Butler's Cinema Scene

“KRISHA”: Home is where they have to let you in

April 7, 2016 by butlerscinemascene

Krisha Fairchild

“KRISHA” My rating: B

83 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The dysfunctional Thanksgiving gathering has long been the subject of cinematic exploration, usually played for knowing laughs.

But writer/director Trey Edward Shults’ debut effort “Krisha” plumbs harrowing depths other filmmakers flee in horror, along the way establishing a narrative style so realistic that you can almost smell the turkey roasting.

In a long, uninterrupted tracking shot, we’re introduced to Krisha (Krisha Fairchild), who parks her ratty pickup truck in an upscale suburban neighborhood and goes door to door looking for her sister’s address.

With a wild mane of nearly-white hair and the sort of long granny dress that screams “hippie Earth mother,” the sixtysomething Krisha locates the right McMansion, is admitted, and finds herself surrounded by an extended family. There’s the usual oohing and aahing about how the kids have grown (they’re mostly college age now) and nice things are said about the new baby.

Everyone seems welcoming, but it’s clear that Krisha is something of a black sheep seeking to be readmitted to the fold. While a dozen or more relations fuss over the big meal, roar at the televised football game, or roughhouse out in the back yard, Krisha stands a bit apart, soaking it all up and looking just a bit fearful.

The first 40 or so minutes of the film are purely observational, and anyone who’s attended a big family holiday celebration will feel right at home with the happy chaos, the babble of several simultaneous conversations, the small pack of dogs underfoot.

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“MARGUERITE”: Tin ear, warm heart

April 7, 2016 by butlerscinemascene

Catherine Frot

“MARGUERITE” My rating: B+

129 minutes | MPAA rating: R

You can approach “Marguerite” as a cruel joke, a satire of a wannabe opera singer who doesn’t realize just how awful her voice is.

Fine. Come to laugh. But you’ll leave in a much more sober and contemplative frame of mind.

Xavier Giannoli’s lush period film is set in the early 1920s and was inspired by Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944), an American socialite who despite a total absence of vocal talent forged a career as an operatic soprano. She became a minor celebrity based on the entertainment value of her off-key recitals.

Giannoli’s fictional “heroine” is Baroness Marguerite Dumont (a spectacular Catherine Frot), who as the film begins is hosting a charity concert on her estate outside Paris. The highlight of the event will be a rare performance by the Baroness.

A tone-deaf, music-mangling performance, as it turns out, one marked by grandiose theatrical gestures and much caterwauling.

The members of the Mozart Society, which runs mostly on donations from the Baroness, applaud furiously. Others in the crowd — like Lucien (Sylvain Dieuaide) and Kyrill (Aubert Fenoy), two young artistic radicals who have crashed the party — are simultaneously appalled and delighted.

Kyrill declares the performance — and Marguerite’s total lack of self-awareness — a daring new art form (“She’s so sublimely off-key”). Lucien critiques the concert for a Paris newspaper, parsing his words so carefully that it can be read either as a ringing endorsement or a devastating pan.

The ever-hopeful Baroness takes the review as proof that she should move her career out of the parlor and onto the world’s great concert stages. The plot of “Marguerite” is about her determination to share her “gift” with the world, and the efforts to prevent that great embarrassment.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Marguerite", Catherine Frot, Michel Fau, Xavier Giannoli | Leave a Comment »

“DEMOLITION”: Dismantling numbness

April 7, 2016 by butlerscinemascene

Jake Gyllenhaal…tearing stuff down

“DEMOLITION” My rating: B- (Opening April 8 at the Glenwood Arts)

101 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Mental health professionals tell us there’s no “correct” way to grieve. How you mourn depends on who you are.

Even so, it’s hard to sympathize with Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal), the young widower at the heart of Jean-Marc Vallee’s “Demolition,” a film that for much of its running time dares you to care before enventually finding its emotional center.

After losing his wife in an auto accident, it quickly dawns on Davis that he doesn’t feel grief. Or much of anything.

Before the funeral he practices crying in front of a mirror, just so he’ll be able to pass himself off as the bereaved spouse people expect.

But it’s all for show. While Phil (Kansas City’s Chris Cooper), Davis’ father-in-law and boss at a Wall Street investment firm, is obviously shattered by loss, the dead-eyed Davis is simply numb.

He does get worked up by one thing. While waiting in the emergency room, Davis was ripped off by a hospital vending machine that took his money and failed to deliver the M&Ms. Now he sends bizarre rambling letters to the vending machine company’s complaints department.

He’ll tell you it’s not about the money. It’s about the principle. But what it’s really about is having something to obsess over so he doesn’t have to face himself, his loss and his growing sense that he really didn’t know his wife at all.

Vallee, whose “The Dallas Buyers Club” and “Wild” melded art film sensibilities with great acting and strong storytelling, goes out on a limb with “Demolition.” For big swatches of the film he and screenwriter Bryan Sipe give us a protagonist we can’t figure out or necessarily like.

They create an emotional palette that veers from overt displays of gut-tearing sorrow (from Cooper’s character) to black humor and atavistic outbursts.

The film’s title refers to Davis’ growing mania for destruction. He devotes a night to dismantling his home refrigerator. At the office he takes apart the partitions in the men’s room. Eventually he stops showing up for work and instead pitches in — without pay — to help tear down a house. Still wearing his business suit he takes a sledgehammer to walls and beams. Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Demolition", Chris Cooper, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jean-Marc Vallee, Naomi Watts | Leave a Comment »

“BASKIN”: Bogeyman

April 7, 2016 by butlerscinemascene

Welcome to hell…

“BASKIN” My rating: C+

97 minutes | No MPAA rating

It’s not my cup of viscera, but the Turkish horror entry “Baskin” gets points for the supreme confidence with which first-time director Can Evrenol handles a preposterous story.

Like a campfire yarn meant to scare the youngest kid in the Boy Scout troop, the film makes no sense narratively or logically, but instead develops an atmosphere of horror, dread and gross-me-out gore that will have some viewers closing their eyes in self defense.

The film opens in a roadside diner in rural Turkey where five cops are taking their evening meal. They’re like police officers everywhere — self-assured, cocky good ol’ boys fueled by questionable eating habits and displays of machismo.

Before they get in their van and head off to a nearby disturbance call one of the cops very nearly gets into a brawl with a waiter who doesn’t sufficiently defer to his authority.

Dispatched to a nearby town the officers first encounter a family of frog hunters camping out beside a swamp. Possible inbreeding (among the hunters, not the frogs) seems likely.

Then the cops enter an old abandoned police station, start poking around in the dark cellars, and become the prisoners of what I assume is a coven of witches.

One by one the coppers are dispatched in ghastly ways by a nightmarish figure identified in the credits as the Father. This horrifying creature is played by Mehmet Cerrahoglu, reportedly an acting novice who was discovered working in a public parking lot. He may have been chosen for his bizarre physiognomy, but Cerrahoglu appears to be a natural actor — delivering one of the most memorable depictions of evil I’ve ever seen.

Despite its conceptual shortcomings — like refusing to explain what’s going on — “Baskin” has been very well acted and the production effort is first-rate.

Good luck sleeping after this one.

| Robert W. Butler

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“EYE IN THE SKY”: The “clean” war

March 31, 2016 by butlerscinemascene

“EYE IN THE SKY” My rating: B

102 minutes | MPAA rating: R

In the wars of the 21st century drones and robots do all the dirty work, directed by mouse jockeys on the other side of the world who risk little more than a case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

But even if you’re one of those remote-control button pushers, it’s still war. It’s still killing. There are still ethical consequences.

Gavin Hood’s “Eye in the Sky” offers a fingernail-gnawing look at this new kind of warfare. Scripted by Guy Hibbert, it’s a taut well-acted thriller that raises all sorts of moral questions — Hitchcock with a conscience.

Aaron Paul

At various points around the globe, high-tech warriors gather to capture a husband-and-wife team of Islamic terrorists (she’s a British citizen, he’s an American) operating in East Africa.

The actual takedown will be executed on the ground by Kenyan security forces. The operation will be observed from 22,000 feet by an armed American drone, the mission’s “eye in the sky” operated by an Air Force pilot [Air Force Lt. Steve Watts] (Aaron Paul) from the desert outside Las Vegas.

In charge of the overall mission is a calculating British Army colonel [Col. Katherine Powell] (Helen Mirren), who from her bunker in the English countryside has been directing a manhunt lasting more than six years. She can almost taste the long-awaited victory.

In a comfortable London office a British general (Alan Rickman in one of his last roles) sits with a group of civilian government officials watching it all unfold on closed-circuit television. They’re standing by to give their legal opinions and, ultimately, permission for the mission to continue.

But from the beginning the operation hits snags. The targets relocate to a village in terrorist-controlled territory where ground forces are denied entry.

A sole undercover agent (“Captain Phillips’” Barkhad [Barked] Abdi) gets close enough to set loose a tiny surveillance drone that looks like a large flying insect (apparently our arsenal holds all sorts of marvelous toys); from its fly-on-the-wall vantage point inside the house this tiny spy reveals that the residents are suiting up for a suicide bomb attack.

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“CITY OF GOLD”: Savoring the city, one bite at a time

March 31, 2016 by butlerscinemascene

Jonathan Gold…dining out

“CITY OF GOLD” My rating: B+

96 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Every big city needs a Jonathan Gold.

