The Aeronauts

Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon…

(2019) Adventure (Amazon) Felicity Jones, Eddie Redmayne, Tom Courtenay, Himesh Patel, Phoebe Fox, Lewin Lloyd, Vincent Perez, Tim McInnerny, Rebecca Front, Anne Reid, Robert Glenister, Julian Ferro, Gian Kalch, Mia Hemmerling, Kamil Lemieszewski, Thomas Arnold, Steve Saunders, John Taylor, James Daniel Wilson, Guy Samuels, Fran Targ, Zander James, Elsa Alili. Directed by Tom Harper

 

We sometimes envy the birds, soaring free above the bounds of the ground, winging their way on the currents of the atmosphere, seeing our planet from a perspective we could never really understand. We have sought to control the air, learning to fly with balloons before eventually creating the airplane and consequently shrinking our planet.

In 1862 that was far away. While balloonists regularly performed exhibitions, aeronauts (as they were referred to as back then) were not taken too seriously as much more than performers. James Glaisher (Redmayne), who believed that studying the upper atmosphere would allow us to better understand weather patterns and eventually allow us to predict the weather, wants to go up higher than any other balloonist ever has. The Royal Science Academy basically thinks he’s cracked but he does find a taker in Amy Wren (Jones).

Wren is about as unconventional as a woman could get in the Victorian era. She makes grand entrances riding on the top of carriages, stuns her onlookers by throwing her beloved Jack Russell terrier out of the balloon (don’t worry folks – the pup has a parachute) and is apt to do cartwheels on the stage. Glaisher finds all of this distasteful and distracting from the scientific endeavor he is undertaking, but he needs a pilot and Wren is, like it or not, his bird.

Once they get airborne, they realize that their task is going to be much more difficult than they first thought, particularly since they manage to soar right into a thunderstorm. They have already overcome much adversity to begin with – Amy dealing with the awful death of her husband, Glaisher with the deteriorating mental state of his father and the ridicule of his peers. If they can learn to rely on each other they might just figure out that they have the skills to survive.

This is (very) loosely based on real events – not a single ascent, but rather several ascents. However, a great deal of liberty has been taken with history, although that’s nothing new for the movies. While I love Felicity Jones as an actress, her character is extremely improbable for the times she lives in. On the way to the record-breaking ascent, she orders the carriage to stop and gets out, plopping her butt down on the curb with ankles and calves on full display – and nobody pays attention. In 1862, the sight of a woman’s calf would have been scandalous. Felicity accentuates the girl’s spunk, but she certainly doesn’t seem a product of her times which I suppose fits right in with modern narratives.

Redmayne, who the last time he was paired with Jones won an Oscar, is curiously restrained here. I realize he’s supposed to be a stuffy scientist but he’s almost inert. Given his usual on-screen charm, it’s almost shocking how leaden his performance is here. This is not the Eddie Redmayne that we usually get to see. I suppose everyone is entitled to an off-film.

The action sequences are for the most part well-staged and Jones holds her own as an action hero, just as she did in Rogue One. This is the kind of adventure movie that went out of vogue with the advent of the anti-hero 70s, and has never really come back. However, before you classic movie fans begin to celebrate, this isn’t nearly as good as some of the films you remember. However, this is a solid piece of entertainment that while it doesn’t hold a candle to such films as The African Queen, for example, it nonetheless should hold even a casual movie fan’s interest.

REASONS TO SEE: Some of the sequences are marvelously staged.
REASONS TO AVOID: Nonsensical and anachronistic.
FAMILY VALUES: There are some sequences of extreme peril as well as some disturbing images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Although James Glaisher was a real person who was a pioneer in meteorology, Amelia Wren is a fictional character albeit one based on actual women. Glaisher did indeed set a record for highest ascent in a balloon in 1862 but his partner, Henry Coxwell, was decidedly male.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/24/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 72% positive reviews: Metacritic: 60/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Around the World in 80 Days
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: 22-July

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Blue Iguana

The gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

(2018) Heist Comedy (Screen Media) Sam Rockwell, Phoebe Fox, Ben Schwartz, Peter Ferdinando, Simon Callow, Amanda Donohoe, Frances Barber, Al Weaver, Peter Polycarpou, Anton Saunders, Jenny Bede, Andre Flynn, Vic Waghorn, Glenn Wrage, Peter Singh, Pedro Lloyd Gardiner, Paul Chan, Danny Granger, Martin Muncaster, Jack Silver, Pamela Cook. Directed by Hadi Hajaig

 

Stephen Soderbergh is famous for depicting teams of con artists and thieves who are cool, competent and clever. Most times, criminals are anything but those three things. Generally, people go into crime because they don’t have the skills to make a living honestly nor any inclination to obtain any. They want to do things the easy way, not knowing that if you want to get away with a crime it takes some planning, foresight and knowledge.

Eddie (Rockwell) and his buddy Paul (Schwartz) are both ex-cons working in a New York diner while out on parole and trying to keep their noses clean. Into the diner walks a pushy English rose named Katherine Rookwood (Fox) who is the lawyer for an Eastern European businessman named Arkady (Polycarpou). She needs to use the two schlubs for a job in London which would be a clear parole violation but she’s got that all covered.

What she needs is for them to steal a gym bag at one of the museums. If she retrieves the bag, it will erase a crushing debt she’s been trying to work off to the businessman. However, things don’t go entirely to plan; it turns out that the two Americans are way over their heads. Arkady has in his employ a mullet-wearing thug named Deacon Bradshaw (Ferdinando) who has serious mommy issues particularly since his mom (Donohoe) is oversexed and abusive. There are also much bigger fish to fry, particularly after Eddie and Paul – and Katherine as well – are double-crossed by Deacon and his violent thugs.

They work out a plan to take back what they lost and maybe get a little bit more – ok a lot more – than they would have gotten out of the deal; that is if they can keep their butts out of the crossfire. Not necessarily an impossible task since nobody in either gang can shoot worth a damn.

The first thing that came to mind as I watched this was that it’s Soderbergh on a budget. It crosses British gangster films with American heist movies which is a natural mix but one that really hasn’t been tried often until now (other than by Danny Boyle to my knowledge). In addition, it has the always watchable Sam Rockwell leading the cast.

He’s watchable enough here but he’s not nearly as manic as he normally is. The movie could have used a little more energy from Rockwell surprising to say and at the end of the day it is Fox who commands most of the kudos for her performance here. Her character does a lot of eating and if anyone can look endearing with a blog of ketchup on her chin, it’s Fox.

There is a lot of quirky charm in the movie; I liked Ferdinando as the volatile thug Deacon. He goes on profanity-laced rants when his underlings mess up which is just about all the time. Few can curse as well as a Cockney and Ferdinando makes a running gag out of it; in fact, Rockwell makes a point of trying to learn how to do the Cockney accent although to judge how effective he is you’d have to ask a true Cockney. My guess is “not well.”

Towards the end things start getting increasingly violent and that’s where the movie shines. There are several demises that are extremely bloody (particularly the very last one) and Hajaig handles them with a deft comedic flair. There were some moments that left me chuckling (although none that left me doubled over with laughter) and a few moments where I thought they missed the mark, particularly early on. One of my favorite running jokes is that nobody in the film can shoot worth a damn; I’m talking couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a basketball from five feet away type of shooting.

I like these sorts of movie and while the reviews thus far have been pretty poor, I actually thought this was a solidly entertaining and often fun piece of work. Yeah, there are a lot of clichés – you know that Eddie and Katherine are going to get romantic and they do – but for the most part, the fast pace and the humor keep you from wanting to check your cell phone too much. You may think that’s faint praise but in 2018 that’s actually an accomplishment.

REASONS TO GO: Quirky but entertaining. There are some truly inventive moments.
REASONS TO STAY: Rockwell’s performance is oddly subdued.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a good amount of profanity, violence and a smattering of gore.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The blue iguana is an actual breed of iguana that is indigenous to the Cayman Islands.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/25/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 27% positive reviews. Metacritic: 30/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Logan Lucky
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: An L.A. Minute

Eye in the Sky

The final onscreen performance of Alan Rickman is a good one.

(2016) Thriller (Bleecker Street) Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Aaron Paul, Phoebe Fox, Bakhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam, Iain Glen, Richard McCabe, Monica Dolan, Kim Engelbrecht, Ebby Weyime, Babou Ceesay, Faisa Hassan, Aisha Takow, Armaan Haggio, Carl Beukes, Bob Chappell, Daniel Fox, Jessica Jones, Michael O’Keefe, Laila Robins, Lex King. Directed by Gavin Hood

Warfare is full of shades of grey. The morality of killing other people for political or economic purposes is shaky to begin with but in modern war, killing can be done with the touch of a button and with a change from armies facing each other in remote places into terrorists in urban places, war can come to the population. Of course, in the 20^th century that had already taken place but now there is no place a military strike can’t take place, or at least very few places with the advent of drones.

A multi-national task force is tracking an English radicalized terrorist (King) with ties to Al Habaab in Kenya. In an operations center in Britain, Colonel Katherine Powell (Mirren) is coordinating with her superior, Lt. General Frank Benson (Rickman) as they observe her activities in a house in a terrorist-run part of the city. They have eyes on through the use of drones, piloted by American airman Steve Watts (Paul). On the ground in Kenya they have Jama Farah (Abdi) who is observing the house directly.

At first they think they hit paydirt when their target meets with some high-level terrorist officers, but their satisfaction turns to concern when they discover that a suicide bombing is being planned for and executed out of the house. That changes the color of the mission and frantic calls start going up the chain of command asking for and receiving an authorization to use a Hellfire missile to take out the terrorists. But things get further complicated when a little girl sets up a bread stand outside the terrorist house; the drone controller begins to have doubts and the calls up the ladder take a more urgent tone. Suddenly those who were eager to authorize the mission earlier are passing the buck, while time ticks away. Is the life of a single girl worth the dozens of lives that might be taken if the suicide bombers carry out their mission?

I don’t know that the movie really intends to answer that question; in fact, it can’t really be answered. From a strictly numbers viewpoint the answer is no – the people who might be killed by the suicide bomber are no less innocent and no less important than the life of a little girl. The question really is does knowingly ordering an airstrike that will be likely the death of a little girl more monstrous than allowing a bombing to take place when it could have been prevented. And that’s where the waters become a little bit murkier because we get into political territory then.

But that’s as may be. As a movie, Eye in the Sky does a credible job of keeping the tension high, although there are times when I thought they were being overly redundant in explaining that when you bring politicians into a military matter, things tend to get worse rather than better for while a soldier is more interested in accomplishing their particular mission, a politician is more concerned about covering their own derrieres.

And in conveying that message, Hood inserted some prestigious performers in key roles. Mirren is as gifted an actress as there is in the business, and her hawkish, shrill colonel is as stiff as a ramrod, as pitiless as a predator and as patient as a boiling teakettle. Colonel Powell is in many ways the epitome of a military mind, very centered and focused on completing the task at hand. Powell in and of herself is basically not very likable, but Mirren makes her human, a deceptively difficult job.

The late Alan Rickman, who passed away this past January and who will be much missed by this critic, never disappointed during his career and went out on a high note. In all honesty his General Benson is the epitome of a liaison, trying to balance the needs of the soldier with the needs of the politicians and having to stand on one leg while holding an umbrella over his back with a teacup balanced on the tip of his nose. Rickman gives the part some humanity as the one character who truly sees both sides of the argument.

Paul, who won three Emmys for Breaking Bad hasn’t really had a role in the movies that has utilized him as well as this one did. He is an airman with a conscience, one who doesn’t blindly follow orders but questions them when the orders appear to be morally ambiguous. In many ways, he had the most complicated role of the three main leads, but he shows that his award-winning performances were no fluke.

Is this manipulative? You bet it is. There is nothing more innocent than a little girl who is trying to help her family by selling the bread her mama baked to her neighbors going to market. That makes the moral issue a bit more focused, but it is a bit lazy – I don’t doubt that those in command of executing drone strikes find any civilian casualties wrenching, whether the victims are cute little girls or old alcoholic men. Taking the life of a non-combatant is not an easy thing for the military, as Rickman so eloquently expresses near the end of the film: “Don’t dare to presume that a military man doesn’t understand the cost of war.”

This is a movie that, if you’ll forgive an unintended pun, flew under the radar. However it is a crackerjack of a movie that should be sought out on VOD or in the near future, on home video. The performances here are scintillating and the questions raised timely and difficult. In many ways this is not only a thinking person’s war film, but a suspense film of the highest order.

Hood is not really trying to send a political message, or at least I don’t think he is. He is simply presenting the world as it is; that when killing comes down to the touch of a button, the morality of it becomes far murkier. And that’s a very powerful subject matter indeed.

REASONS TO GO: Edge of the seat suspense. Tremendous performances by most of the leads. Grapples with the morality of modern warfare.
REASONS TO STAY: Is guilty of being manipulative. Drags in places.
FAMILY VALUES: Violent images, adult themes and rough language, as well as children in peril.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Rickman’s final on-screen appearance; he also lends his voice to Alice through the Looking Glass.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/28/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 95% positive reviews. Metacritic: 73/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Good Kill
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Embers

New Releases for the Week of April 1, 2016

MEET THE BLACKS

(Freestyle Releasing) Mike Epps, Bresha Webb, George Lopez, Mike Tyson, Zulay Henao, Lavell Crawford, Perez Hilton, DeRay Davis. Directed by Deon Taylor

The Black family has moved into Beverly Hills. Considering that the Black family is actually a black family, that doesn’t go over well with the locals. And when the Purge comes (yes, this is a spoof of the Purge), you know who everyone in the neighborhood is gunning for.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror Spoof
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for pervasive language, some sexual material, violence and drug use)

Embrace of the Serpent

(Oscilloscope Laboratories) Nilbio Torres, Jan Bijvoet, Antonio Bolivar, Brionne Davis. A shaman, the last of his tribe in the Amazonian rain forest, forges a relationship with two scientists who are trying to find a plant said to have miraculous healing powers in the jungle. Filmed in black and white, this stark and moving film was the Brazilian entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the most recent Oscars, making the final five.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: NR

Eye in the Sky

(Bleecker Street) Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Phoebe Fox. It started out as a surveillance mission, locating and observing members of a terrorist cell in Kenya. However, it is discovered that a massive suicide bombing is about to take place and the mission turns from an observation mission to a kill mission. Then even that is complicated by the appearance of a 9-year-old girl playing in the yard. The moral implications become a metaphor for the nature of war in our time.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Most larger multiplexes throughout Central Florida
Rating: R (for violent images and language)

God is Dead 2

(Pure Flix) Melissa Joan Hart, Jesse Metcalfe, Ernie Hudson, Ray Wise. When a Christian teacher honestly answers a question about Jesus in the classroom, it causes a storm of controversy that threatens her job and may forever banish Christianity from public classrooms…oh, who am I kidding? This drivel is for viewers of Fox News only.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Christian Paranoid Fantasy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for some thematic elements)

I Saw the Light

(Sony Classics)  Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen, Cherry Jones, Bradley Whitford. This is the story of Hank Williams, one of the greatest and most influential figures in the history of country and western music. His meteoric rise to fame was only matched by the catastrophic effects of that fame on his health and personal life.

See the trailer, clips and premiere footage here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for some language and brief sexuality/nudity)

Marguerite

(Cohen Media Group) Catherine Frot, André Marcon, Michel Fau, Christa Théret. Loosely based on the life of American Florence Foster Jenkins, this is the story of Marguerite Dumont, a wealthy matron living in the Paris of the 1920s. Fancying herself a singer, she is blissfully ignorant that she can’t sing a note. Nonetheless determined to put on a charity recital, she enlists the help of a reluctant maestro to train her for the event, not realizing that none of her friends and family have the heart to tell her the truth.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for brief graphic nudity and sexual content, and a scene of drug use)

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death

Phoebe Fox out for a brisk walk in the woods.

(2014) Supernatural Horror (Relativity) Phoebe Fox, Helen McCrory, Oaklee Pendergast, Jeremy Irvine, Pip Pierce, Jude Wright, Amelia Crouch, Adrian Rawlins, Amelia Pidgeon, Casper Allpress, Ned Dennehy, Mary Roscoe, Merryn Pearse, Leanne Best, Eve Pearce, David Norfolk, Chris Cowlin, Julie Vollono, Hayley Joanne Bacon. Directed by Tom Harper

There’s kind of an unwritten law that sequels to horror movies tend to be less scary and of a lower quality than the originals. Hammer Films, the classic British horror factory however has been the exception to that rule for the most part, churning out Dracula and Frankenstein sequels that are just as good if not better than the originals. Would that record hold in the latest incarnation of the studio?

Taking place 40 years after the original Woman in Black with the Second World War in full bloom with the London Blitz in particular at its height. With the constant nightly bombing, the decision was made to evacuate as many children as possible out to the country and a group of school children with their principal  Jean Hogg (McCrory) herding them much like a shepherdess if given an unruly mob of sheep and one of her teachers, Eve Parkins (Fox) to assist.

There is another Nazi raid the night before they are to leave and a direct hit to a nearby house leaves young Edward (Pendergast) an orphan. Rendered mute by the experience, he resorts to making sinister drawings which in turn draw out the cruelty of some children, the sympathy of others with the impatient and imperious Jean leaning towards the suck-it-up school of grief counseling. She is married to a Brigadier General, after all.

Of course with shortages in places  in safe places to stay, this particular group is sent to Eel Marsh House, home of the Woman in Black (Best) who still rages and haunts there after her son was taken away from her forcibly and later drowned. Now, she seems to be enraged at the children in the charge of Ms. Hogg and Ms. Parkins, although Edward seems to be a favored target and Eve’s own maternal instincts are flaring up like the hair on a dog’s back. However, Eve has secrets that have drawn the Woman in Black to her.

I have to say that the first film had much more atmosphere and better scares than this one, which has some good ones but not nearly as many. Whereas the first film was generally dark and gloomy, this one is brighter although just as fog-shrouded with the occasional rainstorm. Odie Henderson of RogerEbert.com suggested that the film would have been better off had it been filmed in black and white and I can’t say I disagree with him. In fact, it would have been a capital idea.

Whereas the first film had Daniel Radcliffe turning in a solid performance, the cast of lesser known Brits (at least in this country) do workman like jobs, although McCrory some might remember from the Harry Potter series (like Radcliffe) has some moments and Jeremy Irvine, who plays a dashing English pilot with secrets of his own, has others. Another thing missing from the first is the village of the suspicious people which has been changed to one single demented resident (Dennehy). Doesn’t quite feel the same.

Maternal guilt is a big theme here, particularly Eve’s and it is an interesting twist of normal horror conventions that the children are a means to an end – that end being punishing Eve. However, rather than further exploring that theme, the filmmakers are content to replay the same flashback over and over again, trying to be cryptic I suppose but only a dimwit would fail to realize that the dreams are about a traumatic experience in Eve’s life and why the Woman in Black is drawn to it. Perhaps showing how the event effected Eve’s life and brought her to her teaching position may have been a better use of the filmmaker’s efforts rather than replaying the same scene over and over again. That’s just lazy filmmaking.

This isn’t a bad film at all, although true horror fans might find it a bit lean on scares and atmosphere. However, the film is reasonably well-made and has enough going for it that I can give it a mild recommendation which for films released this time of the year is like gold.

REASONS TO GO: Some great views of misty marshes. Explores maternal guilt. Some effective scares.
REASONS TO STAY: Not enough of those effective scares. Lacks a truly creepy or scary mood. Performances are merely adequate.
FAMILY VALUES: There are definitely some frightening images, as well as kids in peril. Not a lot of gore or foul language, some of the thematic elements are on the adult side.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first sequel to be produced by Hammer Studios since 1974, although none of the events of the first film is referred to in this one, nor do any cast members return.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/17/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 22% positive reviews. Metacritic: 42/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Legend of Hell House
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Unbroken