Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

“VILLAINS”: There’s bad, and then there’s BAD

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Maika Monroe, Bill Skarsgard

“VILLAINS” My rating: B-  

88 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The ironically titled “Villains” makes audiences  root for a pair of truly stupid criminal lovers by providing antagonists who are infinitely worse.

In Dan Berk and Robert Olsen’s black comedy, Mickey (Bill Skarsgard) and Jules (Maika Monroe) are the stars of their own sweetly demented version of “Gun Crazy.”  They are to real criminals what white suburban teens are to genuine gang bangers — they talk tough and are sexually turned on by  criminal behavior, but they’re so thick they don’t think to fill the tank of their getaway vehicle before robbing a convenience store.

Running out of gas just miles from their latest heist, the pair ditch the car and take refuge in blandly posh manse in the woods.  Nobody’s home, so they figure they can hang out there for a while.

That’s until they find a mute 10-year-old girl chained in the basement and are interrupted by the arrival of homeowners George and Gloria (Jeffrey Donovan, Kyra Sedgwick), who are also serial kidnappers/killers.

Gloria is a Southern belle so off the charts that she believes  a porcelain-headed doll is her actual child (she makes Blanche Dubois look like the poster girl for emotional stability).  Hubby George is a golden-voiced charmer, a Dixie gentleman who can explain away even the most hair-raising ugliness with a barrage of reassuring   bromides. (Am I the only one who suspects Donovan is doing a vocal imitation of Kevin Spacey in his “House of Cards” role?) (more…)

Read Full Post »

“JOKER”: Not fun…but unforgettable

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Joaquin Phoenix

“JOKER” My rating: B+

121 minutes | MPAA rating: R

If Ingmar Bergman and Lars von Trier teamed up to make a superhero movie, the result would be just like “Joker.”

Less conventional comic book material than existential scream, Todd Phillips’ take on the legendary D.C. villain gives us Joaquin Phoenix as a hapless loser transformed by isolation and grief into a clown-faced avenging angel.

This grim — as in NOT FUN — yarn unfolds not in some make-believe alternative universe (the traditional Tim Burton-ized abode of comic book sagas) but in a Gotham City that looks, sounds and seems even to smell like the dystopian NYC of the 1970s, replete with wall-to-wall graffiti and mounds of garbage thanks to a strike by city workers.

There’s nothing supernatural offered by Phillips and Scott Silver’s screenplay, no fantastic science fiction machines or surgeries, nobody gifted with special powers.

Just the eternally miserable Arthur Fleck (Phoenix), a human wraith doomed by genetics and circumstance to live in brutal isolation.

Arthur  works as a professional clown (children’s parties, sidewalk huckstering) and aspires to do stand up — which is odd because he is stupendously unfunny.

Street punks beat him up. When nervous — pretty much all the time — he breaks into uncontrollable laughter.  It’s actually a medical condition for which he takes an array of prescriptions.  Except that the city agency that provides drugs and counseling (Arthur spent some of his young adulthood in a mental ward) has lost its funding. Now he’s on his own.

“The worst thing about having mental illness,” he observes, “is that people expect you to act like you don’t.”

At home in a peeling apartment he feeds and bathes his aged mother (Frances Conroy); their relationship is essentially loving, but it’s pretty clear that Mom is delusional.  She insists on sending pleading letters to her long-ago employer Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen), an oligarchical fascist making a run for mayor. (Yes, that Thomas Wayne, father of young Bruce, who will one day become Joker’s arch nemesis Batman.)

But then Arthur has his own issues with reality. He fantasizes that he appears on the late-night talk show of his favorite TV personality, Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro). Movie buffs will no doubt pick up some residual vibes from Martin Scorsese’s 1982 “King of Comedy,” in which DeNiro played a pathologically inept standup comic.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“JUDY”: Diva in decline

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on September 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Rene Zellweger as Judy Garland

“JUDY” My rating: B

118 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

One of the biggest thrills in moviegoing is seeing a familiar performer sink so completely into a character that you forget who  you’re watching.

That’s the case with Rene Zellweger’s portrayal of Judy Garland in “Judy.”  Bet she’s already cleared space on the mantel for another Oscar.

Scripted by Tom Edge and directed by Ruper Goold, “Judy” is a film whose flaws are more than compensated for by a monumental performance.

Set in 1969, the last year of Garland’s life, when she was persona non grata in Hollywood and had to travel to London to get a nightclub gig, the film has some rough spots, particularly in its depiction of a once-great talent circling the drain. It’s pretty depressing stuff.

But Zellweger’s portrayal lifts the entire enterprise. She not only looks like the 47-year-old, drug-worn Garland, but she channels the star’s eccentric body language. And she sings Garland’s songs — not as well as Garland did, but enough to wow moviegoers. (It helps that by this time in her career Garland’s power was more in her unique delivery than vocal strength.)

We meet Judy and her two young children returning to L.A. from a tour playing clubs in the South. It’s not a happy homecoming — they’re evicted from their hotel for back rent, and Judy’s ex, agent Sid Luft (Rupert Sewell) says that while he’ll take in the kids, he’s also going to sue for custody.

The only way to get enough cash to make her case in court is for Judy to take a gig in London, performing at a club run by a no-nonsense promoter (Michael Gambon); wise to his star’s reputation for temperamental meltdowns, he assigns a handler (“Wild Roses'” Jessie Buckley) to coax, cajole and physically push the quaking singer out onto the stage.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“LOVE, ANTOSHA”: Renaissance kid

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Anton Yeltsin

“LOVE, ANTOSHA” My rating: B+

93 minutes | No MPAA rating

I knew who Anton Yeltsin was, of course.  I’d seen the young actor as Chekhov in J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” reboots, and in a couple of other movies like Jodie Foster’s “The Beaver.”

And of course I knew he died in 2017 at age 27 in a freak accident, pinned against a metal gate by his rolling automobile.

None of which prepared me for the gut punch that is “Love, Antosha,” a love letter to the late actor signed by his parents, his boyhood friends, and his heavy-hitting acting colleagues.

It seems nobody who knew Yeltsin had anything but love for him. And that emotion comes roiling off the screen.

Garret Price’s documentary opens with home movies from Yeltsin’s childhood. What we see is an impossibly handsome kid with a big performer’s personality that fills the room.

We also get a bit of back story about his parents,  competitive Soviet ice dancers who emigrated to the U.S.A. to get away from growing anti-Semitism in the new Russian Republic.

Here’s something I did not know:  While a teen Anton was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, the devastating lung condition (the average life expectancy of a sufferer is 37 years). He was so full of energy, so good at masking his symptoms and plowing ahead, that many of his show biz colleagues were unaware that he had gone through life essentially under a death sentence.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“AQUARELA”: H2O Wallpaper

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on September 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

“AQUARELA” My rating: C+

89 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Technically classified as a documentary, “Aquarela” might more accurately be described as slow-moving wallpaper.

The subject of Viktor Kossakovsky’s film is water and its power. There is no narrator, no graphics, no argument made or thesis stated.

The film’s first 20 minutes unfold on a frozen bay in Greenland where a team of rescue workers use primitive muscle-powered winches to extract from the frigid waters automobiles that have broken through the ice.  During the winter local drivers use the frozen bay as a shortcut, but as spring approaches this becomes an iffy proposition.

One man, soaking wet and frantic after his car has vanished, taking with it his passenger, is asked why he  risked it. He responds that the ice isn’t supposed to melt for another three weeks.

That’s as close as “Aquarela” comes to making an overt statement about global warming.

We get long passages of vivid blue glaciers calving, creating mountainous icebergs that dwarf the ships which share their waters. Marine photography reveals the abstract beauty of bergs below the water line.

Another segment unfolds aboard a yacht where the swells and storms create a terrifying environment.

There are spectacular jungle cataracts that generate their own misty rainbows, and news footage of hurricane-force winds lashing coastal cities and flooding streets. Monster waves charging ashore.

Some of this is spectacular, some beautiful.

But isn’t this lazy documentary-making?  How about some insight, some perspective?

Some viewers will find “Aquarela’s” glacial pace and gorgeous imagery hypnotically compelling.

Others will find in it a surefire cure for insomnia.

Place me somewhere in the middle.

| Robert W. Butler

Read Full Post »

“THE SOUND OF SILENCE”: Harmonic dissonance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Peter Sarsgaard

“THE SOUND OF SILENCE” My rating: C+

87 minutes | MPAA rating:

Before it goes off the philosophical rails and disappears up its own nether regions, “The Sound of Silence” casts an eerie spell.

Our protagonist is acoustic specialist Peter Lucian (Peter Sarsgaard), a self-described “house tuner.”

Peter is paid to visit the apartments of his fellow New Yorkers, bringing a suitcase filled with tuning forks and tape recorders.  His job is to study the “sound environment,” identifying and eliminating aural anomalies that may be responsible for sleeplessness, anxiety, and a whole host of psycho-physical modern maladies.

For instance,  he may discover that the musical voice of a client’s heating system creates dissonance when heard in conjunction with the imperceptible sounds emitted by an electric toaster. Time to get a new Sunbeam.

Sounds like woo-woo, but Peter has recently been written up in The New Yorker. So there.

Michael Tyburski’s debut film (the screenplay is by Ben Nabors)  is nothing if not out there. In mood and overall story arc it bears more than a little resemblance to “The Conversation,” Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 classic about a sound technician whose specialty is surreptitiously recording conversations under impossible circumstances.

Peter is pretty much obsessed with his  inquiries.  He often walks through Manhattan wearing sound-cancelling earphones; at other times he stands in public places twanging his tuning forks and taking acoustic readings.

He’s studying “harmonic resonance,” all so that he can develop a sort of unified field theory of sound.  His research has already drawn the attention of an industrialist (Bruce Altman) who has big plans to monetize it, but Peter is a purist.  His dream is to have all his findings published in a scholarly journal.  Only then will he consider the commercial applications.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“THE DEATH OF DICK LONG”: Stupid is as stupid does

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Daniel Scheitert, Andre Hyland, Michael Abbott Jr.

“THE DEATH OF DICK LONG” My rating: B- 

100 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Given that the combined IQs of the characters in “The Death of Dick Long” is about 45, it’s remarkable that Daniel Scheinert’s dark comedy resists the temptation to sneer and instead goes mining for empathy.

Under the opening credits we see three good ol’ Alabama boys — Zeke (Michael Abbott Jr.), Earl (Andre Hyland) and Dick (director Scheinert) — rehearsing their garage band. Then Dick proposes “Wanna get weird?” and we’re treated to a montage of heavy drinking, bong sucking, fireworks and midnight target practice.

Suddenly we’re in the backseat of Zeke’s car, where Dick is bleeding all over the upholstery.  Zee and Earl are trying to get their buddy to a hospital, but they don’t want to be caught on camera; panicked, they park a block away, carrying their companion through some woods (dropping him on his noggin in the process), and dump him on the pavement outside the E.R. — but not before taking his wallet so that he cannot be identified.

The attending physician is appalled and puzzled.  The patient, who promptly dies, has suffered a severely torn rectum and head trauma.  Looks like a very weird case of rape/murder.

“We’ve got some real perverts on the loose,” observes the officer called to investigate.

Just how weird won’t be revealed until later in the proceedings;  more than a few viewers  will have to pick their jaws out of their laps.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“BEFORE YOU KNOW IT”: Sisters

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on September 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Hannah Pearl Utt, Jen Tullock

“BEFORE YOU KNOW IT” My rating: B-

98 minutes | No MPAA rating

A family comedy with just enough edge, “Before You Know It” is the creation of Hannah Pearl Utt and Jen Tullock, who co-wrote the script and star as mutually exasperated sisters.

In addition, Utt directed.

The end results aren’t earth-shaking, but there’s a good deal of talent on display.

As she approaches 30 Rachel Gruner (Utt) still hasn’t had a chance to discover herself…she’s got a full-time job being the only grownup in a household where delusion reigns.

Her widowed father, playwright/actor Mel Gruner (Mandy Patinkin), is an overgrown child who has spent the last 50 years writing and starring in plays no one sees.  He mounts them in the basement theater of the Greenwich Village building he owns; the family lives upstairs.

