Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

“LOST GIRLS”: Theraputic rage

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 22, 2020| 1 Comment »

Amy Ryan

“LOST GIRLS” My rating: B (Now on Netflix)

95 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Anger radiates from “Lost Girls” like steam from a boiling pot.  It swirls around us; we inhale it; we burn with it.

Liz Garbus’ film is about the decade-old (and still unsolved) case of the Long Island serial killer, believed responsible for the deaths of at least 10 young women.

But it’s not a police procedural. More like a study of official indifference and incompetence.

The victims, you see, were call girls. No big loss, right?

The point of view taken by the filmmakers (Michael Were adapted Robert Kolker’s non-fiction book) is not that of a dedicated cop finding answers but of a grieving mother, wracked with uncertainty and played with extraordinary fierceness by Amy Ryan.

Mari Gilbert (Ryan) lives in a small town in upstate New York.  She’s a single mother (no mention of any man in her life, past or present) making ends meet with blue-collar gigs (waitressing, driving heavy construction equipment) and struggling with domestic issues.

One daughter, Sherre (Thomasin McKenzie of “Jojo Rabbit” and “Leave No Trace”), has a bad case of late-teen resentfulness. The second, tweener Sarra (Oona Laurence), is bi-polar, jerked between phases of defiance and crushing melancholy.

There’s another daughter whom we never really get to meet. Shannan, we learn, hasn’t lived with her mother since  puberty; she was raised by the state in foster homes. Now she resides in New Jersey, returning home on rare occasions but regularly contributing money to support her mother and siblings.

Shannan is a prostitute who uses Craig’s List to troll for customers. Mari undoubtedly knows this; she just won’t say it out loud.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“BLOW THE MAN DOWN”: Quaint rot

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 19, 2020| Leave a Comment »

“BLOW THE MAN DOWN” My rating: B- 

90 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Easter Cove, Maine, is just as picturesque as the name implies.

Lots of boats, weather-worn houses, gray winter skies, residents bred of  tough New England stock…hell, the commercial fishermen even punctuate their daily grind by singing sea chanties directly to the camera.

But beneath the quaint facade things are rotten. At least according to Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy’s noir-ish “Blow the Man Down.”

Our protagonists are sisters Pris and Mary Beth Connolly (Sophie Lowe, Morgan Saylor), who as the film begins are burying their mother and discovering that Mom’s retail seafood shop is on life support and the mortgage on the house is way past due.

Their current economic crisis only exacerbates the differences between the two young women. Priss is the “good” sister who runs the shop and toes the line. Mary Beth is a bit of a wildcat, resentful that she had to suspend college to care for her dying mother and desperate to leave Easter Cove behind.

Which is why the night after the funeral Mary Beth goes bar hopping (actually, there’s only one bar in town), picks up a scuzzy and vaguely threatening fisherman (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and ends up defending herself with an old harpoon.  (Murder by harpoon…you don’t get more New England than that.)

The panicked sisters opt not to talk to the cops. Instead they stuff the body in a big styrofoam ice chest (some dismemberment required…a fish filleting knife comes in handy), weigh it with an old anchor and toss it off a cliff into the roaring sea.

Oh, yeah…in the dead man’s shack they discover a plastic bag with a small fortune in cash. (more…)

Read Full Post »

“THE HUNT”: The great divide

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Betty Gilpin (right)

“THE HUNT” My rating: C+

89 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The premise of “The Hunt” —  a bunch of rich sphincters go hunting for other humans on a private game preserve — has been recycling through the cinema ever since 1932’s “The Most Dangerous Game.”

But this is the first time the hunters have been  elite libtards and their prey Trumpers.

Okay, okay. Step back and take a deep breath.

Craig Zobel’s film lets us know early on with a bombastic musical score that it isn’t meant to be taken too seriously.  Ditto for the laughably over-the-top violence.

Which is not to say that “The Hunt” doesn’t have some fairly serious subtext.  At its core it’s about how America’s deep political and social divisions are leading to self-destruction.

Mostly, though, the picture is played for thrills and yuks.

A dozen individuals awaken in a forest. Rubber gags have been locked onto their faces. They discover a large wooden crate containing a small arsenal of weapons and a key that opens their mouthpieces.

And then all hell breaks lose. These individuals — some played by familiar faces like Emma Roberts, Jake Barinholtz, and Justin Hartley (Kevin on TV’s “This is Us”) — must negotiate a dangerous landscape.  They may be shot with bullets and arrows, blown up by land mines, poisoned with dosed donuts or skewered in pits filled with sharpened wooden stakes. (more…)

Read Full Post »

“THE JESUS ROLLS”: Raunchy road trip

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 6, 2020| Leave a Comment »

John Turturro

“THE JESUS ROLLS” My rating: C+

85 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The lavender-loving, sexually ambiguous bowling fanatic Jesus Quintana appears for only five minutes in the Coen Brothers’ “The Big Lebowski.”

