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08Apr

Reviews in Short: April 2016

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Trainwreck

Comedian-screenwriter Amy Schumer and director Judd Apatow try to please fans of modern gross-out humor — the twist is that, these days, it’s more often the girls than the boys who are delivering the gross-outs — and lovers of more traditional, fairy-tale romantic comedies with this movie about a cynical party animal (Schumer) who falls for a nerdy sports doctor (Bill Hader). The end product is a bit uneven, but the film’s heart is in the right place, its characters are likeable, and there are enough funny bits to make for an enjoyable two hours. Release: 2015 Grade: B

**

Dark

This psychological thriller about a New York model’s gradual descent into madness bears a strong resemblance to Repulsion, the 1965 classic from director Roman Polanski. But following an opening, steamy sex scene between stars Whitney Able and Alexandra Breckenridge, Dark’s slow-burn suspense dwindles to a snail’s pace, taking a long time to reach the climax. On the plus side, Able is quite good as the paranoid model, and it’s refreshing to absorb horror that takes place in the mind rather than in some blood-spattered setting. Release: 2015 Grade: B-

31Mar

The Woman in White

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by Wilkie Collins

I do love me some Victorian literature. Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes — masterful writers, all of them. The Woman in White, published in 1859 by England’s Wilkie Collins, is not one of my favorites from that era, but it does have its charms.

The plot: A pair of plucky Britons does battle with an evil Italian spy when the corpulent con artist attempts to swindle a young heiress by replacing her with a lookalike impostor.

What I liked: The lengthy melodrama was initially published in serial form, and it’s easy to see how magazine readers of the day got hooked. Collins is a master at building slow-burn suspense: It can be a bit of a slog on the way to a chapter’s climax but, once you get there, the payoff is often rewarding. Collins also introduces a villain for the ages in the egotistical, silver-tongued Count Fosco.

What I didn’t like: The youthful heroes aren’t nearly as interesting as the malevolent count. The beautiful heiress is typical of so many “damsels in distress” found in Victorian literature, a fragile specimen who faints at the slightest provocation and must be shielded from anything and everything remotely unpleasant. (She’s an apparent precursor to some of today’s college students, with their “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces.”) Here is one passage describing the precious snowflake that is Lady Glyde:

“The effect of the good news on poor Lady Glyde was, I grieve to say, quite overpowering. She was too weak to bear the violent reaction, and in another day or two she sank into a state of debility and depression which obliged her to keep her room. Rest and quiet, and change of air afterwards, were the best remedies which Mr. Dawson could suggest for her benefit.”

And that’s how she reacts to the good news.

07Mar

Reviews in Short: March 2016

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Unfriended

For anyone who’s ever been creeped out by an anonymous lurker, or a troll, on the Internet, Unfriended will hit home – at least for the first half of the movie, in which a small group of tech-savvy teens find their Skype call invaded by an unwelcome visitor. Unfortunately, events that follow – involving a ghost and some vicious online behavior – grow more and more ridiculous. If nothing else, the movie, which occurs entirely online, is a good primer for novice users of Instagram, Facebook, and other sites where the kids hang out. Release: 2015 Grade: B-

08Feb

Reviews in Short: February 2016

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Kingsman: The Secret Service

A street kid is recruited by an international spy (Colin Firth) to combat an evil billionaire (Samuel L. Jackson) who plans to dramatically reduce Earth’s human population – ostensibly to combat global warming. This British spy movie is more in line with the sillier James Bond adventures starring Roger Moore than with the more recent, dead-serious Daniel Craig outings. The plot is outlandish and the villains cartoonish, but hey, that’s what we paid for. And besides, who doesn’t want to “do it in the asshole” with Swedish actress Hanna Alstrom? Release: 2015 Grade: B

01Feb

The Name of the Rose

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by Umberto Eco

I love this book, much as I love the movie it inspired, mostly for the world it so vividly recreates: a 14th-century monastery in the mountains of northern Italy, populated by monks, peasants – and an apparent serial killer. Although this medieval community is a great place to visit in a book, you probably wouldn’t want to live there. Not unless you enjoy fetching water from wells, laboring from dawn to dusk, and adhering to the strict lifestyle of a monk.

Eco, a scholar specializing in signs and symbols, depicts this world of bookish monks and warring religious factions with painstaking detail. (Alas, at times the reader might also experience pain; Eco’s lengthy philosophical and historical conversations can grow tiresome.)

The plot is driven a la Agatha Christie – someone is picking off abbey denizens, one by one – and the protagonist is courtesy of Arthur Conan Doyle – a brilliant Franciscan friar named William of Baskerville investigates the murders – but above all it’s the atmospheric sense of time and place that makes this tale so absorbing.

17Jan

Reviews in Short: January 2016

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Mad Max: Fury Road

Director George Miller returns to post-apocalyptic Australia to deliver a two-hour cartoon that looks really cool, but which has very little to engage the mind. That’s a fine thing if you’re 12 years old, but some of us geezers recall a time when big-budget action flicks at least made a token effort to provide the semblance of a plot, or one or two characters who do more than grunt their lines. But if all you require is a movie with spectacular chase scenes and things that go boom, this ought to more than satisfy you. Release: 2015 Grade: B-

*****

Black Sheep

Genetic engineering goes wrong, turning thousands of harmless sheep into bloodthirsty beasts as they run amok in the New Zealand countryside. It’s not quite as funny as it sounds – there’s too much emphasis on gore and special effects, not enough on the (sorry) sheer lunacy of actual sheep on a killer rampage. Then again, the image of hundreds of corpulent sheep congregating on a hilltop, preparing to attack like the schoolyard crows in The Birds, still brings a smile to my face. Release: 2006 Grade: B-

*****

The Imitation Game

After watching this movie and then doing some research on the real-life people and events that inspired it, I felt much the same way that I felt years ago after reading James Frey’s infamous “memoir,” A Million Little Pieces: Yes, it was a bummer to learn that the film (or book) took so many liberties with reality – but I liked it anyway.

Is it fair to criticize the makers of The Imitation Game for altering the story of Alan Turing, the gay, brilliant mathematician who was instrumental in cracking a Nazi code during World War II? I think it is, especially when the movie opens with the standard “based on a true story” tagline, and especially when the names of real people are retained. If you can shrug off that “artistic license,” though, Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance as Turing and the inherent suspense of the story make for a touching, powerful drama. Release: 2014 Grade: B+

14Dec

Lights Out

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by Ted Koppel

As if this country doesn’t have enough to worry about, what with strained race relations, domestic terrorism, war in the Middle East, and income disparity, along comes doom-and-gloom Ted Koppel to issue a warning about what might be our biggest existential threat: a cyberattack on the nation’s power grids. In Lights Out, Koppel interviews security experts both in and out of government and makes a convincing case that should some rogue nation – or even a small band of hackers – choose to shut down our computer-reliant electrical system, the ensuing crisis could resemble … well, have you seen Mad Max?

A large chunk of America without power for weeks or even months is a frightening scenario, and probably another case of “when it happens,” not “if it happens.” And when it does, the United States is woefully unprepared. Much of our unpreparedness boils down to that old bugaboo, privacy vs. security. How much of the former are we willing to sacrifice in order to achieve the latter? The conundrum reminds me of the death penalty, another issue over which I’m an admitted hypocrite. I am against the death penalty – until someone I care about gets butchered by some remorseless jerk. I am also against government intrusion into my Internet life – until hackers black out the entire Midwest.

Koppel’s advice isn’t particularly helpful or practical: Government and individuals must be better prepared. Feel better now? Should the worst happen, I’m thinking your best course of action is to befriend a Mormon family, move in with them in Utah – and bring a gun.

09Dec

Reviews in Short: December 2015

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Ex Machina

Take “Hal” from 2001: A Space Odyssey — or any of the replicants from Blade Runner — toss him (or her) into the plot of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and you’ll get something akin to this cautionary tale about a reclusive genius and his latest project: a doe-eyed android named Ava. The question is: Just how “human” is Ava?

Writer-director Alex Garland (Sunshine, Never Let Me Go) delivers a visually striking, dreamlike motion picture — although the characters are a miserable lot, the tone is oppressive, and at times the story drags. Still, this is thought-provoking science fiction, mostly because it’s such a plausible glimpse at our future. Release: 2015 Grade: B+

**

Phoenix

A presumed-dead Holocaust survivor (Nina Hoss), shot in the head, has facial reconstruction surgery and returns home to her husband – but he fails to recognize her. Oh, and he might have betrayed her to the Nazis. Absorbing and suspenseful, Phoenix raises memories of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, with its haunted tone and themes of fantasy and identity.

I do have two minor complaints. The plot suffers from what I call Agatha Christie Syndrome: People who really ought to recognize someone, do not (or vice versa). And I don’t understand why romantic mood-pieces like this one, which cry out for a musical score, eschew them. Release: 2014 Grade: B

**

Welcome to New York

Abel Ferrara’s thinly veiled account of the alleged sexual assault of an immigrant chambermaid by French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn is an intriguing, if not particularly powerful, docudrama. It’s not easy to be repulsed by a hedonistic, unrepentant rich man when he’s portrayed by an actor as charming as Gerard Depardieu. But it’s always fascinating to see how the world’s elite behave and misbehave – whether or not that behavior is real or the product of a screenwriter’s imagination. Release: 2014 Grade: B

**

American Sniper

I lost all faith in the veracity of war movies “based on a true story” back in 2003 when the military and NBC (Saving Jessica Lynch) sold us a bill of goods about the saga of Jessica Lynch, so I have no clue how faithful Sniper is to the life of Navy sharpshooter Chris Kyle. I doubt that the real Kyle was as charismatic as Bradley Cooper is in this controversial take on U.S. involvement in the Middle East. But old pro Clint Eastwood knows how to stage a tense, suspenseful battle sequence, and his movie is certainly thought-provoking. Release: 2014 Grade: B

**

The Girl

Toby Jones is superb as Alfred Hitchcock and, surprisingly (to me, at least), Sienna Miller is more than his match as Tippi Hedren, the Minnesota model whom Hitchcock turned into a movie star, in the process becoming dangerously obsessed with her. I have no idea how closely The Girl adheres to reality, but as a beauty and the beast docudrama, it’s much better than I expected. How does it compare to Hitchcock, the Anthony Hopkins vehicle that also came out in 2012? This is better because, like so many of Hitchcock’s movies, it’s absorbing and deliciously twisted. Release: 2012 Grade: A-

07Dec

Cinderella (1977)

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And now for something completely different …

Once upon a time, Your Humble Reviewer lived in a strange kingdom called Texas. One lonely night he imbibed too much mead and found himself staring at a late-night movie on Cinemax. The movie had lots of nudity and sex, and the story was very silly. Alas, the nasty mead eventually caused Your Humble Reviewer to drift off into dreamland, until …

… the following morning, when bits and pieces of the Cinemax movie began to crop up in his foggy memory bank. The film had been called Cinderella, and indeed it featured wicked stepsisters and a fairy godmother and a carriage ride to the big ball. But it also had sex scenes. And music and dancing. Disco-flavored music. Most perplexing of all, it seemed to Your Humble Reviewer that the movie … had not sucked.

Many moons later, in the year 2015 and while he dwelled in a new kingdom called Minnesota, Your Humble Reviewer once again watched Cinderella, which had recently been issued on DVD. And lo and behold, it still didn’t suck. Quite the contrary; parts of this soft-core-porn-musical-comedy were actually a hoot, and the songs and choreography were, well, quite good.

The plot: What, you don’t know the story of Cinderella? The plot in this version is the same, albeit with adults-only alterations. The fairy godmother, for example, is played by black actor Sy Richardson who, as a fun-loving thief, steals every household good in sight and every scene he appears in. The handsome prince, in his quest to find the enchanting Cinderella, slips more than a shoe onto comely maidens. Oh, and then there is the “snapping pussy” ….

In an inexplicable, bizarre dream sequence, this creepy geezer squeezes poor Cinderella’s breasts until they squirt milk.

Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith plays the beloved lead, which in this telling of the fairy tale requires her to be gullible (check), cute as a button (check), personable (check), and often naked (check and check again). Sadly, Smith’s real life was apparently no fairy tale. According to her Wikipedia biography, a few years after Cinderella, Smith became addicted to heroin, which eventually led to a pair of prison stints and her death from liver disease and hepatitis at age 47.

It’s not likely that NBC will be inspired to produce this version of Cinderella as one of its live musical holiday specials. Along with the voluminous sex and skin, this is a low-budget affair, with bad dubbing, cheesy sets, and dime-store special effects. On the other hand, this 1977 oddity boasts music and songs by Andrew Belling with witty lyrics, an energetic cast, amusing 1970s pop-culture references, and some numbers that are better than what you’ll find in many “legitimate” musicals. It’s all very good-natured and fun.

In the end, of course, they all fuck happily ever after. Merry Christmas. Grade: B

Elizabeth Halsey rides the prince while Linda Gildersleeve, also in her birthday suit, looks on.

Director: Michael Pataki Cast: Cheryl Smith, Yana Nirvana, Marilyn Corwin, Jennifer Doyle, Sy Richardson, Brett Smiley, Kirk Scott, Brenda Fogarty, Elizabeth Halsey, Linda Gildersleeve, Mariwin Roberts, Roberta Tapley Release: 1977

Watch the Trailer (click here)

This female extra was either the victim of budget cuts (no money for knickers!), or she was married to a producer and had an exhibitionist fetish.

Cinderella (right) and the girls check out the prince’s family jewels.

02Dec

The Girl on the Train

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by Paula Hawkins

There’s a literary technique called “the unreliable narrator,” in which – surprise, surprise – you can’t trust the narrator. In Girl, there are three unreliable narrators, each of whom describes, diary-style, the events leading up to a murder. Mostly, we hear from Rachel, an unemployed and divorced alcoholic who suffers from drunken blackouts. She also rides a train to and from London, hoping to fool her flatmate into believing she’s still gainfully employed. One day, Rachel gets off the train and, in an advanced state of inebriation, witnesses … something bad. But what was it? She doesn’t remember.

I really like the author’s use of poor, pathetic Rachel as the protagonist. If you’ve ever suffered an alcoholic blackout, you know that it isn’t what you recall from the night before that’s a problem; it’s what you don’t recall. That’s a perfect set-up for a heroine who might or might not have witnessed something horrendous.

What I didn’t care for: the story’s ending, which is a bit predictable and melodramatic to the point of silliness. Must the villain, finally unmasked, fall into that tired cliché of confessing all to everyone within earshot, practically cackling and hissing while doing so? Still, until that disappointing ending, this is a plausible, suspenseful thriller.

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