Belfast – 8.5

/0 Comments/in , /by

A delightful snapshot of a pivotal time for one young boy growing up in Belfast. The well-publicized fact that the boy was based on director Kenneth Branagh eliminated any anxiety that the story would turn out well, which allowed us to sit back and enjoy spending time with this family, played by the estimable Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds and Caitriona Balfe, who grabbed the screen every minute she appeared. If we hadn’t known it to be Branagh’s story I suspect we would have been left hanging at the end, but no matter. The unresolved political conflagration that backgrounded the film was only one of many parallels between Branagh’s Belfast and Cuaron’s similarly engaging Roma.

Lansky – 3

/0 Comments/in /by

Harvey Keitel’s performance as a wizened Meyer Lansky rates an “A”; everything else in this movie gets a “D.” Sam Worthington as an insecure, barely competent writer is a misguided role that is painful to watch, and all the flashback scenes are cartoon cliches. In all, a very pale copy of Scorsese’s The Irishman.

The Electrical World of Louis Wain – 5

/0 Comments/in /by

(TV) Remarkable performances by Benedict Cumberbatch and, more pleasingly, Claire Foy, but one wonders, why make a movie of this? Perhaps if one was British and familiar with the cat illustrations of the title character it would be more interesting to see the dysfunctional family he came from, or marvel at the delusional nature of his mind. Knowing nothing, however, and not particularly interested in cats, I kept wondering, why am I bothering to watch this? An odd film, to say the least.

The Lehman Trilogy

/0 Comments/in /by

(Broadway Theater) This was a masterpiece of stagecraft, with three actors and one revolving set telling the 163-year story of the rise and fall of Lehman Brothers, from immigrant purveyors of fabric in Alabama to a bankrupt New York financial giant. The acting was beyond impeccable: Simon Russell Beale could portray anyone, and did, and he was well matched by Adam Godley. (If American actor Adrian Lester was less sensational, that was probably necessary to counter the flamboyance of the two English stage stars.) The play itself was fascinating as history, although in compressing a century-and-a-half into three hours, you felt there must be a lot of oversimplification. The characters also came off more as cameos than real people. What was missing, for me at least, was any emotional pull. Nor did I get any particular moral from the story. I had no rooting interest and didn’t feel any wiser for having watched the play. This all happened, and this is an amazing way to show it all. But it was a bit like those plays, which I haven’t seen, that present all of Shakespeare in 90 minutes.

I’m Your Man – 8.3

/0 Comments/in /by

What if a robotics company could create a partner designed to satisfy your every need and desire. Would that make you truly happy? Or would you miss the sturm and drung of a “real” relationship? Or would you be frustrated, knowing your partner was only a robot? This is the existential issue posed by the sci-fi romance I’m Your Man and wonderfully acted by Maren Eggert, as a personally unfulfilled but professionally successful academician, and a German-speaking Dan Stevens, as the robot. Despite falling in love, despite her reservations, Alma reports that the experiment is not worth pursuing. But she is not really convinced, nor are we. Unlike most films in this, or most any, genre, the plot holes get filled in, rather than open up, as your thoughts continue after the film ends. And your thoughts do continue.

The Last Duel – 7

/0 Comments/in /by

A 21st-century morality tale set in 14th-century France that would scarcely pass the credibility threshold if it were not, somehow, “based on true events.” The plot is more a short story, elongated over two hours by being told thrice. And being an American movie (very Ridley Scott), there is not much subtlety or nuance. Conversely, the dialogue is easy to understand. Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Ben Affleck play unappealing characters, and supporting roles are even worse, so it’s left to Jodi Comer to carry the viewer’s interest. Viewed with our 21st-century eyes, she does.

A Hero – 8

/0 Comments/in , /by

Very real people–largely played, in fact, by non-professional actors–are faced with a series of moral dilemmas and almost always make the wrong choice. The remarkable Iranian director, Asghar Farhadi, wants his audience to keep asking themselves questions after the film is over, and in this he succeeds. His best move is making the hero, Rahim, an open-hearted soul you have to root for, even as his mistakes mount. I would have liked a more convincing back story, covering Rahim’s path to debtor’s prison, but that’s a minor quibble. In all, this was an expertly made, low-key look into Iranian society and human nature that made us glad, for the first time, to be back at the movies.

Cry Macho – 2

/0 Comments/in /by

Clint Eastwood has forgotten more about acting and directing than I will ever know, and based on this movie he seems to have forgotten most of it. In the twenty minutes or so we watched, every character, scene, plot point and bit of dialogue was more absurd than believable. It was amateur hour with a C cast, including the chicken. The scenery and cinematography was topnotch, but on the TV screen that didn’t amount to much. In the effort for movies to come back, this was a setback.

In the Same Breath – 9

/0 Comments/in /by

I thought I didn’t need, or want, to see anything more about Covid but was totally transfixed by this documentary based on the outbreak as it happened in Wuhan. To have simply obtained the footage of Chinese citizens struggling to obtain medical treatment, of hospitals trying to provide care, and of officials trying to sanitize the news would be enough to make this a remarkable documentary. But director Nanfu Wang goes well beyond this extraordinary reportage by placing peoples’ reactions in the context of the Chinese police state–and then contrasting the results of that suppression with the just-as-bad results in our own land of the free. When I couple Time Magazine’s  recent report on the Chinese Communist Party’s push to create a uniformly Han country, eliminating all ethnic cultures, with this movie’s depiction of mass patriotic rallies, the Chinese threat to civilization as we know it is chilling. Our combined inabilities to deal with a global pandemic may be more immediate but ultimately no less troubling.

White Lotus – 7; Unforgotten – 8

/0 Comments/in /by

We watched both six-parters in tandem as they were released Sunday nights on, respectively, HBO and PBS. As usual, the American series was populated by broad caricatures, while the British presented complex and real people. White Lotus can be forgiven its lack of subtlety, as it aimed for social satire, and a week at the Four Seasons Maui is not the setting you’d choose for reality. In fact, the entitled Shane Patton was such a melodramatic villain one almost hissed in enjoyment each time he appeared. On the flip side, some of the relationship subplots, of which I counted ten, were cringe-worthy, notably those involving Tanya. Pretty much all the relationships taxed the imagination, which meant that the viewing pleasure depended on how much one enjoyed a particular character, or the scenes of Hawaii. For the record, my favorites were the luscious Rachel and Armond, the general manager who seemed to have been trained at Fawlty Towers.
One thing both series shared was expressive faces of people under stress. In Unforgotten, however, they were nuanced characters, most of whom had the normal quotient of good qualities to go along with the dark secret in their pasts. And the ancillary problems they faced in their current lives were recognizable: a parent with dementia, a child-to-be diagnosed with down’s syndrome, a mortgage payment to be met. Nicola Walker’s Cass was a suitably charismatic lead detective, and her team was remarkably devoid of the drama we’d come to know with the crew in Spiral. Unlike the vacationers in Hawaii, I’d be happy to spend more time with this group.
As for the respective plots, both shows opened, per usual, with evidence of a murder, the details of which, when revealed, were rather disappointing. Coincidentally, at the conclusion of both series the lead actor had been killed, in a way that was completely tangential to the main thrust of each story. What we took away from both was our experience with the cast of characters: Mark and Nic, Olivia and Paula, Shane and Rachel; and Liz, Fiona, Ram and Dean, Cass and Sunil.