Spencer – 3

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Billed a “fable,” this is more a ghost story, about a haunted Lady Di. I lost emotional attachment early on, when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to understand Kristen Stewart’s breathy, stage-whispered dialogue and that the portrait being painted of a hallucinating, bulimic princess hounded by a monolithic, unfeeling royal family was so extreme as to be uninteresting. The triumphant, if equally unrealistic ending notwithstanding, I was bothered that director Pablo Larrain had capitalized on someone else’s celebrity to sell his movie then proceeded to trash her. Even the score by Jonny Greenwood, who did the wonderful Power of the Dog soundtrack, was insistently unpleasant. The redoubtable Timothy Spall and Sally Hawkins, in subsidiary roles, were the only bright spots, although Stewart looked lovely as usual.

West Side Story – 7.3

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My Fair Lady has the best songs, but West Side Story has the best score of any Broadway musical, and it was a treat to hear it (conducted by Gustavo Dudamel) on a big screen in a big theater (with only two other people). The story of Romeo (Tony) and Juliet (Maria) has stood the test of time and doesn’t need or deserve my quibbles. That leaves open the question of this particular production by Steven Spielberg with these actors. These were my reservations: Ansel Elgort was unconvincing and uninteresting as Tony: a pretty boy without the fire to lead the Jets, serve a year in Attica or kill someone. His extra height was supposed to make him stand apart, I guess, but it added to the perception that he belonged in another movie. The dancing was another problem: a few of the set pieces were cute, but others largely distracted: we waited for them to end so the story could continue. And, as with In the Heights, there were too many. Maria was lovely and had the only voice you wanted to hear, but the secondary characters were nondescript. Officer Krupke, normally a buffoonish relief, was a nonentity, as portrayed by the normally reliable Brian d’Arcy James. Spielberg presumably felt a need to be faithful to the original production–hence all the dancing–but I wish he had tackled the story afresh, building around the music. As it was, I felt this movie would have made a great stage play.

Drive My Car – 8.5

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The three hours address, in turn, three separate relationships: Kafuku and his wife; Kafuku and Takatsuki, the reckless young actor; Kafuku and his 23-year-old driver. None is resolved. Hidetoshi Nishijima  as Kafuku experiences one intense emotion after another with hardly a tremor’s difference in his expression. A Buddhist upbringing, perhaps? In any case, his face fills the screen and is always welcome – compare him to Benedict Cumberbatch in Power of the Dog, a similarly powerful and thought-provoking film. Both left me with questions: what did this mean? did this make sense? what didn’t I understand? The character of the driver was, to me, unique in film: a leading lady without good looks who had to be drawn into the story yet ended up as the last word. The pacing reminded me of Noh theater and the framing of Kurosawa. Although I’ve seen Uncle Vanya twice in the last four years I can’t say I mined the depths of those connections. The secondary characters, especially the Korean dramaturge and his wife, were wonderful.

King Richard – 6.5

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This is all about Will Smith, which is good and bad: his performance is incredible, but there’s a lot of it and it doesn’t change. Except for his wife (Aunjanue Ellis), who has one searing scene, the other characters are caricatures. Ever see five young sisters all playing happily together all the time? And the white men are exaggerated presences, sort of like American characters on Downton Abbey. The fact that we already know the story of Venus and Serena Williams is also two-pronged: their role in tennis history gives the plot an automatic heft it would otherwise lack, but it eliminates any possible suspense and drama. As a self-styled tennis expert, I was impressed with the actors’ ground strokes, although having Venus rush the net to put away so many points seemed a cinematic liberty. And the scene with McEnroe and Sampras was a groaner, topped only by the gratuitous cameo of Bud Collins.

C’mon C’mon – 4

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Maybe if you don’t find 9-year-old Jesse a spoiled brat; or Uncle Johnny’s “job” interviewing children rather silly; or the scene changes from Detroit to Los Angeles to New York to New Orleans rather pointless; or the history of brother-sister conflict between Johnny and Viv less than interesting, then maybe you will be charmed by Mike Mills’s latest personal history. Otherwise, like me, you may find it slow, repetitive and weightless.  Or it could be I was just horrified by the thought of having to take care of someone else’s child for two weeks all by myself.

The Power of the Dog: P.S.

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Given Jane Campion’s track record as a director and the movie’s source in a novel, I have to assume that every twist in the relatively slow-paced drama had a purpose, but the film left me scratching my head with the following questions:

What turned Phil from the meanest, nastiest character in recent film into a sensitive mentor to Peter overnight? Was he grooming him for sexual favors? Did he simply relate as a fellow gay male (but if so, why the change when it happened)? Was he trying to destroy Rose (and by extension his brother’s marriage) by tearing Peter away?

