Babylon

When this writer was born, a film about Hollywood and the transition from silent to talkies was introduced to the world.  It was light and breezy, funny, engaging without the slightest off-color reference, set in the 20’s with a bouncy soundtrack, this is not a remake of that film.  We see a woman with an exaggerated case of coke-fueled chutzpah working her way up the ladder, an incredibly rich and handsome leading man trying to figure out if he’s going to be able to survive the transition, a dreamer who wants to realize his ambitions as a director, and a studio musician who shows how to handle extreme prejudice.  Without question, the soundtrack is fantastic, but the dancing is not Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds by any stretch of the imagination. 

Think Day of the Locust, Sin City and the Great Gatsby with every debased drug-induced act of desperation to make magic on the celluloid screen.  The goal is to be noticed, make tons of money, and to create an illusion of everything’s all right when, in fact, after the initial high of success, it’s a rat race to get back to even half way to where you started.  This is a high stakes crap game of a film with not so nice backers…no Nathan Detroit or Sky Masterson, the leading lady is not a sweet little ingenue starlet (Margot Robbie), the hero (Diego Calva) is doing everything he can to make it in the business, a Gatsbyesque leading man (Brad Pitt) with a serious misconception of reality and a big drinking problem, Hedda Hopper’s alter-ego (Jean Smart), and whole menagerie of partiers, gangsters, whackadoodles, chickens, rats, a cast of thousands, and a very tempermental pachyderm.

There really isn’t much of a middle-road here.  You’ll either love it or be disgusted beyond belief or both.  What can I say…I can’t really give this an overall star rating…it’s 4, a 2, a 7 a total hot mess  --- you decide, you’ve been advised, but definitely listen to the soundtrack.  And I cahn't sten im.     

Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

Michelle Yeoh is, without a doubt, one of the best martial arts practitioners, ever.  She made Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon look like a walk in the park and in EEAAO, she even tells you she's really good and proves it.  Her role as wife, mother, daughter/caregiver, laundromat owner and unexpected savior of the multi-verse is mind-boggling and you'll either want to see it again to figure it out or run screaming into the night with a large unexplained craving for hotdogs and a googly-eye bindi.  

After the initial viewing, this writer was left with a feeling of deja vu ala Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the family version without lab-work.  I've heard of tripping on LSD or taking a magic mushroom trip and that it can really set your brain in another not so normal direction...this film personifies what happens when stress reaches a boiling point and blows the lid off a once semi-complicated existence.  The answer to life is fairly simple, but the method of reaching that conclusion is like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride on steroids.  Sit-down, strap-in, shut-up and here we go.  I recommend that you take this film in small bits, maybe concentrate on each of the main characters individually to make more sense from the seemingly nonsensical whole.  Cheers to the entire cast for a job well done, Rating...a 3 star audit of your taxes, gird your loins.

Wakanda Forever

The long awaited sequel to Black Panther is here.  T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) has been honored by his character’s remaining family and the world, as we’ve come to know it now that Black Panther is no longer, is in jeopardy, once again.  You knew that was coming because a comic book hero wouldn’t be needed unless they have something heroic to do.  Who will take his place and how will the tribes of Wakanda be united again?  Lots of twists and turns, some surprises, some not so much, but tons of great CGI and  some almost relentless action sequences.  There are so many very strong women represented here, not just the guards.  Fight like a girl, think like a girl, don’t take “no” for an answer.  Cheers to Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, Dominique Thorne,  Florence Kasumba, Michaela Coel…R.I.P. Chadwick Boseman…you may be gone, but you will live as Wakanda will live forever.  Rating:  3.75 bright blue vibrainium stars – as with most MCU films, please don’t leave before the credits are done, you’ll kick yourself. 

 

Elvis

 

Every time I see a Baz Luhrman production, I expect it to have a certain cinematography slick sparkle about it.  It’s in the costuming, the hairstyles, the background colors, the set designs, a sort of surrealistic super reality.  Elvis doesn’t disappoint, in fact, I think it’s a borderline overachiever of the year, but hoo buddy, it captures “The King” from the Sun Records beginnings to the Las Vegas residency years with pinpoint accuracy. 

