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“THE CHILDREN ACT”: Suffer the children…

September 27, 2018 by butlerscinemascene

Emma Thompson

“THE CHILDREN ACT”  My rating:C+

105 minutes | MPAA rating: R 

“The Children Act” is part probing characters study, part  melodrama.

The first part works better than the second.

Fiona Maye (Emma Thompson) is a family court judge who gets all the tough cases. As Richard Eyre’s film begins she is deciding whether conjoined twins should be surgically separated…even if it means one of them will die (they have only one heart).

Fiona deals with her emotionally taxing work by building an aura of professional detachment.  Unfortunately, that detachment has spread to her private life.

One day her husband Jack (Stanley Tucci) announces that he’s thinking about having an affair.  He points out that he and Fiona haven’t had sex in almost a year — she just isn’t interested.  Jack isn’t willing to announce an official end to his sex life.

Fiona blows up and throws him out of the house. All this domestic turmoil comes as she  faces a news-generating trial over a teenaged Jehovah’s Witness whose leukemia cannot be treated until he receives a blood transfusion.

The kid’s doctors are suing to be allowed to perform the transfusion.  The boy’s parents (Ben Chaplin, Eileen Walsh) maintain that this violates their religious beliefs; if their son dies, then it’s God’s will.

All this pressure is making Fiona a snappish wreck; she makes life miserable for her  dutiful law clerk (Jason Watkins).

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“LIFE ITSELF”: Pretentiousness himself

September 20, 2018 by butlerscinemascene

Olivia Wilde, Oscar Isaac

“LIFE ITSELF” My rating: C-

118 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Having conquered the world of episodic television with the emotion-wringing family drama “This is Us,”  writer/director Dan Fogelman turns to the big screen with “Life Itself.”

Things don’t go well.

As the title suggests, Fogelman is here attempting nothing less than a God’s-eye view of human lives, all of them entangled — though at first that’s not obvious.  While “This is Us” appeals directly to big laughs and big tears, “Life Itself” is curiously muted, as if we’re observing the characters across vast distances.  Those looking for a good cry will probably leave looking for something to punch.

The film is perversely curious, for Fogelman has given us nothing less than a humanistic, non-violent parody/homage of Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction.” Like that film, “Life Itself” is broken into specific chapters and employs a time-leaping narrative (something with which Fogelman is familiar…see “This is Us”). At one point characters attend a party dressed like John Travolta and Uma Thurman in “Pulp Fiction’s”  famous dance contest; at least twice in “Life Itself” the movie slows down so that characters can deliver long Tarantino-esque monologues. Tarantino regular Samuel L. Jackson even pops up in an extended cameo so weird it defies description.

So what’s the movie about?  Well, let’s break it down by  chapters.

  • In the opening sequence the bearded, unkempt Will (Oscar Isaac) is getting therapy from a shrink (Annette Bening). We gradually learn that his beloved wife Abby has left him (in flashbacks she’s played by Olivia Wilde).  We see their romantic meeting, their growing love, their relationship with Will’s parents (Mandy Patinkin, Jean Smart), their anticipation of the birth of their child. We discover that Will’s therapy was court-mandated after a suicide attempt and a few months in a mental ward. Eventually we discover what happened to Abby.
  • The next segment follows the childhood of Will and Abby’s daughter, Dylan (Olivia Cooke), who is raised by her widowed grandpa and grows up to be a smart/rebellious punk rocker, though tormented by the loss of the parents she never met. Continue Reading »

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“LIZZIE”: Forty whacks

September 20, 2018 by butlerscinemascene

Chloe Sevigny

“LIZZIE” My rating: C+ (Opens Sept. 21 at  Tivoli, Glenwood Arts and Barrywood)

105 minutes | MPAA rating: R

In “Lizzie” the infamous story of Lizzie Borden — the young Massachusetts woman accused in 1892 of giving her parents “40 whacks” with a hatchet — gets a very modern, feminist (sort of) spin.

Writer Bryce Kass and director Craig William Macneill adhere closely to the known facts of the case…and use their imaginations to fill in the unexplored gaps.

Lizzie Borden (Chloe Sevigny) is trapped. A spinster (unmarried at the age of 32), she lives in the household of her wealthy and domineering father, Andrew (Jamey Sheridan).

Andrew is an old-style patriarch so cheap he has refused to wire his home for newfangled electricity. His  wife Abby (Fiona Shaw),  Lizzie’s stepmother,  is his colorless appendage; his older daughter Emma (Kim Dickens) is obedient and personality deficient.

Lizzie, though, is rebellious — though whether that is the result of an admirable strength of character or mental illness is up to the viewer. Early on she defies her father’s edict against going out unaccompanied, attends the theater, and has an epileptic fit in the powder room.

She’s the weird daughter Andrew would like to keep locked in a tower.

Life in the sedate Borden household shifts imperceptibly with the arrival of Bridget Sullivan (Kristen Stewart), a new housemaid. She’s quiet and hard working…and before long Andrew is raping her on a regular basis.

At the same time, Bridget and Lizzie are entering into their own love affair, a desperate reaction to the misogyny of Andrew’s home.

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“THE WIFE”: Behind every great man…

September 13, 2018 by butlerscinemascene

Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce

“THE WIFE” My rating: B 

100 minutes | MPAA rating: R

By the time “The Wife” delivers its big reveal, it should come as no surprise.  The film has been telegraphing its intentions all along; only the most inattentive viewer will be taken aback.

Happily, plot is one of the least important elements in Bjorn Runge’s film (adapted by Jane Anderson from Meg Wolitzer’s novel). What we’ve got here are some terrific acting and a portrait of a marriage in which both partners have struck a deal with the devil to ensure their continued success.

We first meet novelist Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce) and his wife Joan (Glenn Close) in the dead of night. Joe can’t sleep, knowing he’s a finalist for the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Joan finally submits to septuagenarian sex to calm him down.

When in the early a.m. the phone call from Stockholm comes, the two celebrate by jumping up and down on their marriage bed like a couple of preschoolers.

But there are signs that not all is well in the Castleman household.  Joe, we learn, is an inveterate philanderer.  And while their pregnant daughter Susannah (Alix Wilton Regan) seems well-adjusted, their son David (Max Irons) is a slow-boiling cauldron of resentment and hurt, not the least because he is an aspiring writer and desperately wants the approval of his famous father…approval which Joe won’t give.

The scene quickly shifts to Stockholm and the swirl of Nobel Week.  Joe attempts to take all the attention in stride, while Joan looks on. In fact, all this hubbub  — and Joe’s obvious infatuation with the pretty young photographer (Morgane Polanski) assigned to record his visit for posterity — is rubbing Joan the wrong way.

Her mood isn’t improved by Nathanial (Christian Slater, in one of his best performances), a sort of literary leech who wants to write Joe’s authorized biography.  Equal parts charm and smarm, Nathanial spends an afternoon drinking with Joan and suggesting that perhaps she’s the one who should be getting the Nobel. Continue Reading »

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“WHITE BOY RICK”: Marshmallow boy

September 13, 2018 by butlerscinemascene

Matthew McCaughnahey, Richie Merritt

“WHITE BOY RICK” My rating: C+ 

110 minutes | MPAA rating: R

It’s easy to see why the real-life tale depicted in “White Boy Rick” got Hollywood’s attention. Here’s the story of a 15-year-old white Detroit kid who back in the ’80s infiltrated a black drug ring for the FBI, survived an assassination attempt, became a cocaine kingpin and ended up serving a long prison sentence.

It practically screams “Movie!”

Yet “White Boy Rick” is a surprisingly limp affair, perhaps because the screenwriters (Andy Weiss, Logan Miller and Noah Miller) and director Yann Demange cannot decide what to make of their offbeat protagonist.

And if they don’t know, those of us in the audience are even more in the dark.

The basics are these: Back in ’84 Rick Wershe Jr. (Richie Merritt) was helping his bottom-feeding, gun-dealing dad (Matthew McConaughey, in full character actor mode with pot belly and greasy mullet) peddle illegal homemade silencers to Detroit’s gangbangers.

