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Operation Finale – 2.5 stars

April 30, 2019
2 stars, 2018, Drama, Historical
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Chris Weitz’s (About a Boy) largely faithful recreation of the capture of Adolph Eichmann is sober, competent and a little dull.  Peter Malkin (Oscar Isaac) is the focus of a several member Israeli infiltration team sent to grab Eichmann (Ben Kingsley) from Argentina and covertly spirit him away to Israel for trial.  All well and good, even if the film drags until they actually get to South America.  When on the ground, the film picks up, but there really isn’t much to the operation.  They jump Eichmann at night as he gets off his bus and keep him in a safe house, where his removal is delayed for several days, thus allowing Isaac (whose sister, niece and nephew were killed in the Holocaust, which we see in flashback) to engage the monster in an effort to get his signed consent to extradition.  The best part of the picture is Kingsley, who conveys Eichmann’s urbane precision and amorality in equal parts.  But there isn’t much to the exchange.   Isaac seems too much the professional to be flustered by the engagement, and Weitz is too cautious in the opportunity.

Perhaps sensing the film’s lethargy, Weitz adds a fictional Argo-like race to the airport, but it lacks any real punch.

A perfectly inoffensive picture.  Wait until it’s free and you have little in the way of alternative entertainment options

Mary Queen of Scots – 0 stars

April 28, 2019
0 stars, 2018, Drama, Historical
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I had the misfortune of catching half of Cate Blanchett’s fun, sumptuous and engaging Elizabeth recently. The comparison makes this turdfest even more unbearable.

Sairose Ronan is fiery, wild eyed, and indignant as Mary Queen of Scots, perpetually perturbed and always speechifying.  Margot Robbie is her nemesis Elizabeth, but Robbie appears way out her depth. She acts like she’s in a high school production.

The performances, however, are the least of this picture’s woes.

The script is charmless and dull. Intrigue has no deftness. People just argue briefly, declare and then act.

The lone battle scene is so badly handled, you don’t know what the hell is happening.  It presents like kids playing war in the backyard.

The script is also obsessed with its feminist hot take, particularly with Mary, who is put-upon by a man’s world and way ahead of the curve.  Mary’s ladies in waiting are like The View, and Mary is forced to rape her homosexual husband (very unconvincingly) to have an heir.  John Knox inveighs against Mary, not because she was a Catholic, but because she was a damnable woman who enjoyed sins of the flesh (he calls her “whore of Babylon”, “strumpet” and “harlot” in one speech).  We even get to see Mary menstruate.

Elizabeth gets in on the act as well, hectoring her male advisors with “we could do well worse” than Mary as queen and bemoaning Mary’s fate with “How cruel men are.”

Girl power, apparently, trumps Power power.

Indeed, when they eventually meet, there is no enmity. Just a couple of gals dishing on inequity, the glass ceiling and the unfairness of it all.

Until Mary gets wild-eyed and entitled and the girl power card loses its oomph.

Then, bitches get stitches and Mary is locked away, eventually to be beheaded.

The writer secures revenge in the post-script, however, lording Mary’s fertility over Elizabeth’s mere 44 year reign.

Modernity infects this dog in many other ways. When Mary’s gay attendant stops just short of breaking into a show tune, and pulls himself up short, the modern and reformed Catholic soothes him with a “be whoever you wish to be with us” (when he sleeps with Mary’s husband, kneels before her and begs for forgiveness, she soothes him again – “you have not betrayed your nature”).  Before battle, she assures one of her Protestant soldiers that should they die, they will all see the same God.

Best line. “I will not become a lady Henry VIII dispensing husbands as he did wives.“

A massive bag of crap. And no fun!

BlacKkKlansman – 1 Star

April 27, 2019
1 star, 2018, Drama, Historical
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Finally got a chance to see this. It’s bad. Green Book bad.

It starts as a mildly amusing, slick sit-comish comedy structured on a ridiculous premise – in the 1970s, black Colorado cop Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) calls the KKK to join up, and they are eager to have him, so after first contact, he has to use his white partner (Adam Driver) for face-to-face meetings, which creates unnecessarily close shaves.

Why not have Driver simply make the calls and handle the meets?

The answer is – wacky hijinx!  And there’s plenty of that.

Eventually, the funny gets less funny and the picture lapses into an absurdist procedural punctuated by overt, earnest philosophical discussions that would make kids in an Oberlin coffee house roll their eyes.  

Perhaps sensing the lightness of the fare and his own elapsing clock, Lee goes heavy at the end, utilizing actual footage from the Nazi rally in Charlottesville.  It’s like appending pictures of James Meredith’s shooting at the end of a poignant Different Strokes.

It’s a cheap ploy that seeks to elevate the zany caper that preceded it to serious statement.  Worse, as pointed out by Boots Riley, director of the infinitely better Sorry to Bother You, Lee’s film is based on a true story, and a less convenient aspect of that story might be that the real Stallworth was infiltrating black organizations to their detriment.

Ah well.  

You gotta’ give it to Lee, though. He knows his audience and he oversauced this goose good. Heck, he almost pulled it off. 

Alas, Oscar found another cheesy race fable to take home the gold. 

Curses!

Widows – 3.75 stars

April 17, 2019
2018, 3 stars, Crime/Mystery, Drama
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This is a confounding but worthwhile picture.  It tries to be many things.   A heist caper.  A feminist tract.  A racial observance.  A cynical statement on corruption.  A twist flick.  It fails to be complete in any of these pursuits, but that doesn’t make it unenjoyable, just vexing.

Steve McQueen (Shame, Twelve Years of Slave) brings his meditative touch to Chicago, where the widows of a group of professional criminals (think the gang in Heat; in fact, the widows pick up a driver on the fly just like in that flick) must pick up where their flawed husbands have left off.  Their pursuit is intertwined with romantic, political, and familial entanglements.

There’s a lot here, but eventually, the film falters because it takes on way too much.  This is a mini-series sized saga, and given how well McQueen does with various scenes, you’re eventually frustrated at the truncated resolutions.  Still, the performances are stellar.  In particular, Viola Davis, even saddled with an ever-present and ridiculous West Highland White Terrier, is penetrating, and as villains go, Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) is a top ten.

Cold War – 2 stars

April 8, 2019
2 stars, 2018, Drama, Romance
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In post-WWII Poland, a pianist and an ingénue he has selected for the national cultural ensemble fall in love.  He escapes through Berlin on a concert tour, but she is hesitant, and they are separated.  They see each other every few years, and eventually, they are reunited in Paris, free.  But they cannot make a go of it, she retreats back to Poland, and in what is supposed to be a grand gesture of everlasting devotion, he admits his sin against the state, returns to his native country and does 15 years hard labor, which, coupled with torture, destroys his fingers.

I suppose this was supposed to connect as a moody, timeless, passionate yet doomed romance.  But the two leads, who alternately smolder and pout, are so childish and impetuous, it’s hard to gin up much sympathy.  Indeed, when she makes it to Paris, they bicker like children, she constantly kvetching about his prior lover and Western ambition, he inexplicably distant (in fact, he often looks as if he knows he made a very big mistake in working so hard to be with her but can’t bring himself to admit it).

Neither character acts in a manner showing any deference to their good fortune.  These aren’t lovers separated by culture or prior marriages or obligation, but rather, an iron curtain where, to be on the wrong side of it, you lose your freedom and you can get your delicate pianist fingers mangled by 15 years of forced labor and torture.  And they surmount that curtain!  So, when they chuck it for seemingly pedestrian reasons, and he insists on his grotesque punishment, you don’t care.  Well, maybe you will.  The movie is very well regarded.  But I didn’t.

On the plus side, the movie is beautifully shot and blessedly short at under an hour-and-a-half.

Nominated for Best Director, Best Foreign Film and Best Cinematography and available on Amazon.

Overlord – 3 stars

April 7, 2019
2019, 3 stars, Scary
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I assume this is based on a video game. If not, it has the haphazard feel of one and the banal dialogue sounds like what video characters might say. There are also times when you wish you could hit reset given its hackneyed aspects (stock Italian goomba rifleman, erudite and aristocratic Nazi officer heavy,  soldier revealing post-war plans right before . . .)

But this story of a WWII paratroop unit dropping behind enemy lines only to find that the Nazis are – can you believe it? – engaged in medical experimentation to create an uber soldier is competent with a fun B movie feel. And occasionally, it is even a little scary.  Entirely worth the $1.87 Redbox rental.

