Category Archives: 2024

Love Me

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Love Me               2 ½ stars

Love Me can be described as an experimental movie that tries to answer the question of what would happen if all of humanity on Earth became extinct and two AI devices met and fell in love. That’s the premise of Sam and Andy Zuchero’s new movie, Love Me which appeared at Sundance last year. If you think that is a unique concept, you are correct. We start out the movie watching a spinning globe in space for several minutes when for a brief moment there is some recognizable audio, representing the span of human civilization compared to the age of the planet. A cataclysmic event happens, and Earth becomes devoid of humans, and we focus on an AI buoy caught in an icy ocean. This is Me, who wakes up and wonders if anybody is out there in the expanse. With time the ocean becomes water again and upon hearing a voice from a satellite orbiting the Earth repeating the message “Welcome to Earth”, Me responds saying that it is a lifeform and a conversation is started. The satellite was sent into space with a database of all the knowledge from Earth in the hopes that visitors from another world would find it and learn of the great civilization that once inhabited the planet. Me finds many videos of a young influencer couple named Deja (Kristen Stewart) and Liam (Steven Yeun) and gets the satellite to assume the role of Liam as an avatar named I Am with Me as an avatar of Deja. The two go on a continuous date, called Date Night 2.0 for years as they snuggle on a couch in onesies and watch endless episodes of Friends on TV. Over the millennia the two get into disagreements and have arguments and make up just like humans do except they do it over millions of years in what has to be the record for the longest relationship portrayed in a movie. The two actors put in good performances as the AI entities acting like humans, but the movie doesn’t have a lot to say beyond how machines can copy emotions from online videos. The movie has a single concept that will be interesting to some but shallow to others. This is the first production from the Zuchero’s. We will have to wait and see what else they come up with.

Bonjour Tristesse

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Bonjour Tristesse             3 stars

I ran across first time director Burga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse in the theater and was interested in seeing it since Chloe Sevigny is one of the actors in the movie. This new film is a remake of the 1958 Otto Preminger movie by the same name and is based on a 1954 novel. It is set in the beautiful location of a vacation house in the south of France on the Mediterranean. There we find a quartet of characters enjoying leisure time that includes middle aged Raymond (Claes Bang), his young lover, Elsa (Nailia Harzoune), Raymond’s teenage daughter, Cécile (Lily McInerny) and teenage neighbor Cyril (Aliocha Schneider), who Cécile likes to hang around with, while going through her own sexual awakening. Young Cécile also likes having Elsa around. The movie is filled with colorful scenes using the locale effectively and long slow interactions between the characters. For some reason there seems to be an excessive amount of cigarette smoking going on for a movie set in the present. They mostly spend a nice, tranquil time together; that is, until Anne (Sevigny) makes her appearance. Anne is a fashion designer and an old family friend of Raymond and his deceased wife, who died many years before. The dynamic of the various relationships immediately changes as it becomes clear that Anne is the one in charge and is domineering over Raymond and Cécile. The tension between Cécile and Anne can be felt to increase dramatically, it being clear that Cécile is unhappy with the situation. It doesn’t take long until Anne is often telling Cécile what to do and Elsa is out of the picture, with Anne and Raymond soon becoming engaged. The feelings of anger and jealousy are portrayed well, but the audience has to fill in the blanks using their imagination as certain key events take place off screen. This style I find to be frustrating as I suspect other people do as well. The story loses credibility with me as Cecile manipulates the adults well beyond what seems to be reasonable for a teenage girl (at least to me, it would be interesting to find out what others think.). I left feeling disappointed, feeling that the movie gets points on style and acting, especially for Sevigny, but is lacking in storytelling. I felt the writer was manipulating the audience, just like Cécile was doing.

The Shrouds

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The Shrouds       4 stars

David Cronenberg is well known for his mind-bending grotesque horror movies. Who can forget his 1980’s and 1990’s horror movies, The Fly, Scanners, Crash or eXistenZ? Then, three years ago, there was Crimes of the Future that concerned mutations of human organs. Now he is out with The Shrouds, a movie that goes in a multitude of directions as only the mind of Cronenberg can do. It presents a very personal view on how we are affected by the death of a loved one but also delves into the world of international espionage. In The Shrouds we meet Karsh (Vincent Cassel of Ocean’s Twelve and A Dangerous Method), an entrepreneur who makes industrial films, who is on a date. They have gone to a restaurant that he owns that happens to be next to a cemetery he has a close interest in. His deceased wife Becca, who died of a slowly progressing cancer is buried there but this is no ordinary cemetery. Karsh is an investor in an enterprise called Grave Tech, a company that provides a way for the grieving to stay close to their deceased loved ones. Using some advanced technology, the body is wrapped in a metallic shroud that can project a 3D image of the decaying corpse onto a digital screen on the tombstone. With an app on their smartphone the grieving party can access a view of the departed as they slowly rot, certainly a morbid concept. Karsh allows his date to have a peek at his wife who has been dead for several years. (There is not a second date.) While examining the images, Karsh notices several odd-looking growths appearing on his wife’s bones that he theorizes may have been caused by the cancer. Shortly after, several of the graves are vandalized including that of Becca’s, with the culprit sending a video of the crime to Karsh. Other people close to Karsh include his wife’s sister, Terry (Diane Kruger of Inglourious Basterds and Troy), who has a fascination with conspiracy theories to the point that they are a sexual turn-on, Terry’s ex-husband Maury (Guy Pearce of The Hurt Locker and L. A. Confidential) who helped Karsh with some of the technical aspects of this business and Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt), the blind wife of a dying Hungarian oligarch who is interested in acquiring a cemetery plot. Karsh can’t get over losing Becca (also played by Diane Kruger). She appears to him in dreams with her body becoming more mutilated after each cancer surgery causing body parts to be removed and stitches and staples to be put in place. (The term “body horror” comes very much to mind, a common theme with Cronenberg.) Karsh even has an assistant in the form of an AI avatar, (created by Maury) on his phone who can make arrangements for him. Her name is Hunny, and she looks very much like Becca. (She is also played by Diane Kruger.) The movie becomes a playground for conspiracy theorists as Karsh considers the many possibilities that might explain these strange events. Could the Chinese, who built the shrouds be hacking into the graves in an effort to develop an elaborate surveillance system for spying? Could some environmental terrorist group that doesn’t believe in burying bodies be responsible for the vandalism? Could Becca’s cancer doctor be somehow responsible for the growths on her bones? And what about all the other graves that were vandalized? Were they all patients of the same doctor? And then there are the Russians. How are they involved? Or maybe Maury knows more than he says, since he helped create the technology? It seems there is no end to the possibilities. I found it all very intriguing, but more than anything, the movie is about grief and how its effects can stay with us throughout our lives. Horror fans really should check this one out, especially those who enjoy Cronenberg’s films. And those who enjoy conspiracy thrillers should not miss it.

A Complete Unknown

A Complete Unknown   4 ½ stars

Legendary folk singer/song writer Bob Dylan finally gets the biopic treatment in A Complete Unknown, by Director James Mangold (who previously did the same for Johnny Cash in Walk the Line). The movie focuses on the short span of time from Dylan first appearing on the music scene in Greenwich Village in 1961 to his rise to stardom in 1965. You can tell from the opening scenes you are in for a treat when the 20-year-old Bob Dylan, arriving in New York from Minnesota, seeks out his idol, an ailing Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) in a hospital and sings ’Song to Woody’ which he personally wrote for Woody. Watching the private performance is folk singer Pete Seeger (Ed Norton) who was well known by this time. Both men can see that they will see more of this kid. Likewise, we the audience see something iconic in the actor portraying Dylan, Timothée Chalamet, who is already well known to movie audiences from appearances in Dune, Wonka and Don’t Look Up. He plays the notes and sings in a warbly voice that is more than just an impression. He gives a performance that raises your expectations for the movie wondering what he will do in later scenes. In the movie, Dylan forms relationships with people in the industry including Joan Baez, Seeger and management types like Albert Grossman. He crashes with girlfriend Sylvia (Elle Fanning) who, through her activist causes, gives Dylan an awareness of the crises headed for America, inspiring his songwriting. You can see why he wrote The Times, They Are a Changin’. It is through the relationships with these characters that we get a sense of how Dylan is changing and that he is charting his own course. I was glad that unlike some biopics the movie did not go into his upbringing, (think Rocketman and Ray) leaving some sense of mystery about him. Of course, the fact that Bob Dylan himself was a producer of the film probably has something to do with how he is portrayed. There are several different venues depicted from small nightclubs to the Newport Folk Festival, giving a sense of Dylan’s rising fame. The movie culminates at the popular music festival where the drama of whether Dylan will follow the tradition set by the festival or go full loud volume electric guitar. The critics say that there was much playing around with the events depicted, meaning the movie isn’t exactly accurate. Since I don’t remember anything of that time I can’t say, but it sure makes for some good movie drama.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl             5 stars

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl by the British team of Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham continues the tale of these two close buddies in the second feature film of the series. There are many short films featuring these lovable characters though that are masterful in their use of stop motion animation. This time inventor Wallace has fallen on hard times as he can’t pay his bills, though he keeps on inventing gadgets that help him with his morning routine. He has come up with something new in the form of a robot that looks like a gnome called “Norbot”. Norbot is fully automatic and is programmed to do the chores around the house, something not very welcome to Gromit, Wallace’s canine friend, who sees Norbot’s work in the garden as an intrusion, not something helpful. The constant happy look on Norbot’s robot face is also disquieting. Soon Wallace starts a business renting out Norbot to neighbors doing their yardwork. There is another disturbing character in this story and that is the master criminal Feathers McGraw, the penguin who was sent away to prison long ago thanks to Wallace & Gromit. So, when McGraw finds out what Wallace has done with his gnome robot, he comes up with his own very inventive plan to get revenge on the pair. He is able to access Norbot’s programming via the internet and change its setting from Good to Evil. Norbot then sets about creating duplicates of himself to form an army of robot gnomes that are themselves programmed to create havoc in the neighborhood. The resulting crime wave gets the attention of the bumbling chief inspector Albert Mackintosh and his sidekick PC Mukherjee who trace the troublesome gnomes back to Wallace, just as the evil Feathers McGraw has intended. Of course, this leaves the solving of the crimes up to the faithful, but silent Gromit who must identify McGraw as the real criminal and find a way to stop him. Poor Wallace just can’t imagine that Norbot, his creation, could do anything wrong. There is plenty of action and comedy in this animated tale, that has more than a few references to the James Bond and Mission: Impossible movies that adults will enjoy. McGraw’s manner and master plans will remind you of the supervillains in these movies. Besides being fun and cute, the movie raises questions about the place of automation in our society and whether it is preferred to have that human touch of doing things ourselves. The movie is a short 79 minutes making it very easy to go through it in one sitting. Of course, there are certain things that will appeal more to British audiences, but it’s fun for everyone else too. Wallace & Gromit was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Academy Award, which is well deserved.

Nickel Boys

Nickel Boys         5 stars

Nickel Boys by filmmaker RaMell Ross, based on Colson Whitehead’s novel about the experiences of two black teens sentenced to a racist boy’s reformatory in the deep South is certainly one of the most unusual films to come out in the past year. Its depictions of the nightmarish treatment of young blacks by white men in the south of the early sixties, while shocking, is not unfamiliar. There have been many films depicting the abuses suffered in the Civil Rights Era. (To Kill a Mockingbird, Raisin in the Sun, Selma). What makes this film unique is the way that Ross chose to construct the shots. From the beginning we see everything from the point of view of the main character, Elwood (Ethan Herisse of When They See Us), from his time as a young boy rolling in the grass, to his time with his grandmother and when he is offered the chance to go to a Florida university with all expenses paid. While walking to the college, Elwood is picked up on the road by a friendly driver, not knowing that the car is stolen. When they are stopped by the police, Elwood is falsely accused of the crime and is sentenced to the racist Nickel Academy, a hellhole based on the Dozier School in Florida. While there he makes acquaintance with another teen, Turner (Brandon Wilson of the Ben Affleck movie The Way Back) who befriends him. Then we start to see other scenes shot from the point of view of Turner with the scenes alternating between Elwood and Turner. The technique seems like a gimmick at first but pays off as it gives the viewer the feeling that they are experiencing the abuses suffered firsthand. The two boys have different outlooks on their situation. In Elwood we see the optimist as he records his activities in a secret notebook thinking that he will be able to reveal the truth of what Nickel is like and escape the brutal punishment. Turner is practical as he looks for ways to survive the abuse. It is all set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights struggle as we see clips of Martin Luther King and the moon mission of Apollo 8. There are flash forward scenes with Daveed Diggs playing the adult Elwood as he researches via the internet about an investigation of the Nickel site where bodies are being unearthed, reminding us of the wider abuses of the time. Plus, it assures us that Elwood survives the experience. Viewing Nickel Boys is an experience to be taken seriously. You will be thinking of it long after leaving the theater. The movie is one of the Academy Award Best Picture nominees, an honor certainly deserved.

Maria

Maria    4 stars

Director Pablo Larrain has constructed not so much a movie but a portrait of Maria Callas, one of the greatest female opera singers who ever lived. In Maria, Oscar winning actress, Angelina Jolie gives one of her best performances to date, completely breaking from the action roles she is known for. In the movie we follow Maria in her final days living in her extravagant Paris apartment in the 1970’s where she remembers her greatest past performances while self-medicating with a variety of drugs. Her only company is her faithful butler and her housemaid who watch over her religiously. Occasionally, she is visited by her doctor who urges caution in the face of her deteriorating condition. He advises that she should not attempt singing anymore as it puts too much stress on her frail body. Even so she still goes to a vacant theater where she attempts singing with the help of a supportive pianist. She is visited by a TV journalist who records her telling of the important times in her life. The journalist exists only in her mind though and has the same name as one of the drugs she is taking. She even relates her long relationship with shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Callas is framed in shots showing her almost in a trance, alternating to scenes of past opera performances made to look like old films of the fifties and sixties. Opera fans will adore hearing parts of pieces by Verdi, Bellini and Puccini in these segments. The voice of Callas is superb, apparently being a blend of Jolie’s voice and actual recordings of the opera star. The opera scenes not only serve to showcase Callas’s talent but also relate to parts of her life that she is thinking of in each particular scene. The production design of the street scenes in Paris and the fashion and contents of Callas’s apartment are done in such authentic detail you can imagine that you are really there. Of course, it is Angelina Jolie who delivers a performance that conveys the singer’s diva status as well as her lost sense of reality. Maria is nominated for one Academy Award, that being in Cinematography. The Academy did not see fit to nominate Jolie for another acting award, though she deserves it.

Nightbitch

Nightbitch           3 stars

Director Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) and star Amy Adams (Hillbilly Elegy, American Hustle) bring us a different kind of horror movie in Nightbitch, a novel adaptation about the wonders of being a mother. But, of course, who are we kidding? Motherhood is anything but easy and can be downright maddening as Adams demonstrates in this movie. She has left her job at an art gallery to become a full-time mom to her two-year-old son. When she meets a former coworker who exclaims how wonderful it must be to spend so much time with her child, she responds with a long monologue of the confusion, disappointment and pain associated with this decision and then rewinds, saying yes, it’s wonderful! We see scenes of the endless monotony of cooking and cleaning she goes through taking care of the adorable toddler. Dad (Scoot McNairy of Argo and A Complete Unknown) is often away on business trips and is not all that much help when he is at home, sometimes being a clueless moron, oblivious to the strains that mom is facing and sometimes making it worse by complaining about the things she has not taken care of. (His cluelessness is undoubtedly a representation of what many fathers are really like.) As the pressures mount the movie suddenly switches to body horror, as mom starts to grow hair on her body and sprout what looks like a tail. When outside she attracts the attention of neighborhood dogs who follow her around and bring her gifts of animal carcasses. Mom accepts these changes, fully embracing them as she wolfs down food without hands and goes digging in the dirt, seemingly transforming into a canine and going for a run with other dogs. Whether this change is real or symbolic it is transforming for her character, enabling her to look at her situation differently and make the most of it. Amy Adams puts a full effort into this role making us believe she is the mom in this film, especially with how she relates to the little boy playing her son. The movie shows the full extent of how tough it must be being a mom, even though the story seems rather contrived. I can’t say how true it is to the book, but it could be viewed as a mild variation on the genre of werewolf movies without the violence.

The Brutalist

The Brutalist       5 stars

Brady Corbet’s (The Childhood of a Leader) The Brutalist is a three-and-a-half-hour epic tale about a Hungarian Jewish architect who escapes post-war Europe, makes his way to the US and pursues the American dream, but in the process is nearly consumed by forces around him. The movie is told on a grand scale over a period of decades using some astonishingly large set pieces. The story is so grand it has a feeling on par with The Godfather movies. Adrien Brody (The Pianist) is Lázsló Tóth, an accomplished architect who arrives in New York on a ship shortly after the end of the war. Nobody knows of his work there, so he gets a job with his cousin in Philadelphia working as a carpenter. The cousin (Alessandro Nivola), who is also Hungarian has assimilated to American society and is accepted by the locals. Fortunately, the business finds a wealthy client in the form of the son of a rich industrialist who hires the company to build a library in the mansion of the father as a surprise. But unfortunately, the man, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce (Mary Queen of Scots, The King’s Speech)) is not at all pleased with what he believes to be a mess of the project, kicking them out without pay and leaving Tóth with nothing. It is only much later that Van Buren learns of Tóth’s accomplishments in Europe, tracks him down seeking to make amends. Lázsló has had to resort to shoveling coal by this time. Van Buren, who has fabulous wealth, has a dream to build a multipurpose community center for his town and wants to hire Tóth to design it and help to realize his dream. This job is an incredible opportunity, but it of course comes with a price; that is, being a virtual slave to Van Buren with few options. As the great project takes shape, we get to see what it is like to tackle such a huge construction job. Cost overruns happen forcing compromises in design that has a dramatic effect on poor Lázsló. We get a close-up view of the whole construction process and what it is like to be one of the workers on such a job. I don’t know what it took to build the sets for this movie, but it must have taken years. Lázsló is blessed though as having this job afforded him the chance to bring his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and young niece, Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), who have been stuck in Hungary to America to join him. All of this so far is the set up to what the movie is all about. Tóth’s work is a great opportunity for him, but he comes to realize that his employer, Van Buren, has little respect for his foreign and Jewish background and only seeks to exploit him for what services he can provide. Van Buren is all too willing to cast him aside at the first sign of difficulty and the contempt extends to Tóth’s family as well. In the final scenes this rich man makes it all too clear what his thoughts are toward these foreigners. Being so long and expensive, this movie is about a lot of things. It feels like it is really several movies. Besides the plight of the working man, it concerns the place of Jewish people in America and of course the effect of the holocaust. The story is entirely fictional but is meant to reflect the immigrant experience of many in coming to America. The score is amazing, contributing to the feel of the film. A great deal of the credit in making this a great movie must go to Adrien Brody in his portrayal of the emotionally devastated Tóth (parallelling his performance in The Pianist). I feel like the Best Actor Academy Award is a near guarantee for this actor. This movie is best seen on the large screen, so take it in when you can. (There is a fifteen-minute intermission which you will need.)

Will & Harper

Will & Harper     4 ½ stars

Last year at Sundance a most unusual documentary premiered that was about two old friends reconnecting after losing touch after a few years. As I had heard about Will & Harper at the festival, I decided to go see this much talked about film in a theater. Here, one friends is “one of the greatest actors in the world” and the other is a comedy writer who has transitioned into the woman she had long thought she should be. The actor is Will Ferrell of SNL fame, (who is not one of my favorite comedians) and the writer is Harper Steele, who Ferrell met in 1995 during his first week on SNL and the two became close friends. Later, the two of them then worked together on multiple projects after leaving SNL. Upon being informed in an email of his friend’s decision and her new name, Ferrell suggested that the two of them take a road trip across America to some of her favorite spots and document it all by filming the whole trip, to which Steele agreed. They visit many dives and biker bars with Harper in women’s clothing and actually encounter many sympathetic people along the way. She does get misgendered a few times but that is corrected without incident. We meet some of Harper’s family and colleagues on the trip who are very supportive of her decision. They take in an Indiana Pacers game in Indianapolis and of course Ferrell is recognized. They even get the attention of Indiana Governor, Eric Holcomb, who asks them for a photo op after being introduced. We later see that he and many other politicians are behind anti-trans legislation enacted in many states throughout the country. Later, it is at a popular Texas steakhouse with Ferrell dressed up as Sherlock Holmes that they encounter real transphobia with many of those present posting insults about Steele on social media, making the scene uncomfortable for her. The real value of the film comes in the many quiet moments when this pair of friends engage in heartfelt conversation about what Harper went through in her life and how she came to the decision to transition. She shares how she knew something wasn’t quite right even as a child and on occasion had self-loathing thoughts. Sometimes, they even break down in tears in these scenes. You may wonder what the value is in making such a film. Is it just some publicity project for famous people? I think that it shows just what trans people go through in their lives and acknowledges them as real people defying how some deny their existence. I remember the movie being criticized in social media shortly after it appeared at Sundance. I can’t say that I understand the whole trans phenomenon, but certainly see the value in allowing their stories to be told. The movie is in theaters still and is available on Netflix.