Gold — who looks like a hippie Wilford Brimley (big gut, rusty ‘stache, bald on top with long scraggly hair hanging down) — is the only food/restaurant writer to have won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism. As Laura Gabbert’s insightful documentary makes clear, he received that honor not just for what he says about eating in Los Angeles, but for his depiction of the city as a living, breathing, vibrant entity.

The son of probation officer who raised his children in a high-art environment (“The culture of the nation was flowing through our living room,” Gold recalls), he grew up playing cello, both in a youth orchestra and in a punk rock band.

Gold’s fascination with both the high and low end of the musical spectrum is reflected in his approach to restaurant writing. While he’s done haute cuisine, Gold’s real joy is the hole-in-the-wall, mom-and-pop restaurant (or food truck) that specializes in ethnic dining, sometimes in just one particular dish.

He has an astoundingly discerning palate. Chefs note Gold’s ability to pick out the various flavor elements and ingredients of even the most complex dishes.

As the doc shows again and again, an endorsement by Gold on the pages of the Los Angeles Times or the L.A. Weekly has the power to change the lives and fortunes of restauranteurs. The chefs he writes about and his fellow journalists all describe him as a hugely empathetic writer. (One of the film’s main flaws is that it never examines the impact of bad reviews…in fact after watching “City of Gold” one might assume that all of Gold’s reviews are raves.)

Gold’s prose is wonderfully literary without ever dipping into pretentiousness. He writes about food with same marvelous readability that A.J. Libeling brought to the “sweet science” of boxing or Pauline Kael to movies. The film’s soundtrack often features Gold reading from his critiques. You’ve got to love a guy who rhapsodizes about a meal “whose aftertaste can go on for hours” and argues that “taco should be a verb.”

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“I SAW THE LIGHT”: Are you sure Hank done it thisaway?

March 30, 2016 by butlerscinemascene

Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams

“I SAW THE LIGHT” My rating: C-

123 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The Hank Williams songbook runs deep and rich, which makes the shallow ineffectiveness of “I Saw the Light” all that much more dispiriting.

Williams, of course, was the country/western genius who in the late ’40s and early ’50s produced some of popular music’s most lasting tunes (“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Cold Cold Heart,” “Hey Good Lookin’,” “Lovesick Blues,” “Jambalaya,” “I Can’t Help It,” “Move It On Over,” Kaw-Liga”) then succumbed to drugs and alcohol, dying at age 29 in the back seat of a limousine on New Year’s Day 1953.

The story has been told cinematically once before, in “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” with Coppertone poster boy George Hamilton in the lead role. That 1964 release remains the best screen treatment of Williams’ life and music.

Going in, my hopes were high for “I Saw the Light.”

I was looking forward to seeing what Brit actor Tom Hiddleston (a scene stealer as the evil Loki in the “Thor”/Marvel franchises) could bring to the role of an iconic American country artist.

And there was hope behind the camera as well, inasmuch as writer/director Marc Abraham had helmed the solid 2008 biopic “Flash of Genius” (about the inventor of the variable-speed windshield wiper, who sued the Detroit carmakers over patent infringement) and produced films ranging from “The Commitments” to “Dawn of the Dead” and “Children of Men.”

Well, “I Saw the Light” gets the music right, though there’s not near as much of it as there could have been.

But as drama this one is dead in the water.

The major issue here is Abraham’s lack of a coherent vision. What story is he telling here? He throws around a lot of ideas but never settles on one that can carry the weight of a two-hour-plus feature film. Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged " Hank Williams, "I Saw the Light, country music, Elizabreth Olsen, Mark Abraham, Tom Hiddleston | Leave a Comment »

“KNIGHT OF CUPS”: Tinseltown wanderer

March 24, 2016 by butlerscinemascene

Christian Bale, Natalie Portman

“KNIGHT OF CUPS” My rating: C-

118 minutes | MPAA rating: R

There lurks in “Knight of Cups” the makings of a pretty good travelogue.

But on most other counts the latest feature from the increasingly irritating Terrence Malick shows him firmly stuck in the same prison of self parody that doomed his last outing, the unromantic romance “To the Wonder.”

Malick, of course, is the low-profile cinematic genius who back in the ’70s gave us “Badlands” and “Days of Heaven,” then moved on to offbeat period pieces (“The Thin Red Line,” “The New World”) before delivering his ultimate statement, 2011’s memorable (for all the right reasons) “The Tree of Life.”

“Knight of Cups” is ostensibly a Hollywood insider tale, a sort of “La Dolce Vida” look at feckless, amoral living among the beautiful people.

In fractured, impressionistic style it follows a screenwriter named Rick (Christian Bale), as he engages in romantic wanderings, professional and family issues, and hedonistic pastimes.

That description makes the film sound coherent. It isn’t.

Malick eschews conventional narrative construction and character development in favor of sweeping, swooning handheld cinematography of Los Angeles, Las Vegas and the desert by frequent collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki (“Gravity,” “Birdman,” “The Revenant”). His characters almost never actually speak lines, except in the form of vacuous party chatter. Instead we hear their innermost thoughts, whispered in voiceover.

