Phantom Thread

January 31, 2018 at 9:59 am | Posted in 2017 | Leave a comment
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“Phantom Thread” seems like the type of movie where there is so much more going on than I’m aware of. Continually, I got the sense that things meant more than they appeared to, like the words stitched into hiding places on the dresses. Writer and Director Paul Thomas Anderson (“Boogie Nights,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Inherent Vice,” “Magnolia”) is known for complex, multilayered stories. Yet, this one seemed deceptively simple. Taking place some time in the late ’50s or early ’60s, the story is about the fictional Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis). Woodcock is the top fashion designer of his age. He is moody, rigid, aloof, and controlling. He takes on women as his muses/lovers and has his sister get rid of them once he has grown bored. But then, Alma enters his life and slowly begins to get the upper hand. This is a film that looks like a Merchant-Ivory production, but has the heart of a Gillian Anderson novel. There is a dark, twistedness to this story; if you miss it early on, the ending will only baffle you. In fact, even when you catch it, the ending could still leave the audience scratching its collective heads. There is nothing here as blunt as “There Will be Blood” or as overtly weird as “Magnolia,” but it gets under the skin, nevertheless. I’ve said before that I think Day-Lewis is the best male actor alive. He completely becomes his characters (think of the difference between his Christy Brown, Bill The Butcher, and Lincoln). If this truly is his last film, it will be a loss to those of us who love great acting. Here, Day-Lewis inhabits the prim fastidiousness of his character. He is a superficially gentle, soft-spoken man who is wound too tight. Many actors might have tried to show that dichotomy by having his explode in rages. Day-Lewis’s Woodcock never has to do that; we understand his internal world by the slightest shift in pitch, the look in his eyes, the tenseness in his shoulders. This is a subtle performance, full of meaning. I kept thinking of his character Daniel from “There Will Be Blood.” That character was also tightly wound, but Day-Lewis showed us rage beneath the calm exterior, whereas here he gives us exasperation and anxiety. To be able to express those subtle differences just with his body is what makes him a master. Even in a film that felt plodding in many places, it was still a joy to watch him at work. I have to be honest, I prefer every other Day-Lewis film and Anderson film that I have seen. Had the tone of the ending crept into the film earlier, I may have been more engaged. But, as curious as this one was, it never truly gripped me.

I, Tonya

January 22, 2018 at 5:21 pm | Posted in 2017 | Leave a comment
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So, Part II in my real-life comedy bios of women sports stars… Actually, that statement is where any comparison between “Battle of the Sexes” and this film ends. “I, Tonya” starts with a disclaimer; “based on irony-free, wildly contradictory, totally true interviews with Tonya Harding and Jeff Gillooly.” That should tell you the mood and tone of this film. Unlike “Battle,” this is a bleak sort of humor; we are laughing at and not with the characters. Director Craig Gillespie (“Lars and the Real Girl”) and writer Steven Rogers (“Hope Floats”) squeeze as many laughs as they can out of what is essentially the story of an abused girl who marries an abuser and then attempts (and fails) to claw her way out of poverty. This is not a movie that makes you laugh easily and carelessly but, that said, it will leave you with some unexpected compassion. Understanding as we do that everything we learn in this film is distorted by the people who told it (namely Tonya, her mother, and her ex-husband), the audience still can’t help but feel for the brutal unfairness of this girl’s life. She was devalued and rejected by everyone, including, perhaps most painfully, the ice skating community she ached to be accepted by. The film presents her as mostly a victim of others. This is a story that is almost certainly untrue. Gillespie and Rogers balance the fact that the movie is based mostly on her interviews by giving us glimpses of her today, allowing us to draw our own conclusions. This is very clever film making. They could have chosen to present her as all hero or all villain. Instead, they invite us into the grey areas and, as a result, we get a far more compelling story. Much has been said about Margot Robbie’s and Allison Janney’s performances, as well there should be. These two women were dynamic. Robbie deserved her nomination for the SAG award and deserves one for an Oscar as well. She brought all the fierceness she showed as Harley Quinn in “Suicide Squad” to bear here. And, through some intensive training and very effective CGI, she managed to look wholly believable as a skating phenom. She was truly magnetic. But, that said, Janney was even better as her mother. She stole every scene and gave the film its best laughs. She squeezed every drop of disdain possible out of the slow blink of her eyes. It was one of my favorite performances of the year. I have to also give credit to the virtually unknown Paul Walter Hauser (the “Kingdom” tv series) as Shawn Eckhardt. He was brilliant at playing the slow witted, self-important friend around whom so much of the story revolved. I hope this performance helps launch his career. This is not an easy story to watch and it offers no easy answers by the end. What it does offer, however, is a razor sharp script, some brilliant directing, and a few of the best performances of the year.

Battle of the Sexes

January 22, 2018 at 4:30 pm | Posted in 2017 | Leave a comment
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“Battle of the Sexes” is a playful look back at a simpler, less ironic, and more deeply sexist time. It gets it’s laughs, and there are plenty, from the “oh my god, I can’t believe they used to think like that” variety, and from the good-natured humor of its two leads. Taking place in 1972 and ’73, it follows two tennis greats, one who is at the top of her game and one who is way past his, as they careen toward a showdown that was part ridiculous spectacle and part serious social commentary. Billy Jean King is played with an earnest, exasperated intensity by Emma Stone. She does a fantastic job transforming into King. Compare this role to her character in “LA LA Land;” every way she carries herself, from her shoulders to her walk, is utterly different. She gives us a woman relentlessly determined to be taken seriously. On the other side of the net, Steve Carell plays Bobby Riggs with goofy abandon. Riggs seemed incapable of taking anything seriously. He understood that what drove media and public interest was larger than life tropes: good guys and bad guys. They were the perfect rivals because they were so different on every level. Nobody could turn away and everyone picked a side. While a movie about a single tennis match may not seem that exciting, this one managed to be. From start to finish, this was a highly entertaining romp that took itself just seriously enough. It was never gloomy or heavy and all the sharp edges were softened. The film rode entirely on the backs of Stone and Carell. Fortunately, their volleys both on and off the court was more than enough to entertain.

Bright

January 8, 2018 at 11:36 am | Posted in 2017 | Leave a comment
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This film was only released on Netflix, but I recently reviewed “Mudbound” and “Okja,” both of which fall into the same category. It’s so much easier to do when it’s a film I like but, I guess reviewing Netflix movies is something I do now. So, here goes. This movie actually has an interesting premise; it’s a shame that’s the only thing interesting about it. Taking place in modern L.A., it imagines a world where magic, orcs, elves, etc. have always existed. In this alternate universe, there is intense racial tension between the species. The elves live in highly wealthy and segregated communities and they appear to run everything. Orcs are mostly poor, under-educated and despised by the other races. Human officer Daryl Ward (Will Smith) has been paired with a token hire Orc, Nick Jakoby (Joel Edgerton). He distrusts his new partner and so does the rest of the precinct, who want him to find a way to get rid of the guy. Meanwhile, some bad stuff is going down regarding a prophesy about the return of a dark lord. That is something way outside of the LAPD’s league, but Ward and Jakoby end up right in the middle of it. That could have been an interesting story with the opportunity for some prescient and insightful metaphors about society today. However, director David Ayer (“Suicide Squad,” “End of Watch”) seems intent on beating the audience with his metaphoric broadsword. His depiction of Orcs as a metaphor for African Americans was so over-the-top as to become almost racially insensitive. It ending up reading more as parody than metaphor, and that’s a problem for a film trying as hard as this a one was to be taken seriously. In its attempt to make that we get the metaphor, the script has every character acting as a one dimensional cliché. Every police officer, besides Ward and Jakoby, were so evil as to be ridiculous. Smith seemed to be sleepwalking through his role and Edgerton’s normally expressive face was hidden under inches of rubber. The dialogue was painfully unnatural. I did not believe anything anyone was saying; anger, vulnerability, fear, camaraderie all felt utterly phony. No emotion was earned in this film and, as a result, nothing meant anything. Its ending clearly leaves open room for a sequel. Good luck with that. Even for free, I wouldn’t bother watching the next one.

The Post

January 8, 2018 at 10:40 am | Posted in 2017 | Leave a comment
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I’m not sure I have much to say about this polished but predictable film. It files easily in the category of liberal, high-minded, and earnest films about how the press is necessary to keep power in check (think “All the President’s Men” or 2015’s “Spotlight“). The story arc is basically the same: Some powerful people are doing bad things, intrepid reporters/editors become aware of it, against massive opposition they bravely publish the truth (personal consequences be damned). It’s a rousing story and certainly a noble one, especially in light of our current administration’s views on the media and the role the NYTimes played in exposing the Hollywood sex scandal. And this film was well constructed and finely acted. Spielberg has proven himself a master storyteller and this one is no different. It moves along tautly with virtually no wasted space. He makes a story that could seem dull into something gripping. His focus is very intentionally on the courage it took the owner, editor and writers of the Washington Post to move ahead a publish. The actors in each of those roles played them absolutely as well as you would expect from the likes of Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Bradley Whitford, Bob Odenkirk, Carrie Coon, and Michael Stuhlbarg, among others. Streep and Hanks are always easy to watch and their verbal sparring was entertaining. Streep, in particular, can morph into her roles physically and vocally so thoroughly and expresses so much in facial expressions and body language that it’s always a pleasure to watch her performances. All of that is very positive and yet I couldn’t help but feel that I have seen this all before. I’m not sure it shed much light on the need for a free press or on the courage it takes to keep that press free. But maybe we need to hear it all again right now. Maybe, if we can have countless action movies with the exactly same plot, it isn’t the worst thing to tell this important story one more time. I can’t help but feel that, if I had seen this movie before “Spotlight,” it might have gotten a higher rating from me. I don’t know that that is fair, but I am just being honest.

Call Me by Your Name

January 1, 2018 at 11:46 am | Posted in 2017 | Leave a comment
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After having just reviewed “Darkest Hour,” I now have to review another film built almost entirely on a single performance. But I feel very differently about the outcome. “Darkest Hour” felt like an exercise in great acting. I enjoyed watching Oldman’s craft, but I was always aware that I was watching acting. In “Call Me by Your Name,” I became lost in Timothée Chalamet’s performance as Elio. Taking place in Italy in 1983, the story covers Elio’s American family, living in Spain because his father is a professor of antiquities. They all speak fluent English, Italian and French, and the film moves back and forth between the three languages fluidly. Seventeen-year-old Elio considers himself a sophisticate, but he is unprepared for the doctoral student who comes to stay with his family for the summer. Elio falls hard for Oliver (Armie Hammer) and a summer romance blossoms. Based on André Aciman’s 2007 novel of the same name, the film wisely tones down the eroticism of the book and focuses instead on the romance. I cannot overstate how taken I was with Chalamet’s performance. He portrays Elio’s adolescent sense of wonder, bravado, lust, goofiness, and insecurity perfectly. Elio tries so hard to seem cool but is deeply uncertain of himself. The script gives Elio a chance to show that insecurity over and over in really beautiful moments and Chalamet is up for the task. For most of the film, we are treated to charming moments of him falling in love against a stunning backdrop. Some of those scenes work better than others but they all give Chalamet an opportunity to utterly charm the audience. Toward the end, the film shifts as summer comes to a close and the story goes where we always knew it had to. This is also where the film became the most effective for me. It was no longer just sweet, it was genuinely heart-wrenching. Michael Stuhlbarg (“The Shape of Water,” “A Serious Man,” Season 3 of “Fargo”) plays Elio’s father. He is kind, wise and far more aware than Elio knows. In his final scene, Stuhlbarg’s monologue is a beautiful piece of writing, acted beautifully. Who doesn’t wish they had that father? And the final scene. Anyone who has read many of my reviews knows I put a lot of weight on the final scene. This is one of my favorites and I will remember it for a long time. It is in those final moments, as the credits roll, that you really understand Chalamet’s acting skill. So much is conveyed in his face and it all feels so real. I don’t know how anyone could portray those emotions so really, without actually experiencing them. I don’t know where inside of himself that young man went (he was only 20 at the time of filming), but I am grateful he was able to go there. What he ended up giving us was deeply touching. This is the difference between a good and a great performance. It felt like Armie Hammer was acting well. It felt like Timothée Chalamet was living it.

Darkest Hour

January 1, 2018 at 11:09 am | Posted in 2017 | Leave a comment
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I really had no intention of seeing this one. How many films about Churchill can they make? Apparently, as many as they have about Kennedy. However, as the buzz grew for Gary Oldman’s performance, I decided I had to see it. I’m glad I did.  Covering the first month of Churchill’s term as Prime Minister, the story takes us through the agonizing decisions he had to make (including the rescue at Dunkirk) and the intense opposition he faced in his own party. This story would be mildly interesting if it were not for Oldman’s riveting performance. Under mounds of prosthetics, he was still able to capture the full range of emotions of a man who was at turns frustrated, terrified, indignant and exhausted. His body language and vocal tonations reminded me of the transformation Marion Cotillard went through to play Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose.” He became the character. The only actor who could even hold my attention in any scene with him was Ben Mendelsohn (“Animal Kingdom,” “Rogue One”) as the king. Otherwise, the film was really almost a one-man show. That said, director Joe Wright (“Atonement,” “Hanna”) gets credit for some clever cinematography. He consistently films Churchill tightly framed, sometimes by small rooms, sometimes by people crowding either side of the screen, sometimes by simply putting him in a small box in the center of the screen surrounded by black. The effect is one of Churchill looking trapped and hemmed in on all side; I found it an effective way to convey how he must have felt. This is a well done film and I suspect Oldman will win the Oscar for his performance. That said, the story is engaging enough but it was never brilliant or revelatory. Compare it to “Dunkirk” and one quickly understands the difference a strong story can make. That was a film that was about the events, rather than about the characters. It did not rely on any one actor to carry it. The film carried itself. You remove Oldman and there wouldn’t be that much to recommend here.

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