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Posts Tagged ‘Benedict Cumberbatch’

“THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR”: Pastel paradise

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on September 28, 2023| 1 Comment »

Benedict Cumberbatch

“THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR”  My rating: A (Netflix)

37 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

At the risk of committing  cinematic apostasy, I’d like to suggest that in the future Wes Anderson limit himself to short films.

I have come to this conclusion after viewing Anderson’s “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” 37 minutes of visual and aural bliss emphasizing all that is great about the Anderson style without ever wearing out its welcome.

Hanging  around too long has been the major flaw of Anderson’s recent features like  “Asteroid City” and “The French Dispatch,” quirky whimsy being an elusive thing to sustain over 90 minutes.

But “…Henry Sugar,” based on a short story by the late Roald Dahl, is a pure delight. the ideal marriage of material and presentational form.

It’s not so much an adaptation of Dahl’s yarn as a word-for-word recitation, with the cast members (familiar faces from the Anderson screen universe)  speaking the author’s words directly to the viewer.

What’s it about?  Well, it begins in the yellow cottage in which Dahl (Ralph Fiennes) does his writing.  Dahl tells us the story of “The Man Who Sees Without Using His Eyes.”  

Through a delightful series of interlocking flashbacks (stories within stories within stories…a familiar Anderson device) we follow Imdad Khan (Ben Kingsley), who as a young man in the 1930s became a devotee of a holy Indian hermit and learned to identify objects — like playing cards — even though his eyes have been completely bandaged. 

Ralph Fiennes

The adult Khan exploits this skill as one of the main attractions of a traveling vaudeville show. Along the way he becomes the obsession of a physician (Dev Patel) bent on understanding this phenomenon.

Eventually the yarn turns to wastrel Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch), an upperclass Brit ne’er-do-well addicted to gambling.  Sugar finds a journal written by Khan in a fellow rich twit’s library, steals it, and studies it for several years with singleminded intensity..

Sugar wants to employ Khan’s remote viewing system to read the cards held by his fellow casino denizens. He pulls it off…only to realize that gambling is no longer thrilling when you know you can’t lose.

The story is oddball charming and even has a nifty moral to it.

And the presentational style is, well, beautiful. The film is awash in pastel eruptions, with sets that often resemble huge doll houses and at other times fold up or open out like gigantic pop-up books.  

| Robert W. Butler

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“THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN”: Prrrfect Cumberbatch

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy

“THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN”  My rating: B+ (Amazon Prime)

111 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Whimsical charm and heartbreaking tragedy achieve a life-affirming reconciliation in “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain,” a mostly-factual biopic in which Benedict Cumberbatch gives one of his most memorable performances as a true English eccentric.

In his prime Louis Wain (1860 – 1939) was one of England’s most popular illustrators, a sort of artistic idiot savant who could churn out artwork at an amazing pace, painting or drawing using both hands simultaneously. 

His subject matter was equally odd — he specialized in portraits of cats,  often anthropomorphizing them. (You know the poker-playing dog paintings? Same idea, only with felines.) Before Louis Wain the British public regarded cats not as pets but as working animals whose job was to control the rodent population; his widely disseminated artwork turned that notion inside out.

At the onset of Will Sharpe’s film  (Sharpe also co-wrote the screenplay with Simon Stephenson) we find  Louis (Cumberbatch) working part time for a London newspaper editor (Toby Jones) who appreciates the artist’s keen eye and speed in producing drawings of country life, especially animals like bulls, sheep and fowl. (This was before newspapers could reproduce photographs.)

Beyond his skills as an illustrator,  Louis is a tad wacko.  He has theories about undetected electrical currents permeating all existence. (Later in life he would lecture that cats would evolve into superhuman creatures and turn blue in the process.)

He’s an emotionally constipated  social misfit in a late-Victorian world that is all about propriety. He’s a loner who does not play well with others…not that we can blame him. He lives with and provides the only financial support for his mother and five sisters (the most domineering and critical of his siblings is portrayed by the chameleonic Andrea Riseborough). Can’t blame the guy for zoning out in his own bubble.

But then the family hires Emily Richardson (Claire Foy) as governess for the youngest sisters, and Louis is smitten.  In her own way Emily is an outsider, too. They’re made for each other and ere long have moved to a storybook cottage in the countryside. (Erik Wilson’s astounding cinematography is like a pastel-dominated, hand-colored Daguerrotype and employs a square frame format; it’s sort of like watching a magic lantern show from that period.)

The couple adopt a kitten found mewling in a downpour. They take in this creature and treat it both as a child and as an equal.  