As for the story…what story?

Rick goes through a series of lovers, all of them willowy beauties whose personalities are best summed up by their pre-Raphaelite tresses. Presumably he has sex, although there’s nothing remotely romantic or erotic going on here (Malick has never done sexy).

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Kinght of Cups", Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Terrence Malick | Leave a Comment »

“PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT”: The lonely life

March 17, 2016 by butlerscinemascene

“PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT” My rating: B (Opens Jan. 22 at the Tivoli)

96 minutes | No MPAA rating)

She never wielded a brush or a hammer and chisel, yet Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) was one of the most important art figures of the 20th century.

Born into a fabulously wealthy family — although her fortune was a mere pittance compared to that of most of her relatives — Guggenheim grew up in an environment awash with dysfunctional eccentricity. She seems to have failed in most of the so-called normal aspects of life (notably marriage and motherhood) but she had something few others possessed: a eye for recognizing great outsider art before anyone else did and the drive to push that art into the mainstream.

Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s “Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict” is the first full-length documentary devoted to this fascinating woman who was instrumental in the success of artists like Jackson Pollack, Wassily Kandinski, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Mark Rothko, Constantin Brancusi and many others.

The film benefits greatly from its reliance on a series of audiotaped interviews Guggenheim submitted to shortly before her death. Never before released to the public, these tapes allow her to more or less narrate her own life story.

She came from a clan of Jewish immigrants who grew from peddling to banking, amassing huge fortunes. Peggy’s father died on the Titanic. Her uncle would become the namesake for NYC’s landmark Guggenheim Museum. Murder, madness and tragic death seemed to stalk the family.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Peggy Guggeheim: Art Addict", Jackson Pollack, Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Peggy guggenheim | Leave a Comment »

“CREATIVE CONTROL”: Cyber love

March 17, 2016 by butlerscinemascene

Writer/director/star Benjamin Dickinson and avatar girlfriend (Alexia Rasmussen)

“CREATIVE CONTROL” My rating: B-

97 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Creative Control” is set in a near future of rapid technical advances. Human nature, though, hasn’t had a chance to catch up.

The impressive if sometimes muddled effort from director Benjamin Dickinson (who also co-wrote and stars) centers on David, the creative director at a New York advertising firm.

The film’s world looks a lot like ours, except for some telling details. The Soho district streets appear pretty much the same, as do most fashions. But inside David’s workplace, computers are now nothing more than translucent slabs of plastic that sit on desks and are operated by flicking one’s fingers across the screen.

As the film begins David — a tense guy in a high stress job — is drifting away from his yoga-instructor girlfriend Juliette (Nora Zehetner). She’s mellow and he’s…well he’s kind of Woody Allen-ish neurotic.

He finds escape in the new product his firm has been hired to debut. It’s a computer in the form of a pair of eyeglasses. Called Augmenta, this system pretty much makes virtual reality a reality. Whatever your mind can think, Augmenta can make it happen right before your eyes.

For David it’s an opportunity to fantasize about Sophie (Alexia Rasmussen), the clothing designer squeeze of his best friend Wim (Dan Gill), a womanizing high fashion photographer.

With Augmenta David can not only conjure up a Sophie avatar in his head, he can augment her body to make her his dream girl right down to the last freckle.

Is this cheating? Adultery? Rampant chauvinism?

More to the point, what happens now that David cannot separate the real Sophie from the manufactured one he sees through the Augmenta specs?

“Creative Control” bites off a bit more than it can comfortably masticate. It simultaneously satirizes the ad game, our increasing dependence on electronic stimulation, and the sort of relationship foibles that have long been a staple of Manhattan-based romantic comedy. Moreover, there’s not much warmth here — David is a rather pathetic fellow whom we view strictly from the outside. (It might have gone smoother if Dickinson had chosen a more charismatic actor to carry the show.)

But the film is ruthlessly sardonic. And it’s been filmed in glorious widescreen black and white (the cinematographer is Adam Newport-Berra) with only a hint of color in some of David’s wilder imaginings.

| Robert W. Butler

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Creative Control", Bemjamin Dickinson | Leave a Comment »

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Butler's Cinema Scene

Movie criticism taking the long view

“KRISHA”: Home is where they have to let you in

“MARGUERITE”: Tin ear, warm heart

“DEMOLITION”: Dismantling numbness

“BASKIN”: Bogeyman

“EYE IN THE SKY”: The “clean” war

“CITY OF GOLD”: Savoring the city, one bite at a time

“I SAW THE LIGHT”: Are you sure Hank done it thisaway?

“KNIGHT OF CUPS”: Tinseltown wanderer

“PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT”: The lonely life

“CREATIVE CONTROL”: Cyber love

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