Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Demi Moore’

SHORT TAKES: “The Substance,” “A Different Man”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 29, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Demi Moore

“THE SUBSTANCE” My rating: B (On Demand)

141 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Demi Moore’s much-deserved Oscar-nominated performance in “The Substance” is the film’s main selling point, but let’s not overlook the stunning (well, mostly) contribution from Coralie Fargeat, who has taken home noms in both the directing and original screenplay categories.

For its first hour, at least, “The Substance” is riveting stuff, a mashup of social commentary, a vicious satire of showbiz duplicity, an angry examination of feminine angst and a staggering truckload of Cronenberg-level body horror.

The premise is vaguely sci-fi — an aging actress (Moore) takes a new (and presumably illegal) drug that will allow her to “give birth” to a younger and more  beautiful version of herself.

Moore’s career-stymied character is Elisabeth; her drop-dead alter ego, whom she calls Sue, is played by Margaret Qualley.

Margaret Qualley

The “science” behind all this is hard to grasp…basically we have two female bodies, one old and one young.  Elisabeth can occupy Sue’s lithe body for seven days, then she must spend a week in her older form.  While one body is active, the other lies in a coma, feeding intravenously on liquid nourishment provided by The Substance’s unseen creators/distributors.

Despite the admonition “Remember, You Are One,” Sue is all about herself; she extends her active cycle beyond seven days.  Turns out abusing The Substance has grave (and alarmingly gross) consequences.

If “The Substance” relies on the familiar theme of a cure that isn’t all it seems (“Flowers for Algernon,” “Seconds,” “Awakenings”) it at least presents itself as a stylistic tour de force.  Fargeat effortlessly juggles the script’s various elements —  there’s horror, yes, but also some laugh-out-loud moments provided by Dennis Quaid as the most soulless producer in Hollywood.

The film’s look (though set in L.A. it was filmed in France and the U.K.) is dominated by chilly interiors, long claustrophobic corridors and Elizabeth’s white-tiled bathroom, which is the size of a small house.

“The Substance” demands considerable nudity from its two leading ladies, but there’s not a hint of eroticism.  Elisabeth apparently has no sex life, while Sue takes pleasure not from the act itself but from being an object of desire. As the Substance does its sinister body-warping work, you’ll find yourself hoping that the women keep their clothes on.

The downside is a running time of nearly 2 1/2 hours. The film scores most of its points early and then descends into a nightmare of ghastly visceral visuals. This might not matter if we actually cared about Elisabeth/Sue, but the film is as chilly as that white bathroom, observing with almost clinical detachment the older woman’s travails while never establishing her as a character worth caring about.

Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve and Adam Pearson

“A DIFFERENT MAN” My rating: B- (Max)

112 minutes | MPAA rating: R

A distaff version of “The Substance” is “A Different Man,” in which a deformed fellow is given a drug that dissolves his tumors and leaves him looking like a movie star…namely Sebastian Stan.

Stan’s character, Edward, suffers  from a Quasimodo/Elephant Man-level facial disfiguration. (The makeup is alarmingly convincing.) His condition has left him a social outcast who can only dream about befriending his new neighbor, the aspiring playwright Ingrid (Renate Reinsve).

Edward undergoes a new therapy that transforms him into a hunk. But his new situation also dramatically alters his personality; he changes his identity and dives into the happy (i.e. utterly selfish) life he has always dreamed of.

Writer/director Aaron Schimberg presents Edward’s story as a black comedy…although the laughs are few.  Irony is the dominant emotion.

After Edward’s disappearance, Ingrid writes a play about her misshapen neighbor. Now Edward (she doesn’t recognize him) lands the leading role, which requires him to don face-hiding prosthetics on stage.

Like I said…ironic.

Enter Oswald, a debonair, utterly charming Brit who has precisely the facial deformation the role requires. Oswald is portrayed by Adam Pearson, an actor who really has the character’s condition (he had a brief but memorable turn as one of the alien’s victims in “Under the Skin”).  

Before long the good-looking Edward is out, and his role taken over by Oswald. Is this just fate, or has Oswald been conniving to replace his fellow actor? Not just on stage, but in Ingrid’s bed as well?

The chilliness that kept me from wholeheartedly committing to “The Substance” affects “A Different Man” as well. Most films about misshapen outcasts ask us to empathize with those characters. Schimberg’s film suggests that Edward wasn’t a particularly likable individual before his transformation, and even less so after.

But you might very well consider going home with Oswald.

| Robert W. Butler

Read Full Post »

WHAT I’M WATCHING: “For All Mankind,” “Feud: Capote and the Swans”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »

“FOR ALL MANKIND”(Apple+):

Most of what we call science fiction is in fact science/fantasy.  But “For All Mankind” is sci-fi in its truest sense. The show, which recently dropped its fourth season, offers an minutely detailed alternative history of the space race.  

In this version the Soviets get to the moon first and the Americans must play catch-up. Communism more or less flourishes with a repressive regime in Moscow still railing against capitalism well into the 21st century.  Al Gore is elected President; so is a  woman—a closeted gay woman.

(“For All Mankind” sees women as key figures in the space program. One could almost call this feminist sci-fi.)

Meanwhile astronauts and scientists from all countries are working to explore the vastness of space, with international colonies established on the moon and Mars. Of course, our conflicts as human beings don’t magically go away when we relocate to distant planets. There are labor issues, rebellions, sabotage.

Basically the series explores where we might be now if only we hadn’t put space exploration on the back burner.

The special effects are utterly convincing and the science completely plausible.

I’m especially impressed at how well certain characters — an original NASA flyboy played by Joel Kinnaman, a genius engineer/supervisor played by Wrenn Schmidt — age over the course of several decades.

The series deals not only in space exploration but in the lives of its many characters.  There are failed marriages and affairs. Generational disputes. Political gamesmanship.

The has led some to complain that there’s too much soap gumming up the science. I must disagree…our humdrum human foibles do not evaporate just because we are confronted with the vastness of space.

Throughout, the series never abandons the idea of real science.  No laser guns, shape-shifting aliens or woo woo transcendentalism. Just people designing and making machines that reflect the real possibilities of our technology, imaginations and capacity to hope.

Naomi Watts, Tom Hollander

“FEUD: TRUMAN CAPOTE VS. THE SWANS” (Hulu):
For its second season (the first, in 2017, focused on the antipathy shared by Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during the filming of “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”) Ryan Murphy’s “Feud” concentrates on writer/raconteur Truman Capote.

Set in the 1960s and ‘70s, “Capote and the Swans” delves into the novelist’s relationships with a half dozen or so society wives, women married to powerful movers and shakers who, from the outside anyway, appeared to live lives of pampered opulence and studied hautiness.

Capote (portrayed by Brit Tom Hollander with a helium-and-molasses voice and fierce attention to his character’s fey mannerisms) calls his gal pals “the swans” because, he says, they seem so graceful on the surface, while below the water line they are desperately paddling. 

These ladies who lunch are portrayed by the likes of Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloe Sevigny, Calista Flockhart and Demi Moore — all of whom appear to be having one hell of a good time mining the bitchiness.

Not that it’s all fun and games. For all their affluence these women are fairly miserable, saddled with philandering hubbies and thankless children.  The openly gay Capote becomes their best friend, shrink, confidant and shoulder to cry on.

“I play the part. It’s all a performance,:” he admits in an unusually honest moment. “They pick men who are rich but cannot act.”

Of course Capote —his creative juices dried up — also betrays these women by turning his intimate knowledge of them into a scandalous novel…thus the feud of the title.

Now I’m only halfway trough the season, but the fourth episode, “Masquerade 1966,” is so freaking good — and so beautifully sums up what the series is about — that it’s practically a stand-alone experience.

John Robin Baitz (who has scripted the entire series) has come up with a brilliant idea. He tells the story of Capote’s famous Black-and-White Masked Ball (one of the most memorable if overhyped society events in Manhattan history) by using “found footage” reputedly made by documentary giants Albert and David Maysles.

The entire episode — directed by the great Gus Van Sant — is shot with handheld cameras and captured in grainy black-and-white and in a classic square frame. The Maysles Brothers not only observe the preparations with fly-on-the-wall intimacy, but conduct interviews Capote and with the Swans…each of whom is convinced that she will be the secret guest of honor to be named at the big event.

Clearly, they can’t all be queen for a day, but master manipulator Capote knows how to exploit each woman’s insecurities and desires to his will.

The result is 60 minutes of absolutely brilliant television.  

| Robert W. Butler

Read Full Post »

“MARGIN CALL”: Meltdown on Wall Street

Posted in Art house fare, tagged , , , , , , on October 28, 2011| 4 Comments »

“MARGIN CALL” My rating: B+ (Opens wide on Oct. 28)

105 minutes | MPAA rating: R

First-time features don’t get a whole lot more assured than “Margin Call,” an incisive, biting look at the Wall Street mindset and machinations that led to our current economic doldrums.

A bunch of suits standing around talking may not sound all that interesting, but J.C. Chandoor’s writing/directing debut (after several years in advertising and music videos) succeeds both as a personal drama of individuals and as an allegory about what plagues American capitalism in this still-young century.

And he has an ensemble cast to kill for.

Unfolding over 24 hours in a major New York banking/investment firm, this boardroom thriller unfolds like a finely-tuned stage play, with sharp characterizations and killer dialogue. (You may be reminded of Mamet in his prime.)

But if it feels claustrophobic, it’s claustrophobic in just the right way, suggesting a much bigger world where the decisions made overnight in this tower of glass will have devastating repercussions.

(more…)

Read Full Post »