Don’t Look Up

Making America late again.

(2021) Disaster Comedy (Netflix) Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Himesh Patel, Melanie Lynskey, Michael Chiklis, Tomer Sisley, Paul Guilfoyle, Robert Joy, Jack Alberts, Ting Lik, Lance A. Williams, Shimali De Silva. Directed by Adam McKay

 

Some of you might remember the competing apocalyptic comet/meteor collision movies Armageddon and Deep Impact, both of which came out in 1998. Both featured American governments that acted decisively upon finding out about the upcoming end of days in an effort to avoid the end of Life as We Know It. But what if such a calamity occurred during the presidency of someone less competent?

Astronomer Dr. Randall Mindy (di Caprio) and the PhD candidate he’s mentoring Kate Diblasky (Lawrence) are by no means the upper echelon in their field, but they do have the advantage of looking in the right place at the right time (or, more to the point, the wrong place at the wrong time). They find a comet heading on a collision course with Earth and it will be here in just six months – time enough to maybe do something about it.

Except that President Orlean (Streep) and her idiot son/Chief of Staff Jason (Hill) are more concerned about the upcoming midterms than they are about a giant rock heading our way. Frustrated by a lack of government action or even interest, the two scientists take their case to the media in the form of the morning news program The Daily Rip. True to form, the talking head anchors Brie (Blanchett) and Jack (Perry) are more concerned with the disintegrating love life of pop star Riley B (Grande) than about their audience being wiped out by an oncoming – and very preventable – disaster.

The characters here are broadly drawn; clearly the President here is meant to be Trump and Jason could be Ivanka. There’s also a billionaire (Rylance) who seems to be cribbed from the Elon Musk book of billionaires. When Randall wonders why people aren’t panicking, we wonder the same thing. Of course, the movie was written to be a satire on the response to climate change (it can also be construed as a satire on the response to the pandemic but it was written years before COVID-19 was even a thing) but don’t that fool you; this is a time capsule of life in These United States circa 2021.

This is also a satire of the State of the Union, as it were. I suspect that even Trump would have reacted with a little bit more alarm had he been faced with an approaching comet, but then again, who knows? I have a feeling that those who really need to see the movie likely won’t; first off, because they’ll see it as another smack in the face from them liberal Hollywood socialists, and secondly won’t recognize themselves in it anyway. As one critic pointed out, how are you supposed to write a vacuous talking head blonde broadcaster when there already is a Laura Ingraham?

There are a few too many moving parts here and some of the big names in the cast are given very little to do, which is only to be expected. The one big sin that the movie commits is trying to do too much; I get that there’s an awful lot to satirize when it comes to our reaction to the climate crisis, but there comes a point where the point gets lost in the noise of all the ancillary points that McKay is making.

And maybe the offense that we’re all guilty of is the same one that this movie makes; we’re too busy talking at people to notice that we’ve stopped talking with people. The latter situation involves listening, and there’s precious little of that going on at this point in time. Maybe that’s the point that McKay is trying to make, but it does get lost in all the points he’s making about social media, broadcast news, the GOP, big business, and our general state of malaise.

REASONS TO SEE: An absolutely stellar cast. A commentary on spin and misinformation, particularly in regards to climate change and the pandemic.
REASONS TO AVOID: Preaches to the choir.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity, sexual content, violence and nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUITS: The film was nominated for four Oscars at the 2022 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/11/22: Rotten Tomatoes: 56% positive reviews; Metacritic: 49/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Mars Attacks!
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Catch the Fair One

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Museum Town

From factory town to museum town.

(2019) Documentary (Zeitgeist)  Meryl Streep (narration), David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, Nick Cave, Joseph Thompson, Thomas Krens, Megan Tamas, Ruth Yarter, John Barrett, Francis Esposito, Simeon Bruner, Denise Markonish, Bob Faust, James Turrell, Jane Swift, Jack Wadsworth, Richard Criddle, Missy Parisien. Directed by Jennifer Trainer

 

No less a wrenching change in the American landscape than the Industrial Revolution was America’s loss of factory jobs that began in the late 1970s and has continued through now. Towns that had once been prosperous suddenly saw their economies obliterated overnight. Suddenly, everyone is unemployed. Despair and crime move in and the feeling of hometown pride moves out.

North Adams, Massachusetts – located in the picturesque Berkshires of the Western part of the state – is such a town. A bustling, productive town that relied on the Sprague Electric Company as the economic engine that powered the town. When the company abandoned the town and moved its facilities elsewhere, the town was devastated. The massive factory complex which had once supplied parts for war planes during the Second World War and employed most of the town’s women in that Greatest of Generations, stood empty, a symbol of changing times and of corporate loyalty (or lack thereof).

But there were people who had a vision. Thomas Krens, for one; a former director at New York’s Guggenheim (where he was a figure of considerable controversy, something not touched upon in the film) and director at nearby Williams College where he’d taught for 17 years (and graduated from in 1969). Inspired by German factories that had been repurposed as art museums, he came up with the idea of doing the same in North Adams.

It was a bit of a hard sell. The blue collar citizens and officials of North Adams were about as far from an art colony as it’s possible to get; ayor John Barrett once quipped that he wouldn’t cross the street to see some of the art instillations at the museum built in his town. And while Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis had been enthusiastic about the project and willing to contribute the funds needed to get the project off the ground, his Republican successor William Weld was less enthusiastic and the project nearly died almost before it began, saved only by the fact that Weld was – surprisingly – a Talking Heads fan, an anecdote that is explained further in the film.

If the movie seems like it’s gushing a bit from tie to time, it’s understandable; Trainer was for many years the director of development at the museum that eventually became known as the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, or MassMoCA. This familiarity with the subject does give the film some insights that it might otherwise not have been possible to get, but there is also the other side of the coin – the filmmakers don’t always look with clear eyes at the museum, although an early dispute with a Swiss artist who objected to having his work displayed unfinished after refusing to finish the work when the museum objected to expensive overruns. Trainer does attempt to show both sides, but it’s telling that the only interviews on the incident come from the MassMoCA staff whereas representatives of the artist or the New York Times art critic who reported extensively on the subject were not.

Much of the film follows the installation of Until, an extensive work by Chicago artist Nick Cave (not the one you’re thinking of) made up of found items, ten miles of crystals, and some creative fabrications (the installation ran from October 2016 until September 2017. It is a look at how such installations are created and fabricated and will be of interest to art buffs.

This is clearly a labor of love, and as such there are some things that are endearing about it. Residents of the town – notably Ruth Yarter, a feisty senior citizen who worked at Sprague during the war years and then again at Mass MoCA as a ticket taker – are interviewed and many of them were skeptical and somewhat bemused, but when the dust cleared, the museum indeed revitalized the town. Art therapy, indeed.

REASONS TO SEE: A fascinating story of ambition and vision. Streep’s narration is unobtrusive.
REASONS TO AVOID: A bit on the gushing side.
FAMILY VALUES: Suitable for family audiences.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Mass MoCA is currently the largest museum of contemporary art in the world.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Virtual Cinema
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/15/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 85% positive reviews; Metacritic: 57/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Art of the  Steal
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: The Midnight Sky

Mary Poppins Returns

Practically perfect in every way.

(2018) Family (Disney) Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Pixie Davies, Nathaniel Saleh, Joel Dawson Julie Walters, Meryl Streep, Dick van Dyke, Angela Lansbury, Colin Firth, Jeremy Swift, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, David Warner, Jim Norton, Norma Dumezweni, Tarik Frimpong, Sudha Bhuchar, Steve Nicolson, Christian Dixon, Karen Dotrice. Directed by Rob Marshall

 

When Disney announced a sequel to their classic Mary Poppins, purists were aghast as were many of those who grew up with the practically perfect nanny. Even though Marshall, the man who essentially resurrected the movie musical, was at the helm, most people predicted that the film would never catch on. Fortunately for the accountants at Disney, it did.

Set roughly 20 years after the original, Michael Banks (Whishaw) still lives in the Cherry Tree Lane home he grew up in. Recently widowed with three young children depending on him, he has been forced to take a job as a teller at his father’s own bank, to whom he’s deeply in debt. Now, the bank and their nasty president (Firth) are foreclosing and Michael has until Friday midnight to pay up. His only chance is to find certificates that his father willed to him, proving that the Banks family own part of the bank.

This is where Mary Poppins (Blunt) comes in. Despite the presence of housekeeper Ellen (Walters) and Michael’s union-organizing sister Jane (Mortimer) the kids are badly in need of a full-time nanny and the stern-faced Poppins intends to whip them into shape. With her friend, lamplighter Jack (Miranda) she takes the kids on adventures in the bathtub, in a chipped china bowl, in the back alleys of London and in her cousin Topsy’s (Streep) repair shop among other places.

That’s where the big yawning chasm between the original and the sequel is locate. The songs here are mainly bland and forgettable, following the standards of 21^st century Broadway and pop music in general where it seems that music is being written by focus group rather than actual artists. Several of the scenes here are meant to be homages to the original but they often feel more like rip-offs.

Blunt has the thankless job of taking over for Julie Andrews who was perfect for the role and she comes very close to Andrews’ performance. You can’t fault her for that; nobody could fill Andrews’ shoes in this case. In a very gracious touch, Disney veterans Dick van Dyke and Angela Lansbury make cameo appearances and show that they both can still perform; van Dyke in particular takes on an energetic dance that shows that at 93 he can still out-dance most performers 70 years younger than he.

I give Marshall credit; this is a visually striking film and it is close in tone to the original film. It feels like, in many cases, they chose to adhere to the memories of the original rather than to give the film a personality of its own. In that sense, the filmmakers were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t; had they done what I suggest, it is likely that purists would have screamed bloody murder. It is in a real sense a no-win situation for the filmmakers, despite the hefty box office receipts. I don’t know if Disney is planning to make further sequels to the film; the box office suggests that they could. I hope, however, that they choose to venture a little further on a path of their own if they do.

REASONS TO SEE: Plenty of CGI Magic. Always a joy to see Angela Lansbury and Dick van Dyke.
REASONS TO AVOID: Plays it way too safe.
FAMILY VALUES: There are some mild thematic elements as well as fantasy action.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: When the role of Mary Poppins was first offered to Julie Andrews, she turned it down because she was pregnant; Walt Disney felt so strongly she was perfect for the role that production was delayed to accommodate her pregnancy. History was repeated when production was delayed on the sequel to accommodate the pregnancy of lead Emily Blunt.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Disney+, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Movies Anywhere, Netflix, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/16/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 79% positive reviews Metacritic: 66/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Cinderella
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Cotton Wool

New Releases for the Week of December 27, 2019

LITTLE WOMEN

(Columbia) Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, Meryl Streep. Directed by Greta Gerwig

This re-imagining of the classic Louisa May Alcott novel introduces the four March sisters as they struggle to live life independently on their own terms. This could be your Best Picture at the Oscars in a couple of months, folks.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements and brief smoking)

Good Newwz

(Zee) Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Diljit Dosanjh, Kiara Advani. Two couples – one a blue-collar husband and wife from Mumbai and a posh wealthy couple from Paripat, are both trying to have a child at the same time and despite their personal antipathy towards each other, find themselves tied together in their quest for a baby.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Cinemark Universal Citywalk, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: PG-13 (for traumatic material including violent images)

Spies in Disguise

(20^th Century Fox) Starring the voices of Will Smith, Tom Holland, Rashida Jones, Ben Mendelsohn. A suave superspy is forced to team up with a nerdy scientist when the spy is transformed into a pigeon. With the fate of the world on the line, the two opposites must learn to work together.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for action, violence and rude humor)

Uncut Gems

(A24) Adam Sandler, Julia Fox, Eric Bogosian, LaKeith Stanfield. A New York City jeweler with a penchant for gambling looks to make that score that gamblers only dream about, but must balance his family, his business and his adversaries who are closing in like sharks from all sides if he is to get the ultimate win.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Lake Square, AMC New Smyrna, Cinemark Orlando, Cinemark Universal Citywalk, Cobb Daytona, Cobb Plaza Cinema, Enzian Theater, Epic Clermont, Epic Mount Dora, Epic West Volusia, Regal Ormond Beach, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pavilion Port Orange, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Waterford Lakes, Satellite Ocean Walk, Studio Movie Grill Sunset Walk
Rating: R (for pervasive strong language, violence, some sexual content and brief drug use)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Driving License
The Mall, The Merrier
Synonyms

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE/KEY WEST:

Ip Man 4: The Finale
The Mall, The Merrier
Midnight Family

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG/SARASOTA:

The Kingmaker
Mathu Vadalara

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

A Christmas Tale

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Little Women
Midnight Family
Spies in Disguise
Synonyms
Uncut Gems

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again

They’re with the band.

(2018) Musical (Universal) Lily James, Amanda Seyfried, Dominic Cooper, Andy Garcia, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgǻrd, Colin Firth, Julie Walters, Christine Baranski, Cher, Alexa Davies, Jessica Keenan Wynn, Meryl Streep, Josh Dylan, Jeremy Irvine, Hugh Skinner, Omid Djalili, Anastasia Hille, Anna Antoniades, Maria Vacratsis, Naoko Mori. Directed by Ol Parker

 

I have to confess that I’ve always had a soft spot for the music of ABBA, the Swedish pop group that lit up the charts in the 70s and 80s. Mamma Mia, the musical that utilized the band’s extensive catalogue of hits to celebrate a young girl’s wedding as she tries to figure out which of three possibilities is her biological father. It was a major hit – in 2008. Ten years almost to the day, the sequel arrives.

In it, Sophie (Seyfried), the bride from the first film, is trying to renovate her mother’s Greek Island hotel. Her mamma Donna (Streep) has passed away and poor Sophie is trying to balance mourning for her mom, getting the hotel ready for opening night and dealing with a rocky relationship (she’s separated from husband Sky (Cooper) although she is pregnant). With nearly everyone from the first film returning, along with Cher as Donna’s estranged mom and Andy Garcia as the hotel’s manager, there is a familiarity about the terrain. There are also flashbacks showing Donna’s shenanigans leading to her coming to the Greek islands and getting involved with three different men. The luminescent Lily James plays the younger Donna and she does a terrific job, but she’s no Meryl Streep and the film feels her absence keenly. Streep does return for the most haunting scene in the film as a benevolent ghost observing her granddaughter’s christening.

The plot is essentially an excuse for the musical numbers which I suppose could be said for some classic musicals as well, but here it seems especially glaring. Part of the reason is that the bulk of ABBA’s better-known hits were used in the first film and much of the soundtrack here is made up of album tracks and B-sides so the movie loses much of the familiarity factor that made the first film charming.

Streep’s scene and Cher’s two musical numbers are both the showstoppers here; most of the other numbers are forgettable and kind of repetitive. Also, the beautiful Greek island location of the first film has been swapped out for Croatia in the second; not quite the same. I just didn’t get the same warm fuzzies I got from the first film, more’s the pity. There’s definitely a market for this and I know my wife and son thoroughly enjoyed this way more than I did; however, I found it to be only minimally entertaining at best.

REASONS TO SEE: Streep and Cher are big highlights
REASONS TO AVOID: The plot is terribly flimsy. Streep’s absence is keenly felt throughout.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some mildly sexually suggestive material.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Streep is distantly related to both Cher (15^th cousin) who plays her mother, and James (9^th cousin) who plays her younger self.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, HBO Go, Movies Anywhere Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/16/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 80% positive reviews: Metacritic: 60/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Jersey Boys
FINAL RATING: 4.5/10
NEXT: Little Monsters

Master Maggie

Let the acting lesson begin.

(2019) Drama/Short (Goodface) Lorraine Bracco, Neil Jain, Brian Dennehy, Kenan Thompson, Chris Henry Coffey. Directed by Matthew Bonifacio

To be a great actor it doesn’t hurt to have a great acting coast and Maggie is one of the best. Thanked by both Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett in their Oscar acceptance speeches, Maggie has a client list that is strictly A-list, including Brian Dennehy and SNL veteran Kenan Thompson.

When a guy (Jain) comes off the street trying to wheedle a lesson out of her – he has a big audition with Law & Order the next day – she refuses at first but he’s persistent and eventually she agrees to give him a crash course. It is a lesson destined to change them both.

Bonifacio is no stranger to Tribeca, having debuted two well-received shorts there. This one has his best-known cast to date. Getting Bracco was a particular coup; she simply knocks it out of the park. Ever since The Sopranos ended, we really haven’t seen much of her onscreen; that’s a damn shame because she is really a wonderful actress. Jain, best-known for his work in the 2014 film The Quitter holds his own.

Bonifacio, drawing on his own experiences as an acting coach, wrote and produced the film with his wife Julianna Gelinas Bonifacio making this a family affair. The short has a sly sense of humor and an interesting twist at the end, although it isn’t super-revelatory.

I don’t generally review shorts but this one caught my attention with a terrific cast (I’m a big fan of both Dennehy and Bracco) and the cojones to tell veteran actor Dennehy that he needs to be more intense. Of course, when Tony Soprano’s shrink tells you that you need more intensity, then you get more intense, that’s the end of it. The short is currently appearing at the Tribeca Film Festival and is likely to play several more. Keep your eye out for it.

REASONS TO SEE: Bracco gives an intense performance, matched nicely by Jain.
REASONS TO AVOID: The twist is on the mild side.
FAMILY VALUES: The subject matter may be a bit more than little ones can handle.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Jain’s character is auditioning for Law & Order; Jain ironically appeared in a role on the Criminal Intent spin-off.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/28/19: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet: Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Tutor
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Long Day’s Journey Into Night

New Releases for the Week of July 20, 2018

MAMMA MIA: HERE WE GO AGAIN

(Universal) Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Lily James, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Dominic Cooper, Christine Baranski, Cher, Julie Walters. Directed by Ol Parker

As darling Sophie has become pregnant, she is naturally curious about her mother’s experiences with pregnancy and motherhood. Given the magic of the Greek islands and the music of ABBA, breaking into song is inevitable, which in Pierce Brosnan’s case may well be a violation of the Geneva Convention.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a video featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, DBOX, Dolby, IMAX, RPX, XD
Genre: Musical
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for some suggestive material)

The Equalizer 2

(Columbia) Denzel Washington, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Pedro Pascal. Robert McCall makes a living driving a cab but it is his passion to help bring justice for those who deserve it but have been denied it. When one of his closest friends is murdered, it might be justice but there will be more than a hint of vengeance involved.

See the trailer and interviews here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, DBOX, Dolby, IMAX, RPX
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for brutal violence throughout, language, and some drug content)

Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms

(Eleven Arts) Starring the voices of Manaka Iwami, Miyu Irino, Yuki Kaji, Hiroaki Hirata. An immortal girl befriends a mortal boy, a forbidden act among those who live forever. She will protect and nurture that friendship through the years and whatever the cost.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Animé
Now Playing: Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Pavilion Port Orange, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: NR

Three Identical Strangers

(Neon) David Kellman, Robert Shafran, Eddy Galland, Ron Guttman. It started out as twins, separated at birth, reuniting. From there the story gets weirder. If you want to read the review, you can always check it out on the link below under Scheduled for Review but trust Cinema365 – the less you know going in, the more you’ll like the movie.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: PG-13 (for some mature thematic material)

Unfriended: Dark Web

(BH Tilt) Rebecca Rittenhouse, Betty Gabriel, Chelsea Alden, Andrew Lees. When a teen comes into the possession of a new laptop, he doesn’t realize that the previous owner has been watching him and will do anything to get the machine back. When the teen discovers some files that indicate that the laptop is connected to the Dark Web, he understands why.

See the trailer, video featurettes and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for some disturbing violence, language and sexual references)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Broken Star
Dhadak
I Love You, Hater

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Custody
Dhadak
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
Eating Animals
Lover
My Story

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Aatagadharaa Siva
Dhadak
My Story
Occupation
Vijetha

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Dhadak
I Love You, Hater
Lover
 

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
Eating Animals
The Equalizer 2
Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again
Three Identical Strangers
Unfriended: Dark Web

FILM FESTIVALS TAKING PLACE IN FLORIDA:

Mindie Film Festival, Miami FL

The Post

“Thanks for the coffee but my Oscar is still shinier than YOUR Oscar!”

(2017) True Life Drama (DreamWorks) Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Michael Stuhlbarg, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemmons, David Cross, Zach Woods, Pat Healey, John Rue, Rick Holmes, Philip Casnoff, Jessie Mueller, Stark Sands, Michael Cyril Creighton, Will Denton, Deidre Lovejoy. Directed by Steven Spielberg

 

In these troubled times, the veracity of the Free Press has been assaulted by the President. If that feels familiar to older readers, it’s because it was tried once before – by Richard Nixon. It is somewhat comforting to know it didn’t end well for him but before the Watergate scandal took him down there was the Pentagon Papers.

The Pentagon Papers were documents leaked to the press by Daniel Ellsberg (Rhys), a security consultant than employed by the RAND Corporation but previously an analyst for the Pentagon. At RAND he worked on the Pentagon papers, documents commissioned by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Greenwood) about the decisions made during the war. After a crisis of conscience caused him to rethink his position as a defense analyst, he chose to surreptitiously remove the thousand pages of documents a little at a time to make copies of them at the ad agency of his then-girlfriend. Eventually he got the papers into the hands of the New York Times.

When the Times published portions of the Papers it was as if a bomb went off in the American consciousness. The Papers clearly showed that the war in Vietnam was not winnable – and moreover that Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson all knew it. The Papers also established that the government had been lying to the American public all that time. Although the Papers all concerned the tenures of those Presidents, the current President of the time, Nixon, was absolutely furious that the documents were leaked and the U.S. Government filed an injunction against the Times to suppress any further publication of the Papers. Nixon and his advisers felt that the Papers would erode American confidence in their own government which of course is what came to pass.

That’s where the Washington Post came in. Incensed at being scooped on the Papers, crusty editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks) orders his team of reporters to see if any copies of the Papers can be found. Despite the court order banning the publication of the Papers, one of the reporters – Ben Bagdikian (Odenkirk) – got in touch with Ellsberg, leading to a quandary for Bradlee and his publisher Katherine Graham (Streep) whether or not to defy the court order or do their duty to the American people.

It was a particularly quandary in that the Post was about to go public; were there to be a government action against the newspaper and the Publisher individually the badly needed infusion of cash could dry up and the Post might actually go under.

Graham was a woman of her era; in her 50s at the time that this took place, her husband had been publisher of the paper (inheriting the title from Graham’s father) she was a woman in a man’s world. When she entered the board room of her own newspaper, she was the lone woman. She was often condescended to and she herself felt more comfortable at social gatherings hanging out with the wives than with the policy makers. She did have a close personal relationship with McNamara which was a further complication.

The Post is a celebration of the free press, make no mistake about it. It also illustrates how important that a free and objective press is to the functioning of our nation. Besides that there is also a push for feminism and how the roles of women have changed as women have become more empowered. Obviously, those issues have become extremely timely in the wake of the current administration’s attacks on the press which is roundly proclaimed “fake news” if it in any way disagrees with the world view of the President, as well as the advent of the Me Too movement.

It doesn’t hurt that the movie has three of the most important names in movies over the last three decades participating. Spielberg is considered by some to be the greatest director in the history of movies and while devotees of Hitchcock, Ford, Capra and Scorsese might give that some healthy debate, none can deny that he is one of the greatest ever. Here, he’s at his very best; not a single scene is wasted and every shot not only advances the story but captures an emotional mood. There are plenty who consider Spielberg “the great manipulator” and there is some truth to that. His longtime collaborator John Williams writes a score that might be proof of that.

Hanks is not usually a name one associates with a Bradlee-like character but he has some personal connection to the former Post editor; the two were neighbors on Long Island and knew each other socially. He captures Bradlee’s accent note-perfectly as well as his dogged determination. This doesn’t compare to Jason Robards’ Oscar-winning performance as the legendary editor in All the President’s Men but it is a terrific performance nonetheless.

Streep, however, is absolutely amazing in the movie. It has garnered her yet another Oscar nomination and while she is in no way guaranteed a win, it wouldn’t be a crime if she did. Graham was a complex person who became something of an unlikely icon for the feminist movement and perhaps reluctantly so. As time went by she would become more self-confidence and assured; the events depicted here helped with that, but she was truly a woman who reinvented herself in middle age at a time when women were largely still shackled to the kitchen.

I will admit that the Linotype machines and printing presses depicted here brought me some nostalgia; as someone who worked at the San Jose Mercury News in the 80s and 90s I was familiar with the machinery and seeing them in action here did give me the warm fuzzies. So too did seeing the press at the height of its power and significance; in the years before being purchased by corporate entities who largely stifled their search for truth in favor of a search for advertising dollars. Newspapers remain relevant today (the Post continues to do excellent reporting on the Russian voting interference scandal as well as other important news stories of our day) but they have changed quite a bit. People tend not to get their news from newspapers so much but from social media sites, a dangerous practice. It is the responsibility of the citizen to be vigilant in order to keep our own government in check. When we remain firmly ensconced in echo chambers that do little more than validate our own point of view, we lose sight of what is actually happening. That’s how democracies fail.

REASONS TO GO: This is the work of one of the best directors ever at the top of his game; there’s not a single wasted scene. Streep delivers an incredible performance. The film manages to tackle both freedom of the press and the inequality of the treatment of women. Despite being set more than 40 years ago, the events are just as timely as ever
REASONS TO STAY: Those who are blind supporters of the President will see this as a slap in the face.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of profanity as well as a scene of war violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Stuhlbarg appears in three of the films nominated for a 2018 Best Picture Oscar (this, Call Me by Your Name and The Shape of Water) but was not nominated for a Best Supporting Actor for any of them.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/20/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews. Metacritic: 83/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: All the President’s Men
FINAL RATING: 10/10
NEXT: Cassidy Red

New Releases for the Week of January 12, 2018

THE POST

(20^th Century Fox) Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Jesse Plemons, Alison Brie.  Directed by Steven Spielberg

After the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, they were in the center of a firestorm of controversy. Not to be outdone, the Washington Post also acquired some of the classified documents that detailed American acts that violated the Constitution as well as the Geneva Convention. With the Nixon Administration threatening to shut down the freedom of the press over the Papers, new Post publisher Katherine Graham – already a rarity in the newspaper business for being a woman as a publisher of a major newspaper – and her crusty editor Ben Bradlee face a decision to do what’s safe for the newspaper or what’s right for the country.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for language and brief war violence)

Agnyaathavaasi

(Haarika and Hassine Creations) Pawan Kalyan, Keerthi Suresh, Anu Emmanuel, Aadhi. An exiled heir to a massive fortune in India returns home in disguise as an ordinary employee of his father’s company in order to discover the identity of his father’s murderer and to make things right with the company, only to become a target himself.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace
Rating: NR  

Call Me By Your Name

(Sony Classics) Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar.  In 1983 the son of an American researcher working in Northern Italy is enjoying a leisurely summer enjoying the cultural delights of the region. However when his father’s research assistant arrives, the teen discovers that his own emerging sexuality may be more difficult to deal with than his academic pursuits.

See the trailer, clips and featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for sexual content, nudity and some language)

The Commuter

(Lionsgate) Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Sam Neill. A businessman is taking the commuter train home from work when he is given an offer he can’t refuse; to find the person on the train who “doesn’t belong there” or else face increasingly dire consequences. However, this businessman has a particular set of skills…

See the trailer and interviews here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for some intense action/violence, and language)

Condorito: The Movie

(Pantelion/Lionsgate) Starring the voices of Omar Chaparro, Jessica Cediel, Cristián de la Fuente, Jey Mammon. A soccer-playing condor (and the star of a Chilean comic strip) must save the world – and especially his family – from evil invading aliens.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website (Spanish)
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: PG (for rude and suggestive humor, and some mild action)

I, Tonya

(Neon) Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Julianne Nicholson. Figure skater Tonya Harding comes from an impoverished background which places her at a competitive disadvantage – the snooty judges of the sport count her background and trailer park look against her. Still, there’s no denying her ability as the first woman to attempt and complete a triple axel. She could be on the way to Olympic gold; but her husband and his best friend take her down the road to scandal and late night talk show jokes instead. Look for the Cinema365 review tomorrow.

See the trailer, interviews and featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Dramedy
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Barnstorm Theater, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Waterford Lakes (expanding next week)
Rating: R (for pervasive language, violence and some sexual content/nudity)

Paddington 2

(Warner Brothers) Michael Gambon (voice), Ben Whishaw (voice), Sally Hawkins, Imelda Staunton (voice). Now comfortably ensconced with the Brown family and a beloved member of the community, Paddington is looking to buy the perfect gift for Aunt Lucy’s 100^th birthday – a pop-up book. He takes on a variety of odd jobs so that he can afford to buy the tome. However when it turns up stolen, Paddington looks to be the prime suspect. The Browns and their friends must find the real thief in order to clear the bear’s name and save Aunt Lucy’s birthday.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Family
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for some action and mild rude humor)

Proud Mary

(Screen Gems) Taraji P. Henson, Neal McDonough, Danny Glover, Xander Berkeley. Mary is a paid assassin for a Boston crime family. In the course of a hit, things go South and she ends up crossing paths with a young boy. That fateful meeting turns her life completely around which is a dangerous thing to have happen when you’re in her line of work.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for violence)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Acts of Violence
Ang Panday
The Ballad of Lefty Brown
Jai Simha

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Acts of Violence
Dim the Fluorescents
Hostiles
Inside
Jai Simha
Sketch
Thaanaa Serndha Koottam

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Gang
Inside
Jai Simha
Rangula Ratnam
Sketch
Thaanaa Serndha Koottam

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Ang Panday

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Call Me By Your Name
The Commuter
Hostiles
I, Tonya
Paddington 2
The Post
Proud Mary

Florence Foster Jenkins

Singing is less a delight and more of an ordeal where Florence Foster Jenkins is concerned.

(2016) Biographical Drama (Paramount) Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg, Rebecca Ferguson, Nina Arianda, Stanley Townsend, Allan Corduner, Christian McKay, David Haig, John Sessions, Brid Brennan, John Kavanagh, Pat Starr, Maggie Steed, Thelma Barlow, Liza Ross, Paola Dionisotti, Rhoda Lewis, Aida Ganfullina. Directed by Stephen Frears

 

We are trained as a society to admire the talented. Those who try and fail fall much further down on our list of those to admire; that’s just the way we’re wired. We worship success; noble failures, not so much.

And then there are the ignoble failures. Florence Foster Jenkins (Streep) is a matron of the arts in the New York City in the 1940s. She loves music with a passion that is unmatched. She even (modestly bows her head) sings a little, for which perhaps those around her should be grateful. Her voice is, shall we say, unmatched as well. It sounds a little bit of a combination of a cat whose tail has been stomped on, and Margaret Dumont with a bad head cold, neither of whom are on key or in tempo.

Mostly however she only inflicts her singing on her friends who are either too polite to point out that she really has a horrible singing voice, or on those who are depending on her largesse so they won’t risk offending her and that’s all right with her husband St. Clair Bayfield (Grant), a failed actor who nonetheless has a very strong love for his wife, despite the fact that they never have sex  due to her contracting syphilis on her wedding night with her first husband, the philandering Dr. Jenkins.

Bayfield satisfies his carnal needs with a mistress (Ferguson) who is beginning to get dissatisfied with the arrangement. In the meantime, Florence has got a yen to perform at Carnegie Hall with her pianist the opportunistic Cosmé McMoon (Helberg) which Bayfield realizes could be an utter catastrophe. He takes great care to exclude legitimate music critics who are suspicious of the whole event. McMoon who at first is exploiting Florence with an eye for a regular salary begins to realize that she is a lonely woman who just wants to make music, even though she is thoroughly incapable of it. And there’s no denying her generosity of spirit as well as of the heart, but despite Bayfield’s efforts the carefully constructed bubble around Florence is certain to burst.

I wasn’t sure about this movie; it got almost no push from Paramount whatsoever despite having heavyweights like Streep in the cast and Frears behind the camera. Somehow, it just simply escaped notice and not because it’s an inferior film either; it’s actually, surprisingly, a terrific movie. Not all of us are blessed with talent in the arts; some of us have talents that have to do with making things, or repairing things, or cooking food, or raising children. Not all of us can be artists, as much as we may yearn to be. Some may remember William Hung from American Idol a few years ago; I’ll bet you’ll look at him a lot differently after seeing this.

Streep does her own singing and Helberg his own piano playing which is amazing in and of itself; both are talented musicians as well as actors. Streep is simply put the most honored and acclaimed actress of her generation, and that didn’t happen accidentally. This is another example of why she is so good at her craft; she captures the essence of the character and makes her relatable even to people who shouldn’t be able to relate to her. So instead of making her a figure of ridicule or pathos, she instead makes Mrs. Jenkins a figure of respect which I never in a million years thought it would be possible to do, but reading contemporary accounts of the would-be diva and her generosity, I believe that is exactly what the real Florence Foster Jenkins was.

Hugh Grant has never been better than he is here. He’s essentially retired from acting after a stellar career, but the stammering romantic lead is pretty much behind him now. He has matured as an actor and as a love interest. It’s certainly a different kind of role for him and he handles it with the kind of aplomb you’d expect from Britain’s handsomest man.

Frears isn’t too slavish about recreating the post-war Manhattan; there’s almost a Gilded Age feel to the piece which is about 50 years too early. Needless, he captures the essence of the story. We have a tendency to be a bit snobbish about music but the truth is that it should be for everybody. I don’t think I’d want to have a record collection full of Florence Foster Jenkins (the truth was that she made only one recording, which was more than enough – you can hear her actual voice during the closing credits) but I don’t think I’d want to laugh at her quite the way I did throughout the movie.

The truly odd thing is that yes, when we hear her sing initially about 30 minutes in, the immediate response is to break into howls of laughter but the more you hear her sing and the more of her story that is revealed, the less the audience laughs at her. Perhaps it’s because that you’ve become used to her tone-deaf phrasing, but I think in part is because you end up respecting her more than you do when you believe she’s a goofy dilettante who can’t sing a lick. Strangely enough, you begin to hear the love shining forth through her terrible technique and perhaps, you understand in that moment that music isn’t about perfect phrasing or even talent, although it is generally more pleasing to hear a musician that is talented than one that is not. What music is about is passion and love and if you have those things, well, you have something.

I won’t get flowery and say that Florence Foster Jenkins is a muse for the mediocre, which one might be tempted to say but she absolutely is not; the titular character is more correctly viewed as a muse for those who have the passion but lack the talent. She tries her best and just because she doesn’t have the tools to work with that a Lily Pons might have doesn’t make her music any less meaningful. It is beautiful in its own way and maybe that’s what we need to understand about people in general and how often does a movie give us insights like that?

REASONS TO GO: Streep is absolutely charming and Grant has never been better. Champions the underdog in an unusual way.
REASONS TO STAY: Unabashedly sentimental.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some brief sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Grant was semi-retired from acting but was convinced to return in front of the cameras for the opportunity to act opposite Streep.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/416: Rotten Tomatoes: 87% positive reviews. Metacritic: 71/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Marguerite
FINAL RATING: 8/10
NEXT: Anthropoid