Category Archives: 2018

“Roma” Mixes the Epic and the Intimate

Alfonso Cuarón’s family drama set in a middle class Mexico City neighborhood in the early 1970s, Roma (B), is an elegiac tribute to his family’s real  housekeeper who was a steady presence as the family slowly splintered. Told with a sweeping tableaux of intimate and epic moments, photographed in black and white 65 millimeter glory and using rich natural sounds without an underscore to accompany several Spanish language dialects, the film is a roaring technical achievement. Tracking shots of bustling city life, a youth revolt and an ocean vista are among its most stunning. The burden of narrative is carried largely on the shoulders of first-time actress Yaritza Aparicio, and she is marvelously revelatory and relatable. A lot happens and also not very much. There’s a long stretch of cleaning house and talking to the dog. There are multiple sequences of the family children talking but not saying much. But then the protagonist is hoisted into a world of opulent cityscapes, profound joy and grief and even a moment or two of genuine action against the backdrop of rising political unrest and tension. Cuarón beautifully and fully recreates the squalor and splendor of his semi-autobiographical childhood memories with his camera floating through its settings and subjects as if caught up in a dream. The storytelling is spare and lacks dramatic characterizations and fully realized linkages to match the power of the visuals. See it in theatres if you can, but even on Netflix, prepare to behold the panoramas of gorgeous moviemaking.

“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is Great Animated Storytelling

There’s a whole new convention for comic book aficionados, and it arrives in the form of a brilliantly conceived and rendered animation style and congregation of fringe superheroes. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (B) is a triumph of visuals and tone, capturing comic book aesthetic and tongue in cheek escapism. The story sputters out a bit midway amidst the gorgeously rendered New York set pieces, layered characters with text bursts and eye-popping swirls and swatches of dimensional color. The inclusive film explores a multiverse of Spider-Man personas converging, which gives us a half African-American/half Puerto Rican protagonist, female fighter, film noir hero and anime Spidey in the mix for confrontation with audacious baddies. Shameik Moore, Jake Johnston, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Nicolas Cage are among the voice talents. It’s fun for both purists and first-timers to the arachni-phile adventurer pantheon with an awesome message true to the late Stan Lee’s vision that everyone can be a hero.

“The Favourite” a Mixed Bag with Strong Performances

Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite (C+) is a bawdy tale of women behaving very badly, set in early 18th century Britain under the reign of Queen Anne, and its fine acting and perversely wicked sense of humor against the backdrop of a royal costume drama are not enough to recommend it. Rachel Weisz is delicious as the Duchess of Marlborough, confidant, advisor and secret lover to the queen. Enter Emma Stone, the duchess’s younger cousin from a disgraced side of the family, who works her way from scullery maid to the royal inner circle. The actress is fittingly stone cold in her role as ruthless protagonist vying for affections of the monarch. Sometimes at the center of it all and sometimes like a character in her own universe, Olivia Colman plays an utterly idiosyncratic queen, flanked by a mini kingdom of rabbits representing her deceased children and wailing from gout pain as she slithers, rolls and tumbles through a palace filmed in fisheye lenses. The grotesquerie of oneupmanship is often amusing but also often pretentious and pointless. Like the queen at the center of the story, the puckish director has fashioned imperial clothing of tonal delirium, and it doesn’t wear well for long.

“Ralph Wrecks the Internet” a Sloppy Sequel

Life’s a glitch for the best friends from the ‘80s arcade as they venture out into the worldwide web in Rich Moore and Phil Johnston’s uneven computer generated sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet (C). The great leap from the first film’s nostalgia fueled highjinks into the swirl of modernity is fraught with glaring shifts in tone and tenor, with voice actors John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman doing their darndest to keep the joy elevated. The best bits involve a woke encounter on a Disney princess fan site and a musical number set in a dystopian urban racing game. The animation is above average, and some of the jokes land, but not enough. The final reel is so off the rails, a blue screen of death would be preferable.

