PFCC Members Review: WHITE NOISE, SHE SAID, THE INSPECTION, Guillermo del Toro’s PINOCCHIO, CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY

Highlighting the work of fellow Philadelphia Film Critics Circle Members:

I (LeAnne Lindsay, Editor) simply can’t get around to reviewing everything I see – although everything goes up on Letterboxd with some quick thoughts. But between all the PFCC Members, someone will have reviewed it, so here’s a sampling …

WHITE NOISE | NETFLIX | Writer/Director Noah Baumbach |

Reviewed by PhilaFCC Member Stephen Silver

Noah Baumbach doesn’t usually have chase scenes or train crashes in his movies. They’re more likely to draw fireworks from people getting divorced, talking about getting divorced, or lamenting how hurt they still are by their parent’s divorce. 

Instead, Baumbach’s new film is a bit of a 180. Not only is it the highest budget he’s ever worked with, but it’s much more ambitious: It’s an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s much-loved 1985 novel, one of those books long though unadaptable. Directors from James L. Brooks to Barry Sonnenfeld have taken cracks at it in the past, but Baumbach is the one who got it to the finish line, with a big release set for the end of the year in theaters and on Netflix (after Baumbach’s 2019 Marriage Story, the most memed film of 2019.) Following a Venice debut, White Noise was the opening night film at the New York Film Festival on September 30, where I saw it.

“White Noise,” the novel — which I have not read, although I gather that the film is rather faithful — is about family, academia, possibly apocalyptic events, and about a half-dozen other big ideas, all while juggling tones ranging from comedy to satire to horror… READ MORE

SHE SAID | Universal Pictures | Director Maria Schrader | Screenplay Rebecca Lenkiewicz |Based on The New York Times investigation by
Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey

Reviewed by PhilaFCC Member Rob DiCristino

… It’s hard to talk about She Said without comparing it to other true-life investigative thrillers like The Post, The Insider, and Erin Brockovich. Though those films vary in subject matter, each of them takes care to foreground the personal toll exacted by the pursuit of justice, the sacrifices their characters make for the greater good. The Insider — the crowning achievement of the genre, for my money — is especially adept at threading smaller conflicts within the larger narrative and crafting emotional arcs for its protagonists. She Said forgets this, unfortunately, leaving its audience to watch Twohey and Kantor send text messages, eat lunches, and huddle around conference tables until the story reaches its inevitable conclusion. Though attempts are made at humanizing them and the women they interview — cuts to the pair navigating their roles as wives and mothers seem to happen just as the journalism scenes are running out of steam — there is little interpersonal drama to punctuate character or complicate the narrative… READ MORE

THE INSPECTION| A-24 | Writer/Director Elegance Bratton
 

Reviewed by PhilaFCC Member Gary Kramer

… Yet as difficult as the film can be to watch at times, it is consistently engrossing. French is sympathetic, and viewers will root for him as he rises to the various challenges in boot camp. He is admirable pushing himself in an effort to become squad leader, and there is some amusement when he “gays up” his warpaint. French also suffers some setbacks, most notably in a communal shower, when he loses himself in a fantasy about Rosales, and is brutally beaten for his visible indication of a same-sex attraction. (The film is set in 2005, during the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” era.) Another sequence, where he is punished for stepping out of formation, French is forced to eat a fly he swatted, because he moved without being told. 

Bratton shrewdly presents these dehumanizing moments, and they stand in stark contrast to the few instances where French gets some emotional support. One critical scene, an exercise where the recruits must save a drowning man, is sadistic, and almost prompts French to quit… READ MORE

Guillermo del Toro’s PINOCCHIO| Netflix | Writer/Director Guillermo del Toro
 

Reviewed by PhilaFCC Member Rosalie Kicks

… I am sure the top of mind question from everyone and anyone is: Did we need another Pinocchio? Simple answer: No. However, I would like to point out this is not just any Pinocchio film, this is instead a creation from the mind of Guillermo del Toro. I find this specific fact to be the main point of contention if one is attempting to lump this into the cinematic scrap pile. Much like Gepetto, Guillermo’s productions are often made with such intricacy and with such a care that it begs the question if there has ever been a motion picture like such before it. The craftsmanship and exquisite detail that went into each frame of this animated picture is marvelous. Anyone that successfully makes it out of this film without wanting to procure a small Pinocchio of their own should be concerned whether they have a pulse of not. This is a film worth leaving your sofa for and watching in your local movie palace.

Dark moments emerge throughout the almost two hour tale and, at times, it verges into a creepy realm. It is learned that although Pinocchio is alive, he is immortal … READ MORE

CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY | Amazon Studios | Writer/Director Lena Dunham
 

Reviewed by PhilaFCC Member Piers Marchant

… To this point, Birdy has fully enjoyed that golden time before you’ve entered into the adult realm, instead able to stand giggling at the precipice, treating it with all its deserved mockery. Birdy is an irreverent soul, who understandably wants to remain forever out of its clutches (“Being a mother is a terrible job,” she complains), and rankles hard against the oppressive societal rectitudes with which she’s being forced to engage.

To avoid what everyone keeps telling her is inevitable, she employs a series of what she calls “tricks” to stay one step ahead of her father, spoiling every potential courtship he attempts to set up. These episodes, somewhere near the middle of the film, are a comedic high point: With one young man, she dresses like a mad woman with straw for hair; with another, she blacks her teeth out; for yet another, she horribly warbles a song she wrote about a dragon stationed inside a privy. With each successful sabotage, however, she earns more of her father’s increasing wrath, and the growing sense that, try as she might, her fate might well be sealed anyway… READ MORE