Tagarchief: The Verdict

The Verdict: Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

As a devoted fan of The Sopranos – my all-time favorite show – I thought there wasn’t much left for me to discover. But HBO’s new two part documentary Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos offers fresh insight, focusing primarily on the mastermind behind the series, David Chase (1945), especially in its first half. Chase is a compelling figure: intelligent, introspective, and a natural storyteller. Director Alex Gibney (Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) places Chase in a metaphorical psychiatrist’s chair, allowing him to speak candidly about his upbringing, his eccentric mother, dreams, death, and how these themes shaped The Sopranos. Chase recalls his time in college down south, which he disliked, though he was exposed to European cinema by directors like Godard, Bergman, and Fellini. “I saw 8½, and I don’t think I understood it, but it blew my mind”, he reflects. This experience ignited his desire to become a filmmaker, leading him to study at Stanford’s film school. The documentary even shows part of his student film – a gangster story with an attempted Godard flair, which is amusing in its ambition. While Chase’s destiny wasn’t in film directing, he found his calling in television. He worked on successful shows like The Rockford Files and Northern Exposure, but his true breakthrough came when HBO greenlit The Sopranos in 1998. The series became a cultural phenomenon, and Chase infused it with deeply personal elements, including therapy sessions and his tumultuous relationship with his mother. Other talented writers like Robin Green and Terence Winter also contributed significantly to the show’s depth. In The Offer, a recent series about the making of The Godfather, we learn that Coppola saw the film as a commentary on capitalism. Similarly, The Sopranos carries an underlying critique of America’s decline. As Chase puts it, “Americans have gotten so materialistic and selfish that it made a mob boss sick.” That vision, combined with Chase’s storytelling genius, is part of what makes The Sopranos so enduringly powerful.

Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos is now available on HBO Max

The verdict: to stream or not to stream? To stream (especially Part 1)

The Verdict: Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Axel Foley is back! 40 years after the original and 30 years after the disappointing third movie, Foley enters the era of streaming. Some things have changed while other things remained the same. ‘The Heat Is On’ and the Axel F. theme by Harold Faltermeyer are still there and sound as catchy as ever. Eddie Murphy is back as well and his Axel can still do all these fantastic character impressions to get things done. The movie also sees the return of the original loved supporting characters, including Taggart who wasn’t even in the third one. Beverly Hills itself is pretty much the same as well: a five star resort for the rich and fabulous. Then some differences: these guys surely have aged although Murphy obviously took some Beverly Hills style cosmetic measures to hide it. It is a bit uncanny to see especially Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold (Billy Rosewood) as these two old geezers. Two new players in the Beverly Hills Police Department are played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Kevin Bacon. Good calls! There is not really a main bad guy though, so that must mean… You get the picture. Storywise, it is all very familiar. Foley returns to Beverly Hills to solve a case. The only difference is that Foley now has an estranged daughter who is working as a lawyer there. Since she is threatened by the same bad guys from Foley’s case, this gives him the opportunity to catch two birds with one stone. Three even, because he has some amends to make to his daughter. I was a bit worried about this movie, because keeping legendary heroes alive for too long isn’t always a good idea (see Indiana Jones for example), but in this case it worked: the humor, the action and most importantly the chemistry are still there.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. is now available on Netflix

The verdict: to stream or not to stream? To stream

The Verdict: The Creator

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

In 2016, director Gareth Edwards delivered Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first Star Wars movie that was not part of the main series. In terms of cinematography, locations, and visual effects, it was certainly successful, but the film failed to move me. I had exactly the same experience with Edwards’ latest film The Creator, which is about a future war between humanity and artificial intelligence. The movie, which was shot on beautiful locations in Thailand and contains Oscar-nominated special effects, certainly looks amazing. However, the story about an army sergeant (John David Washington, who increasingly looks and especially sounds like his father Denzel) who is on the run with a powerful AI child made no emotional impact on me whatsoever. I didn’t care whether humanity or AI would ultimately win the war. SPOILER: The contrast between what I felt when the Death Star was blown up in the original Star Wars and the destruction of space station Nomad at the end of The Creator could not be greater. A shame really, because the potential was certainly there.

The Creator is now available on Disney Plus

The verdict: to stream or not to stream? Not to stream

The Verdict: John Wick: Chapter IV

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

I had a friend in the early zeroes who, when we would send him over to the video store to rent a movie, he would surely come back with the dumbest, most stupefying action movie sequel ever produced. I don’t see this friend any longer, but I am pretty sure John Wick: Chapter IV will now be his favorite movie of all time. The first John Wick movie was no masterpiece, but it was a decent action flick that had some of the elements needed to enjoy a movie of this kind. Elements that are completely lacking in part IV: a story, humor, tension (John Wick can fall off any building and survive) or emotion (if he would get killed, so what?). All it does have is endlessly boring video game action with the same type of kill being repeated over and over, and this for an almost insulting 2 hours and 49 minutes. Is there nothing positive to say? Some of the actors are in good shape and many of the visuals are pretty impressive. There is some talk of the death of cinema these days, and John Wick: Chapter IV certainly supports the case of the pessimists perfectly. Hollywood screenwriters that lack original ideas and producers pumping a depraved amount of money in a completely mindless sequel is definitely what John Wick: Chapter IV brings to the High Table. And with a fifth movie in the works and a television show already out, this trend is not likely to be reversed any time soon.

John Wick: Chapter IV is now available on Amazon Prime

The verdict: to stream or not to stream? Not to stream