Bohemian Rhapsody

Freddy Mercury in his element.

(2018) Musical Biography (20^th Century Fox) Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Allen Leech, Tom Hollander, Mike Myers, Aaron McCusker, Meneka Das, Ace Bhatti, Priya Blackburn, Dermot Murphy, Dickie Beau, Tim Plester, Jack Roth, Max Bennett, Felipe Bejarano, Neil Fox-Roberts, Michelle Duncan. Directed by Bryan Singer

 

For an outsider, Freddie Mercury became symbolic to a lot of people. To people of my generation, he was a peerless rock star, perhaps the very embodiment of one. To music historians, he brought grand opera into rock and roll, with all the silliness and grandeur that implies. To the LGBTQ community, he was one of their own who made it big on his own terms. He was the voice of his generation.

Of course, to play such a bigger-than-life performer, you’re going to need a bigger-than-life performance and fortunately, that is delivered here. Rami Malek, best-known at the time for the TV series Mr. Robot, won the Oscar for his portrayal of Mercury and justifiably so – it was one of the best performances of the decade. Malek inhabits the role completely and gets every little nuance right. It is as close to having Freddy back as we’re likely to get.

That said, the movie isn’t without its problems. Like a lot of music industry biopics, it tends to focus on the sensational – the parties, the lifestyle, the drugs and the sex – and while not ignoring the creative process completely, at least gives it less attention than it deserves. It’s easy to be caught up in the excesses, and yes, the band was known for them, but that wasn’t all they were.

They were (and are) also extraordinary musicians and incredibly creative, as the music attests. The film uses the music of Queen to great effect. The re-creation of their triumphant Live-Aid performance in 1985 after an absence of several years opens and closes the film. Many believe that it was one of the best rock and roll performances of all time and they’re not wrong.

Queen is remembered for merging rock and roll and opera, with all the silliness and high drama that it entails, so perhaps the movie was destined to have its share of drama – director Bryan Singer was fired and the film was finished by an uncredited Dexter Fletcher late in the process – but for those who loved Queen (like Da Queen, for example) this is absolutely required viewing. The real challenge for any musical biopic is that it have appeal not just to the main fan base of the act, but also to casual fans as well. I believe even those who weren’t necessarily Queen devotees will get something out of this film, if nothing else Malek’s incredible performance.

REASONS TO SEE: Malek gives the performance of a lifetime. Uses the music of Queen magnificently.
REASONS TO AVOID: Sometimes, a little gossipy.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a bit of profanity, plenty of sexuality, adult thematic content and some drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Malek wore a prosthetic device to re-create Mercury’s famous overbite. After shooting concluded, he kept the prosthetic and eventually had it cast in gold.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, HBO Go, Microsoft, Movies Anywhere, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/20/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 61% positive reviews: Metacritic: 49/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Rocketman
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Church and State

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Apostle

The fire whisperer.

(2018) Horror (Netflix) Dan Stevens, Michael Sheen, Lucy Boynton, Mark Lewis Jones, Kristine Froseth, Sharon Morgan, Sebastian McCheyne, Gareth John Bale, Elen Rhys, Richard Elfyn, Paul Higgins, Bill Milner, Catrin Aron, Gareth Pierce, Rhys Meredith, John Norton, Ioan Hefin, Rhian Morgan, Owain Gwynn, Annes Elwy, Helena Dennis. Directed by Gareth Evans

 

Thomas Richardson (Stevens) is the scion of a wealthy family who has been through hell and has the laudanum addiction to prove it. When his beloved sister Jennifer (Rhys) is kidnapped, he is sent to pay the ransom. Not to a London-based criminal but to a bizarre cult living on a remote Welsh island. There he finds that the followers of the dumpy cult leader Malcolm Howe (Sheen) are hiding a secret that is more terrifying than he could have imagined. Probably not more terrifying than you or I could imagine, however; we’ve got pretty sick minds, after all.

The 1905 setting gives the film a kind of period unease present in films like The Wind or The Nightingale. The isolation of the island further contributes to the air of unease. Evans, veteran director of the two Raid films, opts for a tone that is creepy rather than outright scary. There aren’t really many outright frights although most of the real nasty stuff is man’s own inhumanity to man; the cultist, led by a rather brutal right-hand man to Howe named Quinn (Jones), has all manner of tortures available for those who disobey the rules which are many.

Stevens proves to be an adept leading man, able to be the brooding hunk one moment and a man of action the next. I would have preferred that the jumps between the two weren’t quite so jarring but I think that his use of violence was meant to be shocking but years of seeing too many horror and action movies has inured me to that kind of surprise.

The filmmakers make good use of their environment, from the creepy woods of the island to the homespun charm of the town which is a billboard ad for “Life isn’t easy ‘round these parts” and that it isn’t. There is a supernatural element that the film builds to but still feels as if it could have used more fleshing out; it’s more confusing than scary. Still, if you are in need of an atmospheric horror film set in the past that has elements of dangerous cults and a touch of torture porn to it, Netflix has the right film for you.

REASONS TO SEE: The cinematography is gorgeous. Dan Stevens is an excellent leading man.
REASONS TO AVOID: A bit too long for the kind of film that it is.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some violence and some disturbing horrific images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Thomas shares a name with an apostle who like the cinematic Thomas has doubts; the Thomas here in his faith, the apostle Thomas in the resurrection of Christ.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/22/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 80% positive reviews: Metacritic: 62/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Midsommar
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Cajun Navy

New Releases for the Week of November 2, 2018

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

(20^TH Century Fox) Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, Mike Myers, Aaron McCusker. Directed by Bryan Singer

This is the story of Queen, one of the most legendary of classic rock bands and their flamboyant lead singer Freddie Mercury. The band would redefine what rock and roll sounded like and looked like, adding an operatic sound and unforgettable live show to the lexicon of rock bands.

See the trailer, interviews, clips, video featurettes and B-roll video here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, 4DX, Dolby, IMAX, RPX, XD
Genre: Musical Biography
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, suggestive material, drug content and language)

Beautiful Boy

(Amazon) Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan. David and Nic Sheff, father and son with the father being an acclaimed writer, deal with the heartbreak and hope of drug addiction.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, video featurettes and B-roll video here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: R (for drug content throughout, language and brief sexual material)

Brewmaster

(The Orchard) Jim Koch, Brian Selders, Jen Kimmich, David Geary. The craft beer revolution is in full swing, with four new breweries coming into being every business day. This documentary follows the forces driving what’s happening in craft beer as seen through the eyes of a New York lawyer struggling to open his own brewery and a Milwaukee brewer trying to pass the  difficult test to become the beer equivalent of a sommelier.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater (Saturday only)
Rating: NR

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

(Fox Searchlight) Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Ben Falcone. Lee Israel was once a bestselling author of celebrity biographies but as the 80s became the 90s her profiles had fallen out of favor with the reading public. With nobody willing to publish her anymore and the bills piling up, she takes a desperate turn into something not quite legal.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language including some sexual references, and brief drug use)

The Happy Prince

(Sony Classics) Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Emily Watson, Tom Wilkinson. In the last days of Oscar Wilde’s life he takes the opportunity to reflect on his failures and transgressions with his trademark wit. Everett not only stars as Wilde but he also wrote and directed this passion project.

See the trailer and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Daytona Cinematique, Old Mill Playhouse, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for sexual content, graphic nudity, language and brief drug use)

Nobody’s Fool

(Paramount Players) Tiffany Haddish, Tika Sumpter, Whoopi Goldberg, Omari Hardwick. After being released from prison, a wild child connects with her uptight sister to get her own life back together. However she soon finds that her sister’s online boyfriend may not be what he seems at all and that just won’t fly.

See the trailer and video featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for sexual content and language throughout, and for drug material)

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

(Disney) Mackenzie Foy, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley. A young mother desperately wants the key to open a box that contains the last gift her late mother wanted to give her. When she finds it, she is transported to an amazing land of magic and wonder where three realms live in peace and harmony. It’s the fourth realm that is the problem child as the tyrannical Mother Ginger wants to rule the four realms herself. The courageous girl must retrieve her key from the fourth realm if there’s even a chance of her returning home and bringing stability to the four realms.

See the trailer, interviews and video featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, DBOX, DBOX 3D, Dolby
Genre: Family Fantasy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for some mild peril)

Susperia

(Amazon) Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Chloe Grace Moretz, Malgosia Bela. A well-known dance company is wreathed in darkness. Some will succumb to madness, but others will find an awakening.

See the trailer, clips, video featurettes, an interview and a music video here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal The Loop, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for disturbing content involving ritualistic violence, bloody images and graphic nudity, and for some language including sexual references)

The Viper Club

(Roadside Attractions) Susan Sarandon, Matt Bomer, Edie Falco, Lola Kirke.  When a mother gets word her son, a journalist, has been kidnapped by terrorists, she tries to work through the system to try and get him back only to find that the system isn’t interested in helping. Frustrated, she finds a clandestine network of journalists, philanthropists and activists who are willing to help – but can they?

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language and some disturbing images)

What They Had

(Bleecker Street) Susan Sarandon, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner, Robert Forster. A woman returns home to Chicago at the urgent summons of her brother. There, they both must deal with their mother’s deteriorating health and their father’s stubborn refusal to put her into a nursing home.

See the trailer, clips, an interview and a video featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: R (for language including a brief sexual reference)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

4 Estrella
In Harm’s Way
Kayamkulam Kochunni
Sayyasachi

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Bodied
Daughters of the Sexual Revolution
Hopelessly Devout
Monster Party
Sayyasachi

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Daughters of the Sexual Revolution
In Harm’s Way
Monster Party
Sayyasachi

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Sayyasachi

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Beautiful Boy
Bodied
Bohemian Rhapsody
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Nobody’s Fool
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

FILM FESTIVALS TAKING PLACE IN FLORIDA:

Cine-World Film Festival, Sarasota
Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Hercule Poirot is on the job!

(2017) Mystery (20^th Century Fox) Kenneth Branagh, Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, Penélope Cruz, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr., Sergei Polunin, Lucy Boynton, Marwan Kenzan, Judi Dench, Olivia Colman, Willem Dafoe, Phil Dunster, Miranda Raison, Rami Nasr, Hayat Kamille, Michael Rouse, Hadley Fraser, Kathryn Wilder. Directed by Kenneth Branagh

 

Train travel has a certain romance to it. Strangers trapped in a metal tube, rumbling across the countryside. Anything can happen; anything at all.

Many might be familiar with the classic Agatha Christie novel, one of the most famous mysteries ever written. Some might be familiar with the even more classic 1974 movie based on it which starred such legends as Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, John Gielgud, Sean Connery, Anthony Perkins and Richard Widmark. This new remake stars Kenneth Branagh (who also directed) as the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (played by Albert Finney in the original) who is returning to England following a grueling series of cases leading to a successful resolution in Istanbul – not Constantinople.

Taking the Orient Express back home, he is approached by Ratchett (Depp) who is looking for protection after receiving some threatening letters. Poirot, exhausted, turns down the case. The next morning, Ratchett turns up dead. The train is stuck after an avalanche buries the tracks. As crews arrive to dig the tracks out so the train might continue, Poirot must solve the case quickly but there are a number of suspects – everyone in the Calais coach had opportunity and some even had motive. Soon it becomes apparent that the murder has links to a famous unsolved crime of years past.

The Sidney Lumet-directed 1974 version to which this will inevitably be compared was a light-hearted romp with a Poirot who was quirky but undoubtedly a genius. This Poirot is more tortured than quirky, a man who realizes his own obsession with perfection will leave him perpetually disappointed in life and of course he is. This is a different Poirot than any we’ve ever seen onscreen, whether David Suchet of the excellent BBC series or Peter Ustinov of several all-star Christie cinematic adaptations which followed the success of Murder on the Orient Express. The tone here is certainly darker than we’re used to seeing from a Christie adaptation.

Michelle Pfeiffer turns in an extraordinary performance as the predatory divorcee Mrs. Hubbard, portrayed by Bacall back in 1974. While Bacall was loud-mouthed and brassy, Pfeiffer is intense and smart. Once again the characters are very different although there are some recognizable similarities. Pfeiffer twenty years ago was one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood which she remains; that beauty often overshadowed her acting talent which is considerable. Although not in the league of Meryl Streep (who is in a league of her own), she is one of the four or five best American actresses working in film today.

Most of the rest of the cast do at least adequate jobs. Depp is as restrained as he’s been in a decade, playing Ratchett as a thug more so than Widmark did in the same role. Dame Judi Dench is, well, Judi Dench. She brings dignity and a regal air to the role of Princess Dragomiroff. Penélope Cruz has a thanklessly un-glamorous role that she makes her own.

I should mention the cinematography. The 1974 film primarily took place aboard the train. Certainly the Orient Express is the star and cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos takes great pains to present her from every angle conceivable. Occasionally he goes a bit overboard – an overhead shot in one of the train’s cars gives us an uncomfortably long view of the tops of the actors heads – but he also manages to make the snowy Yugoslavian countryside look positively idyllic.

Let me be plain; this film is not as good as the 1974 version and I don’t think Branagh had any illusions that it ever could be. However, it is different than that 1974 version and one that is just as valid. You may not love this film in the same way that you loved the original but there is a good chance you’ll at least respect it. You may even want to see it more than once.

REASONS TO GO: Fans of the 1974 version will find the approach here very different. Branagh and Pfeiffer are outstanding. The cinematography is gorgeous.
REASONS TO STAY: The tone here is much darker than the 1974 version. This isn’t nearly as good as the original which it will inevitably be compared to. You don’t get as good a sense of the era it is supposed to be set in.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some violence as well as violent thematic elements.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The song played over the closing credits was sung by Michelle Pfeiffer and the lyrics written by Branagh.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/20/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 57% positive reviews. Metacritic: 52/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Death on the Nile
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Wonder

Rebel in the Rye

Quiet please; author at work.

(2017) Biographical Drama (IFC) Nicholas Hoult, Kevin Spacey, Zoey Deutch, Victor Garber, Hope Davis, Sarah Paulson, Lucy Boynton, James Urbaniak, Amy Rutberg, Brian d’Arcy James, Eric Bogosian, Naian González Norvind, Evan Hall, Adam Busch, Celeste Arias, Bernard White, Kristine Froseth, David Berman, Will Rogers, Jefferson Mays, Caitlin Mehner. Directed by Danny Strong

 

Being an author is often a lonely pursuit. Writers live inside their heads more than most and for those who are true writers the act of writing is more of a compulsion than a calling. The talented ones often see that talent turn savagely on the wielder of that talent.

Jerome David Salinger (Hoult) was a teen who was bright but had difficulty dealing with authority. A caustic, sarcastic soul, he didn’t win points with school administrators by often ridiculing his professors in class. As 1939 is in full swing, he decides to attend Columbia University in New York City and study creative writing, much to the frustration of his staid stodgy father (Garber) but supported by his ever-patient mother (Davis).

At Columbia he comes under the wing of Whit Burnett (Spacey) who is a published author and a passionate teacher. Burnett, who also edits Story magazine on the side, has no time for fools or dilettantes but finds the kernel of something worthwhile in the young, insufferably arrogant student. In the meantime Jerry, as his friends and family call him, is busy wooing Oona O’Neil (Deutch) who happens to be the daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neil.  Talk about a long day’s journey into night.

His pursuit of being a published author is interrupted by World War II and Salinger, who was part of the Normandy invasion as well as the Battle of the Bulge, was profoundly affected by his wartime service. He was present at the liberation of concentration camps and watched his friends die before his very eyes. He came home a changed man and although one of his psychiatrists called his PTSD “a phase,” it would as his literary agent Dorothy Olding (Paulson) said, “mess him up” for the rest of his life.

One of his constant companions during the war was Holden Caulfield, a character Salinger had invented for a short story he had submitted to The New Yorker before the war. Burnett had been particularly enamored of the character and had urged his young student to write a novel about him; Salinger had been reluctant to since he had primarily written short stories to that point but throughout the war Salinger continued to write about the character; much of what he came up with appeared in the seminal novel The Catcher in the Rye, which became a publishing phenomenon and catapulted Salinger to international fame.

However with that fame came stalkers, young people so inspired by the novel that they approached the author wearing the red hunting caps that were the preferred chapeau of Caulfield in the novel. Salinger, already a private person, felt constrained to leave New York City for rural New Hampshire where he built walls of privacy around himself and his second wife Claire Douglas (Boynton) who eventually found her husband, who wrote constantly, to be more and more distant. As time went by, she confessed to her husband that she was lonely. That didn’t seem to matter much to him.

Much of this material appears in the Kenneth Slawenski-penned biography J.D. Salinger: A Life on which this is mainly based and it certainly gets the facts about Salinger’s life right. However, we don’t really get the essence of Salinger here and maybe it isn’t possible to do so; the reclusive nature of the author makes it difficult to really get to know him now even more so than it was when he was alive (he died in 2010 at age 91).

Hoult does a credible job playing the author during the 15 year period that the story takes place. It was one of the heydays of literature in New York City but we don’t really get a sense of the vitality that suffused the literary scene that saw magazines like The New Yorker publishing some of the best work of American authors ever. The movie is in some ways lacking in that rhythm that made the Big Apple the most vital city on Earth at the time. Nevertheless, Hoult is a marvelous actor and while this isn’t the role that is going to get him to the next level, he at least does a good enough job here to continue his forward momentum.

Hoult though in many ways is overshadowed by Spacey as the charismatic Burnett. We see Burnett as a mentor, and then in later years as a man with little money who sees his magazine and publishing house slowly languishing into obscurity even as Salinger is becoming one of the most popular authors in the world. The two would have a falling out and we see that Burnett is stricken by it, while Salinger is remarkably cold. Spacey makes Burnett more memorable than Salinger himself and who knows, given his performance here and in Baby Driver we might see his name bandied about for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar during awards season.

I was never convinced of the time and place as I said earlier; the characters look and act like 21^st century people rather than mid-20^th century, other than the smoking. The dialogue is full of platitudes and doesn’t sound the way people of any era talk. This I found doubly surprising since Strong wrote two of HBO’s best films including Recount, one of my all-time favorite made-for-cable films.

This isn’t going to give any insight into Salinger or his work; in fact other than a few snippets, very little of the words that the author penned have made their way into the film. The best that one could hope for is that younger people, seeing this movie, might be moved to see what the fuss was about and read Catcher in the Rye for themselves. I suspect that will give frustrated viewers of this film much more insight into the mind of the author than any docudrama ever could.

REASONS TO GO: Spacey delivers a strong performance. Renewed interest in Salinger might be generated.
REASONS TO STAY: The dialogue is littered with platitudes and the characters don’t act like people of that era.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a bit of profanity, some violence, a few sexual references and some disturbing wartime images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Filming took place in Wildwood, Cape May and other towns along the Jersey coast.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/30/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 36% positive reviews. Metacritic: 37/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Salinger
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Abundant Acreage Available