Steven Soderbergh and Channing Tatum head to London for perhaps one dance too many and the year's biggest Oscar controversy surrounds a run-of-the-mill indie.
Feb 9, 2023·edited Feb 9, 2023Liked by Scott Tobias
It's hard not to like To Leslie -- Riseborough's performance really is one for the ages. I actually found Maron to be the weakest link in the film; I had a hard time tuning into him in contrast to Riseborough (and Teague, too -- I really hope he'll keep finding more stuff to do because I loved him in Mrs. Fletcher and loved him here). To date, Maron's best for me is in Sword of Trust, and a lot of that is attributable to the great (and sadly late) Lynn Shelton.
I got dinged by someone on Twitter for liking Maron in this, so I guess YMMV on him, but I thought the performance was natural and unaffected, and played off AR's nicely.
Totally YMMV. How an actor strikes you is such a subjective thing, maybe the most subjective of all in how we react to cinema. Like I disliked Damien Lewis for so long, but then Keith wrote that piece about Keane, and now I think the world of him!
All I can say about Marc Maron is that the man totally helped me through a good chunk of the pandemic. I'd never listened to him before, but for a solid year between 2020 and 2021, I unfailingly listened to him twice a week. Thank you Marc.
"Riseborough locks into the role" ... you can say that again. As a shapeshifter, she's in elite company ... especially how she uses her physicality. I think it was a savvy strategy on Maron's part to underplay everything. If you listen to WTF, you realize he knows addiction well. He brings that here as well -- the way he looks at and sees Riseborough through those sad eyes as a fellow traveler.
Me always forget that director of Shizopolis and Bubble has also made series of movies that are just extended excuses for Charming Potato to take his shirt off. Me not surprised this is as inessential as it seems, me just surprised they convinced Soderbergh to direct it.
What besides the first Magic Mike? I don't think either Side Effects or Logan Lucky are Tatum-with-his-shirt-off movies. I think they're a good team, really.
No, me just meant these two Magic Mike movies. They just feel little bit One Of These Thigns Not Like The Other when it come to his filmography, but maybe me just not giving them chance.
The new one is a letdown, but the first Magic Mike is quite strong, with a fascinating emphasis on labor and the gig economy. It's not pure fantasy, as the new one largely is, but a much more grounded look at how a person like Mike might actually live. (Though the second one, which Soderbergh did not direct, remains my favorite.)
"I confess to not having heard of it at all until a series of coordinated celebrity tweets started rolling out about it, which I might roughly paraphrase as: “Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life."
Honestly, Soderbergh’s been phoning it in since he came back from that weird “retirement,” and I’m stunned the critical community has continued to carry so much water for him, at least until now. Everything he does is a half-hearted exercise. He’s directing like a guy who doesn’t want anything to get in the way of his six o’clock cocktail.
I think this is a little harsh, but not *entirely* untrue. I like Logan Lucky and No Sudden Move quite a bit, but I wish he'd try something a little more ambitious again. I understand that his appeal for a lot of people is his "elevated" journeyman status, trying a lot of different things at a fast clip, but maybe he should take a year or two to develop a project sometime.
I think my main issue with Last Dance (which I thought was still pretty fun) is that the new dancers basically aren't characters. The strength of the first two films was the ensemble, and beyond Tatum and Hayek, this one is lacking. Tatum and Carolin's Dog from last year did a better job capturing the charm of the earlier films.
It's hard not to like To Leslie -- Riseborough's performance really is one for the ages. I actually found Maron to be the weakest link in the film; I had a hard time tuning into him in contrast to Riseborough (and Teague, too -- I really hope he'll keep finding more stuff to do because I loved him in Mrs. Fletcher and loved him here). To date, Maron's best for me is in Sword of Trust, and a lot of that is attributable to the great (and sadly late) Lynn Shelton.
Addendum: Maron was pretty great in GLOW, too!
I got dinged by someone on Twitter for liking Maron in this, so I guess YMMV on him, but I thought the performance was natural and unaffected, and played off AR's nicely.
Totally YMMV. How an actor strikes you is such a subjective thing, maybe the most subjective of all in how we react to cinema. Like I disliked Damien Lewis for so long, but then Keith wrote that piece about Keane, and now I think the world of him!
All I can say about Marc Maron is that the man totally helped me through a good chunk of the pandemic. I'd never listened to him before, but for a solid year between 2020 and 2021, I unfailingly listened to him twice a week. Thank you Marc.
"Riseborough locks into the role" ... you can say that again. As a shapeshifter, she's in elite company ... especially how she uses her physicality. I think it was a savvy strategy on Maron's part to underplay everything. If you listen to WTF, you realize he knows addiction well. He brings that here as well -- the way he looks at and sees Riseborough through those sad eyes as a fellow traveler.
Me always forget that director of Shizopolis and Bubble has also made series of movies that are just extended excuses for Charming Potato to take his shirt off. Me not surprised this is as inessential as it seems, me just surprised they convinced Soderbergh to direct it.
What besides the first Magic Mike? I don't think either Side Effects or Logan Lucky are Tatum-with-his-shirt-off movies. I think they're a good team, really.
No, me just meant these two Magic Mike movies. They just feel little bit One Of These Thigns Not Like The Other when it come to his filmography, but maybe me just not giving them chance.
The new one is a letdown, but the first Magic Mike is quite strong, with a fascinating emphasis on labor and the gig economy. It's not pure fantasy, as the new one largely is, but a much more grounded look at how a person like Mike might actually live. (Though the second one, which Soderbergh did not direct, remains my favorite.)
"I confess to not having heard of it at all until a series of coordinated celebrity tweets started rolling out about it, which I might roughly paraphrase as: “Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life."
Love the Manchurian Candidate reference. #ManCan
Honestly, Soderbergh’s been phoning it in since he came back from that weird “retirement,” and I’m stunned the critical community has continued to carry so much water for him, at least until now. Everything he does is a half-hearted exercise. He’s directing like a guy who doesn’t want anything to get in the way of his six o’clock cocktail.
I think this is a little harsh, but not *entirely* untrue. I like Logan Lucky and No Sudden Move quite a bit, but I wish he'd try something a little more ambitious again. I understand that his appeal for a lot of people is his "elevated" journeyman status, trying a lot of different things at a fast clip, but maybe he should take a year or two to develop a project sometime.
I think my main issue with Last Dance (which I thought was still pretty fun) is that the new dancers basically aren't characters. The strength of the first two films was the ensemble, and beyond Tatum and Hayek, this one is lacking. Tatum and Carolin's Dog from last year did a better job capturing the charm of the earlier films.
Dog: secretly pretty good! It does feature one of the most conspicuous deleted scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie, though.