What was the significance of the rope that Phil was making for Peter? Did it have anything to do with Peter’s father having hanged himself? And how do you know, anyway, when a rope is “finished”?

What was the significance of Rose’s first husband having committed suicide? There are a lot of other ways a frontier woman could become a widow.

Could Phil and George really be brothers? One was brilliant, the other was dumb; one was skinny, the other fat, etc., etc. Why did Campion cast two such dissimilar actors in these roles?

Was “the Old Gent” a plausible father to these two men? He said nothing, had no discernible personality and seemed a cipher. Where did the strong personality (Phil) and business success (George) come from?

What to make of “Bronco Henry,” the long-dead cowboy who made an appearance in the script every 15 minutes? Were those references there to keep homoeroticism hanging in the air, much like the skinny-dipping and topless cowhands?

What was Benedict Cumberbatch saying? I couldn’t understand half his lines, muttered under his breath, and was less than convinced by his American accent. (I hate it when a director can’t make the dialogue intelligible and I find myself straining, or even rewinding, to hear something.)

How did Phil get so good at the banjo? That didn’t mesh with the personality we saw at the outset. Of course, neither did the classics degree from Yale.

Why was Phil so upset that Rose gave away the hides (and how did he instantly know)? Why did he like to burn them? Was there some symbolism in the gloves that the Indians made from them?

Why was Phil so opposed to George’s marriage? Although they shared a bed when traveling, it wasn’t like they got along, understood each other or had anything in common – except Bronco Henry, and as it turned out they didn’t really share that either.

We saw Peter surgically slit the dead steer, but how did he collect and preserve anthrax spores, and did he have a plan to use them or was it just chance that Phil needed more leather strips to “complete” the rope and Peter had some in a bucket? As perfect crimes go, this one seemed well beyond plotting.

Peter’s voice-over before the action begins “explains” the plot, but are we to believe that all his interactions with Phil are designed to “save” his mother? It sure didn’t look that way, which is why the film’s ending has such punch. Or is this unearned bookending by the director?

Campion’s forte, I believe, is psychological intensity, borne out here by all the sustained close-ups on Cumberbatch’s face. Understanding him is the key to so much of the film’s action. But, as alluded to, I couldn’t make sense of his psychology or any of his relationships. To take one more example: for the film’s first half, I thought we were heading toward a showdown, or even sexual encounter, between Phil and Rose (see, e.g., Stanley Kowalski and Banche DuBois). But poof! that disappeared, and we went off in another direction. And Phil no longer seemed to care.

Maybe answers to all these questions are out there. Or maybe it’s just more important that the movie made me ask them.

The Power of the Dog – 8

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A haunting film, with Kodi Smit-McPhee as the spectral Peter, Benedict Cumberbatch as the half-crazy Phil and Kirsten Dunst as the drunken and lost Rose. Jesse Plemons plays Phil’s appropriately bovine brother George, wandering aimlessly outside the action. The superb cinematography, featuring beautifully empty New Zealand landscapes, made me wish, as with Nomadland last year, that I was in a theater, where Jonny Greenwood’s score would undoubtedly have been enhanced, as well. The plot pulled you along, wondering where it was going; and although I quickly figured out the ending, it left me with many questions, which I will ponder in a separate post.

Tick, Tick…Boom! – 7

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Good music and a clever production – at one point a musical within a musical within a musical – marred mainly by an annoyingly frenetic Andrew Garfield in the lead. For the first half hour I feared I was back In the Heights, but the movie slowly grew on me and charmed me by the end, with its echoes of Rent to come adding welcome gravitas. Bradley Whitford’s portrayal of Stephen Sondheim, who died the day before I saw it, added some more.

Passing – 5

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A strange black-and-white, in every sense, picture of the 1930s, with a lack of subtlety and artistry mimicking films in the ’30s – was that intentional? Tessa Thompson’s character was nervous every minute – and she was in every minute – striking a Hitchcockian note that eclipsed whatever social point may have been intended.

The French Dispatch – 4

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After a clever opening sending up French culture and The New Yorker, the movie devolved into four unrelated vignettes that seemed an homage to that magazine’s pieces in the ’70s that went on and on, lacking drama or point. I realize Wes Anderson is a cult taste, but I don’t see how he continues to finance such follies (see, e.g., Isle of Dogs), or how he gets top actors to play for him. In this case, that included such stalwarts as Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Benecio del Toro, Timothee Chalamet, Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, Elizabeth Moss, Matthieu Amalric, Owen Wilson and a voice-over from Wallace Shawn.