Category Archives: Reel Views
The Sky Is Everywhere
6 months after premiering the outstanding coming-of-age tale CODA, Apple TV+ adds another title to the genre with The Sky Is Everywhere, adapted from Jandy Nelson’s 2010 young adult novel. Like CODA, this latest offering shares that film’s passion for music and also features a breakthrough performance from a young actress but doesn’t have nearly the same level of impact as a whole. This is a film that telegraphs its ending quite clearly about 15 minutes into its runtime, which isn’t unremarkable for movies about young romance but disappointing given that the director is Josephine Decker. Her 2018 breakout Madeline’s Madeline was anything but predictable, while 2020’s Shirley found new notes to play within the crowded biopic genre. Some flights of fancy aside, Decker seems content to tell a conventional story through relatively conventional means.
An opening voiceover from bright high schooler Lennie Walker (Grace Kaufman) details an inseparable relationship with her sister Bailey (Havana Rose Liu), who meets a very untimely end due to an undiagnosed heart arrhythmia. Lennie’s support system is hindered by the absence of her mother and father but bolstered instead by her grandmother Gram (Cherry Jones) and uncle Big (Jason Segel), with both of whom she lives. The presence of Bailey’s boyfriend Toby (Pico Alexander) around the house complicates things, as Lennie has guiltily held affections for him even when Bailey was still alive. At school, charismatic new kid Joe (Jacques Colimon) strikes up a music-centric relationship with Lennie and unknowingly enters a love triangle with Toby.
Most of watching The Sky Is Everywhere is in waiting for it to differentiate itself from the pack of recent John Green-inspired YA adaptations and the film does thankfully have some inspired scenes where Decker’s influence shines through. Almost all of these moments involve music in one way or another, as when Joe is introduced with papier-mâché music notes emanating from the bell of his trumpet and filling the halls with swooning girls. While listening to Bach’s “Air In G” over shared earbuds, Lennie and Joe lay next to each other in the grass as rose-covered interpretive dancers envelop them to symbolize the symbiosis of nature and music. These bits of heightened reality aren’t quite as intentionally diverting as those found in Madeline’s Madeline but rather enhance the narrative in ways that are thematically relevant and stylistically playful.
But all of these flourishes — even the bad ones, like the recurrence of cartoony “boing” sound cue during lines accompanied by sexual innuendo — feel like a cover-up for a paper-thin script, also penned by Nelson. It’s a screenplay that contrives obstacles for Lennie to traverse before arriving at a conclusion that will be easy for anyone who has seen a movie before to foresee. The love triangle between the leads is obviously the movie’s focus but the limited screen time given to Segel and Jones doesn’t yield the emotional punctuations you’d want from actors of that caliber. The platitudes about coping with grief ring especially hollow given how many films these days are about teenagers overcoming trauma. The Fallout, a high school drama that debuted on HBO Max just a couple weeks ago, tackles similar themes but with dialogue that feels much more authentic to the way that teens actually speak.
While Grace Kaufman’s performance here isn’t quite the revelation that Emilia Jones’ was in CODA, she nevertheless announces herself as a bright young talent to watch in the coming years. Jacques Colimon is another newcomer who shines in a role defined by a modest musical magnetism; if “humble swagger” is a thing, this character has it. The two of them give Lennie and Joe such palpable chemistry that Toby largely comes across as a squeaky third wheel with whom Lennie inexplicably keeps torturing herself instead of just letting go. Despite its continuation of Decker’s arts-and-crafts store aesthetic, The Sky Is Everywhere is a floral-framed painting that we’ve seen a hundred times before.
Score – 2.5/5
More movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters and streaming on Peacock is Marry Me, a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson about a pop superstar who marries a stranger in the crowd of one of her shows after discovering her partner has been unfaithful.
Coming only to theaters is Death on the Nile, a whodunnit starring Kenneth Branagh and Gal Gadot continuing the adventures of detective Hercule Poirot as he investigates the murder of a young heiress on a steamboat with dozens of suspects aboard.
Screening at Cinema Center on February 11th and 12th is The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, a documentary scrutinizing the mysterious 1992 death of the titular black gay rights activist and Stonewall veteran through interviews with Johnson’s family, friends and fellow activists.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Parallel Mothers
The 22nd film from prolific Spanish writer-director Pedro Almodóvar, Parallel Mothers doesn’t quite hit the highs of 2019’s terrific Pain and Glory but is another solid soap opera from a reliable storyteller. Penélope Cruz stars as Janis, a photographer whose shoot with archaeologist Arturo (Israel Elejalde) one day leads to an affair and subsequent pregnancy. While waiting to give birth, Janis shares a hospital room with young mother-to-be Ana (Milena Smit), with whom she strikes up a friendship and exchanges her phone number after the pair of babies are born. When Arturo meets Janis’ newborn, he becomes immediately convinced at first glance that the baby is not his daughter, leading Janis to conduct a maternity test with surprising results.
