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

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

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

On their comedy companion channel Netflix Is A Joke, the streaming giant has a series called Written Entirely By Bots, comprised of animated shorts allegedly written by a computer program tasked with watching thousands of hours of a given genre of film. If they did one called The First Action-Adventure Film Written Entirely By Bots, I can’t imagine it would turn out much differently than Red Notice. Seemingly rendered to trigger a new wave of post-human cinema, the new would-be blockbuster doesn’t seem designed by committee as much as it seems designed by algorithm. Hypothetically, it was made to entertain humans but perhaps bots will be trained to watch it to juice up Netflix’s Nielsen numbers and trigger an inevitable franchise. We, the ticket-holders (subscription-holders, more aptly), are finally obsolete.

The story goes that thousands of years ago, Cleopatra received three egg-shaped jewels as gifts that were lost over time and scattered across the world. Cut to present day and their mystique still drives art thieves like Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) to scoop them up and sell the reconvened trio to the highest bidder. After nearly catching Booth in the act of stealing the first egg from Rome, FBI agent John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) stays hot on his trail as he travels to Spain, where the second egg is allegedly held by arms dealer Sotto Voce (Chris Diamantopoulos). We discover Booth isn’t the only one scooping up eggs, as a fellow burglar known as The Bishop (Gal Gadot) is also drawn to the bejeweled artifacts and threatens to discover the lost third egg before he does.

From the expository opening voiceover that literally sounds like it was deep-faked into existence to the obligatory sequel its ending portends, Red Notice is gallingly generic throughout its 118 minute runtime. It apes globe-trotting escapades like Indiana Jones and The Mummy but does so with a stunning lack of personality and originality. Everyone here is squarely within their wheelhouse: Johnson as the stoic straight man, Reynolds as the wise-cracking fool and Gadot as the statuesque mystery woman who knows how to kick a butt or two. I understand actors playing to their strengths but these three stars are so unwilling to move away from their comfort zones that it just comes across as lazy. Perhaps Gadot and company still believe they’re under quarantine singing “Imagine” in their mansions, locked down from venturing out into the world of creativity.

Credited writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber hit it big in the past with comedies like DodgeBall and We’re the Millers but has transitioned to helming anonymous actioners since teaming with Johnson in 2018’s Skyscraper. Red Notice is a little too eager to please with its comedic notes but despite itself, it lands a few laughs along the way. Almost all the attempts come courtesy of Reynolds’ trademark quips, which are exhausting in their frequency but not without their occasional wins. His Booth asking a Russian prison cafeteria worker if the gruel he just served is farm-to-table is one such example that caught me off guard enough to chuckle. However, on the subject of food and drink, I can’t roll my eyes hard enough at the fact that Reynolds didn’t think we’d notice product placement for his own line of gin.

Just like the on-screen persona that Reynolds has crafted over the past twenty years, Red Notice is simply far too pleased with itself. It’s fueled by the same self-satisfied soullessness that has plagued blockbusters in the past but that Netflix is cynical enough to bet on this brand of entertainment for home viewing further demonstrates their commitment towards quantity over quality. Just this month, they’ve already released two other films — The Harder They Fall and Passing — that are well worth one’s time but won’t get half the views of this star-studded sham. With a title that sounds like an ominous warning that the crimson-hued “N” will soon take over all of Hollywood, Red Notice is less of a movie and more of a call to arms for creatives at risk of being outsourced by machines.

Score – 1.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming only to theaters is Ghostbusters: Afterlife, a supernatural comedy sequel starring Paul Rudd and Finn Wolfhard about a recently evicted family who moves to a farmhouse and experiences unexplained earthquakes that they suspect could be tied to the paranormal.
Playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max is King Richard, a sports biopic starring Will Smith and Aunjanue Ellis about how tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams became who they are after the coaching from their father Richard Williams.
Premiering on Netflix is Tick, Tick… Boom!, a musical starring Andrew Garfield and Alexandra Shipp about an aspiring theater composer endures a quarter-life crisis as he approaches 30 and does not feel close to his dream.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup