I have never been susceptible to the elusive charm of muppets or anything Jim Henson has produced, which I have invariable found to be juvenile, predictable, cliche-ridden, and lame, so it is no surprise that "Labyrinth" is a piece of shit. It doesn't take long to establish the fundamental artistic poverty of the film: the first scene, the fight between Sara and her-- wait for it: step-mother over her lateness home to babysit Toby, her little brother, comes off like a bad first rehearsal, including poorly looped dialog (it sounds like the actors trying to match the recording, rather than the other way around). Poor little Sarah, in her lavish house, has difficulty convincing not us, the viewers, but herself, Jennifer Connelly, that she is a tragic victim. Too much to ask? But it's get worse once she is dragged into the Labyrinth by the Goblin King, Jareth (David Bowie), wearing Mick Jagger's left over tights. There just never seems to be any kind of point to her journey, or to the Goblin King's timeline: why wouldn't he just take the baby? Obstacles crop up randomly as required to extend the plot. The horrible muppets with their inexpressive fabric heads, just never feel like part of any kind of environment, fantastical or not. When Sarah wishes for the Goblin King to take Toby away-- an utterly flat sequence-- we see these Goblin heads, but where are they? How are they watching? How did they choose Sarah to hear? Why are they so utterly devoid of mystique or charm or any magic at all? Then the Goblin King/Owl arrives in an incredibly badly edited sequence of quick zooms and cuts and those ridiculous muppets scurrying around the bedroom sounding like the lamest, well, muppets, from "The Muppet Show". With the kind of voices your older brother used to make when imitating an annoying teacher. There is substantial theft going on here as well, mostly from "The Wizard of Oz" and "Alice and Wonderland". The gratuitous use of British, Irish, or Scottish, or other very poorly rendered foreign accents doesn't help (characters routinely wander in and out of accents). A lot of dialog consists of characters telling each other to shut up. Or announcing that the journey was "a piece of cake" before every inevitable catastrophe. "A recurring theme in The Labyrinth" is that "many things are not what they seem". Holy cow.
Based on short stories by Maile Meloy, who definitely owes something to Alice Munro-- which is a compliment. A young woman looking after a horse ranch in the winter stumbles into a night class on law at a local high school and is mesmerized by the teacher, a young lawyer who accepted the assignment by mistake, only to discover that the location was 4 hours from her home. A lawyer's client lurches towards violence after having a compensation claim denied. And a young couple feel tension as they try to buy a lot of sandstone for their new home. Meloy's stories are delicate, incisive explorations of character and meaning in a modern environment, but with such close scrutiny you almost feel like you need to be lifted out of them to make sense of them in the end. Reichardt is one of America's most important directors right now. Together they make this film subtle and rich and nuanced, and ultimately heart-breaking. This is what it feels like to have your life close observed. Is this everything? And it's magnificent.
A "Godfather" for Rio De Janeiro (or-- even better-- "The Wire"), dramatizes the lives of a group of boys who grew up in the "City of God", an area in Rio De Janeiro reserved for outcasts and the poor. Based on the reminiscences of Paulo Lins, very similar to "Once Upon a Time in America", in scope and tone, but far, far better. "The Rocket"-- Buscape-- is our narrative voice, a citizen of the underground but with aspiration to become a photographer (like a friend of Paulo Lins, the author of the book "City of God" did). He describes the struggles of the children to survive in a brutal environment and how they grow up to be tough and join gangs to control the drugs coming in and out of the favela. Multiple story lines are developed and multiple characters explored, always with compassionate, and with an attempt to fully understand each characters predicament. At times seems "over the top" in terms of violence but, according to some accounts, the violence itself in the "Cidade de Deus" was over the top. Filmed in areas of Rio De Janeiro close to where the real events took place using non-professional actors, most of whom came from that background.
Among Obama's most damaging legacies is the extensive, outrageous, and unconstitutional powers of surveillance he fought for and defended while in office. Now handed over to a psychotic idiot. Snowden does a decent job of telling us about Edward Snowden, first of all, an then about the stakes. Snowden, adequately played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, starts out his career with the military as a patriotic, loyal American. He bombs out of the military because of weak bones-- Stone is at pains to establish these kind of details less once think Snowden has an axe to grind-- and, determined to serve his country after 9/11, joins the CIA. Stone dramatizes his increasing awareness of the CIA's illegal activities with a bit too much foresight: we keep thinking Snowden has already swung to the other side when, probably, he was disturbed by these issues significantly at this time of his life. It is later, when he returns to the CIA as a contractor, that he becomes so disturbed by the Agency's unconstitutional surveillance of the lives of all Americans, and foreigners, that he decides to copy gigabytes of data and release it to the media, through The Guardian, and a trusted documentary film-maker, Laura Poitras. With assistance, he then escaped to Moscow where he currently lives, ironically, under the protection of Vladimir Putin.
I'm not saying that Tom Ford can't write just because he is also the director. He just can't write a convincing screenplay. As for directing, the results are mixed. Early scenes in Nocturnal Animals had me cringing with their schematic contrivances, the phony wandering, hand-held camera, the action turned into scruffy grappling, and the unconvincing scenario. Okay-- we are supposed to know that Tony is guilty of some kind of cowardice (in the novel) and that Susan is moved by this tragedy to agree to something she otherwise would not have. But there are two great cop-outs in this movie: the way Susan finds out Hutton is cheating on her (why, given the schematic of the movie, should we care?) and the way the dismal sequence in West Texas ends. Ford is a gutsy director-- I'll give him that-- but he isn't particularly insightful about how people tick, and he isn't particularly creative about his villains who just don't inhabit any kind of space other than as tools of the plot. And there is difference between the raw, authentic ugliness of transgressive art, and simple shlock. I'm not sure Ford knows it. Adams is very good but Michael Shannon is the most interesting to watch here-- he finds something remarkable to do with his lines.
Moonlight consists of three segments: Chiron as a young school boy of confused sexuality who is taken in by Juan and Theresa, a drug dealer and his girlfriend; Chiron as a high school students who is bullied and abused and seeks refuge from his drug addict mother with Theresa; and Chiron as an adult, who has taken up Juan's profession, and is challenged by a call-out from the past. The film quietly and unfussily makes it's all-black cast work as a brilliant ensemble, convincing and compelling, as a story about self-realization and coming to terms with one's sexuality. Occasionally sophomoric and contrived, but never cheaply so. For example, when Chiron is contacted in Atlanta by Kevin, who betrayed him in high school, Kevin informs him that he is a "cook" now, which sounds like biographical note, rather than elicited experience. And the betrayal seems like a plot device rather than a traumatic moment of personal history. Theresa's generous offer of a bedroom, always, also reeks of adolescent fantasy: a previously intriguing characters loses life in that moment. And Chiron's last meeting with his mother, now in rehab, is weak and unconvincing-- partly because Naomie Harris just doesn't look like she is a recovering addict. "Moonlight" is a good film, a fine film, with flaws, but worthwhile.
Sincere and respectful story about Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple who, at the request of the ACLU, challenged Virginia's miscegenation laws up to the Supreme Court, and won in 1967, unanimously. The law was thereby overturned in 15 other states that still had it on the books. This is an honest movie, low-key, and there is not much "action" for the first half. Richard and Mildred are already a couple when we meet them, and there is no epochal announcement of their interracial status until the police and the courts intervene. Mildred then writes Bobby Kennedy to ask why they can't live together in Virginia where they want to live-- can he help? Which would be exactly the point, it seems: it is man, not nature, that impedes the course of love and happiness. Mildred Dolores Jeter Loving, incidentally, identified herself primarily as Native American (Cherokee and Rappahannock) rather than black. Richard is not very fond of the media or the attention this brings, but Mildred urges him on. Edgerton and Negga unfussily depict a mature, steady relationship. He has moments at the stock car races that keep the narrative from being too schematic or dry. This is a fine, effective film.
Sincere but sometimes contrived story about a young woman working at a shelter for abused youth and the challenges she faces both within and without, and in her relationship with a male staff member who feels she is not forthcoming in their relationship. Brie Larson, as Grace, is compelling-- there is a seen in which she just watches someone else steal the attention and it's entirely convincing-- and her restraint and taste give the film the patina of good independent, unforced, earnest little film. Worthwhile.
Max Vatan is a French-Canadian airman who lands in Morocco to connect with local resistance leader, Marianne Beausejour, to assassinate the German ambassador. They have to pretend to be married, to get into the party at which they intend to assassinate the ambassador, which leads to many titillating scenes none of which rises above mild titillation. They also spend an extraordinary amount of time moon at each other, staring meaningfully, and doing an awful job of looking like a married couple: when she puts her hand on his at the office of a Nazi functionary, he stares at it as if was a large insect that had just landed there. Afterwards, they marry, move to England, and have a baby, just as some suspicion arises about Marianne's identity and loyalty. Really poorly acted, though, in the case of Cotillard, I suspect "poorly directed" is a big chunk of it. Brad Pitt is flat and dull, and Cotillard just kind of stares at him. Jared Harris looks lost. Other characters probably wished for more screen time.
Firstly, J.J. Abrams had a hand in this which means that nobody involved in the production really cared about any serious artistic angles to this: it's an entertainment. Michelle, fleeing her husband (for unknown reasons) is run off the road at night. She awakes a prisoner in an underground bunker, held by Howard, a survivalist who believes there has been a global catastrophe and the air is contaminated, accompanied by Emmett, who knew about Howard's bunker and begged to be let in when the catastrophe happened. What catastrophe? It's doubtful that there really is one, at first, for Howard is clearly unhinged. But a hysterical woman appears begging to be let in and Michelle is convinced that something really is going on. Above average and entertaining and takes genuinely unexpected twist at the end. But it's only unexpected because we are used to the cliches of science fiction films, and that is an Abrams touch.
Is this film at all compelling if you don't buy it's central conceit: that it is conceivable that an alien species might experience time differently, and that understanding their language would allow you to have that experience? By "differently", we mean that they experience all events in history at the same time, as if it was a 3 dimensional location that you could look around at, instead of, well, time. Instead of as a linear sequence of events. If you don't buy it-- I didn't-- then there is not very much left that is all that interesting in this story about 12 giant alien pods that land on earth and invite humans to an encounter inside their sparse cavities. There are so many inherent absurdities in the notion that I can't buy in, or suspend my disbelief. (For example, if you knew tha a decision early in life had particular consequences, you could change it, but then you would not know what the consequences were because the decision was never made, so you couldn't change it...) And those early scenes, in which a military commander recruits Louise Banks, a linguist (who gives an unconvincing lecture to students at one point) to join them at a pod in Montana, to enter the space ship and attempt to communicate with the aliens, are clumsy and sophomoric. There is no sense of anything going on behind the encounters, of any other personalities involved anywhere, nor any explanation of why there would not be: did the army seriously believe that Louise would be the only one who could help them, or that, indeed, the real problem had to do with language? Where are the physicists, biologists, engineers? We are then treated to what seems like hours of Louise' heavy breathing inside her suit, which is meant, I suppose, to focus our attention on Louise' emotional response to the aliens. I kept waiting for the military commander, Colonel Weber, to get rid of her because she was clearly incapable of functioning under stressful conditions. The movie wants it that way, though, because makes the character appear modest, demanded, indispensable, so that her resistance becomes heroic. It's Adam's worst work in any film I've seen her in.
Is this film at all compelling if you don't buy it's central conceit: that it is conceivable that an alien species might experience time differently, and that understanding their language would allow you to have that experience? By "differently", we mean that they experience all events in history at the same time, as if it was a 3 dimensional location that you could look around at, instead of, well, time. Instead of as a linear sequence of events. If you don't buy it-- I didn't-- then there is not very much left that is all that interesting in this story about 12 giant alien pods that land on earth and invite humans to an encounter inside their sparse cavities. There are so many inherent absurdities in the notion that I can't buy in, or suspend my disbelief. (For example, if you knew tha a decision early in life had particular consequences, you could change it, but then you would not know what the consequences were because the decision was never made, so you couldn't change it...) And those early scenes, in which a military commander recruits Louise Banks, a linguist (who gives an unconvincing lecture to students at one point) to join them at a pod in Montana, to enter the space ship and attempt to communicate with the aliens, are clumsy and sophomoric. There is no sense of anything going on behind the encounters, of any other personalities involved anywhere, nor any explanation of why there would not be: did the army seriously believe that Louise would be the only one who could help them, or that, indeed, the real problem had to do with language? Where are the physicists, biologists, engineers? We are then treated to what seems like hours of Louise' heavy breathing inside her suit, which is meant, I suppose, to focus our attention on Louise' emotional response to the aliens. I kept waiting for the military commander, Colonel Weber, to get rid of her because she was clearly incapable of functioning under stressful conditions. The movie wants it that way, though, because makes the character appear modest, demanded, indispensable, so that her resistance becomes heroic. It's Adam's worst work in any film I've seen her in.
In 1630's New England, a young family is driven from their community because of the father's stubborn dissent from their "worldly" ways and sets out to farm a small, remote location. When bad things start to happen, and then the baby disappears, the omens point to the daughter and witchcraft. Is there really a witch in the woods? Is it really witchcraft or delusion and hysteria? The young actors, in particular, are horrifyingly convincing and the atmospheric cinematography is chilling. The language is historical colonial English. Some critics found fault with the ambiguity about witchcraft, but if one sees the film as a parable about women and colonial culture, the theme is richer and more coherent.
Based on a book by Deborah E. Lipstadt. Tiffany and Ashley teach David Irving a lesson. I am baffled by the portrait of Deborah Lipstadt who comes off as high school senior doing her project on holocaust deniers instead of a seasoned professor and author standing up for the integrity of the historical record. A host of interesting problems hover over the movie, including the question of who you "prove" something that seems so obvious no proof should be required. Lipstadt wrote a book about holocaust deniers that cited Irving and was sued, along with her publisher, by Irving in London. There is an odd mix: the Lipstadt character almost, at times, seems to be arguing for a Hollywoodization of the defense, but the movie resists. Her lawyers are resolutely opposed to her testifying, or to bringing in holocaust survivors to testify for fear that it would distract the judge from the issue of Irving's intent and his credibility as a historian. The courtroom scenes are the best part of the film-- no coincidence that they are based verbatim on court transcripts. The rest of the writing and acting is wretched.
Disappointing dissection of a crotchety old lesbian poet, Elle, who starts us off by meanly dispensing with her lover, Olivia (a "footnote"), then undertakes to find $600 for her granddaughter's abortion, without her mother's knowledge. Lily Tomlin is amusing at times but it's a bit of a shtick and she milks it. Little thought given to the narrative: for example, when she kicks out her lover, nobody seems to have considered what they might have been doing in the hours, days, weeks coming up. Any appointments? Dinner? Clothes and personal items? Suitcase? Where is Olivia moving to? This is typical of every detail. When the car fails to start, we learn that was probably the battery, but, after a boost, nobody seems to be worried about how charged it is and whether they would be able to start it again at their destination. Nobody ever calls ahead for anything: Elle and Sage just drop by and ask for money. To its credit, the ending, with only partial resolutions, is not as overbearing as one might have feared.
Lily Tomlin
In 1951, young Marcus Messner decides to avoid the draft by seeking a scholarship at a small Christian College in Ohio. He meets an attractive, free-spirited girl who, frankly, goes down on him on their first date, leading him to obsess over the fact that he's probably not the first. There is a crisis of some kind, a contrived one, and the only scenes in the movie that stand out are those between Marcus and Dean Caudwell, a masterpiece of supercilious condescension and wizened manipulation played brilliantly by Tracey Letts. The rest of the movie is incomprehensibly dull, lifeless, and cringeingly contrived and underdeveloped. One scene, in which Marcus' mother implores him not to date Olivia because she attempted suicide once-- is so painfully awful I almost had to turn away from the screen. Yet Urban Cinefile rates this as "remarkable" and "successful" and "a cinematic joy"? They've lost their minds. Unforgivably also features the narcissistic element of a writer describing a character likely inspired by himself as "brilliant" and desired and witty and shockingly clever.
Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon
Documentary about cooperative venture between U.S. and Israeli intelligence services to create a virus, eventually known as "Stuxnet", that would infect the Iranian centrifuges at one of their nuclear research labs. Essentially, an act of war, about which almost nobody is willing to talk. Gibney tracks down some dissidents, experts, and U.S. government officials, including Michael Hayden, for comments on it. A lot of them say they can't comment on something they don't acknowledge exists-- other than, by implication, with the fact that they would obviously be very free to comment on it if there was no government role. The drama ratchets up a notch when investigators become aware of the virus having gone wild, thanks, probably, to a rogue Israeli participant at the behest of Netanyahu. Surprisingly suspenseful and exciting.
This was going to be a fabulous documentary about the amazing come-back and resurrection of Anthony Weiner, from disgraced congressman to Mayor of New York-- and who knows what else lay in his gilded future. Until... a rewarming of the sexting scandal destroyed his career, made him the object of ridicule, and almost destroyed his marriage (subsequent to the film, it did). Which is why Weiner and his wife gave such privileged access to Kriegman-- this was going to be his very own "War Room".
Huma Abedin
Reasonably competent pot-boiler about a drifter, Michael Williams, who gets mistaken for a hit man and caught up in various nefarious plots involving attempted murder, larceny, and corruption. Towards the end, the energy dissipates as complication is heaped upon complication and Michael vacillates between being shrewd and manipulative to being moralistic and righteous. There was a glaring moment of old-school moralism towards the end that left a bad taste in my mouth, and the holes in the plot get bigger and bigger as the story wears on.
Very funny, sometimes moving study of Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York heiress who held a remarkable belief in her own talent as a singer despite a singular lack of evidence to that effect. In fact, she was a terrible singer, but friends and family all refused to tell her and she seemed to really believe she was lavishly talented. She gave private recitals but when she decided to book Carnegie Hall, the critics were able to attend and savaged her in print. Wikipedia raises the question of to what extent she was actually "in on the joke". She seemed "oblivious" to audience laughter, which strikes me as extremely plausible, and makes the ending of the movie problematic: the audience laughs at her and she is distressed and almost quits until a previously hostile young woman demands that the audience cheer her on. (In reality, it appears that she simply ignored the laughter and jeers.) It was the first of several false notes towards the end of the film, the most egregious of which is her reaction to a Post review: is she the first artist in history to believe or take seriously a negative review? Of course, in truth, all of the papers published savage, and sometimes witty, reviews. Streep should be honored for her performance: there is a very fine line between Jenkin's terrible art and utter slapstick and Streep seems to find it, veering from slightly plausible to absurdly funny. Really a remarkable story.
Meryl Streep
It was immediately apparent that the director was also the writer for this disappointing mashup of issues and ideas: Ben has taken his family off the grid in Washington State, idolizing Noam Chomsky, while training his children lie Navy Seals, to climb, hunt, and defend themselves. He's part survivalist, part hippie. When his wife dies and he brings his children to the funeral, his wife's parents announce they want to obtain custody of the children. The plot is preposterous and poorly conceived and developed and the dialogue is terrible. Even worse, the tantalizing ideas in the film-- the clash between nature and technology, and the perceptions of society his children experience as they watch obese citizens playing video games and shopping-- are touched upon and then abandoned for absurd plot twists that make no psychological or artistic sense. Awful. Mortenson is pretty good, as is Shree Crooks as Zaja (Ben made up the children's names), but the rest of the cast is weak and undistinguished.
George MacKay
Slant Magazine (credit where credit is due) called this a "deconstructionist western". A Danish Captain and his 15-year-old daughter arrive in Argentina's Patagonian region to perform some tasks for the genocidal army (an officer calls natives "coconut-heads"). But, after some very slow, lingering, leisurely development time, he discovers that his daughter has run off with a soldier, and sets out to find them, like Ethan in "The Searchers". His journey is enveloped in mystery: clearly, not hallucination or fantasy but... but then, we move to an entirely different place into a seemingly different story. The director/writer himself is unable to explain this jump, which might lead one to reconsider trying to explain it to oneself. He does get good performances out of his actors, and the severe landscapes are wonderful, but just because some great films have slow-moving parts doesn't mean that a film with slow-moving parts is great.
Why is this movie a thing? Owen Suskind has autism. He becomes obsessed with Disney movies. He grows up and moves into a supported independent living complex. His girlfriend-- who also has autism-- breaks up with him. And that's about it. There is nothing really compelling about his story, or the film. One suspects that Disney got involved because their inclusion reads a lot like product placement: no other animated films are mentioned, and the Disney obsession is cast like some kind therapeutic marvel, and linked to dramatic moments in Owen's life, as if the Disney films were somehow expressive of real life. They don't go overboard on that angle, but nor do the film-makers present anything really deserving of 89 minutes of our attention. Should have been a segment of 60 Minutes or something instead.
Searing story about a group of Benedictine nuns in Poland at the end of WWII who are detained and raped by Soviet soldiers. Many of them become pregnant. During a difficult breech birth, the nuns fetch a French Red Cross intern, Mathilde, to help out and she ends up assisting with more births as she discovers more and more about the horrors the nuns endured, and the horror, to them, of having to encounter their own physical bodies, to be touched and treated. The Mother Superior, meanwhile, mysteriously brings the babies away, one by one, to an uncertain destination-- she claims, usually, to the families of the nuns. Beautifully acted, balanced, austere-- wonderful film that raises questions about the will of God and the devotion of saints, and the compromises of war. The moral choices are as desaturated as the bleak, wintry environment. Based on a true story, as related by a relative of Mathilde.
Lou de Laage, Agata Buzek
The machinations of the plot: Lou Clark needs a job really badly (contrivance #1). Will Traynor, a very rich man, was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident (contrivance #2). Will doesn't want a companion (contrivance #3). And so the movie unfolds, redeemed somewhat by the charm, if not the acting chops, of the leads. They are likable and Emilia Clarke is entertainingly funny and cute, but neither of them are particularly good actors, and the story seems underdeveloped and, well, contrived. They gradually fall in love, of course, until a shocking revelation to Lou, and her gradual acceptance of a very difficult choice by Will. Not completely unmoving, but could have been so much better in the hands of a real director.
Sam Claflin, Emilia Clarke, Vanessa Kirby, Samantha Spiro, Matthew Lewis
Tedious, meandering installation of the Tarzan franchise that appears to have no clear idea of what it wants to do. Tarzan-- Lord Greystoke-- is summoned by the British government to go to Africa, to the Belgian Congo, to represent British interests there. He refuses at first but is persuaded by George Washington Williams to go because he suspect King Leopold is enslaving people to work in his mines. Meanwhile, a tribal leader wants to kill Tarzan to revenge the killing of his son. Ho hum. Jane gets kidnapped, Tarzan tries to rescue her, elephants and apes cavort, there is swinging from the trees, and lots of gorgeous scenery filmed badly-- not technically, but artistically. The jungles are unmoving in this film. Dreary factory made music. Garbage. Waltz and Jackson bring nothing to the mix.
Alexander Skarsgard, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Margot Robbie
Superior suspenseful drama about a nuclear sub, the Alabama, sent on a mission to deter possible nuclear attack by rebel military group in Russia which has seized control a submarine base and several nuclear missile installations. Surprisingly credible story line, especially considering subsequent events (the film was made in 1995!). Captain Frank Ramsey is an old school naval officer who is suspicious of new XO's education and pedigreed. Surprise: the cliche's don't play out. Ramsey is not wrong about the real threat to the U.S. and XO Ron Hunter is not incompetent when it comes to "real" action and decision-making. The only stretch is when their communications are knocked out for a time while they battle over command of the sub: all U.S. submarines carry spare equipment, especially for communications. The confusion of the men and the grey areas of command structures plays out believably and with nuance. There is good detail on processes and command protocols with minimal artistic license (they simplified the sonar display to make it less confusing for audiences, and had a few sailors perform duties they wouldn't normally undertake). Even better, the film raises valid issues about the consequences of decisions taken at the ground level when both sides essentially still operate on the MAD principle: mutual assured destruction. A fine film. The U.S. has since changed its operating procedures so that a nuclear attack can only proceed upon direct orders from the White House. Washington and Hackman, and most of the supporting cast give exceptional performances.
Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, Matt Craven, George Dzundza, Viggo Mortensen
A movie that reeks the possibilities of hackneyed tropes and stereo-types and consistently overturns them. The five girls are orphaned daughters living with their grandmother and uncle, and defiantly free-spirited and mischievous until Uncle Erol angrily decides to suppress and cage them and marry them off one by one, with the connivance of Grandma. Lale, the youngest, is most defiant and independent and begins plotting her escape as the sisters are taken away. One of them, at least, gets the man she wants, but one of them takes drastic measures to avoid being trapped in a loveless marriage. There is a completely unnecessary subplot involving sexual abuse that undermines the theme more than a little though I suppose the film-makers would argue that it's an integral effect of this kind of repressive religious culture (I say "religious", not "Islamic", because it is very similar to some Christian cultures as well). And there's more than few implausible plot points: the girls take off to see a football game while a group of men and other women are visiting-- would none of them have been required to assist in the preparations or service? And the ability of Lale to barricade the house, successfully, and then sneak out and steal the car is really quite a stretch. Some of the girls talk of fleeing to Istanbul but one waits in vain for any of them to try to imagine just what they would do in a large strange city, on their own. And the Uncle Erol is less than one-dimensional. The older women are a mixture: they are obviously complicit, but one aunt at least tries to protect them from Erol's wrath. There is the ghost of "Virgin Suicides" here but this film is far less ridiculous and contrived. And Gunes Sensoy as "Lale" is a gem!
Gunes Sensoy, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, Tugba Sunguroglu, Elit Iscan, Ilayda Akdogan, Ayberk Pekcan
Yoko lives in an apartment in Tokyo, visits her friend, visits her father and step-mother, takes the trains here and there, and looks up an old jazz cafe called "Cafe Lumiere". She casually informs her step-mother that she is pregnant, and continues her casual, unremarkable life. She has a strange dream and her friend finds a book, by Maurice Sendak, that describes her vision. So Ozu! Like Ozu crossed with a Noah Bambach/Greta Gerwig film. Of course. And so quietly profound and sensuous and compelling, particularly her silent father. Succeeds in making the mundane tasks of daily life, travelling on trains and buses, making tea, getting water for her parents, turning on a fan, fascinating and rich. Like the better Ozu films, transforms everyday experience for average people into a deep statement about the abiding flow of life and attachment and experience.
Yo Hitoto, Tadanobu Asano, Masato Hagiwara, Kimiko Yo, Nenji Kobayashi
Izzy (Isabelle) is a beautiful Jewish girl who works in a real bookstore in Manhattan and gets to meet notable authors and intellectuals. But her Bubbie decides she needs to meet a nice Jewish man who earns a good living. So a matchmaker is employed and she comes up with Sam, a pickle merchant, and a down-to-earth Jewish guy whom, of course, she will end up with, because everybody knows that intellectuals are a bunch of cold-hearted phonies with no real feelings of love or devotion. It's the journey that matters here, and it is far more sophisticated and complicated than you might expect. It's a New Yorkish movie, mildly Woody Allenesque (circa "Manhattan"), and thoroughly tame and predictable. Amy Irving is, perhaps, not the beauty the film requires of her, but Sam is enriched, more fully three-dimensional than expected. Charming at times, and warm towards all of its characters except-- sadly-- the intellectuals, who are mercilessly ridiculed. The most charming moment, surprisingly, comes when Isabelle tries to pawn Sam off on her friend Marilyn, who immediately confesses the contrivance and takes her leave. Smart moment, among a few others.
Amy Irving, Peter Riegert, Reizl Bozyk, Jeroen Krabbe, Sylvia Miles, Suzzy Roche
No, this story was not written by "Howard, Byron". There are, in fact, at least 8 story credits and that tells you all you need to know: this is movie plot by committee and it reeks of the kind of consensual mediocrity now typical of Disney animations. This is dreck. Don't you dare tell a young girl that she can't be anything she wants to be, ever. And while paying lip-service to the role of hard work and determination, it also perpetuates the absurd notion that anyone can be anything even if one is absurdly unqualified to be it. There is not an ounce of wit, imagination, or colour in this pathetic fable-- at least, nothing that is not recycled from other movies. Plot devices must have been conceived of during nap-time. Characterizations are derived from the Disney stock-pile of well-worn, stale tropes. Sure, the animation is the best money can buy. That's all.
Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Tommy Chong, J.K. Simmons
Timely and relevant story about a drone attack on a gathering of terrorists in Kenya, complicated by an innocent young girl selling bread nearby, who faces a 65% chance of becoming "collateral damage". Helen Mirren is Colonel Katherine Powell who wants to go. But the political leadership is ambivalent: if the girl is killed, the terrorist might have a major propaganda victory. But if we don't blow them up, they will kill a far greater number of civilians. Chillingly, the calculus includes the idea that these victims will be a propaganda coup for the good guys. The movie goes heavy on the personal toll suffered by the two pilots who agonize over the possible collateral damage. The problem is they seem to have no concern for the numerous adults wandering in and out of the periphery, and one begins to wonder if they are suited for this evil work and if the military would actually tolerate their procrastination when finally ordered to proceed. Would the military be uncomfortable with this movie? I don't think so: the characters who argue for the attack are uniformly decisive and honorable (with the exception of the melodramatic hesitation by the pilots) while those who preach caution and wisdom are portrayed as whiny and unattractively fearful. Yet, the Americans are shown to be more effective and efficient-- they want to go. It's the British politicians who seem to be wasting time, and worried about political fall-out. I was not entirely convinced that the movie wasn't pulling it's punches in order to suggest greater nobility to the idea of drone attacks than it deserves. Firstly, they propose that Colonel Powell and her people have decisive, clear, unambiguous proof that the suspects are planning a suicide bombing with ridiculous certainty that is not likely to exist in real life. Secondly, they show us people risking their lives on the ground to make the attack work-- think about it: is that a contrivance to suggest that the attacks are not as heartlessly remote as most of them, in fact, are? Is this catering to what we would all like to think is going on? Still, to their credit, they show consequences more honestly than expected.
Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Babou Ceesay
Witty, sardonic story of Jan Dite, a young man in Czechoslovakia, and his adventures as he tries to waiter his way to wealth and status at a series of elegant hotels while encountering the streams of culture and politics that rile his country in the years before and during World War II. It is challenging, at times, to sort out the targets of the satire: bureaucrats and functionaries, the rich, the poor, the stuffy culture of high class restaurants, and even desire and romance. All of it is beautifully filmed, like some of the best silent movies, without dialogue, and with expressive gestures and actions, fastidiously synchronized. It's a cross between "Forrest Gump" and Kafka. But Dite is no lovable hero: he falls for a Nazi and uses stolen Jewish property to buy his own hotel. He is naive but selfish and foolish. In the end, he is a paradox: seemingly innocent and well-meaning-- like the general population during war-- but ultimately self-serving and venal.
Oldrich Kaiser, Ivan Barnev, Julia Jentsch, Marian Labuda, Milan Lasica
Everything in "Son of Saul" is presented through the closed-in perspective of Saul, Sonderkommando, at Auschwitz, whose job is to guide prisoners into the gas chambers, sort through their possessions for processing by other prisoners, and then burn the bodies afterwards. A boy survives a gassing-- for a short time--and Saul takes it into his head that the boy is his son, for whom he must provide a decent burial. It is never quite clear to me if he might be an illegitimate son of Saul, or it is merely something he seizes on as a desperate bid to regain his humanity. At the same time, a group of prisoners is planning a revolt and Saul becomes a complication to their plans. A unique and powerful perspective on life in a concentration camp: for the first time, you begin to feel what it might have been like to be manipulated and co-opted the way the Sonderkommandos and others were, and how you never knew at which stage the bargain you made with your captors would be your undoing at last.
Geza Rohrig, Levente Molnar, Urs Rechn, Todd Charmont, Marcin Czarnik
Moderately amusing study of a Hollywood fixer who runs around trying to prevent PR disasters involving actors in whom his studio, Capitol Pictures, has a major investment. Fun to watch segments showing how early films were made, the sound stages, the fakery, the stock stunts. Shot on film! Because the Coen brothers don't like digital. Eddie Mannix (Brolin) is inspired by E. J. Mannix, a real-life fixer, while Baird Whitlock (Clooney) is an amalgamation of Charlton Heston, Robert Taylor, and Kirk Douglas. There are clear allusions to Ben Hur, Carmen Miranda, and to many westerns. An affectionate tribute to the business of big Hollywood, without any clear focus on what it might mean.
George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum, Alden Ehrenreich, Josh Brolin
What is this shit? A number of reviewers claim that this is some kind of statement about empowerment and repeat the claim that sororities aren't "allowed" to have parties while fraternities can (utter bullshit: there is no law about sororities at all-- it's a policy by some association that has no legal standing). It's basically a long, tedious, repetitious sitcom, with the usual awful bodily function jokes and "empowered" girls in bikinis drinking and smoking pot and annoying their neighbor who, through absurd contrivance, must prevent the purchaser of their home from realizing that a madcap sorority abides in the next house. I liked reviewer James Bernadelli's reference to Rogen's "piggish attitude towards sex". That about sums it up. Often plays like the worst of the Judy Garland / Mickey Rooney contrivances, in which they miraculously find a barn in which they can put on a show that raises lots of money to pay the orphanage.
Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne, Chloe Grace Moretz, Selena Gomez
Exquisitely beautiful, tragic story of a Scottish girl in early 1900's in Aberdeenshire, with a monstrous father who drives her mother to suicide and his son to emigrate to Argentina. Chris Guthrie is beautiful and smart (we see her recognized in class in one of the many detailed period reconstructions Davies is so good at) and not spectacularly different from any of us. She just wants a life and when an opportunity comes to shuck off some of the constraints of her role in that society at that time, she takes it. She's no saint, and the men around her-- and some women, like her aunt-- are not particularly evil or good. They are mixed up like the rest of us. Her mother is a rather exotic personality as well-- not the expected martyr or passive victim. She laughs at awkward moments, and makes a nominal effort-- but no more -- to prevent some of the abuse of her son. There are missteps: towards the end, there is a melodramatic turn that reminds one of some earlier disappointments from Davies (disappointments because his early films were so good). Filmed in sumptuous, Rembrandtesque colours and compositions, almost every shot a beautiful work of art. Superb performances by everyone but especially Agyness Deyn.
Agyness Deyn, Peter Mullan, Mark Bonnar, Ron Donachie, Jack Greenless
Horrible, boring rehash of original. Simply terrible, from the cliche-ridden plot (the boys parents are divorcing: what can make us feel good again? I know-- the family reunites!) and the usual trope of career woman being unfeeling and unfeminine, until she falls for the macho, rugged, all-American guy carrying a gun around. There's helicopters, there's blood, there's bazookas, there's crowds screaming and evil corporations gleaming... notably, the bad guys here are not the military but the greedy corporation. Completely worthless pile of dreck.
Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Irrfan Khan, Vincent D'Onofrio, Judy Greer
Surprisingly well developed Star Wars entry with above average acting and direction. Of course, it's still a rehash with rather blatant repetition of earlier series sequences (the light-sabre battle on a catwalk, the daring fighter attack on the center of a new planet death star), but handle with with verve. Even Harrison Ford, who seems to be begging for the script to "kill me" and spare another entry, handles his role as an aging Han Solo with aplomb. Goes easy on the more tiresome conventions (no Yoda, for one thing), and not much emphasis on "the force". Still treats androids like cute puppies instead of what they are: mechanical devices. But Oscar Isaac is very good, and so is Daisy Ridley as Rey.
Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, Max Von Sydow, Harrison Ford
The usual inane, contrived, recycled block-buster sci-fi material. This time, after some bad pr as the result of collateral damage, one of the more absurd premises: Ironman and some of the others believe the United Nations should control the activities of the Avengers, while Captain America and some others believe they should remain independent. No one brings up the most overwhelming piece of logic: that the Avengers, in this fantasy world, save far more lives than are killed by their activities, and all they have to do is announce, fine, they won't do it next time. The obligatory oily government man is hardly a worthy foil. Downey seems to be mailing it in. Scarlett Johannson isn't even sexy in this incarnation. The witticisms in the middle of battle scenes seem tired. And all of the tension is drained because you know that none of them are going to die. Boring. Only Elizabeth Olsen and Tom Holland give it some life.
Robert Downey Jr., Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Holland, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Martin Freeman
Sharp, witty, well-written story about a pair of Budapest shop employees who unknowingly become pen-pals while annoying each other at work. Or is this really mainly about the shop, and about the familial relationship between owner Hugo Matuschek and his employees? Alfred is loyal and diligent but is suddenly on the outs with Matuschek, who had been treating him like a son. Matuschek, unknown to Alfred, suspects Alfred of having an affair with this wife. All of the secondary characters are fleshed out here, conveying a deep sense of personality and history with a few lines. One of the other employees is a suck-up, always angling for favour. Another is a likable older man, Pirovitch, who passes on wisdom from his own painful experience. Another is the smart-ass errand boy, Pepi. Yes, they don't make them like they used to: this was template for "You've Got Mail", a grossly inferior film.
James Stewart, Frank Morgan, Margaret Sullavan, Joseph Schildraut
Brilliant film that glamorizes a repulsive idea: that the only solution to drug violence is to become as psychotic as the dealers, to use torture and murder to achieve a kind of repressive stasis that is more "acceptable" than constant turf war. FBI Agent Kate Macer is invited by some shady government agents to join them in a plan to deal a blow to the drug dealers by capturing a king-pin and bringing him down. Problem: everybody knows that this would only result in a change in the hierarchy and would have no effect on drug distribution, and would even likely cause a new drug war. Surely Kate would know and it strains credulity that she would not question the idea (she embraces it, instead, in a rather righteous expression of indignation about the crimes she's had to investigate tied to the dealers). As the plan develops, she begins to realize that what they are planning may not be "by the book", and that she is only there because the CIA is involved and it cannot, legally, carry out such activities within the U.S. An Ali Soufan moment. Here the drama breaks down and the story line veers off into an extremely unlikely scenario. I give Villeneuve credit for not compromising the actions taken by Alejandro, just to make the hero more palatable to audiences who surely "enjoy" the deaths incidental to his actions, or his use of torture on a capture aid to the target. But in a ridiculous moment, he has Kate suddenly pull a gun in a situation in which only an extremely naive person would believe that this story would end with her shooting. She's not going to. I know it, Villeneuve knows it, Alejandro knows it, and Kate knows it: to put it out there anyway is cheap and detracts from the point of the movie. It betrays the fact that movie really is about competing psychosis and the makers of it can't conceive of any response to violence except more violence. By not firing--as we know she won't-- Kate tacitly endorses Alejandro's code. And that is repulsive. Yet, again, this is an extremely well made movie by the director of "Polytechnique" and "Incendies". Super score.
Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Victor Garber, Jon Bernthal
Updated take on Aristophanes' "Lysistrata", about a group of women who try to force their husbands to stop making war by denying them sex, set in Chicago today, an area referred to by locals as "Chi-Raq" because of it's sustained rate of violent crime. Surprisingly (to me) close to the original play, including using blank verse and rhyme, and the general structure of the story. Through it all, Lee's overwhelming compassion for his subjects shines through, as they struggle through issues like the drug wars, racist police, self-inflicted wounds, and despair. Samuel L. Jackson may be tiresome in this type of rule, usually, but here it fits, as a kind of singular Greek chorus giving us the meaning of the actions. Lee's expands the story to a grand scale when even the President, and other nations, become involved. Cusack is particularly impressive as a local priest who consoles the mother of a shooting victim and decries the violence in a surprisingly compelling speech at the funeral. "Chi-Raq" is wildly inventive and hallucinogenic and mesmerizing. I don't rate it quite as successful or funny as "Bamboozled", but it is superb.
Nick Cannon, Teyonah Parris, Wesley Snipes, Angela Bassett, John Cusack, Jennifer Hudson
Very odd, very interesting dissection of love and social norms: David's wife kicks him and his dog out and he is arrested for failure to love. He is confined to a hotel and must fall in love with one of the other guests by the end of 45 days or he will be turned into an animal of his choice. He chooses a lobster, but sets out to beat the odds. You must demonstrate that you are genuine "match" for the person you choose, so when he chooses a woman with no feelings, he must also appear to have no feelings. The dog is his brother-- who was previously transformed-- and it becomes his undoing when his new wife proves that he can cry. He flees into the forest and joins a group with the opposite purpose: no one is allowed to have a relationship, and falls for one of the other members. Bitter, sometimes unpleasant movie, that is not really inventive enough to justify the quirky, sequences and tropes, though it retains your interest with it's originality, and the good acting of the majors, and their merciless attitudes. Provocative.
Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, Lea Seydoux, John C. Reilly
Michael Moore decides that instead of invading third rate third world powers, he will invade, on behalf of the U.S., countries that actually have something worth taking, like Italy's approach to school lunches, Finland's approach to schools, Denmark's approach to prisons, and Tunisia' approach to women in politics. Entertaining and funny as political activism, obviously somewhat selective, but effective nevertheless, especially at highlighting just how wrong-headed a lot of U.S. policies are.
Michael Moore
Sloppy, meandering, inexplicably pretentious rehash of "The Great Beauty" (an excellent film) by Sorrentino, about two old men, a conductor and composer, Fred Ballinger, and film director, Mick Boyle, ruminating at a spa over a period of a few weeks, while oogling women and resisting honors and interviews. A particularly distasteful subplot features a British "emissary" from the Queen just begging Ballinger to conduct his "Simple Songs" for Prince Philip's birthday. The groundwork for melodramatic developments later in the story is rudimentary at best, and scenes with Keitel and Caine together seem ridiculously under-developed and under-rehearsed. Sorrentino tosses in some of his usual remarkable shots, stately, mystifying, oblique, and tasteful hints of exotic sensuality. Ballinger's daughter, Lena, shows up, to discover that her husband has been unfaithful, and an actor, Jimmy Tree, observes, but doesn't really participate in the developments. Sorrentino's usual odd mix of classical and pop music on the soundtrack occasionally livens up festivities but can't save this work from aimlessness and triviality. Thank God at least it didn't feature Maggie Smith. Note: at one point, while Lena and Fred and taking some kind of massage together, Lena goes into a vicious rant about what a terrible father Fred was, always conducting or composing instead of paying attention to her. Was this an inadvertent assertion of the fact that women really do smother creative talent in their men, or was it meant to expose Fred's inadequacy as a human being? A lot of scenes echo scenes from "The Great Beauty".
Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Ian Attard, Rachel Weisz
Morvern wakes up one day beside her boyfriend who has slashed his wrists, on Christmas day, and died, on the floor of his apartment. "Don't try to understand", he has informed her via his computer (displaying "Read Me" on the screen). She gets up, gets dressed, takes some money from his pockets, and goes out, to meet her friend Lanna. They go to a club. Where's your boyfriend? He left. In the note, her boy friend tells her about a manuscript for a novel that he suggests she send to a list of publishers. She does so, and then she disposes of the body herself, and then she and Lanna go to Ibiza, Spain, to be ravished by the sunlight and the scenery, though she impulsively also leads Lanna to a small Spanish town having some kind of religious feast, after which they are stranded far from everything. The fate of the manuscript comes in to play as Morvern seems indifferent and disengaged from everything around her, from the casual sex and drinking and drugs, to her friends confession that she had slept with the boyfriend-- but it didn't mean anything. The New York Times mentioned the "weightlessness" of her life, the "empty weariness", and that seems right. Really right. A flaw: editors at a publishing house would expect to spend a lot of time suggesting rewrites and edits to a manuscript: there is no suggestion of how this would work out in the context of this film.
Samantha Morton, Kathleen McDermott, Paul Popplewell, Ruby Milton, El Carrette
Funky, funny, irreverent look at real capitalism-- as opposed to biography, which this is not. Joy is divorced but her husband lives in the basement and her father, freshly evicted from his latest relationship, moves in as well. Her mother is already embedded in her bedroom watching soap operas and complaining when a plumber has to intrude. Joy is near the end of her rope until she hits upon the idea of the "Miracle Mop" (which is never actually mentioned by name in the show). She recruits his father's new girlfriend as an investor, gets some bad advice, fails at first, but persists until she wins in the end. But that's not really what this is about: the primary lesson of "Joy" is that other people will not hesitate to give you bad advice and try to diminish your accomplishments and your abilities. Joy succeeds when she finally learns to trust her own judgement and stand up to the failures around her, all of whom invoke their previous success or insight or intelligence to justify telling her what to do. It's a scrambled message which, to its credit, the movie makes no effort to untangle. Entertaining and filled with life.
Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Edgar Ramirez, Dascha Polanco, Virginia Madsen, Bradley Cooper
Filmed entirely on Apple iPhones, with cheap adapters and steadicam attachments, in Los Angeles near Santa Monica Blvd, using two "found" transagender actors, Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez. Sin-Dee discovers that her boyfriend, Chester, has cheated on her with a girl who name starts with a "D". In a fury, she sets out to find the girl, and Chester, and get revenge. In the meantime, Razmik, a taxi driver in love with Sin-Dee, is looking for a piece of action, even after joining his wife and her mother and her mother's friends and his daughter for Christmas dinner. Sin-Dee's friend, Alexandra, has a singing engagement at a local club, but a hard time persuading her friends to show up. Off-beat, entertaining, and fresh, driven by the lively personalities of its two stars, and memorable cameos by Clu Gulanger and James Ransone ("The Wire"). Far more raw and authentic than most Hollywood versions of the same raw materials.
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Karren Karaguilian, Mickey O'Hagan, James Ransone, Clu Gulanger
Wildly inventive and mostly funny parody of the Marvel franchise though notably derivative of Spiderman, Ironman, and lots more: Dead Pool is sarcastic and witty and self-pitying. There's a big dose of adolescent narcissistic masochism: Dead Pool strapped to a gurney getting "treated" for cancer by Ajax, the usual nemesis with a "British Accent" as the opening credits specify. The suffering, you know, makes it okay for us to enjoy the carnage that follows. While Colossus tries to mentor Dead Pool into becoming a responsible hero, he'd rather get revenge. There's also a "Beauty and the Beast" theme here: I think a large part of the appeal of movies like this is the image young, adolescent males have of themselves: they find their burgeoning sexual feelings constantly attacked by society as the root cause of multiple evils and crave approval and validation from a sexually desirable female, who knows about the depravity, and accepts it-- even craves it. Which lead to the funniest line in the movie: "...it's a face I'd be happy to sit on."
Ryan Reynolds, Karan Soni, Ed Skrein, Michael Benyaer, Stefan Kapicic, Brianna Hildebrand
Unfocused, sometimes pointless recounting of the career of James "Whitey" Bulger, and, more accurately, John Connolly, the FBI agent who protected him and covered up some of his murders (for which he was eventually convicted as an accessory). Bulger famously became an "informant" for the FBI, supposedly providing the goods on Mafia-backed thugs moving into his areas of Boston. It is now alleged that Connolly even provided Bulger with the names of other informants whom Bulger later had killed. "Black Mass" doesn't sanctify Bulger so much as tidy him up a little. But Depp doesn't really draw anything out of him other than the mannerisms and the accent-- there's a never a moment where I felt a flash of real personality there. What's he really made of? How did his background really connect to his career as a violent criminal? Where's that insight into the relationship between a well-known criminal and the police and the public, let alone Connolly? Not as romanticized as "The Godfather" films, but not as perceptive either. Cumberbatch, unsurprisingly, steals every scene he's in, as Bulger's State Senator brother, Billy.
Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dakota Johnson, Kevin Bacon, Peter Sarsgard
In the news: climate change has melted the snow in mountain glaciers revealing the bodies of people who died ages ago. What if.... one of them was your former girlfriend? So it is, and Geoff is stunned by the news, and not sure what to do with it. He was the "nearest relative" because they had lied (in early 1960's) about being married so they could share accommodations. This was all long before he even met Kate, so why does she begin to feel jealous about Katya? But she does, and eventually tells Geoff that she doesn't want to hear about her anymore. But their 45th anniversary is approaching and there is going to be a big party and the shocking news throws a damper over their relationship just as they are about to celebrate it's longevity. I was frankly a little disappointed. Well-acted and written and an interesting idea but it is developed into something less stirring than I had thought. They don't even really talk about the obvious fact that he was a different person back then, with a different life, so why would Kate even care that much. But she does and it is clear that the sudden illumination of Geoff's feelings for his long dead lover disturbs her greatly, and another revelation sends her into a funk, and can never be resolved. Her pleasure at a crucial moment significantly turns into a kind of despair.
Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James, Dolly Wells, David Sibley
Documentary-- if you could call it that-- of the Clinton campaign in 1992, from New Hampshire, and the Genifer Flowers revelations, to election night. James Carville is the primary focus and the film seems more a montage of clips rather than a coherent narrative about the campaign. It's a very interesting insider look at election strategy and the mindset and culture of campaign operations, without a major, over-arching idea.
James Carville, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, George Stephanopoulos
Famously filmed in a single continuous stream, about a young Spanish girl, out one evening dancing at a club, connecting with some guys who might be up to something dangerous. She hangs around because she likes Sonne, and there is obviously a spark of romance there, but Sonne's friend, freshly out of prison, owes a debt and will have to repay it soon. It's an exhilarating ride-- you find out what's up at the same pace as the characters, and absorb their excitement and fear and the enormous tension created when Victoria is drawn into a complicated situation, which is not what you might have expected. Flags a little in the last bit, as some developments seem improbable and even conventional, after a very unconventional first 90 minutes. Deserves a lot of credit for an original idea carried through brilliantly at times.
Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Francz Rogowiski, Burak Yigit, Max Mauff
Melancholy, downbeat animated (the old way) drama about a man, Michael, visiting Cincinnati to give a presentation on customer service, and hoping to hook up with an old flame. That does not go well but he does end up with a fan. Strikingly unromantic or sentimental: he is married to an unpleasant woman and has a young son who is selfish and rude. All of the other characters, except for the new flame, Lisa, talk in a flat, male voice and resemble his wife. The exact reasoning for this is unclear, but it has an effect: Lisa leaps off the screen. She is vivid and charming. Is the point that he craves something different, while fooling himself into thinking he wants something meaningful? Within a short time, he begins noticing Lisa's shortcomings, personal habits that annoy him, suggesting that this relationship would never last long either. He clearly just about hates everyone-- but that doesn't change the fact that he really is lonely. Baffling in some ways, but always interesting and often moving, as when Lisa sings her favorite song to Michael.
David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan
Brandon works for a rich corporation in downtown Manhattan and lives the good life for a single corporate drone: lots of money, fabulous apartment, good looks, lots of available women. Then his needy sister-- Sissy-- comes to visit, and begs him to let her stay in his apartment for a time. This seems to unbalance Brandon and his bottomless cravings for sex and porn begin to gnaw away at him. He is-- for no apparent reason-- viscerally ashamed when Sissy interrupts his masturbation or sees some of the porn he has been watching. Is it because he is embarrassed that none of the sex he has has even the slightest emotional component? He experiments with a serious girl from the office, Marianne, and just when we begin to sense a real emotional connection is possible, he puts her off with his declaration that marriage is pointless: why have just one romantic partner. Still, he clearly likes her, and perhaps realizes that her smarts and her congenial personality are partly connected to her views on romance and love. Perhaps the most intriguing part of this portrait is how Brandon's business self seems integrated with his personal morality-- his own boss, married with children, exuberantly hits on Sissy. Brandon is appalled, seemingly unconscious of the hypocrisy. He is disgusted by Sissy's weakness and messiness and you wonder with him, at the end, if he can ever rise above it. Filmed in unpleasant, drab grays and blues, superbly acted, especially by Fassbender and Mulligan-- a 6 minute argument between the two (continuous take) is brilliant-- , and absolutely one of the best films of 2011.
Carey Mulligan, Michael Fassbender, James Badge Dale, Nicole Beharie
Don't even try to think of this as a true story: it is a fictionalized version of a fictionalized biography that did not remotely treat the facts of Einar Wegener and Gerda Gottlieb. For example, Gerda was openly gay as well as Einar, and they were never faithful to each other. That said, what about the movie? This is a massive act of narcissism. It barely touches on real issues of sexual identity, but revels in showing how adorable Einar is as a girl, how men were instantly attracted to him, and how he suffered as a result of his beautiful soulful consciousness of being the wrong gender. Everyone in the film cares about Einar and is supportive and approving. The actors indulge in method-mumbling, partly to conceal Redmayne's decidedly masculine voice, and partly, once supposes, to conceal the lack of psychological logic to any of the characters. Redmayne uses a variety of tic-like smiles and fluttering eyes to suggest that he really, really believes that he is completely adorable, and also that the the gender-bending was-- pardon the expression-- thrust upon him, rather than something he really wanted for himself. It all becomes a bit nauseating after a while, and the film remarkably makes Alicia Vikander dull and lifeless: her entire job is to adore Einar. The real Gerda painted shocking lesbian-porn, and died, alcoholic and penniless, in Denmark in 1940. Beautiful sets and wonderfully illustrates why period films aren't necessarily interesting.
Alicia Vikander, Eddie Redmayne, Ben Whishaw, Amber Heard, Matthias Schoenaerts
Controversial film about the early proponents of rap, the sensational NWA, from the streets of Compton to a record deal, fast money, lavish parties in LA and elsewhere, and the death of one of its key founders. And, of course, the manager who rips off the artists leaving them bankrupt. Yet, not formulaic or cheesie. The manager, Jerry Heller, gets to make his case-- that he "made" the band, and made them successful beyond their wildest dreams. Ice Cube, played well by O'Shea Jackson, (son of the real Ice Cube) emerges as the most intelligent of the band, and he leaves first, frustrated by Heller's control and the rigged contract he is finally offered. Dr. Dre leaves as well, only to become linked to Suge Knight, who may have been worse than Heller. Dr. Dre and Ice Cube find lavish success, but in the end, tragedy brings them all back together. Well-acted, very well-written and directed.
O'Shea Jackson, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Neil Brown Jr., Carra Patterson, Paul Giamatti
Brooding, meticulous recreation of a 1950's love affair between Carol, a wealthy New York socialite, and Therese, a shop clerk. Patient and slow moving, we watch them encounter each other, meet, charm each other, and finally fall into a full-blown affair. Haynes embraces the look and feel of dated, washed out urban landscapes, cars and telephones and lunch counters, and cheap motels, as an expression of inner landscapes. Carol is separated from her husband, but he wants her back and sees her indiscretion as an opportunity to blackmail her by seeking full custody of their daughter. I had the feeling that Carol was supposed to be far more likeble than she actually was: Cate Blanchett is off-putting anyway, and Carol's behavior was not admirable. But "Carol" is really about how social convention and cultural values inhibit and constrict the individual, while acknowledging that times were about to change. Definitely anachronistic in the delicacy with which the husband and lawyers discuss Carol's sexual adventures, and the implied heroism of Carol's choices. In the real life, author Patricia Highsmith experienced many of the incidents in the story: one of her early lovers committed suicide.
Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, Sarah Paulson
Slight but interesting story about a young Bedouin boy whose brother is drafted to guide an Englishman through the desert, apparently, to sabotage an Ottoman Turk railway line. He tags along and learns about betrayal and death and family loyalty through his interactions with the British man and a group of Arabs who are out to stop him. (The Turkish-led Ottoman Empire was allied with the Germans in World War I, and the British were trying to exploit Arab resistance to the Ottomans as a military strategy). Slow-moving, picturesque without being remarkably beautiful, at times the most interesting thing going on was the behavior of the sometimes ornery camels. The main point seems to be that local, immediate, familial concerns triumph over grand international events. It's not a stretch to consider this angle in light of current events in the same region. A Jordanian co-production that is the 2016 nominee for Best Foreign Film.
Jacir Eid Al-Hwietat, Hussein Salameh Al-Sweilhiyeen, Hassan Mutlag Al-Maraijey
It was very difficult to conceive of a reason to see this film: another dreary installment of the "Rocky" franchise recycling the obvious trajectory with a bit of dime-store psychology and gratuitous violence. And, in spite of the insistent reviewers stating that it is not that, it is, partly. The first two-thirds of it-- until Rocky has a personal crisis-- was pretty good, reasonably fresh, well-directed and acted, and reasonably believable. And then, the mawkish sentimentality set in, the contrived conflicts, the unbelievably predictable penultimate match with results so expected that it was almost-- but not quite-- unexpected. "Creed" follows the drift into a boxing career by the illegitimate son of "Rocky's" original antagonist, Apollo Creed (the film makes an oddly moralistic judgement about a man whose career consisted of inflicting permanent brain damage on exploited young men). Adonis Johnson can box but his adoptive mother doesn't approve (great pity that Coogler didn't have the idea of having her disapprove even when the fight is big and profitable). So he goes to Philadelphia and seeks out Rocky Balboa and begs him to train him. And he meets a girl who, unfortunately, ultimately ends up as a mere prop for Creed's "journey". Along the way, the best fight sequence is staged, a wonderful two-minute continuous shot, close-up, in a crowded gym. A terrific moment. But then we get familiar elements: the rude, arrogant opponent, the obscene stars and stripes trunks, the breathless commentators insisting the hero is a massive underdog, and the various peripheral characters rallying to the cause of the hero. In a serious misjudgment, Johnson is shown to accept being identified as his father's son, even after earlier making a big, significant point about wanting to be his own man. It's the franchise, stupid. Disappointing, considering that Coogler directed Fruitvale station. Michael B. Jordan, incidentally, was Wallace in "The Wire".
Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Tony Bellew
Pictorial stunning Chinese film about a young woman trained as an assassin targeting political figures, to whom she is related, in 7th century China. Yinniang was sent to some kind of convent when very young to be trained as a killer and then returned to her kingdom to assassinate her cousin in order to provoke a political crisis. The film is all poses and brief flashes of intense action, beautifully staged in woods and in front of mountains, and hillsides glorious in color. Yinniang develops ambivalence about her mission, refusing to kill a man holding his child, and begins to reconsider the role of violence in politics. The plot is otherwise almost insensible to western viewers, with few narrative advances or explanations. But how beautifully it is rendered!
Qi Shu, Chen Chang, Satoshi Tsumabuki
DiCaprio has never been convincing in any role and he isn't convincing in "The Revenant", and otherwise fine film from Inarritu, about a frontier fur trader, Hugh Glass, who is attacked by a bear and left for dead by his partners, makes a remarkable recovery, and sets out for revenge. The real story, of course, is only about the survival part: the revenge part introduces cliches (Glass had a native wife and son, killed a soldier who was attacking his home, and, after returning to the fort, sets out to pursue the worst miscreant, Fitzgerald, with only one other man and they split up when they catch up to him) and diminishes the story. But beautifully filmed in the wilds of Alberta and Argentina (they had to move there after the snow melted) and well-acted by everyone except DiCaprio, who shamelessly offers us the starving man biting the head off a fish trope, and the man hiding from Indians trying to kill him by grunting with pain as he moves along under an ice shelf with the stalkers very near.
Leonardo DiCarpio, Tom Hardy, Domhall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck
Seen earlier but not noted. This was the 3 hour version, "Director's Cut". Intense, patient, honest story of a U-boat crew in 1942, and the horrors of life on a floating coffin (more than 30,000 of 40,000 U-Boat crew members died in action). Doesn't shy away from showing the boredom, the long, dreary hours of waiting, and the intense terror of being depth-charged, as well as the crew's ambivalent attitude towards their own government. Occasionally melodramatic and sophomoric, and occasionally brilliant, but always concerned with giving the viewer a relatively authentic experience. Most of the actors dubbed their own English lines, badly (so the accents have a reason). And the wider views of the u-boat at sea, and the shaken camera effect on depth charge attacks, don't always convince (they used scale models generally). But really marvelous at times and tells a story that needs to be told. Very detailed attention to the nuts and bolts of how u-boats worked, the claustrophobic feel of being in them, the crowding, the stench, and the long boring periods of inactivity.
Jurgen Prochnow, Herbert Gronemeyer, Klaus Wenneman, Hurbertus Bengsch
Greta Gerwig is listed as co-writer. Slight but amusing take on young woman in New York hoping to open a restaurant and forced to hit up an old flame for the money after an investor pulls out. Rather, more about her admiring friend, a prospective step-sister, who turns her into a character in a story. It's about adorable Greta Gerwig, funny and witty and outrageous, and a little lost, and incredibly angry at little Tracy for writing that story about her. Not quite believable, really, but that's not what matters. It's a slice. It's a slight but engaging story, filmed in a straightforward style-- lots of cross-cutting during fast dialogues-- and with just enough melancholy to make you think you've had an experience.
Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirk, Clare Foley, Michael Chernus, Jasmine Cephas Jones
Touching, delicate, sensitive study of a young Irish girl who moves to New York in the 1950's, meets a nice Italian lad, and faces a crisis due to events at home. Temperate and measured and thoughtful-- but generally, poorly directed. Eilis sees no future in Ireland. She has a job with a mean employer, no boyfriends or anyone she is interested in, and a dreary life. Her voyage to New York is dreadful but she ends up in pleasant boarding house in the care of a Mrs. Kehoe, and a good job thanks to a local priest. (Great pity they didn't show more of the details of getting through immigration, finding her way around, encountering the large, bustling city. Probably largely due to budget constraints-- they filmed mostly in Montreal.) She meets an Italian boy who has dreams for a life with her, but must make a difficult decision when a sudden death at home occurs. Avoids cliches and brings a fresh spin to the immigrant trope, but many scenes seem rushed and under-developed, or constrained by budgetary issues. Saoirse Ronan is terrific, as is Julie Waters.
Saoirse Ronan, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters, Emory Cohen
Dreary rehash of previous Tarantino offerings, professionally staged but repetitive and mindless: bodies must splatter, guns must fire often, and Samuel Jackson must rant. Deeply disappointing after the suggestion, in previews, that this would be a beautifully filmed western, exploring the traditions and culture of the American Western Film, because Tarantino's films are all about American films-- and not about any particular historical reality, except as it can be used to detail the myths of Western Culture: the high noon spectacle, the lone outsider standing up against corruption, the innocent helplessly victimized by evil. He filmed this in 70mm, for heaven's sake, and most of it takes place in a lousy haberdashery! There is a good deal of comedy-- the blood gushing out as from a fire hose-- and not much drama or tragedy. No surprise that Jackson urged him to make it when he had lost enthusiasm for the project: this is a vanity project for an actor who, sadly, has become a self-caricature, and boring. Kurt Russell and Jennifer Jason Leigh are the best things in the film but they can't overcome the fundamental absurdity of Tarantino's tiresome obsession with self-consciously ridiculous shoot-outs. Bruce Dern as a former Confederate General raises interest at points, especially in his acquired respect for Warren (Jackson), spoiled when Jackson-- trying to be funny, it might be imagined-- shoots him in the head. Even more pointless than "Django Unchained".
Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Tim Roth, Bruce Dern
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