Not a single character in this contrived drama sounds like he has spent once second living the part. Everything is dumbed down, over- explained, and juiced: the outcome of the free world depends on us making this work! Right. And 10,000 American factories. And the British officials charged with this super-duper top-secret operation talk about it openly while strolling down the street or drinking in a bar. And Ms. Leslie gets to join the operation just because she says so. Maybe that is the way they operated but "Operation Mincemeat" doesn't want to make us wonder about just how smart that was. The intelligence details are fairly accurate, but the story is suffused with a gratuitous soap opera romance between Montagu and Jean Leslie, who, in this reconstitution, posed for the picture of the girlfriend of the dead man whose body was dumped off the Spanish coast carrying fake plans for an invasion of Greece. One smells more gratuitousness in the enlarged role of Hester Leggett to give the impression that women were an integral part of this ingenious strategy when they were not. There is not a single stand-out performance in the film, not even Kelly Macdonald. Everyone is rote and dignified and smug-- especially Ian Fleming who name-drops himself into the adventure. Reduced British casualties in Sicily were almost certainly primarily due to Hitler's distaste for Italian troops and his reluctance to committing additional Panzer divisions to prop them up when he was more worried about the Balkans and the Peloponnesus. The deception did appear to play a part. The people I watched this with seemed engrossed and greatly enjoyed it, so the film's contrivances, to be truthful, worked. The audience must feel that they have been let in on a grave secret, and that these men were pure and patriotic and pious (there are many moments of prayer in the film), and, being British, Officer Montagu would never lay a finger on the scrumptious Leslie even if she is played by the delectable Kelly MacDonald.
Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen, Kelly Macdonald, Rufus Wright, Johnny Flynn, Lorne MacFadyen, Penelope Wilton, Simon Russell Beale, Jason Isaacs
Georgia is a New York stage actress with a serious problem with alcohol. The film begins with her return from a lengthy treatment program, ready but not quite ready to resume her brilliant career, and perhaps not quite ready to co-habit with her 17-year-old daughter, Polly, who wants to live with her mom. Jimmy is the adorable gay side-kick and Toby is her earnest, accomplished best friend. All of them hope Georgia has finally turned a corner on her alcoholism. Meanwhile, her former boyfriend, who dumped her and made no attempt to reconnect with her during her recovery, has written a play-- about them. Georgia, rather improbably, agrees to play "herself" in this production, without any serious exploration of what that exactly means. Who is the "self"? Her own perception or his? And how much "self" is there, ever, in a stage, film, or novelistic representation. Those are the most interesting issues raised in this confection, but they are not explored in any serious manner. What we have, really, is a lengthy sitcom filled with crises and argument and incidents, and a too-lengthy montage of mother and daughter shopping and strolling through New York, and without any substantial revelations about anything. That said, I liked a few things about it. I liked that it didn't impose a shallow happy resolution on the issues it raised. I liked the courage in showing Georgia as a very flawed character, narcissistic, self-absorbed, and weak. She admits that David's play is not a hit-piece on her, but without really considering much about how David portrays himself, or the issues that split them apart. Kristy McNichol is fine as the teenaged daughter, and the way she judges Georgia when she falls off the wagon is probably more convincing than most such portraits in film. Marsha Mason never impressed me greatly as an actress but she works hard at it and partly succeeds.
Marsha Mason, Kristy McNichol, James Coco, Joan Hackett, Dan Monahan, Dukes David, Michael A. Ross
Based on the novel by Annie Ernaux, who, we are told, based it on her own experiences. Anne Duchesne is a young student at an academy in France in 1963, at a time when abortion is strictly illegal in France (as it was in Italy, Ireland, and many other developed countries). We follow her experience, through her eyes and her reactions, as she discovers her condition and desperately tries to find a way to terminate her pregnancy so she can continue her studies. Her doctor is appalled that she would even consider it and prescribes a medication that he says will restore her periods; we find out he is not straight with her. She contacts the father but he offers no help. She talks to a lothario because she assumes he will know somebody who can help, but he does not. In one grim, frightening scene, she attempts an abortion on herself but fails. During this major distraction, her grades fall and one of her teachers warns her that she won't qualify for university if she doesn't improve. "The Happening" is unusually explicit and frank-- one admires the courage of Anamaria Vartolomei for taking on the role-- and beautifully acted. One is also aware of the economy of the film: there are no wide shots of streets or buildings that would suggest the era it is set in. But in this era of the Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, this is a timely, important film.
Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet Klein, Luana Bajrami, Louise Orry-Diquero, Pio Marmai, Louise Chevillotte, Sandrine Bonnaire
One of the most contemptible Christmas movies of all time, this utterly banal, idiotic mess features Bill Murray as the Scrooge character whose cardinal sin here is firing a loyal employee on Christmas Eve, as if firing him on Thanksgiving or Labour Day would have been less egregious. Every scene is misconceived, sloppy, and bereft of ideas. Yet "it is now regarded as one of the best and most popular Christmas films thanks to television viewings and home media" according to IMDB. That is an astonishing comment on the degree of bad taste in the world. Karen Allen plays the love interest, Claire Phillips, like some demented cheerleader, constantly grinning and mooning over Frank Cross (Murray) with no comprehensible reason: he's an ogre from start to finish and makes the original Alistair Sim Scrooge seem adorable. The violence with which the ghost of Christmas present, played by a tiresome Carol Kane-- unfunny, clumsy, and beneath the worst slapstick of any Buddy Hackett (he plays Scrooge in Cross' TV network's Christmas extravaganza) routine-- is old and tired before they even begin to drag it out. But it's the fundamental concept that never flies: that there is some wit or wisdom to be found in crude caricature with no discernible satirical target. The target that exists is fake sincerity and contrivance. This movie is a drag from start to finish.
Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, John Glover, Bobcat Goldthwait, David Johansen, Carol Kane, Robert Michum, Michael J. Pollard, Alfre Woodard, Buddy Hackett, John Houseman
I have a firm, long-standing view that directors should not get themselves deluded into thinking that just because they produce popular hits they are qualified to write movies. Case in point: the Fabelmans doesn't have a writer, because it's not really written. It's a sequence of memories distorted with the worst form of nostalgia, the kind in which mom and dad kneel down to talk with unlimited compassion and understanding to their cosmetically wonderful progeny. The whole film is nostalgia. More importantly, it's typical Spielberg, massaged to present scenes the way he thinks the view thinks he should present them. There is not a truthful, honest moment in the film, and the period recreation isn't enough to keep it from being aggressively boring. What is supposed to be interesting when a director shows an audience adoring his own first films? Or when a parent-- kneeling, of course, emotionally if not physically-- tells you to pursue your dreams? Please go live in those dreary sanitized kitchens General Electric used to create for Expos.
Paul Dano, Michelle Williams, Gabriel LabBelle, Judd Hirsch, Seth Rogen, Mateo Zoryan, Keeley Kersten, Julie Butters, Birdie Borris
Julie Hart checks into a hotel-- shades of Jack Nicholson-- that seems to be haunted. She is there finish a writing project, accompanied by her mother, who has fond memories of living in the same building, but as owners of a luxurious mansion-- not a nearly empty hotel. It doesn't take long to figure out that the mother might be imaginary, and Julie might just be reliving some of her anguished relationship with her. I didn't, in the end, think there was any there there.
Tilda Swinton, Carly-Sophia Davies
Directed and written by both Daniels. Visually inventive pile of sophomoric mush. Michelle Yeoh, in a bit of a vanity project (she's a producer) plays Evelyn Wang, a put-upon Chinese immigrant running a laundry with her husband, Waymond, and alienated daughter Joy. Her father, bitter about her decision to marry Waymond even though he was opposed to the match, lives with them and is about to celebrate his birthday. Joy has a lesbian lover whom Evelyn introduces to her father as a "friend", offending Joy. And a mean Internal Revenue agent, Deirdre Beaubeirdre, is about to have the laundry seized to pay off her tax bill. With bills due and the meeting with Internal Revenue, she is at a crisis and wonders what her life would have been like if she had not married Waymond and set out on the course that led to this dreary point. Yes, it's a rehash of "It's a Wonderful Life" with elements of "The Matrix" and "Run Lola Run" mixed in, and fantastical elements reminiscent of Jeunet except without the charm or focus. She flashes through all her possible, alternative lives, through a framework of superhero adventures in which she is supposed to save the world (her world) through kung fu-- except-- wait a minute--no, it's LOVE that is supposed to rescue her from this haunting regret. The biggest problem is that none of these fantastical elements present any logic that would lead to the higher consciousness called for, the revelation that her life is really better than she thinks, mainly because it isn't. It is just as dreary and stupid in the end because nothing has changed (unlike "It's a Wonderful Life" in which the love of his community saves the Savings & Loan, and George Bailey, through its hitherto submerged esteem of the man). She tells her daughter she loves her, instantly erase years of repression and distance. Her father instantly accepts his grand- daughter's gay lover. Waymond, who annoyingly whispers most of his lines, seems to have dropped his request for a divorce. He is such an annoyingly cloying and antiseptic character one wishes she would just shoot him in the end. Michelle Yeoh at 59 is unpleasantly old for the part, especially when they have to try to make her look the age at which she married Waymond. For the last twenty minutes, I could not wait for it to end, as it sludged towards its inevitable, predictable apotheosis.
Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Jamie Lee Curtis, James Hong, Tallie Medel, Jenny Slate
Fascinating tale about a female conductor generally focused on the issue of whether or not an artists work should be judged against his or her personal qualities and behavior. Lydia Tar is a brilliant conductor with prestigious gigs with the Berlin Philharmonic and other world-class orchestras. She composes, she conducts, she is a rare winner of the EGOT (Emmy Grammy Oscar and Tony) awards. She is a lesbian in a long-standing personal relationship with Sharon Goodnow, and has a loyal but increasingly skeptical assistant, Francesca, and an inappropriate interest in a young cellist, Olga Metkina, for whom she displays some detected favoritism. And there is an issue: a former member of a program she created to encourage young women conductors, Krista Taylor, has committed suicide. Lydia receives a gift from her as she is flying to Berlin, a book called "Challenge". She instructs her assistant to delete any emails that reference her and it becomes apparent that after her relationship with Taylor deteriorated, she blacklisted her from working with any other orchestras. Her mother is suing and the media uncover the story. An edited video of her making racist and sexist comments to a student at Julliard is circulated. Her career is destroyed. Beautifully filmed and brilliantly acted (I will surprised if Blanchett does not get the Oscar for this hard-hitting, controversial film), and with flourishes of brilliant writing (Lydia's discussion with students about music and conducting and the relationship of art with life, after a gay student complains that Bach had too many children for him to be "into" his music). The orchestral scenes are also brilliant as Field made use of real musicians (including Olga, a real cellist who auditioned for the acting role on the suggestion of a friend) and, apparently, real live performances. Slips up a bit towards the end with a rather melodramatic sequence of her downfall, her shattered self-control, and descent into conducting video game orchestras somewhere in Asia, for an audience of cosplayers. Moments of astonishing resonance and acute dissection filmed in wonderful locations, patiently, incisively.
Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Noemie Merlant, Adam Gopnik, Sylvia Flote, Mark Strong, Mila Bogojevic
Calum has issues of some kind though we don't really learn what they are exactly. He's separated from his wife, about to be divorced, and it has come to pass that he is spending a week at a Turkish resort with his 11-year-old daughter, Sophie, bonding, and shooting video of the experience. "Aftersun" isn't concerned with narrative or crises or danger; it is a very low-key film that mediates a memory of Sophie's, reinterpreting the experience from the point of view of an adult with a child of her own, and finding more nuance and mystery in the story than she could possibly have imagined at 11. What has happened since that trip? We see the adult Sophie at a disco, dancing in the strobe lights, catching glimpses of her father, always too brief and confusing to convey any definite information. Is that the way she recalls her father? Is he actually there in the disco-- most likely, he's only there in her memories. Is he still in her life or have they lost touch? We don't really find out, but that's part of what makes films like this special: it's more dedicated to reality than ticket sales. If Spielberg is all artifice-- always aware of what he thinks the audience thinks he thinks-- "Aftersun" is the opposite, concerned far more with the truth of memory and father- daughter bonds than set pieces and tropes.
Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall, Sally Mesham, Harry Perdios
Competent, tasteful ("true") story about a male nurse, Charles Cullen, who may have murdered dozens or even hundreds of patients over 14-year career in which he was fired or resigned from 9 different hospitals as suspicions rose. Finally, the "good nurse", Amy Loughren, who had become friends with him, became suspicious after she was questioned by police after a particular victim's family raised issues. Nurse Loughren has a heart condition which this version milks, and which draws the empathy of Cullen-- again, in real life he never met her children-- how actually babysits for her at one time. Does not do a great job of detailing how or why the family raised the issues, nor how the police actually finally trapped Cullen. In the film, Loughren prints out copies of the records of medication use by Cullen; in real life, the detectives did that and showed them to Loughren which raised her suspicions. The movie goes hokum with Amy present at the interrogation that persuaded Cullen to confess. One suspects Chastain lobbied for a bigger part, empowerment, or simple egotism, for the big scene which bordered absurdity: why is the nurse leading the interrogation of a suspected serial killer? In real life, once Cullen realized that Loughren was working with the police he wouldn't talk to her, but he did eventually confess to police. Though authorities think he may have killed up to 400 patients, it appears that they did not expect to be able to prove those cases and most were never brought against him. Well-acted, competently directed, and free from the worst excesses of the genre, "The Good Nurse" is a fine, interesting film. The character of the hospital executive, Linda Garran, is notably complex. She tries to cover up the hospital's liability, but does fire Cullen, and the lingering close-up of her face implies worlds of complicity, guilt, and resignation.
Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne, Denise Pillott, Dartel McRae, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Devyn McDowell, Alix West Lefler, Nnamdi Asomugha, Noah Emmerich, Kim Dickens, David Lavine
Singer-songwriters like Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, and others, should stay away from the movie business. I suspect they look at movies and think, "It looks easy. I can do that." The result is dreck like "One Trick Pony" or "Greenvale" or "Rolling Thunder Revue". The Beatles-- perhaps, not through choice-- were smart enough to leave the movie making to directors like Richard Lester who understood how to use their talents in a clever way. Simon's attempt is lame (though he whines about critics being unfair to it). Jonah is a fading folk-rock musician who inexplicably plays bluesy songs with a mild, temperate voice that torpedoes any attempt at authenticity or gravitas. The songs, in fact, are uniformly mediocre. For a talent like Simon, author of songs like "Homeward Bound", "Patterns", "I am a Rock", "Bridge Over Troubled Waters", and so on, the offerings are thin and unconvincing. We are given to understand that Jonah is a principled artist with INTEGRITY and he bemoans a deal where he has to play a nostalgia gig without his current band. But we are simultaneously told that his bandmates are exceptional talents, but that a producer hired by his record company wants to replace them on his next album. Jonah is also in the middle of a divorce from his wife Marion (Simon, the writer, can't bear to give Marion any real character, or express any of the more caustic edges of a woman who wants to divorce a man who is always on the road and who values his career more than his family). He has a casual affair with Modeena and then with the wife of his producer. He has an argument with an arranger that would never have taken place, as it does in this story, after recording sessions have been completed. No arranger (or producer) would have wasted his time with an artist who doesn't believe in their approach to "hit-making". In fact, the characters act if they had just learned about a "hook" and what it takes to be a top-ten single, and that there is such a thing as AOR. No one ridicules the idea of someone inviting Bob Dylan to a 60's nostalgia event (one suspects Simon preferred that people believe it was something he might consider). We do see the dreariness of the road life, playing small venues in small towns and staying in cheap motels, but audiences are remarkably attentive and the band is slick and -- unforgivably-- Simon mugs in front of a microphone instead of singing into it as any professional road musician would do. Come on! The highlight of "One Trick Pony" is an appearance by the B-52's right after Jonah's set. Unlike Simon, they put on a convincing live show, with far more conviction than Simon. The conclusion is desperately lame-- even infantile-- and supposed to convince us that Jonah is authentic and honest and principled, something we could not have noticed in the previous 80 minutes of film. It's not the worst film by a singer-songwriter ("Greendale" probably is) but it's stiff and poorly directed and poorly acted and poorly written one wishes the cameras crew would have been diverted to following the B-52s for 90 minutes instead.
Paul Simon, Blair Brown, Rip Rorn, Joan Hackett, Allen Garfield, Mare Winningham, Michael Pearlman, Lou Reed, Tony Levin, Harry Shearer
Offered as a moral lesson in tolerance and understanding, "Free Trip to Egypt" works far better as a portrait of dislocation and recalibration, alienation and connection, of human nature and attitudes. A man named Tarek Mounib attends a Trump rally and offers various individuals a free trip to Egypt if they wish to expand their horizons and try to understand the culture Trump seems to vilify. He has almost no takers. With some recalibration, he does recruit several people, most of whom are not really hard-core Trump supporters (at least one, a police officer, is a Democrat). This undermines the premise-- that familiarity will breed tolerance and understanding-- but actually, oddly, lifts the story to something more about the willingness to embrace different experiences and feel a connection with people who, outwardly, live in a completely alien world. A conservative Christian beauty queen feels ambivalent about the "pagan" culture she encounters, but she dances at a strange religious ceremony and cheerfully embraces the family that took her in. On the other hand, the born-again Christian activist displays his rigid, dogmatic views over and over again, but it's something worth seeing in action if only to be reassured of just how bigoted and close-minded that attitude is. The others gain more from the experience, particularly Ellen Decker (whose husband died shortly after the film was made) who calls herself a racist in a pre-excursion video but comes to characterize the whole experience as something beautiful and enlightening. This film is far quirkier than given credit for, and far more enlightening. There are some flashes of conflict (about Trump) and some humor and acts of compassion and kindness (as when Katie Appeldorn discloses a terrible experience with a previous husband and her child). On the whole, a worthwhile, charming film, no bigger or smaller than it is.
Jenna Day, Katie Appeldorn, Ahmed Hassan, Ellen Decker, Asmaa Gamal, Brian Kopilec, Tarek Mounib
Low-key but compelling documentary on Steve Bannon's efforts to foment right-wing political parties in Europe (after Trump had evicted him from the White House). Probably superior to Earl Morris' "American Dharma" if not much more overtly critical.
Steve Bannon, Sean Bannon
It started out promising-- a fresh, alternative take on high school romance, a rework of "Cyrano De Bergerac" that might just end up less over-wrought than the play. Unfortunately, it ran out of ideas about half way through. Ellie Chu is the rather predictable female protagonist, a bright high school student with good taste who maybe lusts for Paul Munsky, a nice guy loser, who is attracted to the "out of his league" high school beauty, Aster Flores. Paul persuades the intelligent Ellie to write his texts to Aster for him, and she's good at it, and reasonably successful. In "Cyrano", the creative genius ends up hiding in the shadows and whispering lines to Christian, the beseecher. Here, she is able to text him while watching through a window. The twist (well, not really) is that Ellie is also attracted to Aster. Ellie is also the organist in the same church that Aster and Paul and all the majors attend, though she is an atheist (that was one refreshing part, along with references to "Wings of Desire"). But Trig, Aster's boyfriend, proposes to her in front the entire congregation without anyone commenting on the fact that, hey, they are teenagers here, folks! There follows a misleading scene of Aster skinning dipping while Ellie keeps her clothes on (because, damn it, this is an AMERICAN film which must allow the audience to maintain a vacuous morality of titillation without gratification). Then Trig comes to believe that Ellie's real passion is for him. And then more confusion, of course, with too many twists to sustain the comedic or dramatic energy, and with actors who are not really up to the task and appear to be under rehearsed. Ellie's song at the high school concert, unfortunately, is particularly clumsy, un-winning, and predictable. Even more unforgivably, director Wu pulls her punches in the end so that, as I said, it's titillation rather than drama and the characters end up with very little soul or depth of personality.
Leah Lewis, Daniel Diemer, Alexxis Lemire, Wolfgang Novogratz, Collin Chou, Becky Ann Baker
Excellent but grim drama about one of the most notorious serial killers of the last half-century, Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed 17 or possibly more men between 1980 and 1991. Superbly acted, especially by Richard Jenkins as the conflicted, loyal dad, and Molly Ringwald as his second wife, Dahmer's step-mother, Sheri. But the rest of the cast is also excellent: the directors obviously were able to derive good performances from the entire ensemble. Sensitive to charges of glamorizing and evil person, the series takes some serious time to give details about several victims and their families, and is quite even-handed in it's handling of politicians like Jesse Jackson and the police, in spite of what must have been a strenuous temptation to caricature. Dahmer is, as should be, a bit of blank, a vacuum without soul or heart or empathy. Most people crave some explanation or cause that can blamed, named, and scapegoated, but "Dahmer" won't give it. His father blames the mother's use of drugs and his mother blames the father's love of science but it is clear that Dahmer is his own monster, and one has a hard time believing in his late-term conversion to Christianity.
Evan Peters, Richard Jenkins, Molly Ringwald, Niecy Nash, Michael Beach, Colby French, Michael Learned, Khetphet Phagnasay, Dyllon Burnshide, Rodney Burford
I will not easily forgive the reviewers that gave this a rave thus sucking 9 hours out of my life that I will never get back. Not remotely fresh, not remotely deep, not remotely interesting, except as a facile exemplar of the consumer's lame tolerance for gimmicky horror tropes and inane characters. Possibly the worst is Steven who allegedly writes books about the family's horrible experience in the haunted house. The "hauntings" are manifestations, in case you didn't notice, of the mothers' madness and the family's rather impotent methods of dealing with her. But don't look for coherence here. Flanagan is more interested in dramatic scenes with subdued colors and loud noises that don't necessarily fit into any coherent schematic of ghosts or hallucinations or poltergeists or anything. This series is the very definition of sophomoric, of which the most obvious manifestation is Luke's perpetual 5:00 shadow-- because, you know, he's an addict. He has to look like an addict. And the resolution of one important guilt issue is for Shirley to confess to her husband that she cheated on him years earlier, even while the rest of the family has just insisted that burying the truth that haunts them is the most appropriate and effective way to end the curse. But then, Shirley is so one-dimensional that it barely hurts at all. In fact, the women all look and basically talk alike even if they have some obvious outward characteristics that are supposed to define them. Everybody's agenda is open and announced, even to the point of "announcing" when they are about to lie, as when Luke is clearly looking for a way to get drugs. You don't get a feeling that anyone-- let alone the actors-- has any sense at all of what a real person does in the jobs they allegedly do as characters, especially Steven as the writer. Lame. Tedious. Boring. Stupid.
MIchiel Huisman, Carla Guigino, Henry Thomas, Elizabeth Reaser, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Kate Siegel, Victoria Pedretti, Lulu Wilson, Mckenna Grace, Paxton Singleton, Julian Hilliard, Violet McGaw, Timothy Hutton, Samantha Sloyan, Annabeth Gish
Vastly over-rated debut directorial effort by Eastwood who famously doesn't believe in more than one take if the actors read their lines correctly-- and it shows. In one scene in particular, the actors appear to be giving rote expression to their lines, waiting for cues, pacing themselves by script. Some scenes are just plain amateurish, and the explanation of why Evelyn is not being held-- that she was "paroled" is non-sensical, considering that she was held as a psychiatric case and not charged-- at least, not anywhere in the narrative. Nor does Dave seem all that concerned about Birdie's health after she is taken away by ambulance. The police are in "we know how this script ends" mode, instead of acting like they have encountered a scene of violence after it happened and before they know who the perpetrator is. The musical pastiche of Toby and Dave frolicking on the sea shore to the tune of "First Time Ever I saw your Face" drops like a kludge into the middle of the narrative, and the Monterey Jazz festival makes a bewildering intrusion. There are a few moments-- this is clearly "Fatal Attraction" I-- and James McEachin brings life to his scenes as the cool black dude, Al Monte, and Jessica Walter is excellent if a bit shrill as Evelyn, but Eastwood--as always-- is wooden. The promising scene (which you will see coming) in which Evelyn calls the radio station to request Misty again wasn't as tension-inducing as it could have been. And this is all beside the disturbing possessive woman trope. There is never an implied judgement of Dave for exploiting Evelyn's romantic interest for sex and then discarding her. Dave didn't "promise" anything-- he's not wrong about that-- but "Play Misty for Me" would probably be congenial to Hollywood players who exploit young actresses for implied favorable consideration for movie roles. The use of real locations around Carmel-on-the-sea is refreshing.
Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, Donna Mills, John Larch, Jack Ging, Irene Hervey, James McEachin, Don Siegel, Clarice Taylor
If you didn't want to make this movie (apparently, Godard did not), then why bother? 100 minutes of privileged, boring, rich people making trivial, inane arguments about being loved or not loved, or whether the Odyssey would be a great film or not, or if a down on his luck writer should pimp out his wife (played by Brigitte Bardot!) to a producer to make $10K so he can pay off the flat. This is Martin Scorsese's favorite Godard film?!
Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, Giorgia Moll, Fritz Lang
Corrosive, disturbing story about a Japanese woman, Tome Matsuki, who grows up in a very backwards, rural community called Tohoku in the early 1900's as the concubine of her step-father, Chuji, with his wife's knowledge and extended family's cackling implicit consent. As a very young girl, she says "we're married, aren't we?" to Chuji. The film doesn't present these incidents as a horrible crisis to be resolved in some way. Tome is loyal to her step-father her entire life. She grows up, is raped, and becomes pregnant and gives birth to a daughter (whom the aunties want to "get rid of") and leaves her daughter in Tohoku to earn money in the city during the war. She leaves their small community and ends up in Tokyo She is recruited by a weird religious cult to which she confesses having sex with her employer, and then is recruited by a madam who turns her (unwillingly, she asserts) into a prostitute. Unwillingly-- but she takes the money, with no reasonable alternatives available to her. She is exploited but, in the oddly perverse universe of this film (which is not to say it wasn't true) she eventually turns the tables on the Madame, only to eventually find herself in the same situation-- as the Madame-- explaining to one of her workers why she needs to take 30% of her income to provide a place to meet clients and to feed her. A sugar-daddy, Kurasawa comes along, who borrows money from her to start a business but eventually betrays her as well, and takes up an affair with her adult daughter, Nobuko. But Nobuko, growing up in a different era, is no patsy and turns the tables on Karasawa and her mother. The narrative doesn't do justice to the corrosive portrayal of various women and men who contribute in their own ways to Tome's economic slavery and exploitation. She has sex with men who have power over her, to feed her or not, employ her or not, pay her off, or not. The cackling aunties mockingly reference "plowing" and fornication as if it was a natural thing one will deny but must expect, and no-one should be too snotty about virtue or purity. Nobuko, strikingly, has more options: she wants to start a farm with her boyfriend and she is seen, at one point, driving a bulldozer herself to prepare the farmland, just before we see Tome, at the end of her string, one supposes, ambling up the mountain in her kimono as her shoes get coated in mud and eventually break on the rugged path. But even Nobuko uses sex to get what she wants. It's hard to avoid seeing the film as cynical but one should also consider that in 1961 the feminist narrative had yet to be imposed on the social practices that Imamura describes here leaving him free show the complicity he perceives in the women around Tome.
Sachiko Hidari, Seizaburo Kawazu, Kazuo Kitamura, Teruko Kishi, Emiko Alzawa, Emiko Azuma, Sumie Sasaki, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Masumi Harukawa, Jitsuko Yoshimura
Does this sound familiar: a group of attractive 20 somethings living in an apartment building struggle through relationships and careers relying on each other for support and companionship while navigating the shoals and hazards of modern life? Yes, it's "Friends", but more raw and authentic. Cliff is front man for a grungy rock band (in fairness, before grunge was cool), while keeping Janet, who worships him, at arms length in terms of commitment and passion. Janet, in a comical diversion, considers getting breast enhancement surgery while the surgeon tries to convince he she doesn't need it. Steve is working on an eco-friendly train proposal for the city (Seattle) while trying to work out a relationship with Linda who feels ambivalent about this career-minded ambitious guy. Debbie tries a dating service that makes a ridiculous video of her to try to sell her to prospective boyfriends. Witty and clever and fresh and really better than most reviews give it credit for. Crowe happily avoids most of the imminent clichés and predictable conundrums while lavishing a decent soundtrack of contemporary music and populating the background with actors who became better known after this film, including Jeremy Piven, Eric Stoltz (as a talking mime), Paul Giamatti, and Peter Horton. Several Seattle rockers appear as themselves as does basketball player Xavier McDaniel. Unusual in one peculiar respect: Hollywood likes to suggest that the female romantic lead is "virginal" before she finally consummates her desire (after a tearful break-up) with the male lead. No such pretense here. Like "About Last Night" there is an air of poignancy about the flailing attempts to give and receive love, the waiting for the phone call, the doubts about career choices, the mixture of friendship and lust. It's refreshing and more honest than most.
