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“STAN LEE”: Mr. Marvel

June 23, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

“STAN LEE” My rating: B- (Disney +)

86 minutes | No MPAA rating

Some day someone may make a documentary about the world of Marvel that tackles all the really interesting questions raised by Stan Lee and his comic book (and later, movie) empire.

“Stan Lee,” though, isn’t that movie.

Directed by David Gelb and narrated by the late Stan Lee himself (his voiceover appears to have been culled from numerous interviews over the years), the movie  drops no big revelations.  

Lee’s rise to comic book fame and his late-in-life gig as the grand old man of comic books (doing cameos in Marvel movies)  have been well documented over the decades; serious Marvel fans will find much of this doc old news.

Moreover, the film comes perilously close to starry-eyed idol worship.  Probably that could not be avoided since this is essentially Lee giving us his life story — the project is from his point of view, after all.

You’ve gotta give Lee credit for sheer creativity and for recognizing the possibilities of a much-maligned medium.  

“Comic books can have tremendous impact,” he tells us. “You can convey a story or information faster, more clearly and more enjoyably than any other way short of motion pictures.”

Lee dreamed up dozens of now-iconic fictional characters, and bucked the conventional wisdom by addressing real-life social issues in his stories. His output over the decades has been staggering.

The film refers briefly to some of the controversies raised by his career — particularly whether Lee (who wrote the early comics) downplayed the contributions of artists like Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby in the creation of the Marvel characters.  The film has snippets of an ‘80s  radio broadcast in which Lee and Kirby almost get into verbal fisticuffs, but director Gelb isn’t interested in digging too deep.

The doc makes the case — without actually saying so out loud — that Lee may have had a greater impact on modern arts and entertainment than any individual since Walt Disney.

 I’m not just talking about Marvel’s box office clout. Back in the day Lee and company broke with comic book convention by giving us superheroes with flaws and anxieties; they also broke the unspoken color barrier (Black Panther) and made sure women were well represented among the supernaturally gifted.

In recent years “serious” filmmakers like Martin Scorsese have decried the dominance of Marvel movies, accusing the brand of dumbing down the audience with a diet of silly super powers and last reel smackdowns.

You won’t find even a hint of that controversy here.

The film is good looking and has a surprising amount of archival material (Lee apparently was a home movie enthusiast). And to illustrate those scenes for which there are no photos or films, Gelb has relied on dozens of intricately detailed dioramas (say, of the bustling Marvel offices) through which his camera wanders.

| Robert W. Butler

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“CHEVALIER”: Native son

June 17, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Kelvin Harrison, Jr.

“CHEVALIER” My rating: C+ (Hulu)

109 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Revolution. Racism.  Romance.

As a black man in the court of Louis XVI,  Joseph Bologne (aka the Chevalier de Saint-Georges) experienced a lifetime of triumphs and tragedies…enough to keep a half dozen other men fully occupied.

Why, then, is the movie based on his life so…well, uninvolving?

The historic facts alone  are pretty overwhelming. 

Born to a French planter and his slave on the Caribbean isle of Guadaloupe, young Joseph displayed musical precocity at an early age and was sent to Paris to study at a prestigious academy.

His dark skin set him up for much abuse; by his late teens (as an adult he is portrayed by Kelvin Harrison Jr.) he had a reputation as so ferocious a swordsman that few dared insult him openly.

His musical career faced the same prejudicial barriers; fortunately Joseph  found a powerful patron in the queen, Marie Antoinette (Lucy Boynton), who sponsored many public performances of his works (in some quarters he was known as “the black Mozart”) but could not secure for him the coveted position of director of the Paris Opera. He just wasn’t white enough.

As a member of an abused minority Joseph gradually embraced the egalitarian ideas that would lead to the French Revolution and the beheading of his royal benefactor. Happily the film ends well before that grim event.

Still, that’s plenty to work with.  But screenwriter Stefani Robinson and director Stephen Williams don’t seem to know just what to think of their protagonist…he’s a musical genius, yes, but he’s also just as spoiled and dissipated as the young French nobles with whom he hangs. 

In lieu of really understanding the Chevalier, the film turns to an interracial romance — one based on fact.  Joseph falls for the young wife (Samara Weaving) of a boorish, jingoistic and, yes, racist military man (Marton Csokas). The big issue is whether the two lovers will ever be able to bring their relationship out of the shadows.

Now all this would be fine if — and it’s a big if — the film were able to generate any real erotic or romantic heat.  We have to care desperately that  the two lovers to find happiness.

Uh, sorry. No.  The emotions on display here are as dulled and blunted as the production design and costumes are dazzling. After a while the eye candy cannot disguise the emotional hole at the film’s center.

Still, it’s glorious to look at. Take what you can get.

| Robert W. Butler

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“FLAMIN’ HOT”: Spice of life

June 11, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Jesse Garcia

“FLAMIN’ HOT” My rating: C+ (Netflix)

99 minutes | MPAA ratiung: PG-13

It must be a sign of late-stage capitalism, this influx of movies celebrating commercial products.

There’s “Air” (about the creation of the Air Jordan athletic shoe), “Tetris” (about the conquest of the world by a video game), and now  “Flamin’ Hot,” the origin story of a mouth-burning variation of Cheetos.

Actually these films aren’t so much about the products themselves as the people who thought them up. 

In the case of Eva Longoria’s “Flamin’ Hot” (it’s her directing debut) that would be Richard Montañez, a Mexican American whose rags-to-riches story — laid out in countless motivational talks and a 2021 autobiography — begins with an impoverished childhood and a stint dealing drugs. 

After nearly a decade as a janitor in a California FritoLay plant, we’re told, Montañez convinced his bosses to use his homemade spice blend on its products, thus opening up a whole new market:  the country’s growing but overlooked Hispanic demographic.

The one-time banger became FritoLay’s director of multicultural marketing. And, like, rich.

As scripted by Lewis Click and Linda Yvette Chavez, the film is equal parts outrage, uplift and comic schtick. 

The film is narrated by Montañez (Jesse Garcia), who strains to make a joke of the forces allied against him…much of this dialogue sounds like it was plucked from a second-tier ethnic standup comic. If you don’t think it’s amusing in the first 10 minutes you probably should look elsewhere for entertainment.

We see (briefly) his childhood and his encounters with a violent, disapproving stepfather (Emilio Rivera), his teen years hanging with the neighborhood toughs, and finally his marriage to the ever-loyal Judy (Annie Gonzalez) and his acceptance of a responsible if unglamorous job at the potato chip plant.

Montañez is hard working and ambitious.  But we’ve already seen what It’s like to grow up in near poverty in a society that treats you as a second-class citizen, and the factory brass can’t imagine that a lowly broom pusher might have something important to offer.

Still, at home Montañez uses his wife and kids as guinea pigs to perfect his heady blend of traditional Mexican spices. And one day, when he’s sure he has a formula that his fellow Hispanics will gobble up, he risks all by making a phone call to the boss-of-bosses,  Pepsico chief Roger Enrico (Tony Shalhoub).

The rest, as they say, is history.  Or is it?

A couple of years back The Los Angeles Times looked into Montañez’s claims that he was the inventor of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and reported that according to people who worked for Frito-Lay at the time, the chile-heavy formula was developed by employees in Texas.  

Montañez’s genius, apparently, was marketing to his fellow Hispanics and in thinking up new products for the Flamin’ Hot brand (among them a neon orange version of Mountain Dew).

Well, you don’t go to the movies for Gospel truth.

“Flamin’ Hot” is more important for societal reasons than artistic ones.  Like the product it celebrates, the film is aimed squarely at Mexican Americans. It’s filled with jokes and observations that will resonate with that audience, as does its celebration of ethnic pride and can-do attitude.

Who can argue with that? Any film that makes a big chunk of the population feel good about themselves should not be too easily dismissed.

| Robert W. Butler

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“THE OLD WAY”: A prairie “Dexter”

June 8, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Nicolas Cage, Ryan Keira Armstrong

“THE OLD WAY” My rating: B- (Hulu)

95 minutes | MPAA rating: R

It’s gotten so that every Nicolas Cage movie is met with equal parts hope and dread.

Will Cage deliver a one-of-a-kind, borderline brilliant performance along the line of 2021’s “Pig”? Or will it be yet another weary entry in his “don’t-send-the-script-send-the-paycheck” marathon?

Director Brett Donowho’s good-looking oater “The Old Way” is a bit of both.

Lord knows it doesn’t start with a whole lot of promise.  In a prequel we meet gunfighter Colton Briggs (Cage), who has an Eastwood squint and a ridiculous ‘stache apparently harvested from the late Wilford Brimley’s upper lip.

Briggs is a hired gun in a range war involving a cattle baron with a penchant for flowery speechifying (Carl W. Lucas’ screenplay periodically slows for displays of frontier loquaciousness) and a bunch of struggling settlers.  The upshot:  Just about everybody but Briggs and a newly orphaned boy lie dead. Time to move on.

Twenty years later Briggs is running a general store in a tiny burg.  He’s traded in his guns and facial hair for a civilians’ suit and derby hat; just outside town he has a modest ranch where he lives with his wife (Kerry Knuppe) and 12-year-old daughter Brooke (Ryan Kiera Armstrong).

Initially it appears that Cage is in his take-the-money-and-run mode…his features are sullenly passive (at best he looks like he’s fighting a constant migraine) and Briggs’ interactions with his daughter perfunctory at best.  No warmth wasted. In short, the one-time gunfighter now appears to be a terribly boring bean counter. (This non-performance is deliberate, as we shall see.)

One evening father and daughter return home to find their  wife/mother  murdered and the place occupied by a weary U.S. marshal (Nick Searcy at his folksy best) and his posse.  The lawmen have been chasing outlaw James McCallister (Noah Le Gros), who with a trio of bad actors has broken out of prison. 

The old marshal wants to take down the McCallister gang — but by the book.  A wrathful Briggs has other ideas.

In one blood-curdling scene Briggs points a pistol at his sleeping child; if she’s dead, he will have one less thing to worry about on his quest for revenge.  Instead he decides to bring her along.

Noah Le Gros, Ryan Keira Armstrong

“The Old Way” almost makes a fetish of recycling ideas from other films.  The killer-turned-domestic notion has been pulled directly from Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven.” Revenge yarns are a staple of the Western genre. And stories in which an adult killer is teamed with an innocent child are legion (for starters there’s “The Professional” with Jean Reno and then-tweener Natalie Portman; also, Eastwood’s “A Perfect World” in which escapee Kevin Costner leads a little boy on a Texas crime spree; not to mention the two versions of “True Grit”).

But then halfway through Lucas’ script suddenly shifts into focus.  Over a campfire Briggs admits to Brooke that for most of his life — his marriage being the sole exception — he has never felt emotion.  Not love, not fear.  Maybe hate. To survive he has learned to fake normal behavior.

And suddenly we’re watching “Dexter”-on-the-prairie.

Well, that explains Cage’s undemonstrative performance.

It gets better.  Briggs’ particular brand of psychopathology seems to have been inherited by Brooke. Maybe you noticed she didn’t shed a tear over her dead Mommy? And now she’s asking her old man for shooting lessons.

Needless to say, these father-and-daughter avengers will get the chance to settle scores.  And it turns out that the murder of Briggs’ wife wasn’t random…James McCallister is seeking his own revenge for a 20-year-old killing.

“The Old Way” (the title refers to McCallister’s desire to settle things in a classic gunfighter fashion, on the street at high noon) is a bumpy if fascinating ride. The screenplay is filled with seemingly unnecessary moments (in a long monologue a customer at Briggs’ store explains how his apple tree bears poisonous fruit due to its proximity to an outhouse) that are later revealed to have important relevance to the developing story. Sneaky.

Cage and young Miss Armstrong manage to make us care about a couple of individuals who are emotionally unapproachable, and the locations and production design feel real enough.

In the end “The Old Way” is minor Cage in a minor film, but lovers of Westerns and sleight-of-hand acting will find it a tolerable amusement.

| Robert W. Butler

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“THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING”: Arabian nights

May 24, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Idris Elba, Tilda Swinton

“THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING” My rating: B+ (Amazon Prime)

104 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Love stories have always been a staple of the movies, but really effective romantic films — I’m thinking “Somewhere in Time”-level  heart grippers — are surprisingly rare.

To the list of swoonworthy cinema we must now add “Three Thousand Years of  Longing,” a romantic/erotic fantasy from director George Miller (the”Mad Max” and “Babe” franchises) that begins with pure escapism and gradually works its way into your guts.

This adaptation of A.S. Byatt’s 1994 novel The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye (the screenplay is by Miller and Augusta Gore) stars the chameleonic Tilda Swinton as Alithea, a Brit academic whose specialty is the art of storytelling.  In pursuit of new tales Alithea has traveled to Istanbul for a conference of her fellow narratologists.

As a souvenir of her trip she purchases an old blown-glass vial from a cluttered shop; back in her hotel room she pops the top of her new find and with a smokey whoosh a huge genie (or djinn) fills her suite.

This fantastic creature (Idris Elba) quickly adapts to his new environment, shrinking to human size and learning Alithea’s English language (a surprising amount of the film’s dialogue is presented in ancient Greek and other languages without benefit of subtitles— just one of many ways in which the film insists on immersing the viewer in new and evocative states of mind).

What follows is a sort of riff on “1001 Arabian Nights,” with the Djinn relaying to the fascinated story lady his experiences over the last three millennia…much of which was spent in various lamps and bottles where the unsleeping Djinn had plenty of time to contemplate notions of freedom.

The Djinn’s astonishingly colorful yarns feature the likes of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (he observed their love story from just a few feet away), a slave girl who with the help of the Djinn bewitched the Sultan Suleiman, and a 19th-century  proto-feminist who with the help of the Djinn (who also became her lover) went on an inventing spree worthy of Leonardo.

The Djinn (Idris Elba) and Sheba (Aamito Lagum)

Each passage has been spectacularly designed by Roger Ford, evocatively captured by cinematographer John Seale (“Witness,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “The English Patient”) and perfectly performed by an international cast.

Always lurking in the background, though, are two inescapable issues.  

First, to gain his freedom the Djinn must grant his new owner three wishes — and Alithea is too smart a cookie not to anticipate the unforeseen fallout generated by a carelessly worded request.

Second, there’s a slowly pulsing undercurrent of sexuality constantly at work.  Must of this has to do with the vibes given off by the shirtless Elba, who really doesn’t have to work at exuding sexual power.  Then there’s the fact that both characters spend the film in fluffy hotel bathrobes.

And finally there’s the weird magic of Swinton, an eccentric-looking actress who can turn her gaunt frame, pale complexion and lank red hair into formidable tools of seduction — all without ever obviously going for it.

What does it say about us (or about me, anyway) that the most effective love stories are those rooted in fairy tales, science fiction and spiritual yearning?

That’s a topic for another day.  Right now I’m considering watching “Three Thousand Years of Longing” one more time.

| Robert W. Butler

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“THE MOTHER”: Gal with gun

May 22, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Jennifer Lopoez, Lucy Paez

“THE MOTHER” My rating: C- (Netflix)

115 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“The Mother,” the latest example of gals-with-guns cinema, starts out preposterous and in no time at all has worked its way into full-bore absurdist “Roadrunner” mode…the big difference being that a “Roadrunner” cartoon has a sense of humor. 

Here’s a film about international criminals, a former army sniper and the FBI written by three scribes (Misha Green, Andrea Berloff and Peter Craig) who offer no indication that any of them has ever met an international criminal, an army sniper or a federal agent.  

Basically “The Mother” is a mess of plot points and attitude copied from other movies (Schwarzenegger’s “Commando” appears to have been a major influence) and held together — barely — by Jennifer Lopez’ seriously strained charisma.  

Lopez plays the title character, whose name we never do get.  She’s an Afghan vet with three dozen sniper kills, and as the film begins she’s being debriefed in a safe house by a couple of FBI agents. Seems our girl has spent several years as the consort/muscle of a couple of international arms dealers (Joseph Fiennes, Gael Garcia Bernal), and now she’s decided to turn them in.

Oh, yeah, there’s a catch…she’s preggers, presumably by one of her criminal cohorts. But the bad guys are on to her and she barely survives a massacre at the safe house, undergoes an emergency caesarean, turns her newborn daughter over to an FBI agent (Omari Hardwick) for placement in a good home, and moves to an isolated  cabin in Alaska where she can kill a variety of critters and stay off her criminal colleagues’ radar.

Short story long, she’s called back into the fray when her daughter, now 12 years old, is kidnapped by the evil ones.  She’s able to rescue the girl in a bloody shootout, but now the two are on the run.  She can’t take the girl, Zoe (Lucy Paez), back to her Midwestern home (Ohio, we’re told, though in this alternate universe Ohio has mountains); their  only hope is to hide out in the snowy north until the danger passes.