“The Wife” a Solid Showcase for Glenn Close

Best known for one of the showiest portrayals of rage set to cinema (pet rabbits beware Alex’s Fatal Attraction!), Glenn Close gets to take a slow-burn turn as doting spouse with a secret in the sleeper character study film that may finally land her a deserved Academy Award. Björn Runge’s austere drama The Wife (B-), written by Jane Anderson based on Meg Wolitzer’s novel, follows Close as the title character and her novelist husband (Jonathan Pryce) on a fateful trip to Stockholm where he receives a Nobel Prize for Literature and she experiences a wake-up call about why she has enabled an extremely flawed partner. Pryce is an effective blowhard, and Christian Slater is also quite watchable as a snooping biographer. But it is Close who commands every frame she is in and elevates an occasionally bourgeois bore into a banger. A veteran actress conveying deep and abiding emotions, Close may be the unexpected face of the #TimesUp movement in a year full of strong female performances. The film’s quietly observant style is strongest in the pivots – when argument turns to embrace, when adoration descend into disgust. Film buffs will appreciate that Max Irons plays her adult son (Close’s Reversal of Fortune co-star Jeremy Irons is the actor’s dad). Although they are fine actors, Annie Starke and Harry Lloyd as flashback versions of the central couple can’t quite compete with the master class shadows Close and Pryce cast. Not quite as revelatory or rousing as it often intends, the film is unquestionably lifted by Close’s every contribution and her strong choices about pacing and piercing to the heart of a given situation. In more ways than one, her time has come. It’s her world against his.

“Creed II” Successfully Continues the Boxing Saga

Steven Caple Jr.’s Creed II (B) – or “Rocky VIII” as some have termed it – has a serious case of history repeating with throwbacks to the notorious Drago-Creed and Balboa-Drago fights behind the Iron Curtain. Despite following the sports series’ rather prescriptive formula, though, this entry injects some pretty heavyweight domestic drama into the mix surrounding the big showdown. Michael B. Jordan takes a little while to get in the swing of things but regains gravitas in an impressive physical and emotional performance. Sylvester Stallone (also credited as a co-writer) is again a delight in his supporting perch. Tessa Thompson and Phylicia Rashad are wonderful as the women who complement and challenge the powerhouse protagonist. While there are some significant lulls, the overall effect is swift and surefooted. In Caple’s capable hands and with some fun cameos to reward longtime fans of the series, this fight film certainly takes flight.

“Green Book” a Throwback But With Wonderful Acting Pair

In a year of breakthrough films by African-American directors, of black excellence, panthers and klansmen, of Beale Street scuttlebutt and warrior widows, an unlikely white director has also hopped on the race relations bandwagon, helming a durable and crowd pleasing vehicle that’s worthy of more than a footnote. In fact, there’s something about director Peter Farrelly, best known for gross-out comedies, that yields a consistently bright and triumphant tone for Green Book (A-), elevating a true story to modern classic status. This 60s-set dramedy features Viggo Mortensen as a white nightclub bouncer who takes a job as driver and security for a black piano prodigy played by Mahershala Ali on a multi-state concert tour, guided by the titular journal about how to stay on a straight and narrow path through the segregated Deep South. The central performances are authentic and lived in, with Mortensen chewing the scenery and any food in sight as a portly pugilist with buckets to learn and Ali lending delicate dignity swirled with a worldly virtuoso to a lonely character who finds himself a multiple outcast in his own skin. The buddy comedy elements of the film are fittingly amusing and often revelatory, so it’s heartening when Farrelly resists most hamfisted impulses even when the narrative takes dramatic detours. Combined with lovely music, impeccable art direction and two of the most iconic performances of the year, it’s old-fashioned Hollywood manipulation that’s hard to resist. While film historians may claim one must choose between the likes of a more traditional tale such as Driving Miss Daisy or a gut-punch of modern cinema such as Do the Right Thing to chronicle the racial reconciliation agenda, there’s spotlight aplenty for multiple lenses addressing America’s most complex questions when it bubbles up from the right spirit. Farrelly’s film is more Miss Daisy/Hoke Colburn or Andy Dufresne/Red territory on the moviemaking map, but even a familiar road to redemption filled with such grace notes so gorgeously played is well worth treading.