Cornered by a couple of manipulative  and openly amoral FBI agents (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rory Cochrane), Rick agrees to go undercover if the feds will leave his old man alone. He starts by buying at local drug houses, ostensibly on behalf of his crackhead sister (Bel Powley), and gradually becomes accepted by the crew of a local drug lord (Jonathan Majors).

Before long he’s dropped out of school and is sporting expensive track suits and gold bling (he’s so thick he buys a gaudy Star of David necklace, not realizing it represents Judaism) and doing all sorts of services both for the gang and for his FBI handlers.

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“WHERE HANDS TOUCH”: Wrong color for the Reich

September 13, 2018 by butlerscinemascene

George MacKay, Amanda Stenberg

“WHERE HANDS TOUCH”  My rating: C

122 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Initially intriguing but ultimately ineffective, “Where Hand Touch” is an odd blend of “Romeo and Juliet” romance and “Pianist”-style Holocaust horror.

Its heart is in the right place. Alas, good intentions aren’t enough.

While the film mines a real-life situation rarely recognized by the arts or the history books — the plight under the Nazis of mixed-blood Germans whose mothers were Aryan  and fathers African — “Where Hands Touch” is tough going. And not just because of the downbeat subject matter.

Writer/director Amma Assante rarely opts for subtlety when a heavy hand can be employed. The result is a film that, in theory anyway, should move us deeply.  Except that it doesn’t.

Sixteen-year-old Lenya (Amanda Sternberg) comes to Berlin with her mother (a dowdied-down Abbie Cornish) and little brother (Tom Sweet) in the hopes of becoming lost. Back in their provincial burg the authorities are looking for Jews and mixed-race children. Perhaps Lenya, whose father was an African soldier with the occupying French at the end of WWI, can hide her racial heritage among the city’s masses.

The irony here is that Lenya considers herself 100 percent German…and so does the law, which defines citizenship as being passed down from mother to child.  But mixed-race children are widely viewed as a blemish on the Reich, so Lenya must be very careful where she goes and who she sees.

It’s a small miracle, then, when she is befriended by Lutz (George MacKay), a blonde Hitler Youth who is not only prejudice free but romantically taken with his exotic new neighbor.

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“PICK OF THE LITTER”: Every dog has its day

September 13, 2018 by butlerscinemascene

“PICK OF THE LITTER” My rating: B 

81 minutes | No MPAA rating

Even if you’re not a dog lover, “Pick of the Litter” has an AWWWWW factor that’s off the charts.

But canine-generated sentimentality aside, this documentary leaves the viewer deeply impressed by the effort that goes into training a Guide Dog for the Blind, and by the sacrifices of dozens of humans who are behind each animal that completes the program.

Don Hardy Jr. and Dana Nachman’s film begins with the birth of five puppies and follows their growth and training over two years as they prepare to join the ranks of what used to be called “seeing-eye dogs.”

It starts out cute — few things are as heart-melting as a wriggling newborn Labrador retriever — and gradually works its way into some surprisingly territory.

We’re told up front that only three out of every eight dogs bred by the California-based Guide Dogs for the Blind will graduate from the program.  Which means that of our five littermate subjects — the staff names them Potomac, Poppet, Primrose, Patriot and Phil — only two should be expected to make the final cut. And even that’s not guaranteed.

Most will at some point be “career changed,” meaning that they’ll be scrubbed from the program for reasons ranging from intelligence to excitability to the ability to focus on the task at hand.  One of the more intriguing issues raised centers on how much of the failure is due to the individual animal’s nature and how much to the shortcomings of  its human handlers.

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“AMERICAN CHAOS”: Welcome to Trumpland

September 13, 2018 by butlerscinemascene

“AMERICAN CHAOS” My rating: B

90 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Every liberal -minded American should see “American Chaos.”

Good luck with that.

Because however insightful it may be, Jim Stern’s documentary about Trump supporters is almost too painful to watch.

The film begins with a montage of Presidential campaign newsreel footage, starting with Teddy Roosevelt and ending with Donald Trump.

Stern then goes on to describe himself as growing up in a classic Kennedy Democrat household in Chicago. He still reveres Bobby Kennedy, whom he describes as generating “a feeling of empathy so deep it was infectious.”  Not until Obama did he feel a similar level of enthusiasm for a Presidential candidate.

But shortly after the beginning of the 2016 race Stern noticed something different about Trump and his adherents, something that bothered him so much that he grabbed his camera and spent several months crisscrossing America to interview Trump  voters.

The resulting documentary doesn’t tell us anything we haven’t heard elsewhere, but it’s interesting /frightening to hear these citizens explain their support.

Stern went into these conversations knowing that he wasn’t going to debate with his subjects, make snide comments or even speak disapprovingly of Trump (which doesn’t mean you can’t catch him biting his tongue on numerous occasions). He genuinely wanted to know what these folks believed…and why.

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“OPERATION FINALE”: The banality of evil

August 31, 2018 by butlerscinemascene

Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley

“OPERATION FINALE” My rating: B

122 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Israel’s 1961 show trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann has spawned several documentaries, a hit stage play (Robert Shaw’s “The Man in the Glass Booth,” later filmed) and numerous other movies. Particularly noteworthy was 2012’s “Hannah Arendt,” about the political philosopher who covered the trial for The New Yorker and was so unimpressed by Eichmann’s demeanor that she coined the phrase “the banality of evil.”

With “Operation Finale” first-time screenwriter Matthew Orton and director Chris Weitz (“About a Boy,” “A Better Life”) have tackled the Eichmann saga and in effect given us two films.

The first is a suspenseful procedural about Mossad agents who track down the “architect of the Final Solution” in Argentina, risking life and limb to spirit their kidnapped prey back to Israel and a final judgment.

But wrapped in the middle of that thriller is an equally absorbing drama, a psychological duel between Eichmann (Ben Kingsley) and the Jewish agent (Oscar Isaac) who must somehow bend the will of this egocentric anti-Semite.

Much of the film’s first half is devoted to planning the mission. Like many of his fellows, the first inclination of agent Peter Malkin (Isaac) is to simply pop a bullet into Eichmann, who under an assumed identity has been working as a foreman at a Buenos Aires auto plant and devoting his spare time to nurturing an underground Nazi movement. (Under Juan Peron’s fascist leadership Argentina was already halfway Nazi; Eichmann and his goose-stepping pals had plenty of friends in politics and law enforcement.)

But Israeli bigwigs very much want Eichmann alive.

The skillfully depicted abduction goes as planned — but there’s a hiccup.  The El Al plane that is supposed to whisk the agents and their captive to Israel is delayed by red tape.  Eichmann and his guards must spend a week in a safe house, keeping a low profile as outraged Argentine law enforcement launch a citywide manhunt. (Here’s a bit of irony…15 years after the war we have a houseful of Jews still hiding from right-wing thugs).

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“THE BOOKSHOP”: Bait and switch

August 30, 2018 by butlerscinemascene

Emily Mortimer

“THE BOOKSHOP” My rating: B

113 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

“The Bookshop” is an insidious bit of bait and switch.

As it starts out a viewer is confident that he or she is entering familiar territory.  In 1959 a war widow opens a bookshop in  picturesque British coastal town.

So this is going to be a feel-good movie about the power of literature to illuminate gray lives, right? And the lady storeowner will undoubtedly find romance with one of the locals…maybe a handsome fisherman?

Also, our  heroine sells controversial books like Nabokov’s Lolita. So the film will depict the conflict between the local blue noses and everybody else’s right to read, eh?

Uh, no.

Isabel Coixet’s film, adapted from Penelope Fitzgerald’s novel, is much darker than that.  Here the common man is something less than noble and the good guys shouldn’t expect to win.

All might have gone swimmingly had Florence Green (Emily Mortimer) not chosen as the site of her new book shop the long-abandoned  Old House, a historic structure fallen on hard times. She buys the place at bargain prices, installs shelves and orders crates of books.

She hires Christine (Honor Kneafsey), the child of local laborers, as her after-school assistant.

And she cultivates the attentions of the  eccentric  town hermit, Edmund (Bill Nighy), a voracious reader living in a slowly decaying mansion. He’s this movie’s version of Miss Havisham.

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