The Jesus Rolls

Nobody rolls a ball like Jesus.

 (2019) Dramedy (Screen Media) John Turturro, Bobby Cannavale, Audrey Tautou, Susan Sarandon, Pete Davidson, Christopher Walken, Jon Hamm, J.B. Smoove, Sable Boykin, Tim Blake Nelson, Margaret Reed, Michael Badalucco, Sonia Braga, Gloria Reuben, Nicolas Reyes, Ken Murach, George Sheanshang, Tonino Ballardo, Matt Lake, Kathryn Kates, Rosa Gilmore. Directed by John Turturro

The Dude abides, but Jesus saves, or so some would have it. The Big Lebowski was a 1998 Coen Brothers cult hit that may have had the most interesting characters in a single cast, so much so that more than 20 years after it was released it is getting its first spin-off. Don’t count on many more happening.

Jesus Quintana (Turturro) is released from Sing Sing on a sex charge that is, to put it mildly, suspicious. The warden (Walken) sends Jesus on his way, Jesus having led the intramural team to the state bowling championship (in one of the film’s most amusing moments, he is literally played out by the Gipsy Kings, who are also behind bars). He is picked up by Petey (Cannavale), his best friend and also an ex-con.

The two promptly go on a spree of petty crime, with temperamental French hairdresser Marie (Tautou) in tow. On a kind of misdemeanor-laden road trip, they go forth to look for America. Along the way they meet a hairdresser with a gun (Hamm), another ex-con (Sarandon), a black market doctor (Nelson), an overzealous convenience store security guard (Badalucco) and Jesus’ sex worker mom (Braga).

And that’s pretty much it, as far as plot goes. The movie is somewhat based on the French director Bertrand Blier 1974 comedy Going Places with Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as a couple of sex-addicted lowlifes on the run, but with the Jesus character from The Big Lebowski in the main roll. Known in the earlier film for licking the ball before he bowls, that scene opens the way for a bowling session with Jesus in which he most definitely licks the ball. Take from that whatever you will.

This is one of those movies where a lot of decent actors make cameo appearances for a few moments and then we move on to another Merry Prankster bit with Turturro and Cannavale, whose character gets shot in the huts by a vengeful hairdresser who cares more for his vintage Duster than for his employee. The movie is mostly a series of stolen vehicles and chases with interludes of sex and not just what the beautiful Tautou either.

The movie suffers from a noticeable lack of the Coen brothers; they are masters at characterization and snappy dialogue. Here, the movie seems forced, rushed and poorly planned out, a very disturbing issue indeed. It’s not nearly as funny as it could have been, or should have been. Turturro is a fine actor, but as a writer he’s no Coen.

Turturro has evidently been thinking about bringing this character back to the screen for some time; I don’t know if anyone was clamoring for a Jesus Quintana spin-off other than Turturro but I suppose if you wait long enough, everything comes back into style.

REASONS TO SEE: It’s John Effin’ Turturro.
REASONS TO AVOID: Not as funny as it could be.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s a ton of profanity, plenty of sexual content, some nudity, and a bit of violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Turturro has been trying to get a spin-off film about the Jesus Quintana character made since 2005; after several aborted tries he came up with a script that everyone was satisfied with.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/8//20: Rotten Tomatoes: 23% positive reviews. Metacritic:  44/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes

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Mood Indigo

Audrey Tautou doesn’t mind Roman Duris’ extreme case of dandruff.

(2014) Romantic Fantasy (Drafthouse) Audrey Tautou, Roman Duris, Omar Sy, Gad Elmaleh, Aissa Maiga, Charlotte Le Bon, Sacha Bourdo, Vincent Rottiers, Philippe Torreton, Laurent Lafitte, Alain Chabat, Zinedine Soualem, Natacha Regnier, Marina Rozenman, Mathieu Paulus, Frederic Saurel, August Darnell, Wilfred Benaiche, Francis Van Litsenborgh. Directed by Michel Gondry

There are those film directors whose imaginations are so manic and so inventive that most of the rest of us can’t keep up. French visionary Michel Gondry, auteur of such films as The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is one of those guys. Something like Terry Gilliam on an LSD trip, Gondry has employed a good deal of stop motion animation in his films and a kind of frenetic sense of humor that is sweet and avant garde all at once. Words don’t do his work justice; he speaks a language all his own and the only way to really understand what I’m talking about is to see one of his films, like his latest f’rinstance.

Colin (Duris) is a wealthy man who lives in a Parisian apartment that looks from the inside anyway as something of a railway car. His private chef Nicolas (Sy) is also his lawyer, a brilliant man who makes wonderful dishes that he sweeps into the garbage before Colin can finish eating them. Colin has created the “pianocktail,” a musical instrument in which the notes you play on the piano keyboard determine which liqueurs and mixers are being added into your cocktail.

With his best friend Chick (Elmaleh) having fallen in love with Alise (Maiga), who also turns out to be Nicolas’ niece, Colin realizes how alone he is and demands to fall in love. Nicolas suggests that he attend the party being thrown by Isis (Le Bon) which would necessitate that he learn a bizarre dance to a Duke Ellington song which has the odd effect of turning the legs of the dancer into elongated rubber limbs that allow the dancer to walk about like an art deco-era cartoon.

At the party Colin meets Chloe (Tautou), a waif-like girl who takes an instant liking to the tongue-tied and socially awkward Colin. The two go on several dates, most of which Colin is convinced that he’s messed up. Finally the two take a ride on a swan boat that is lifted by crane over the city and finally into a train tunnel where the two kiss. Six months later they are ready to be married.

It looks like life is going to be golden for Colin but in truth that is not the case. Chick is in desperate need of money so he can afford to marry Alise, and Colin is happy to lend it to him but instead Chick blows the not insubstantial gift on memorabilia related to his favorite writer, Jean-Sol Partre. Chloe gets a rare malady – a water lily is growing inside one of her lungs – and only being surrounded by fresh flowers can save her.

Based on a novel by beloved French novelist Boris Vian, this comes across as a cross between a romantic comedy, grand opera, French farce and a cartoon from the 1930s. Although the synopsis gives you an idea of the story, it can’t possibly prepare you for the visuals you’ll encounter, including an anthropomorphic mouse that lives with Colin and Nicolas, a doorbell that grows legs and skitters about the apartment until either Nicolas or Colin “kill” it and it returns to a docile state on the wall, an office full of writers who are writing the story as we go along on a conveyer belt full of typewriters like an assembly-line script (possibly a dig at what the movie writing process has become), a transparent limousine and a honeymoon in which it is always raining on Colin and the sun is shining on Chloe.

The imagery in fact can wear you down after awhile and given the fact that the American version is 30 minutes shorter than the French, one can only imagine how Americans would be unable to cope with those extra scenes. The humor is distinctly Gallic and can be deceptively subtle or unabashedly over-the-top.

Tautou, who is now and forever Amelie, is lovely here as the gamine Chloe. She is delightfully puckish and were she an American actress she’d be Greta Gerwig. However Gerwig doesn’t quite accomplish the innocent sheen that Tautou conveys so Tautou often comes off as child-like rather than childish. Duris, one of France’s biggest male stars, has an engaging grin and a gung ho “let the director throw whatever he wants at me, I’ll still be incredibly handsome” attitude.

Be warned that this is a bit darker in several senses as a film than Gondry’s other films have been. As Chloe gets sick, the colors begin to fade from the screen and the apartment is overrun with cobwebs, dust bunnies and decay. As the film reaches its end, the apartment gets almost no sunlight whatsoever. The sometimes silly humor is still in full force but it has a grim, gallows element to it that might be off-putting to those who have just managed to get used to the sunny, optimistic fun tone of the movie’s first half.

The imagery gets almost cloyingly cute at times and your capacity to absorb cuteness may well determine the level of enjoyment you have for the movie. Also I think that seeing the movie when you are able to give it your complete concentration is a plus, although here in Orlando it is playing only at the 10pm hour during its run here which may hurt the ability of older audience members (like myself) to enjoy it as fully as I might have.

REASONS TO GO: Some truly delightful images. Very inventive.
REASONS TO STAY: Overly cutesy. Sometimes uses out there images for their own sake.
FAMILY VALUES: Some sexuality and partial nudity, mildly disturbing images and some foul language.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The writer whom Chick is obsessed with, Jean-Sol Partre, is a spoonerism for the name of one of France’s most decorated philosophers, Jean-Paul Sartre.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/14/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 63% positive reviews. Metacritic: 54/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Science of Sleep
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Sci-Fi Spectacle commences!

New Releases for the Week of September 12, 2014

DOLPHIN TALE 2

(Warner Brothers) Harry Connick Jr., Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Kris Kristofferson, Charles Martin Smith, Nathan Gamble, Cozi Zuehlsdorff, Bethany Hamilton. Directed by Charles Martin Smith

Winter the dolphin returns in this story about those wacky folks at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium (who aren’t all that wacky in real life) who discover that Winter is in need of a companion, preferably a female or she’ll be taken away from Clearwater for the good of the animal. Into the lives of the Floridian folks comes a new dolphin, Hope but will she be enough to save Winter – and herself?

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a featurette and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Family

Rating: PG (for some mild thematic elements)

Atlas Shrugged III: Who is John Galt?

(Atlas) Kristoffer Polaha, Rob Morrow, Stephen Tobolowsky, Joaquim de Almeida. With the nation’s economy in shambles, a government seemingly hell-bent on ensuring that the economy is utterly destroyed and the most productive industrialists in the nation mysteriously disappearing, there seems to be no way out for the beleaguered citizens of the United States. Only one man can seemingly reverse the tide and save America but there is a woman equally determined to stop him. The conclusion of the trilogy based on Ayn Rand’s seminal novel.

 

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for some violence and a scene of sexuality)

The Drop

(Fox Searchlight) Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, James Gandolfini, Matthias Schoenaerts. A Brooklyn bartender works at a watering hole that also acts as a cash drop for the Brooklyn underworld. The bartender takes the cash, hides it in plain sight and then gives it to the mobsters when the time is right. However, a robbery gone sour turns everything upside down as the bartender fights to stay out of the violence that begins to gather in the neighborhood and threatens to turn a rough neighborhood into a war zone.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Crime Drama

Rating: R (for some strong violence and pervasive language)

Finding Fanny

(Fox Star) Deepika Padukone, Arjun Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia. A motley group of friends and family take a road trip to find the long lost love of an old postman. Nobody knows if she’s dead or alive or if she’s even real or just the figment of an old man’s lonely imagination. A mission that was supposed to take only 90 minutes is extended out over a matter of days as those involved in the search seek something sublime – and find it, although not what they expected.

See the trailer and a clip here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: NR

Love is Strange

(Sony Classics) John Lithgow, Alfred Molina, Marisa Tomei, Charlie Tahan. Two elderly gay lovers finally have it all. Once New York City makes gay marriages legal, they can finally be wed. However, their marriage gets noticed and one of them loses his job, meaning they can no longer afford to live in their tastefully decorated lower Manhattan apartment. Facing reality, they must live apart – temporarily, they say – until they can find a way to afford a place to live together but that’s easier said than done, particularly when one has moved in with his nephew, the other with a couple of NYPD cops. Not only are they missing each other, they find themselves being the glue holding all these disparate relationships together.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: R (for language)

Mood Indigo

(Drafthouse) Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Gad Elmaleh, Omar Sy. A wealthy Parisian inventor is lonely and longs for love. At last he finds it but his hopes may be bitterly dashed – the beautiful young object of his affections has a flower growing in her lungs. The only way to keep her alive is to keep a neverending supply of fresh flowers around her. This surreal and sweet film is the latest from inventive director Michel Gondry.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Fantasy

Rating: NR

No Good Deed

(Screen Gems) Idris Elba, Taraji P. Henson, Leslie Bibb, Kate del Castillo. On a stormy night with her husband away, a stranger turns up at her door needing to use her phone because he’s had car trouble. She takes pity on the charming man and allows him in, not realizing that the stranger is an escaped convict with an enormous sadistic streak and that he means to pick up where he left off before he went to prison.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Thriller

Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of violence, menace, terror, and for language)