The soft and slimy underbelly is Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) who provides the narration and appears to be the stalwart friend to an impressionable and naive Elvis (Austin Butler).  He’s one nasty piece of work and Hanks does a stellar job of reaching down to the bottom of Parker’s cold and calculating heart to keep his “golden calf” from getting out of the corral.

Hopefully, Mr. Butler is more than a “one hit wonder”.  It’s an amazing performance, the music is classic, the costuming, hair and make-up is dead-on, and if you close your eyes, you’d swear that the King still lives.  Rating:  It’s one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and go cats go, and in the words of Carl Perkins…don’t you step on my blue suede shoes.

Cyrano

Tangled up in blues with declarations of love to find, found, lose, assume, and realizations that you can’t always get what you want.  Hearts are fickle and Roxanne (Haley Bennett) is decidedly so or so it seems.  She was born into privilege, he was not and add to that he is of a diminutive stature and believes himself to be the freak he is labeled by the ignorant.  When you lack in one area of your life, you may need to sharpen your survival skills in other ways.  Definitely the case here for both.  Cyrano (Peter Dinklage) has  puppy dog eyes, a voice that would melt butter, the soul of a poet and is a giant among men even at 4’5”.  He is hopelessly in love with the fair Roxanne; he’s resigned himself to always being bullied, and never being able to consummate his love or even reveal it to her.  Enter Christian, a soldier who is part of Cyrano’s battalion and instant eye-candy to Roxanne.  He is likewise smitten at first sight and we’re off on a slippery slope to save the fair maid from a life of bondage to a lavicious Duke, the likes of which shouldn’t be allowed to touch Roxanne’s hem.  Tale as old as time, but this beast isn’t going to turn into a prince.  The music is purposeful and carries the film along almost as a background to the story.  It’s lovely, and bloody, and sumptuous, and melancholy.  This won’t be everybody’s cuppa tea, but it’s worth a go.  If only we could change the outcomes of classic stories.  Rating: 3.75 glorious stars  

 

Spiderman – Far From Home

Time tripping through the Multi-verse…this is like playing 8 dimensional chess without any knowledge of how to play the 2 dimension version.  Add to that, characters that I’m sure every Spiderman fan in said multi-verse has come to know and love or hate, different MJ’s and a very definite tie-in to the new Dr. Strange movie.  This is the Benjamin Cumberbatch that rocks the Marvel world.  Unfortunately, this writer has not seen all of the Spiderman versions, so some of the villians and their back stories are as foreign as Sanskrit to me, but after the third time watching this I get it, sort of.  From what I gather, Peter Parker is accused of killing one of the villians (Jake Gyllenhall) and that was misunderstood by everybody except MJ and Ned, his girlfriend and friend, Aunt May (who has morphed into Marissa Tomei), and Happy, Ironman Tony Stark’s driver and confidant (Jon Favreau) who is totally smitten with her, integrating Peter’s life with his on a family level.  It gets wrapped up in cobwebs when Peter tries to enlist the help of Dr. Strange to right a wrong and change his fate and the fate of his friends due to the misunderstanding.  Sort of a backassward It’s A Wonderful Life with conditions.  This is truly a huge undertaking involving massive amounts of “wait, what, oh, that’s who you are” moments, some tragedy, some angst, and a swinging time is had by all.  Never fear Spidey fans everywhere…the story will continue and the next episode will, I’m sure, be as exciting and action packed as this one.  Rating:  Tobey, Andrew, Tom, and Ben – four stars in the Spiderverse!

Jungle Cruise

 Or how to take a simple boat ride at an amusement park and turn it into something 20 times more exciting.  This is not Raiders of the Lost Arc, The Mummy or Pirates of the Caribbean Parts 1, 2, 3, or 4, but it is reminiscent of several bits in all of these series.  This can be a blessing or a curse, fortunately, it’s a blessing and in the words of Maui, You’re welcome.  I would have never thought to put Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson and Emily Blunt together in an action film, and this one has a lot of action, but it works, so well that watching it repeatedly isn’t like taking a three hour tour and getting lost.  Nope we’re going for the gold, or in this case, the cure for everything and the gold would be at the box office, streaming and disc sales, and a renewed interest in Disneyland. 

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip, that started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship.  There is a millionaire-brother MacGregor, but no wife, a Skipper, but no first mate, a Professor, but it’s Lillian, not Mary Ann…and we’re on a tributary of the Amazon instead of a tropic port.  Instead of a movie star there’s a Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemmons) and Paul Giamatti as Nilo, who owns the Minnow, I mean La Quila, his bird says it all, “Frank owes me money” and is part of the reason for the cruise. The puns are endless and the banter between Frank and Lilly actually works.  Add in some surprises, twists and turns and a frank discussion of someone’s life dilemma and you’ve got a winner that’s ready for a sequel.  Rating:  A Toucan, A Cockatoo, A Jaguar, and a Couple of Swigs of Amazon White Lighting (it’s disgusting, but potent).

C.O.D.A.

So many people have cocked their head to one side and asked what this simple anagram stands for.  It’s C:  Child; O:  Of; D:  Deaf;  A:  Adults.  That’s the name of the film and the subject, as well.  Ruby is the only hearing enabled member of her family.  Mother, Father, and brother all are hearing impaired.  The family business is fishing and that can be terribly taxing even with a fully hearing enabled crew.  It’s early hours, dealing with whatever the ocean wants you to have, and the many dangers of working at sea.  People who choose this profession are extremely hard working and risk their lives every day.  I know this because I have family who are fishermen. 

About fifteen minutes into this film, I turned to my friend, and said that I thought we were watching the best picture, hands down, of the year.  Thankfully, I was correct.  This is easily the best representation, to date, of what a CODA would endure in the hearing world.  It’s heartbreaking, relatable, enlightening, joyful, funny, uplifting, hopeful and desperately frustrating all at the same time.  Ruby is a definite role-model for anyone who faces adversity to pursue their dreams and thinks of just chucking it all to take the “easy” way out.  There is no easy way, you’re either born with the talent and you learn quickly to communicate in both worlds, or you sit on your hands, silently passing the days until it’s too, late.  I hope that you, if you don’t understand now, choose to learn ASL and have normal conversations with the people who are afflicted with hearing impairment.  They have their own interpretation of music, should have access to American Sign Language, some read lips, but it takes two to communicate.  To have meaningful conversation, it would be great, if a course in ASL could be part of the elementary education curriculum following through to high school and beyond. 

Congratulations to everyone associated with this film.  I am so glad that it made it to the top prize category because it truly should be recognized as the best of the best.  

Belfast

Give Ireland back to the Irish, don’t make them have to take it away…In 1969 Belfast, little 9 year old Buddy is learning about The Troubles, up close and personal and trying to understand why it should make a difference, if you’re Protestant or Catholic.  His Ma is raising him and his brother (he actually has two brothers) while Da is in off the island working in London and coming home every two weeks to reconnect with family, Pa and Grannie.  Although not ideal, things are going along swimmingly until the Molatov’s start to fly, the neighborhood is walled off and everybody is living each day gingerly and with extreme prejudice. 

This semi-autobiographical film shows a small peek at Director/Writer Kenneth Branagh’s up-bringing pre-everything, because he’s a little kid, Protestant and has a big old crush on a little girl who just happens to be Catholic.  He’s normal and gets into his own troubles when he takes the wrong advice.  Grannie and Pop are there to share the wisdom of their years and it’s really too bad, but if more people actually listened to their elders, we might not have things happen like The Troubles or even what’s happening in Eastern Europe now. 

To this writer, war, of any sort, is unnecessary, especially religious “wars”.  You vill not be allowed freedom of speech, thought, or breath in the name of God, but only my God, not yours.  Here’s a challenge, explain what’s right about that to a kid.  Bet you can’t.  so there you have it…an Irish kid who moves to England, grows up to be proper English, play the likes of a Wizard, a Belgian Detective, a King, a Danish Prince, and an award winning director/writer/actor who should have gone up on stage and slapped Will Smith for making one of the worst movies ever, hint – The Wild, Wild, West.  Rating:  3 Shamrocks and pint.

Dune

So I could do one-liners for days in regards to this epic undertaking, here’s a few:  “Duned, we’re duned I tell you”, “Spice, don’t it make my brown eyes blue”, “What’s a nice girl like you, doing in a place like this and is that a ceremonial dagger in your hand or are you just glad to see me?”, “Don’t talk about my mother, she’s not a witch, she’s a Benedict Sazerac or something like that, I don’t speak Ferenghi”, “If only I could tell what you’re thinking…oh yea, I can”, “care to take a dip in my oil fountain, it’s so relaxing and gloppy”, “nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I summon a big-ass worm”, “when I come out of this big vat of stuff I’ll be a beautiful butterfly, or not, but I’ll get a rise out of the experience”. 

Okay, here’s what I really think of Dune.  Oscar Isaac is getting better and better with each role.  Jennifer Ferguson is almost too young to be Timothee Chalamet’s mother.  He’s 26, she’s 38, do the math, she’s a consort, not Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady, but she’s a good role model for the young heir apparent.  The issues in Dune are no different than the issues in the world today, only it’s on another planet with very greedy beings, I won’t say humans because they’re not.  I get an Avatar vibe with several characters who could easily transition to Star Wars or a Lord of the Rings in Outer Space series just like the melding of Marvel Comics and the Avengers.  Little bit of Thor, The Fifth Element and a dollop of Lawrence of Arabia.  Oh, and his mom is a Bene Gesserit, whatever that is/was in Frank Herbert’s mind.  They have the coolest dragonfly helicopters.   In any case, looking forward to the continuation as we’ve only briefly covered the base of the book, we haven’t even come close to the Ridem’ Cow Cat moments in the first film.  Rating:  Kyle McLaughlin, Sean Young, Jose Ferrer, and Sting – Four stars in a three star solar system.  Yi-hah.    

Don't Look Up

Armageddon lite with a bit of Walle and a skosh of every space disaster film you’ve ever seen. It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine, but seriously. How in the actual heck did this get nominated for Best Picture? What is up people? Ran out of ideas on how to destroy the world and include the former administration and a reasonable facsimile of he who shall not be named and his little dog (I mean, son), too. I think QAnon may be using this script as a guide. That’s scary and the thought that you can make people drink the purple Kool-Aid is one of those things I don’t ever want to experience again. Overall, I would say the best was left for last, so if you don’t mind waiting for the punchline, we have your winner, winner, last chicken dinner. Rating: Fox News, minus the truth.

 

King Richard

 So now that the Oscars for this are over and “King” Will has made his claim as Best Actor, I’m going to address the elephant in the room.  What The Actual “F….”.  As a film, I understand what Mr. Williams was trying to achieve with his 78 page plan to make his daughters the best of the best in the tennis world.  He could have chosen any sport, actually, and used his method to make them champions, and apparently the results would have been the same for Serena and Venus.  This writer, however, was a bit tired when I started watching and basically fell into a dead sleep, which I rarely do, and woke up about five minutes before it was over.  The performance by Mr. Smith could have been on the level of Olivier giving the “Poor Yorick…” speech in Hamlet, and it wouldn’t have made a difference to me.  So that being said, I’m giving this a Rating of:  Love All, Set. 

Power of the Dog

 Two brothers, George and Phil Burbank, travel across Montana in 1923 on a cattle drive.  They’ve taken this trip several times and stop at the same boarding house toward the end of their run.  The house is run by a widow, Rose, and her son, Peter, who is going to be a doctor like his dearly departed father.  This trip is a bit different, as shortly after arriving this time, the bachelor cowboys split-up and their family dynamic is changed exponentially when the widow marries George.  Brother Phil is what a friend of mine would have called an “odd duck”.  As the film moves along, we get to understand why he’s that way and what he’s really all about when it comes to life on the old range.  He gives a new meaning to breaking bucking broncos and being a bully.  Rose (Kirsten Dunst) is caught in the middle being one, a woman, two, a mother, and three, a newlywed who is a perceived threat to old Uncle Phil.  It’s an absolutely beautiful performance by an actress who is finally given a role that lets her stretch her dramatic chops.  Kodi Smith-McPhee as Peter is creepy, subtle, and cast as the lamb being “led to the slaughter”, he balances perfectly against Benedict Cumberbatch’s Uncle Phil.  I will only watch this once, even though it was a Best Picture nominee.  For all the hype, it is an extremely uncomfortable family film with absolutely stunning scenery.  Rating:  He wore white boots, pink shoelaces, a ten gallon hat and man o’ man.    

