March 2024

 

DUNE: PART TWO (2024)

     Naively, I was hoping for a “Previously in ‘Dune’” trailer before Part Two unfurled, more than three years after the first installment of this trilogy was released (why not? Instead, I sat through six loud and uninteresting previews).

     While I found the 2021 Part One rather pointless, the new film kept me engaged for most of its nearly three-hour length. While I never grasped the nuanced relationship between those fighting for their freedom from the oppressive rulers and the cultish group that sees Paul Atreides (a determinedly earnest Timothée Chalamet) as its messiah, there are enough spectacular battles and human-like bonding to keep anyone entertained.

       Director Denis Villeneuve (“Arrival,” “Sicario”) again finds the right balance between biblical-like prophesizing and “Star Wars”-like heroics, all set amid endless sand and the “futurist” technology imagined by writer Frank Herbert in the 1960s.

      Coming to the aid of serious-minded Paul, is religious leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem) and Gurney (Josh Brolin), the no-nonsense soldier who served the young man’s late father. Pulling Paul in opposite directions are his mystic-minded mother (Rebecca Ferguson) and romantic interest Chani (Zendaya), a tough-minded soldier who believes in the here and now.

     I could have done without the substantial screentime given to the hairless Harkonnens, led by the Baron, a blob of matter played by Stellan Skarsgard whose orders are carried out by the senselessly violent Beast Rabban (Dave Bautista) and a young psychopath (an unrecognizable Austin Butler). The film also introduces Prince Irulan (Florence Pugh), who clearly will play a key role in Part Three (No release date has been announced), daughter of the universe’s emperor, played by an embarrassingly miscast Christopher Walken.

       Obviously, what’s most impressive about “Dune” is the otherworldly look created by Part One’s Oscar-winning team of production designer Patrice Vermette, set designer Zsuzsanna Sipos, the visual effects team and cinematographer Greig Fraser. Yet too often I couldn’t help wonder if the astonishing vistas that filled the screen were movie magic or just more advanced CGI. But Villeneuve’s worst decision was approving Han Zimmer’s ear-splitting, torturous electronic score—I longed for a mute button.

 

PERFECT DAYS (2023)

     For the past 50 years, German director Wim Wenders has remained one of cinema’s most interesting filmmakers, making features, documentaries and short films that reflect the character-based sensibility of the late 1960s.

    The 79-year-old’s latest, a Japanese movie following the daily life of a Tokyo sanitation worker earned an Oscar nomination for best international picture. It collects small moments in this 60something man’s mostly solitary life that play out like a beautiful realized short story, offering more insight into the contemporary world than most overly plotted stories, a reminder of Wender’s spare approach to filmmaking.

      In “Alice in the Cities” (1974), “The American Friend” (1977) “Paris, Texas” (1984), “Wings of Desire” (1987) and, more recently, “Don’t Come Knocking” (2005), Wenders lingers over what could be classified as pedestrian moments that add up to much more.

    Veteran actor Koji Yakusho plays Hirayama, a single man who replays his routine day after day: going to his job cleaning public toilets, listening to cassettes of classic American rock in his car, photographing a cluster of trees (using an old digital camera), frequenting the same restaurant and bar and then ending his day reading paperback novels.  

     He takes great pride in doing his job well while silently putting up with his younger, less responsible assistant. Hirayama’s passive indulgence seems to have no limit, as when the assistant tries to sell Hirayama’s cassettes to secure a few yens for a date.

     In the second half of the film, two people enter Hirayama’s orbit who offer more insight into Hirayama past and outlook, but don’t expect something dramatic or revelatory. This is a touching slice of life, a tribute to a more analog world, as essayed by a superb actor (Yakusho, a star in Japan since the 1990s, including high-profile imports “Shall We Dance” and “Under the Open Sky”) and a legendary filmmaker.

      If “Perfect Days”—the title comes from a Lou Reed song Hirayama plays in his car—has the feel of a documentary, it’s because much of Wenders recent work has been nonfiction; “Buena Vista Social Club” (1999), “Pina” (2011) and “The Salt of the Earth” (2014) were nominated for documentary Oscars.  His doc on painter Anselm Kiefer was released in the U.S. last year.

 

THE STING (1973)

     In a recent email exchange, a friend was aghast that I wasn’t a fan of this beloved best picture Oscar winner. The Robert Redford-Paul Newman comic caper remains one of the most popular films of the 1970s, but not with me.

     Take away those two stars and, as I see it, it’d be a long forgotten minor entry during Hollywood’s second golden age. But maybe I was being too harsh on the picture—it did revive interest in Ragtime music. Then I watched it again, probably for the first time in 30 years.

     I found the plot repetitive and obvious, the direction clumsy and as flat as a TV episode and surprisingly pedestrian dialogue.

    Especially in the long period in the middle of the film when Newman’s Henry Gondorff nearly disappears, the film flounders and Robert Shaw’s rather one-note bad guy performance takes center stage.

    If you’ve forgotten the plot, Redford’s Johnny Hooker is an up-and-coming conman who is determined to bring down Doyle Lonnegan (Shaw), a ruthless gambler. He partners with Gondorff to set up a fake bookie joint to drain Lonnegan’s bank account.

     The picture’s biggest flaw is that little of interest happens before it arrives at the final con—which, of course, is what everyone remembers fondly. The back- and-forth chase of Johnny by a bumbling cop (Charles Durning) grows tiring quickly.

     Redford, nominated for best actor for the performance (the film scored 10 Oscar nominations, winning seven) was in the midst of his most production stretch as an actor—“Jeremiah Johnson” and “The Candidate” came out the year before and just around the corner was “Three Days of the Condor” (1975) and “All the President’s Men” (1976). His work in “The Sting” doesn’t match those other performances, though most of the blame goes to David S. Ward’s too cute script.

     Newman, as always, is a joy to watch work playing the veteran conman, but he’s a supporting actor here. Four years later, also under the direction of George Roy Hill, he gave his best performance of the 1970s as the aging hockey player in “Slap Shot.”

    Hill topped Ingmar Bergman (‘Cries and Whispers”) for best director in 1973, though I suspect the Oscar was as much for his earlier work with the two actors in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” a much better movie.

    “The Sting” isn’t a bad film, but, in my mind, wasn’t among the best films of 1973, probably wouldn’t make my Top 20. This was the year of “Mean Streets,” “American Graffiti,” “Badlands,” “Serpico” and “The Last Detail” just to name a few standout pictures, not to mention “Last Tango in Paris,” the most compelling movie released in the U.S. that year.