Almodóvar is known for casting the same actors in numerous films throughout his career and Parallel Mothers is no exception. This is frequent collaborator Penélope Cruz’s seventh time working with the acclaimed filmmaker and along with her transcendent work in 2006’s Volver, this performance stands among the very best that she’s given in one of his movies. Her transition from a freewheeling fortysomething in the midst of a tryst to an anxious mother with mounting uncertainty about her situation is heart-wrenching and utterly convincing. Even when completing un-cinematic tasks like staring at a baby monitor or scouring a PDF on a computer screen for answers, she sells the character flawlessly even with the darting of her eyes.
But Cruz’s face isn’t the only one that Almodóvar’s camera loves in Parallel Mothers, especially in close-up. In her second feature ever, co-star Milena Smit more than holds her own in a role that gets more knotty and complicated as the story progresses. The circumstances that led to Ana’s pregnancy are even more unfortunate than Janis’ and Smit’s fragile but resilient delivery gives her character instant pathos. Both Cruz and Smit are crucial in portraying the unusual but deep connection that fate seemed to concoct when the duo met in the hospital. While overcooked writing serves up curveballs in the third act that cause these characters to act in ways that don’t seem especially consistent, the acting remains first-rate to the film’s final scene.
The main element that holds Parallel Mothers back from greatness is the screenplay, which introduces a conceit that’s already a bit of a stretch to begin with and then expands on it with subplots that don’t always pay off. There’s also a layer of sociopolitical commentary that’s clumsily lumped into this sensitive story about maternity that felt relatively unnecessary. The movie begins and ends with heavy-handed allusions to the Spanish Civil War and ends with a political quote from Eduardo Galeano, a didactic turn that left me more confused than inspired. The dialogue isn’t quite as melodramatic as the tone of the film overall but it does often spell out the main themes of the piece rather than allow the audience to glean insight into the characters’ feelings on their own.
The musical score by Alberto Iglesias also lacks any real subtlety, although this could be intentional and in keeping with the soap opera feel that Almodóvar seems to be evoking. The opening credits are grabby but Iglesias’ urgent strings and slinking piano recall Bernard Herrmann’s work on any number of Hitchcock’s films. Based on the tone established, you may think you’re being set up to watch a psychological thriller like Psycho but the tension in Parallel Mothers is, of course, much more subdued by comparison. José Luis Alcaine, another frequent collaborator of Almodóvar, lends a keen eye to the cinematography, juxtaposing lush greens with bright reds to suggest a start/stop motion in keeping with the chief theme of disrupted motherhood. There’s enough in Parallel Mothers to recommend it but too much holding it back to count it among Almodóvar’s best.
Score – 3/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is Moonfall, a science-fiction disaster movie starring Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson about a pair of astronauts tasked with resetting the Moon after it’s knocked from its orbit by an unknown force and put onto a collision course with Earth.
Also playing only in theaters is Jackass Forever, a comedy sequel starring Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O which finds the crew of the infamous MTV reality series reuniting one last time after an 11 year hiatus for more pranks and stunts.
Screening at Cinema Center on February 4th and 5th is The Burial of Kojo, a Ghanaian drama starring Joseph Otsiman and Cynthia Dankwa about a man who is trapped in a mine shaft by his vengeful brother while his daughter embarks on a magical journey to rescue him.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Cyrano
Though the 19th century play Cyrano de Bergerac has been adapted countless times for the screen and stage since its premiere, the new prestige drama Cyrano is based most specifically on a 2018 stage musical of the same name. Conceived by theater director Erica Schmidt, presumably with her real-life husband Peter Dinklage in mind, the musical differs from the source material most notably by trading Cyrano’s trademark facial disfigurement with dwarfism as the protagonist’s primary obstacle. Despite this, the new adaptation remains true to the setting, story and spirit to the original work but mangles so many aspects of the execution that it hardly seems to matter. It’s not as much of an unmitigated disaster as Dear Evan Hansen but it’s not as far off as one may imagine.
Dinklage stars in the title role as a member of the French army in the mid-17th century who’s equal halves sharp-tongued wordsmith and sharp-tipped swordsmith. We meet Cyrano as he verbally spars with a gussied-up actor mid-performance and then physically spars with an upset audience member on-stage. Looking on from the balcony is Roxanne (Haley Bennett), a longtime friend of Cyrano for whom he has secretly carried a torch as long as they’ve been acquainted. She confides in him a love at first sight with Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a newcomer to the military in Cyrano’s regiment and when Cyrano brings Roxanne up to Christian, he confesses a requisite affection. Sadly, Christian’s good looks don’t translate to sharp wits, leading Cyrano to offer his verbosity as he pens love letters to Roxanne under Christian’s name.
The biggest tragedy of Cyrano is that the music and lyrics come courtesy of members from the excellent rock band The National, who have made some of my favorite albums of the past 15 years. Guitarist brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner composed the music while lead singer Matt Berninger penned the lyrics along with his wife Carin Besser. The Dessners are known for their technically intricate and sonically sophisticated guitar work with The National but their range in these songs is frustratingly limited. Too many of these numbers sound nearly identical to one another, while the words don’t reveal the characters’ motivations as much as they simply underline plot points that are already obvious. Dinklage mournfully belts out Roxanne’s name so often, I half-expected Sting to come in beckoning her not to “put on the red light.”
