Soderbergh and Legos back for more
A few years back, prolific director Steven Soderbergh announced his retirement from filmmaking. Nobody really believed him; the guy basically sleeps with a camera in his hand.
The retirement only stuck for a couple of years (unless you count his television work, notably the Cinemax series, “The Knick”) before he returned to the director’s chair with the spry heist film, “Logan Lucky” in 2017, followed by the shot-with-iPhones thriller “Unsane” in 2018.
Soderbergh, known for shooting his own films, including his Oscar-winning “Traffic,” returned to the iPhone to shoot “High Flying Bird,” a drama about a sports agent who hatches a bold plan to end a long-running NBA lockout. The film premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival last month before arriving on Netflix last week.
“High Flying Bird” stars André Holland (a breakout from “Moonlight”) as the agent who utilizes a talented new client to unravel a months-long dispute between the NBA players union and the league owners. The movie itself contains almost no basketball and instead focuses on Holland’s Ray Burke, as well as a protege played by Zazie Beetz (terrific here, as well as on “Atlanta” and last year’s “Deadpool 2”).
It’s a uniquely structured film, crafted by the Oscar-winning co-screenwriter of “Moonlight,” Tarrell Alvin McCraney, as Ray’s dealings don’t seem to amount to much good sense. In many ways, the third act operates a bit like “Logan Lucky” or Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s” movies in how it unravels Ray’s scheme.
Along the way, “High Flying Bird” takes a few shots at how professional sports can treat athletes like commodities rather than people, and the screenplay offers even the smaller supporting roles some compelling shades, including Bill Duke as a youth coach and mentor to Ray.
The film itself, made with an iPhone 8, looks sharp, and it continues Soderbergh’s streak of demonstrating the accessibility and affordability of modern filmmaking. If nothing else, “High Flying Bird” proves the tools are out there for anyone to make a movie (although to be fair, he did equip a special lens to the phone to enhance the picture).
Most every Soderbergh effort is worth a look. “High Flying Bird” being on Netflix makes it easy.
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‘Lego Movie 2’ builds solid laughs
Though it opened to disappointing box office numbers last weekend, “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” deserves a chance to lure more family audiences in the coming weeks.
The original “Lego Movie” from 2014 shocked many with its mix of humor, visual spectacle and sincerity. While a couple of spinoffs have dulled the novelty, “The Second Part” makes smart use of its likeable set of characters, including gooey optimist Emmet (Chris Pratt), hard-hitting leader Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and thick-bricked Batman (Will Arnett).
The new movie takes Emmet on a journey to discover a more pragmatic version of himself, as he’s helped by brazen adventurer Rex Dangervest (Pratt again in a hilarious amalgamation of his recent leading man performances) on a rescue mission to save his friends from a (probably) evil queen.
“The Second Part” packs in the visual and vocal gags (look for a certain Seattle Supersonics superstar as well as an air duct-loving action star for starters), but the best bits of the film center on music, notably two outstanding numbers led by the hilarious Tiffany Haddish as Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi. “Everything is Awesome” also returns in surprising form, as well as another song guaranteed to get stuck in your head.
Like its predecessor, “Lego Movie 2” employs a similar plot development late in the film, and while it doesn’t work quite as well the second time around, the movie lingers on some emotional and thematic heft. Paired with the breezy action, fun songs and age-defying jokes, and “The Lego Movie 2” at least proves that it’s more than about selling toys.
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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com