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Monthly Archives: February 2019

Bohemian Rhapsody – 2.5 stars

February 22, 2019
2 stars, 2018, Drama, Historical, Musical
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I always thought Queen was camp, a goof, and their primary contribution was “We are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You” which you sang in the bleachers during CYO basketball games. When I realized some people thought they were a great band, I was surprised. So, I walked into this as if it were a biopic of Emerson Lake & Palmer. Or Kansas.

Still, a great movie does not have to be about a great band. This, however, is not a great movie. It is cookie cutter, inoffensive, as risk-averse a biopic as you’ll find (it’s clear why Sacha Baron Cohen was jettisoned from the project), but well-paced and energized by the erstwhile Bryan Singer and made a little more interesting by Rami Malek’s weird, lizard-like performance (he’s just this side of Bela Lugosi, you never know if he’s just about to bite someone on the neck).  To be fair, Malek is also very moving towards the end.

The scenes of the band playing live and in studio are silly. The scenes of the band talking about the music and themselves are like a slightly more serious episode of the Monkees.  The rendition of the creative process is hilarious.

The primary feeling you’re left with is foreordained watching any story sanctioned by its subjects (the band had script approval) – it’s pleasant.  Rock and roll, drugs, cats and AIDS, brought to you by Disney.  It’s formulaic, harmless and overlong at two hours and fifteen (ending with an extended scene of their set at Live Aid, which is dull in that Malek is lip-synching), but not unentertaining.

A Star is Born – 2 stars

February 21, 2019
2 stars, 2018, Romance
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Starts out strong, a big, sweeping saga, great chemistry, starry and charming. There is even a real connection on stage.  Twenty minutes in, I thought I was in for a treat, and I was enthused to see an old fashioned big star Hollywood love story instead of a tired rom-com with an ugly dude, snark and irony

And then it just drags, with nothing occurring you don’t expect to occur, and what you do expect is very humdrum in the way it occurs.  Lady Gaga is not godawful but she is not good.  She is too raw, too one-note, and has no real feel for the moment, just doe-eyed insistence.  Bradley Cooper is effective as a haunted guy in a stupor with the biggest Daddy issue ever, but it ain’t heavy lifting, just a lot of looking down and slurring.

As the relationship goes longer, you realize, not only are they banal, but so are their circumstances.  She’s a bit of a petulant dummy and he’s an underdeveloped weakling.  One would think the glitzy world they inhabit would be treacherous and exciting, loaded with landmines and seductions.   One would be wrong.  They spend most of the time in bathrooms or in front of dining room or coffee tables, warbling on about nothing.

When not boring, the script is just a jumble of cliche’.  They have the same damn argument and Gaga gets worse as it goes on, more Snooki than Streisand.

It is also poorly edited. Scenes just abruptly and jarringly end. There is no flow.

This is not a good movie. It was good to see Andrew Dice Clay (as her father), though.

Leave No Trace – 4 stars

February 3, 2019
2018, 4 stars, Drama
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Captain Fantastic was about a father who raised his kids in the woods because he did not trust modernity. It was a terrible movie, mainly because the grown man (Viggo Mortensen) wouldn’t shut up about his philosophy and how superior it was. This movie is about another father (Ben Foster) who insists on living off the grid with his teenage daughter. This is a better film, and the relationship between Foster and Thomason McKenzie is well developed.  But their circumstances suffer from too little explication.  Why are they off the grid? What brought them to this extremist situation? All we really know is that Mom is dead, Foster is introverted and plagued and that as much as he appears to love his daughter, he is really just making her share his demons.

McKenzie is accomplished as the girl torn between loyalty to her Dad and a need to connect with and be in the wider world.  Her desire to commune, to be a part of, is heart-rending.  Writer-director Deborah Granik’s Winter’s Bone put Jennifer Lawrence on the map and I can see this film doing the same for McKenzie.  Foster, as always, is stellar as the troubled father, economical and precise.  There is a scene where he is required to answer a computerized voice asking him true or false questions to determine his mental health that he handles beautifully.

There is also a thematic bright spot.  The duo are consistently helped by people who are outgoing, caring and supportive, and yet, Foster rejects all their assistance, underscoring just how near impossible it is to deal with many mentally ill people. The system and surrounding community are, for a change, not the villains. They’re the heroes. And for the most part, it ain’t enough.

On Amazon.

 

 

Journey’s End – 2.5 stars

February 2, 2019
2 stars, 2018, War
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Grim. Dreary and grim. As grim as any trench in World War I, where the entire film is set. We spend four days with a British unit about to be overrun by the Germans in the spring 1918 offensive.   There is no story arc, just the pitiful and doomed interplay between several officers.  War remains hell.

Mostly well acted, and in particular, Paul Bettany stands out as a doomed and comforting older officer, but that’s about it. This is a hard slog, though, mercifully short.