It could be that musical range is intentionally myopic to cover for the undeveloped vocal talents of Dinklage and Bennett, who reprise their roles from the stage musical. Neither are necessarily poor singers but they do rely on the kind of digital processing that has become alarmingly common in movie musicals over the past 10 years. In this recontextualized role, Dinklage does a fine job channeling Cyrano’s social shortcomings into poignant pathos but Bennett falls totally flat in trying to make Roxanne an empathetic character. After her first meeting face-to-face with Christian, she would understandably be confused in trying to reconcile his simple disposition with his poetic prose. Instead of singing a song about that, she simply bellows “I want more” repeatedly in regards to a potential suitor, making her seem more of an entitled brat than an unaware member of a bizarre love triangle.
Making Cyrano’s short stature a stumbling block for a potential partnership with Roxanne is a wise refresh of the original tale, given Dinklage’s affinity for the role, but there is one change that wasn’t quite as well thought-through. While I appreciate the colorblind casting of Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Christian, it’s not an especially great look for him to be cast as a slow-witted black man who seeks the aid of a white savior for guidance in his love letters. The staging of one major scene, in particular, robs Christian of his agency in ways that would seem hoary and tacky even when race isn’t factored in but even more cringe-inducing when it is. Cyrano may have worked better in the more intimate setting of musical theater but as a film, it comes up short of the mark.
Score – 1.5/5
More new movies to watch this weekend:
Streaming on Disney+ is The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, an animated spin-off starring Simon Pegg and Vincent Tong about a pair of possum brothers who team up with a weasel to save the Lost World from dinosaur domination.
Premiering on HBO Max is The Fallout, a teen drama starring Jenna Ortega and Maddie Ziegler about a high schooler who navigates the emotional fallout she experiences with friends and family in the wake of a school tragedy.
Screening at Cinema Center January 28th and 29th is Into The Storm, a documentary filmed over 5 years that follows the unlikely dream of a young indigenous surfer from one of the toughest barrios in Latin America as he struggles to escape the struggles of his background and become a professional surfer.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
A Hero
Iran’s selection for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars later this year, A Hero is the latest drama from acclaimed storyteller Asghar Farhadi, whose films A Separation and The Salesman have taken home the trophy in years past. Farhadi’s work is defined by an investigation of messy morality, specifically as it applies to men attempting to make the right choices under trying circumstances. His protagonists and antagonists aren’t strictly defined heroes and villains, as much as flawed people who fall under categories that society might deem as either “right” or “wrong”. The stories he weaves together tend to start with an ethical conundrum that may seem relatively easy to solve at the outset but as more layers of complexity are added on when choices are made, more parties tend to become involved and the dramatic stakes ratchet up too.
The narrative largely takes place during a two-day leave that Rahim (Amir Jadidi) has from his prison sentence for failing to repay a debt owed to his creditor Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh). During the furlough, Rahim scrambles to figure out how to best remedy the financial misstep when his girlfriend Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust), as luck would have it, happens upon a bag filled with gold coins. He doesn’t immediately jump to the morally upstanding conclusion of returning the bag to its rightful owner but when he finds that its contents don’t quite cover what he owes, he takes to the local news and advertises the purse as missing. His very public lost-and-found plea sparks goodwill in the community, as the media touts him as a local hero, but those who look closer at the situation begin to doubt Rahim’s heroism.
The terms of A Hero‘s conceit may be a culture shock for American viewers — specifically, that being in debt is a criminal offense and that someone can serve a lengthy prison sentence for not being able to repay what is essentially a business loan. More specifically, it seems the lender has quite a bit of power when it comes to how the debt is repaid and even how much jail time is doled out. While I can’t say that I’m familiar with the particulars of financial law in modern-day Iran, I felt comfortable with the details that Farhadi lent out and chose to omit for the purposes of this gripping story. As it turns out, the way that the media rushes to deify a local figure — and is even more eager to tear the newly-crowned hero from the edifice that they built — will be all too familiar for American audiences.
Farhadi’s films hinge on nuance and while the screenplay is loaded with it, much of the detail comes forth from the acting as well. As the meek and hard-luck Rahim, Jadidi commands the screen with a soft-spoken humility that conceals the rage of an honest man who feels he never got a fair shake in life. At times, this rage boils over and threatens to undo everything, but Jadidi also asserts Rahim’s quiet desperation in ways that are equally compelling. Consider a scene where Rahim receives a merit certificate for his good deed. As he’s being handed the plaque, his son stands under him and starts to grab it from the corners. When the cameras start flashing, Rahim quickly jerks it up to reposition it better for the cameras and flashes his best smile. This could be seen as a duplicitous move, trying to play to the media’s newfound affection for him, but Rahim treats the certificate like a shield meant to protect both himself and his family. “The only thing that matters is my honor,” Rahim tells a council intelligence officer, and we want to believe it too.
Similarly, Tanabandeh portrays Bahram not as some sneering scold whose intent is to kick a poor man when he’s down but rather, someone who was trying to do the good deed of lending out money and was punished for it. We come to learn more about Rahim’s past and Bahram does have good reason to believe Rahim is more unscrupulous than he’s been portrayed on the local news. In the digital age, much of print and online journalism has been robbed of the context and clarifying details that the reader needs to make informed decisions. With A Hero, Farhadi attempts to bridge that gap with an allegorical tale about how the truth means looking past the hasty categorizations that we’re fed everyday.
Score – 3.5/5
More new movies to watch this weekend:
Streaming on Netflix is Munich – The Edge of War, a period thriller starring George MacKay and Jeremy Irons about a British diplomat who travels to Munich in the run-up to World War II, where he meets a former classmate who is secretly working for the German government.
Playing only in theaters is Redeeming Love, a romantic Western starring Abigail Cowen and Tom Lewis about a young couple’s budding relationship as it develops during the harsh realities of the California Gold Rush.
Screening at Cinema Center January 21st and 22nd is Last and First Men, the directorial debut of the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson that depicts a vision two billion years in the future set to voiceover by Tilda Swinton and music written by Jóhannsson.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Few names in modern cinema are more revered than the Coen Brothers. Over the course of 18 films, including Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men and, most recently, Netflix’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the brotherly duo have conjured up one transcendent masterstroke after another for almost 35 years now. The Tragedy of Macbeth, a linguistically faithful but stylistically ambitious retelling of Shakespeare’s perennial play, finds Joel Coen writing and directing independently from brother Ethan Coen for the first time in their careers. Fortunately, Joel demonstrates that he has plenty to offer on his own in this dire and nightmarish interpretation on The Scottish Play, stripping the story down to its barest elements while adding layers of visual grandeur at the same time.
In early 1600s Scotland, brothers in arms Macbeth (Denzel Washington) and Banquo (Bertie Carvel) return from battle when they are met by a trio of witches (all three portrayed by Kathryn Hunter) with a prophecy. They proclaim the former will soon be king while the latter will raise a son who will come to be king sometime in the future, an ominous prediction that sets the men on divergent paths. When Lady Macbeth (Frances McDormand) hears tell of the witches’ omen, she talks her husband into killing the fair King Duncan (Brendan Gleeson) in his sleep. Assuming the throne after the king’s murder, Macbeth seems to have the world at his fingertips but his obsession with the prediction about Banquo’s offspring begins to consume himself and his wife.
A coven of whispering witches open The Tragedy of Macbeth in eerie voiceover, setting an otherworldly and ominous pall over this adaptation that recalls the hushed unease of 2016’s The Witch. The rugged 17th century setting, period-accurate dialogue, and presence of that film’s star Ralph Ineson in the next scene further cements the connection between the two movies, though the stories obviously diverge from there. Coen adapts directly from Shakespeare’s original prose; those intimately familiar with the play’s text should have fun mouthing the words of their favorite passages along with the actors. Though the occasional line reading can come across as awkward, the cast is uniformly prepared and deeply entrenched in their respective performances.
Stylistically, Coen and his production designer Stefan Dechant draw most notably from the German Expressionism movement and more specifically, the works of Fritz Lang like Metropolis and M. The stark black-and-white cinematography from Bruno Delbonnel makes the contrast between light and shadow greater than that of a color counterpart. In some scenes, this makes separation more evident and in others, the visual lines are blurrier. Fog and sand spill over into one another during the early prophecy scene but by the time Macbeth is crowned king, the angular castle with its high archways and narrow passages make for more sharply defined settings. It’s a clever visual metaphor to articulate how Macbeth’s world becomes more governed by absolutes, no matter how unfounded they are, as the narrative progresses.
Washington has always excelled at playing characters with a chip on their shoulder and he pitches Macbeth’s haughtiness perfectly while also generating sympathy at just the right moments. McDormand is a fine counterpoint, wielding quiet ambition for a greater purpose but tragically succumbing to madness along the way. These two leads, along with fine supporting players like Corey Hawkins and Harry Melling, have turned in plenty of outstanding work on-screen through the years but the real find here is Kathryn Hunter. Playing the part of all three of The Witches, she contorts and confounds in a role that is captivating in its physicality and unforgettable in its solemnity. The Tragedy of Macbeth takes the Bard’s play into more haunting territory than it’s been before, in ways that only great filmmakers can manifest.
Score – 4/5
More new movies to watch this weekend:
Streaming on Amazon Prime is Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, an animated family comedy starring Andy Samberg and Selena Gomez about a Van Helsing invention that turns monsters into humans and turns humans into monsters.
Coming to theaters is Scream, a slasher sequel starring Melissa Barrera and Mason Gooding which picks up 25 years after the landmark horror entry and follows a new masked killer that terrorizes the quiet town of Woodsboro once again.
Also playing only in theaters is Belle, a sci-fi anime starring Kaho Nakamura and Ryō Narita about a shy high school student who loses herself in the persona of a globally-beloved singer that she adapts within a massive virtual world.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Licorice Pizza
Let’s get this out of the way right at the top: Licorice Pizza is not about a pernicious pizzeria that tops their pies with the twisty black or red confection. Instead, the title of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest masterwork refers to a defunct chain of record shops that circulated around southern California in the early 1970s. Though the film’s original title, Soggy Bottom, is referenced more explicitly in the film, Licorice Pizza is the kind of west coast callback that falls in line with the “if you know, you know” vibe that Anderson evokes through this expertly-made hangout movie. Sprinkled with facsimiles of Hollywood titans from William Holden to Lucille Ball, this is a trip through San Fernando Valley that feels too real to be entirely fictitious but magical enough to convince us that something ineffable really existed in that time and place.
Based loosely on the teenage exploits of film producer Gary Goetzman, Licorice Pizza stars Cooper Hoffman as Gary Valentine, a 15-year-old actor who always has his eyes on the next project before the current one is completed. He meets Alana (Alana Haim) while waiting in line to have his school picture taken and feels an immediate connection. It isn’t exactly love at first sight for Alana, who’s older and seemingly wiser than the cherubic but indefatigable Gary, but the two remain friends as they see what life has in store for them. Set across rolling hills of endless opportunity, Gary and Alana navigate entrepreneurship and emotional insecurity while well-known figures like the imprudent producer Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper) and up-and-coming politician Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie) pop in along the way.
Recalling both the off-kilter romanticism of Punch-Drunk Love and madcap episodic nature of the inscrutable but atmospheric Inherent Vice, Anderson once again casts a spell of winsome unpredictability more successfully than any other director working today. Refining the cinematography chops he established brilliantly in his previous Phantom Thread, he works this time with Michael Bauman to establish a lovely but lived-in look that mirrors the dust one might brush off their favorite LP before taking it for a spin. The camera often chases breathlessly after these young hopefuls as they search for their place in the Valley and in the world, like pinballs bouncing gleefully off the colorful bumpers that manifest before them.
Though the cast is filled out by veterans and familiar faces, the lead duo enters Licorice Pizza with no prior feature acting credits to their names. Hoffman, son of the late Anderson regular Philip Seymour Hoffman, gives Valentine a devious charm that works on nearly everyone but seems to stop short when Alana is at her most prickly. Haim, supported in the film by her real-life sisters and parents, presents the cynicism of a twentysomething unsatisfied with how her dreams fell short but still determined to seek out her watershed moment. Together, the two are absolutely electric, sporting a playful energy and seesaw repartee that makes the most of Anderson’s already lively screenplay. We don’t know how or when they’ll end up together but we know we’ll want to be there the moment it happens.
As it turns out, there are quite a number of vignettes that play out before that moment and I was completely taken with nearly all of them. Most of the asides and non-sequiturs follow Anderson’s idiosyncratic and indelible sense of humor. For instance, Gary and Alana meet with a casting director who interrupts Alana’s wayward interview by picking up a ringing phone and proceeds with a minute-long conversation in which she merely utters “no” three times with varying inflections before hanging up the receiver. There’s a hushed sequence with an out-of-gas moving truck floating down the Hollywood Hills that was more exhilarating than any car chase I’ve seen this year. Exuberant and eccentric, Licorice Pizza is a slice of life tale of two young souls who spin their wheels in every direction until they finally move in sync.
Score – 4.5/5
More movies to watch this weekend:
Streaming on Netflix is The Lost Daughter, a psychological drama starring Olivia Colman and Dakota Johnson about A woman who finds herself becoming obsessed with another woman and her daughter while on a summer holiday.
Continuing its run in theaters is A Journal for Jordan, a Denzel Washington-directed drama starring Michael B. Jordan and Chanté Adams about a fallen US Army Sergeant and the journal he left behind for his wife and son as a way of moving on without him.
Also still playing in theaters is American Underdog, a sports biopic starring Zachary Levi and Anna Paquin about the life and career of Super Bowl MVP and Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
West Side Story
It’s been 60 years since Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise brought their vision of the stage musical West Side Story to the big screen and few films of the genre have captured the hearts and minds of audiences more since its release. It would take an audacious filmmaker to adapt the renowned 1957 Broadway show once again but when it comes to moviemaking, Steven Spielberg has rarely backed down from a challenge during his 50 years in the industry. He’s taken on nearly every category of film — even an ill-advised foray into war comedy — but this is his first dance with a genre that’s seen its fair share of duds in recent years. It turns out to be an expert calculation, resulting not just the most electric musical event of the year but the most vital work of Spielberg’s career since Lincoln almost 10 years ago.
Taking place in the Upper West Side of the mid-1950s, the Romeo And Juliet-influenced story finds young love in the crossfire between two rival gangs of teenagers. The all-white Jets, led by Riff (Mike Faist), lock horns with the Puerto Rican Sharks, led by Bernardo (David Alvarez), over control of their changing neighborhood. Riff looks to recruit the fresh-out-of-jail Tony (Ansel Elgort) for the next “rumble” between the two groups, while Bernardo’s sister Maria (Rachel Zegler) wishes to leave the street violence of their city behind her. When Tony and Maria lock eyes for the first time at a school dance, they have an immediate connection and instantly plan to run away together, if the ties to their neighborhood don’t weigh them down first.
Opening with a dazzling continuous crane shot, which glides over rubble and behind wrecking balls before landing on an underground door, West Side Story reminds us early and often that we’re in the hands of one of the medium’s most gifted visual storytellers. With longtime collaborator Janusz Kamiński, whose work here should win him his third Oscar for Best Cinematography, Spielberg lends fresh eyes to a world that was already vibrant to begin with. Too often, movie musicals have a glossy sheen to them that comes across as phony; this summer’s disappointing In the Heights and the much, much worse Dear Evan Hansen are two examples from this year alone. There’s not an uninspired shot in all of West Side Story and there are quite a few, like the bird’s-eye view of the long-cast shadows from the Sharks and Jets converging in a salt warehouse, that will take your breath away.
The iconic musical numbers, re-arranged this time by composer David Newman, are handled with the level of care and reverence that the genius team of Sondheim and Bernstein deserve. Spielberg certainly knows not to mess with a good thing, sticking with all of the classics from the original and not adding any new songs. Viewers who may be more reticent to musical fare may be surprised just how smooth the transitions from dialogue to musical numbers are. This isn’t a musical where the action stops so a character or two can belt one out; this is a world in which story and song move in tandem with one another. The choreography is just as fluid and propulsive, pairing the rhythm of the music with body movements in jaw-dropping synchrony.
If there’s a letdown, it’s not in the performances but in the lack of a spark between some of the actors. Elgort and Zegler obviously have the heavy lifting here, as much of the emotional drive in the story hinges on the spontaneous romance between their characters. They both have the vocal chops and the steps but when it comes to their chemistry, it falls short of the on-screen connection between Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood from the 1961 original. Still, they’re sensible picks for the roles and other members of the cast, like Ariana DeBose as Bernardo’s girlfriend Anita, are doing excellent work outside of the central relationship. West Side Story is a rich and magnificent achievement, a movie musical that will delight hardcore fans and newcomers one and the same.
Score – 4/5
New movies coming over the next couple weeks:
Swinging to theaters on December 16th is Spider-Man: No Way Home, the latest Marvel epic starring Tom Holland and Zendaya which finds the titular webslinger and mentor Doctor Strange tinkering with alternate realities within the multiverse.
Also playing only in theaters this weekend is Nightmare Alley, a neo-noir thriller starring Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett about an ambitious carny/con man who meets his match in a psychiatrist who is even more dangerous than he is.
Coming to theaters and also to HBO Max on December 22 is The Matrix Resurrections, the belated sci-fi sequel starring Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss which finds the characters of the original trilogy seemingly plugged back into The Matrix to fight a new enemy.
Playing only in theaters starting on December 22 is Sing 2, an animated family comedy starring Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon about a theater owner who tries to persuade a reclusive rock star to join his new singing-based show.
Streaming on Netflix beginning December 24 is Don’t Look Up, a satirical political comedy starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence about a pair of astronomers who set off on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Being The Ricardos
Though tens of millions of people tuned into I Love Lucy Monday evenings throughout the 1950s, it’s unlikely they knew its stars as well as the show made them feel like they did. The new biopic Being the Ricardos pulls back the curtain on Lucy and Ricky Ricardo to reveal the hard-working husband-wife combination behind the fantastically popular series. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s 20-year marriage was far from the rosy sitcom facsimile that they cultivated together but it was a sincere partnership between two talented individuals with mutual professional respect for one another. One of several hats this film wears is that of a cheerleader for their turbulent but trailblazing relationship, making it a frustrating experience when it tries to do too much elsewhere.
It’s 1952 and I Love Lucy is in its second season when a series of events over one production week threaten the life of the show and the marriage of its two co-stars Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem). First, at a time when the Red Scare was at a fever pitch, there’s a news report claiming that Ball was a member of the Communist party. Then, there’s a tabloid story circulating that Arnaz is having an affair, although it’s not the first time such an accusation has been leveled against him. These issues are set against perpetual on-set tensions between William Frawley (J. K. Simmons) and Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda), who play the Ricardos’ neighbors, the Mertzes. Through it all, Ball and Arnaz resolve to overcome these obstacles and put everything they have into the show.
I imagine the performances will be the most glaring aspect of Being the Ricardos for audiences and the actors certainly don’t shy away from taking big swings right out of the gate. It’s important to remember that Kidman is only playing Lucy Ricardo during about 10% of her role, with the other 90% spent as the much more shrewd and domineering Lucille Ball. Writer/director Aaron Sorkin portrays Ball as something of a comedy savant, intensely visualizing the possibilities of a comedic premise and poking holes in it before the writing staff has a chance to pitch it completely. Kidman is a classic cocksure Sorkin protagonist, rattling off one-liners like “I’m Lucille Ball; when I’m being funny, you’ll know it” in her first scene.
Puzzlingly, Sorkin uses a trio of faux-documentary talking heads to frame the action of the narrative in the present day before zipping back to the early 50s. He goes back to them a few times in the film but their placement never meshes with the flow of the story and the performances by the three actors are jilted and awkward. Sorkin complicates things further by flashing back to the early 1940s, when Ball and Arnaz’s paths first crossed and their fates in the entertainment industry were forever intertwined. It’s a fine way for us to invest in these characters and their relationship but these flashback scenes are thrown in among scenes from the 1950s and it can be difficult to parse between the two. This is Sorkin’s third directorial effort and while it’s his best when it comes to the performances he’s able to conjure up, he still has a way to go artistically as a storyteller.
Of course, dialogue has been Sorkin’s bread and butter for decades now and he doesn’t let off the gas this time around. Kidman naturally gets most of the best lines — “I’ll be funny by Friday,” she quips blithely during a Tuesday rehearsal — but I also appreciated the verbal sparring between head writers played by Alia Shawkat and Jake Lacy. His scripts have a verve and music to them that screenwriters have been trying and failing to emulate both in TV and in film. He’s done his best work when collaborating with great directors like Mike Nichols and David Fincher but ever since he got the idea that he can direct as well as he can write, the results have been below the bar of excellence he’s set for himself. Being the Ricardos may be the best of the three films Sorkin has directed so far but it’s relatively faint praise for one of Hollywood’s premier scribes.
Score – 3/5
More movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is West Side Story, Steven Spielberg’s take on the classic 1961 musical starring Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler about a pair of teenagers falling in love amid rival street gangs in 1950s New York.
Also playing exclusively in theaters is National Champions, a sports drama starring Stephan James and J. K. Simmons about a star collegiate quarterback who ignites a players’ strike hours before the biggest game of the year in order to fight for equal rights.
Streaming on Netflix is The Unforgivable, a legal drama starring Sandra Bullock and Vincent D’Onofrio about a woman who is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
House Of Gucci
At 83 years old, director Ridley Scott will take a crack at just about any story. He’s headed up classics in the horror, sci-fi and war genres, fine-tuning a chameleonic approach that has kept him sharp throughout his storied career. With his latest project, the glamorous but lugubrious House of Gucci, he finds his latest tale to tell at the intersection of high crime and high fashion. He’s tackled true crime stories before, most recently in 2017’s All the Money in the World, but where that film generally plays it straight when recreating the kidnapping of John Paul Getty, Scott decided he wanted to dial up the camp considerably this time around. It’s not a bad call, given the talented cast that he’s assembled, but when you take that element away from the film, you’re left with a flimsy story that’s not juicy enough to justify this big-screen retelling.
We’re introduced to Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) as she struts past cat-callers to the managing office of her father’s modest trucking company. She’s no stranger to using her lavish looks to get what she wants, allowing her to fast-track a meet-cute with fashion heir Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) into a swift marriage and pregnancy. Maurizio’s father Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons) expresses his suspicions of Patrizia early and often, while Rodolfo’s brother Aldo (Al Pacino) seems to favor Patrizia over his maladroit son Paolo (Jared Leto). Shake-ups in Rodolfo’s health lead to Maurizio inheriting 50% stake in his family’s prestigious brand, a shift that causes Maurizio to become more invested in the business than in his marriage.
Shot with the same steel-tinted remove as All the Money in the World, House of Gucci is the second film Scott has released this season that doesn’t exactly invite viewers into its potentially entrancing setting. Certainly the production design and the costume design are as stellar as one would expect — Gaga’s opulent outfits alone may be worth the price of admission for some — but there’s a repeated color palette here that I wish Scott would sidestep next time. He doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel from the aural perspective either, tapping overplayed late-era disco hits like “Heart of Glass” and “I Feel Love” to remind us that we’re in early 1980s New York and things are moving fast. The opera cuts are even more predictable; there’s literally a scene where Patrizia and Paolo dance to “La donna è mobile” from Verdi’s Rigoletto (trust me, you’d recognize it) in an oversized kitchen.
Scott and his performers can’t quite decide how seriously we should be taking the pile of Italian cliches that stack up like knockoff handbags in an ignored bedroom closet. When characters don’t have an espresso cup pressed up against their lips, they’re speaking in a wide range of dialects that can best be categorized as “scattershot spaghetti”. Jeremy Irons barely abandons his native English accent, while Jared Leto runs with a phonology that would be considered borderline offensive even in a Super Mario Bros. animated show. Gaga not only gives the film’s best performance but also offers an accent that veers into Natasha Fatale territory at Patrizia’s most sinister moments but is otherwise the most measured vocal work in the movie.
Bursting onto the Hollywood scene with an Oscar-nominated role in A Star Is Born, Gaga proves once again that she has the chops to dominate the music and film industries simultaneously. As the original “Black Widow”, she balances femme fatale proclivities with a woman doing her best to find her way in the world. It’s a juicy role and it’s no surprise fashionista Gaga would jump at the chance to play someone tied into Gucci’s legacy but Scott and his screenwriters Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna don’t seem to have the same gusto in their assignments. The events that lead to the tragedy of Maurizio and Patrizia play out with too little personal perspective on the corresponding real-life events. Like Disney’s Cruella from earlier this year, House of Gucci has plenty of window dressing but not enough in the store to back it up.
Score – 2.5/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Premiering on Netflix is The Power of the Dog, a Western starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst about a charismatic rancher whose world is turned upside down when his brother brings home his new wife and her son.
Streaming on Disney+ is Diary of a Wimpy Kid, an animated comedy starring Brady Noon and Chris Diamantopoulos about a beleaguered middle schooler who chronicles his hormonal hardships in the pages of his trusty journal.
Playing at Cinema Center is I Carry You With Me, a Spanish-language drama starring Armando Espitia and Christian Vázquez about a decades-long romance that begins in Mexico between an aspiring chef and a teacher.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup
Belfast
Irish writer/director Kenneth Branagh brings the memories of his childhood to the big screen with Belfast, a slight but sweet slice-of-life story with winsome performances that make up for the often too-tidy screenplay. Branagh has directed 18 movies to date, from multiple Shakespeare adaptations to more corporate fare like Cinderella and Artemis Fowl, but this certainly feels like his most deeply-felt film thus far. It captures the joys and fears of an era that Americans may not know as nearly as well as their European counterparts but will likely leave the theater eager to learn more about this turbulent time in history. The movie isn’t unlike a cold pint of Guinness after a hard day at work, in that it’s a nice break from reality that’s familiar and goes down easy.
The film is told from the perspective of Buddy (Jude Hill), a young boy living in Belfast with his mother (Caitríona Balfe) and father (Jamie Dornan) when The Troubles begin. Marked by years of street-level violence between Protestants and Catholics throughout Ireland, it was a time of conflict and unrest that understandably caused many to flee the country for greener pastures. But Buddy’s family, including his grandmother (Judi Dench) and grandfather (Ciarán Hinds), has unresolved debts that preclude their ability to just up and leave the only street that they’ve known. We see the struggles of Buddy’s family and friends through his eyes as he makes the most of his childhood, doing his best in school and trying to keep out of trouble on the streets.
Bookended by present-day shots taken around the titular town, Belfast is primarily presented in handsome black-and-white courtesy of cinematographer and frequent Branagh collaborator Haris Zambarloukos. It’s a bit ironic, then, that Branagh seems to recall these events with rose-colored glasses. The opening scene escalates from neighbors doffing caps and hollering pleasantries to an angry mob storming down the street in the span of one continuous 360 degree shot. It’s like an opening number from a musical desperate to introduce the setting and raise the stakes by the time the last note is sung but in a drama like this, such a scene strains credulity. Worse yet is a crucial moment that occurs during what should be the film’s climax, which suffers from downright poor editing that undercuts the dramatic tension of the sequence.
Thankfully, Belfast finds most of its power simply in the hushed discussions overheard between family members who care deeply for one another. Most of the performers are shot in close-up, especially when Buddy is talking with them, suggesting the full panoramic view that adults take up in a child’s field of vision. Sometimes it’s imposing and sometimes it’s comforting, depending on the context of the conversation. Zambarloukos also shoots from lower angles, suggesting the perspective of a boy always looking up to his elders for guidance. A humorous early sequence, and something of a running joke throughout, involves a sweaty preacher firing off about two metaphorical paths of Heaven and Hell, while Buddy innocently wonders which of his actions correspond with which road.
This is Jude Hill’s first credited role and he does a fine job balancing Buddy’s hopes and hang-ups while fostering a cherubic nature that carries through to the easy nature of the film. Dornan, who was a riot earlier this year in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, brings an easy charm here and continues to find colorful roles following his drab stint as Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades series. Balfe is radiant as the maternal figure who not only looks after Buddy and his brother but is something of a guardian angel for all of the children on their street, while Dench and Hinds add notes of wit and wisdom as grandparents. Belfast is a bit too nostalgic and sentimental for its own good but wins the day with likable acting and heartfelt direction.
Score – 3/5
Also coming to theaters on Thanksgiving:
Encanto, a Disney animated musical starring Stephanie Beatriz and John Leguizamo, tells the story of a young Colombian girl who is the only member of her family without magical powers and may be the only one who can save the magic when it comes under threat.
House of Gucci, a crime biopic starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, depicts the events and aftermath of the 1995 murder of Maurizio Gucci, Italian businessman and head of the fashion house Gucci.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, a survival horror starring Kaya Scodelario and Hannah John-Kamen, follows a group of survivors as they make their way through a dying town with great evil brewing below the surface.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup