replaced and she had an authenticity which no CGI slight of hand could capture. I for one loved the little cameo in Rogue One, but it's a cute button, a note of uplift, and that's all.

There can only be one Princess Leia, and while she may have passed away, she'll be preserved for two more movies.