But “the Jesus” — portrayed by John Turturro with machismo-spewing relish — apparently has enough of an enduring fan base that 22 years later we get “The Jesus Rolls,” a sort-of toss-off sequel written and directed by Turturro.

Basically this is one big criminal road trip.  Jesus (Turturro, naturally), recently released from prison, is met by his old buddy Petey (Bobby Cannavale) and together they go on a car-stealing spree, accompanied by a soundtrack of furious flamenco guitar.

Along the way they explore the joys of three-way sex, first with a ditzy hairdresser named Marie (Audrey Tautou…yes, “Amelie”) and later with an older woman portrayed by Susan Sarandon (more of that later). There is a fair amount of nudity…much of it involving the two leading men’s derrières.

The tone here is one of comic goofiness fueled by Jesus and Petey’s bone-headed banter.  Nothing even vaguely resembling a plot emerges; what we get is a series of vignettes, at least one of which is quietly heartbreaking.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“GREED”: Asshattery

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Steve Coogan

“GREED” My rating: C+  

104 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Steve Coogan has portrayed so many supercilious asshats that many of us — including some of my fellow film critics — have come to the conclusion that he really is a supercilious asshat.

“Greed” is not going to change anybody’s mind.

In the latest from prolific writer/director Michael Winterbottom (“24 Hour Party People,” “Welcome to Sarajevo,” “Tristam Shandy” and “The Trip” franchise) Coogan plays a billionaire whose very existence sums up just about everything wrong with the “one percent.”

This is asshattery on a grand scale.

Sir Richard  McCreadie (Coogan) has made a fortune  in the fashion industry. Not that he knows anything about fashion — his talent is buying cheap and selling dear, and his financial history is an epic tale of acquiring brands (purchased with other people’s money), running them into the ground and selling off the corpses at a profit, leaving others holding the bag.

McCreadie is smug and entitled and vicious. He’s been hailed as “The Mozart of retail” and “The DaVinci of deal making,” but most people simply refer to him as “McGreedie.”

(Trump haters will want to identify McCreadie with our current President; well, both men employ the same dubious business model, but in truth Coogan’s character is vastly more witty and charismatic.)

Winterbottom’s screenplay has pretty obviously been inspired by Orson Welles’ great “Citizen Kane.”  As preparations are underway for McCreadie’s big blowout 60th birthday celebration, a hack journalist (David Mitchell) hired to write the Great Man’s authorized biography conducts a series of interviews with McCreadie’s battle-axe mother (Shirley Henderson in old-age makeup), his ex wife (Isla Fisher) and a slew of McCreadie lovers and haters.

These moments are interspersed with flashbacks from McCreadie’s young adulthood (he’s played as a scheming young man by Jamie Blackley).

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“EXTRA ORDINARY”: Things that go bump…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Barry Ward, Maeve Higgins

“EXTRA ORDINARY” My rating: B- 

94 minutes | MPAA rating: R

A supernatural comedy of exceeding drollness, “Extra Ordinary” feels like a mostly successful mashup of “The Frighteners,” “Ghostbusters” and “What We Do in the Shadows.”

Rose Dooley (Maeve Higgins) is a thirtysomething spinster living in small-town Ireland. She’s a big woman, socially inept and saddled with a weird family history from which there is no escape.

Rose is the daughter of Vincent Dooley (Risteard Cooper), who back in the ’90s had a best-selling series of VHS tapes dealing with the supernatural (the film is punctuated with snippets from his broadcasts).  In fact, little Rose was her Daddy’s assistant in his investigations of the paranormal.

Now a grown woman, she blames herself for Papa’s untimely death years before. Even more unsettling, eerie happenings seem to follow her like needy doggies. She used to do consultations for people with supernatural problems, but has given all that up to run her own not-terribly-successful driving school.

Enter Martin Martin (Barry Ward), a widower haunted by the ghost of his late wife.  This unseen and temperamental spirit is always knocking bad food (especially donuts) out of Martin’s hand before he can stuff them in his mouth. Even from the grave she’s bossing him around.

Their teen daughter Sarah (Emma Coleman) is sick of all these spooky shenanigans; she urges her dad to contact Rose and set up an exorcism.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“ORDINARY LOVE”: Nothing ordinary about it

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Liam Neeson, Leslie Manville

“ORDINARY LOVE” My rating: B+

92 minutes | MPAA rating: R

In an era of caped escapism, an intimate cancer drama like “Ordinary Love” has about as much chance as a penguin in the shark pool.

But those daring enough to take the risk will discover an acting tour de force saturated in pain and beauty, a drama that effectively tells a universal story precisely because its characters are largely unremarkable.

The challenge facing writer Owen McCafferty, directors Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn and their principal players (Liam Neeson and Leslie Manville) is to make their yarn compelling without resorting to heroics, histrionics or bigger-than-life characterizations.

They succeed to a degree I didn’t think possible.

Tom and Joan (Neeson, Manville) are a retired couple living in Belfast (we never do learn anything about their careers). At first glance their marriage seems more or less ideal. He’s charmingly irascible, a guy who goes for long walks with the Missus, then claims that entitles him to one more beer.

She’s no shrinking violet, apparently relishing the banter that has them dueling with gentle witticisms.

They’ve got a nice house and apparently no money woes. Their mantel feature a framed photo of a pretty young woman, obviously their daughter.  Only much later do we realize that the subject, their only child, died some years before.

The unremarkable patterns of Tom and Joan’s life are upended when she discovers a lump in her breast.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“THE ASSISTANT”: Coercion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 20, 2020| 1 Comment »

Julia Garner

“THE ASSISTANT”  My rating: B+

87 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Just another day at the office becomes a moment of moral reckoning for the title character of “The Assistant,” a minimalist drama that only grows in potency the more you think about it.

Jane (Julia Garner) is a recent college graduate neck deep in her new job in the Lower Manhattan office of an independent film company. She gets up before dawn, naps during the Uber ride from Queens, and is the first person on site, turning on the lights, firing up the computers, brewing coffee.

Many a viewer will find the monotony all too familiar.

As the low man on the office totem pole, Jane is determined to keep her head down and establish a rep for quiet competence. She wants to be a producer some day.

A good chunk of Kitty Green’s film finds our protagonist doing both movie-related chores (Xeroxing spec scripts) and scutwork (donning rubber gloves to clean stains off the upholstery).

But the biggest chunk of her day is devoted to the Boss, a never-seen mogul (his muffled voice — heard through walls, open doorways and the telephone — is provided by Jay O. Sanders) of unassailable power.

Stationed outside the Boss’s private sanctum, Jane greets and ushers in guests, guards the door when the Boss doesn’t want to be disturbed, and fields phone calls.  She also is in charge of arranging transportation and lodging for the Boss’s frequent trips to the West Coast.

Writer/director Green is so good at nailing both Jane’s daily grind and the moments of gut-twisting anxiety (periodically she finds herself caught between the imperious Boss and his angry wife; more than once she endures a verbal chewing out from the executive suite) that the film’s true subject matter only slowly sneaks up on us.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“TEMBLORES”: Hope and desire

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Juan Pablo Olyslager, Mauricio Armas Zebadua

“TEMBLORES” My rating: B-

107 minutes | No MPAA rating

“Temblores (Tremors)” begins with an intervention.

Returning home one rainy night, Guatemalan businessman Pablo (Juan Pablo Olyslager) discovers his entire family gathered in the living room of his posh domicile.  They’ve learned that Pablo is having an affair with another man and are determined to put an end to this abomination.

Their approaches differ.  Pablo’s sister cradles her sobbing sibling and insists that his gayness must be the result of childhood trauma. Her alpha male husband is sneeringly contemptuous.  Pablo’s mother finds a religious lesson: “This is a trial.” Dad is a denier: “It’ll blow over.”

Meanwhile Pablo’s model-pretty wife Isa (Diane Bathen) sits silently, wrapped up in her own cocoon of humiliation.

Their deliberations are interrupted by one of the small earthquakes that regularly wrack their region of Central America.  “God’s punishment,” asserts Mom.

Jayro Bustamente’s “Tremblores” follows Pablo as he moves into a shabby apartment with his lover, the good-natured Francisco (Mauricio Armas Zebadua), who works as a masseuse at a local clinic.  But almost immediately the repressive society around him kicks into high gear.

Pablo is fired from his high-paying  job as a consultant — the company adheres to a strict morality policy.  Isa goes to court where a judge declares Pedro a pedophile (he isn’t) and forbids him from seeing his two young children; the ruling also makes finding a new job impossible.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE”: Sand and foam

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 13, 2020| Leave a Comment »

“PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE” My rating: B 

121 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Looking like a period painting and moving with graceful deliberateness, Celine Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” delivers a lesbian love story of aching delicacy.

But it’s more than that.

Set in the 1770s, the film follows a young woman painter, Marianne (Noemie Merlant), to an French island where she is deposited soaking wet on the beach. She’s been hired to paint another  young woman’s portrait…though she’s been warned it won’t be easy.

Her subject is Heloise (Adele Haenel), a wan beauty who, in the wake of the suicide of her older sister, has been brought home from the convent where she was raised so that she can marry the Milanese prince who was her dead sibling’s finance. His wealth will turn around the fortunes of Heloise’s financially strapped family. (Indeed, the clan’s castle has an eerie, half-empty feel that suggests they’ve been selling off furniture and fixtures to stay afloat.)

Thing is, the young man wants to know what this second sister looks like before committing to the the marriage.  Thus the portrait.

But as Heloise’s mother (Valeria Golino) notes, her daughter is waging a passive/aggressive war against the betrothal. Heloise refuses to pose, so Marianne will be introduced merely as a companion; she’ll have to observe Heloise, then make sketches of her subject once she returns to the privacy of her room. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »