Reminiscence

 

The exactitude that Lisa Joy commits to the creation of Westworld is largely missing from her first feature film, Reminiscence. Joy's stringy sci-fi rumination on love and lawlessness and memory is set in a time when the oceans have risen, flooding coastal cities, and the heat of the day drives human activity to after sundown. That is a rich concept and the production elements are highly effective but aren't enough to sustain interest in the doings of the humans in this world.

Hugh Jackman plays a former soldier / now memory guide named Nick, who helps people mine better times by connecting them to a device that is not fully explained and immersing them in a tank of water, pulling their remembrances from the recessed soup of their consciousness. Helping him is Thandiwe Newton (one of the stars of Westworld) as an alcoholic fellow vet, Watts, who is actually the most interesting character in Joy's drippy story. Into their bleak world comes the mysterious Mae, an oddly tuneless nightclub chanteuse played by Rebecca Ferguson, whom Nick falls for and when she disappears obsesses over. Little time is devoted to Nick and Mae's romance and even less time to building the underworld that Mae and a gallery of rogues inhabit. Much is left to supposition, which isn't sufficient when trying to sell characters as worthy of empathy or enmity.

Candyman (2021)

 

Writer Nia DaCosta's second full-length feature as director, Candyman (2021), is a grisly hodge-podge of cinematic and cultural references that builds on the original 1992 film's commentary on racial injustice and other evils men do.

DaCosta and film producers / co-writers Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld have enhanced the original picture's mythology but not altogether for the betterment of the storytelling. The picture pulls some interesting threads but it doesn't successfully tie them off, making arduous work parsing the meaningful from the trivial and the gratuitous.

In the film, the hook-handed avenger of Chicago's South Side has been reawakened by the brutalization of black men by the police. Stifled artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II of Watchmen) is introduced to the Candyman story by a gregarious laundry operator (Colman Domingo of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) for reasons that aren't immediately clear. The story of the murderous spirit who is summoned by the recitation of his name before a mirror (yes, a Bloody Mary allusion) inspires some disturbing painting by Anthony, who is living with his curator / girlfriend Brianna (Hopkins, South Carolina's own Teyonah Parris). Brianna is at first intrigued by Anthony's new vision but soon her fascination turns to dread. Her backstory could have been handled more effectively to lend more gravity to her fears.

Anthony's work takes a disfiguring toll on him and leads to the bloody deaths of some fairly unpleasant folks but these two events are not as neatly connected as they could have been. More explication and less bloodletting would have served the film well, and made its important and relevant message more impactful.

The Protégé

 

Veteran action director Martin Campbell works convolution overtime as he puts Maggie Q through her paces as seemingly indestructible top-dollar assassin Anna in The Protégé, which co-stars Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton, as fellow wetworkers, Moody and Rembrandt, respectively.

Anna, as an orphaned Vietnamese child, was saved by Moody, smuggled out of Vietnam and brought up in the ways of the hired gun. When Moody and Anna become targets of a nefarious Mr. Big (David Rintoul), Keaton's Rembrandt and others are brought in to shut down nettlesome inquiries, which leads to a little globetrotting (Bucharest, London) and a showdown during a charity gala back in Vietnam.

Maggie Q.'s Anna is lethal in both form-fitting black leather and Manolo Blahniks, and her banter with Keaton is sharp as her aim. Both Jackson, 73, and Keaton, 70, are especially impressive as seasoned bagmen who can still take a punch and deliver a stinging line with the best of them.

Move Captions

 

I chose the captioned version of “Respect” at the AMC and left with two annoying observations.

In two prominent instances when the N-word was used in the film, the captioner spelled the first one ending with an -a and the second ending with -er. In the first instance, Rev. Franklin was referring to daughter Aretha’s shifty beau, Ted. In the second instance, shifty Ted was challenging a white Alabama studio producer, saying the producer was itching to use the word. This was an interesting example of code switching by the captioner, that is, apparently -a was the form used intra-racially and -er was the interracial form of the epithet, even though both instances were hostile.

The other observation was the mislabeling of Aretha’s considerate second beau Ken Cunningham as Ted White, her malicious first husband. Such a rank amateur mistake, even
though both men sported a short Afro and mustache. They represented two very different periods in Aretha’s life.

Long-in-the-tooth copyeditors shouldn’t watch captioned movies. *Sigh*

The Night House

 

David Bruckner's The Night House is a tour de force for Rebecca Hall, who plays the grieving widow of a man who before the film's action has taken his own life. Hall's Beth wanders through the couple's beautiful lake house trying to piece together possible reasons why her loving husband (Evan Jonigkeit) would shoot himself in the head. She stumbles upon clues between tumblers of whisky, failing to heed warnings from best friend Clair (Sarah Goldberg) and neighbor Mel (Vondie Curtis-Hall) that she should step back from what has become an unhealthy obsession. Night visitations from whispering specters keep Beth, and the audience, on edge as she uncovers one mystery after another about the man she'd loved but, apparently, did not know very well.