One other positive note. The lead and the tough guy sergeant are African-American, which, given that integration of the troops didn’t occur until after the war, is an anomaly. However, since race has absolutely nothing to do with this middling popcorn flick, it’s a welcome development. Sure, there are no black Nazis, but all in good time.

Us – 5 stars

April 1, 2019
2019, 5 stars, Scary
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Us - Official Trailer [HD] - YouTube

One of the few movies I can recommend you see IN the theater.  I didn’t hear a murmur.  Not one popcorn chomp, not one whisper.   We did, however, all scream at the right places.

A  fun, terrifying roller coaster ride meant to be enjoyed communally, Jordan Peele’s second film ain’t deep, but it is accomplished, devastatingly funny and thoroughly engrossing.

I can’t speak much to the plot, as it would just give it away, so I’ll leave it at the following.  The film is spine-tingling, brilliantly scored, and Peele never makes a wrong step.  His ken for arresting and creepy imagery is stunning, the script is clever, and the twists are well-founded and earned.

Afterwards, you will find that it does not hold up to logical scrutiny yet that failure doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to your enjoyment of the picture.

The Favourite – 3 stars

March 31, 2019
2018, 3 stars, Drama, Historical
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A filmmaker who can communicate his vision entirely is a rare thing, even if the vision is too reliant on cruelty.  Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster was as original as it gets, but also sterile, unfeeling and unpleasant. The Favourite, a period piece of court intrigue, is more traditional but it shares The Lobster‘s iciness.

Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone attend court and vie for the attentions and favor of Queen Anne (Olivia Coleman). Weisz wants power, Stone security. They share a weary, dim view of their male dominated world; the men are for the most part fops, suck-ups, and/or brutes, and it is amusing to watch Weisz and Stone endure them.  And while their war has its moments, their single-minded pursuit of the upper hand is rooted solely in the base instincts of survival, so it’s hard to gin up any empathy. You’re detached from their fates, and the accompanying pain. They flash as human, but they don’t really seem it.

The performances, however, are stellar.  Coleman’s turn as the mercurial and insecure queen, for which she won the Oscar, is a masterful blend of the sympathetic and comic. She is the ultimate tormentor, but ironically, she’s the only one you feel bad for.

It’s a technically adept yet a frigid and un-involving picture.  Lanthimos (who reminds me of Darren Aronofsky in his penchant for brutalization) also has a morbid fascination with bodily functions, which doesn’t help.

Solo – 1 star

March 28, 2019
1 star, 2018, Children's, Sci-Fi
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The crossover movie that speaks to kids and adults is a tough trick.  Guardians of the Galaxy is the model.  The characters have to be winning, It has to be smart but not obtuse, and what can be mutually enjoyed (action, wise-crackery) must be primo.

Solo fails all of these prerequisites.  At the outset, we get “Long ago, in a galaxy far far away . . . “  Followed by several more paragraphs setting the scene and presenting the quest, which in this case, is the obtainment of everlasting life and power enough to challenge evil in the galaxy.

I’m fucking with you.  The quest is for fuel.  Yup.  Fuel.  I mean, not as bad as one of the Lucas pictures (1, or 4, who knows?), where, if memory serves, the primary issue was taxes.  But still, pretty bad.

The dull goal is matched by duller characters.  Young Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) apes the original via the sole utilization of a smirk.  He’s a better choice for a young Paul Rudd, not Harrison Ford.  He’s not as bad as Hayden Christenson as Darth Vader the teen, but he’s close.  After him, bad guy Paul Bettany, well, his thing is that he gets angry.  And then there is Woody Harrelson, the grizzled smuggler and thief, who keeps telling Han, “Don’t trust anybody.”  Then he pulls him close, points to his own head, snaps a Polaroid, waves it, blows on it, shoves it in Han’s pocket, and says “Anybody!”

After these dolts, it’s just a bunch of facsimiles of all the weird variations one can find in the galaxy.  “Hey look, it’s clarinet head!”  “And there’s suckhole face!”  “And does he have 5 arms?”  “Ah, I get it!  That’s why they called him ‘handy’ a minute ago.”