Jeeze…what a happy little family.

Except after only a few blissful years Emily sickens, leaving a distraught Louis once again in the demanding arms of his womenfolk.

There’s a bit of good news…the cat portraits he executed for the ailing Emily have morphed into a full-time avocation.  Suddenly he’s wildly popular.  (Not that this materially helped the Wains…Louis — always more an impetuous enthusiast than a calculating businessman —neglected to copyright any of his illustrations and now they’re being exploited while he receives not a penny.)

As it follows Louis’ long life (he died in a mental hospital at age 78) the film alternates between passages of enchanting oddness and moments of crushing sadness. This repetitive first-you’re-up-then-you’re down pattern might be offputting if not for Cumberbatch’s weirdly compelling performance.

In fact, one is tempted to declare Louis Wain the character Cumberbatch was born to play.   With his big, childlike noggin and ability to perfectly project the sense of a man caught up in private reveries, Cumberbatch embodies this oddball in ways that no conventionally handsome actor could.

There are moments here when the actor moves the viewer to tears; at the same time there’s an almost frightening clinical approach to the character.  After watching this performance you’ll understand why Wain fans still argue over whether he was truly schizophrenic (as he was diagnosed at the time) or instead occupyied his own special niche on the spectrum.

“The Electrical Life of Louis Wain” has been sumptuously mounted as it follow its subject from the 1880s to the eve of World War II, and the keen-eyed viewer will spot some sly guest appearances by notables like Taika Waititi and singer Nick Cage. The great Olivia Colman provides the slightly wry narration.

| Robert W. Butler

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“THE COURIER”: Game of inches

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 19, 2021| 1 Comment »

Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel Brosnahan

“THE COURIER” My rating: B- (In theaters March 19)

111 minutes: MPAA rating: PG-13

Like its title, “The Courier” is an unprepossessing Cold War thriller that, despite an OK turn from leading man Benedict Cumberbatch and a based-on-fact birthright, never works up a full head of steam.

In the early 1960s British businessman Greville Wynne (Cumberbatch) was recruited by his country’s spymasters. An independent salesman who represented dozens of Western manufacturers, Wynne was encouraged by the M-16 spooks to expand his operation to the growing Soviet market.

Mostly he was to carry on business as usual. But from time to time he would be asked to bring pilfered Soviet secrets back to London.

Initially Wynne rejects the idea.  He’s not a spy, after all.

Noting Wynne’s unremarkable military record and his gone-to-flab physique, his handler reassures him: “If this mission were really dangerous you’re the last man we’d send.”

Wynn’s contact in Moscow is Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), a WWII hero now working for the KGB, though his “official” title is that of trade specialist.  Penkovsky is the film’s most interesting character, a guy so traumatized by Krushchev’s podium pounding and the growing Cuban Missile Crisis that he’s willing to turn his country’s secrets over to the West in the hope of avoiding all-out nuclear war.

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“1917”: War is hell

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 9, 2020| 1 Comment »

George MacKay

“1917”  My rating: B+

118 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Both epically sprawling and remarkably intimate, “1917” instantly establishes itself as one of the great war films.

Here’s the ugly truth of trench warfare during World War I: Rotting corpses, feasting rats, clouds of carrion-colonizing insects.

Yet along with these ghastly images, “1917” delivers a profoundly human story that taps into all sorts of emotions: terror, comradeship, compassion, bravery, hubris.

That the entire two-hour film is told entirely in what appears to be one uninterrupted shot makes it a technical tour de force (Roger Deakins is the d.p. and his work is jaw-dropping). But this is more than a cinematic gimmick. Without editing and alternating camera angles we’re forced to focus on the conflict in much the same way as its participants. There’s no way out.

The screenplay by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns (reportedly inspired by wartime tales related by Mendes’ grandfather) is straightforward enough.

Two lance corporals in the British army in northern France — Blake (Dean Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay) — are sent on foot across nine miles of no man’s land to deliver a message. Another British unit  is planning an attack on “retreating” German troops.  But aerial surveillance shows that the enemy withdrawl is merely a strategic realignment, and that the Tommies are walking into a trap that could mean death for 1,600 of them.

So it’s a race against time that takes the two young soldiers through a shell-pocked landscape, into abandoned enemy trenches, through rubble-strewn farms and villages and down swollen rivers.

Though their journey is marked by growing suspense and flashes of real danger, there’s relatively little in the way of conventional combat here — just one incident with a German sniper. Mendes and Wilson-Cairns find plenty of moments of relative calm in which to explore their characters.