Kyra Sedgewick, Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott, Sheila Kelley, Jim True-Frost, Matt Dillon, Bill Pullman, Eric Stoltz, Peter Horton, Tom Skerritt
Astonishingly progressive, George Sand, a woman, a novelist, and activist, meets Chopin and becomes obsessed with him, even though she is sleeping with her children's tutor. Chopin is, however, unlike her other friends, reticent, proper, and moralistic. Sand pursues him regardless, while fending off a rival, Countess Marie D'Agoult, who tries to sabotage the relationship out of envy. Much of action takes place at the estate of the Duke and Duchess D'Antan. The Duchess is an amateur artist who worships poets and musicians and painters and, since her husband forbids her from the city, wants to bring culture to their estate in the country. She is source of much of comedy in "Impromptu". Lavishly recreated and wittily acted, "Impromptu" is entertaining at least, and amusing, and proof that Hugh Grant used to be able to act a little. It's also a stunningly prescient treatment of transgender issues: Sand didn't really identify as a man-- she just felt that men's clothing gave her more freedom to move about in the city. She had very progressive views on sexual relationships, having multiple affairs with well-known men.
Judy Davis, Hugh Grant, Mandy Patinkin, Emma Thompson, Bernadette Peters, Georges Corraface, Anton Rodgers, Julian Sands, Ralph Brown
What to make of this pretentious, hypocritical, meandering montage of Gen-X tropes and anti-establishment themes (full of product-placement)? I liked it more than I thought I would, and possibly for reasons that would confound the makers of it. Troy Dyer is an aspiring musician who reads philosophy and does little else except sit around on other peoples' couches. Lelaina Pierce works hard and has ambitions and has obvious feelings for Troy that oscillate between love and hate. She also has an interest in slick Michael Grates, a producer at a TV network program called "In Your Face" who is interested in her self-produced documentary, mostly, herself, and her friends, and how they can't find a place in life to anchor themselves. She Sammy Gray and Vickie Miner are the humorous side-kicks and one touchstone in this film is when Sammy comes out to his family, only to be roundly rejected. Vickie, played by an acerbic Janeane Garofalo (who hated the movie) is actually more interesting than she probably thinks, precisely because she clearly had some contempt for what she was doing. It works, better, I'm sure, than director Ben Stiller thought it was at the time. Troy is supposed to be the voice of authenticity and truth, and Michael is supposed to be the facile voice of pretention and sell-out. Watching it now, I thought Michael was actually the more decent character, and Troy was a jerk. That said, the wavering attempts by characters to find love and connect with each other had the ring of truth to them even if the young Winona Ryder often tries too hard to be incredibly charming and charmed and Hawke comes off as petulant and mean.
Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Janeane Garofalo, Steve Zahn, Ben Stiller, Swoosie Kurtz, Joe Don Baker, Susan Norfleet, John Mahoney
Dreary, self-indulgent, pointless smash-up of Elvis the star vs Elvis the gospel singer credentialed by his youthful interactions with black gospel tents and how Colonel Tom Parker exploited him and ripped him off forcing the poor boy to keep singing until he dropped dead. So we are told. But the movie isn't really about any of these things. It doesn't seem to have any particular idea and doesn't leave any particular impression, other than, "oh my, look at that". Luhrmann betrays the fact that you can't really adore Elvis for anything without admitting that he was a weak, spineless tool in the hands of a ruthless and artistically ignorant manager. Articles about the movie cite the number of costumes-- which tells you what some people think the point of it is. And if the "revolution" was getting white people to listen to black-influenced music we are left with the question of what the content of that music was about. Big Mama Thornton performs a version of "Hound Dog" that only a Las Vegas patron could possibly have imagined-- and nothing like the real original. Luhrmann is bankrupt: everything is merely bigger, not more evocative, or dramatic, or insightful-- just bigger and flashier and faster and noisier. Elvis notably dodged civil rights issues, except for a few token songs that didn't say much in particular. His Las Vegas audiences were dreck and Luhrmann is careful not to tell us too much about these lonely women fantasizing about the obese star in those days. Hanks is better than Hanks usually is, which isn't saying much; Austin Butler isn't compelling in any scene that I remember. Olivia DeJonge comes off as a nice Priscilla, due to, one suspects, some role in approvals. We are left with Elvis as martyr to the cause of self- indulgent rehashes of work he used to famous for, now a nostalgic confection of tasteless medley's and bombastic orchestral pastiche.
Tom Hanks, Austin Butler, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Dacre Montgomery, Shonka Dukureh
And, starring James Sweeney, as a clone of Sheldon in "Big Bang Theory" attempting to establish a sexless romantic relationship with Rory (huge "Gilmour Girls" fan-- can you guess?) because he doesn't like bodily fluids at all, especially poop. Unusually open about issues like that-- and killing babies if they are threat to your own life. Yes, weird, witty, fast-paced conversations that could only be written, memorized, and performed, just as on the "Gilmour Girls". Unusual and unpredictable, which really is something, and well-acted and film with occasional quirky compositions and sequences that tease without becoming mere novelties. I don't think there really is a satisfactory way to end a story like this, and I think Sweeney knows it, but he tries. I think it should perhaps have ended with the move to Seattle but Sweeney settle for something more ironic and ambiguous if not as believable.
James Sweeney, Katie Findlay, Dana Drori, James Scully
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Roger Ebert (the website, not the deceased) inexplicably and inexcusably gives this film 4 out of 4 stars. Berardinelli more sensibly 2.5. This promising film could have been vastly improved if someone had introduced an "Alexa" somewhere in the narrative, or if anyone had given an ounce of thought to plausibility at any point, or if the entire production hadn't been placed into the service of Elisabeth Moss' gigantic ego: let's have another close-up of my face looking distressed! Ironic that Moss plays the lead in "Handmaid's Tale": here she is a consummate weak victim, glorying in suffering and bewilderment, and incapable, until action sequences come calling, of decisive independent action. Which is it? Passive victim of a domineering, abusive husband, or murderous psychopath whose own violent purpose is "justified"? Either way, Moss is perhaps the most tedious lead actress around today. She's the Leonardo DiCaprio of her gender. One imagines the actress taking satisfaction in the "empowering" final sequences without realizing that they completely undermine what slight social meaning there is to the first hour. As for the the effects, they aren't bad, mostly. The problem is that actors react to what they think the audience knows rather than to what they should know in the narrative. Preposterously, for example, Cecilia breaks out of a secure facility for violent psychopaths (given that the police believe she violently attacked someone in a public place) by simply running past the security guards and through unlocked doors. The cop, James Lanier, rushes home with his gun drawn to protect his daughter: he doesn't look around, doesn't notice if a car is parked by, doesn't take in his surroundings, doesn't check for even an instant to see if anything is happening. He knows, from the script, that the bad guy is in the house. What a pity. This could have been a meaty film about surveillance or about spousal abuse or even a tightly conceived action thriller. It's so full of holes it is none of the above: just a star vehicle for Elisabeth Moss, a actress whose on-screen work is utterly selfish and self-centred: there is nobody else in this film that matters in this universe.
Elisabeth Moss, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Harriet Dyer, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, Michael Dorman,
Tasteful, restrained retelling of the celebrated true story about 12 young soccer players and their coach trapped in a cave in Thailand in 2018. Like Spielberg, Howard excels in action-driven sequences, and, in this case, is more restrained and tasteful in the dramatic sequences, if also more obtuse. Howard works from crisis to crisis (exaggerating, perhaps, the time pressure from the coming monsoons), but seems to understand that the compelling aspect of this story is real and doesn't need padding. The boys had to be virtually anesthetized in order to get them out-- the average person can't just simply learn how to dive in a short period of time and the journey was about 5 hours through dark water through some very narrow passages. And yes, it took some experienced British cave-divers to lead the effort, and conceive of the idea of anesthetizing the boys for the rescue. It's a very dramatic, exciting story that we know ended well and is quite fascinating to watch.
Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton, Tom Bateman, Paul Gleeson, Teeradon Supapunpinyo, Pasakorn Hoyhon
Glenda Jackson has a remarkable face: expressive, malleable, compelling. It's a shame it is wasted on this flamboyant and trashy biopic of Peter Tchaikovsky and his struggle against his own homosexuality and his haunting memories of his mother's horrible death of cholera and the primitive treatments for it. You won't learn much about his music in spite of the soundtrack lavishly filled with it, usually over dream sequences and fantasies that don't advance the narrative, and Russell often name-checks his most famous pieces to make sure the viewer doesn't miss Tchaikovsky's popular successes, but Russell's indulgent, often tasteless expressiveness often falls flat. The biggest problem is that Richard Chamberlain is ridiculously unconvincing as Tchaikovsky with one notable exception: he is shown in a full body shot vigorously playing difficult piano pieces. This is 1970 so one can only assume (correctly) that Chamberlain learned the piano pieces and mimed them with some accuracy (the actual recordings are by someone else). In this version, Tchaikovsky, concerned about scandal, forsakes his lover, Anton Chiluvsky, and marries Antonina Milyukova. The match is a disaster from the start. (We are shown Milyukova in an insane asylum during Tchaikovsky's life but in reality she entered one after his death). Tchaikovsky receives generous support from Madam Nadezhda von Meck, who insists on never meeting the composer so as not to spoil the relationship. Thanks to her, he is able to compose freely without the constraints of publication or performance contracts or a less disinterested patronage relationship. He is success, becomes famous. In Russell's telling, he is haunted by his mother's death and Antonina's madness. But since his a success thanks to his "1812 Overture", "Sleeping Beauty", and "The Nutcracker", there's not much drama in it. He didn't really like anyone very much, except himself. As for the film there are scenes that are so miscalculated and badly executed, one is amazed anyone funded this project. Actors mug and flaunt themselves and dance around with hysterically exaggerated movements, which, I supposed, Russell imagined would make us appreciate the composer's inspired genius in some way. It's really all about Ken Russell.
Richard Chamberlain, Glenda Jackson, Max Adrian, Christopher Gable, Kenneth Colley, Izabella Telezynska, Maureen Pryor
Oh my is Angela Childs entitled. She works for an Amazon type company which sells a device called "Kimi" (Alexa, of course), analyzing conversations to make sure weird or obscure phrases and words are added to the AI component. One day, she hears loud music and a scream and concludes that someone has been assaulted or murdered. The recording we are offered is ridiculously ambiguous and doesn't seem likely to raise any serious alarm for any rational person: it could be an argument or play-fighting or even a TV in the background. But Angela instantly believes it is sinister and she must be believed because she is a young X-generation girl with blue hair who is recovering from a traumatic event, which explains why she is afraid to go out of her incredibly lavish loft apartment. She uses high tech sound equipment to isolate the voice with ridiculous facility (and it still doesn't sound very scary), something that is not possible now, and may never be possible (it's not like audio is layered, like paint that you can just peel away without taking away the other sounds). Her superiors at the Amazon type company, Amygdala, of course, don't take her seriously and when she insists they call the FBI we share her manager's reluctance and are not surprised when she would prefer to send the issue to their legal department first. In retrospect, why wouldn't her boss-- given the premises of the film-- simply say, sure, yeah, we'll call the FBI-- great job Angela! But this is a dumb take-off on "Blow Up" and "The Conversation", far less interesting and far less credible, though it seems immersed in current technologies. We find out that the man committing the assault is an executive at... wait for it... Amygdala! The absurdity is that, after we are shown how dangerously isolating and invasive technologies like Kimi are, the heroes of "Kimi" are saved by Kimi. So much for any deeper reflection on the issues raised by such devices. Soderbergh seems to congratulate himself on passing long lame clichés about a woman being strong and vulnerable at the same time, oppressed and dominant, a victim and self-sufficient. And cured of her neurosis with a sudden facility with nail-guns (using duct tape to disable the safety features). A boring film I finished just to say I saw it. There are far better films on the same subject.
Stephen is a professor at Oxford. His student, William, rich, aristocratic, is attached to another student, a beautiful Austrian named Anna von Graz. Stephen's friend, Charley, decides to seduce Anna before Stephen can, and while she is engaged to William. It's not clear that Anna has any agency here at all, other than picking and choosing who she would like to be in bed with at any particular moment. The acting is good and the cinematography is excellent, but the story seems, in retrospect, slight and unmoving. The title event doesn't even resonate with the particulars. Kael called it a comedy of depravity, but that does it too much credit. John Dankworth did the score, as he did for "The Servant", and in both cases I found his work tedious.
Dirk Bogarde, Stanley Baker, Peter York, Jacqueline Sassard, Vivien Merchant, Alexander Knox
Oh my is Angela Childs entitled. She works for an Amazon type company which sells a device called "Kimi" (Alexa, of course), analyzing conversations to make sure weird or obscure phrases and words are added to the AI component. One day, she hears loud music and a scream and concludes that someone has been assaulted or murdered. The recording we are offered is ridiculously ambiguous and doesn't seem likely to raise any serious alarm: it could be an argument or play-fighting or even a TV in the background. But Angela believes it is sinister and she must be believed because she is a young X-generation girl with blue hair who is recovering from a traumatic event, which explains why she is afraid to go out of her incredibly lavish loft apartment. She even uses high tech sound equipment to isolate the voice, something that is not possible now, and may never be possible (it's not like audio is layered, like paint). Her superiors at the Amazon type company, Amygdala, of course, don't take her seriously and when she insists they call the FBI they don't, as any rational corporate executive would, refer the issue to their legal department and explain the corporate practice regarding an issue that would be very common to a corporation with a product like Kimi. Privacy and responsibility. But this is a dumb take-off on "Blow Up" and "The Conversation", far less interesting and far less credible, though it seems immersed in current technologies. We find out that the man committing the assault is an executive at... wait for it... Amygdala! The absurdity is that, after cavalierly invading everyone's privacy, the heroes of "Kimi" are saved by Kimi. So much for any deeper reflection on the issues raised by such devices. Soderbergh seems to congratulate himself on passing long lame clichés about a woman being strong and vulnerable at the same time, oppressed and dominant, a victim and self-sufficient. And cured of her neurosis with a sudden facility with nail-guns (using duct tape to disable the safety features). A boring film I finished just to say I saw it. There are far better films on the same subject.
