Mission: Impossible ~ Dead Reckoning Part 1

 

The thing to know before seeing the latest Tom Cruise / Christopher McQuarrie collaboration -- Mission: Impossible ~ Dead Reckoning Part One -- is it will be very much like their previous outings -- the other M:I films and Jack Reacher. That is to say, it will be a tremendous crowd-pleaser with off-the-chart stunts and chases, numerous cliffhangers and ample wit.

McQuarrie is an Oscar-winning screenwriter (The Usual Suspects) who knows good film stories are not made "good" by the crashes and body count but by the connective tissue that holds set pieces together in a sensible narrative. When a story is set in the world of spies and deception, it might be foolish to accept anything on "face value," especially in the case of Mission: Impossible, which has used masking, fakery and sleight-of-hand since its beginnings on '60s television.

In this episode, Cruise's Ethan Hunt and his crew of off-the-grid agents (Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson) are trying to find the missing half to a key that would unlock a mystery involving artificial intelligence and existential threats to world governments' security and commerce. The key is so critical to maintaining the balance of power that many nations have dispatched parties (Esai Morales, Vanessa Kirby) to locate the key and answer the riddle of its purpose.

Typical of this series -- and most every other top-dollar actioner I can think of -- exotic locales factor into the story, if for no purpose other than to provide streets (or canals, in the case of Venice) through which Hunt and company (in this case, a highly skilled pickpocket named Grace played by Hayley Atwell) might race on foot or in vehicles.

Some of these pieces are more than a few beats too long -- the chase through Rome has some comedic moments but wears out its welcome after 10 minutes. I thought this was curious considering how sensitive McQuarrie seemed in the past to pacing and flow.

Still, Part One ends with a jaw-dropping train-crash escape that raises the bar on Cruise's famous stunting and audience demands for Part Two, to be released next year.

Joy Ride

 

The writer of 2018's Crazy Rich Asians, Adele Lim's, directorial debut, Joy Ride, is an outrageously bawdy road trip movie about four Asian-American female friends who travel to mainland China to close a business deal for one member of their party, but, as one might expect, the journey turns into much more than that. A lot of it having to do with sex.

The four young women at the heart of this buddy comedy --produced by the irrepressible Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (This is the End, Neighbors, The Interview, etc.) -- are Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Sabrina Wu and Stephanie Hsu.

Park's Audrey and Cola's Lolo have been friends since childhood; Wu's Dead Eye and Hsu's Kat are later but ardent additions. They have been invited along for the ride to help Park's accomplished but culturally clueless Audrey, who was adopted by a white American couple as a baby, with language translation.

Lolo, without her friend's permission, has located Audrey's birth mother in a town not far from Beijing by train and encouraged her friend to add a detour to the agenda. This turns into a near-fatal miscalculation that, in typical Rogen and Goldberg style, involves copious amounts of drugs.

The film has a writerly, high-speed, wise-cracking sensibility, which the four leads pull off effortlessly. They have amazing chemistry (no pun intended). Though for all intents and purposes this is Audrey's story, each of the equally winning principals gets an extended moment to shine -- and do they!

But beyond all of the ribaldry, the picture smartly and sensitively explores questions about racial identity, cultural authenticity and family. The picture is not just hilarious, it's also thoughtful.

I have every expectation that, as the ending suggests, we will see more of these delightfully refreshing women in future escapades (pun intended for those who have seen Joy Ride).

Sound of Freedom

 

Alejandro Monteverde's Sound of Freedom is a tightly wound independently produced thriller with an urgent message about child sex trafficking told through a Christian lens.

Jim Caviezel plays real-life Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard, who when we meet him is successfully tracking down and arresting pedophiles engaged in the sell of children for sex.

His latest arrest leads him to the rescue of a Honduran 8-year-old, who asks Ballard to find and rescue his older sister who was kidnapped from their town at the same time. With the help of a freelance rescuer named Vampiro (Bill Camp), Ballard follows leads into Colombia where he stages a major sting that results in the rescue of more than 50 enslaved children and into the jungle where he finds the girl and successfully rescues her from a rebel leader.

Though based on an actual case, journalists have questioned the accuracy of the events presented on-screen and even Ballard's own version of the role he played rescuing scores of children enslaved by sex traffickers in Latin America. Concerns about connections with Q-Anon conspiracy theories may have contributed to the decision to shelve the film until Angel Studios purchased distribution rights and raised enough funds to get the picture into theaters.

Questions about the accuracy of the film notwithstanding, Monteverde has made a passionate, difficult, troubling movie that expresses to powerful affect its central mantra -- God's children are not for sale.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

 

I was entertained by James Mangold's assured direction of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which felt a tad more like "fan service" than credible conclusion to a truly venerable franchise.

And, as much as I was enchanted by Phoebe Waller-Bridge's roguish Helena and Mads Mikkelsen's sneering Nazi, I was underwhelmed and occasionally wearied by the film's title character (played, of course, by Harrison Ford), who, despite a pretty energetic, age-altered opening sequence set at the end of World War II lent the movie a forlorn creakiness that was, well, sad.

In this send off, the archaeologist / adventurer (Ford) joins forces, reluctantly, with his god-daughter (Waller-Bridge), whom he has not seen since the death of her father and Jones' close university associate, Basil Shaw, played by Toby Jones. Shaw was driven nearly mad by his obsession with a mystical timepiece created by Archimedes in the 3rd century BCE, which he believed if it were whole would have time-traveling properties.

Equipped with Shaw's notes and a lead, Jones and Helena set off to find the dial's missing piece, and as is usual for this series, the quest takes them and Helena's youthful partner-in-crime Teddy (Ethann Isidore) across the globe, recruiting the help of some of Indy's old friends, as the trio stays two steps ahead of nefarious interested parties led by Mikkelsen's Dr. Voller.

The Indiana Jones's franchise, which has belonged to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas since 1981, has been a predictable and bankable commodity that has turned the chase -- foot, vehicular, ocean vessel, aircraft -- into high art unburdened by plausibility or narrative coherence -- all for the sake of "gee-whiz."

Dial of Destiny pulls out all the stops in this regard but so much so that the set pieces felt bloated and tedious, to me -- porterhouse when sirloin would have been fine.

Still, fans will likely devour every ounce of it.

No Hard Feelings

 

IIn Director Gene Stupnitsky's No Hard Feelings, Jennifer Lawrence plays Maddie, a 30-something bartender / Uber driver in Montauk, New York, who has gotten behind in paying her property taxes and stands to lose the only home she's ever known.

After her car is impounded, Maddie discovers a Craigslist ad placed by a couple (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benenti) who are offering an automobile as payment to a twenty-something woman who devirginizes their anxious 19-year-old son (Andrew Barth Feldman), who is heading for Princeton in the fall.

Despite not meeting the age-requirement, Maddie applies and is hired. What proceeds is an uneven -- but frequently quite funny -- tale of two broken people who come to better understand themselves by facing the scariest thing they know -- human connections.

The premise is ridiculously sticky but both Lawrence, who is one of the film's producers, and Feldman are so invested in capturing both the outrageousness of the story's action and the warmth that lies at its heart that despite narrative holes and continuity gaffes it delivers an affirming glow after the credits roll.

Lawrence gives an assured A-lister performance and young Mr. Feldman (a former member of the High School Musical series) has a nice moment at the piano as he serenades Maddie in a restaurant, turning Hall and Oates' Maneater into winning seduction.

The Blackening

 

Director Tim Story takes a funny and insightful screenplay by Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins and turns it into if not comedic gold then certainly sterling silver.

Nine Black college friends plan a reunion in a secluded cabin for a Juneteenth celebration, but the party is interrupted by masked murderers with crossbows who threaten to kill them all if they don't play a game -- The Blackening. The game is -- for all intents and purposes -- a test of knowledge of African American history and culture, despite the racist minstrel centerpiece on the board.

The movie is 80 percent social commentary and 20 percent slasher cinema and pits the nine (Antoinette Robertson, Dewayne Perkins, Sinqua Walls, Grace Byers, X Mayo, Melvin Gregg, Jermaine Fowler, Yvonne Orji and Jay Pharoah) alternately against their masked captors and themselves. Narrative gaps don't derail the proceedings, mainly because viewers are likely to quickly forget this is a thriller.

The internal warring offers the heartiest laughs and cultural chestnuts that, I suspect, will be most impactful among people familiar with racial stereotypes and cultural tropes that often don't make it to the big screen. Here, they are wall-to-wall.

They are used here as measures of "authenticity" with the central cast representing different sectors of Black life in the U.S. who more or less unite to battle existential threats.

The Blackening, which seems to be addressing larger issues than racial authenticity, is a knowing and entertaining picture.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

 

Marvel Studios' latest animated feature -- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse -- is a work of art on a level of sophistication and stylistic brilliance that will undoubtedly be added to the canon of outstanding animated work that has included, most prominently, the Disney catalogue, including the wonderful Pixar features of the past 20 years. I predict it will be studied for years.

Marvel is taking full advantage of the narrative complexity of the multiverse introduced in its film and streaming series. This concept proposes there are an infinite number of dimensions of existence, all of which have some version of the same folks, most importantly in the case of this franchise -- Spider-people. Disruptions of the fated events in any one dimension can threaten all of existence.

Shameik Moore (Dope) voices again the version of Spider-Man that is Miles Morales, a Black Hispanic teenager in Brooklyn who has been fighting crime in the same way as the live action heroes (played most recently by Tom Holland). Miles is coaxed by his female counterpart from a parallel universe (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) to follow her as she explore the infinite possibilities "across the Spider-Verse" with a band of other selected Spideys.

As they venture out, visual elements change, color palettes go from muted to bold and back, backgrounds move from flat to three-dimensional, the screen takes on comic book stylings and the rendering techniques of other animators. It's simply beyond clever and merges on genius.

A tight, smartly written story supports all of this spectacle, with enviable complexity for an animated film that runs nearly half-again as long as the tradition long-form cartoon. Dialogue is whip-smart and expositive.

Young children will be mesmerized by the eye-popping action, while their parents will likely be impressed by the treatment of thorny questions about duty and obligations, truth and trust.

As for me, I loved it.

The Little Mermaid (2023)

 

Disney's live action remake of its 1989 animated feature The Little Mermaid, which was also staged on Broadway in 2008, has opened to large audiences.

When Disney announced that Halle Bailey was being cast as the lead underwater damsel who longs to walk among the humans, fans got to work crafting posters.

To my eye, the fans' renderings of Ariel, which looked sort of like Bailey but not really, were much more provocative, featured more decolletage, than what Disney's artists had imagined.

Few had imagined that, as in the case of Bailey, that the winsome mermaid would have braided hair in the style of many Black women.

And Disney, who introduced the idea of the high-concept motion picture boondoggle with accompanying merchandise, has a number of Ariel dolls for sale. One has brown rotini hair.

Master Gardener

 

Paul Schrader is a formidable cinematic moralist whose movies almost always depict failed and failing men wrestling with demons.

His latest, Master Gardener, tells the story of a surprisingly erudite horticulturist named Narvel Roth, played by Joel Edgerton, who works for Norma Haverhill, a pleated and plain-spoken doyenne of the property classes (Sigourney Weaver) in an unnamed Southern town with streets lined with palmettos and festooned with moss.

Norma asks Narvel to take over the tutelage of her grand-niece, Maya (a radiant Quintessa Swindell), her deceased sister's granddaughter, who recently experienced the death of her mother.

Narvel is to apprentice the young woman and prepare her to maybe one day take over the maintenance of the estate.

Narvel, a crisp and immaculately barbered presence whose torso bears witness to his dark past, takes the assignment and quickly grows fond of the young woman, who is struggling with drug addiction. Her habit compromises not only her future but, possibly, the lives and safety of everyone around her.

Edgerton, Weaver and Swindell, especially, are all fine and their interactions are clean and on the money. They are hitting all of the marks dutifully in this story of secrets and lies, but it is not one of the celebrated screenwriter's best efforts. The script is layered but the dialogue often feels stagy and artificial.

Hypnotic

 

The poster for Robert Rodriguez's latest feature, Hypnotic, a mind-bender (some might prefer appending the f-bomb to "mind"), superimposes star Ben Affleck over an intricate domino run.

This image is (unintentionally) ironic because the movie itself is scattered and chaotic, nothing like the ordered toppling of domino tiles.

Affleck plays an Austin, Texas, detective who is just returning to street duty following the disappearance of his daughter three years before. This is the first clue that something in the narrative is amiss. When the film opens, Affleck's Danny Rourke is in his therapist's office, recounting the last time he had seen his daughter, on the day of her abduction from a city park, while he was just a few feet away.

The session appears inconclusive, but Rourke is cleared to return to duty. He and his partner, Nicks (J.D. Pardo), respond to a report of potentially criminal doings at a bank. During the course of their investigation, they discover a mysterious man with mind-control powers (William Fichtner) who might know where Rourke's missing daughter is. Pursuing him leads Rourke and Nicks to another psychic played by Alice Braga, and the story starts to bend in another direction.

Illusion and delusion is the name of the game in this picture, a fairly humorless pseudo-sci-fi trifle whose level of narrative confusion makes it really hard to punch through.

Still, despite his muted aging frat daddy vibe, Affleck gives a credible performance as a distraught and distracted father with a huge secret.

Silo

 

The last half of Episode 3 of Apple TV's marvelous steampunk mystery series Silo, starring the amazingly versatile Rebecca Ferguson, was the most intense 30 minutes I've spent with a television program in quite some time.

Created by Canadian writer/producer Graham Yost and based on the books by Hugh Howey, Silo is a post-apocalyptic tale of an underground city contained in an enormous vertical bunker built before the memory of anybody currently living. The city is powered by an enormous generator that is showing troublesome wear and tear.

Ace mechanic Juliette Nichols (Ferguson) convinces the powers-that-be that the generator must be repaired before it fails permanently, casting the thousands of residents into airless darkness. It must be shutdown for Juliette and her teammates to make the repair, but time is not a luxury as the steam that drives the turbines will quickly build and threaten the whole operation.

Episode director Morten Tyldum masterfully paces the crisis that emerges, set against a backdrop of a suspicious death and the Silo's bizarre expulsion ritual. Tyldum makes every dropped tool and slipped knot potentially earth-shattering -- literally.

Blackberry

 

Actor / writer/ director Matt Johnson's film Blackberry is a hefty mix of cautionary tale and historical document that chronicles how the once ubiquitous Canadian smartphone came to life and how it was killed by Apple's iPhone.

Johnson plays second-banana / puppet-master Doug Fregin to Jay Baruchel's Mike Lazaridis, Fregin's brilliant bestie and former fellow engineering student at University of Windsor. They founded Research in Motion in 1984, employing other computer geeks in Waterloo, Ontario, to create circuit boards and modems for larger companies -- and watch classic fanboy films on Movie Night.

When discovered by the ethically challenged Jim Balsillie (a terrifically unhinged Glenn Howerton), RIM is deeply in debt and being strung along by big firms intent on stealing their ideas. He buys into co-ownership of RIM and commits to making them all rich.

Though slimy and unprincipled, Balsillie is indeed a rainmaker for RIM, pushing Fregin and Lazaridis to move forward on a smartphone prototype that he will pitch to Verizon and that will eventually be called the Blackberry. (The source of the name is a tiny bit of understated genius.)

Balsillie drums up business with the kind of jet-setting hyperbole and corner-office profanity that makes the ears of decent people bleed. But he delivers and over-commits RIM time and time again. He's incorrigible and greedy and the best thing to happen to RIM -- until he isn't.

This entertaining picture's narrative of a David becoming a Goliath intercuts passages about the science of communication technology with sections about the unsavory aspects of this schizophrenic first-world sector, where socially challenged outcasts put the rest of the world in touch with one another in mere milliseconds.

Baruchel, under a stringy silver wig and behind face-framing plastic aviators, personifies this dichotomy, evolving over the course of the film from meek "idea man" to an icy mercenary. It's a fascinating, and chilling, metamorphosis.

Joyland

 

Columbia University film student Saim Sadiq's first full-length feature, Joyland, is set in his native Lehore, Paskistan, and tells the story of Haider, an unemployed young man (Ali Junejo) in an arranged marriage to Mumtaz, a dynamic beauty salon owner (Rasti Farooq).

Haider finds himself tending to his three growing nieces and his aging, fiercely paternalistic father (Salmaan Peerzada). Haider's brother, Saleem (Sameer Sohail), and sister-in-law, Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani) are pleasing to Abba (the father) because they are pregnant again and the doctor has predicted this time with a boy, a continuation of the family line. Haider and Mumtaz have yet to have children, which seems to be a mutual decision.

Sadiq presents all of this with wonderful economy and pathos; it is clear he has lived within those crowded walls and mulled over the traditions that appear to be stifling Haider and Mumtaz.

When Haider gets a lead from a neighbor friend, he follows it and discovers it is a job as a backup dancer in one of the exotic clubs, which features a transwoman performer, Biba (the transgender actress Alina Kahn).

Haider is not a dancer but is entranced by the mercurial Biba, which may or may not be a signal of his own sexual awakening. He works hard to learn the steps but lies to Mumtaz, who has stopped working to help run the household, and the others about the job, saying he is the theater manager and does not perform, as that would bring shame upon the family.

Shame and secrets are common themes in this fascinating film about religious tradition and human agency. Mumtaz's relationship with Nucchi is especially interesting, as they are two modern Pakistani women who still feel inhibited by society's expectations. Their only relief appears to be an occasional excursion to the amusement park, Joyland, where they work through their frustrations on carnival rides.

But the central relationship in the film is between the diffident Haider and Biba, whose fire lights a dormant spark in him that will either enliven or incinerate him.

The Diplomat

 

Netflix's absorbing political thriller series The Diplomat has that stimulating feeling of cultural and political urgency that made The West Wing so successful.

Created by Debora Cahn -- veteran television writer / producer long associated with Aaron Sorkin's White House machinations series and with Shonda Rhimes' medical drama Grey's Anatomy -- The Diplomat stars Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, career foreign service officer to the Middle East who is reassigned as ambassador to the Court of St. James's and stationed in London with her fellow State Department operative and husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell).

The reassignment follows the bombing of a British naval vessel off the coast of Iran that killed more than 40 sailors; early surveillance suggests Iran was behind it but the Wylers, who know the region and the players, receive intelligence that is not the case.

The early episodes involve Kate finding her footing. Though brilliant, she has neither the background nor the temperament for what has essentially been a plush posting for presidential patrons that involved little, if any, diplomacy. The attack changes the game substantially, and Cahn and crew explore not only the complexities of foreign service, international communications and exchange but the interpersonal dynamics of the large number of players involved in these matters.

Adding to this absorbing narrative is the fact that the Wylers may or may not be in a middle of a divorce; their lives seem to be at once in tandem and fiercely opposed. There is heat but Kate doesn't trust her mendacious husband, whose ego is enormous. The scenes between the two are rendered flawlessly by Russell and Sewell.

Also outstanding in the early going are Ato Essandoh as American embassy attaché Stuart Heyford, Nana Mensah as presidential Chief of Staff Billie Appiah and David Gyasi as British Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison, three Black actors with whose work I am not familiar but who deliver wonderfully layered and refreshingly atypical performances.

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3

 

Reviewing James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy films is a redundant enterprise.

Moviegoers on the Guardians team will go reflexively. Those who don't dig the franchise's jokiness and cockeyed views on good and evil, justice, duty, family, romance, and, well, most every big issue featured in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will take a hard pass.

Marvel will bank another several hundred million and keep rolling.

The just-released Volume 3 -- named that because of the prominent role the soundtrack has played in the pictures' narratives -- has been telegraphed as the last featuring the complete original lineup -- Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, David Bautista as Drax, Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Karen Gillan as Nebula and Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot. But the mid-credit tease suggests there might be more in store.

One thing we know about the MCU, turning off the faucet is not something they do quickly, especially if the fanbase still has an appetite for the fare, as evidenced by the third installment of the similarly irreverent Deadpool series, which stars Ryan Reynolds, set for release next year.

Still and yet, Volume 3 boasts impressive, eye-popping alien world set pieces and stellar insider humor that comes fast and furious (*wink*).

Some viewers have objected to the sentimental elements Gunn has written into the latest story -- and the scenes of animal experimentation are indeed disturbing -- but I feel the movie holds together well, much of the glue being provided by Chukwudi Iwuji's villainous High Evolutionary, a worthy candidate to join Marvel's pantheon of evil -- along with Cate Blanchett as Hela and Josh Brolin as Thanos.

And, of course, the playlist kicks ass.

RRR

 

S.S. Rajamouli's Bollywood epic RRR (Rise Roar Revolt) is unlike anything Western cinema creates -- probably because of the enormous costs associated with such productions. The movie's large cast, period costuming and sets, complex musical numbers and action set pieces and the many CGI stunts are estimated by IMDB.com to have cost 3.5 billion rupees (36 million U.S. dollars).

Currently streaming on Netflix, RRR, which runs a bit over three hours, is set in pre-independence India where maniacal and blood-thirsty British colonialists terrorize the Indian population -- killing, imprisoning and impoverishing millions. The villains are truly villainous. The heroes, practically Olympian.

The story, which was written by Rajamouli and his team, stars Ram Charan and N. T. (Tarak) Rama Rao Jr. as two friends who are insurgents working separately and unknown to the other to overthrow the British occupation. One, Charan, within the British army, and Tarak in the Indian forests where he has become a kind of druidic spirit.

A bit of a bromance is suggested in the two men's attraction and devotion to one another. Their first meeting, during a spectacular train explosion and derailment, contains all of the movie's production values in one 10-minute segment that sets the standard for the film's action, as does the friends' dance number -- the Oscar-winning "Naatu Naatu."

Rajamouli does not spare the audience scenes of graphic brutality and mayhem; the death toll is high, with many women and children, usually exempted from Western film carnage, prominently featured among the dead.

To my mind and eye, RRR does an admirable job of balancing style and substance, although the elaborate nature of Indian film tips the scale in favor of fire and fury -- which makes for a riveting viewing experience.

Happy as Lazzaro

 

I don't think there's much mystery why Alice Rohrwacher's superb 2018 film Happy as Lazzaro, streaming on Netflix, is so beguiling: it's the face of the movie's title character played by Adriano Tardiolo.
Tardiolo's face is always open and accepting, utterly free of guile or irony. He is by every indication a "good boy," as several other players tell us.
Lazzaro is a young peasant, of uncertain parentage, in a large extended family that works the Tuscan fields and flocks of an Italian noblewoman (Nicoletta Braschi). He labors steadily alongside the others, who take full advantage of his good nature, calling his name incessantly for help, which he offers without hesitation, especially to young mother Antonia (Agnes Graziani). Yes, a good boy.
His goodness leads him to befriend the marchesa's rootless and resentful son, Tancredi, played by Luca Chikovani, and to conceal the son's plot to fake his own abduction. The marchesa is indifferent to news of Tancredi's disappearance, giving attention only to the tobacco crops that sustain her wealth and keep the peasants tied to the land.
Rohrwacher's story is a mix of naturalism and fantasy, with the former rooting the first half of the film and the mystical taking flight in the second half. The presence of a lone howling wolf is a unifying element between the two sections of the film.
Some will no doubt find Happy as Lazzaro's message of innocence in the face of nearly universal cynicism and exploitation inspiring and energizing. Others might well wish the story offered Lazzaro more for his unflagging goodness. But maybe it was the young man's knowledge that goodness is its own reward that carried him through. Quite a lesson.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

 

I found so much to love in Kelly Fremon Craig's screen adaptation of Judy Blume's classic YA novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (1970).

Though new directing, Craig masterfully stages Blume's naturalistic story of a pre-teen girl transplanted from New York City to a New Jersey suburb where she must contend not only with the usual adolescent trauma of boys and boobs but also the added thorny issues of faith and identity.

Under Craig's capable direction -- and with terrific performances from newcomer Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret and veterans Rachel McAdams and Kathy Bates as Margaret's mother and grandmother, respectively -- Are You There charmed me with wit, warmth and wisdom. The story not only rings true, it peals like a cathedral bell. It is frank without being explicit; its lessons pointed without being strident.

My screening companion read Blum's book as a young teen, but I've never read it so I have no basis of comparison from page to screen. If the movie is a loyal adaptation of the novel, which is suggested by Judy Blume's producer role, then the banning of the work from high school libraries is even more unconscionable than it appears on first blush.

A story that challenges young people to be open and nonjudgmental, to question second-hand prejudice and search for their own truths seems to me worthy of inclusion in any library, on any recommended reading list for teens -- and their parents, frankly.

Beau is Afraid

 

Writer / director Ari Aster does not bury cheerful optimism within the dark depths of his feature-length films like some moviemakers. Both Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019) were unrelentingly grim and bloody but, also, artfully captivating.

Aster's latest, Beau is Afraid, surpasses those pictures in nightmarish gruesomeness and in length, clocking in just short of three hours.

I can't say if audiences will feel all of those challenging minutes, but they will most assuredly connect with the title character's Kafkaesque escapades through a psycho-sexual dystopia that, though visually outlandish, feels amazingly true to life.

Joaquin Phoenix's remarkable performance as the doughy man-child Beau Wasserman is a mix of twitchy agoraphobic and strangling Mama's boy. Beau, who speaks as if he's always out of breath, lives in a spare and dingy apartment on a street crowded with wanderers and wastrels, exterior and interior walls covered with scatological vulgarity. Beau's greatest fears seem to be intrusion and contamination.

Beau plans to travel to his family home to see his corporate executive mother (a viperous Patti LuPone) on the anniversary of his father's death -- which viewers learn is also the anniversary of Beau's conception. The plans are disrupted by mysterious events that Aster leaves open for interpretation as either reality or Beau's repression.

Much of the film's running time is committed to Beau's odyssey, which includes sojourns in the home of a surgeon (Nathan Lane), his wife (Amy Ryan) and their randy, pill-popping daughter (Kylie Rogers), after Beau is hit by their car while running from a naked knife-wielding assailant.

Beau then finds himself with a theater troupe in a woodland commune that is staging a play bearing astounding similarity to the life he's known.

In Beau is Afraid, Aster leaves no kink untapped, and the cast, led by the tireless Phoenix, is up to the task of capturing the young auteur's signature madness. 

Evil Dead Rise, The Covenant

Pairing Lee Cronin's sardonic exploration of "motherhood," Evil Dead Rise," with Guy Ritchie's earnest depiction of the purity of human kindness, "The Covenant," makes for a heady afternoon committed to distinct visions of devotedness.

"Rise" is the fifth in the "Evil Dead" franchise, which began with Sam Rami's classic film in 1981. After a thoroughly bloody and hair-raising prologue, the latest episode dives into the story of newly pregnant, hipster guitar tech Beth (Aussie indie actress Lily Sullivan) popping in on her estranged sister, hipster uber-mom Ellie (Aussie fashion model Alyssa Sutherland) and Ellie's three kids in their ratty California apartment.

An earthquake shakes up things in the building and uncovers some ancient secrets that pique the interest of young Danny (Morgan Davies), who unlocks the door to unimagined wickedness that takes possession of Ellie and begins stalking him, older sister Bridget (Gabrielle Echols) and cherubic Kassie (Nell Fisher).

Beth calls upon her nascent maternal instincts to fight the demonic Ellie for the lives of the children, using everyday household items to gouge and maim with the ultimate showdown in the parking garage and involving -- unaccountably -- a chainsaw and woodchipper. Between the quippy Satanic banter, Cronin has inserted some pretty sharp observations that might ring true to those whose Life with Mother was less than heavenly.

Guy Ritchie's elegy to the mindless war in Afghanistan is actually the story of the relationship -- friendship seems a little delimiting, considering -- between an American recon soldier (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his Afghani interpreter (Dar Salim) who are the lone survivors of a raid on a Taliban bombmaking site that goes sideways. Gyllenhaal's Kinley is injured while trying to evade capture and Salim's Ahmed totes and carts Kinley over 120 miles of mountain roads to the American base, using his wits and brute strength. It's an amazing feat.

The first half of Ritchie's riveting story is about the two men building trust in a country and during an enterprise that does not reward it. Gradually and masterfully, Ritchie gives these men crucial context for what they do, and, not surprisingly, this does not include conspicuous flag-waving and chest-beating. Their motivations appear much simpler. Matters of the heart.

In the moments just after Kinley loses all of his squad in a Taliban counter-attack, he is shown sitting with his back to Ahmed, his face moving in and out of contortions over the devastating loss of his friends. He slowly contains himself, and the camera cuts to Ahmed whose own face shows him battling his instincts to reach out to Kinley. Neither man trusts the other to make that connection. It's a powerful moment handled wonderfully.

After Ahmed delivers the wounded and delirious Kinley to the base, the interpreter and his family must stay on the run from the Taliban. Kinley, back in the States, works unsuccessfully to obtain the visas the U.S. promised interpreters and their families so that Ahmed can get out of the country. When he is told time is running out for Ahmed, that he will soon be discovered and captured and likely killed, Kinley mounts a rescue attempt with the Taliban at their heels.

The film's endnotes remind viewers that hundreds of interprets were left in Afghanistan after the American pullout, many killed by the Taliban, others lost. It was the devotion of these two men that made the difference in their fates.

Chevalier

 

Stephen Williams' 2022 biopic of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Chevalier, is a curiously anachronistic telling of the rise, fall and awakening of France's first Black classical composer and violin virtuoso.

When we meet Bologne (played with brio by the always-winning Kelvin Harrison Jr.), it is pre-Revolution Paris, and Bologne challenges a young Mozart to what amounts to a violin duel, leaving the great composer bested and flustered. The scene is well-staged with a patina of modern swagger. It sets the tone for the film.

Bologne was the son of a white Frenchman and an enslaved Black woman in Guadeloupe. He was brought to Paris by his father and enrolled in a prestigious academy where he excelled in fencing and music. His abilities, refutations to white supremacy, won him celebrity and the favor of Marie Antoinette (played by Lucy Boynton), who knights him "chevalier."

During most of the first act, Bologne's race is treated as nearly incidental, but as the story presses on, race moves more and more to center stage.

When his mother (Ronke Adekoluejo) joins him in Paris and the Chevalier begins an affair with a pretty young singer (Samara Weaving) he has cast in an opera, against her racist husband's wishes, the audience knows it is only a matter of time before Bologne realizes color in imperial France is immutable, inescapable, even for the supremely gifted. He faces abandonment by friends, lovers and sponsors and eventually joins the egalite' revolution.

Williams and screenwriter Stefani Robinson have folded into the movie's coda grace notes of Black cultural consciousness -- Bologne begins to wear his hair in cornrows and at one point he joins a drum circle that includes other Black men.

As has become de rigeur in films based on true events, the closing frames include notes about the movie's subjects. Bologne's presence was scrubbed from French culture after Bonaparte reinstituted slavery. He has only recently been rediscovered by historians.

Air: Courting a Legend

 

Actor / director Ben Affleck's Air: Courting a Legend takes the A-lister's famous masculine verbosity and applies it fully to a wonderful script by first-timer Alex Covery to tell the story of one Nike brand visionary, Sonny Vaccaro (Affleck's BFF and co-Oscar winner Matt Damon), who executes a plan to sign a young Michael Jordan to the company's fledgling and floundering basketball division.

For much of the film -- which is based on true events -- Vaccaro is a voice in the wilderness in his conviction that Jordan, who has been clear he favors Adidas shoes and gear, could be signed if the right pitch was crafted and the right approach taken.

Working outside of corporate parameters set by Zen master / CEO Phil Knight (Affleck) and industry protocols, Vaccaro makes an end-run around Jordan's agent David Falk (a hilariously profane Chris Messina) to call on Jordan's parents in Wilmington, N.C., Deloris (Viola Davis) and James (Julius Tennon). It's a gamble that the craps-playing Vaccaro knows might end his career, but he sees something in Jordan that others have glossed over --a hunger to dominate on the court. Greatness.

Because there is no mystery to how this will play out, Affleck invests most of the film's energy in the art of the deal -- inside basketball, if you will.

The movie features priceless exchanges between Vaccaro and Knight, marketing executive Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), brand manager Howard White (Chris Tucker), and shoe designer Peter Moore (Matthew Maher) and a painfully tone-deaf pitch meeting among all of these players and the Jordans.

The meeting is excruciating but leads up to a terrific monologue by Vaccaro that capsulizes the picture's message about authenticity, image and enterprise.

Despite his off-screen antics (or perhaps because of them), Affleck is a wonderfully affecting film director, as assured as they come with the right material and cast, as in Oscar-winner Argo (2012). In Air, Affleck has a winning combination of the right words and a team of a sharp, intuitive players, with Damon's Vaccaro the MVP.

It's a great ride with an '80s arena anthem soundtrack.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

 

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein's Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a sharply written visual feast of both fantasy heroism and more mundane matters like family, sacrifice and devotion.

Based on the venerable role-playing game, the movie's sporting cast is led by Chris Pine as Edgin, a minstrel schemer, and Edgin's rogueing companion Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) who take on a mission that combines vengeance and looting. The tenor of this outlandish film leaves no doubt which of the two will be fulfilled in the last reel.

Joining Edgin and Holga are an under-achieving scam artist / sorcerer named Simon (Justice Smith of The Get Down and Jurassic World series), a shape-shifter named Doric (Sophia Lillis of the IT horror series) and Reger-Jean Page as Xenx, a humorless, overly literal warrior prince who possesses knowledge that could lead the band to a storehouse of treasures and the underworld.

The story, which is wonderfully written, is all over the place, which is not to say it is incomprehensible -- it is a well-told tale -- but it is a breathless adventure moving across many landscapes and times and dimensions, but never loses the thread of the quest or its sense of fun -- which is immense.

Jay Robinson

 

Jay Robinson became a big star 70 years ago for chewing scenery in Henry Koster's film adaptation of Lloyd C. Douglas's reverent novel The Robe (1953), which used to get a perennial Eastertide screening on the major networks back in the day.

Robinson played the laureled and effete Roman emperor Caligula. Caligula's reign did indeed track along with early years of the spread of Christianity, which at first was believed to be a subset of the Jewish religion. 

In the movie, Caligula has had his eye on the winsome Diana, played by Jean Simmons, but she is betrothed to handsome and gallant Tribune Marcellus Gallio (Richard Burton). So there is bitterness there.

Before Caligula assumed the throne, Gallio was in charge of the Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus. He took Jesus' robe, which was left at the foot of the cross, but is at first repelled and sickened by it. However, he is slowly won over to Christianity with guidance from his servant Demetrius (Victor Mature) and the Christian leader Peter (Michael Rennie). Gallio renounces his oath of loyalty to Rome and is brought before Caligula to answer charges of treason.

The last reel of the film is in a way a showdown between the emperor's resplendent brocaded cape and the simple carpenter's robe that Gallio refuses to part with. Unwilling to bow to Caligula, the emperor sentences Gallio to death. Diana joins him on his slow march to the archers and then on to the new kingdom. Caligula's taunts echo in the halls but are gradually drowned out by angelic Hallelujahs.

Everything about the film is stiflingly earnest except Robinson's performance, which is outsized and campy, though not entirely unfitting for the role and the purpose to which Koster puts him. Robinson reprised the role in the sequel Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) and went on to become one of the most familiar faces and voices among Hollywood character actors for many years.

Jay Robinson died in 2013 at age 83.

A Thousand and One

 

Writer / director A.V. Rockwell's A Thousand and One is as viscerally potent as the sights and sounds of the city that serves both as backdrop and counterpoint to the film's story of a Black New York City mother trying mightily over the span of a decade to protect her son from ravenous threats.

When we meet Teyana Taylor's Inez, she is trying to get her bearings after being released from Riker's Island Prison for theft. While standing outside a group home in Brooklyn, she spies the familiar face of a shy young boy, Terry. She is reunited with him and slowly begins to once again become a presence in his life.

When Inez learns some time later that the boy was injured while in the care of his foster mother, Inez decides that Terry would be safer with her even though she has neither a steady job nor a place to live. She takes him from the hospital, changes his name, gets fake papers for him and they begin new lives in Harlem.

It's Inez's determination not to be separated from Terry -- to see him to adulthood -- that is the beating heart of this uncompromising tale of artifice and survival during the Giuliani and Bloomberg years of crime suppression and urban renewal, both of which taking an untoward toll on the city's Black and poor.

Soon Inez and Terry -- who is played at various ages by Aaron Kingsley Adetola, Aven Courtney and Josiah Cross -- are joined by Inez's former boyfriend, Lucky (William Catlett), who slowly warms to the idea of being father to Terry. The three become that most tenuous of entities -- a struggling Black family in an urban environment that is crumbling emotionally, psychologically and materially. The only certainty in their lives is uncertainty.

It's nearly impossible to overstate the wonder that is Taylor's performance as Inez. Hers is a lived-in face and body, which is not to say Inez is worn or depleted, just experienced. Yes, she's damaged, as are most of the characters in Rockwell's story, but she's as wise as she is flawed and fierce. A marvelous character who will win viewers' hearts even as she breaks them.