Zoe suspects that her nameless protector is her birth mother, which doesn’t stop her from behaving like your typical suburban tween, throwing temper tantrums and pouting. 

Before the dust settles The Mother will have wiped out a small army of mercenaries. 

Despite the obviously wretched dialogue, the production was able to attract some serious talent, not just Fiennes and Bernal but also Oscar nominee (for “Sound of Metal”) Paul Raci and multiple Emmy winner Edie Falco.

But what’s really depressing is the name behind the camera. “The Mother” was directed by Niki Caro, whose earliest efforts (“Whale Rider,” “North Country”) suggested a major talent in humanist cinema. “The Mother” is technically polished, but hasn’t a shred of the emotional truth of those early landmarks.

| Robert W. Butler

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“AIR”: Merely mercenary or nearly mythic?

May 18, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Matt Damon, Ben Affleck

“AIR”  My rating: B  (Prime Video) 

111 minutes | MPAA rating: R


“Air” describes itself as “a story of greatness,” but exactly whose greatness is up for grabs.

Ostensibly the latest directing effort from Ben Affleck is  referring to the greatness of Michael Jordan, arguably the finest basketball player of all time and the namesake of Nike’s famous Air Jordan athletic shoe which debuted in 1984.  Except that we never see Michael Jordan in the film, save for some archival footage of him in action on the court.

Given Jordan’s physical absence as a character, one must go looking for other recipients of the “greatness” crown.

Well, there’s Nike founder and chief Phil Knight, portrayed by Affleck as a sort of Zen egoist who spouts woo woo philosophy while driving a bright purple sports car that cost more than what the average Joe earns in several years. Knight is an interesting oddball — practically an idiot savant — and good for some unintended laughs. But great? Nah. At best he’s a supporting character here.

A more likely candidate is Matt Damon’s Sonny Vaccaro, whose job is to sign up rookie NBA players with Nike sponsorships.  

Sonny — who apparently has no life beyond sneakers and sports — is an underdog visionary determined to recruit NBA newbie Michael Jordan to the Nike camp, beating down fierce competition from Adidas and Converse. Everyone tells Sonny that  his quest is Quixotic, that Jordan is an Adidas fan and that Nike’s measly budget for basketball shoe promotion (the company’s fortune lies with running foot ware) is embarrassingly limited.

Sonny may have a pot belly and puffy jowls, but he exhibits some signs of greatness.  He’s the little engine that could, who uses grit, determination and smarts to pull off a marketing miracle.  A prime example of good ol’ American capitalist can-do spirit.

And then there’s the Air Jordan itself, an eye-catching explosion of red leather and rubber. Can a shoe have a personality?  Maybe.  But it can sure generate cash…in 2022 more than $5 billion. By this film’s definition, that’s pretty damn great.

You’ve got to credit director Affleck and screenwriter Alex Convery with this at least — they elevate Sonny’s quest beyond the merely mercenary to the nearly mythic. Against our better judgment we find ourselves rooting for Sonny to pull off the marketing coup of the century.

Convery’s savvy screenplay features much Mamet-ish high-speed shop talk (various Nike conspirators are portrayed by the likes of Jason Bateman, Christ Tucker and Matthew Maher as the cellar-dwelling dreamer who actually hand crafts the first Air Jordan);  Chris Messina practically chews up the screen as David Falk, Jordan’s silkily venomous agent.

But the key to the movie may be the great Viola Davis as Michael Jordan’s mother, Deloris.  Early in the film Sonny is advised that “The mamas run stuff…especially in black families.”

Davis’ Deloris is both intimidating and huggable…a loving matriarch with a tough-as-nails business sense and an unshakeable faith in her boy’s value.  She makes Sonny improve his game.

There’s a beat-the-clock intensity at the heart of the film — Sonny and his colleagues must dream up and create an Air Jordan prototype in just one exhausting weekend — and the whole enterprise has been so cannily timed and bracingly acted that even those of us who care little about sports and even less about sports capitalism will find ourselves caught up in Sonny (and Nike’s) impossible dream.

|Robert W. Butler

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“MOONAGE DAYDREAM”: David Bowie, generalist

May 16, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

“MOONAGE DAYDREAM”  My rating: B+ (HBO MAX)

135 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

I was always aware of David Bowie, but never a fan, exactly.  Saw him perform during the Ziggy Stardust tour of ’72, but as the years passed found myself more of a Springsteen guy.

Still, Bowie has lurked on the periphery of my cultural consciousness, occasionally moving in to take a place of some prominence before receding once more.

The doc “Moonage Daydream,” though, has given me a new appreciation of the self-described Thin White Duke.  It may be time for a fresh  immersion in all things Bowie.

Written and directed by Brett Morgan (“The Kid Stays in the Picture,” “Cobain: Montage of Heck”), this is not your conventional documentary bio.

The two-hour-plus film pretty much ignores Bowie’s personal life.  It’s not particularly chronological.  There’s no omniscient narrator guiding us through, no cultural critics rhapsodizing about Bowie’s contributions. The only narration is provided by Bowie himself, culled from dozens of private recordings and public interviews. 

There are, of course, a load of musical performances, but this isn’t a concert film. In fact, Morgan’s guiding premise is that Bowie (who died in 2916 at age 69) was consumed with artistic expression, no matter what the format or packaging.

By “art” I mean not just pop music but also acting, writing, painting, fashion…the guy viewed his entire life as one big act of creation (“I never wanted to appear onstage as myself”). Small wonder he described himself as a “generalist.” 

What Morgan has given us here is a sort of visual/aural acid trip, an impressionistic deluge of images and sounds (Morgan provides the brilliant light-speed editing) that defy rational analysis and asks viewers simply to open up and to absorb the waves of Thin White Dukedom that come percolating out of the screen.

This means that “Moonage Daydream” is not for first-timers looking for a David Bowie survey course.  It’s aimed at fans of longstanding who will immediately recognize  and resonate with key moments from their man’s career, and who will synthesize all this new material into their mental/emotional caches of Bowie-dom.

| Robert W. Butler

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WHAT I’M WATCHING

April 27, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Keri Russell, Rufus Sewell

“THE DIPLOMAT”  (Netflix): “West Wing”-quality political intrigue snuggles up to “Veep”-level satire in “The Diplomat,” a torn-from-the-headlines effort that functions simultaneously as real-world drama and nifty sexual comedy.

Keri Russell stars as Kate Wyler, an American diplomat whose speciality is bringing humanitarian relief to Middle Eastern hot spots.  As this eight-episode first season gets underway, she’s called to the Oval Office where the Prez (Michael McKean) tells her she’s going to be the new Ambassador to Great Britain…like right now.

What Kate doesn’t know is that the Big Guy, in cahoots with her charming/rule-breaking diplomat husband Hal (Rufus Sewell in what may be his best role ever), has tapped her to replace the current Vice President, a woman who’s about to get the boot because of her spouse’s financial improprieties.  A high-profile gig at the Court of St. James should pump up Kate’s bona fides.

What the President doesn’t know (because Hal is such a slick schemer) is that the Wylers are planning to split…and a recently divorced woman as Veep is out of the question. So Hal has another reason to rekindle the marital bonfire (aside from the fact that he’s impotent with any woman who is not Kate).

And that’s just the background. Most of this season unfolds in London where Kate and Hal are plopped down in the midst of an international crisis.  A British warship has been attacked in the Gulf of Arabia.  The Prime Minister (Rory Kinnear), eager to reverse his wimpish image, is ready to rain hellfire on Iran for the deaths of English sailors…except that maybe Iran is being framed by some other nation. 

It’s up to Kate to bring some sanity and caution to the situation…all the while getting extremely sexy vibes from the recently widowed British foreign secretary (David Gyasi).

The pacing is brisk, with plenty of sideshows for supporting characters and some nifty plot twists. The dialogue is some of the best out there.

And the perfs are, well, perfect.  Russell excels as an all-business statesperson who prefers plain black pants suits to ball gowns; half the time she appears not to be wearing any makeup and her hair is an afterthought. Of course when she does gussie up, it’s worth the wait.

Sewell is so good you don’t mind Hal’s occasional mansplaining session (it’s part of his allure), and McKean and Kinnear find ways to reference such figures as Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson without slipping into caricature or overt imitation.

Olivia Colman, Fionn Whitehead

“GREAT EXPECTATIONS” (Hulu): Well, it’s not your father’s Charles Dickens.

Last time I read the great Brit author I apparently missed the sado-maso whorehouse scene, the opium puffing, and the frequent use of the “f” word.  Oh, wait, that’s all stuff the creators of this miniseries cooked up to make their “Expectations” appeal to jaded modern viewers.