Zoe Kravitz, Rita Wilson, India de Beaufort
Seemingly a slight, meandering drama about an art dealer in Paris who one day finds a Jewish newspaper on his doorstep. Turns out there is another Mr. Klein in town, and Klein becomes obsessed with tracking down the Jewish Klein, and asserting his own pure French racial credentials. In the meantime, he takes advantage of some desperate Jews selling their artworks for cash, for whatever he will offer. Yes, it becomes Kafkaesque and difficult to credit at times, but there is a sequence of the French police and Germans rounding up Jews for deportation that is stunningly rendered, with large crowds of real people, trucks, trains, guards, and so on-- you just don't see this kind of meticulous recreation very much anymore. And there is a meeting on that train in the end that brilliantly evokes the consequences of moral compromise. Losey gets a lot out of his actors who are convincing and evocative, and one is often blown away by the detail he brings to scenes of powerful emotional resonance.
Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, Francine Berge, Julie Berto, Michael Londsdale
One of three film collaborations between Losey and Pinter, and probably the most searing, painful one. Tony is a rich, upper-class gentleman engaged to the charming and self-possessed Susan. He has just purchased a mansion and needs a manservant to keep things tidy and cook for him. Barrett arrives, played with uncanny nuanced insouciance by the very colorful Dirk Bogarde (a literate actor-writer with a remarkably personal history), with the gift of the homosexual aesthete (though, of course, in 1963, no film could openly allude to that aspect of it). Barrett takes charge and though occasionally irritating to Tony he establishes a tidy, functioning household. But then he is introduced to Susan and Susan is immediately suspicious of his intentions. They fence delicately, arguing over the placement of a vase, for example. Barrett invites his sister to join the household as a maid and she seduces Tony unleashing a sequence of devastating exposures that ride the surface of the unacknowledged homosexuality like a tsunami. The British establishment, the upper crust, is clearly weak, corrupt, and petty, but Barrett's parties are messy and corrupt as well. Why does Susan kiss Barrett, at a critical point? To challenge his homosexuality? To reveal that she knows? It's a searing moment in a searing, unpleasant film.
Dirk Bogarde, James Fox, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig, Patrick Magee, Harold Pinter
A synopsis of this film would sound glib and trite compared to the experience of seeing it: Anne, a beautiful young woman, interviews a family friend about her great aunt Olivia, the wife of a British officer, who created a scandal in the 1920's in India when she had an affair with a local war-lord. In the process of uncovering details of the affair, in India, Anne finds herself becoming more open to exotic, unusual experiences, and the sights and sounds of the exotic land she is in. This is one of those beautiful period pieces where one marvels at he recreation of large-scale scenes with large crowds and spectacular locations. Brilliantly acted and filmed, this is perhaps not as accessible as "Howard's End" or "Remains of the Day"-- and not as obvious-- but just as worthy. Olivia is a fascinating, if not all too unfamiliar character: naïve and inquisitive, impulsive, and daring. Her husband, Douglas, wants her to go to Simla for the summer, to avoid the intense heat of Satipur, but she refuses because she thinks she would be bored. She meets "the Nawab", a local prince or warlord, at a party he hosts for this British subjugators. He resents the way the British are trying to ease him out and sees a chance to exact a revenge.
Julie Christie, Greta Scacchi, Christopher Cazenove, Julian Glover, Susan Fleetwood, Patrick Godfrey, Shashi Kapoor, Madhur Jaffrey, Nickolas Grace, Charles McCaughan, Sajid Khan, Zakir Hussain
Norman is an American soldier without connection to a home or family or friends. He is assigned to a detail in Poland, in the immediate post-war period, where he sees a young woman an rather immediately falls in love with her. They don't speak the same language, and they can't even find a translator for most of their interactions, but he nevertheless tries to persuade her to follow him to America, marry him, and settle in on a farm in Kansas. But she has an invalid mother, and a Jewish friends, a survivor of Auschwitz, and it is difficult to get someone out of Poland at the time. This is a quiet, thoughtful, understated drama about love and need and the tragedy of war as it extends into everything afterwards: relationships, buildings, homes, hunger and longing. Does not soft-pedal or sentimentalize the issues involved. Well-acted and filmed.
Scott Wilson, Maja Komorowska, Hanna Skarzanka, Eva Dalkowska, Vadim Glowna, Danny Webb
So what does a western by the writer of the song "Curse of Millhaven" look like? It's uncompromisingly violent and dark. There is admiration for the outlaw, the loner, the outsider, while it condemns- - ostensibly-- the murder and mayhem he causes (though less so as in many westerns). The plot is ramshackle, seemingly improvised around the idea of "let's set up another confrontation". The best you hope for from these films is some penetrating psychological insight, or some marvelous cinematography or editing or music. And you get mumblecore from Ray Winstone and cranky but wise old man in John Hurt and more mumblecore from Guy Pearce. The plot concerns a police captain who, having captured two brothers from a notorious gang, frees one of them to find and kill a third brother. If he doesn't, he will hang the younger brother he has held back. You have to buy into this or nothing works, and maybe you don't buy into it or you do and nothing works anyway, other than the gratuitous "pleasure" of the bleak outland and confrontation after confrontation of escalading bloodiness. Owes a lot of the Sergio Leone westerns. A big difference is that one feels the actors in "The Proposition" are themselves lost and confused about what they are supposed to be or do, as if the director couldn't form a firm idea about it. One imagines the director shouting directions: be tragic, everyone.
Ray Winstone, Guy Pearce, Emily Watson, Richard Wilson, David Gulpill, Danny Huston, John Hurt
One imagines the ecstatic producers: Kristen Wiig! From SNL? It's almost like having Tina Fey! One of the greatest comediennes of all time! We'll have a smash hit! After all, it's the age of empowerment! But let's not rock the boat too much-- her career is baker. She falls in love with a cop, who will pick her up in a police car, in uniform. The comedy arc will feature the jealous relationship between Annie and Helen. And heavens, no nudity-- we're not European, and this not fucking "Love Actually". And wait-- just in case it's not really funny, let's throw in an Apatow classic: a diarrhea sequence, and have Melissa McCarthy poop in the sink! It'll be a huge hit. Americans love poop jokes. And they love sitcoms and that's what they get. They get poop jokes. And indeed this is the second highest grossing "r-rated female sex comedy" in Hollywood history. Kristen Wiig, be it noted, wanted more "subtle" comedy in the film. IMDB claims she got it, but I didn't see anything subtle, or really funny, other than Melissa McCarthy stealing the puppies. What I don't get is that co-writer Annie Mumolo was on set during filming-- the entire film reads like a very rough first draft that should never have gone anywhere, in which the smartest element was making Helen far more likeable than one would expect. There were re-writes? Some critics claim the film has some insight into relationships, friendships, and the stress of big events on them. Yes, like most sitcoms. For record, Annie has just lost her bake shop and her boyfriend, and she is maid of honor to Lillian and must take on those herculean and thankless tasks a maid of honor is responsible for while coping with a n irrational hatred of a bridesmaid, Helen, who is rich and beautiful and actually a decent human being. And then we're in Lucy-land as Annie proceeds to screw up every interaction with the bridal party (the men don't even exist in this movie), and we are all supposed to somehow find her adorable and believe that Lillian and Rhodes love this annoying, self-pitying, whiney klutz. Utterly, depressingly, disgustingly predictable in every respect, including the traditional SNL alumnus clumsily trying to transfer sketch comedy to the big screen. I'm always puzzled as to why the British seem to get it-- "Love Actually" covers the same ground but with far more originality and depth than this confection.
Kristen Wiig, Chris Dowd, Maya Rudolph, Rebel Wilson, Matt Lucas, Jill Clayburgh, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper, Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne
Thin parody of the Beatles with Eric Idle barely providing enough material to sustain an hour of obvious humour. Not up to Monty Python material, and not clearly located in terms of satire: what is Idle really making fun of here? The Beatles? They became too good to justify this take. Popular culture? But where is the razor? The Beatles always knew they were funny and they knew, better than anyone, just how absurd their own success was. Mick Jagger is wasted in a cameo, and George Harrison makes a token appearance, neither to much effect. Not one moment is nearly as funny as the "11" or Stonehenge sequences from "Spinal Tap".
Eric Idle, John Halsey, Ricky Fataar, Neil Innes, MIchael Palin, George Harrison, Bianca Jagger, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray
Screenplay by John Gregory Dunne and his wife Joan Didion. Inspired by the notorious "Black Delilah" murder case in Los Angeles in 1947, at least in terms of the murder incidental to the real story: corruption and the church. Robert De Niro is the good brother, the ambitious priest, Des Spellacy. He is an honest priest but willing to make compromises for the good of "mother church". His brother, Tom Spellacy is a worldy detective who used to run favors for a brothel owned by Jack Amsterdam, who is now a wealthy builder eager to rehabilitate his reputation by lavishing gifts upon the church. Dunne has a feel for power relationships-- it is clear that Des Spellacy knows what's what in the church hierarchy, and it is clear that Amsterdam knows it too. The narrative concerns Amsterdam's offer to build a new catholic school in a development project and the church hierarchy's willingness to overlook his "colorful" personal qualities for the money. But not willing to overlook everything. When Amsterdam becomes associated with the unsavory life of a beautiful murder victim, all of the parties as forced into distressing maneuvers to avert disaster. An unforgettable scene representative of the the film: the parents of the victim arrive in the big city to take home their daughter's body. Beautifully written and acted, the touching naivete of the parents, Tom's sensitivity to them, and the touching effort of the dad to evoke his daughter's good qualities-- unforgettable. The same with a scene in which Duvall physically attacks Amsterdam at a testimonial event: one is deeply impressed by the authentic feel of the scene, even as one is disbelieving of the possibility it would really happen. Duvall and McMillan as his sidekick are outstanding, as is most of the other roles. I'm not sure about De Niro's interpretation of Des Spellacy. Duvall is absolutely a hard-boiled detective and McMillan as his worldly-wise cynical deputy, but De Niro often seems sophomoric and deliberate as Monsignor Spellacy.
Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Kenneth McMillan, Charles Durning, Ed Flanders, Cyril Cusack, Rose Gregorio, Jeanette Nolan
Stevens is the butler to Lord Darlington and on the day of a fox hunt he hires Miss Kenton as housekeeper. Their relationship is tentative at first with a few tensions developing over their contrasting feelings about loyalty and service. Stevens maintains his rigorous, dedicated resolve of unfailing service to Lord Darlington even when he is forced to make moral compromises to fulfill his duties, while Miss Kenton is more flexible and more in tune with her own feelings. Lord Darlington is an incipient Nazi who uses his position to attempt to facilitate a peaceful arrangement with Germany, even to the point of setting up a meeting with Chamberlain and a German embassy. Miss Kenton is clearly attracted to Stevens and he is clearly attracted to Miss Kenton but trapped in his own rigid sense of conformity and emotional reserve. The tragedy is clearly that he is unable to break through this wall to his own severe disadvantage: the parting helicopter shot moving away from Darlington Hall conveying just how constricted and unfulfilling Stevens entire life of service was, providing one of the most melancholy and tragic closing scenes in a film since the cemetery walk in "The Third Man". An absolutely satisfying and brilliant film. Nominated for seven Oscars but won none. Seriously? Hanks for "Philadelphia" over Anthony Hopkins?
Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Christopher Reeve, James Fox, Peter Vaughan, Ben Chaplin, Hugh Grant, Peter Cellier
Tedious and ultimately boring drama about a brutally ruthless woman, Marla Grayson, who uses a corrupt doctor to place rich elderly people under her guardianship and then place them in her nursing care facilities to extract as much wealth as possible from them. The resemblance to real life is not a coincidence. She seems to have made a mistake when she takes on Jennifer Peterson who, unknown to her, has a gangster son. The biggest problem with this film is that Roman Lunyov, the son, is an anemic gangster at best who inexplicably allows Marla Grayson to gain the upper hand on him through a rather improbably sequence of reversals. Too bad, because the film starts out with an interesting and believable dramatization of just how easy it might be for a woman like Marla to actually take control of an individual's estate and welfare through corrupt state ordered custody arrangements. Nobody in the cast distinguishes himself though Dinklage has his moments. Cinematography and editing are pedestrian at best. And-- seriously-- Marla taking on two body-guard successfully? Reverberations: the Britney Spears conservatorship, though that depends on whether or not you believe Spears really was competent.
Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Eiza Gonzalez, Dianne Wiest, Chris Messina, Isiah Whitlock, Alicia Witt, Nicholas Logan
The best films open up a hitherto unknown world to the viewer and give an authentic experience of the sights, sounds, textures, and culture of that world. That is what this searing film does for the porn industry, better than any other film I know of. Bella is a young woman from Sweden who willingly enters into the porn industry with the goal of becoming a star. Along the way, she discovers that to obtain the best, powerful agent, and the best productions, she has to engage in some splintering intense scenes, violent, explicit, and sometimes degrading. But this is not a world of villains and angels. Most of the actors and directors she works with are professional and relatively considerate, as long as she is a willing player. When it is too much for her, she is asked to leave. It's a world of greys, as much as we might prefer to see the producers and male consumers of porn as villains, "Pleasure" doesn't let you off the hook. Bella wants the attention, the status of a top star. She willingly offers herself for roles that she knows will be physically demanding, and toughens herself up to make the compromises necessary for top billing. But some of the compromises are the way she treats her friends in the industry, and the way she betrays some of them to get what she wants. I believe this is far more realistic portrayal than we would be led to believe, and a sadder one, a bleaker one, because it is more authentic and more powerful. And what meaning is added by the ethereal operatic music over some scenes, lifting or lowering them into a mystical experience? I don't know. Beautifully acted and filmed, populated by many actual porn actors and producers, and rich in detail and nuance, a worthwhile journey which may be stomach- churning for some. This is a remake of the same film-yes- by the same director from 2013 which seems to have a much lower IMDB rating.
Sofia Kappel, Zelda Morrison, Evelyn Claire, Chris Cock, Danda DeArmond, Kendra Spade, Jason Toler, Mark Spiegler, Axel Braun
Based on the true story of Artur London, Gerard is a loyal communist, a high level bureaucrat in Czechoslovakia, the vice-minister of Foreign Affairs. That offers him no protection from the security services who arrest him one day and demand a confession. He doesn't know what he is to confess to, because he hasn't done anything wrong. He gradually learns that that may not matter: that's not how the security services on a Communist dictatorship work. Their only concern is to produce the item, the value, that gives their role in the government meaning, and that is, a confession of subversive activity, and, of course, the implication of others, which will be used to induce confessions from the others, which, in turn, validate your confession. They are very determined, just as Gerard is determined not to give in. Costa-Gavras does not give us an American- style hero who defies the authorities and stands up for purity and justice. He is very much an everyman, doing his best to survive an impossible situation with as much integrity as he can, without fatally miscalculating how much he needs to give and what he needs to hold on to. The film feels claustrophobic at times-- Costa-Gavras wants you to feel his desperation, and the corrosive effects of relentless incarceration and bullying (he isn't ever really "tortured" in the obvious sense) and then, surprise, there's some remarkable big scenes, at the trial, and at party functions. There's something unsatisfying in the story-- it doesn't have the grand arc of "Missing" or "Z", but it's worthwhile and a bit of an eye-opener.
Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Gabriele Ferzetti, Michel Vitold, Gerard Darrieu, Andre Cellier, William Jacques
More than 2 hours of Tilda Swinton looking constipated. Yes, this highly revered movie (Ebert's website gave it 4 / 4 stars) is really just a very long, elegant, daring, boring exploration of a feeling of dislocation and solitude. Jessica Holland, visiting her sick sister in a hospital in Bogota, hears a dull, loud, thunky sound in the middle of the night, and periodically thereafter. She asks an audio technician to try to recreate the sound using effects and manipulation. She walks the streets contemplating the buildings and spaces (mostly spaces). She ends up in a village in the country where the audio engineer now-- we think -- is an older man cleaning fish by a stream. She hears the rain. She shuts the rain out. There is a revelation that NPR assured me was mind blowing but which turns out to be more of a desperate possible explanation for what is going on. Through out, we are treated to very long, linger shots from a stable camera. Characters stare at each for a long time, silent. One character goes to "sleep" and appears to be dead. I genuinely admire the originality and audacity of the film, and the sound is a treat-- beautifully engineered and mixed. But Swinton's character is one-dimensional: all disturbed unease and mystification. There is not enough explanation of why or how things are the way they are in this universe. There is very little emotional resonance. I can't buy it. "Wings of Desire" is similarly audacious and daring and sustains long sequences of contemplative but quiet interactions, but it is all framed with a narrative that actually means something. This narrative goes nowhere comprehensible.
Tilda Swinton, Agnes Brekke, Daniel Gimenez Cocho, Juan Pablo Urrego, Elkin Diaz, Constanza Gutierrez
The real life Mary Anning was not known by anyone to be a lesbian. So why... ? Director Francis Lee's logic is impeccable (ha ha): she wasn't known to be heterosexual either, so... That is very strange logic. We also have a 46-year-old female star having simulated sex with a 26-year-old actress. If the genders were different would there be an issue? I really don't know anymore. In the name of female empowerment, rules can be altered as we please because we're women who hate Woody Allen. Winslet described the sex scenes as "the most empowering experience in my whole life". That is a very, very specious logic, considering Saoirse Ronan's comments about Woody Allen. The real life Charlotte was older than Mary! Anyway, the commitment of the actors to this film are laudable even if the love scenes seem a bit over-the-top. Mary Anning is shown to be a lonely, isolated, anti-social rock-hound living with her widowed mother in a small shop in Lyme. They sell souvenirs and Mary, self-educated, contributed significantly to research on fossils, based on her finds on the coast along the cliffs that tended to erode into the sea exposing the fossils. Charlotte arrives with her husband. And everything from then is mostly fiction. Their relationship is distant, then warm, then passionate, then fraught, especially after Charlotte moves back to London with her husband and wants Mary to move there too. It's a character study, more about Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan than about Mary and Charlotte, but they do build a story and it may end up seeming slight but it's developed carefully and thoughtfully.
Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Jones, James McArdle
"Himesh Patel did all his own singing and playing in the movie". That's like saying Ronald Macdonald did all of his own cooking in this restaurant. Patel labours through this tedious, predictable, mish- mash of Beatles songs and overwrought frustrated desire. Needlessly, we are told (in trivia) that the Beatles and Beatles' estates all approved of the script. Well, why wouldn't they, with all of the characters telling us that these were the greatest songs ever written (they are not) and that life is richer and more meaningful with the Beatles? (This practice of sucking up to the subject of a film this way is getting nauseating.) And this really is a 2 hour advertisement for more Beatles' product while the concept-- a world in which the Beatles never existed-- is not explored with anything like wit or imagination. In fact, the best scenes are the truest: where people don't recognize genius because it isn't packaged for them the way they expect: it's just Jack, doing barely passable covers of the most well-known hits. Almost "as good as Coldplay". So Curtis cravenly inserts "that's the greatest love song ever written and you don't recognize it?!!" Is that how far you have to go to get McCartney to smile upon your awful venture? Jack makes the transition to pop idol breezily, without ever seeming to rehearse with the band, or sign any contracts, or negotiate relationships with promoters or agents except with the caricature offered by the tiresome Kate McKinnon. Lily James' primary task is to float around looking delicious, offer sex to Jack and then take it away with no judgement or consequences offered, and then wait for Jack-- this is a British film-- to come to his bloody senses and then humiliatingly make a public declaration of love. Then-- they get married! So, the 60's didn't happen either. But wait-- there also has to be a foot-chase scene, running through an airport or streets or a funeral, or whatever. Maybe the film deserves a little better than a 5 but I am roundly sick of this lame formula being re-used over and over again, mainly by British film-makers. Writer Richard Curtis simply repackages the same formula he used for "Love Actually", "Bridget Jones", "Four Wedding and Funeral" and many others, but less successfully here. The only thing worse, that I can think of, is the film version of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".
Himesh Patel, Lily James, Sophia Di Martino, Ellise Chappell, Harry MIchell, Joel Fly, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Alexander Arnold, Ed Sheeran
Yes, written by the esteemed Thorton Wilder ("Our Town"). Reputedly, Hitchcock's own favorite from all of his films. Charlie Newton, a teenage girl, adores her Uncle Charlie (for which she was named) who is coming to visit his sister and brother-in-law and stay for a while in their lovely house in a small town in California. But something is a bit off. He seems guarded and mysterious at times, and a ring he gives Charlie has initials engraved on the inside of it-- why? Then two men show up at the house pretending to be taking some kind of poll while clearly more interested in something else. Charlie Newton begins to suspect something is up. This part of the film is deeply suspenseful and downright chilling at times. This is an intelligent script that lets a smart viewer believe in the situations that develop, and the reactions of characters, like Emma, the sister, who casually overlooks some of Uncle Charlies more outrageous statements about widowed women. Based on a real life criminal who was hanged in Canada, Uncle Charlie is disturbingly cool and calculating. There are sequences that also highlight how things have changed, such as the intimacy displayed (at first) between Uncle Charlie and his niece, who adores him. The family also goes to church, and makes short-shrift of the children's bad manners. A beautifully craft, clever, compelling story with one jarring scene at the end that just didn't seem believable today and seemed calculated just to bring closure to the cycle of tension and release established early on. A really remarkable film, and, indeed, possibly Hitchcock's best.
Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, MacDonald Carey, Hume Cronym, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge, Wallace Ford, Edna May Wonacott
Note: was remade in 2011, in 3D. In 1630 Japan, a unemployed samurai, Chijiiwa Motome, requests permission from a powerful clan, the Iyi, to commit seppuku in the courtyard of the Shogun's compound, a "honorable" ritual that involves assistance from an esteemed retainer. But with a lot samurai's out of work due to peace between the warlords, the Iyi suspect it is a bluff to extort some cash or a cushy retainer position from the clan. So they call the bluff and, to the horror of the samurai, arrange the ritual, making it almost impossible for him to evade completion of the ritual, though he begs for a two-day reprieve so he can arrange things for his wife and son. It is denied. It is also discovered that his samurai sword is actually bamboo: clearly, it was an attempt to extort money with no expectation of the honorable discharge of his duty. He is brutally forced to complete the seppuku using the bamboo sword, and cruelly mocked by Hayato, Umenosuke, and Hikokuro. A year later, another samurai, Tsugumo Hanshiro arrives making the same demand. He is warned of the fate of the last samurai making such a demand but he persists. The Iyi receive him and prepare to force him to complete the ritual as well, but when he demands, as his second, Hayato, and then Umenosuke, and then Hikokuro, it is found that all three are home claiming to be ill and refusing to attend. This gives Tsugumo time to relate his story. We find out that Motome was his adopted son, married to his daughter, father of young Kango. When his daughter and grandson became ill, Motome sold his swords to pay for a doctor. When that ran out, he was forced to make the suicide gamble, with no expectation that he would be taken up on it. This revelation exposes the cruel barbarity and hollowness of the bushido code. It is nothing more than a façade, a fraud. With that, he takes on the Iyi retainers killing 4 and wounding 9 before they kill him. We then hear Saito, the senior counsellor of the clan, declare that the retainers died of "illness" and nobody must ever learn of the disgrace, so that the myth of bushido can be perpetuated. History is written by the victors. Though "Hara-Kiri" is quite formal and schematic at times, and perhaps not up to the Kurosawa measure, it is a powerful story, beautifully filmed and acted, and captivating in its immersion in a strange culture in a strange land in a strange time.
Tatsuy Nakadai, Akira Ishihama, Shima Iwashita, Tetsuro Tanba, Masao Mishima, Ichiro Nakatani
Flat and dry. Barny is a smart, witty young woman in Saint Bernard in occupied France during World War II. She has a daughter by a Jewish man and sends her to live with a French family in the countryside while the Nazis are active in Saint Bernard. She has her daughter baptized and becomes intrigued with the handsome priest, teasing him with her pseudo atheistic ideas and intellectual pretentions, only to discover that she is wild attracted to him. She converts to Catholicism as the occupation comes to an end and the priest will be reassigned. There is the momentum of inertia here: the long discussions of philosophy and religion, and Leon Morin, the priest, stubbornly insisting on his principles and integrity, give the conclusion some heft, but, perhaps, not enough to make up for the archaic melodramatic acting style and the viewer's contempt for the ideology Morin represents: that smug, contemptuous, arrogant "authority" of the Catholic priest, grounded in what many people would rationally believe is self-promotion and ritual and privileged status.
Jean-Paul Belmondo, Emmanuelle Riva, Irene Tunc, Nicole Mirel, Gixsele Grimm
Huw Morgan is a bright boy with promising academic abilities living in small Welsh mining town with his large family who are all miners, except for the girls. The mining work is odious and his brothers support a union over dad's objections; school is led by a nasty English teacher who ridicules the boy from the mining town and applies the rod when he stands up for himself against bullies; the church is repressive and hypocritical, especially towards women and sexual morality. Huw tells us his story, about the travails of the family, his sister's ill-fated love for a young pastor, and his mother's devotion. Beautifully filmed in a fully recreated mining town (in California!) with large crowd scenes and occasional interludes by a Welsh choir appearing as miners (who get to play for the Queen, though we don't see it). Wonderfully well-acted, if a bit melodramatic (especially Maureen O'Hara) and beautifully filmed in black and white, a true classic. Yes, a bit of an artifact, with a dated style and some improbable events, but a fascinating depiction of a bygone era in a bygone style. Roddy McDowall is absolutely fabulous as young Huw, as is Sara Allgood as his mom, and Donald Crisp as dad.
Roddy McDowall, Walter PIdgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Donald Crisp, Ann Lee, Sara Allgood, Barry Fitzgerald, Rhys Williams, Arthur Shields
Extraordinary black and white film about the five years of Frederick Delius' life when Eric Fenby, after hearing a piece of Delius' music on the radio and the fact that he was paralyzed and blind, offered to act as his amanuensis and aid him in composing new works. "Song of Summer" is lyrical and poetic and wonderfully fresh. Delius was not self-pitying or morose: he was rude sometimes and unkind to his wife, and to Eric, but he was also spirited and enthusiastic in spite of his disabilities (which were mainly caused by syphilis-- he frequently cheated on his wife, Jelka during the early years of the marriage). Once he and Eric worked out a method of composing together, their partnership became quite productive. The scenes of their collaboration reminds one of the scene in "Amadeus" where Salieri plays the same role as Eric Fenby to Mozart, in composing the "Requiem". I was delighted to see actor Christopher Gable actually play the piano during those remarkable scenes. Nor is Eric Fenby the passive sympathizer we expect: he attends church which invites Delius' mockery, and he is offended on behalf of Jelka when Delius ridicules the institution of marriage. Quite the opposite of "The Sea Inside": Delius, paralyzed, blind, nevertheless embraces what is left of his life and continues to compose and listen to music and enjoy the nature around his beautiful home in France. And in spite of their differences, Fenby was inspired by him and later established himself as a music teacher and composer. Ken Russell himself believes this is his best film.
Max Adrian, Christopher Gable, Maureen Pryor, David Collings, Norman James, Roger Worrod, Elizabeth Ercy
Unusual film about a black filmmaker returning to his neighborhood to find out what happened to his childhood friends who did not escape the cycle of violence and poverty of their now gentrifying area of the city. What is fictionalized and what is autobiographical: we are not sure. Jay is obsessively interested in his best friend, Demetrius, but nobody will tell him what happened to him. Other friends are in prison or still hanging around the neighborhood doing drugs and dodging the police. New neighbors allow a dog to defecate on Jay's mother's lawn and his mother, Lavonee, gives them a piece of her mind. Even if they pick up, there is a "residue" and that touches on Germina's theme: that no neighborhood is ever cleanly swept away. The consequences of poverty and crime continue to exert it's influence on his friends and family. He is, at the same, conscious of his own absence: his friends imply that his escape was less than honorable, even if he had made something of his life that they haven't. This marked acutely by his conversation with Dion, an older boy who helped protect Jay and Demetrius when they were younger. He wrote many letters to Jay which he never answered. Dion is the tragic figure in this play, playing the friend Jay meets in the woods, and the broken man in prison, as if existing both in Jay's memory and the reality of their circumstances. Not a great film, but a good one, and moving at times.
Obinna Nwachukwu, Dennis Lindsey, Taline Stewart, Derron Scott, Jamal Graham, JaCari Dye, Julian Selman, Melody A. Tally, Ramon Thompson
Hildy Johnson has had it with being a reporter. And why shouldn't he: given the portrait of journalism in "The Front Page", reporters are bunch of uncouth, heavy drinking, mendacious brats. And the Chicago police and politicians are corrupt and self-serving. And Peggy, his fiancé, has an uncle who offers a well-paid job with an advertising agency in Philadelphia. But his boss, Editor Walter Burns, doesn't want to let him quit and connives to keep him working, particularly on a story about a Bolshevik (allegedly) cop-killer, Earl Williams, about to be hanged. Meanwhile, prostitute Mollie Malloy wants to marry Williams, on the gallows if necessary, and is furious at the newspapers for making up stories about her. Everyone is shown to be deceitful, dishonest, selfish, and mean in this version-- except for Peggy. Hildy's virtue is itself opportunistic but can he really quit the business of scooping his competitors with a bombshell? Very well written (it was, after all, a respected play before Wilder made his film version) and snappily directed and really a heck of film in many ways: the business of reporting isn't short-changed and the dialogue is caustic and sometimes brutal. A really worthwhile film in many respects even if you don't end up liking it very much. Carol Burnett is pathetically miscast as Molly, the prostitute; she's all hard-shell without the soul-full interior life the part calls for. She acknowledged as much and reportedly apologized to the passengers on a plane when the movie was shown as the in-flight entertainment. But Lemmon and Matthau are quite good and the support cast is above average, including Pendleton as the killer. Be it noted: Earl Williams escape-- as unlikely as it seemed-- is based on a real-life story of murderer Tommy O'Connor who escaped from Cook County Jail just days before his execution date in 1921. He was never found.
Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Susan Sarandon, Vincent Gardenia, David Wayne, Allen Garfield, Austin Pendleton, Charles Durning, Herb Edelman, Martin Gabel, Harold Gould, Doro Merande, Carol Burnett
Charming film about an old man who indulges in a whacky crusade to get the British government to provide free BBC to older people. He tries petitions and civil disobedience but when a famous painting of the Duke of Wellington disappears from a London museum it is clear he may have gone too far. There is a trial, and a twist, and rousing finish that doesn't come off as too contrived-- it is a true story-- and it's an enjoyable film at least partly because you are not likely to know the outcome of this below-the-radar story from the 1960's. Kempton Bunton was autodidact who wrote plays and drove a taxi and annoyed his long- suffering wife, Dorothy, with his tilting at windmills. He even spent 13 days in prison for refusing to pay the TV licensing fee. Broadbent and Mirren are very good in performances utterly free of vanity or pretense, and the recreation of that drab era in Britain is effective if depressing. It's a feel-good movie that doesn't make you feel compromised.
Jim Broadbent, Helen Mirren, Fionn Whitehead, Matthew Goode, Jack Dandeira
On April 28, 1996, Martin Bryant took several rifles and murdered 35 people, mostly at a tourist site, a former prison, in Port Arthur, Tasmania. As a result, Australia took dramatic action to reduce the number of firearms available in the country, purchasing back more than 300,000 of them from owners. By 2021, 75% fewer Australians own firearms than they did in 1996. Nitram ("Martin" spelled backwards) is a tasteful, restrained portrait of a mentally deficient (mental age: 11, IQ: 60) young man with no friends, few external relationships, and huge personality issues. Inspired at least partly by the Dunblane School massacre in Scotland, he took out his rage on tourists visiting a historical site in Port Arthur. "Nitram's" life just before the massacre is explored including his terrible relationship with his condescending mother and his strong relationship with a mild father who was crushed with disappointment when his plans to open a bed and breakfast fell through due to another couple hijacking his purchase while he was waiting for financing to come through. Nitram met a neighbor, Helen, while looking for lawnmowing jobs who befriended him. She had a small fortune from lottery winnings, a passion for "Gilbert & Sullivan" (and background in performance) and appears to have been as lonely as he was. He helped look after her 15 dogs and 40 cats and eventually moved in with her and she bought him cars and indulged his whims but his habit of grabbing the steering wheel while a passenger in her car eventually led to a terrible accident: she was killed and he ended up in the hospital for months, eventually returning home for a time. She bequeathed him her fortune and he traveled but found that nobody anywhere liked him. (In real life, he did enjoy the airplane trips because passengers in the seat next to him had no choice but converse with him.) Eventually, inspired by Dunblane, he decided to express his rage. He appeared to be pleased with his "score" and was sentenced to 35 life terms. "Nitram", like "In Cold Blood", was not well received by the people living in the area, or indeed, Australia, but, liked "In Cold Blood", though not nearly as powerful, it's a compelling film with good performances. If it makes you think a lot about misfits and how the mix of friendlessness and poor impulse control and a dysfunctional family can lead to a toxic outcome, it's done it's job. But you may also come away with an overwhelming impression of utter banality: Martin Bryant remains a vacuum, an empty shell of an empty person.
Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis, Anthony LaPaglia, Sean Keenan, Essie Davis
China's rise to a global economic power is the product of a comprehensive policy of wrenching every last ounce of productivity out of a subservient, unquestioning population, who simultaneously are asked to buy-in to a materialist, consumerist mindset. It's like American capitalism with crayons: contrived, artificial, and mesmerizing in it's passionless passion for more trinkets and cars and fashion. Beautifully filmed with no narration or commentary other than the "overheard" discussions of workers and customers and trainers. The scale of the Chinese juggernaut is fascinating all by itself, as are the snatches of relative honest conversation by the few individuals considering China's place in the world. Everyone is driven to buy into to China's great history and brilliant future destiny.
Though a large majority of Americans thought it was right and good and natural for the government to pay off the families of victims of the 9/11 attacks, it was not. This was a completely original application of government resources that had never been done before, and it was at the behest of the airline industry which convinced the government-- and the makers of this movie-- that the nation would suffer immense economic harm if existing law was permitted to prevail and the airlines were sued like they should have been in a capitalist free enterprise economy. Remember all that blather you heard about toxic dependency? Yeah, that's only for immigrants and black people. So the U.S. government broke all of it's own rules and decided that it would pay off the families of victims so the airlines could continue to pay off its shareholders and executives. Next problem: how to decide who gets what? We are the government: we have trillions. Line up and put your hands out everyone. And remember, repeat after me, "it's not about the money". Let's work on the euphemisms for it: to bring closure; to ensure dignity; to make sure this never happens again; to bless the children and the kittens and the apple pie. Meet Ken Feinberg, who, you should know, has been repeatedly hired (subsequent to 9/11) by large, powerful corporations like BP and Boeing to handle massive claims distributions after great big disasters. (Most recently, he has managed the 737 Max victim fund). Feinberg is asked by John Ashcroft to be the master of the compensation fund for victims of 9/11 and to the credit of "Worth" he is shown to be, at first, pretty clueless about managing the delicate feelings of the victim's families. But the film does want it both ways: the families cannot be seen to be a mob of greedy materialists salivating at huge financial rewards. It's not about the money, right? But it is always about the money and even the supposedly "pure" Donato family that sneers at the idea of taking compensation eventually joins the suit. Possibly the gravest hypocrisy in the U.S. right now is this absolute bullshit that people get away with when suing someone for a grievous loss. It is always about the money. "Worth" is far more honest than I expected about that, and presents some interesting dialogue about how the "worth" of a human life is determined. Should a janitor's family get the same payout as a rich executive? (The initial plan, which rightly offended so many of the litigants.) And what about the children of a fireman by a woman with whom he was having a secret affair? Even more delicate: the gay partner of one man who lived in Virginia which did not allow for gay spouses. "Worth" is above average in it's handling of these subjects, and relatively self-effacing-- for a time-- about Feinberg himself. Perhaps that is because it was critical to present him credibly while soft-pedalling the fact that this was all, all, really about sparing the airlines shareholders the cost of their liability for 9/11, and for allowing juries to award scads and scads of millions of dollars for "pain and suffering" to family members who can cry on cue on the stand during a trial. We are also shielded from detailed discussion about the percentage of a settlement sucked up by the lawyers in cases like this. (Astonishingly, Feinberg's entry in Wikipedia contains no personal information!). The most depressing thing about this entire episode is how the government continues to resist any serious discussion about compensating the families of victims of slavery, or racial violence, in any form whatsoever. I'm not saying there is no argument against it-- there is. I'm just noting how obvious the difference is between these two constituencies, and how quickly we can disregard and make exceptions to policy whenever we feel like it.
Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, Amy Ryan, Tate Donovan, Shunori Ramanathan, Talia Balsam, Laura Benanti, Chris Tardio, Victor Slezak
Impressionist biographical story of Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, a French composer who refused, by 17th century standards, to sell out (by taking an appointment at the court). Colombe's wife dies young leaving him with two daughters, Madeleine and Toinette, whom he schools devoutly in music, while composing baroque masterworks of his own. The family give concerts and come to the attention of Versailles (Louis XIV) but de Colombe rejects the facile trinkets of the world for a pure devotion to his music. His student, Marin Marais, is constantly castigated for his shallow artistry: "you make music; you are not a musician". But Marais develops well-enough to be called to Versailles and unlike de Colombe succumbs to vanity and materialism and becomes famous. And, of course, he breaks Madeleine's heart. Her love for Marin is as pure as her father's for music and she starves herself to death in desolation. Beautifully filmed, demanding of the listener, lavish with the music that made de Colombe famous after his death.
Gerard Depardieu, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Anne Brochet, Guillaume Depardieu, Carole Richert, Michel Bouquet, Jean-Claude Dreyfus
Pixar-Disney animation about a 13-year-old girl, Mielin, who suddenly turns into a large red Panda whenever she experiences any strong emotions. The program here is that it is good and healthy and therapeutic to follow your psychologist's instructions and let your emotions out, even though your repressed mother disapproves. This vomit-inducing program is offset by charmingly faithful recreation of Toronto as setting, and relatively open discussion of menstruation. Well-- "relatively". And the Asian character don't use that stultifying humour accent as in "Kim's Convenience" and almost every other North American film with Asians in it. And let's give them credit for a father that is refreshingly decent and sensible; it's the mother's that are hysterical and repressed and controlling. That said, the program is a program: Meilin is obnoxiously self-centered: everything is about me. Yes, MElin. And it's all about being affirmed no matter how annoying your character, and her character IS annoying. The imagery is trendily trendy: the latest in computer generated animation, noisy, lots of sound effects, music by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O'Connell because that is the program-- get a trendy pseudo-independent female artist to front the production team. The "magical", fantasy aspects of the story don't mesh very well with the uncanny valley rest of the tale. They are jarring and provoke the unwelcome awareness of the fact that none of Meilin's friends have anything like a panda moment. Why not? Because they are not Asian? And Ming's destruction of the Skydome means they have to raise money to repair it. But if a giant Panda can stomp the Skydome in this universe, why can't it pay for it? And no one was seriously injured? Anyway, Disney has it's own standard of excellence: impeccably rendered, impeccably conceived, impeccably parental approved, impeccably suffused with the latest most acceptable cliches, and always culminating with the restoration of FAMILY, the safest, most predictable and yawn-inducing trope of all.
Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Ava Morse, Hyein Park, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Orion Lee, Wai Ching Ho, Tristan Allerick Chen
Locally produced documentary on Kitchener-Waterloo's legendary status as a live music hotspot during the 1960's and 1970's, featuring loads of black and white pictures with music derived from elsewhere-- sometimes live, sometimes not. One suspects local blues performer Matt Weidinger had an in-- he gets a random call-out at the beginning and end of the movie-- and University of Waterloo promoter Joe Recchia gets considerable air time, including a cute story about Supertramp playing at a party in his backyard while teenage girls were skinny-dipping in his pool. The music is fun to listen to again, but obviously there isn't much if any actual footage of any of the performances they talk about and the commentary, especially when it gets to the post-Napster era, is pedestrian at best. Kids these days! Also annoying is how these promoters talk about music as a commodity, with Supertramp and the Bee Gees and Elton John and Led Zeppelin all interchangeable with Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell or Neil Young-- all pieces of the entertainment pie, and the looks of delight on the dancing crowds is the meaning. There is not a single interview with any of the majors, nor is there any really interesting commentary on any of it.
Joe Recchia, Gary Stewart, Grant Hoffmann, Matt Weidinger
Very charming story about a teacher working for the public system in Bhutan being assigned to a very remote village, Lunana, in the mountains for a school year. He wants to move to Australia to become a singer but he's in the bad books of his administrator and has to finish his "term". So he sets off by bus and then by foot-- 8 days hike-- to the tiny town of Lunana where, indeed, he finds a yak in his classroom, as well as the adorably kind and friendly yak farmers and their children. Of course there is a transformative experience, but it isn't all predictable, and the exotic location and customs provide a decent return for a likeable film. The cast is mostly from the actual village in Bhutan and most of them had never seen a film before, or a tv or a cell phone, or even a toothbrush. Surely, they embraced the idea of a film about their village, and they perform well.
Sherab Dorji, Ugyen Norbu Lhendup, Keiden Lhamo Gurung, Pem Zam, Sangay Lham, Chimi Dem
Penelop Cruz and Almodovar must have both been sleepwalking through this one. Cruz is Janis, an older photographer, single, who has a casual affair with Arturo leading to a child, born on the same day as Ana's child. The two mothers, from different backgrounds, connect and occasionally at first maintain some contact. Then Ana, at odds with her mother, moves in with Janis for a time. There are significant developments that lead to a moral crisis for Janis in a story that runs parallel to Janis' involvement in a forensic dig to track down some victims of Franco's atrocities. What's the connection exactly? I suppose we are suppose to think deeply about the consequences of moral choices and the contamination that compromise brings to our consciences. But the dig for bodies and the confrontation between Ana and Janis seem randomly connected at best: the case is not made. Cruz was inexplicably nominated for an academy award for this role, which I suspect is nothing more than residual admiration for previous performances.
Penelope Cruz, Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, Rossy De Palma, Julieta Serrano
Surprisingly tolerable biopic of Richard Williams and his audacious plan to have children with his second wife, Oracene, and raise them up to be tennis stars. This film would have you believe he did it to give his girls glorious lives, but he clearly attributed the idea, in real life, to his discovery that tennis players can earn $40,000 in prize money at a given tournament. So it's really all about Richard and the movie is careful to clean up his reputation by repeatedly insisting that the girls loved practicing in the morning before school and after school and all weekend and didn't mind him micromanaging their lives at all. They are jolly and happy in "King Richard" but one is rightly skeptical. That said, "King Richard" is better than expected, with the best scenes being those in which his wife, Oracene, expresses, for the viewer, exasperation with this annoying, domineering, bullying man. Unfortunately, we do fall into the awful trope of voice-overs of commentators to make sure we know just how incredibly fantastic and unexpected and unbelievable the fact that some girls in California can play tennis better than most. Cue the "stirring" music, and a crowd of young black girls to greet Venus after her triumphant loss in her first tournament at 14. The kids are okay and Will Smith is better than you expect, and it's a pleasure to hear Richard denounce other parents for being too pushy(! Seriously?). And we do get a glimpse of the repugnant system of exploitation that dominates professional sports at all levels. Think your kid might be a future tennis star? Fork over $50K to make sure she gets trained right or forget about it.
Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis, Jon Bernthal, Saniyya Sidney, Demi Singleton, Tony Goldwyn, Mikayla Lashae Bartholomew, Daniele Lawson
Based on novel by William Lindsay Gresham. Oddly stodgy beautifully filmed version of an old Cecil B. De Mille formula: bad guy has some initial success, wins over the virginal dame, then receives his comeuppance. I don't think it's really pleasing on any level: there is not much new to add to the formula, at least not here. It's an update of "Freaks" with the advantage of an updated, unkind sensibility of what it means to be a "freak": these are not mysteriously lovable creatures; they are dangerous and necessarily remote. That's what the public pays to see. So Stanton-- the real "freak", of course-- or is he?-- or is everybody?-- takes to preying on his marks' superstitions, and on their desperate need to believe in magic. Ezra Grindle needs more than just contact: he needs to believe he is forgiven for a terrible misdeed, and when Stanton is unable to deliver, disaster ensues. He meets his just desserts. I was surprised that del Toro was satisfied with that narrative. Could we not at least be updated to the reality that crime often does pay? That psychopaths like Stanton rule the corporate world and build monuments to themselves? I don't mind if he want to dissent but he didn't dissent: he followed an outdate formula, very closely. It must said, however, that "Nightmare Alley" is gorgeously film, with wonderful reconstructions of the era and the environment, the circus, the stately mansions and public buildings.
Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Toni Collette, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, David Strathairn, Mark Povinelli, Peter MacNeill
The key moral centre of "Bombshell" is Kayla Pospisil-- a fictitious character who walks out of Fox News at the end, in disgust. That tells you something about the weird moral context of "Bombshell", because the other characters, Megyn Kelly, Gretchen Carlson and others are compromised by a) consenting to work for the king of fake news, Roger Ailes, b) willingly exchanging sexual compromise for prominent positions on the network, which, as this film does not make clear, were the result of these compromises. There's still something likeable about the clear suggestion that Fox News is all about sensation and triviality and that Kelly and Carlson were both symptoms and products of that dynamic. Generally well filmed, if workmanlike, but the make-up, again, intended to assure the audience that, yes, that is Gretchen Carlson, is just plain dumb. Kidman looks creepy as hell, Theron looks frozen, and Ailes looks like he was inflated with helium. The most chilling sequences is Kelly getting into an elevator with Pospisil knowing full well where she was headed, and the dialogue between the two in which Pospisil lambastes Kelly for her silence, allowing Ailes to continue his predatorial behaviour with impunity. The problem is that this glosses over the central issue: if you were offered stardom in exchange for a BJ of a disgusting old man, would you take it? Clearly some did. Then, do you still get to claim an injustice when you got what you were offered in exchange for what you were willing to give? To it's credit, "Bombshell" suggests this paradox, even if it backs away from it in the end.
Margot Robbie, Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron, John Lithgow, Malcolm McDowell, Allison Janney, Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, Mark Moses, Nazanin Boniadi
Everything is almost perfect: Latino actors playing Latino characters, a new Maria of the same age as the character, gritty beautifully lit sets, detail, detail, detail. And yet the whole is less than the parts. Spielberg's direction is a marvel to behold, tasteful and innovative, meticulously constructed sequences; and the actors are generally quite good, and they all sing their own songs (no dubbing), and they even did a few parts "live", though Rachel Zegler sounds too Disney Princess for the part. Why is it all kind of dull and lifeless? I'll offer three possible explanations. Firstly, the music is a dull Williamsesque (John Williams consulted) replicant of the original soundtrack-- which is somewhat astonishing considering it's age. Why? I have no idea, and think that's why: Spielberg had no alternative idea that he liked. He could have started with a different arranger, but then, he might not have received permission. Secondly, the dancing and the general concept are unchanged from the original. We can see the original whenever, so why? Thirdly, this version is so faithful to the original stage version that it defeats any attempt to link it to more contemporary issues, even though Spielberg thought it would (given the current political divide in America). It's just too quaint. The actors superbly execute roles that have long lost their freshness. And we get silliness: Spielberg subtitled the English for European viewers but refused to subtitle the Spanish for American viewers because that would denote Spanish as a "second-class" language. Seriously? Yes, there some wokeness here. Finally, is the music for "West Side Story" by Elmer Bernstein all that great in the first place? It's still a damn musical and like all musicals inescapably silly at times.
Ansel Elgot, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Rita Moreno, Brian D'Arcy James, Mike Faist, Josh Andres Rivera, Iris Menas
To appreciate this film, which, at first glance, appears ripe for cliché and schmaltz, one must appreciate that it really is a widely accepted idea in China that one should not tell Grandma if the prognosis is very bad. Let her enjoy her last few months of life without despair. So the family of matriarch Nai Nai arranges a fake wedding so they can all gather, from America and Japan and elsewhere, to have one last grand family gathering to appreciate her, all while pretending that nothing is amiss. And this really did happen to the family of director/writer Lulu Wang (who told this story on "This American Life".) In fact, Nai Nai's sister plays herself in the film. The Chinese doctor plays along with this, informing Nai Nai's sister of her condition, and leaving it up to family to inform Nai Nai if they so choose. That sequence ties the plot to a relatively credible stream leaving the audience free to enjoy the interactions of the well-played family, dad, mom, and cousins, who all have a few issues of their own to deal with-- like why did everyone leave China leaving no one to look after Nai Nai? We are mainly kept company by Billi played by comedienne Awkwafina, who isn't about to get married, barely has a career, and has issues with her seemingly cold-hearted mother. She also can't believe they are not going to tell Nai Nai about her condition but seems open to letting things unfold to see how it works. We get to see lovely exotic details about customs at Chinese weddings and family gatherings, and a lot of food.
Shuzhen Zhao, Awkwafina, Hong Lu, X Mayo, Hong Lin, Tzi Ma, Diana Lin, Yang Xuejian, Aoi Mizuhara, Han Chen, Hongli Liu
One must put one's spin on it: filmed in black & white, on a soundstage, Coen's Macbeth is darn well smooth and professional and generally impressive if somewhat forgettable. Denzel Washington starts out a bit method but grows into the role and does impress in the end. The sound stage is mighty big and spacious and Coen uses the space well to create a large echo of the lead characters' increasing isolation as he compounds his transgression with more and more evil, confident that, as the weird sisters predicted, he cannot be harmed, until he learns that he can. I did think, occasionally, that the main advantage of a filmed version of Shakespeare is the ability to film outdoors, in real locations, real weather, and real terrains. Here, of course, all that is foregone in exchange for subtle shifts of gray, as if Macbeth really, really wanted more space.
Denzel Wash9ington, Frances McDormand, Alex Hassell, Bertie Carvel, Brandan Gleeson, Corey Hawkins, Harry Melling, Miles Anderson, Matt Helm, Moses Ingram, Kathryn Hunter
Moving documentary about gay Afghan refugee Amin Nawabi's horrifying experiences fleeing his home to Russia and then Denmark told largely through animation. Amin's father was loyal to the Communists when the mujahedeen took over in 1989, and disappeared shortly afterwards. Amin's family fled to Moscow where they lived without papers for years while trying to get to Sweden where a brother lived. The brother felt compelled to pay for a trafficker to get them out and the first attempt failed, and the second attempt ending up splitting the family. Amin tells the story in a compelling, dramatic way that broadens the scope from a personal story of escape from terrible circumstances to the story of refugees in general, fleeing oppressive and violent regimes for the promised land of western liberal democracies.
Daniel Karimyar, Fardin Mijdzadeh, Milad Eskandari, Mikhail Belinson, Sadia Faiz
Perhaps the biggest lie in "The Courier" is Rachel Bresnahan's portrayal of a fictional American CIA agent, Emily Donovan, who really is quite smart and caring and sensible and a contrast to the hard-hearted, ruthless British handlers of British spy Greville Wynne. Really? It's clearly a sop to feminism and an insulting one at that. Wynne was a businessman recruited by M1 to receive documents from Oleg Penkovsky, who wants to defect (in the movie, to give his family a better life; in reality, he also wanted a military rank and other benefits). Wynne wrote his own biography but it appears to have been rife with fibs and exaggerations, so screen-writer O'Connor had to sift through the material to come up with something a tiny bit credible. So why, then, does he have Wynne arrested on a plane when he was actually arrested in Budapest while leaving a trade show? We are also given to understand--in one melodramatic bullshit exchange-- that Wynne helped prevent nuclear war over the Russian missiles being installed in Cuba. Maybe he contributed somewhat, but there were many reasons the U.S. knew about the missiles and were able to prove their existence at the U.N. Not well-acted or directed or conceived, "The Courier" muddles through the usual tropes about Soviet life and the dangers of international espionage without finding any real intensity or drama. We see the loyal wife redeeming her husband at the end (in real life, she almost immediately divorced him after his return) and we see the CIA agent, Donovan, explaining to Wynne's wife why the Soviets are holding her husband-- would she have done that? Wouldn't they have wanted his wife to really believe he was innocent? And we get Cumberbatch, a good actor suddenly sloppy and over-wrought, and scraping for character in vain.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel Brosnahan, Merab Ninidze, Jessie Buckley, Angus Wright
Julie is a young woman training to be a doctor-- for a while. She is at a transitional point in her life, as we all are at that age: unsure of what she wants to do or be, and who she wants to do it with. She enters a relationship with an older man, a graphic novel artist, who eventually realizes the age difference is a problem. Director Joachim Trier stated: "A film that will look seriously at the difficulties of meeting someone when you're struggling to figure out your own life; at how irresolute and uncertain even the most rational and otherwise self-confident people can become when they fall in love; and how complicated it is, even for romantics, when they actually get what they have been dreaming about." The film did indeed remind me of what it was like in college, particularly of a woman I knew who was struggling hard to resolve feelings for a man who had left her and new man in her life who wanted to marry her. "Worst" had the feel right, mostly, and was quite compelling at times. It lost a lot of points for me in the scenes in which Julie visits her former lover, Aksel, who is dying of cancer, and in which Aksel sounds, for all the world, like a college sophomore's imagination of what a dying person would sound like. What he sounds like is absolutely what Julie would want to hear: that she was a great lover, a good person, and the love of his life. It's rose-colored and nostalgic and lacks any real insight into the state-of-mind of a relatively young man who is facing his own mortality. Highly-praised in spit of its flaws. Reminded me of "Frances Ha" in many respects.
Renate Reinsve, Danielsen Lie Anders, Maria Grazia Di Meo, Herbert Nordrum, Mia McGovern Zaini, Hans Olav Brenner
Dodsworth is a successful businessman, a maker of cars, who has just sold his business to a big combine and wants to expand his horizons with a trip to Europe. His wife, Fran, is a bit vulgar, impulsive, and much younger than him. She is tempted by adventure and exotic experience, while he is skeptical of going too far. Fran is supposed to be dazzlingly charming and beautiful but Ruth Chatterton doesn't evince either of those qualities to the viewer. The fact is that Chatterton was herself entering her 40's at the time and wanted to play Fran more broadly, in conflict with Wyler's more sensitive perception of the role. They do travel and Fran is tempted and Dodsworth, full of mid-western common sense and humility, goes home by himself, then returns, then travels some more and meets up with Edith Cortright, a sensible, genuinely charming American ex-patriot living in Italy. The film is fascinating on one level as a relic of a bygone era: everyone smokes everywhere, and drinks, and the values expressed are precisely those now despised by the Trumpian horde: sophistication, education, culture. Well-written and generally well- acted (in an archaic, breathless, pseudo-British) style, it's also interesting in its dissection of the clash of values of Americans with Europeans, and it doesn't quite take the side you expect.
Walter Huston, Mary Astor, Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas, Gregory Gaye, David Niven, Maria Ouspenskaya, John Payne
Based on the French movie "La Famille Belier", charming and likeable drama about a "Coda" (Child of Deaf Adults) who is confronted with a potentially life-altering decision when a music teacher discovers her remarkable singing talent and guides her to apply to the Berklee school of music. The trouble is, her deaf parents and brother depend on her to manage the fishing enterprise (shown with convincing detail), and she is romantically attached to someone who might not be on the same path. Filmed using real deaf actors-- well-done!--and, astonishingly, without Autotune or other cheating mechanisms, "Coda" has a heart and resists most-- but not all-- of the most obvious clichés. Emilia Jones is quite good and her singing about right for what we know of the character-- not diva, and not over-bearing. That said, I could have (and did) predicted that they would find some device to give the impression that she had to be dragged into performing for people because heaven forbid we think that she has an ego or thinks highly of her own talent. Do you know anyone who sings in public? She also starts off her audition with a timid, half-hearted attempt, something I doubt the real person would have done: once you're in, you know there is only one way to do it, whole-heartedly, with commitment. But --spoiler alert-- there is a clever twist in that scene that is somewhat redemptive (she signs the song to her parents and brother watching from the balcony).
Emilia Jones, Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant, John Fiore, Amy Forsyth, Eugenio Derbez, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo
Scattered and jarringly random collection of vignettes about a group of family members, neighbor, and friends trapped in their over-heated house by AI managed robots. Credit to Jeunet that the robots are not people, don't have real feelings, and are full of bugs. When they try to leave, the robots seal the house and begin purifying it of subversive literature. The humans, including a divorced woman, her ex, her ex's fiancé, her daughter, a romantic friend and his son, and a neighbor, struggle against the defective machines to comic and frustratingly sitcomish effect. Unlike Jeunet's "Delicatessen", "Big Bug" never really takes off and never finds a balance between narrative and situation comedy. The robots are fun for a while and the leering face of the fearful Yonyx is impressive but everything else feels like it was thrown in simply to drive home the point that machines malfunction. If you believed they could be perfected, nothing in "Big Bug" would really frighten you. And some of the better elements are clearly inspired by "Terminator", "Blade Runner", "I, Robot", "Dr. Strangelove" and other better films. At least he mocks the idea of robots having real feelings, for which I give credit.
Isabelle Nanty, Elsa Zylberstein, Claude Perron, Stephane De Groodt, Youssef Hajdi, Claire Chust, Francois Levantal, Alban Lenoir, Marysole Fertard, Helie Thonnat
"Being the Ricardos" leaves you puzzled as to why Aaron Sorkin would take this on. What was so interesting about this story? Whatever it was is not there up on the screen along with Nicole Kidman's uncanny valley face looking more like a robotic replacement than the real Lucille Ball. And though there's a feminist angle to Sorkin's approach and we see Lucy coming up with "brilliant" ideas (hey Bill and Viv-- fall off a chair), it was Jess Oppenheimer who created the show and most of its content. The plot is driven by three crises in the lives of Lucy and Desi: the accusation (true) that Lucy had once belonged to the Communist Party, Lucy's pregnancy and the network's puritanical policy towards sexual matters, and Desi's infidelity (also true). The characters are, to Sorkin's credit, complex, rounded, and they do come to life-- especially William Frawley by the excellent J. K. Simmons. I thought it lacked focus and energy as I watched it but as I started writing about how lacking it was I began to think it didn't, really. I think it is above average. But I wished it would have done more to explain why America found a character who is fundamentally obnoxious and whom we dislike in real life so adorable, especially in the trashy sequels to "I Love Lucy" that wallowed in repetitive slapstick and cliché. And why on earth did Sorkin give Arnaz a nice patriotic speech about how his family had to flee Cuba because the communists were coming for them when Arnaz left Cuba in 1933, well before Castro's revolution. That is contemptible on Sorkin's part, and cheap. It's pandering. And it reminds us of the uncomfortable reasons why Americans love characters like Lucy. Is it because "I Love Lucy" and it's imitators convince us that we are all lovable in spite of the dumb predicaments we get ourselves into and how self-centred and narcissistic we all are? And why are actors portraying writers Bob Carroll and Madelyn Pugh and show-runner Jess Oppenheimer as old Bob Carroll and Madelyn Pugh and Jess Oppenheimer commenting on a week in the life of the Lucy shows that did not happen as shown (the events were actually far apart in time)? Why do people think sitcom characters are real and are our friends?
Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem, J. K. Simmons, Nina Arianda, Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat, Jake Lacy, Linda Lavin, Ronny Cox, John Rubinstein
Based on the stellar novel by Elena Ferrante, "The Lost Daughter" is one of the harshest and most honest treatments of motherhood I have seen. Leda is vacationing at a pleasant cottage on a Greek Island, looking forward to isolation and contemplation, until a large American family arrives at the cottage next door, including young Nina, a woman struggling with her own marital and maternal issues. As Leda chats with her and becomes involved in her affairs, she contemplates and remembers her own experience as a mother of Bianca and Martha, and her own failure to resolve issues of identity and career and motherhood, leading to a shocking revelation about her own life that she has resolutely compartmentalized. She is unapologetic but that doesn't mean she isn't sometimes ambushed by feelings of desolation and inadequacy. Still, she does things in the film that seem inexplicable, perverse, as if it is her way of confronting her own demons. I think represents a step forward for so-called feminist cinema: a maturity that includes caustic admissions.
Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Ed Harris, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard, Dagmara Dominczyk, Paul Mescal, Alexandros Mylonas, Panos Koronis, Robyn Elwell
Disappointing autobiographical film by the director of "The Great Beauty". Fabietto (the stand-in for Sorrentino) is 16, enchanted by an older aunt's sexual beauty (and so is she: she parades around nude in front of the family on a boat), and interested in becoming a film director. He also is a huge football fan and he dreams of the Napoli trading for Maradona and contending for the championship. His brother auditions for Fellini. The family seems quite affluent, enjoying beautiful afternoons on the sea, on a boat, at a seaside house. They yell and scream at each other, make accusations, forgive, and stare at their Aunt Maria. A sister refuses to come out of the bathroom. Reminiscent of Fellini's "Amacord" in it's gluttonous embrace of voluptuous sexuality and architectural beauty. Yet, never seems to find a tone that meets the expectation offered: the memories seem inchoate and random and less than the whole of Sorrentino's formation as a nascent talent.
Taking a Rashomon approach to the real story of Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris. Le Gris may or may not have raped Jean's wife while he was off pleading a legal issue in Paris and his mother was off shopping in a nearby village with the servants. We hear the three versions: Jean and Jacques explaining how good friends came to be deadly foes, and Jean's wife, Marguerite, how she came to be raped by Jacques. Imposing a modern feminist ideology on the story, Marguerite gets to testify at the trial: in real life, no such thing happened. In fact, there is legitimate suspicion that the rape issue was alleged by de Carrouges as part of his legal proceedings against Le Gris over land he had expected to inherit from his wife's father's estate, as part of the dowry. In fairness, the film leaves open the issue of whether the rape really occurred, suggesting ambiguity in the relationships. Well-acted and beautifully rendered and with more respect for actual historical accuracy than one comes to expect from a Hollywood drama, the film was, nonetheless, a disaster, which its makers blamed on millennials' and their cell-phone mentality and lack of interest in history.
Adam Driver, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Harriet Walter, Jodie Comer, Alex Lawther, Oliver Cotton
Fascinating piece of arcana, a film shot in the Ukraine with mostly people of the Hutsuls from the local villages where the film was shot, "on location", featuring richly detailed customs and practices of the Hutsul people. Ivan falls in love with Marichka, his childhood friend and crush, gets her pregnant, but while he is off shepherding in the mountains, she drowns in an accident and he is forced to live out his life in tragic deprivation, though he eventually marries a lustful village girl without really giving up his love for the dead Marichka. When Palagna, his new wife, fails to conceive, he becomes even more obsessed with Marichka's grave. Completely un-Hollywood in film technique (like panning quickly, from right to left, through a forest to find various actors in costume on horseback). And some very striking images of villagers in costume, or enacting marriage ceremonies.
Ivan Mikolaychuk, Larisa Kadochnikova, Tatyana Bestayeva, Spartak Bagashvili, Nikolay Grinko, Aleksandr Gai, Nina Alisova, Aleksandr Raydanov, Neonila Gnepovskaya
Tony and Chris are film-makers and fans of Ingmar Bergman who get to spend a summer living in his house on Faro and touring the locations of the films Bergman made on the island. They are both working on projects with varying levels of success and some of the elements of Bergman's films begin to creep into their ideas and into their relationship. Tony is much older, Chris wants a child, but also wants to keep her identity as a writer and actress. Sometimes they squabble and she wanders off on her own while he takes "The Bergman Safari", and meets a young man with whom engages in mild flirtation. She asks Tony to help her with the ending of a story she is writing, something self-centred and feminine, about a woman who seeks and couples with a lost first-love at his wedding, while obsessed with the appropriateness of her slightly off-white (or not) dress. So we get a parallel film within film, and it works, and it's interesting even if this film is, over-all, low-key and more meditative than expository.
Vicky Krieps, Tim Roth, Mia Wasikowska, Anders Danielsen Lie, Joel Spira, Grace Delrue, Clara Strauch, Stig Bjorkman
We are told that Anderson had a crush on a teacher once and this inspired this story a 15-year-old boy, Gary Valentine, with a crush on a teacher (she is really young in this version, though definitely within an expected range-- late 20's) and his determination to court her. But "American Graffiti" must also be an inspiration-- the tone and rambling exposition clearly evoke a film that was played to the memories of baby-boomers the way this one plays to the generation after them. Alana--the teacher-- is just as determined to not enter a relationship with a much younger boy but she is not hostile and he has ideas for making money-- selling waterbeds, among others-- and she's onboard with that, while denying that their relationship is anything but business. It's a portrait of an era, and Anderson doesn't disappoint in recreating little fetishistic sequences for the 70's, like the dance show with the Lucy-ish hostess that Gary stars in, and the restaurants, and the fads. Fresh and funny and poignant at times-- there is an edge there, as when Alana starts hanging out with some older men--and liberated by it's cast of largely unknowns and some choice knowns: Sean Penn, Tom Waits, and Bradley Cooper. But if asked what you would remember this film for, I'm not sure what the answer would be. An era well-remembered by baby-boomers, recreated, warts and all.
Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Will Angarola
Daring, unconventional documentary on Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, and the underground culture that emerged into and out of Andy Warhol's "Factory" in the 1960's. Generous interviews with collaborators and friends, including Reed's sister, and examples of Warhol's films and the music. I am not a fan of avant-garde film, or of Warhol's work, so I don't admire Hayne's attempts to mimic it, but the content is interesting enough on its own, though dark. One feels, after watching this film, that this band and artist never quite escaped the dark side of the underground culture they embraced: there are numerous deaths, from drug abuse, alcohol, suicide. Nico, of course, died of a fall. Tellingly, the songs we all know Reed for were his most mainstream inventions: pop confections, in a way, though his minimalist improvisational style was miles ahead of its time.
Lou Reed, Mary Woronov, Jackson Browne, John Waters, Allen Ginsberg, John Cale, Maureen Tucker, Amy Taubin, Sterling Morrison, Danny Fields
Odd story about a freelance radio interviewer who is asked to look after his sister's son while she deals with a bipolar ex-husband. Johnny is working a project: interviewing children about themselves, their futures, their worlds. These segments are neatly interwoven with scenes of him interacting with Jesse, traveling, working, sleeping or not. The film is carried by Woody Norman as Jesse, a charismatic child-actor who seems wonderfully comfortable in dialogues primarily with Johnny. He asks precocious questions about life, marriage, and love, and plays a fantasy game about orphans and lost children. Gaby Hoffman is also excellent as Viv, believably trusting Johnny with Jesse while coping with extraordinary stress. Breezy at times, and poetic at others, beautifully filmed in black and white with delicate overlapping interview responses from the children. Upon second viewing, it is strikingly obvious how much of the movie is a dramatized illustration of the wonders of psychological counselling and therapy for children. Jesse is clearly "diagnosed" as grieving his father's absence, and Johnny is clearly acting (unconsciously, given the film's conceit) as a therapist, encouraging Jesse to "get it all out" at one point, and constantly quizzing him on how he's feeling and telling him it's okay for him to be angry. The main problem with that is that Jesse becomes a little too much the satisfied customer for the thing Johnny is selling and everything is bit neatly packaged.
Gaby Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Woody Norman, Scoot McNairy, Molly Webster, Jaboukie Young-White
Ema is, in short, a piece of work. She is a dancer of great exuberance and energy, a wife to a choreographer, a mother then not a mother to a disruptive 8-year-old boy named Polo. Was he really so disruptive? Her husband, Gaston, seems to blame her for returning the boy to the adoption agency. This experience haunts both of them as Ema explores various sexual relationships with both genders, and her dancing, and teaching, all in dysfunctional disarray. Ema is dominant in the film: it's all about her beautiful, evocative face, her cool, her recklessness (at several points, with a flame-thrower). She is surrounded by friends but her dance group hates her, and her husband, for their abandonment of Polo. Odd film, mesmerizing at times, but sometimes loses its momentum to provocative but unrealized developments.
Mariana Di Girolamo, Gael Garcia Bernal, Santiago Cabrera, Paola Giannini, Cristian Suarez, Giannina Fruttero
Yusuke Kafuku is a director/actor whose life begins to play out like the Chekhov play he is eventually tasked to direct in Hiroshima. His wife, who has had several affairs that he knows about, dies suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage. Their only child died years early, when she was four. He is beset by melancholy when he arrives in Hiroshima, where, because of theatre policy, he is attached to a driver, a young woman named Misaki Watari, who becomes his taciturn companion and, increasingly, friend, as he navigates his sorrows, the process of casting and rehearsing "Uncle Vanya". Among the cast is a young man he knows had an affair with his wife. Slow-moving at times, or elegiac, "Drive My Car" proceeds with stately sequences, patiently building a drama about loss and sorrow and the role of drama in exploring our own feelings about our past in future. In one remarkable scene, a deaf actor, who communicates in sign language, delivers a keynote speech from the play, and her hands and face become a marvel of tonality and subtlety. The sequence goes on far longer than you expect, and resonates far more deeply.
Hidetoshi Nishijima, Toko Miura, Reika Kirishima, Yoo-rim Park, Dae-Young Jin, Masaki Okada
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