Rebel Ridge

 

Jeremy Saulnier's Rebel Ridge (Netflix) is not as coiled and precise as the film's star, British actor Aaron Pierre, but it's still an entertaining diversion and welcome introduction to Pierre's measured intensity.

The picture is set in a present-day Louisiana town that is scamming motorists and falsely detaining minor offenders to put money in the town's coffers. Pierre's ex-Marine Terry Richmond is on the way to deliver bail for his cousin when he runs afoul of the police, who seize the bail money as asset forfeiture and warn Richmond to move on or else.

Of course, he doesn't, and thus begins a pretty convoluted scheme to avenge himself, his railroaded cousin and deliver some payback to the police. He receives some help from a court staffer (AnnaSophia Robb) who has her own worries with law enforcement.

Rebel Ridge reminded me a bit of the Black avenger flicks of the '70s -- Fred Williamson, Jim Kelly, Jim Brown -- sans the blatant racism and more politics. Saulnier isn't peddling easy tropes but does leave some narrative gaps, especially in the Third Act showdown.

Still well worth a watch for Pierre's performance and the primer on how to stay alive when stopped by police.

Smile 2

 

I didn't hate Parker Finn's opening salvo for the Smile horror / gore franchise back in '22 and thought it had some solid jolts and a freakish gimmick (the facial expression of the title) to set it apart from the plethora (to actually mean "excessive amount" rather than just "a lot") of other cinema blood fests that seem to appeal to millennials and their juniors.

In this serving, Finn delivers the story of a musical superstar Skye Riley (a commendable singing / screaming Naomi Scott) who is returning to the concert stage a year after being seriously injured in a car wreck that killed her boyfriend (Ray Nicholson, son of Jack), whom we meet in harrowing flashbacks and spectral visitations.

Because she's still recovering from painful injuries, Skye, who was already a coke fiend, has a wee-bit of a drug problem, a stage-mother-from hell (Rosemarie Dewitt) and recurring hallucinations {?) about eerily grinning people offing themselves in front of her. It's a lot for a young woman to handle -- even one who lives in a Chrysler building apartment and has an eager assistant (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) to indulge her spoiled ass.

In the first Smile, Finn's protagonist was a therapist who discovered this suicidal phenomenon first in her weirdly smiling patients and later among strangers. In #2, Finn merges the worlds of emotional trauma, mental deterioration and the supernatural to bend the audience's perceptions (one might say twist them into pretzels) about what we're seeing as Skye makes her descent into hell.

As is true for the rest of this money-making genre, much of this filmmaker's budget has been spent on raspberry jam, fake entrails and gross prosthetics. Depending on one's expectations about gore, Smile 2 will deliver bucketsful.

That's not to see there aren't other interesting things going for it. In fact, I thought the film's cold opening was especially keen; kudos to cinematographer Charlie Sarroff for setting the bar high for the rest of the picture, which often meets but does not exceed those first minutes.

We Live in Time

 

Irish director John Crowley has fashioned Nick Payne's unconventionally structured tale of love and loss, We Live in Time, into a warm film of tender moments between Almut, an ambitious chef (Florence Pugh), and Tobias, a recently divorced, unassuming information technologist for a cereal company (Andrew Garfield).

She's a decidedly alpha restaurateur; he's a retiring beta who is smitten with her dynamism. They have wonderfully civilized conversations and galvanic sex; they court and soon have merged their lives. All of this is shown in jumbled pieces, which seems to be a narrative choice by more and more arthouse moviemakers.

In time, Almut develops uterine cancer and chooses rather than have a complete hysterectomy to undergo a partial in hopes of possibly having a child with Tobias, a prospect she rejected out-of-hand earlier in their relationship.

They have a daughter, Ella (Grace Delaney), and when Ella is three or four, Almut's cancer returns.

Almut proposes to Tobias, in one of the picture's beautifully crafted exchanges, that they consider not undergoing six or eight months of chemo and surgery and the wretchedness that comes with the treatment. Instead, might they spend whatever time she has left living life with abandon.

The story progresses through the period after the couple's decision, their conflicts and clashes, personal revelations and disappointments. Nearly every moment feels real, every misstep authentic, and the final scenes both heartbreaking and, surprisingly, life affirming.

Jules

 

Marc Turtletaub's short and sweet film Jules is the story of Martin, Sandy and Joyce (Ben Kingsley, Harriet Sansom Harris and Jane Curtin, respectively), septuagenarians in rural Pennsylvania whom we first meet as they make individual remarks at the weekly town meetings, sharing their rather mundane concerns with the council until something extraordinary happens to them.

When a UFO crashes into Martin's azaleas and a little blue being (Jade Quon in a non-speaking role) emerges, injured, Martin, who is showing early signs of dementia, is frightened but fascinated. He reports the event at the next council meeting but is dismissed as an aging coot. His daughter, Denise (Zoe Winters) is concerned about Martin distancing himself from others and unexplainable behavior, like reports he's buying dozens of apples for an alien living in his home. Martin successfully hides the alien's presence from his daughter and most others in town.

When Sandy unexpectedly discovers the alien sitting in Martin's living room eating apple slices, she becomes Martin's cohort in keeping the creature, whom she names "Jules," safe from those who would eventually show up to take him away and do God-knows-what to him. A snooping Joyce eventually finds out about Martin and Sandy's pact and wants to be part of the action.

The lovely and often hilarious script by Gavin Steckler is concerned less with the alien visitors vs. government agents story (ala ET: The Extraterrestrial) and more with the spiritual and emotional holes in people that Jules' presence seems to fill (ala Close Encounters ....).

Kingsley, Harris and Curtin are wonderful in this unconventional story about the trials and triumphs (and temptations) that go along with getting old.

Curtin, a marvelous performer who had fallen off my radar some years ago, has a terrific moment mid-way through as Joyce, a big-city transplant to the boonies, puts her own captivating stamp on Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird. It's a funny and amazingly touching moment, perfectly pitched to match the character and Curtin's inimitable style. Brava!

Joker: Folie à Deux

 

I waited quite a while to screen Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie à Deux because I suspected from the trailers and early critical buzz that it was not a must-see for the reasons most people consider any film to be such, i.e., brilliant execution or daring, artistic vision or Marvel's latest excesses.

Phillips' stylistic mash-up of psychological drama and musical homage is indeed the misfire many people say it is, but it is also enormously entertaining.

It is NOT a work for DC Universe fangirls and boys and will likely disappoint Lady Gaga's legions of admirers (she sings but doesn't belt). But those of us who will go to the ends of the earth to see Joaquin Phoenix do his thing, will relish the work of the master of outré characterizations as he takes us down dark passages as the murderous freak Arthur Fleck a/k/a Joker.

In Folie à Deux, which is introduced by a toe-tapping cartoon reprising the events of 2019's Joker, Phoenix's Fleck is in a desolate prison / psychiatric hospital waiting to be tried for five murders, including one committed on a national talk show. While being escorted to a meeting with his lawyer (Catherine Keener), Fleck meets a young woman named Lee (Lady Gaga), who tells him she was committed after setting fire to her family home.

This moment is not quite "meet cute," but it is nearly staged as such. In fact, Arthur and Lee duet on a dozen or so pop standards and Broadway and motion picture musical numbers, some minimally staged, others more burlesque. I pictured lots of eye-rolling during these scenes, but I thought they were refreshing. (I also thought ABC's experimental police musical Cop Rock from 1990 was pretty bold television.)

Setting aside the movie's musical aspects, one might still find much to appreciate in Folie à Deux's statements about criminality and identity, how society creates demons and what we do with our fixation on fame. It's pretty heady stuff.

As I told the theater manager after today's screening, I could imagine this picture finding life among those who fancy films that are by turns chilling and inspiring, visceral and cerebral, and, well, tuneful, too.

That's Entertainment!