Dogs Bark

Born Irascible - - The Holdovers (2023, USA, Color, 133 min) - - 8 January 2024

Recommended. Despite the Golden Globe, it's not certain that Paul Giamatti (Sideways) has any lock on the Best Actor Oscar^©; however, we clearly have a new heartwarming Christmas story. The Oscarian uncertainty emerges from the pat casting . . . Giamatti as a crusty-but-benign, prep-school teacher. Still, he imbues this aged stereotype with new life and is set against a very dissimilar pair . . . an African-American cook, played by Da'Vine Joy Randolph (Rustin) who is enduring a tragic loss and Giamatti's charge (newcomer Dominic Sessa), the only student with nowhere to go over Christmas break. While “heartwarming” can quickly turn to overcooked, director Alexander Payne (Election) and writer David Hemingson (Just Shoot Me!) never allow the corn syrup to flow. Most of the story takes place during an extended - - and illicit - - “field trip” to Boston, with the usual disasters and confusion. In the end, everyone turns a page in this nice little movie.     

An Ugly Truth - - May December (2023, USA, Color, 117 min)

Not recommended. This is painful because - - although the output of director Todd Haynes (Carol) is uneven - - Natalie Portman (Closer) and Julianne Moore (The Hours) are wonderfully talented, and Portman produced May December. But this is a nasty movie.  Despite this, the many nominations and awards for tyro Charles Melton (Bad Boys for Life) seem reasonable. Melton plays the husband of Moore, and the father of her child from a romance that started when he was 14. Yuck. The tale is adapted from the true life of Mary-Kay Letourneau and her 12-year-old former student. Even more yucky. Portman and Moore play their characters minus any display of moral complexity . . . despite the obvious and well-played confusion/anguish of the object of their lust. Perhaps, then, this is the intention of Haynes . . . to mock two white women who seduce a young man of color. So what . . .  it's not a story worth telling.

Nose Job - - Maestro (2023, USA, Color and B/W, 129 min) - - 30 December 2023

Recommended. This is - - arguably  - - the age of bewildered sexuality and gender in the movies. And given the variations - - within and between - - these human qualities, movies need to be as fluid as untrammeled personalities. But there was a time when the current candor did not exist. And that is the proscenium for Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s (Silver Lining Playbook), exuberant, one-man performance as Leonard Bernstein. Berstein’s sexual ambiguity included a marriage to a star in her own right, Felicia Montealegre (Studio One), played with brilliant nuance and a boffo Mid-Atlantic accent by Cary Mulligan (Promising Young Woman). This is Mulligan’s best work ever, showing the monstrous, heartrending, - - and occasionally - - glorious experience of marriage to a genius. The story’s culmination comes in the 1973 performance of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony at Ely Cathedral. Bernstein’s concluding ecstasy and his passionate off-stage embrace of Montealegre, despite their turmoil, is the perfect metaphor for their life together.

Candide As A Girl - - Poor Things (2023, Ireland/UK/USA, Color and B/W, 141 min) - - 27 December 2023

Strongly recommended. Poor Things is the most effective of many recent surreal comedies . . . this probably because the story is linearly driven by the loony journey - - geographical and pedagogic - - of Bella, whose Frankensteinian brain develops from infanthood to maturity over the course of a year. Bella is played by the certain-to-be-Oscar-nomed Emma Stone (La La Land), and the appreciation is well-deserved. Director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite) sets Stone against some great performances by Willem Defoe (Platoon), the doctor who creates her, and Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight), the lawyer who deflowers her . . . plus a lovely cameo by Fassbinder-muse Hanna Schygulla (The Marriage of Maria Braun). Poor Things' Buñuel-esque qualities also include whimsical art direction (James Price, Judy, and photographer Shona Heath) and fantastical costuming (Holly Waddington, Lady Macbeth). One caution: If, in your opinion, seeing a naked Emma in ecstatic-to-indifferent sex is not fantastically whimsical, Poor Things is not your cup of tea.

 

Promise Tossed Off - - Saltburn (2023, US/UK, Color, 131 min) - - 16 December 2023

Not recommended - - Be it known, I like Emerald Fennell. I liked Promising Young Woman. I liked her in The Crown; however, I wish she’d finish a script. Like so many promising young people, she begins with an interesting idea . . . but it never goes anywhere. In Saltburn, Fennell seems to want to update Patricia Highsmith (bad idea), hires a splendid cast, and away she goes. Everyone, particularly Cary Mulligan (Promising Young Woman), Rosamund Pike (Pride And Prejudice), and Richard E. Grant (Gosford Park), initially sketch amusing upper-class twits, but they all go nowhere, particularly poor Cary. As for principal actor Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin), his character goes nowhere in multiple directions . . . suggesting then abandoning Tom Ripley’s complexity without any of his charm and much more grotesqueries. Three scenes will cause you to writhe in your seat  . . . and to no story-telling purpose. The ending provides a particularly implausible plot exposition.

Did I Say It's Loooooong? - - Killers Of The Flower Moon (2023, USA, Color, 206 min) - - 3 December 2023

Recommended. Martin Scorsese (Mean Streets) is a cinematic wunderkind and should never be ignored. Even if a film doesn't add up to a masterpiece, the pieces of that sum will be at the top of the moviemaking art. And so it is with Killers Of The Flower Moon. Despite the length, the characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator) and Robert De Niro (The Irishman) are underdeveloped, and we never get our arms around their motivation. Leo does better . . . suggesting a simple man who can't reconcile his conflicted soul (although he's so evil it's hard to sympathize with him). The real scene-stealer is Lily Gladstone (Certain Women), who plays DiCaprio's wife, Molly. Of Piegan Blackfeet ancestry, she beautifully shows a quiet, wise, Indian-female quality that is as endearing as it is somewhat clichéd. Despite all this, Marty's heart is in the right place and the movie is enjoyable . . . . but long.

Waterloo Sunset - - Napoleon (2023, UK/USA, Color, 158 min) - - 25 November 2023

Recommended. Let’s hope Trump doesn’t see this . . . as though he doesn’t already stick his hand in his coat. But only the ex-president could outdo the petulant and horny little creature that Ridley Scott (Alien) and Joaquin Phoenix (Gladiator) created for this movie.  Vanessa Kirby (The Crown) becomes a Josephine that has some depth and interest, but there’s really not much here to explain the appeal and military genius of Old Boney. This is a very English tale. Nothing is said of his important - - albeit mundane - - innovations in law and governance. But battles are what impress in the movies, and these are spectacular . . . despite Scott’s historical freewheeling, i.e. lies. Austerlitz is particularly impressive. Credit needs be shared with old pro cameraman Dariusz Wolski (Crimson Tide) and editor Claire Simpson (Platoon) for these segments. A four-hour director's cut is coming to Apple TV. Maybe it’s time to finally read War And Peace?

We Need To Calm Down? - - Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023, USA, Color, 169 min) - - 22 October 2023

Recommended. No disrespect to Christopher Nolan, but 2023 was not the year of Barbieheimer . . . try Taylorbarbie. This year, popculture encompassed girl power from 50-year-old moms to Super Bowl-winning tight ends, their power measured through pure Americana-ism revenue. To date, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and Barbie have generated $760 million in domestic gross receipts and climbing. Of course, a  record-breaking tour set the stage . . . literally. And this documentary(?) is clearly a stage, forgoing the usual talking head and backstage squabbles cut into other concert docs. Director Sam Wrench (Billie Eilish Live at the O2) assembles disperate concert footage from the final three days of the tour at LA’s SoFi Stadium into a musical mirrorball of the concert. One might wonder if we at the Cineplex saw more of the show than those in section 301, for example, Swift’s folksy, self-denigrating facial hi-jinks that effectively add to her cuteness.

Far From Bermuda - - The Triangle Of Sadness (2022, USA, UK, et al, Color, 147 min) - - 4 August 2023

Not recommended. The Triangle Of Sadness has it all: shallow supermodels, clueless rich people, a drunken skipper, Russian fertilizer moguls, and enough vomit and explosive diarrhea to float a boat . . . and a totally gratuitous  donkey-cide. I guess that’s the sadness. The comedy seems to have sunk beneath the waves. Perhaps saddest of all . . . this was a Best Picture nominee? There are a few decent performances, for example, Woody Harrelson (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) as the feckless captain and Dolly De Leon (Verdict) as a crewmember, but those are pleasantries are few. Sincerely sad, this is the last we’ll see of lovely Charlbi Dean (Don’t Sleep), as YaYa, who suddenly died after the wrap. With two well received films in his past, writer/director Ruben Östlund (Force Majeure) seems to have gone aground on this one, piling on the tired stereotypes and sinking his craft. There’s just not anything new here.

The Radiance of a Single Sun - - Oppenheimer (2023, USA, Color, 180 min)

Strongly recommended. Despite never knowing the man - - but having done non-weapons research at three of the nuclear laboratories mentioned in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer - - my credibility to evaluate the political and bureaucratic verisimilitude of the director's vision might be obvious. That said . . . Oppenheimer is also a superb aesthetic symbol for the moral complexity of that world. Nolan (Memento) might be the only working director to represent physics, romance, and idealism with such multiple angles and images. He's helped by brilliant cinematography from long-time partner Hoyte Van Hoytema (Dunkirk), scintillating editing (Jennifer Lame, Tenet) and a subtle, bemused representation by Cillian Murphy (Inception) as the titular figure. Oppenheimer was extraordinarily complex, with talents so diverse that the Gottengen faculty feared the graduate student’s flight to the ateliers of Paris. Work by Emily Blunt (The Adjustment Bureau) as Kitty Oppenheimer, Matt Damon (Intersteller) as Leslie Groves, and a brilliant supporting cast, also shines.