A spectacular Rose Byrne falls deeper and deeper down a rabbit hole of personal calamity until there’s no way out and director Mary Bronstein turns the ending over to deus ex machina so we won’t go home totally depressed. As an intensely focused one-person drama, although Conan O’Brien and ASAP Rocky are good in supporting roles, this is a worthy companion film to Blue Moon.
A smart and entertaining romp with something fun every two minutes, smartly employing a cast of 80. Writer-director Noah Baumbach is a star. George Clooney is the meta lead, playing a handsome movie star (Jay Kelly even sounds like George Clooney), which meant I always saw him as George Clooney, acting, which made me less concerned by his personal troubles. (Interestingly, the clips of his Jay Kelly movies made him appear to be a terrible actor, emphasizing his role as “movie star,” not a person.) Adam Sandler was another figure recognizable only to Hollywood. Billy Crudup, by contrast, grabbed me as a person, not an actor. Key plot points fell apart upon examination, but I loved the ride.
Two hours of Jessie Buckley is a treat–what an actress!–but the movie is a bit of an unmodulated slog, careening from dramatic incident to dramatic incident. None of it would matter, of course, if it wasn’t William Shakespeare we were watching (and if you hadn’t read the book you might not realize who “Will” is until 90 minutes in). The point of it all shows up in the final ten minutes, at which time the film dispenses with its realism for a bit of “manipulation” (to quote director Chloe Zhao) that feels overdue and welcome.
I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t feel sorry for Bruce, which seemed to be the point of this film. Six years after appearing on the cover of Time and Newsweek, after three Top-5 albums, including the anthemic Born to Run and record-setting concert tours, we’re supposed to think of him as a struggling loner, getting little or no respect from his record label, finding a girlfriend on the sidewalk after a gig, walking the streets like you or me, living by himself in a small house in the country. Maybe this was true–the movie is based on a book and met with the Boss’s approval–but when the truth is stranger than fiction it’s hard to accept. Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong are exceptional, the other three leads excellent, and everyone else not so much; it’s the story that is wanting. I mean, we all knew he was going to get Nebraska released just as he wanted, and it wasn’t that great an album anyway.
PS: After seeing director Scott Cooper’s interview I am sorry I wasn’t more sympathetic to Bruce’s apparently very real depression. Still, I don’t think it worked as a movie.
Kelly Reichardt’s latest addition to the slow cinema genre starts off well in a small Massachusetts city, circa 1970, with the totally pleasant Josh O’Connor’s museum heist, but then he and the film have nowhere to go and Reichardt goes there.
Aided by a comb-over, Ethan Hawke transforms to a lost-soul, lost-cause Lorenz Hart lounging in Sardi’s bar on the night that Oklahoma! opens (without him). Bobby Cannavale, Patrick Kennedy, Margaret Qualley and the uniquitous Andrew Scott are excellent foils for essentially a monologue by Hawke/Hart that never goes away. At first it is a bit annoying; eventually you are in awe of director Richard Linklater’s audacity and accomplishment.
A propulsive story of domestic revolution that is eerily prescient in Trump’s America. Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti (as the young Willa) are beyond superb and the action scenes and cast of thousands are directed seamlessly. The hole in the middle, though, is Leonardo DiCaprio, never my favorite actor. We don’t care for his goofball character and ultimately wonder why all the fuss is being made over him. The plot, with its strong echoes of realism, goes off the rails near the end, but by that time we have enjoyed quite a ride.
Let’s Love Three hilarious playlets by Ethan Coen (of the Coen brothers) that are so wonderfully raunchy the evening would more appropriately have been called “Let’s Have Sex.” Aubrey Plaza is merely the best of a fine crew of actors, while a delicious off-Broadway troubadour serenades between sets. The humor comes from each character’s own hangups, and everyone gets a happy ending. Or at least sex.
This Much I Know Brilliantly conceived, staged, directed and acted, the story was an intellectual challenge that I failed. Framed by a psychology lecture on how the mind works (thinks? decides?), three distinct stories were interweaved by three actors playing multiple parts, even shifting mid-sentence. The result was a puzzle I kept waiting to piece together, at the expense of emotional connection.
Are the Bennet Girls OK? A peppery adaptation of the most-loved novel in the English language, with period costumes, contemporary mannerisms and a cast of eight women to one man. The very woke casting gave the show a somewhat amateurish feel, but it didn’t detract from everyone’s fun.
Tartuffe Another informal production, this one inside an UES townhouse, could be called Moliere on Ham and Cheese. The style was slapstick, the rhyming dialogue hard to hear, the plot a relic. The absence of the star, Andre De Shields as Tartuffe, only added to the silliness.
Little Bear Ridge Road Laurie Metcalf’s brilliant portrayal of a crotchety Idaho spinster unfortunately ran up against co-star Micah Stock’s aggressively unpleasant gay crybaby nephew. James’s love for Stock’s Ethan defied credulity, as did the ambiguous story ending. Still, there was Laurie Metcalf.
Honey Trap A well constructed, strongly acted look at the Troubles, Belfast-version, through the lens of a “peace-keeping” British soldier, played by the excellent Michael Hayden. The small stage of the Irish Rep intensely showcased the world we know from Say Nothing and Belfast.
Punch Just because something happened in real life doesn’t mean it will be credible as drama, and Jacob’s arc from dyslexic, autistic hooligan to compassionate A-student via 15 months in jail wasn’t sold by Will Harrison’s overly emoting acting. As with This Much I Know, the fluid staging and multiple-role acting stood out, with, e.g., Lucy Taylor going from social worker to Mom onstage by pulling her hair back and altering her mien.
Crooked Cross A historic artefact, a play written in 1934 England about Nazi Germany, is given a semi-professional production (emphasis on “semi”) by the Mint Theater with actors just out of acting schools who seem to perform (emote?) for themselves rather than their colleagues on stage.
Liberation Seven women with distinct personalities and voices grapple with women’s lib and other life issues in Ohio in the ’70s. I had some trouble following (accepting?) the dramatic setup, and the second act suffered from slow moments, but I can’t think of another play where I so looked forward to what each character had to say.
Ragtime Not my thing and I left at intermission. A very retardataire musical, with forgettable songs and predictable plot. The characters were rich on the page but paper cliches on the stage. And the Vivian Beaumont Theater is very uncomfortable.
I don’t ascribe numerical ratings to these plays as I do to movies, but I can still rate my level of enjoyment (not the quality of the play or the production): 1. Let’s Love; 2 Liberation; 3 Honey Trap; 4. Punch; 5. Little Bear Ridge Road; 6. The Bennet Girls; 7. Ragtime; 8. This Much I Know; 9. Crooked Cross; 10. Tartuffe; with a pretty big gap between 5 and 6.
Like looking at a favorite old scrapbook. No problems were introduced without quickly apparent solutions that enabled one and all to live happily ever after (at least until further collapse of the British Empire).
A clunky movie. Denzel Washington was neither believable nor interesting as a record company executive (think Berry Gordy), and we had to watch him the entire movie. A rare misfire by Spike Lee, based on a Kurosawa film that wasn’t that great to begin with.
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