Tag Archives: david oyelowo

‘The Midnight Sky’ Review

As far as blatant rip-offs go, I’ve seen worse than this.

“The Midnight Sky” is the latest directorial effort from George Clooney, based on the novel “Good Morning, Midnight.” The film follows a lone scientist in the Arctic (Clooney) who must journey to a radio tower to warn off a returning spaceship (containing Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Tiffany Boone, Demián Bichir, and Kyle Chandler) after a global catastrophe on Earth.

George Clooney is a very interesting director. When he hits, he hits, with serious dramas like “The Ides of March” and “Good Night, and Good Luck.” However he has recently fallen into a bit of a rough spell, with missed opportunities like “Monuments Men” and the awful “Suburbicon.” His latest (and most ambitious) effort, “The Midnight Sky,” is his first attempt at both a blockbuster and at taking part in the Netflix machine, and while the results are mixed, I think there is enough here to be worth checking out from your couch.

As far as his direction here goes, I appreciated Clooney’s humanistic approach. He had to take a “crash course” on visual effects (more on that in a second), but as far as his handling of the actors go, I think he did a good job getting personal performances from his cast. As far as the story goes, it’s a bit more mixed, because while Clooney’s personal “Revenant” journey through the Arctic with a young girl (Caoilinn Springall) is intense and emotional, the sequences aboard the spaceship belong in a completely different movie (and that movie is “The Martian”).

Half of the special effects are solid here, but in 2020 it takes a lot to wow an audience (especially without seeing them on a big screen). Some of the greenscreen moments are a bit wonky, but Clooney does manage to take a page out of his “Gravity” playbook and create a few “wow” moments when he pans back to reveal the full scope of the universe. In a year where “Birds of Prey” is going to end up as the highest-grossing superhero movie, I could see “Midnight Sky” slipping into the awards talk for its production value, but in a normal year this wouldn’t earn any additional talk for its VFX.

The familiarity of the film certainly hinders it, and for some viewers may even ruin things. However I found myself enjoying a fair amount, whether it was with the film (an exciting snowstorm sequence shot in real-life 50 mph winds at 40-below) or at its expense (the astronauts break out into a carpool karaoke of “Sweet Caroline” like its the 7th inning at Fenway; dumb). Alexandre Desplat’s score, while on-the-nose at points, is also very good, and is one of my favorites of the year.

“The Midnight Sky” thinks it is being slick trying to be a half-dozen better films rolled into one, but given our limited amount of big-budget fair in 2020 I think this latest attempt by Netflix to break into the blockbuster game is admirable-enough to warrant checking. Sure, you could watch “The Revenant” or “Interstellar” or “Ad Astra” instead (and likely should), but for those who demand little and want something “new” (used in the loosest of terms), I think this works.

Critics Rating: 6/10

Take the March with Oyelowo in ‘Selma’

Selma_posterSelma? I hardly knew ya!

“Selma” stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr. as he and other civil rights leaders head the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery in an attempt to get equal voting rights for African Americans. Oprah, Common and Tom Wilkinson also star as Ava DuVernay directs.

David Oyelowo, aside from being “that guy with the confusing last name” (it’s pronounced “oh-yellow-oh”, for future reference) has been in many films in supporting roles but has never been known as a leading man. He appeared in “The Help” and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, and then ironically was in 2013’s “The Butler” where is character interacted with Martin Luther King, but “Selma” marks the first time he has had to carry all the weight, and he proves that he is the one of the better actors in Hollywood.

“Selma” is as solid as it is because of Oyelowo’s gripping portrayal of MLK Jr. He looks like King, rocking the slow southern accent and signature mustache, but he also shows the emotional toll that King’s life had on him. Whether it be holding back tears talking to the relatives of a deceased or the problems with his wife on the home front, Oyelowo needed to evoke multiple emotions for the role and he nails it.

The rest of the supporting cast all do solid work as well, particularly Tom Wilkinson as Lyndon B. Johnson and Henry G. Sanders as an elderly protestor. Wilkinson portrays the frustration LBJ had when trying to balance racial equality and the War on Poverty, while Sanders shares probably “Selma”’s most tender and human scene with Oyelowo when they discuss the loss of a protestor.

DuVernay’s direction for the most part is capable, however there are times that she chooses to play it safe and opt for the standard biopic path. There is one scene where King is in the car with a protestor and the young man starts to tell King about a speech of his he attended that motivated him to become part of the movement. As he continues to talk and starts to fight back tears, the score picks up, just to make sure you know that the scene is meant to be emotional.

Variety

Variety

The riot and police brutality scenes are pretty violent and sometimes hard to watch, but that’s the point. It is mindboggling to think that this type of thing happened in our country at all, much less only 50 years ago, but “Selma” reminds us that unjust brutality was a hardship that both whites and blacks who fought for equal rights did indeed face.

My only problem with the scenes of protests is that every one of them featured people getting tackled in slow motion, with the high-pitched screeching sounds in the background and close-ups of people getting tackled to the ground in first person view. This didn’t work for me, not just because it was standard dramatic riot shots, but because there are other shots in the movie that are creative and work well, such as showing the size of the marches from sweeping aerial shots.

“Selma” isn’t telling a little-known tale of an unsung hero like “The Imitation Game” did, but it features a fantastic performance from David Oyelowo and serves as a powerful reminder for how far we’ve come as a nation, yet how distant we are from achieving the full scope of Martin Luther King Jr’s dream.

Critics Rating: 8/10