Bruckner and writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski have crafted a clever mind-bender that doesn't commit to one genre -- it's part mystery, part thriller, part horror, part psychodrama -- but it's wholly Hall's picture; she owns every frame of it as her character careers from heartbroken to spiteful to delirious and back. And the ending is sure to prompt many exchanges long after the credits have rolled.

Don't Breathe 2

 

Uruguayan writer / director Rodo Sayagues takes the helm in the sequel to 2016's home invasion thriller Don't Breathe. In that picture, a blind former Navy Seal thwarts a trio of adolescent thieves who break into his home to steal the man's insurance settlement for a wrongful death. Stephen Lang played the blind man whose combat training is more than a match for the three, who are not without their own set of skills. It was a pretty good ride.

In Don't Breathe 2, Sayagues amps up the gore considerably and ratchets down the plausibility substantially, as a grungy gang of organ harvesters led by the psychopathic meth dealer Raylan (Brendan Sexton III) go after Lang's daughter Phoenix (played by Madelyn Grace) in an exhaustingly depraved series of attacks where every sharp weighted object will be turned into a weapon.

The picture has little real cinematic value, if you don't count the imaginative ways Sayagues has devised of snuffing out human life when all the bullets have been spent.

Respect

Singer/actress Jennifer Hudson shoulders the weight of audience expectations as Aretha Franklin, the iconic subject of Respect. Hudson (who won an Oscar for Dreamgirls) acquits herself through force of will and vocal performances that are so much better than the film's narrative, which feels like a pastiche of religious and secular tropes.

This feeling is present from the start, in the film's first scene, when 10-year-old Aretha (Skye Dakota Turner) is roused out of her bed by her father, Rev. C. L. Franklin (Forest Whitaker), to sing for the crowd of luminaries assembled downstairs, whom she greets as Aunt and Uncle. She performs a sassy blues for the likes of Dinah, Ella and Duke, and is accompanied on piano by Art Tatum. This fantastic scene capsulizes not only the child Aretha's verve but her father's vise grip on her body and spirit.

The theme of domination and control is carried through the picture, and epitomized later by her abusive husband Ted (a terrifically menacing Marlon Wayans) and alcohol and ultimately became the clarion call for her own liberation. They're infused in the lyrics of her biggest hits.

With Franklin as the subject, music must be a central element of the story. Director Liesl Tommy -- in her first feature -- stages wonderful showcases for Hudson's pipes and fans of Franklin will not be disappointed. And yet tissue connecting these stellar moments often feels incomplete, scattered, wispy. For example, aside from the young Aretha, the half-dozen or so other children in the film are never fully placed within the story world, the ages of principal characters are poorly defined, locations are suggested and not firmly planted, except for Aretha and Ted's trip to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, for an early recording session. That segment of the film has substantially more color and flavor than the rest of the film. So much important stuff seems to be going on beyond the frames, in different spaces. And that's frustrating.

The film weaves together love and sexual frankness, domestic violence and tenderness, vulgarity and Jesus in ways that will likely be familiar to many moviegoers, who will compartmentalize the disparate elements of the picture. They will heed the wisdom of Rev. James L. Cleveland (Titus Burgess) who counsels a dejected Aretha to set aside her demons (they never existed anyway) and just be in church.

That might be the best way to fully enjoy a movie that shines but not nearly as brightly as it could.

Free Guy

 

Ryan Reynolds has real bankability. Not only is he tall, square-jawed and handsome, he chooses roles that call for full-bodied expressiveness. In that way, he's like a latter-day Buster Keaton, whose commitment to physical comedy during the Silent Era is legendary.

Reynolds' most celebrated role is as Deadpool, a costumed crime fighter who put both the "smart" and "ass" in the Marvel Universe as a horribly scarred but seemingly indestructible bad boy / good guy. To my mind, Reynolds IS Deadpool; both seem to be indifferent to others' expectations, plowing ahead, cracking heads and cracking wise.

In Shawn Levy's Free Guy, Reynolds is a non-player character named Guy in a popular video game, Free City, who, following an encounter with a winsome avatar Molotov Girl (Killing Eve's Jodie Comer), discovers he has a mind of his own and does not have to settle for being highly dispensable fodder for virtual gunplay.

Guy's journey to individuation tracks along with the "real world" story of Millie (the player behind Molotov) and her game-writing partner Keys (Joe Keery), who are trying to wrest their original game design from the clutches of a greedy corporate clown played by the always reliable Taika Waititi.

The game-world machinations involve eye-popping visual effects and some pretty heavy social commentary -- mainly personal liberty and freedom of choice. A cameo by another fully committed actor -- Channing Tatum -- is a high-point of the film's second reel, when Reynolds' Guy and his best friend Buddy (Lil Rel Howery), meet an adoring avatar (Tatum) who is taken with Guy's liberation crusade.

It's two enjoyable hours of smirks, slapstick and satire.

Nine Days

 

In his first feature film, Nine Days, writer/director Edson Oda reframes ancient questions about life and conscience into an original meditation. Set in a lonesome house in the middle of what appears to be desert salt flats, the story (an extended allegory) depicts the work of a solemn, humorless man named Will (Black Panther and Us's Winston Duke in an award-caliber performance) who must choose which of five unborn souls (played by Zazie Beetz, Tony Hale, Bill Skarsgård, David Rysdahl, Arianna Ortiz) will get a chance at life.

In retro form befitting his character's personality and previous existence, Will has his subjects watch television screens that are windows into the worlds of previously selected souls. The unborn must take notes on what they see. Will reviews the notes, looking for evidence not that the unborn souls are spiritually worthy, as one might expect, but that they will survive the harshness of human existence, which Will himself was unable to do.

Will's companion in the selection is Kyo (Benedict Wong of Doctor Strange), who is sunny counterpoint to his friend's darkness. Kyo is also concerned about Will's peculiar obsession with one long-ago selected soul who seemed to have everything but committed suicide. This seems to be making Will even more tentative and guarded in his selection process.

Yes, much of the film is brooding but there are also moments of joyfulness, channeled mainly through Zazie Beetz's (Atlanta) wonderful character Emma. The final three minutes of the film -- an extended monologue by Will -- is the most remarkable exhibition of pure acting craftsmanship I've seen so far this year. The script is a melding of Whitman and Shakespeare; and Duke is exuberant and thrilling.

Highly recommended.

The Green Knight

 

Writer / director David Lowery's The Green Knight is a beautiful puzzle, whose visual elements might over-power the 700-year-old legend's core allegory of triumph over baser concerns. The term "trippy" has been aptly attached to the film.

Dev Patel, who never fails to engage, stars as Sir Gawain, a member of the household of King Arthur (Sean Harris) who is elevated to a seat at the Round Table one Christmas. Emboldened by this demonstration of the king's favor, Gawain accepts a blow-for-blow challenge from the mysterious Green Knight (Ralph Ineson), beheads him, and promises the revivified corpse that he will submit to the same blow the following year.

Most the film is about the journey to the knight's Green Chapel, and Gawain's encounters with the mystical and the mundane. Some sequences are opaque, quite disorienting, and will likely leave audiences scratching their chins to parse the meaning. Gawain's visit with the spirit Winifred (Erin Kellyman) and a generous Lord and Lady (Joel Edgerton and Alicia Vikander) are important, dreamy encounters whose meanings may become more apparent as time passes.

The film is stunning and frustrating, taking viewers on a quite a trek but we're not sure where we are once we've arrived.

Old

 

M. Night Shyamalan may not always hit it out of the park but he always swings for the fences. The auteur of twisty thrillers evokes eye-rolls from many serious movie goers, but I'm usually entertained by the audacity of his ideas -- when they work and when they don't.

"Old" doesn't work completely -- the dialogue is stilted and implausibility (something Shyamalan is rarely burdened by) rules the day -- but it's not as bungled as other pictures in Shyamalan's oeuvre. Maybe having source material kept the movie from going off the rails.

In the film, a group of resort vacationers are taken to a secluded beach to spend the day. Soon, the youngsters in the group begin to show signs of aging, the oldsters start dying, minds get muddy, wrinkles settle into brows, and hearing and vision begin to fade. And there's no way to leave.

Shyamalan is a stagey creeper who knows how to balance nuance and grotesquerie, so his films are not full-blown horror blood-fests but they have enough gruesome spiciness to jolt callous viewers and enough out-of-frame suggestiveness to unnerve the rest.

"Old" cast is led by Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps as a feuding couple and parents to two children. It is through this quartet that much of the movie is told and through whom the big reveal is delivered.

Stillwater

 

In Tom McCarthy's Stillwater, a bulky Matt Damon plays Bill Baker, an Oklahoma roughneck on a mission to free his daughter, Allison (a fine Abigail Breslin) from a prison in Marseille. While studying at university, Allison was found guilty of killing her Arab girlfriend. During one of their visits, Allison asks her father to pass along a tip to her lawyer that might clear her of the murder. The information is not persuasive to the lawyer but leads Bill to enlist the help of his neighbor, Virginie (Camille Cottin) in finding the real killer.

Damon's Bill is a dutiful but dour mass of regret, as he lumbers through the winding streets of Marseille, hoping to prove his daughter's innocence and earn her respect, which he lost during his years as a drunken ne-er-do-well. Damon's performance, and he appears in nearly every scene of this beautifully shot film, feels measured and meticulous, and lends gravitas even to some of the narrative elements that don't quite square. Damon's scenes with Breslin are especially compelling.

Despite its length (2:20), Stillwater is does not drag; the narrative, while ostensibly a murder mystery, is mostly an insightful exploration of the foreign in the age of raging nationalism.