  

THE CAINE MUTINY COURT-MARTIAL (2023, TV)

     Herman Wouk’s play, based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, has remained one of the most enduring stage productions since its Broadway debut in 1954. The latest adaptation, made for Showtime, is the final work of high-profile filmmaker William Friedkin, who died last August at age 87.

    Though the director’s most important film, “The French Connection” was released more than a half-century ago, he continued to make features and TV films into the 21^st Century, including “Rules of Engagement” (2000), another court-martial film.

     Unlike the Humphrey Bogart-starring 1954 movie, based on Wouk’s novel, the play is set entirely in the military courtroom during the court-martial of Lt. Stephen Maryk (a rather bland Jake Lacy), accused of mutiny for taking over the command of USS Caine during a storm. The defense centers on questioning the mental stability of the ship’s commander, Philip Queeg (Keifer Sutherland), who made enemies of the crew with his petty rules and stern discipline. The play’s most famous monologue is Queeg’s description of his painstaking investigation into missing strawberries.

     Sutherland, best known for his unstoppable intelligence agent Jack Bauer in the TV series “24,” never convinced me he was the unstable burnt-out case that is Queeg. Jason Clarke, one of the busiest supporting actors in movies today, is excellent in the play’s most complex role, defense attorney Barney Greenwald, who has grave doubts about his client. But dominating this production is Lance Reddick, as the chief judge of the court-martial. The late actor’s commanding baritone voice brings a Shakespearian resonance to the role; he would have been a memorable Queeg.

      After “The French Connection” won the 1971 best picture Oscar and Friedkin took home best director, he hit Hollywood gold with the genre-redefining horror film “The Exorcist.” With this box office hit, Friedkin seemed destined for an important filmmaking career. But over the next 50 years, he rarely found the magic of those two films again. He undercut his standing in Hollywood with “Cruising” (1980), an uncompromising—some would say homophobic—look at the gay S&M club scene. It was a misfire with critics and filmgoers.     

      In the 2018 documentary “Friedkin Uncut,” a mix of clips and an interview with the outspoken Friedkin, a case is made for “Sorcerer” (1977) and “To Live and Die in L.A.” (1985) as equals to his early successes. While I haven’t seen “Sorcerer” in many years, I remember it as an average remake of the great 1953 French film “Wages of Fear.”

     I have seen “To Live and Die in L.A.” recently and it hasn’t aged well. Despite a plot less interesting than a 1950s B-movie and an annoying soundtrack dominated 1980s pop-jazz fusion, the film has retained a cult-like following. In the film, Friedkin all but ignores Los Angeles, setting most of the picture in the unpopulated areas around the port and mistakenly relies on unknown actor William Petersen (he had had one small role in a film four years earlier) to carry the film.   

     Friedkin retained his status as a A-level director into the new century, making “The Hunted” (2003) with Tommy Lee Jones and Benito del Toro and two films penned by Tracy Letts, “Bug” (2006) with Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon and “Killer Joe” (2011) starring Matthew McConaughey as a ruthless hitman.

     But he could never match the gritty, street-level realism and edge-of-your-seat cat-and-mouse pursuit of “The French Connection.” Few have.

  

THE SCARF (1951)

    From the end of World War I until the rise of Hitler, Hollywood was the beneficiary of the emigration of some of the most talented German and Austrian filmmakers of the era. Some of the finest pictures of the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s were made by this collective, led by Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Max Ophüls, Robert Siodmak, Fred Zinnemann, Otto Preminger and Billy Wilder.

    But not everyone found success in America. Ewald André (E.A.) Dupont, one-time journalist, became a central figure of the German expressionist movement, mostly as a screenwriter but also the director of “Variety” (1925), the critically acclaimed story of trapeze artists. Later, working in England, he made “Piccadilly” (1929), Anna May Wong’s best known starring role.

     Yet in Hollywood, he never got a chance to direct an A-level picture; his best- known film is probably “Hell’s Kitchen” (1939) featuring the Dead End Kids and Ronald Reagan. He was fired from that production after taking a swing at a cast member (the future president?) and then worked as a publicist before returning to directing with “The Scarf,” a B-movie gem that’s a quirky mix of unusual characters, offhanded philosophy and desperation.

       The film reunites two of the stars of the 1949 best picture winner, “All the King’s Men,” John Ireland and Mercedes McCambridge. He plays John Barrington, an escaped convict who hides out in Joshua Tree with a talkative, cello-playing turkey farmer, Ezra. As the hermit-philosopher James Barton pretty much steals the picture from the better-known actors. He speaks with the poetic sarcasm of an O’Neill character as he tries to guide a very confused Barrington. Early on he advises him that a bullet “talks everybody’s language. Before a bullet all men are equal.”

      McCambridge plays a smart-mouthed hitchhiker who Barrington picks up on the road to Los Angeles and helps him figure out if he really did kill his girlfriend.

      Also in the cast is Welch actor Emlyn Williams as Ireland’s best friend and psychiatrist and Harry Shannon (he played Charles Foster Kane’s father in “Citizen Kane”) as the prison warden.

     Ireland and McCambridge had long careers as supporting players while Barton, who started his career in silents, played grizzled old timers until his death in 1962.

    Dupont continued his low-budget career, making his final feature three years later, “Return to Treasure Island,” starring Tab Hunter. But he did write the story for “Please Murder Me!” (1956), an odd film noir starring Raymond Burr and Angela Lansbury and the script for “Magic Fire” (1958), a biopic of Richard Wagner. Dupont passed away in 1956.

 .

GO TELL THE SPARTANS (1978)

    To state the obvious, more movies were made about World War II than any conflict in history—yearly, European directors continue to find stories about the conflict. Yet the relatively small cinematic output focused on the Vietnam War has resulted just as many, if not more, great films than the Allied victory in the mid-century war.

     Vietnam, offering a less clear-cut view of right and wrong, winners and losers, produced “The Deer Hunter” (1978), “Apocalypse Now” (1979), “Platoon” (1986), “Full Metal Jacket” (1987), “Casualties of War” (1989) and “Born on the Fourth of July (1989), just to name the very best.

      This neglected picture, which came out the same year as “The Deer Hunter” (and the home front picture “Coming Home”) isn’t quite at that level, but deserves to be remembered as one of the best depictions of the early years of American involvement in Vietnam.   

      Burt Lancaster, in one of his best late-career performances, plays Major Asa Barker, a cynical veteran of WW II, now heading a small platoon of American advisers, along with a volatile collection of South Vietnamese soldiers, in 1964. Not much is happening until a very enthusiastic Gen. Harnitz (Dolph Sweet) orders Barker to establish an American presence at the remote area of Muc Wa. The expected minor resistance from Communist troops turns into something much more deadly, foreshadowing the unexpected number of casualties that kept growing as the U.S. role increased in the coming years.  

     The supporting cast seems more appropriate for a TV movie, but they deliver when called on, including Craig Wasson (“Body Double,” “Four Friends”) as Corporal Courcey, an enlisted man who sees his service as a higher calling, Jonathan Goldsmith as the no-nonsense Sgt. Oleonowski and David Clennon as an efficiency expert who mostly irritates Barker. The ubiquitous James Hong has a touching role as one of the South Vietnamese fighting alongside the Americans.

      Ted Post, a veteran of television who also directed Clint Eastwood in “Hang ‘Em High” and “Magnum Force,” keeps the tension high and the moralizing at a minimum, working from a script, both heartfelt and humorous, by Wendell Mayes (“Anatomy of a Murder”) based on a novel by Daniel Ford.

     Lancaster, one of the best actors of the 1950s and ‘60s, who starred in one of the great WW II films, “From Here to Eternity” (1953), plays Barker as a man out of his time struggling to get a handle on what this new war is all about. Two years later, he channeled the same kind of old-timer, tough guy role in the more acclaimed “Atlantic City.”  

  

THE TERROR (1963)

    Two of the funniest comedies in recent years have been about the making of movies—"Dolemite Is My Name” and “The Disaster Artist.” I’m certain, after repeated viewings of “The Terror,” an ineptly made and badly scripted Roger Corman production, that it has all the elements—including the involvement of future cinema stars—to be the basis for a comedy classic.

     Reusing the sets created for “The Raven,” Corman convinced Boris Karloff, who co-starred with Vincent Price in the Poe adaptation, to film for more two days and co-star with young actor Jack Nicholson, who had a small role in “The Raven,” in “The Terror.” It’s one of those films, typical of so many low budget pictures, in which nothing makes any sense until a character, usually under duress, spells out the implausible plot details. An uncredited Peter Bogdanovich, then 24, took claim for at least some of the script.

     Nicholson plays Lt. Duvalier, a French army officer who, while riding alone along a beach, encounters a mysterious woman (Sandra Knight, who co-starred with Robert Mitchum in “Thunder Road”), and then, in search of her, visits a towering castle perched on the rocky cliffs above the sea.

     Karloff is properly haughty as the Baron Von Leppe, the master of the castle still mourning the death of his wife—who looks a lot like the woman Duvalier seeks—20 years earlier. Stealing the film is Corman regular Dick Miller as Stefan, the Baron’s henchman, who shadows Duvalier as he scouts around the castle’s labyrinth of rooms and hallways. Miller was memorable as a murderous sculptor in Corman’s “A Bucket of Blood” (1959) and went on to prolific supporting actor career, working right up to his death in 2019.

     According to Corman, because of guild rules, he was unable to finish directing the picture so he handed the reigns over to one of his assistants, Francis Coppola, whose experience at this point was as co-director of a couple of racy, D-level pictures. By week’s end, Coppola was offered a chance to direct “You’re a Big Boy Now,” his break into the bigtime.

    Next up was Monte Hellman, listed as location director, who went on to direct Nicholson in two cult classic Westerns, “The Shooting” and “Ride in the Whirlwind.” Also reportedly running the set for at least a few days were Jack Hill, who went on to make the Blaxploitation pictures “Coffey” and “Foxy Brown;” Dennis Jakob, who also served as Karloff’s stunt double, and Jack Hale, who, for all I know, ran the production’s craft services.

    At some point, Corman (who recently turned 98) relates, Nicholson complained to him: “Every idiot in town has directed part of this film. Let me direct the final day.” So he did.

    The first 15 minutes of “The Terror” isn’t bad, but the final, pieced-together product is a confusing mess. Yet it still shows up on television 50 years after its release due in large part to Nicholson’s subsequent fame. Actually, it’s baffling, considering his performance in “The Terror,” that it was six years before the actor scored his breakthrough role in “Easy Rider.”

     I’m seeing Tom Holland as Jack and maybe Jonah Hill as Corman, but no doubt there are TV actors I’ve never heard of who would fit the roles—just so someone makes this choice piece of Hollywood history into a movie.

 

 PHOTOS:

  Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya in “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.)

 Paul Newman and Robert Redford in “The Sting” (Universal Pictures)

 The colorful poster from “The Scarf” (United Artists)

 Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff in “The Terror” (American International)

 

 

Best of 2023

 

 

  Films

  1  Oppenheimer
  2  Poor Things
  3  Maestro
  4  All of Us Strangers
  5  The Holdovers
  6  Killers of the Flower Moon
  7  Ferrari
  8  Napoleon
  9  Past Lives
10  American Fiction

 

11  Master Gardener
12  Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One
13  Air
14  You Hurt My Feelings
15  Flora and Son
16  The Equalizer 3
17  Reptile

18  The Lost King
19  The Iron Claw
20  Asteroid City

 

 Directors

 1  Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
 2  Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
 3  Bradley Cooper, Maestro
 4  Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
 5  Michael Mann, Ferrari
 
 Actors

 1  Cillan Murphy, Oppenheimer
 2  Bradley Cooper, Maestro
 3  Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
 4  Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
 5  Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers
 
 Actresses

 1  Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
 2  Carey Mulligan, Maestro
 3  Emma Stone, Poor Things
 4  Natalie Portman, May December
 5  Greta Lee, Past Lives
 
 Supporting Actors

 1  Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
 2  Willem Dafoe, Poor Things
 3  Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
 4  Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
 5  Paul Mescal, All of Us Strangers
 
 Supporting Actresses

 1  Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
 2  Penelope Cruz, Ferrari
 3  Rosamund Pike, Saltburn
 4  Claire Foy, All of Us Strangers
 5  Viola Davis, Air
 
 Screenwriters

 1  Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
 2  Tony McNamara, Poor Things
 3  David Hemingson, The Holdovers
 4  Cord Jefferson, American Fiction
 5  Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers
 
 Cinematographers

 1  Robbie Ryan, Poor Things
 2  Matthew Libatique, Maestro
 3  Dariusz Wolski, Napoleon
 4  Rodrigo Prieto, Killers of the Flower Moon
 5  Hoyte van Hoytema, Oppenheimer

January 2024

 

2023 OSCAR NOMINATIONS

       For decades, I’ve used this space to disparage the selections made by the usually nearsighted Academy voters. But I must give the group props this year as they did an admirable job of voting in a respectable collection of nominees, most prominently withstanding the “Barbie” propaganda machine that attempted to equate its box-office success with being a good movie.

       The picture still scored best picture, best screenplay and best supporting actor nods, but the voters left director Greta Gerwig out of the five nominated filmmakers. “Barbie” fanatics somehow see her exclusion (is it a snub when someone finishes sixth or seventh in a vote?) as a comment against female empowerment. Instead, they should be more upset that Celine Song for “Past Lives” (a best picture nominee) and Nicole Holofcener for “You Hurt My Feelings” (totally ignored) were left out; these women, by my account, were the outstanding female directors of 2023. Gerwig’s spot on the five select directors was most likely taken by another female filmmaker, French director Justine Triet for “Anatomy of a Fall,” displaying the Academy’s recent move toward rewarding more international pictures.

     From my perspective, the filmmaker who should be most upset with the directing nominations is Bradley Cooper (he was acknowledged for his acting and screenwriting), whose “Maestro” direction establishes him as one of Hollywood’s best filmmakers, bringing style and thoughtfulness to the bio-pic genre.  

      The film that Academy voters completely whiffed on was “All of Us Strangers” (see my review below), a riveting, superbly written and acted study of a gay man coming to grips with his life and the loss of his parents. Actors Andrew Scott and Claire Foy both deserved recognition, along with director Andrew Haigh’s script.

      Most of the other misses by the Academy were in the supporting categories: considering all the nominations for “Poor Things” I don’t know how they left out Willem Dafoe, who gives the film’s best performance. Among supporting actresses, three of the finest performers working in cinema: Penelope Cruz (“Ferrari”), Rosamund Pike (“Saltburn”) and Viola Davis (“Air”—why do voters always ignore movies released before May?) should all be competing for the Oscar. 

     The Academy voters disagreed with my objections to “The Zone of Interest” (see below) but there’s always one of those every year. Yet seeing one of my longtime favorite actors, the underrated Jeffrey Wright, among the nominees made up for much foolishness. 

     Here’s my Top 10, though there’s still a few pictures I still need to see. (I will be shocked if “Oppenheimer” isn’t the big winner next month at the Oscars.)

     1  Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)

     2  Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)

     3  Maestro (Bradley Cooper)

     4  All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)

     5  The Holdovers (Alexander Payne)

     6  Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)

     7  Ferrari (Michael Mann)

     8  Napoleon (Ridley Scott)

     9  Past Lives (Celine Song)

    10  American Fiction (Cord Jefferson)

     Just below this fine collection of films are Paul Schrader’s “Master Gardener,” Christopher McQuarrie’s “Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One,” Ben Affleck’s “Air” and Nicole Holofcener’s “You Hurt My Feelings.” My complete list of the year’s best will be posted in a week or so.

 

ALL OF US STRANGERS (2023)

      Few films have successfully tackled loneliness, one of the most prevalent aspects of the human condition; the thin line between maudlin sympathy and clear-eyed insight is hard to navigate. With subtlety and sincerity, writer-director Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers” examines sadness in the human heart through a man’s imagination.

     Andrew (a quietly intense Andrew Scott), a screenwriter living in a brand-new apartment complex in London, faces his solitary existence—he seems to have no friends or colleagues—by conjuring up very realistic apparitions of his long-dead parents, visiting them in his family home.

      Mom and Dad (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) are surprised by their son’s visit but quickly accept the situation (while recognizing they are dead) and try to understand what has become of 40something Andrew they last knew as a 12-year-old. Yes, it sounds hokey, but Haigh makes it work perfectly.

      The conversations are sad, heartbreaking but also deeply revealing and impactful for Andrew, who still has issues from his youth. When he announces to his parents that he’s gay, the discussions grow more intense, more to the point of his disappointment about his life.

     Around the same time, the other resident in the high-rise, Harry (Paul Mescal), shows up at Andrew’s door, drunk and seeking companionship. Quickly, a bit conveniently, they become intimate and inseparable, but mostly staying in Andrew’s apartment.

     Haigh’s script, loosely based on Japanese novelist Taichi Yamada’s book, puts much of the burden to make the film work on the actors and the four principles deliver.

      Scott, who richly deserved an Oscar nomination, has been working in film (“Spectre,” “1917”) and on the British stage, giving an acclaimed performance as Hamlet, since the mid-90s. On the heels of this memorable film, Scott will play infamous conman Tom Ripley in an upcoming series.

      Mescal, who scored a best actor Oscar nod in 2022 for “Aftersun,” gives Harry a dangerous, mysterious aura while being a caring lover to Andrew. This could be a star-making year for Mescal as he plays the lead in Ridley Scott’s sequel to “Gladiator.”

       Foy (“The Crown”) and Bell (“Billy Elliot,” “Rocketman”) are conventional 20^th Century parents whose concerns for their son, who grew up without them, represents the fragile relationship that most children have with their mother and father. I can’t imagine anyone not relating to their scenes with Scott. 

      Haigh, with this film and “45 Years” (2015), which earned Charlotte Rampling a best actress nomination, displays an ability to take stagey, occasionally claustrophobic stories and turn them into compelling cinema.

  

THE ZONE OF INTEREST (2023)

     British director Jonathan Glazer specializes in snail-paced, quietly horrific stories—“Birth,” “Under the Skin” and, his best, “Sexy Beast”—but his chilly approach to filmmaking seems reductive and inappropriate in this off-centered slice of the Holocaust.

    Just outside the fences of Auschwitz, where the most inhuman crimes of the 20^th Century were being committed daily, the commandant of the death camp, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and children enjoy a tranquil life, seemingly untouched by the conflict devasting Europe.

    Glazer lingers over mundane moments of the family’s day-to-day existence without entering into the camp where Jews are being slaughtered.

     I can imagine this approach working for part of the film—maybe as a 15-minute opening—but when the film’s most intense conflict arises when Rudolf must leave his home in Poland, I gave up. Maybe I’m too dense, or too schooled in Hollywood filmmaking, to appreciate the director’s take on mass murder, but I found nothing of substance or value in the German-language film.

    This picture adds little to the rich legacy of big-screen depictions of the camps and the arrogance of the Nazis. Its inclusion among best picture and best director Oscar nominations is a travesty, worse than the praise for the goofball 1998 comedy “Life Is Beautiful.”  

 

THE LOST MOMENT (1947)

      The most famous directing one-offs in cinematic history include two masterpieces, Charles Laughton’s “The Night of the Hunter” (1955) and Jean Vigo’s “L’Atalante” (1934), and three memorable pictures, “One-Eyed Jacks” (1961), Marlon Brando’s only turn behind the camera, and two 1970 cult favorites, “The Honeymoon Killers,” directed by Leonard Kastle, better known as a composer of operas, and “Wanda,” made by actress Barbara Loden. (Vigo and Loden also directed a few short films.)

       Other one-time directors include actors Jack Lemmon (“Kotch”), Anthony Quinn (“The Buccaneer”) and Frank Sinatra (“None but the Brave”).

      This film, a Hitchcockian, romantic mystery, deserves a spot among the better efforts made by one-and-done directors. Martin Gabel was a well-known member of the Mercury Theatre, on stage and radio, and then later a movie character actor, usually playing a tough guy in such films as “Deadline-U.S.A.” (1952), “Tip on a Dead Jockey” (1957), “Lady in Cement” (1968) and “The First Deadly Sin” (1980). He was also married for 40 years to television personality Arlene Francis.

     Before he started acting in films, possibly inspired by the success of his Mercury boss Orson Welles, Gabel was hired to direct “The Lost Moment,” based on Henry James story “The Aspern Papers,” and headlined by two major stars, Robert Cummings and Susan Hayward.

    While not quite “Citizen Kane,” the picture combines noirish shadows with literary secrets and features an intense performance by fellow Mercury player Agnes Moorehead. Cummings plays Lewis Venable, a rather unethical book publisher determined to find the long-lost love letters written by 19^th Century romantic poet Jeffrey Ashton. This performance ranks with his best film work, “Kings Row” and “Saboteur.”

      Pretending to be a writer, he rents a room in the estate of elderly Juliana Bordereau (Moorehead, wearing a prosthetic mask to look 100 years old) in hopes of obtaining, or stealing, the letters. But keeping an eye on everything in the house is her strangely robotic niece Tina (Hayward), who seems to be under the spell of the household’s past. The late-night meetings between Lewis and Juliana, who claims to never sleep, are memorable.

      The gothic mood maintained throughout and the fine performances—also Eduardo Ciannelli as the local priest and Joan Lorring as the oppressed, gossipy housekeeper—reflect well on the first-time director. Gabel is greatly aided by a pointed, unsentimental script by Leonardo Bercovici, who went on to work on the adaptations of two other mystical tales, “The Bishop’s Wife” (1947) and “Portrait of Jennie” (1948).

     Hayward was nominated for best actress five times in the late 40s and 1950s, starting with “Smash Up: The Story of a Woman” the same year she made “The Lost Moment.” But I would argue that her best performances were not in those melodramas that made her famous but in lesser-known picture such as this one, along with “Deadline at Dawn” (1946), “They Won’t Believe Me” (1947), “The Saxon Charm” (1948) and “The Lusty Men” (1952).

     I was unable to find any information on why Gabel never directed again; it’s hard to believe he didn’t have the chance after this impressive start. The film can be streamed for free on Youtube.

   

ANATOMY OF A FALL (2023)

     I’ve read that this critically acclaimed courtroom drama failed to receive an international film nomination because France authorities were upset at director Justine Triet’s comments about President Emmanuel Macron when she accepted the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Instead, the Academy voters rewarded the movie with nominations for best picture, director, actress, original screenplay and film editing!  

     After seeing the film, I think there were more artistic reasons why the French declined to put it forth to the Academy. It’s a fine, if inconsistent, film, but not as interesting as a dozen murder-mystery streaming series I’ve watched in the past few years. “Anatomy of a Fall,” with dialogue half in French, half in English, follows the investigation and then the trial after a well-known writer’s husband falls (or is pushed) to his death from a second-floor window. Sandra Hüller, who plays the wife in “The Zone of Interest,” portrays Sandra Voyter, who eventually lands in the docket, accused of murdering her husband.

 

       Combining typical elements of “Law and Order” with an intense domestic drama (better explored in films such as “Marriage Story,” “Fences,” “Manchester by the Sea”), the picture focuses on the unrelenting questioning by the prosecuting attorney that attempts to dig into the less-than-perfect marriage between Sandra and Samuel (Samuel Theis). It occasionally flashes back to arguments and situations between them and with their young son, who plays an important part in the court’s deliberation. 

     I understand Triet’s nomination (with co-writer Arthur Harari) for the film’s screenplay—the story remains compelling from start to finish—but too often the direction felt disorganized and choppy. I usually have no problem with long films, but this one certainly did not need to be 2 hours and 30 minutes. 

    The film offers an intense dramatization of a very complex marriage, focusing on how difficult it is to judge relationships from the outside, but constructing the story around a crime might not have been the best plan.

     

FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE (1961)

     I’ve seen more than my fair share of bad movies, but few are as incompactly written and acted as this offbeat, D-level heist picture.

     Beloved country-western musician Johnny Cash stars, giving one of the most  inept performance in film history as Johnny Cabot.

     This dumb-as-nails loser joins Fred Dorella (Vic Tayback, the restaurant owner from the TV show “Alice”) in a plot to kidnap the wife of a small-town bank president and then hold up the bank. Most of 80-minute crudely shot and directed

picture—I’m guessing it played mostly drive-ins—has Johnny trying to act tough as he holds the frightened wife (Cay Forester) captive in her home.  His jittery, baritone voice, which made him one of the most acclaimed singers of the century, and his clumsy line readings (I doubt there were many second takes), make his character hard to take seriously.  

    A series of phone calls signally when Fred has completed the bank robbery keeps getting confused and even the actors—certainly Cash—seem baffled.

     All the while, Johnny points an oversized pistol—it looks like something left over from a low-budget Western, at the wife. The best moments in the film are when 7-year-old Ronnie Howard comes home from school early and screws up the robbers’ plans. Howard gives the most accomplished performance in the picture.

      This mess was director Bill Karn’s follow-up to his drive-in “classic,” “Ma Barker’s Killer Brood.” Not surprisingly, “Five Minutes to Live” ended his career.

     Unlike his director, the Man in Black went on to appear in numerous TV movies and a few features over the next 30 years (including co-starring with Kirk Douglas in “A Gunfight”); certainly, it was all uphill from “Five Minutes to Live.”

  

THE IRON CLAW (2023)

      As a kid, one of the highlights of each weekend was watching “Studio Wrestling” on Saturday morning. The star of the Pittsburgh show was Italian-born Bruno Sammartino, who was always touted as the World Champion of Wrestling. But even to an 11- or 12-year-old, it was clear that the contests were staged for laughs, scripted battles not much different than a “Three Stooges” short.

     In Dallas, the Von Erich family took it much more seriously. Led by a demanding, masochistic father, former wrestler Fritz (in the film played an intense Holt McCallany), the four sons all end up in the ring, for better or worse.

    The story is seen through the eyes of oldest son Kevin (Zac Efron), who starts out as the chosen one, following his father’s orders without a word of dissent, and then is pushed aside for brothers David (Harris Dickinson) and Kerry (Jeremy Allen White). 

    The film, written and directed by Sean Durkin (“The Nest”), alternates between sweaty success between the ropes and devastating personal tragedies without much subtlety between. The acting is fine throughout but the camera keeps turning away, and the script falls short, just when you think one of these sons are going to reveal their inner demons.

    Another difficult balancing act the movie tries to pull off is the Von Erich belief that they are athletes, ignoring the reality that they are in the entertainment business. One of the best moments of the film comes late when new wrestling superstar Ric Flair (wild-eyed Aaron Dean Eisenberg) comes into the locker room after what looked like an incredibly intense battle with Kevin. Flair clearly understands he’s just an actor, has a good laugh and wants to go out drinking with his opponent.

    What “The Iron Claw” does best is portray the us-against-the-world mentality of so many traditional-value Americans, who refuse to admit that, maybe, they are taking the wrong path.

  

PHOTOS:

Margot Robbie in "Barbie"  (Warner Bros.)

Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott in “All of Us Strangers.” (Searchlight Pictures)

Susan Hayward and Robert Cummings in “The Lost Moment.” (Universal Pictures)

Sandra Hüller in “Anatomy of a Fall.”  (MK2 Films)

Harris Dickinson, Zac Efron, Stanley Simons and Jeremy Allen White are wrestling brothers in “The Iron Claw.” (A24)

December 2023

 

MAESTRO (2023)

     Henceforth, any filmmaker considering making a movie about a famous person should be required to watch this magnificently conceived portrait of mid-century musical giant Leonard Bernstein. Directed, co-written and starring Bradley Cooper, this energetic, emotionally raw picture, filled with adulation and criticism of the composer-conductor tells the story of how his addiction to fame and his sexual dalliances with men slowly destroyed his heterosexual marriage.

     After a short scene of Bernstein as an old man, the narrative begins, in black and white, on Nov. 14, 1943, the day that Bernstein filled in as conductor of the New York Philharmonic, without any rehearsals, instantly turning him into a celebrity in the classical music world. He jumps out of the bed he’s sharing with lifelong friend and lover David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer) and rushes ahead to the opportunity of a lifetime. Cooper quickly summarizes the great man’s entire life in this short sequence.

     At first, Cooper, looking astonishingly like Lenny (as he’s known to all), seems to be overacting, exaggerating the man’s enthusiasm, but soon it is clear that this was Bernstein and his exuberance is central to the story. In many ways, the first part of the movie reminded me of “Citizen Kane” in the way Cooper has the characters speak in declarative sentences, his use of full-frame closeups and the rushing about of the star as if there aren’t enough hours in the day.

    He meets actress Felicia Montealegre (a glowing Carey Mulligan) at a show-biz party (songwriters Adolph Green and Betty Comden are performing) and is instantly attracted. As the film portrays their relationship, it wasn’t a gay man using her as a public cover, but a deep love that lasted 25 years and produced three children.

    Their marriage gives the film its gravity, as Lenny’s achievements and affairs encircle his life, both keeping from being the husband and father he should be.

    In the last quarter of the film, there’s a heartbreaking argument between Felicia and Lenny that feels so real it’s hard to watch. Cooper and his “A Star Is Born” cinematographer Matthew Libatique, now filming in muted color, hold the shot for the entire scene, while outside the windows of the apartment the floats of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade move by. The entire film is filled with powerful images but Cooper and Libatique outdo themselves here.

    I rarely mention a film’s makeup, but two-time Oscar-winner Kazu Hiro’s work aging Cooper as Bernstein is crucial to the story’s believability; it’s almost shocking how real the 48-year-old actor looks as an old man. And Cooper adds to that believability by nailing the man’s distinctive vocal mannerisms.

      It’s so difficult to make bios sound fresh and realistic, but “Maestro” does that from start to finish. Cooper’s co-writer is maybe the best screenwriter working in Hollywood today, Josh Singer. Among his credits are “Spotlight” (he won an Oscar), “The Post” and the Neil Armstrong story “First Man,” having started as a writer on TV’s “The West Wing.”

     Of course, the film offers glimpses of Bernstein’s famous works: his partnership with choreographer Jerome Robbins (Michael Urie), starting with the ballet “Fancy Free” that turned into the Broadway hit “On the Town” and what may be the quintessential American musical, “West Side Story” along with his collaborations with fellow composer and close friend Aaron Copland (Brian Klugman).

      Since his breakthrough as a serious actor (no, I don’t count “Wedding Crashers” or “The Hangover”) in “Silver Lining Playbook” (2012), Cooper has racked up nine Oscar nominations (producing, acting, writing) and, as a director, breathed new life into an old war horse of a musical, “A Star Is Born.” He’s done plenty of outstanding film work, but this is the film that will define him as an artist, as both a filmmaker and an actor. In any other year, he’d be the favorite for best director, but Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan will keep him from that prize.

        As much as Cooper dominates the film, Mulligan is right there with him, giving a more down-to-earth performance but always reflecting Felicia’s joy in Lenny’s successes. One of the most effortless performers in movies, Mulligan sinks into her characters as well as anyone working today (as in “She Said,” “The Dig,” “The Great Gatsby,” “Shame”), rarely giving the showy performances that win awards—though her Cassandra in “Promising Young Woman” was an exception. Most years, her work here would be a shoo-in for best actress Oscar, but I think Lily Gladstone from “Killers of the Flower Moon” has that wrapped up.

      A caveat to my enthusiasm for “Maestro” is the same as I had for recent films “The Post” and “Mank,” among others that look back at historic events: Is there anyone under 60 who knows or cares about the subjects of the pictures? Few. But maybe this superb movie will enlighten those unfamiliar with Bernstein to the importance of this giant of 20^th Century music. Or, at least, they will relate to the underlying theme of the artist struggling to balance work with a personal life. 

 

POOR THINGS (2023)

     Imagine “Frankenstein” as a coming-of-age story, with plenty of sex thrown in, and you’ll have an idea of what Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest venture into the twisted psyche of humanity is all about. And, by the way, it’s a comedy.

     If the film earns a best picture Oscar nomination, as is expected, it will be the most sexually explicit, and possibly most bizarre, film ever to be considered for the top Academy Award; it makes most David Lynch films look like an episode of “Mayberry R.F.D.” But it grows on you. While there were many scenes I couldn’t watch—Lanthimos’ leaves little to the imagination during the dissecting (and reassembling) of cadavers—the journey Bella Baxter (a daring Emma Stone) embarks on when she leaves her creator, Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe, unforgettable as always), resonates as an extreme version of a road we’ve all travel in one way or another.

    Set in some vague period of 19^th Century London, the story begins with a young, pregnant woman tossing herself into the river and dying. Once Godwin takes possession of the body, he manages to re-animate her, implanting the fetus’ brain inside the woman’s head. Sounds like another twisted David Cronenberg picture or maybe a Vincent Price-Roger Corman drive-in movie from the 1960s, but screenwriter Tony McNamara (“The Favourite”), working from a novel by Alasdair Gray, has bigger plans for Bella than just being a weird scientific experiment.

     Barely able to speak and walking with difficulty, Bella seems to have no censor on her brain, saying and doing whatever she feels no matter the circumstances. And then, just as she discovers sexual pleasure, Duncan (Mark Ruffalo), a rather goofy lawyer shows up, and whisks her away on a Dickens-like adventure with computer-generated, dreamy sets and lots of sex.

     Stone, who co-starred in Lanthimos’ “The Favourite,” clearly trusts her director—I can just imagine how twisted the film must have seemed while it was being filmed. Wearing enormous, puffy-sleeved gowns while saying the most outrageous things, Bella comes off as an alien to most who encounter her, at least at first. Soon enough, she has more insight than anyone in the room.

     Dafoe continues to deliver one off-beat, memorable performance after another; his Godwin is a classic in the long tradition of movie mad scientist. Ruffalo gives the picture’s most overt comic performance as Duncan as he attempts to keep up with Bella after thinking he was her savior.

    Also giving stand-out performances in this strange world the filmmakers have created are Kathryn Hunter as the heavily tattooed madame of a Paris brothel and 80-year-old Hanna Schygulla, a German acting legend, as a wealthy woman who takes a liking to Bella.

      While I could have done with less extravagance and gore, “Poor Things” manages to take a heavy-handed storyline and turn it into a very funny, thoughtful picture, one of the year’s best.

  

AMERICAN FICTION (2023)

     Not many films have the audacity to focus on a subject as obscure as authenticity and representation in the publishing industry. Director Cord Jefferson, making his feature debut, whose script is based on Percival Everett’s novel, delivers a smart comedy about what passes as cutting-edge novels while contrasting those stereotype-filled tales with the down-to-earth life of an extended Black family.

     Jeffrey Wright plays Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a perpetually agitated college literature professor fed up with overly sensitive students and politically correct faculty while frustrated with his stalled writing career. His books are admired but don’t sell.

     Inspired by a recent best seller by another Black author (Issa Rae) that is filled with stereotype characters and language, Monk one-ups her, writing a cliché-riddled, life-of-crime novel under the pseudonym Stagg R. Lee. Monk convinces his agent (a very funny John Ortiz) to send this purposely ridiculous manuscript to publishers and, much to their amazement, it becomes a hot property.

     At the same time, Monk is dealing with real life family problems, including a brother (Sterling K. Brown) with drug problems and a mother (1960s television star Leslie Uggams) with dementia. Tracee Ellis Ross, who played the wife in the TV series “Blackish,” has a too-small role as Monk’s sister.

    Like most satires, the film overplays its hand occasionally and the script trips over itself at some of the plot turns, but the sincerity and ethical compass of Monk carries the film. And, without comment, the film honors two legendary Black artists, jazz pianist Thelonious Monk and novelist Ralph Ellison.

     Wright has never failed to create a memorable character in over 25 years of mostly supporting work in film, his breakthrough coming when he was cast as the controversial New York artist in “Basquiat” (1996). His best performances include the drug lord in “Shaft” (2000), Bill Murray’s best friend in “Broken Flowers” (2005), Felix, James Bond’s ally since “Casino Royale” (2006), as Beetee in the “Hunger Games” pictures and as another writer, Roebuck Wright, in “The French Dispatch” (2021). “American Fiction” is Wright’s third noteworthy performance of 2023, having also portrayed the comically stoic Gen. Gibson in “Asteroid City” and outspoken Congressman Adam Clayton Powell in the Civil Rights era drama “Rustin.”

     Uggams, a showbiz fixture since she was a child actress in the 1950s, has worked on Broadway, in television (most famously in the 1977 miniseries “Roots”) and as a recording star. Unbeknownst to me, the 80-year-old has been working steadily in TV and films since 2011. As Monk’s mother, she, brings dignity and sympathy to the role of a woman struggling with end-of-life cognitive issues.

    By the end of the movie, the plot starts playing with the “third wall”—it becomes unclear if we are watching the movie or a movie made from Monk’s book. It works as a metaphor for a white publishing industry that desperately wants to sell stories of Black Americans they’ve only experience through television and movies.

      For those who still care about the state of American lit, this film will hit home.

  

YOU’LL FIND OUT (1940)

   Before popular musicians took on the pose of cool seriousness, somewhere around 1967, bands were often the centerpiece of musical-goofball movies that were mostly ridiculous but gave fans a chance to enjoy their Top 40 heroes on the big screen.

    Pre-dating the Beatles (“A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!”), Herman’s Hermits (“Hold On! and “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter”), the Dave Clark Five (“Having a Wild Weekend”) and even all those soda-jerk movies starring 1950s rockers, big band jazz ensembles took their acts to Hollywood in the 1930s and ‘40s, cashing in on stardom achieved on radio shows.

     One of the biggest stars of this genre was gimmicky band leader Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge. Kyser dressed in graduation garb (including a mortarboard hat) as he prompted audience members to guess the names of songs while delivering incredibly corny jokes and puns. But he and his band also had many No. 1 hits during the Great Depression. (Harry Babbitt, Ginny Simms—both in this film—and future talk show host Mike Douglas were among Kyser’s vocalists.)

    In “You’ll Find Out,” he ventures into Bob Hope and Abbott and Costello territory as he and the band spend a weekend in an old mansion that seems to be haunted. The first clue that something may be wrong is when the other guests include Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre.

    Filled with seances, secret doorways and an elaborate underground special effects lab, the picture wouldn’t scare a preschooler but stands as a time-piece of the era. (One reason I watched the film was to see the legendary Ish Kabibble, the stage name of trumpeter and comic M.A. Bogue, who was a member of Kyser’s band. When I was a child, my father repeatedly joked about his name.)

     David Butler, the film’s director, had an astonishing Hollywood career that began as a silent film actor. His first credit was in 1910, followed by many roles, including uncredited walk-ons in both D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” and “Intolerance” (though it seems that everyone working in film at the time made the same claim).

       He started directing in 1927 (the same year he acted opposite Janet Gaynor in “7^th Heaven”) and soon was specializing in musical comedies and Shirley Temple vehicles. His best-known pictures are “Kentucky” (1938) starring Loretta Young, the Hope-Crosby romp “Road to Morocco” (1942) and a string of Doris Day films. His follow-up to “You’ll Find Out,” was the even more ludicrous Kyser vehicle, “Playmates” (1941), which co-stars the acting legend John Barrymore (one year before his death) as himself, forced to teach the bandleader how to recite Shakespeare.

       For 10 years, starting in the mid-1950s, Butler was a prolific TV director and then ended his career with the 1967 feature “C’mon, Let’s Live a Little” with pop stars Bobby Vee and Jackie DeShannon.

      In “You’ll Find Out,” Butler keeps the action chaotic and the jokes sophomoric while making sure Kyser does his best Hope imitation. Sure, it’s a dumb movie, but that’s what makes it fun.

    

FERRARI (2023) 

    I’m usually slow in picking up movie trends, but there is no denying that films about real people, biographical and otherwise, have been the flavor of the year. About half of the best films that I’ve seen this year, including this look at a critical juncture of automobile legend Enzo Ferrari’s life, fall into this expanding genre.

      Adam Driver, who just two years ago played a member of the Italian fashion family Guggi, offers a buttoned-down, stressed-out version of another famous, sunglass-wearing Italian entrepreneur, one-time race-car driver and founder of the luxury automaker. Set in the late 1950s, the movie focuses on Ferrari building his racing team for major races—Le Mans and Mille Miglia—while the company faces financial ruin and his marriage grows untenable in the wake of the death of their son.

    Like “Maestro,” about another flamboyant mid-century figure, this film unapologetically portrays a man who puts his professional passion ahead of family and has a longtime affair outside marriage. Penelope Cruz plays his wife Laura, giving a fiery performance of a woman who has devoted her life to her husband and his business while he maintains another household with his lover (oddly cast Shailene Woodley) and their son. The script, based on Brock Yates book, by Troy Kennedy Martin (who died in 2009), never feels superfluous to the action; Ferrari and his wife come across as real, emotionally damaged people.  

    Yet at the heart of the picture are the cars and Formula One racing, clearly the reason director 80-year-old Michael Mann took on the project (he was a producer on the 2019 film “Ford v Ferrari”). The POV camera-work by Erik Messerschmidt, an Oscar winner for the black-and-white “Mank,” is thrilling and frightening, a reminder of the intensity of sport.

     As one of the most acclaimed filmmakers since he made his feature debut with “Thief” (1981), Mann has regularly created tough-minded men (women are almost always secondary in his films) who soldier on even when everyone seems to be against them. Among his best are “The Last of the Mohicans” (1992), “Heat” (1995), “The Insider” (1999), “Ali” (2001) and “Collateral” (2004). In 2024, or the year after, Mann is expected to deliver a much-anticipated sequel to “Heat.”

     The 40-year-old Driver, who from all reports has no Italian heritage, is emerging as one of the finest actors of his generation, should score his third Oscar nomination for this film. He previously was named for “Marriage Story” and “BlacKkKlansman.” Maybe his best performance was as a New Jersey bus driver and poet in “Paterson,” while his best known is as Kylo Ren in the concluding “Star Wars” pictures. Driver is also the star of Francis Coppola’s long-delayed pet project “Megalopolis,” a sci-fi epic that may or may not ever see the light of day.     

 

MAY DECEMBER (2023)

     As creepy and unpleasant as a cheap slasher picture, director Todd Haynes latest snarky melodrama follows an actress (Natalie Portman) spending time with Gracie (Julianne Moore), a notorious woman she’s going to play in an upcoming film.

     Twenty years earlier, Gracie was convicted of rape after having an affair with a 13-year-old co-worker. She had their first child in prison and then later married the much younger man (played as if he’s still a child by Charles Melton). Though the plot somewhat resembles the 1990s case of school teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, the circumstances have been altered.

     Not much happens of interested in the film, written by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik (their first feature), as Portman’s Elizabeth hangs around Gracie and Joe and talks to others in the town. What becomes clear very quickly is that neither woman are very nice people; Gracie is self-centered with little empathy for the pain she’s caused while the more self-aware Elizabeth treats the family as disposable sources of acting inspiration. Intentional or not, the continuing hurtful behavior of these two grows, at best, cringe worthy, at worst, misogynistic.

     Haynes has made some fine films, including “Far from Heaven” (2002), starring Moore, “Carol” (2015) and the superb cable miniseries version of “Mildred Pierce” (2011), but in “May December,” certainly a story with plenty of issues to address, he does little but throw two unpleasant women into the same room.

     There’s a chance that all three of the central players will score Oscar nominations but I wasn’t impressed with Moore and Melton, neither of whom made me believe they were a couple who could have remained married for all those years, withstanding the media glare. On the other hand, Portman knows exactly who this manipulative actress is and shines in the otherwise drab drama.

 

SALTBURN (2023)

     For almost two hours, I enjoyed this film’s unrelenting assault on the cluelessly decadent and recklessly cruel British upper class as experienced by a naïve college freshman who has been befriended by the family’s son at Oxford. But in the final act, in a series of reveals (not to give too much away), filmmaker Emerald Fennell lets the rich off the hook.

     Drowsy looking Barry Keoghan, nominated last year for “The Banshees of Inisherin,” plays Oliver Quick (a name and character clearly inspired by Dickens), a nerdish middle-class student drawn into the obit of the rich, snobbish kids by Felix Catton (“Priscilla’s” Elvis, Jacob Elordi). In fact, Oliver has fallen hard for the tall, dark young man, despite Felix’s nonstop womanizing.

       After Oliver reveals to Felix that his drug-using father has died, Oliver is invited to spend the summer at the Catton estate. The film settles into a version of a corrupted “Downton Abbey,” updated to the 21^st Century, with Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike deliciously playing the lord and lady of the manor. Also hanging around is daughter Venetia (Alison Oliver), cousin Pamela (an unrecognizable Carey Mulligan) and a classic stern, protective butler (Paul Rhys).

     Writer-director Fennell clearly enjoys pushing the envelope of good taste and expectations, as she did in “Promising Young Woman” (2020), but in “Saltburn” (the name of the Catton’s castle) she undercuts her own clever writing and characters for little more than shock value.          

PHOTOS:

Carey Mulligan and Bradley Cooper in “Maestro”  (Netflix)

Jeffrey Wright in “American Fiction.” (MGM)

Adam Driver in "Ferrari"  (Neon)

Barry Keoghan in “Saltburn”  (MGM)