“Boy Erased” Should Have Been Stronger

This film goes from shock and awe to aw, shucks way too abruptly. Memoir adapter and director Joel Edgerton continues in his horror milieu with Boy Erased (C+), exposing life in a gay conversion therapy center as a form of interior and institutional terror. It’s a bit of a low-key rainbow hued Cuckoo’s Nest or Girl, Interrupted and is extraordinarily effective until it isn’t. In the pro column is the protagonist, a preacher’s son magnificently played by Lucas Hedges, whose heartache and aim to please is palpable. He’s one of the great actors of his generation, and he sells a sometimes hackneyed narrative with dignity and verve. In the con camp are all adult characters: the ex-gay Grand Poobah himself played with little nuance by Edgerton and the conflicted parents played by Nicole Kidman (generally effective if a little treacly) and Russell Crowe (a career worst performance with stone cold lack of subtly). Told awkwardly with occasional flashbacks, there is genuine suspense in some surprisingly bleak moments; other times, the detached hero hovers emotionally above his melancholy surroundings, robbing sequences of conflict. There’s a through line of cautionary importance to this exposé of all-too-common reprogramming procedures. But the final act offers too tidy a resolution. More like goodwill erased.

“Widows” a Phenomenal Heist Thriller and Drama

Transplanting a British miniseries to modern day Chicago centering on a quartet of women completing a heist started by their late husbands, Steve McQueen’s mystery/drama Widows (A) is juicy, layered, intense and phenomenal. Buoyed by an excellent Viola Davis as the central protagonist (her late husband is inspired casting: Liam Neeson) and boasting an across the board fabulous ensemble, the film roars with thrilling intensity while always keeping the characters grounded in reality. McQueen organically laces into his vigilante milieu themes of racial and gender inequality and empowerment, cycles of crime and violence and the tenuous ecosystem of gangland and political turf. The film is ultimately a fugue on who’s playing one another in an elaborate urban powder-keg, with subtle shifts and surprises keeping viewers on the edge of their seats. Despite topicality, it’s extremely entertaining. Kudos to Elizabeth Debicki, who shape shifts in a complex emotional role as an abused woman discovering her power, and Daniel Kaluuya who plays against type as a cold-blooded criminal. Robert Duvall and Colin Ferrell are also superb as a father-son political dynasty brokering alliances in a corrupt neighborhood. The film is not for the faint of heart and doesn’t pull back from showing the evil that men do. Viola Davis is superb: she’s daring, direct and dramatically controlled. McQueen’s thoughtful female-led thriller truly catches fire.

“If Beale Street Could Talk” Offers Lowkey Drama

A much more subtle breakout than Moonlight for writer/ director Barry Jenkins, his adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk (B) tells the story of an African-American woman (newcomer KiKi Layne) who seeks to clear the name of her wrongly convicted husband (Stephan James) and prove his innocence before the birth of their child in 1970s New York. Jenkins fashions the central couple as Adam and Eve style innocents against a blistering backdrop of racism in the housing and justice system, humanizing their personal struggles while commenting on the universality of the Black Experience alluded to in the film’s title. Both romantic leads are stunning and emotive but often are overloaded vessels for the filmmaker’s myriad parade of topical issues. Despite the artisan lens Jenkins places on the adaptation, the central story comes across as a bit dramatically inert and doesn’t side-wind its way into consistent focus. The film is most successful when showcasing the solidarity of the central family, and Regina King and Colman Domingo are outstanding as the protagonist’s courageous parents. Jenkins collaborators such as composer Nicholas Britell and cinematographer James Laxton lend their greatness to the film;  it’s a technically exquisite work. While it’s impossible not to be moved by the humanity of Jenkins’s characters, he could have reached further to crystallize storytelling and to more urgently serve these characters who rarely get their cinematic due.

“Bohemian Rhapsody” Captures Spirit of Queen

Bohemian_Rhapsody_posterIf you’ve self-selected as curious about Bryan Singer’s Queen rock and roll biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (B), you will undoubtedly find yourself floating around in ecstasy at how the troubled production turned out. A star is reborn onscreen and his Gaga is radio ready as Rami Malek fully inhabits the role of flamboyant lead singer Freddie Mercury. This “behind the music” style melodrama is too often color by numbers, but Malek – a power ballad powerhouse in every frame – helps the film transcend the limitations of the form and, well, break free. The story dispenses with a series of greatest hits moments such as band origin story, early studio time, world tours and setbacks and is equally enjoyable in moments of grandeur and intimacy. Told with a lack of sentimentality and with pleasurable details and detours, the film strips down myths and legends and aptly showcases how some of the best songs surfaced. It’s fun to see how some of the zanier tunes emerged and how on trend this unconventional band was during its brief life as a quartet of outcasts. There are a few music tracks such as “Who Wants to Live Forever?” and “Another One Bites the Dust” which take on added poignancy given Mercury’s struggles with relationships and fading health. By the time the film culminates in a reenactment of the band’s famous Live Aid reunion performance, the audience is bought in completely. The ensemble is solid with no extraordinary standouts except Malek who transforms body and voice and should emerge an awards season champion. Malek’s Freddie is certainly somebody to love in a surprisingly deft crowd pleaser.

“Can You Ever Forgive Me?” is Absorbing Drama

There’s a fascinating film sub-genre of true stories so outlandish you can scarcely believe they really happened – Argo, BlacKkKlansman, Catch Me If You Can, to name a few and then there’s the real tale of author Lee Israel, whose potent mix of career desperation, misanthropism and alcoholism signals exactly why she got involved in a larger-than-life game of cat and mouse. As magnificently portrayed by Melissa McCarthy in Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? (B+), with a sharp and sassy script by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty based on Israel’s memoirs, the protagonist is laid off, late on rent and veterinary bills, divorced from reality and falls into a con of counterfeiting personal letters by novelists and playwrights to sell to collectors so she can fund her desperate lifestyle in early ’90s New York City. This is a film that quite clearly depicts life on the margins and how a pile-up of poor decisions and bad luck can foist someone into a sticky spot. Like dramatic-mask Jerry Lewis or Robin Williams, McCarthy demonstrates the reverse clown effect, depicting the the mentally anguished machinations and nuances behind a crowd pleaser (in this case Lee Israel is a famed autobiography writer whose style falls out of favor). McCarthy is joined for career-best performances by Richard E. Grant, a boozy buddy who discovers a sly synergy with a similarly broken spirit. Grant is glorious and adds to the glow of McCarthy’s superb acting. Jane Curtain is also wonderful in a small part as Israel’s beleaguered agent. This highly observant film, with its taut balance of dark themes, could teeter at any time into oblivion of heartache and histrionics but maintains an oddly indomitable optimism. Credit goes to Heller’s command of the material, a real and raw script and marvelous performers, who together manage to fashion the experience into a bit of a love letter to the Big Apple, albeit one that’s a bit rotten to the core. The movie will reward the well-read with its droll references to Dorothy Parker, Noel Coward, Kate Hepburn and Fanny Brice as well as viewers who simply come to witness McCarthy and Grant display roles of a lifetime. Different from a Barfly, Ironweed or Leaving Las Vegas, the film isn’t so concerned about its subjects’ alcoholism as an isolated character trait; it’s a full portrait of how people get by.  Unlike the doctored documents Israel concocts to escape from reality, the film’s indelible characters are the genuine article.