And then there are the droids.  In the first picture, we had the gold guy who spoke with a British accent and was amusing, like having a character from Downton Abbey in the future.  He said things like “Goodness!  Oh my!” and “My heavens!” whenever someone shot a laser near him.  I could see a droid maker coming up with such a program, a little pizzazz in the automaton that normally performs light-dusting and household repairs.

Now, however, all droids have been imbued with feelings and opinions and agency.  Who the hell wants a droid that may start a wage strike?  The writers, that’s who.  It’s too ridiculous, even for this pretty ridiculous vehicle.

The script itself is similarly idiotic.  The characters just bounce from place to place for small and uninteresting reasons.   “Who is that?” Is generally followed by a long definitional response.  “That was close!” elicits “Not as close as the parseck gleep glop on Miki Roo Roo!”  Characters say banal things to Solo throughout, followed by or including “kid”, as in “You got moxie, kid!” Or “I’ll give you this.  The kid’s got guts.”

That leaves the action sequences, which are required to dazzle.  They don’t.  They’re rote and uninspired, delivered in a look dark as dishwater.  Worse, the soundtrack is phoned in, as if the John Williams score was presented as Muzak on an AM radio in Harrelson’s pocket.

This entire picture feels like a 4-D Disney ride that would be fun for 7 minutes.

But trapped in it for over 2 hours? Excruciating.

And you know Han and Chewy make it. They have to. So, there’s no drama. Nothing hangs in the balance.

Donald Glover does a decent young Billy Dee Williams and Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) lends some gravitas to the endeavor.

On Netflix.

 

 

 

Baby Boom – 2.5 stars

March 23, 2019
2 stars, 80s, Comedy
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We always loved Baby Boom because the toddler reminded us so much of our daughter, in that she was adorable. I concede, one’s own daughter is always adorable. But our daughter was and is, objectively, adorable.

I digress.

Baby Boom is currently on the Showtime rotation and in watching to see the facsimile of our daughter, we caught the entire picture. The little girl is still cute. The 1987 film, however, does not travel as well as the kid.

Diane Keaton is the go-go Manhattan executive on an upward trajectory when a long lost and recently deceased relative delivers her a beautiful little girl via will.

It’s a broad comedy.  I can accept that a baby would be delivered at the airport at the mere stroke of a pen. I can accept that the cutest baby in the world would almost be transferred from a Manhattan agency to a cold, poor, backward Iowa couple. I can accept that James Spader in a suit is a villain. Well, that last one is a requirement for 1980s films.

But after Keaton keeps the baby, she is so inept – as demonstrated by numerous silly vignettes of a Weekend at Bernie’s stripe –  it becomes unfunny.  She deposits the baby at a coat check. She can’t negotiate a disposable diaper. She feeds the doll pasta and red sauce.  Hilarity does not ensue

It’s just easy, schlocky and weak. And when she is jettisoned by her company, you don’t have the sympathy for her that you should.

After getting demoted, Keaton takes the baby to Vermont, buys a dream house that is actually falling apart, meets rustic veterinarian Sam Shepard, fights with him until he forcibly kisses her, then has rewarding and fulfilling sex with him, and then starts her own successful baby food chain, all to the standard twinkly saxophone and Kimball organ score of the time. Whereupon, the corporate heels call her back to offer her the moon for her little company.

She declines, delivering a confused declaration of independence, a stemwinder announcing that 1) she should not have to choose between family and work; 2) she should not have to move operations from quaint Vermont to Cleveland; 3) James Spader is a rat; 4) she may just take her baby food company national herself; and 5) oh, she’s having rewarding sex with Sam Shepherd.

Except 1) they offered her $3 million and a COO job at nearly $1 million per, but it was the opening offer and she could have asked double, while getting a ceremonial board seat or do-nothing exec slot with an ample salary; 2) they said at the outset the move to Cleveland was negotiable; 3) she could have insisted Spader work the account and tormented him unmercifully, or she could have asked for his head to seal the deal; 4) there is no way she could take this company national; she can’t operate a pair of Pampers; and 5) swooning, with an actual sigh, about Sam Shepherd in a business meeting reinforces a lot of the stereotypes the stemwinder was supposed to rebut.

But the baby is adorable.