Rachel’s older sister Jackie (Jen Tullock) is an always-aspiring actress who spends too much time chasing men to pay much attention to her 12-year-old daughter Dodge (Oona Yaffe).

By default, Rachel runs the family’s struggling theater company and serves as surrogate mother to Dodge, catering to her father’s artistic dreams and ignoring Jackie’s more maddening behavior.

But when Mel suffers a fatal heart attack, Rachel and Jackie discover that the mother they thought died nearly 30 years earlier is still alive. Indeed, she is a soap opera star named Sherrell (Judith Light) who has been paying the mortgage on the theater/apartment all this time. If they want to keep a roof over their heads, the sisters had best reach out to Mama.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“DOWNTON ABBEY”: Happy gentility

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »

“DOWNTON ABBEY” My rating: B+ 

122 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Feature film spinoffs of successful TV series have an iffy track record (“Sex and the City,” “Entourage,” “Absolutely Fabulous”), but the folks at “Downton Abbey” have done it right.

The new “Downton Abbey” movie is an astonishingly effective piece of work, one that hits all the notes that made the TV show so successful and then adds a couple of new ones.

Will the movie make sense to anyone who wasn’t glued to PBS on Sunday nights?  Well, maybe, but the real pleasure here comes from continuing our relationships with characters we already know inside out.  It’s like a family reunion…only you actually like hanging with this family.

Writer Julian Fellowes, who created the series and scripted most of its episodes, provides a screenplay that gives almost every member of the huge cast at least one memorable moment and effortlessly balances multiple story threads.

Director Michael Engler deftly handles the pacing and the impressive technical production (he’s in charge of the actors, too but since most of these players have been doing their characters for the better part of a decade, how much coaching could they have required?).

The plot? Well, there are a dozen of them, but the overriding one has the King and Queen visiting Downton. It’s like when the FBI takes over a local murder investigation…Their Majesties’ arrogant retainers invade the Abbey, relegating the resident staff to observer status.  But not for long, thanks to machinations that come off as a more genteel iteration of “Revenge of the Nerds.”

(more…)

Read Full Post »

“AD ASTRA”: Lost in space

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on September 19, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Brad Pitt

“AD ASTRA” My rating: B

124 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Equal parts “2001” and “Apocalypse Now,” James Gray’s “Ad Astra” is meditative journey to both outer and inner space punctuated with moments of high melodrama.

The film is drop-dead beautiful and features a contemplative performance from Brad Pitt which is among his finest; best of all, one leaves it feeling we’ve truly been on an intergalactic journey.

In the near future Major Roy McBride (Pitt) is a model astronaut, though in voiceover narration he reveals the price of the clear, dispassionate thinking that makes him the equal of any situation.

McBride is a master at suppressing his emotions, a skill that has wrecked his marriage (his ex, who is seen only briefly, is played by Liv Tyler) but made him the poster boy of space program efficiency. Only the occasional twitch of an eyelid suggests Roy’s inner turmoil.

Moreover, Roy comes by his heroism genetically — his father, Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones), was an astronaut who decades ago went off on a mission to Neptune to look for extraterrestrial life and hasn’t been heard from for 30 years.

As “Ad Astra” begins Roy is doing maintenance work on a radio tower so tall its upper reaches scrape the stratosphere.  A mysterious electrical pulse blows the tower’s power grid, sending our man in freefall back to Earth.

Roy survives, thanks to his parachute, but he subsequently learns in a top secret briefing that the authorities believe the damaging electromagnetic pulses are coming from Neptune, the last-known location of the elder McBride’s exploratory ship. If Roy’s father is behind these pulses — which threaten human life — perhaps a message from his son will bring a happy resolution.

The plan is for Roy to radio his Pops from an outpost on Mars.  First, though, he has to take a commercial shuttle to the moon (a pillow and blanket kit costs $150), then make his way to a launch complex on the dark side of that satellite (apparently the moon is an international combat zone with marauding pirates on speeding lunar rovers attempting to highjack official vehicles).

(more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »