At the Cinema - November 2020

 The Queen’s Gambit – 10

Take me away.  Take me to a different world.  Take me to a time and place that I only vaguely remember.  Make it alternately as tedious and as electric as real life.  Show me a passion. 

There are so many cool things about this mini-series.  1) It’s 7 episodes.  Who does 7 episodes?  Well it took 7 to tell this story, so that’s what they did.  2)  It’s slow paced at times.  So is life.  In telling this story, the lulls are important too.  3)  The chess scenes are shot as action scenes in a sport.  There is as much intensity and excitement, build-up and let down, as sports provide.  It’s brilliantly handled and chess experts have bent over backwards to praise its authenticity. 

Anya Taylor-Joy plays Beth Harmon, chess prodigy.  Life is a roller coaster for Beth.  Orphaned at a young age, she spends years in an orphanage, where she is routinely given tranquilizers, which start her down a dependency trail.  The janitor in the basement that teaches her a lot about chess and a little about life, realizes she has a brilliance in her chess moves and helps launch her into something that will not only add meaning to her life, but give her a sense of direction.  Sometimes, that’s all you need.  Taylor-Joy is simply magnificent in this “star is born” role of a lifetime.  Although she’s been acting for awhile, this time out she’ll need to clear some shelf space for the awards that should pile up.  As a fan of great acting, there is a singular thrill watching someone in the role they were born to play.  Sometimes, life is just a cabaret that way.

 

Classic Movie Watch

To Be Or Not To Be -10

Finally, a classic that stands the test of time.  A brilliant script carries us to Poland as the Nazis are invading and a resistance is forming.  Jack Benny and Carole Lombard are terrific as the husband and wife who are the stars of a theater troupe that finds themselves in the middle of plots, subplots, and counter-plots in the underground.  How the entire troupe uses its Shakespearian skills to have influence is a wonderful story.  Directed by Ernst Lubistch and currently available on HBO Max and TCM this is a short screwball comedy that should probably be ranked higher than #149 on Sight And Sound’s poll. 

 

I Am Woman – 8

It probably wasn’t cool for a guy to like Helen Reddy as much as I did.  This biopic doesn’t touch on things I know as a fan, like the great songs like “LA Breakdown” on her first album, or her earlier, quicker and shorter version of a song she wrote, “I am Woman.”  She refined that song into an anthem, and that is terribly misrepresented in the movie, but that’s ok.  Helen Reddy had several hits during her hot streak.  It’s always interesting to wonder why a certain artist became a star, and others, equally talented, never catch that big break. 

Tilda Cobham-Hervey is excellent as Helen.  She’s no Rami Malek, but in many ways Helen Reddy was as drab as Freddie Mercury was colorful.  So, don’t watch unless you were a Helen Reddy fan, and would like to fill in some gaps that you may not know.

 

Fargo – 6

The 4^th season of Fargo went about the way most 4^th seasons go.  Out of gas, but still gaseous.  Just a different gas.  I hung with this longer than I should have, because viewing time has to be budgeted.  I stayed because I’m a huge Chris Rock fan and I wanted to see how he’d do as an actor.  Only fair, as it turns out.  I stayed longer because of Jesse Buckley, the wonderful actress who puts the “Fargo” into this Kansas City based story.  She’s a serial killer with the requisite Minnesota accent in this season.  I loved Jessie in “Wild Rose” and she could become a big star.  I say could, because you never really know, but she plays the most convincing character, the poisoner who is more threatening than the mobsters battling for the control of the city.  That’s a feat in itself, but still not enough to watch.  If you have some curiosity about Fargo, head back to that first Billy Bob Thornton-driven season.  It still holds up.  I made it to the last episode, and while it had its moments, it was a disjointed mess without a character to care about.  Four strikes and you’re out.

 

Utopia – 5

This is a controversial series about a pandemic virus.  It’s all tied to a comic book that I guess predicted the virus, and it’s silly and implausible and a struggle to watch, not to mention too close, too soon. 

 

Belushi – 9

I took the bait and signed up for the 3 month free trial of Showtime in order to watch what I have missed of Homeland, Billions, and Shameless, but the first thing I watched was this documentary on John Belushi.  I was a dedicated viewer of the early Saturday Night Live and I’m wondering how many “Not Ready For Prime Time Players” there have been by now.  Many stars have been produced by SNL, but few as interesting as John Belushi.  Was his brilliance dampened or brightened by his drug use?  You’ll get to decide.  This doc marches you from his childhood, through his stardom, to his early death.  There’s a lot to learn, and a lot to cover here, and the filmmakers do it justice.  As interesting and entertaining as Belushi was.

 

Perfect in ’76 – 8

If you are a sports fan you know that the last undefeated college basketball team was Indiana in 1976.  The legend of Coach Bobby Knight is very much tied to this team.  What you will learn from this Showtime Documentary is that Knight meant that to be the case.  He challenged this team from the beginning to go unbeaten and he pushed and prodded them all year to that end.  Let’s face it, most great coaches have an arrogance about them.  It’s on full display here.  The question is, how much of a necessity is it?  Again, you get to decide.  This brought back a lot of memories, because I have to admit the individual players had faded from my memory

David Byrne’s American Utopia – 10

It’s hard to appreciate a song you’re hearing for the first time, but if you are a lover of music you’ll still generally know when it’s good.  Such is the case with This HBO special which is a Spike Lee directed production of David Byrne’s Broadway play based on Byrne’s album of the same name.  Lee overlays some graphics late in the show, but for the most part just lets the music do the talking, and since Byrne’s fame came from the rock group The Talking Heads, that’s appropriate.  He is aided by an international ensemble of 11 singing, dancing musicians who swerve and weave around Byrne on a barren stage during the catchy songs.    It’s a show of diversification and appreciation, and Byrne narrates briefly during the journey.  There are some messages here, and I’d be lying if I said I caught them all.  Nor would I call myself a fan of Byrne, only because I can’t follow everyone.  That’s not the case with the wildly enthusiastic audience in this small theater where it was filmed.

The music and performances are unique and as the show rolls along it just gets better and better until the last third, which is stunning.  I have to be honest and say that I don’t know many people who will watch this, because it’s not for everybody, but those that do will be rewarded.  This, is art.

At the Cinema - June 2017

Wonder Woman – 8

So close.  Gal Gadot blazes her way through the long-awaited Wonder Woman, and it’s like seeing Sean Connery for the first time as James Bond.  You just know she’s going to be doing this for a long time, and we should be happy.  She’s got that elusive on-screen charisma that is talked so much about, but rarely seen.  The problem is that there are a bunch of producers in the way.  

Wonder Woman is two thirds of a great movie.  It starts with the Wonder Girl backstory of how she was raised on an Amazon island, and that’s the kind of beginning I usually can’t stand – but here it’s enthralling.  Then comes her World War II adventures beside her side kick Steve Trevor, played to the hilt by Chris Pine, including an Ursula Andress type chemistry with the star.  It all progresses nicely until the usual Hollywood overblown special effects conclusion, this time a battle of the Gods that is totally ridiculous and unnecessary.  Too bad, so close to a classic.

Baby Driver – 8

Be careful.  When you come out of this movie your foot may be a little heavy.  Like most car chase movies, this one causes that little adrenaline spike, at least in the males, that says, “yeah, I could do that.”

Baby is a getaway driver and he does it all to music!  He pops in his earplugs and the music blares while he spins and shifts his car.  It’s almost a musical.  There’s a touch of realism in the action, even though most of it is ridiculous, that keeps you on the edge of your bucket seat.  Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm are effective evildoers, while Kevin Spacey is just hammy, in support of Baby (Ansel Elgort) and his true love-to-be Deborah (the effervescent Lily Harris).  The movie races in cars, but drops to first gear of clichés when Baby is not behind the wheel, although another star is born in the beautiful Eiza Gonzales who plays Hamm’s partner in crime and life.  There’s a lot of fun here, and I suspect it will be a movie to be watched many times.

The Mummy – 4

On the other hand, The Mummy is a movie best forgotten, and very quickly.  There’s never been a movie that better exemplifies what is wrong with the movies of today.  Box office spectaculars with overblown and meaningless special effects that will play only briefly to the American Audience, then hope to make that ridiculous budget back overseas.  It may be a good business model, but it’s a horrible artistic one.

There are a few good scenes, and Tom Cruise is his usual “running” self, but how Cruise ever agreed to this script is beyond me.  The only other Cruise constant in a movie is he brings along an unknown female of his choosing to showcase, and here it’s Annabella Wallis who emerges as a star of the future.  Meanwhile Russel Crowe, who looks like he has been inflated, plays a Jekyll/Hyde Doctor because I guess this is supposed to be the beginning of a series of monster pictures, to which I’ll simply sum up with “I’ll pass.”

Scanning the Satellite (and the home theater)

A Dog’s Life (2016) – 8

This is as obvious a movie as there can be.  The idea presented in the movie is that dogs come back, their souls reincarnated over and over until they’re back with their original owner.  Well, as a friend of mine often says, “who don’t know that?”  My dog Bella gave me this blu-ray as a Father’s Day gift as if to tell me she’ll be back again. 
As for the execution of the movie, it’s predictable and fine, heartwarming and heartbreaking.  If you like dogs, you’ll probably like this movie.  It will just reaffirm what you already know.  They come back.

Birth of a Nation (2016)–  8

There were big expectations for this movie, but it underperformed when the lurid past of director Nate Parker was revealed.  There are two words for this movie.  Graphic and brutal. This is the story of the slavery rebellion led by Nat Turner, a literate preacher and slave.  Parker plays Turner, and there is not a single punch pulled in the movie.  I often had to turn away from the screen.  I guess everyone should see this movie – it’s certainly well done - but don’t expect to enjoy it.

Fargo –  10

My favorite of the last 3 years has been this FX series.  The latest season was complex and unpredictable.  I think there’s been slight slippage from season to season but it’s still terrific story-telling.  What has made this series so good is that the terrific portrayals of both the good guys and the bad guys each year are brilliant.