 

Licorice Pizza

If I had my druthers, I would have renamed this film “Fat Bernies”.  Licorice Pizza is a record store to my mind, but that’s because I was in my 20’s during 9/10th’s of the ‘70s in California and I remember what it was like to be an awkward adult. I still feel like an awkward adult sometimes, but I’m getting better at this now that I’m getting closer to my life goals.  Hair-brained, money-making schemes abound.  26 year old women do not get or should I say, should not get involved with guys who have the maturity of a raging hormone.  Our heroine, Alana, is a total 70’s girl from the spilt down the middle super straight hairstyle to her halter tops and the fringe on her bell-bottoms.  I know this earned a Best Picture nomination, but I’m still scratching my head wondering why.  I wasn’t convinced of anything, least of all what the point was.  Maybe it’s just me…nah, it sort of lacked a real direction and I found my mind wandering (always a bad sign for a film).  I really wanted to love this film, too, but it just boogied on down the Ventura Highway and off into the sunset backwards in a moving van (incredible driving scene, on the level of Bullitt, but much slower and not as cool of a vehicle.)  Rating:  a cold waterbed, Puka Beads, if you’re looking for a deal – Go See Cal.

Cruella

What a delightfully skewered look at both the fashion industry and a beloved children’s story and how our perceptions are turned completely upside-down and wrapped in dots.  Estella (Emma Stone) is an unusual girl who can, with a flick of a pencil and a snip of the pinking shears, turn literal trash into divine.  It’s almost like she’s Malificent with a sewing machine, only she’s not magical, just, very self-relient.  There’s a reason this film won Best Costume and it’s because it’s literally about the fashion industry combined with the Devil Wears Prada and revenge (well, that would make it the fashion industry, I guess).  The music’s not bad, either.  I’ve always said, when I get my opportunity to travel to London, I’m heading to Carnaby Street, the land of Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton.  How much is that doggy in the window?  The one that’s heisting a rock the size of walnut? Love, love, love this film, the two Emmas, and supporting cast.  Rating:  Chanel, Armani, Gucci, House of DeVil.

 

Best Picture Synopsis Duned, We're Duned I Tell You...

 

The Oscars are coming this weekend, my favorite holiday of the year.  Of all the ten movies nominated for best picture this year, I noticed a common thread—family.  Here's my pin-head synopsis of the films going for the big prize.

Belfast – family and what are you going to do when the neighbors want you to support their war against neighbors who happen to be of a different religion and you’re nine years old and have your first crush on a girl from the other side of the tracks, and you don’t understand why everyone wants to kill everybody

Dune – family and what are you going to do when the Emperor sends your family packing to another planet to rule over a peaceful desert tribe that wants nothing to do with you, but your destiny is pre-determined and you can’t hop the next shuttle out of Dodge because your mom’s a “witch” and you’re having visions of the tribal “princess” getting up close and personal and shanking you.

West Side Story – family in the 50’s, but not the Ozzie and Harriet variety, who come from different cultures, and stubbornly hang onto their racist notions that because you’re different, you can’t play nice in the sandbox so you have to have a rumble about who owns the sandbox. (see above)

CODA – family and what you would do to protect them from losing their livelihood, in this case fishing, while trying to pursue a career in the arts, when you’re the only member of the family who can hear and you’re in your teens with a dilemma the size of buick

Licorice Pizza – family who thinks you’re wasting your time getting involved with a child actor who thinks he’s going to marry you and gets you to buy into some pretty hair-brained schemes to make money and it helps that you can drive, are old enough to buy booze, and you have little to no self-confidence

King Richard – Based on the story of how Serena and Venus Williams became top-seeded tennis players from Compton due to their dad’s 78 step plan to make them into the top-seeded tennis players – the ultimate in stage dad/manager

Drive My Car – Family, grief, and how a director/actor and his driver come to terms with death in both of their lives

Nightmare Alley – Family, murder, and carnival tricks, murdering your family, and big whopping heaps of mayhem.