Also they’ve gone for multiracial casting (Estella and several other characters are played by black actors or those of Middle Eastern heritage).  

Dickens purists will find this a somewhat curdled re-enactment.  

I’m on the fence.  I’m bored stiff by our two young protagonists (Fionn Whitehead as Pip and Shalom Brune-Franklin as Estella), but I’m loving Olivia Colman’s eye-rolling/venom-dropping turn as the crazed man hater Miss Havisham.

And as is so often the case with Dickens, some of the supporting players steal the show.  I’m particularly taken with Ashley Thomas’ turn as Jaggers, the utterly amoral and endlessly scheming lawyer who takes our impressionable young hero under his wing and slickly leads him into one moral and illegal dead end after another.

Juliet Rylance, Matthew Rhys

“PERRY  MASON” (HBO Max): The second season of “Perry Mason” continues its radical retelling of its characters’ origin stories. 

Perry (Matthew Rhys) is a former drunk just embarking on an uncertain legal career; Girl Friday Della Street (Juliet Rylance) and D.A. Hamilton Burger (Justin Kirk) are closeted gays.  Investigator Paul Drake (Chis Chalk) is an African American ex-cop fighting for dollars and some dignity in world that willingly gives up neither.

But the real star of the series is the way in which the show’s creators have established an atmosphere of Depression Era desperation and corruption.  This “Perry Mason” is like an eight-hour take on “Chinatown,”  a seething world of arrogant haves and scrambling have-nots, presented with a visual and aural authenticity (my God, Terence Blanchard’s jazz score!!!) unmatched in current streaming.

The plot finds Perry defending two young Mexicans charged with murdering the son of a supremely powerful (and despicable) oil magnate, but the courtroom stuff is secondary to the world established beyond the courthouse doors.

| Robert W. Butler

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“TETRIS”: From Russia with love

April 3, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Taron Edgerton

“TETRIS” My rating: B  (Apple+)

118 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Capitalist opportunism goes nose-to-nose with Communist purity in “Tetris,” a based-on-fact comedy-thriller about the origins of what may very well be the world’s most ubiquitous video game. 

Spoiler: The Commies lose.

In Jon S. Baird’s diverting recreation of events, Taron Edgerton stars as Hank Rogers, a real-life video game developer and marketer who in the late ‘80s was introduced to Tetris, a computer game in which players had to manipulate falling geometric forms to create solid lines that generated points.  

Rogers realized the game was utterly addictive and foresaw a huge market.  Just a few problems.

Rights to the game in the West were, well, unclear.  Several companies claimed them, but apparently none had actually finalized a deal with the USSR, where the game was born.  The  Soviet state claimed ownership of every invention of any of its citizens, among them the genius behind the game, programmer Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov).

Noah Pink’s screenplay follows Hank Rogers as he travels to Moscow to buy Tetris from the government.  His quest is complicated because there are other Westerners bidding on the game, among them fly-by-nighter Robert Stein (Toby Jones), Brit media mogul Robert Maxwell (Roger Allam)  and Maxwell’s insufferable (think Donald Trump Jr.) son Kevin (Anthony Boyle).  

Things are no less frantic among the Russians.  The honest bureaucrat ostensibly in charge of negotiations (Oleg Stefan) is continually undermined by politicians and their KGB minions expecting the collapse of the Soviet state; they are determined to build their own nest eggs on the back of Tetris.

The film is at its best when Hank must rely on his instincts and wits to penetrate the quagmire of Soviet bureaucracy. (At one point Soviet premiere Mikhail Gorbachov steps in deus ex machine-style.) It’s less effective when dealing with his domestic situation (wife and kids who want Daddy back home).

Also noteworthy is the film’s mirroring of plot points in the Oscar-winning “Argo,” especially the notion of a Westerner on a dangerous mission in a totalitarian state and a last-minute escape on a commercial aircraft.

Despite its slow-building tension, “Tetris” is often drolly funny. But making the show irresistibly playful are the many nods to first-generation video gaming.  The film’s various chapters are introduced with the same chunky graphics that marked early ‘80s video games; at one point during a car chase through Moscow the vehicles begin pixellating and become cartoon versions of themselves.

Nothing earth-shaking here. Just a good time.

| Robert W. Butler

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