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Monthly Archives: February 2023

The Long Good Friday – 4.5 stars

February 27, 2023
4 stars, 80s, Crime/Mystery
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Taut, rich crime drama about the not very good day of London crime boss Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins). When we meet him, Shand is on the cusp of branching out to global semi-legitimacy. He’s even hosting his would-be U.S. partner when his entire organization comes under assault. Key associates are dispatched and an unknown enemy is blowing up his establishments, and just when he thought he was getting out, they pull him back in.

Hoskins is ferocious, at once charming and gregarious and then lethal, but palpably human throughout. You really root for him but sense that his time may have passed, especially as he waxes on about the greatness of the Brits and attempts to connect his own rise to the glory days of his homeland, which doesn’t seem all that glorious as depicted by director John Mackenzie. His London is grimy, gray, and decidedly tired, like Harold’s organization, and is starkly juxtaposed against Shand’s fantasies.

The film is also slyly funny. Shand, for example, scolds his spooked American partners about empire and declares, “we’re in the common market now, I’m going into business with the Germans, yes the bleedin’ Krauts!” And even in the midst of their potential destruction, Shand and his gang share knowing, even juvenile laughs that speak to their intimacy.

Helen Mirren is his devoted wife, desperately trying to keep him grounded, and his entire crew feels more like a disintegrating family than a dangerous group of cutthroats. As it all goes bad, Shand’s hubris, parochialism, and self-satisfaction conspire against him, but the strongest theme is just how hard it is to keep “family” together. One of Shand’s more endearing qualities is his patience with underlings who disappoint him like wayward sons. He’s always in between slugging and hugging them.

The film works as a character study and, for a time, a whodunit (or, “who is doing this?”). Occasionally, it is a bit arty, and weighted down by a strange, synthy 80s score, but for the most part, it is riveting.

On HBO Max.

Fire of Love – 5 stars

February 27, 2023
2022, 5 stars, Documentary
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Katia and Maurice Krafft were world-famous scientists who started studying active volcanos up close and personal in the late 60s. She was a meticulous geologist. He was a daredevil who dreamed of riding a lava flow on his own boat. They grew up in the same town, and as depicted by writer-director Sara Dosa, they were in a multi-decade menage-a-trois with the fiery, fracturing earth. “Once you see an eruption, you can’t live without it because it’s so grandiose, it’s so strong,” says Katia. And you believe her. 

The footage shot by the Kraffts is incredible. They have no reticence and little fear, often camping for weeks in active volcanos, so they are right up close to everything, two kindred souls in thrall. Their story is lovingly rendered by Dosa, who shows us a union fueled by adventure and enhanced in its last years by a commitment to governmental evacuation plans. 

I was reminded of Grizzly Man in terms of access to the dangers of nature. And indeed, the protagonists of both movies eventually press their luck and nature exacts its toll. But where Tim Treadwell’s immersion in the world of bears seemed fraught with an almost messianic hubris and his own narcissism, the Kraffts seem noble in their bravery and grounded in their devotion to the science. Beautiful and haunting.

On Hulu and Disney and nominated for an Oscar as Best Documentary.

The Final Countdown – 3.5 stars

February 25, 2023
3 stars, 80s, Drama, Historical, Sci-Fi
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An old Twilight Zone episode depicted three soldiers on National Guard duty in Montana who went back in time and found themselves spectators to the Battle of the Little Big Horn. They struggled with the implications of intervention, essentially foreshadowing Star Trek and violation of the “prime directive” (i.e., never mess with history when time traveling lest you step on a bug and forever alter what is meant to be). They eventually jumped into the fray.  This flick is essentially the same concept, but with a modern aircraft carrier being time-portaled back to the day before Pearl Harbor.  Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, and James Farentino have to contend with the same conundrum.  

It’s fun. A little discordant, alternating between whimsy (the commander of the modern USS Nimitz, Douglas, has a certain Disney movie mien to him, but then there are very bloody scenes that punctuate the film). But solid.

It is also clearly a joint effort with the Navy. There is so much aerial footage and extended scenes of flying and taking off that it feels like a recruiting ad, Top Gun sans the volleyball. Curious sidenote. The Department of Defense actually sued the producers for reimbursement, alleging fraud on the reporting of actual flying time. My father’s law firm represented the producers, including Kirk Douglas’ son.

On Amazon.

P.S. There was a big to do in the last several years over a Reddit discussion: “Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?”

A short story followed. Hollywood then bought the short story. Good rundown below. Stay tuned.

How Many U.S. Marines Could Bring Down the Roman Empire?

She Said – 1 star

February 22, 2023
1 star, 2022, Crime/Mystery, Drama
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For a film about the investigative reporting of a very big story, this picture is about as interesting as assembly line work.

Some may say, “but Filmvetter, this is the reality of the job.” Alas, so is banging out fenders and they don’t make movies about that.

$34 million brought in $5 million domestic, justifiably so.  The film is a didactic, repetitive, undramatic, boring 2+ hours of drudgery acted by rote with a sprinkle of washed out dread.

I presumed the picture was a financial flop because of #MeToo fatigue, the lack of a present villain (in the movie, Harvey Weinstein is just a voice on boring phone calls and the back of a head – the most riveting part of the film by miles is the short clip of the actual vicious brute threatening a woman), a lack of stars, and the fact that a movie about reporters, especially in the digital age, would be static.  But its problems go deeper. This is less a picture than homework.  The great reportorial films (All The President’s Men, Spotlight) place their journalist protagonists in the areas of doubt, indecision and lack of assuredness. Even if they think they have the story cold, they are intrepid, skeptical, tough on each other. They make mistakes. They catch breaks.  They are drawn in.

Here, the reporters are emotionally invested in a matter that is a foregone conclusion from the outset. Beyond the sympathy they communicate is a barely contained outrage. Therapeutic enabling takes the place of inquiry, skepticism and the remove of professionalism. They just get a name, make a call or visit, sit down with an emotional, reluctant, and/or scared victim and report back to editors (Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher) who support them unreservedly, listening intently as the duo relay facts so elemental you weep for the descent of The New York Times. The newsroom is thus reduced to church and rally (“Let’s interrogate the whole system”).  Thank you, oh thank you, the reporters hug and cry when a source confirms. They do this three times.  

The two leads (Carrie Mulligan, Zoe Kazan) are as flat as both the material and the portentous strings and piano score. Kazan overlays her dullness with sophomoric earnestness. It also doesn’t help anyone that the film regularly proclaims it is about women at the expense of its female cardboard characters.

The picture is also brutally unsubtle. On numerous occasions, the film has a woman clunkily just pop in and do a solid for women writ large or a creepy man being an oaf or a pig. Discussions between Kazan and her young daughter on the nature of her work and “rape” are so forced and artificial as to be embarrassing. A character actually looks into the mirror to search his soul.

Finally, for what aspires to be a brave expose’, the movie pulls a few punches, ignoring or soft-pedaling some of the great institutional protectors of Weinstein (NBC, scores of Hollywood folk who knew for sure Weinstein was sexually abusive) while highlighting easier targets. Weinstein was Jeffrey Epstein and everyone wanted to be at his party, but we don’t get much on the partygoers.  

The film can be moving on occasion. A few of the interviews of Weinstein’s victims have the crackle of the scenes of abuse survivors in Spotlight. But the genuine moments are few and far between in this long, edifying slog, where post-partum depression is the most compelling aspect.

On Peacock.

Freebie and The Bean – 4.50 stars

February 13, 2023
4 stars, 70s, Comedy, Crime/Mystery
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Another of the 70s flicks my Dad took me to when I was probably way too young  I remember being so jazzed at the back-and-forth between the manic Alan Arkin and wisecracking, nattily dressed James Caan, two San Francisco detectives trying to take down a mob boss. To make things cooler for a 9 year old, the violence was hilarious yet brutal, the dialogue scabrous, and the car chases relentless and in great supply.

Would it hold up 50 years later?

Yes, and how. Quentin Tarantino has raved, “nothing short of a masterpiece…absolutely brutal…part of the way the film worked was for you to laugh at the brutal violence and then feel bad about yourself for laughing.”  That is too much praise, but not by much. Caan and Arkin are a scream, very natural, yet way, way out there in terms of chemistry, perhaps riffing before it became standard, but fully committed, never lazy. I remember cracking up with Dad in the theater and after paying $2.36 for the rental on Amazon this weekend, I laughed out loud a half dozen times and smiled throughout.

It’s a strange duck of a picture, a flimsy cynical story giving way to an entertaining buddy cop yarn (clearly echoing The Odd Couple). Director-writer Richard Rush allows for very long takes of Arkin and Caan needling each other and then, there’s absolute chaos, followed by sweet scenes between Caan and his gal and Arkin and his wife. You get the sense that tonally, no one is steering the ship, and Arkin has remarked that he never really knew what kind of movie Rush was trying to make. Still, Rush makes it more seamless than it has a right to be. Good fun through and through, and The Nice Guys owes a lot to this picture.

Also, wildly offensive. For those keeping count, Arkin of European Jewish descent plays Hispanic (he is “the Bean” – get it?), as does Valerie Harper (“Rhoda”). The script is littered with politically-incorrect jibes that would likely result in a campus protest these days, and the treatment of the villain would require the calling in of the National Guard. So, gird your loins.

On Amazon Prime.

Barbarian – 4 stars

February 1, 2023
2022, 4 stars, Scary
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Very clever and funny thriller/horror flick, currently on HBO Max. I’m reticent to say too much and spoil the fun, but can pass on the following–

1) This is a “horror” movie for folks who may not be predisposed to them. The gore is minimal, though the tension is high, and the levity is in abundance.

2) Everyone is good. Justin Long steals the show.

3) Perfect length at 1 hour, 42 minutes.

4) Detroit is a scary place.

5) A surprisingly sweet ending.

6) One reviewer wrote, “it’s ‘about’ stuff — gentrification, abuse, toxic masculinity, taking responsibility”, which, thankfully, is a ludicrous amplification of some elements, but it is a smart picture.  

7) It got knocked down to a 4 because of over-reliance on the charity and goodness of one character, a necessity to keep the freight train running, but lazy all the same.