Don’t Look Up – Family torn apart by a large planet killing asteroid, which somehow brings family together, but not for long 

Power of the Dog - Dysfunctional family 101 - home on the range with a bucking bronco...what's for dinner?  Hasenpfeffer and a little bit of the hair of the dog that bit you.  Mother, mother, may I have some more la petite marshmallows in my cocoa? 

West Side Story

 

From the first whistle to the last chord, this writer was riveted to the screen.  I’m not one for remakes usually, but putting a new spin to this classic, just makes me want to watch it again and again.  Steven Speilberg, bless you, this is a master class in how to do it right.  The addition of Ms. Moreno, brilliant, Ned Glass is smiling from beyond.  The leads are up-and-comers in the industry and they’re all going to be bright and shining stars of the future.  The songs we all know interpreted differently, but satisfying.  The choreography is spot on.  Only drawback, and it’s fairly minor, no closed captioning in English when the characters are speaking Spanish.  Rating:  Speilberg, Sondheim, Bernstein, and Robbins to Speilberg, Sondheim, Bernstein and Peck---Uno, Dos, Tres, Magnifico!  

Trailer:  https://www.imdb.com/video/vi834454297/?ref_=tt_vi_i_2

 

Drive My Car

 

True story, when my friend and I started watching this film on HBO Max, we thought, great, we get to watch it for free.  Little did we know that it was a Japanese film that didn’t have close captioning in English.  If you’re Japanese or understand it, that’s fine, if you don’t, not so much.  The story centers on a famous stage actor/director, his dead screenwriting wife, bad eyesight, coming to terms with her passing, not being able to drive his car and the driver assigned to him when he’s contracted to direct the play Uncle Vanya at a Hiroshima Drama Festival.  Since I’ve never seen Uncle Vanya or read the play, I would be hard pressed to tell you intelligently, that this film draws parallels between the director, his driver, the actors, and the play.  I will, however, say, that when we did get to see it with subtitles in English, it made more sense as to why things happened in the manner that they occurred.  There are long silences, outbursts, odd timings, characters who at first glance don’t seem to fit the picture, but as you take the backseat and travel along with them, you understand why these two need each other to make it through another day in the life and why neither of them should even consider giving up.  Rating: Waiting for Godot or somebody like him aka 3.5 stars.  Trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BPKPb_RTwI

Nightmare Alley

 

Set in 1941, this film noir/psychological thriller is exactly what you’d find in the pages of those True Crime pulp fiction dime novels that sold in drugstores and newsstands of the day  and kept you on the edge of your seat until the final page.  Bradley Cooper is our “antihero”, Stanton “Stan” Carlisle, and from the first scene to the last, you know he’s just somehow a bit off.  He plays a homicidal grifter and we all know the saying, “you can’t con a con man”.  We get a view from the backside of Carny life, not as romantic as “Water for Elephants”, but as stylistic and visceral as any good film from the 30’s and 40’s that plays on your fears.  This one’s in color and it’s blood red.  Cate Blanchett is in top form as psychoanalyst, Lilith Ritter.  She slinks through the film like a snake in the Garden of Eden wearing Edith Head designer gowns.  The set-design and cinematography is a---mazing.  Guillermo Del Toro doesn’t hold back on the gross factor, there’s sex, drugs, séances, and living the high life on razorblades.  If you’re not a vegetarian after watching this, you may give it another thought, just sayin’.  Definitely not for the kiddies.  Rating:  Tastes Like Chicken and Everclear aka 3.75 stars.  Trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN9y_r3FtrQ