Blake, who was picked for the mission because his older brother is an officer in the target battalion (evidently the brass figure that a chance to save his sibling will prove motivational), is gung ho to get moving.  Schofield, several years older and much more combat savvy, wants to wait for nightfall. He’s overruled and bitter that his fate is in the hands of an amateur.

The two marvel at the complexity of German engineering (the Huns’ trench network is made of concrete with subterranean barracks outfitted with bunk beds; the Brits basically squat in the mire). They talk about duty and valor. The still-idealistic Blake is shocked to learn that Schofield has traded his combat medal to a French officer for a bottle of wine (“I was thirsty”).

They witness an aerial battle between British and German planes; from the ground it’s a weirdly peaceful, balletic experience…at least until fate drops one of the plummeting aircraft into their laps.

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“DOCTOR STRANGE”: Transcendent asshole

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Benedict Cumberbatch

Benedict Cumberbatch

“DOCTOR STRANGE” My rating: B-

115 minutes |MPAA rating: PG-13

At this stage of the game Marvel movies have fallen into a predictable pattern, especially the third-act city-leveling smackdown (it’s like it’s guaranteed in the Constitution or something).

About two years ago I decided I was over the whole superhero thing. Unless, of course, you can show me something new.

“Dr. Strange” takes me halfway there, giving us a spell-casting protagonist who has more in common with Harry Potter than your usual Spandexed bicep bulger.

It’s got a solid first hour in which our ego-driven hero (see “Iron Man”) recognizes  the errors of his ways and gets his head turned around.

And a second hour in which a lot of shit gets blown up.

The wild card here is Benedict Cumberbatch, PBS’s current Sherlock and an actor of such range and integrity that I’m willing to give a chance to just about any project to which he lends his name.

Dr. Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) is a ground-breaking neurosurgeon. Even among his self-aggrandizing colleagues he’s noted as a self-serving asshole who peers down his aquiline nose at lesser mortals and lives the life of a solitary genius.  In the past he had a fling with surgeon Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), but his most enduring relationships are with his fancy sports car, plush apartment and his own self.

A highway accident leaves Strange with crushed paws. Unable to hold a scalpel, he sees  his life dripping away and goes on an international hunt for some sort of treatment that can reverse his physical infirmities.

Which is how he ends up in Katmandu in an esoteric school run by the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton, bald and looking like a visiting space alien).  The Ancient One and her lieutenant Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) put our hero through a physical and mental marathon, breaking down his sense of self, opening him up to life on the astral plane, and filling his head — and the screenplay — with enough metaphysical mumbo jumbo to make Scientology seem a viable option.

 

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“”THE HOBBIT: BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES”: A perfunctory performance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Martin Freeman as Bilbo (left), and Richards Armitage as Thorin (right)

Martin Freeman as Bilbo (left), and Richards Armitage as Thorin (right)

“THE HOBBIT: BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES” My rating: C 

144 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

I am so over Peter Jackson’s Tolkein obsession.

It’s not that “The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies” is incompetent filmmaking. Rather, it’s empty filmmaking.

It’s got plenty of spectacle — beginning with a dragon and ending with an hour of uninterrupted combat — but it seems not to be inhabited. The characters are paper thin, and even those with whom we’ve developed some an affinity aren’t on the screen enough for genuine emotions to emerge.

Maybe this is what comes of taking a simple children’s adventure and ballooning it into a 9-hour trilogy.

Perhaps Jackson long ago emptied his quiver of tricks and is now reduced to repeating himself.

And the stuff that once wowed us — the CG that made the original Ring Trilogy such a technological marvel — now seems rather old hat.  So many of the effects on display here look patently artificial rather than real.

For hardcore fans, of course, none of this matters.  Having invested at least 15 hours in the first five Tolkein-inspired films, they’re not about to bail on the big conclusion. They’d probably stick around to watch Bilbo read from the White Pages.

Basically “Battle of the Five Armies” can be broken down into three segments.

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“PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR”: Avian Marxism (Groucho-style)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 25, 2014| 1 Comment »

Penguins-of-Madagascar-Official-Trailer-2“PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR” My rating: B

92 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Some of the best moments in the three “Madagascar” films were delivered not by the stars — a lion and his zoo buddies — but by four peripheral figures.
We’re talking about the penguins, a bunch of madcap Marxists (of the Groucho variety) who have somehow gotten it into their fuzzy little heads that they are an elite military unit. Despite their overall incompetence, at a crucial moment these diminutive black-and-white commandos always come up with an outlandish plan to save the day.
The penguins have enjoyed their own animated TV series, and in DreamWorks’ “Penguins of Madagascar” they seize the big screen. If you’ve managed to overlook them so far, well, they’re kinda great.
Part of it is their distinct personalities, even though they look pretty much alike. The leader Skipper (voiced by Tom McGrath, who created the characters) is a distillation of every movie drill sergeant ever.  He spits out rapid-fire orders (Skipper’s mouth moves much faster than his brain) but has a soft spot for his “men.”
Kowalksi (Chris Miller) is the idea man, expected to come up with an appropriate plan for any contingency. Rico (Conrad Vernon) has a voracious appetite: He’ll gulp down just about anything, only to regurgitate those items days later when they are needed.
Finally there’s Private (Christopher Knights), the new kid, still finding his way and fawned over by the others.

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“AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY”: At-your-throat acting

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 9, 2014| 3 Comments »

Julianne Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts

Julianne Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts

“AUGUST:  OSAGE COUNTY”  My rating: C+ (Opens wide on Jan. 10)

121 minutes | MPAA rating R

Some stories were meant to be performed on a stage.

For instance, the plays of Sam Shepard, which deliver moments of violence and affrontery you almost never see in live theater. A Shepard character might be required to beat a typewriter to death with a golf club, smash dozens of glass bottles just feet from the folks in the front row, or urinate on his little sister’s science project in full view of the paying customers.

If those things happened in a movie, you’d shrug. No big deal.  In a movie you can do anything.

But seeing those moments play out live, in the flesh, while you brace yourself to dodge flying glass shards or broken typewriter keys…well, that has a way of focusing your mind most wonderfully.

I thought of Shepard’s plays while watching John Wells’ screen version of “August: Osage County,” Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer-winning black comedy about an Oklahoma clan assembled to bury its patriarch (played, ironically enough, by  Sam Shepard).  In the same way that Shepard’s  plays almost never make satisfying movies, “August: Osage County” makes an uncomfortable transition to the screen.

First, don’t buy into the TV ads that make it look like a rollicking comedy.  There are laughs here, yeah, but they’re the sort of laughs you can choke on. Dourness is the order of the day.

In adapting his play Letts has boiled a 3 1/2 hour production down to 2 hours. Stuff’s been left out — character development, carefully calibrated pauses — and while the essence of the play remains, it feels curiously underwhelming.

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“STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS”: Forgettable fun

Posted in Popcorn movies, tagged , , on May 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

star-trek-movie“STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS” My rating: C+ (Opens wide on May 17)

132 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Well made and amusingly acted, there’s really nothing you can say against “Star Trek Into Darkness,” except that in the end it really doesn’t matter.

As is usually the case with franchise movies, the pleasure comes in being reunited with old friends. As for actually learning anything, for taking away an emotion or a thought or an idea…well, that’s the purview of other, less busy movies.

J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” reboot three years ago was a hugely clever prequel that introduced us to those iconic characters as young people. Much of the fun came in seeing Kirk, Bones, Spock and the others as Starfleet cadets feeling their way toward maturity.

But to tell the truth, I cannot remember the plots of any of the many “Star Trek” movies I’ve seen over the decades. One had whales, I know, and another had the Borg. Spock died in one of them and came back in another.

But were there messages in any of them? If there were they quickly evaporated. These were momentary diversions — a few laughs, a whole lot of special effects. Nothing to stick to the ribs or the brain.

And so it  is with “Star Trek Into Darkness.”

Though no Trekker, I recognize that Abrams and his writers (Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof) are having fun mucking about with the mythology of the series. Indeed, the entire movie may be viewed as a prequel to “The Wrath of Khan.”

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“TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY”: LeCarre’s people

Posted in Art house fare, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Gary Oldman as George Smiley

“TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY” My rating: B+ (Opening January 6 at the Glenwood Arts)

127 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Gary Oldman is often described as an actor’s actor…which in his case apparently means an incurable ham.

Oldman’s career is heavily weighted toward over-the-top, push-too-far performances. Sometimes this is forgivable, particularly when he’s in a bad movie and his fierce scenery gnawing is the only remotely entertaining thing in sight.

Too often over the years, though, I’ve found him to be a jarring pothole in a movie’s narrative highway.

Now I can happily report that in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” Oldman gives a marvelously restrained, subtle and carefully modulated performance.

He plays British spymaster George Smiley, the owlish Cold War protagonis of several John LeCarre novels — a role essayed by Alec Guinness in the 1979  PBS adaptation of “TTSS.” And he is quietly wonderful.

The movie’s not too shabby, either. (more…)

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