InRO Weekly — Volume 1, Issue 10

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FILM REVIEWS another member, Hollywood superstar Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett), who is used as bait to ferret out the nefarious billionaire and arms dealer Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant), who happens to be the heartthrob’s biggest fan. For a universally beloved actor, such a challenge proves to be his greatest role, playing a version of himself while simultaneously saving the world. And if all of this sounds remarkably similar in plot to last year’s Nic Cage as Nic Cage vehicle The Unbelievable Weight of Massive Talent — minus the meta — let it be noted that this has been sitting on the shelf for over a year due to the bankruptcy of its original studio. But that’s not to suggest anything even remotely clever is done with this particular subplot; in fact, the film that houses but barely addresses it. Operation Fortune has the distinct whiff of severe producer interference, the 150-minute cut that obviously existed at one point now arriving in a slim 114-minute package that glosses over major plot points with obvious ADR, and rarely gives Ritchie the opportunity to indulge in his usual kinetic schtick. Aside from a few moments of split screen and a climax backed by an overactive symphonic score, Ritchie’s latest could be the work of any mid-tier director-for-hire simply biding their time for a bigger opportunity. It’s not hard to see what attracted Ritchie to the project, but he ultimately seems as disinterested as his overqualified cast, save for Grant, who is currently in the stage of his career where no part is too small and no scenery too insignificant to be leveraged for maximum mastication. Still, that also means at least someone in this production has something resembling a pulse. Meanwhile, the plot moves forward with such breakneck speed that it all but eliminates boredom as a potential viewer response, even as the action scenes themselves are shot and executed with all the grace and excitement of a local news station’s coverage of a new Wendy’s opening. The door is predictably left open for a sequel, but that implies anyone involved would want to return, viewers included. The only fortune that exists here is the kind that made this cast and crew sign up in the first place. May they enjoy their rewards; at least someone got something out of this absolute nothing. — STEVEN WARNER DIRECTOR: Guy Ritchie; CAST: Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett, Hugh Grant; DISTRIBUTOR: Lionsgate; RELEASE DATE: March 3; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 54 min. 99 MOONS Jan Gassmann Writer-director Jan Gassmann’s Swiss import 99 Moons joins the weirdly burgeoning list of numerically titled films — 9 Songs, 28 Hotel Rooms, and 365 Days included — that take an episodic 25
approach in chronicling the sexually explicit exploits of a doomed relationship. This particular film’s moniker refers to the number of full moons that transpire over the course of one young couple’s cautionary tale of a fling, which starts on a note of sexual degradation and somehow winds up in Hallmark territory before the end credits mercifully roll. Bigna (Valentina Di Pace) is a highly intelligent researcher whose work with mountain goats and their ability to predict inclement weather(!) has rendered her financially successful but with little time for personal relationships — not that she is even interested in anything resembling commonplace domestication. As is soon revealed, Bigna has a very specific kink, one that involves her hiring men who, while adorned in a mask, will attack her in a secluded public place, resulting in her taking dominance by sitting on their face and forcing them to perform cunnilingus while she chokes them. Bigna never repeats these acts with the same man twice, yet is somehow taken with her latest conquest, Frank (Dominik Fellmann), a zero-motivation bartender who shows a surprising amount of emotion when he begins crying after their initial encounter. Bigna is initially hesitant, but soon finds she cannot get Frank out of her mind. He, too, is equally infatuated, and what transpires is a tale of two individuals whose love for one another is equal parts madness and poison, from which escape proves impossible. But 99 Moons isn’t particularly interested in plumbing the depths of this relationship or addressing the whys. One need only look at the title for clarification, as Bigna and Frank seem irrevocably drawn to one another, like the gravitational pull between Earth and moon, because Gassmann is incapable of finding a metaphor he couldn’t beat to death. Unfortunately, such so-called profundities feel like a cop-out, an excuse for the script to jerk its protagonists around in ways maddeningly inconsistent. A knee-jerk reaction would be to label this a character study or, more precisely, an observational portrait of its central couple, but the two leads are barely developed, with their decisions making increasingly little sense the longer the sordid story goes on. It would also be easy to dub the film progressive in its portrayal of Bigna, an intelligent and sexually empowered young woman whom Gassmann never judges or kink-shames. Yet Bigna is also the kind of woman who will give up her dreams and quit a highly successful job all for the sake of a man, and that’s not even mentioning how her various whims and flights of fancy cause severe collateral damage to everyone around her, a harmful stereotype that the film never even bothers addressing. FILM REVIEWS Perhaps more could be forgiven here if the graphic sex acts on display—which, let’s be honest, are what a not insignificant number of audience members are here for; and more generously, sex in cinema remains remarkably tame on the whole and its presentational evolution is interesting to chart —were the least bit sexy, but they play more like a cheap attempt at bland shock than at actual titillation, Gassmann seeming to believe that all it takes is an erect penis and some full-frontal digital penetration to get monocles a-poppin’. Suffice it to say, viewer interest isn’t the only thing that will fail to be aroused. Ultimately, 99 Moons is the kind of deeply frustrating film that mistakes provocation for depth, losing sight of the humans for the genitalia. Talk about a tease. — STEVEN WARNER DIRECTOR: Jan Gassmann; CAST: Valentina Di Pace, Dominik Fellmann, Danny Exnar; DISTRIBUTOR: Strand Releasing; RELEASE DATE: March 10; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 50 min. OUT OF TIME Balin Schneider Alternative music was serious business in the 1980s and '90s. Fed up with not just stale, bombastic radio rock but hardcore punk's stylistic blinders, underground bands splintered, creating a new ecosystem of subgenres. While acts like Big Black, Swans, and Ministry made use of the harsh sounds of industrial music, bands like Hüsker Dü, Embrace, and Squirrel Bait opened punk up to new melodic possibilities. Spurred by alt-rock's newfound appreciation for hooks and sweet melodies, Chicago power poppers Material Issue inhabited a unique space in the Chicago music scene by eschewing punk aggression in favor of jaggedly melodious choruses in the vein of the Dictators, Big Star, and fellow Illinoisans Cheap Trick. Although the band was a semi-sensation after the release of their first album, 1991's International Pop Overthrow, and saw singles like "Diane" and "Valerie Loves Me" climb the college radio charts, their trajectory was cut short by middling sales, changing tastes, and the eventual suicide of frontman and mastermind Jim Ellison. Balin Schneider's slender rockumentary Out of Time: The Material Issue Story, follows the band's development from their early days to their tragic demise, making use of rock doc staples like collages of TV appearances, rare concert footage, home videos, alt-chic black-and-white photography reminiscent 26
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InRO Weekly — Volume 1, Issue 10

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