Book of Henry Notes:
- What the Hell? Who thought this was a good idea?
- Isn’t this the weirdest case of having so many quality pieces in place, but then somehow very little of it works when combined?
- Do you think this actually had anything to do with Trevorrow being let go from The Rise of Skywalker?
- Why was this a passion project for anyone?
- Why is it called the book of Henry when it’s actually a series of recordings?
- How annoyed were you at the fact Henry would “talk back” and “answer” the mom from his recordings?
- What was the deal with the little brother’s magic trick at the end? How did that “bring back his brother?”
Bottom five film follow ups (by directors who previously had a hit.)
As an added bonus, in honor of the absolute train-wreck of decision making that is Book of Henry, I have decided to not only go with follow ups, but double down thematically and do follow ups that star or are about kids, like Book of Henry itself.
Because holy shit, tonally daft movies featuring kids – or made for kids – helmed by very successful directors seem to be a kind of sub-genre onto themselves. And all are goddamn awful, nigh unwatchable. For me, the question always is who in the actual fuck are they making these movies for?
5.) Jack – 1996 – Francis Ford Coppola
Follow up to 1992’s Dracula.
Ostensibly a vehicle for Robin Williams to play a child, this flick is so grim in premise that the entire thing is underscored by, well, death.
The idea here is that Jack is a child that ages four times faster than a normal child due to… well, no reason is provided. He just does and that sets up shenanigans where Robin Williams, in his 40’s, acts like a kid.
Williams energy is right for this and there’s no question that he could do what’s necessary, but this thing is just. so. weird. The screenwriters and Coppolla – and even Williams – don’t seem to understand ten year-olds. The kids in the movie seem alternately 7 years old and 12 years old, which yeah, I guess a 10 year old is in the middle of these ages, but it’s super uneven. One minute he’s looking at Playboy magazines and then the next he’s crying when he bumps his knee. It’s like the concept of different phases of childhood were lost here and instead you just get a blanket version of what all kids do and wouldn’t it be funny with an adult doing these things?
No, it’s not funny. And despite the presence of the always terrific Diane Lane as Jack’s mom – who really does her best here to add some genuine heart to the proceedings – you really don’t care all that much about Jack because everything is so damn cartoony.
On Rotten Tomatoes, Jack scores a pretty shockingly low 17% fresh and I think it’s telling that Francis Ford Coppola is on record as saying about Jack, “I don’t know why everybody hated it so much. I think it was because of the type of movie it was. It was considered that I had made Apocalypse Now and I’m like a Marty Scorsese type of director, and here I am making this dumb Disney film with Robin Williams. But I was always happy to do any type of film.”
Well, Francis, I think the fact you called it a dumb Disney film says all that you need about the movie. But to be clear, this is a terrible comedy, a badly misfired drama, and a weirdly, sloppily directed story that’s less a “dumb Disney movie” and more a very lousy flick by a former A-list director.
4.) North – 1994 – Rob Reiner
Follow up to A Few Good Men, but also ended a streak that began with Stand by Me and included The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally and Misery. Which, of we’re being serious, could be the best streak ever for a filmmaker.
How do you manage to make a movie with George Costanza and Elaine Bennis as a married couple with Frodo Baggins as their son? Like, in what world (Number one) do these two get together romantically and (number two) make a kid with eyes THAT big? Yet, we’re asked to swallow Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus – in mid-Seinfeld heyday – as the parents of Elijah Wood’s title character in this rather unfunny comedy from Rob Reiner.
The story is about a perfect child named North that goes in a world-wide search for new parents who will appreciate him after meeting an Easter Bunny (played by Bruce Willis, who also narrates the movie) who tells him to go out as a “free agent.”
It’s a goofy as Hell concept and with the help of a lawyer – of course played by Jon Lovitz, North attempts to, in the words of the screenplay, “challenge the entire concept of family as we know it.”
Played as satire, the film buckles under the weight of its constant star cameos and an absurdist tone that has no idea where the story is going and what it’s trying to say. It tries to be funny, but the jokes fall flat. It tries to have a message, but everything it says about family and superficiality is obvious. The references are dated. And the acting is cringe-inducing – especially when Dan Akyroyd and Reba McEntire dosie-doe their way through an atrocious musical number that includes a line about their previous son killed in a stampede.
This thing is a titanic mess, and easily one of the worst follow-ups by any big name director, never mind one that was on a streak that solid!
3.) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen – 1988 – Terry Gilliam
Follow up to Brazil from 1985, considered to be one of the greatest movies of that decade and among Gilliam’s finest. This thing is almost unwatchable for me, a loud, insane mess of excess from a director who, when he loses control, REALLY loses control.
Yes, the sets and costumes are gorgeous, the visuals are dazzling and there’s a terrific, fun music score by Michael Kamen. And yeah, I get it, the lead character is an untrustworthy self-aggrandizing narrator who tells the tallest of tales, so nothing here was going to be based in reality.
But how all of this bombast could be seen as appealing to so many has me at a total loss. This movie feels like endurance test; it’s so damn noisy and crazy and over the top in every respect. And even thought it had a huge budget for the time – rumored to be as much as $65 million when it was originally budgeted at $35 million – there are still effects and set pieces that feel cheap.
And as with all of these movies, I again have to ask, who is this made for?
In the 1700’s, the stories upon which this movie was based were allegedly the second most read stories in the world, behind The Bible. I assume they were all the rage during the times of colonialism and discovery for young and old alike. But some stories should be left to antiquity, and for me, this is one of them. Kids don’t want to see an organ filled with screaming slaves that are jabbed by spikes when the keys are pressed, and adults aren’t going to be interested in the marital woes of the Man in the Moon, even if he is played by Robin Williams.
I think Gilliam’s flights of fancy are an acquired taste for sure, but I think there are different flavors to his work. I’m not one for this or The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, but I am so on board for 12 Monkeys and The Fisher King. I think he alternates between genius and foolishness with each movie he makes – Hell, within each movie he makes – and for him there’s a very thin line between the two. With Munchausen, he tips way over into foolishness and never finds his footing back on the genius side, as there simply was no taming the wildness of the story or his vision.
2.) Batman & Robin – 1997 – Joel Schumacher
I think there are a lot of people that forget that Joel Schumacher made some great movies because they’re so busy bringing up Batman & Robin. That’s pretty unfair, considering this is the guy who helmed The Lost Boys, Flawless, Phone Booth and Falling Down. So the guy was clearly capable, but what’s perhaps most upsetting about his second entry in the 90’s-era Batman movies isn’t that he put nipples on the bat suit, but that he did it after making what is arguably his very best movie.
Somehow, in between his two spins in the batmobile, Schumacher directed an all-star cast in an adaptation of John Grisham’s first novel “A Time to Kill.” This emotionally fraught, tense and involving courtroom drama featured some stellar performances from the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Spacey, Ashley Judd and a very green Matthew McConaughey and became a pretty huge box-office and critical success.
How he managed to sneak in something so potent and captivating between the Kilmer and Clooney Batman flicks is beyond me, and is made even more dumfounding by the fact that his frequent collaborator, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman rode shotgun with him on all three!
Yet, yes, as with all of my choices, the biggest problem Batman & Robin faces is that it has no idea who its audience is. The movie is, pardon the pun, batshit bonkers, with comic-book defying action sequences – ugh the surfing sequence – way too many villains that cannot decide if they’re menacing – Poison Ivy – or a joke – Dr. Freeze and his ENDLESS puns, and of course a trio of uncomfortable-looking leads in Clooney, Chris O’Donnell and Alicia Silverstone as Batman, Robin and Batgirl.
Sometimes it’s sexy – pretty much at any moment with Uma Thurman, sometimes it’s Kinky – again, the nipples and all the PVC, and sometimes it’s for kids, as is evidenced by the cartoon-like tone throughout the picture. Never really finding its pace – or making much sense as a story – the thing collapses under its own weight and entertains no one except people like me who eat up terrible cinema like the finest of delicacies.
Ever hear of fugu? It’s a Japanese dish – the liver of a pufferfish that has to be prepared exactly right or else it might kill the person eating it. Batman & Robin is the fugu of the cinema world – skillfully prepared, lovingly and painstakingly crafted, and still likely to kill you due to the poison contained.
Up until his death in 2020, it is said that Schumacher apologized for disappointing Batman fans and apparently George Clooney has actually refunded people money.
1.) The Lovely Bones – 2009 – Peter Jackson
Preceded by King Kong, a movie I love one Hell of a lot more than the excessiveness and over-indulgence of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Lovely Bones is a movie so bad that it made Jackson scurry back to middle earth to resuscitate his career with what I hear are awful Hobbit movies.
If you don’t know what it’s about, here’s a quick rundown – based on Alice Sebold’s popular novel – the movie tells the story of Susie Salmon played by Saorsie (Sur-sha) Ronan, an average 14 year-old living in the late 1970’s that is brutally murdered and then watches over the rest of her family as they try to solve her murder and come to grips with her death.
Fun, right?
This movie paired with Book of Henry is the most well-matched, but worst double-feature imaginable.
It has no idea what it want to be. Is it a thriller? An art film? A special effects extravaganza? A family comedy? I get that movies should not be one note, but my God choose a lane and offer up some consistency. And who the Hell casts Marky Mark as a grieving father obsessed with finding his daughter’s killer. He’s like a cartoon character in a Bergman film.
What’s incredible is Jackson directed a similarly fantastical plot about a pair of teenage girls that he handled impeccable with Heavenly Creatures from 1994 starring Melanie Lynsky and a very young Kate Winslet. Where that movie blends fantasy, mystery, thriller and dark comedy effortlessly, The Lovely Bones trips over itself in every area to be big, impressionistic and chilling, but all it did is confuse the Hell out of me.
I didn’t care about Susie’s plight, because she was still so present in the film as much of the first half is her figuring out purgatory. But then in the second half it’s as though the film forgets about her as the movie tries to become Zodiac with Mark Wahlberg in the Jake Gyllenhal role and Christopher from The Sopranos (Michael Imperioli) in the Mark Ruffalo detective part. Those understudies do not work. Very little here works. Man, even Stanley Tucci as a suspicious neighbor confused the Hell out of me as his look in the movie made me initially think it was Peter Stormare playing the part. Stanley Tucci and Peter Stormare DO NOT a look alike in any reality, so how?
After a very long runtime and a somewhat suspenseful sequence involving a heavy safe filled with Susie’s bones being pushed into a junkyard ditch, during which Susie uses powers of possession to kiss a boy rather than stop the bones being discarded, we’re treated to what might be the single stupidest and least fulfilling death of an antagonist ever. Tacked-on and sort of a call back to earlier in the picture, this accidental demise had me throwing things at the screen.
A terrible follow-up to some terrific work by Peter Jackson and a lesson to everyone: stay the fuck away from making weird movies about or for kids.
Staff Pick:
The Killing of Two Lovers (2020)
A little seen and little talked-about movie that’s starting to make waves now that it’s more accessible on Hulu, Robert Machoin’s “The Killing of Two Lovers” is a tense, compact and sometimes harrowing look at the friction between an estranged couple undergoing a trial separation in a quiet, Midwestern town. The husband and wife are parents of four children, and while their three young sons seem to be ok with the split, their teenage daughter is resentful, berating the father when she discovers that he agreed to his wife’s demands to see other people.
This is not conventional filmmaking in any way. The takes are long and the shots are often static, to the point where it can be uncomfortable to watch. But the actors – Clayne Crawford as the father and Sepideh Moafi as the mother – are as genuine as you can get in cinema. Both characters feel lived-in, and more often than not the scenes play almost more as a documentary than a narrative.
That’s disconcerting, as many of the situations playing out are highly cringe-inducing, in particular when a “date night” between the parents goes off the rails when the mom’s new boyfriend comes to the house unexpectedly as they’re sitting outside in a truck.
Combining such situational tension with the bold choice of a 4:3 aspect ratio, there’s an additional feeling of claustrophobia caused by the black bars on either side of the image. The close-ups feel too close, especially in scenes shot within cars. Even when the sparse, winter mid-west vistas are on display, they seem crowded, like there’s no escape from the downward plummet we’re witnessing. And damn, does it ever project cold desolation, mirroring the feelings between the estranged leads.
So yeah, this is a recommendation, but you have got to be prepared for a tough watch. But writer/director Machoin is a relative newcomer to feature-length filmmaking and if this is any indication, he’s going to be someone worth watching.
This one made me feel in a similar way to how I felt about David Lowry’s “A Ghost Story” a few years back, which was also shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio.