November-December 2021

WEST SIDE STORY (2021)

    On the face of it, the idea of remaking a film that won 10 Oscars, including best picture, seems foolish at best. Yet again, the original movie version, based on the landmark Broadway production, was released 60 years ago. It’s really no different than staging another production of Shakespeare, which, of course, is exactly what “West Side Story” is: “Romeo and Juliet” relocated in 1950s New York.

     The result surpasses the overrated original as Steven Spielberg and his team deliver a film version this musical—some would argue the greatest in Broadway history—deserves. Supported by hypnotic choreography by Justin Peck (of the New York City Ballet), incredibly detailed production design by Adam Stockhausen, two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski’s colorful day scenes and noirish nighttime and a script by Tony Kushner (“Angels in America”) that grounds the characters in real life, Spielberg has brought to life what is probably the best film musical since “Cabaret” (1972).

     Of course, the foundation was laid by some of the greatest talents in musical theater history: Leonard Bernstein’s music, as essential to America as the National Anthem, Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics of impossible love and racial unrest, Jerome Robbins’ energetic choreography and Arthur Laurents’ story. Theirs was a musical of its time, dealing with contemporary issues as a white gang (The Jets) fights against newly arrived Puerto Rican community and its young toughs (The Sharks) for control of an area of Manhattan in the process of being razed to build Lincoln Center.

     In the new film, Ansel Elgot (“Fault in Our Stars,” “Baby Driver”), plays Tony (the Romeo stand-in), fresh out of jail and trying to stay clear of the delinquent activies of the Jets. But he attends a community dance staged to bring whites and Latinos together and falls in love with Maria (Rachel Zegler, in her film debut), the Puerto Rican sister of the Sharks’ leader Bernando (David Alvarez of Showtime’s “American Rust”).  

     You need not have ever heard of “West Side Story” to know how this will turn out, but the dramatic staging and smoothly integrated dancing and singing elevated this simple story. And what a collection of songs this Bernstein-Sondheim collaboration created: “Maria,” “America,” “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty,” and the soundtrack’s masterpiece “Somewhere,” poignantly sung by 90-year-old Rita Moreno, the Broadway legend who won an Oscar for her role as Anita in the 1961 version (Ariana DeBose shines in the role in the new film.)

   As important a filmmaker as Spielberg has been over the past 45 years, he’s rarely moved the camera as much as he does here. In an obvious homage to “Citizen Kane,” the film opens with a traveling shot over the construction site and then rises over a fence, signaling that this world is on the edge of extinction.

     Unlike the original Tony and Maria (Richard Breymer and Natalie Wood—as a Puerto Rican!), Elgot and Zegler come off as real people, sincere in both their love and attempts to bring their feuding communities together. In this version, the Jets (led by a snarling Mike Faist as Riff) and the Sharks actually seem dangerous, even as they do pirouettes.

     This Spielberg-Kushner version doesn’t shy away from the racism of the Jets; these are misguided, hate-filled young men whose offspring are still fighting against immigrants and those who don’t look or act like them.

      So yes, it was a good idea to refilm this essential musical, getting it right on the second try and introducing its still timely themes to a new generation of viewers.

 

THE POWER OF THE DOG (2021)

    If you don’t mind movies that raise questions, about the story and characters, without answering them you’ll appreciate Jane Campion’s new film, a Western set in 1925 Montana.

    Filled with exquisitely composed visas shot by cinematographer Ari Wegner, the film seems influenced by Terrence Malick’s work, his early film “Days of Heaven” and his more recent work that attempts to present psychologically complex characters with little dialogue. For me, “Power of the Dog” tries too hard to be murky and vaguely symbolic, filled with characters whose actions and reactions remain unexplained.

    Benedict Cumberbatch plays Phil Burbank, an Eastern educated man who has dedicated his life to running a cattle ranch with his brother George (perfectly cast Jesse Plemons). It’s hard to imagine them as brothers; Phil never stops bullying and berating his brother, whose calm demeanor feels almost ghostly.

    The dynamics change, but not much, when George marries Rose (Kirsten Dunst), a widow who runs a restaurant in a nearby town. (I wanted to know what happened with her business when she moves in with her husband, but that was never addressed.)

     The film kicks into full Freudian when Rose’s son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) returns from medical school. A rail-thin, well-scrubbed effeminate young man in a world of tough-guy cowboys, he’s endured a lifetime of harassment and it continues at the ranch. But what is also clear, almost from the opening frames, is that Phil is a closeted gay whose belligerence can be traced to his frustrations over his sexuality. Yet, why, as a gay man in the 1920s, did he return to Montana instead of finding a freer world on the East Coast?

     A friendship emerges from the bullying between Phil and Peter, which seems destined to end badly. (The picture’s much-discussed ending—no matter how you interpret it—doesn’t bring much clarity to the script.)

    One of my central problems with the film is Rose and her decent into depression and alcoholism after she marries George. Here is a woman who lost her husband, put up with ornery cowpokes in her business and dealt with what had to be a fraught childhood of her son, yet finding herself between her passive husband and his snarling brother descends into darkness.

     Dunst, one of the finest actresses of her generation, does her best to work out her character, but she’s let down by Campion’s script (based on a novel by Thomas Savage)

     Cumberbatch, as usual, offers a memorable performance as this deeply conflicted man who seems to relish berating everyone who comes near him, including his parents and brother. Though I’m partial to his hypnotic portrayal of Julian Assange in “The Fifth Estate” (2013), the British actor gives his best film performance as the intensely sad Phil.

     The 25-year-old Smit-McPhee, an Australian who played Viggo Mortenson’s son in the desolate “The Road” (2009) and was Nightcrawler in a couple of X-Men films, gives a breakthrough performance as Peter, a teen whose outward appearance belies what is going on in his head.

     Campion, the second woman to receive a best director nomination, in 1994 for “The Piano” (the first was given to Lina Wertmuller, who just recently died at age 93), hadn’t made a feature film since 2009’s “Bright Star” and certainly has failed to live up to expectations for her career. Positive critical appraisal for “Power of Dog” seems to guarantee she and the cast will be contenders during the award’s season, but, for me, the film falls short of the basics: telling a clear, interesting story with understandable characters.

 

DEAN STOCKWELL  (1936-2021)

    In the big picture of Hollywood cinema, Dean Stockwell was a minor figure. But I’d argue that if he hadn’t turn his focus to television work, he might have been one of the leading actors of the 1960s and 70s.

    Stockwell, who died at 85 in November, was the son of a pair of Broadway actors, which led to his film debut at age 9 in the Gregory Peck movie, “The Valley of Decision.” Before he was 14, he was in the war musical “Anchors Aweigh,” the Oscar-winning “Gentleman’s Agreement,” and as the title character in both “The Boy With Green Hair” and the adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s “Kim.” 

    But it was in the late 1950s and early 1960s when he looked to be right there with Paul Newman (who was 10 years older) as the most talented young actor of the era.

     In “Compulsion,” an intense courtroom picture based on the famous Leopold and Loeb murder case, he plays an easily manipulated, sensitive student who comes under the spell of a psychotic classman (Bradford Dillman). These wealthy young men arrogantly believe they are too smart to be convicted of murder. It’s a memorable performance, which he followed by playing a pair of sons trying to escape oppressive fathers, in “Sons and Lovers” (1960) and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” (1962). Stockwell holds his own with British acting legends Trevor Howard and then Ralph Richardson.

      In the brilliantly acted Eugene O’Neill adaptation by director Sidney Lumet, Stockwell plays Edmund, the sickly younger son, who goes mano-a-mano with brother Jamie (Jason Robards) in some of the most emotional scenes ever put on film.  

     Rather than becoming a star, he turned into a familiar face on episodical TV, occasionally popping up in counterculture movies, including “Psych-Out,” “The Last Movie” and “The Loners.” Near the end of the 1970s, he quit the business and worked in real estate.

     Not until 1984, in German filmmaker Wim Wenders’ “Paris, Texas” did he reestablish himself as a mainstream movie guy. He was also in David Lynch’s “Dune” that year, which led to being cast as the twisted Ben, part of Dennis Hopper’s hopped-up crew in Lynch’s masterpiece “Blue Velvet” (1986).  His lip-syncing of Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” remains one of the creepiest moments in recent film history.

    Stockwell became a go-to character actor at this point, peaking in 1988 with two fabulous performances, as mobster Tony “The Tiger” Russo in “Married to the Mob” (which scored him an Oscar nomination) and as Howard Hughes in Francis Coppola’s underrated “Tucker: The Man and His Dream.”

      The following year he was tapped to co-star in the TV series “Quantum Leap,” which became a huge hit, continuing until 1993. Though his last memorable performance was as the judge in Coppola’s “The Rainmaker” (1997), he continued to act in both TV and film until 2015.

     Of course, could have beens/should have beens are a dime a dozen in show business, but few 20^th Century actors have shown such screen presence and understanding of creating characters as Dean Stockwell displayed in a 70-year career.   

   

BELFAST (2021)

    After a 32-year career as an actor-director, 60-year-old Kenneth Branagh has tapped into his own childhood, 1969 Belfast amid the Northern Ireland Troubles, for his most recent picture.

     Though the black-and-white remembrance has its share of heartfelt moments and touching performances, the film’s episodical script and overuse of uplifting pop music undercuts the serious nature of the situation faced by the story’s young family.

     The nine-year-old Buddy (a very natural Jude Hill) seems to have an idyllic life contained in his close-knit Belfast neighborhood until the violence of the centuries-old feud between Catholics and Protestants erupts anew.

      Between the scenes of menace, Branagh’s script offers the usual coming of age moments for his young stand-in---a classroom crush, bullied into shoplifting, talks with Pop, his grandfather, superbly portrayed by Ciarán Hinds---until the family must consider leaving the only home they’ve ever known.

     Too often, Branagh relies on the comforting spell of the songs of Irish blues master Van Morrison to camouflage the story’s shortcomings in connecting disconnected scenes.

     Belfast native Hinds, who has been a reliable supporting player on both side of the Atlantic since the mid-1990s, shines as Buddy’s grandfather, the lived-in face of 20^th Century Ireland. As his wise-cracking wife, Judi Dench, as always, delivers a perfectly calibrated performance. Less memorable are Buddy’s parents, played by Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe.

     Branagh has never realized his promise as an actor-director predicted by his “Henry V” (1989) when he was 29, and then “Hamlet” (1996), both among the finest Shakespeare adaptations put on film. In recent years he’s directed “Thor,” “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” and a remake of “Murder on the Orient Express.”  In the last 20 years, Branagh has had more success finding interesting character roles, including his doomed detective in the British TV series “Wallander,” probably his finest work as an actor; as Laurence Olivier in “My Week with Marilyn” (2011); the commander in “Dunkirk” (2017) and the despicable Sator in “Tenet” (2020).

      Though it falls short of its ambitions, “Belfast” is probably director Branagh’s best film since his Shakespeare movies, and, I suspect, will reap plenty of nominations come Oscar time.

 

PASSING (2021)

    Actress Rebecca Hall, daughter of British theater director Peter Hall, seems an unlikely candidate to bring to the screen Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel about the lives of two upper-class Black women. In fact, Hall, in recent years, discovered that her American mother was part African American, who, in some ways, spent her life “passing.”

     This thoughtful, understated picture, appropriately shot in glistening black-and-white, begins when Irene (a quietly intense Tessa Thompson) pushes her bonnet to cover half her face and gains entrance to a high-end café in downtown Manhattan, far from her Harlem home. There she is spotted by an old friend from school, the fearless, outgoing Clare (Ruth Negga) who is not only passing for white in the café, but has married a white man who remains clueless about her race. (Though he has noticed her growing “darker” as she ages and has an offensive pet name for her.)

     While Irene’s life in her large home with a housekeeper, her doctor husband and two children seems ideal, especially when considering what most African Americans faced in 1920s America, she feels like something is missing. When Clare becomes part of their lives—her husband seems to constantly be away on business---Irene’s feelings of inadequacy grow as her husband and children embrace the charming Clare.

      Despite the lack of plot (and actually little about passing), Hall’s adaptation offers a fascinating psychological study of the African American life, focused on the two women who have sought out happiness in very different ways.

     Both actresses are superb. Thompson, who plays Michael B. Jordan’s girlfriend in the “Creed” films, has the more complex role as she navigates Irene’s path out of her depression. Negga, who in “Loving” (2016) played a Black woman whose legal fight to marry a white man was a landmark case in the 1960s, is perfect as the life of the party who, unlike Irene, lives life one day at a time.  

     Hall seemed destined for stardom after her turn in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (2008) and the British TV thriller “Red Riding 1974” (2009), but nothing much happened for her after that. She received good notices for “The Night House,” a thriller released earlier this year. If her work behind the camera in “Passing” is any indication, she may have just carved out a new career.      

    

HOUSE OF GUCCI (2021)

    Ridley Scott, while one of Hollywood’s most accomplished filmmakers, is hardly a stranger to over-heated melodrama. “The Gladiator” (2000), “American Gangster” (2007) and “The Counselor” (2013) are among his films that have ratcheted up the histrionics, which makes him the perfect director for this barely believable, hot-blooded revenge tale of the Italian fashion family, the Guccis.

    Lady Gaga, still a work-in-progress as an actress but with screen presence to spare, plays Patrizia Reggiani, the ambitious daughter of a small-town trucking firm owner who sets her sights on Maurizio (Adam Driver), the wide-eyed, law-student son of Roldolfo Gucci (a corpse-like Jeremy Irons), half-owner of the fashion house.  

    Against the family’s wishes, they marry. Then, seeing an opening, Maurizio’s uncle Aldo Gucci (perfectly cast Al Pacino, back in “Godfather” milieu) bring the newly minted lawyer into the fold, looking to undercut his brother.

     The film is so overstuffed with plotting that it would take longer to explain than the picture’s excessive 2 hours and 38 minutes running time.

     Jared Leto provides the most entertaining performance of the picture, unrecognizable under heavy makeup playing Pacino’s comically inept son who longs to have his own fashion brand. 

     He soon finds himself—this played out in the 1980s and 90s—in the middle of a family-crushing takeover scheme set in motion by Patrizia and Maurizio.

     Scott’s film plays like a condensed version of a streaming series, with many crucial details left out or unexplained, but the director, as always, keeps the action moving and guides his actors to spirited performances.  

      The script, by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna based on a book by Sara Gay Forden, sometimes struggles to make sense of the idiocy of the truth, but this isn’t a documentary. It’s an Italian soap opera as seen through the equally extravagance of Hollywood.   

 

SPENCER (2021)

    I’m not sure what to make of this psychological study of Princess Diana, circa 1991, ten years into her misguided marriage into the suffocating world of the British Royal Family.

   I’m not even sure how to label the film: deep-dish fan fiction? A metaphorical diagnose of a troubled celebrity? Certainly, as I’ve argued for decades, most feature films about real people or events should be viewed as an uncomfortable mixture of truth and fiction, in the best-case scenario, uncovering the underlining truths without becoming a documentary.

     Chilean director Pablo Larraín, who made the compelling “Jackie,” starring Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy, along with screenwriter Steven Knight (“Dirty Pretty Things,” “Eastern Promises”) paint a disturbing picture of 30-year-old Diana (an impressive Kristen Stewart) unraveling during a Christmas gathering at the royal’s country estate, Sandringham. The stress of her husband’s affair, her nonexistent relationship with the Queen, her eating disorder, her conversations with 16^th Century Queen Anne Boleyn and her frustration of playing the good wife and mother all culminate in this weekend filled with traditions going back hundreds of years.

     While there are a few scenes in which Diana interacts directly with Charles (Jack Farthing) or his mother (Stella Gonet), the royals are mostly seen in the background as the camera swirls around the Princess, seeing everything from her POV. She does confide in her dresser (the always wonderful Sally Hawkins), a sympathetic chef (Sean Harris) and earns a bit of respect from the steely head butler (Timothy Spall, who’s become the go-to old guard Brit), but the script is much more concern with what goes on inside Diana’s head. Adding to the Freudian reading of her life, within walking distance from Sandringham is her childhood home, now boarded up and crumbling.

    But, and that’s a very serious “but,” the story is an invention of the filmmakers. Other than the basic premise that the royal family repairs to this country estate for the holiday, the film has little basis in fact, creating events and confrontations that might have happened, but probably didn’t, to represent how Diana saw her life, they think.

     I’m not sure if there’s real merit in this kind of fiction featuring real people. Yet my criticism may be biased.

       After watching “Spencer,” I thought about the classic bio-pics from the movie studio era that pretended to be telling the true story of athletes, politicians, soldiers, scientists and writers while spinning tall tales of flawless heroes. For some reason, I accept the fiction in these stories even when I know better, but expect something more in contemporary films.   

    Judged as a piece of fiction about a woman in crisis, “Spencer” is an inventive, insightful film; as a story of the late Ms. Spencer, who knows?

 

Photos:

Ariana DeBose and dancers in “West Side Story” (Twentieth Century Studios)

Dean Stockwell, right, with Jason Robards in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” (Embassy Pictures)

Tessa Thompson in “Passing” (Netflix)

October 2021

THE FRENCH DISPATCH (2021)

     Wes Anderson, with a great painter’s eye for details, has crafted a striking piece of original filmmaking, filled with so many finely constructed shots and dryly hilarious performances that multiple viewings seem required. I haven’t seen a movie as rich or accomplished as this in years.

      Using techniques he’s flirted with in previous films, Anderson offers a visual homage, clearly enjoying the irony, to great magazine writing of last century, as exemplified in the New Yorker. He lets the quirky writers narrate their stories that range from a profile of a prison painter to a legendary police cook.

    “The French Dispatch,” the name of this eccentric magazine that began as a Sunday insert to a Kansas newspaper before relocating to Ennui, France (on the river Blasé, of course), opens it pages as a kind of cinematic Power Point, with four stories presented as a sample of the wonderous journalism the New Yorker and other magazines of the era were known for.

      After a quick introduction to the publication’s dour, exacting editor, Arthur Howitzer Jr., son of the original Kansas publisher (a role tailor-made for Bill Murray), Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson) leads us on a tour of quaint Ennui, a lighthearted warmup for a more substantial piece on Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio Del Toro).

      Convicted of double murder, he occupies his life sentence by painting impressionistic abstracts of the block’s prison guard (Léa Seydoux), who regularly poses nude for Moses. The writer/narrator J.K.L. Berensen (Tilda Swinton, hilariously eloquent) lectures on this art-world sensation to what seems to be gathering of museum members. Anderson manages to skewer both the art world and those who write about it, while composing the kind of offbeat story emblematic of what great writer/reporters regularly dig up.

    The weakest section of the film chronicles a student protest—the leader is played by Timothée Chalamet—as reported by Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand; you knew there’d be a part for her), who, like many of the famed New Journalism practitioners—Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson—becomes personally involved.       

    The final piece is narrated by Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright), while being interviewed on a television show. He recites by memory his story of a famed cook (Stephen Park) who becomes involved in the kidnapping of the precocious son of a police commissioner (Matheiu Amalric).    

     Beyond the literary touches of the stories, the magic Anderson brings to these extended profiles, as he moves from movie studio realism to animation, using freeze frame, horizonal camera movement and alternating between black-and-white and color, is what makes the film so memorable.

    In addition to the wryly executed major roles there are a dozen memorable performances in small roles, including Adrien Brody and Lois Smith as art experts, Christoph Waltz as an unexpected suitor, Willem Dafoe as a convict, Edward Norton as a chauffeur, Saoirse Ronan as his girlfriend and Anjelica Huston as the film’s overall narrator. (In some odd twist of casting, three members of this cast have prominent roles in “A Time to Die”: Waltz, Wright and Seydoux.)

     Anderson receives sole screenplay credit, but “story by” credits are given to Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness and Jason Schwartzman (who also plays a member of the magazine’s staff). I dare say that they might have combined for a comedy masterpiece.

  

DUNE (2021)

    In the sci-fi cinematic world we live in, dominated by Avengers, zombies and DC heroes, “Dune” represents a more deliberate, uncluttered, solemn universe.

    The plot of this much-anticipated epic is less complex than a typical 1950s Western and, unlike most important sci-fi literature, offers little critical insight on contemporary society (either of 2021 or 1965, when the Frank Herbert novel was published) in this adaptation.

     While well directed by Denis Villeneuve (“Arrival” and “Blade Runner 2049”) and lushly photographed by Greig Fraser, the movie lacks a compelling story and, with the exception of its young lead, interesting characters. As this is only Part I maybe I’m judging too early, but the same could be said of any of the “Star War” trilogies or the “Avenger” finale; a two-and-a-half-hour film should stand on its own. At this point, the tale didn’t hold my interest.

      Part of the problem is that the people of this world, set centuries in the future, seem to live dull, joyless lives dominated by tribal traditions and mythology. Even the ruling class seems bored (they don’t even have cellphones!); at least those subjugated have a purpose, gaining their freedom, but we don’t see much of them.

     At the center of the story is the planet Arrakis, which supplies this universe with an element called spice that is essential for the universe’s technology. Yet the natives of the planet have been forced into hiding as outsiders rule and mine the desert.

     The newest landlords, led by Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) and his military leaders (Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa), arrive on Arrakis with the hope of making peace with the natives, led by a stoic Stilgar (Javier Bardem). But the universe’s slimy Emperor (an unrecognizable Stellan Skarsgard) has other plans for the future of the planet (I never understood why) and that sets the action in motion.

     Behind this basic setup lies the mythical aspects of the story in the form of the Duke’s young son Paul (star of the moment Timothée Chalamet), who has inherited supernatural skills from his dour mother (Rebecca Ferguson, best known as part of the “Mission: Impossible” troupe), and is rumored to be some version of the chosen one. His slight frame belies his impressive warrior skills, but he remains a work in progress. It’s his story that will carry the second part of “Dune,” expected in 2023.

    I’ve not been particularly impressed with Chalamet’s acting (he was nominated for “Call Me by Your Name”) in past roles, but here he’s well cast; his Paul slowly evolves from an enthusiastic teen to a thoughtful leader of his clan. I hope that bodes well for Part II.

     I have only vague memories of David Lynch’s 1984 version but considering its poor reputation and the advancement of special effects in the past 35 years, I’m sure this new film better reflects Herbert’s themes. But, thus far, it’s much more sand than vision.   

 

A TIME TO DIE (2021)

    Who would have guessed? Sean Connery spent 10 years (not counting the unofficial 1983 “Never Say Never Again”) as James Bond; Daniel Craig, who retires from the role with this new film, held the 007 portfolio for 15 years. 

       While Craig wasn’t the stereotypical Bond, more brutish, less cautious, clearly coming from less refined upbringing than past incarnations and bringing a quiet sentimentality, he has managed to make the Bond tux and cool demeaner his own. I think few would dispute his ranking as the second-best Bond.

       I don’t think “A Time to Die” will be remembered as top-flight Bond, but it serves well as Craig’s farewell and an unflagging entertainment.

 

     After a lengthy pre-credit intro—during which the evil cabal S.P.E.C.T.R.E., still casing chaos across the globe, steal a biological weapon being developed by British Intelligence—James’ bucolic retirement in Greece with companion Dr. Madeleine Swann (French actress Léa Seydoux) is interrupted. As Michael Corleone lamented in “The Godfather, Part III,” “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” 

      With the help of the new 007 (seems Bond’s legendary posting is quickly filled) Nomi (an under-utilized Lashana Lynch), Bond follows the trail to the man behind this sinister plot, Lyutsifer Safin (where do they get these names?) played by Oscar-winner and over-acting extraordinaire Rami Malek.

       Maybe the most intriguing encounter in the film takes place in a federal lockup where James interrogates his old nemesis Blofeld (the always sly Christoph Waltz), kept enclosed in a glass cage. It’s Bond’s Hannibal-Clarice moment.

    Other familiar faces fill out the cast, including Ralph Fiennes as M, Naomi Harris as Moneypenny, Jeffrey Wright as American spy Felix Leiter and Ben Whishaw as Q.

     As with most Bonds, the climactic scene goes on forever, adding psychological layers and tying up loose ends, to the explosive ending. But director Cary Joji Fukunaga (TV’s “True Detective”) offers a poignant, heartfelt farewell to Craig’s Bond and the formula that has endured 60 years. 

  

CRY MACHO (2021)

   While movie fans should applaud Clint Eastwood for being able to direct and act at age 91, there’s something just as honorable about knowing when it’s time to retire.

    Admittedly, just seven years ago he directed the first rate “American Sniper,” which earned a 2014 best picture nomination, but age catches up to all of us

very quickly. In “Cry Macho,” he clearly struggles to walk and even deliver his lines (Eastwood is not a “young” 91). And, as the man in charge, he seems to have lost his ear for dialogue and what passes for reality on the screen.

     There are so many ludicrous scenes in this film starting with the basic storyline, that it’s hard to take a moment of the picture seriously.

    Clint plays Mike Milo, a broken-down rodeo rider and horse trainer—must have been 40 years earlier—who is asked by his former boss (Dwight Yoakam) to kidnap the man’s son who lives with his mother in Mexico City. That’s who I would send on such a mission—a man who can barely walk across the room.

   It’s Clint, so we are expected to ignore his age—he’s still a can-do kind of cowboy.

    I’m not going to linger over the inane story, but just to give you an idea, he drives right up to the mother’s luxurious hacienda, walks in and announces that he’s there to take her son. In a very short time, this attractive, very rich woman is inviting this elderly stranger into her bed.

     It was historical that Eastwood made three great films as a septuagenarian—“Mystic River” (2003), “Million Dollar Baby” (2004) and “Letters from Iwo Jima” (2006)—and then continued to take on major projects like “J. Edgar” (2011), “Jersey Boys” (2014), “Sully” (2016) and “Richard Jewell” (2019) while in his 80s.

      Now’s the time to go gentle into that good night and be remembered for his unprecedented accomplishments of being one of Hollywood’s most popular movie stars and among its finest directors.

  

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961) and

CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (1961)

      Another icon of the movie industry who hasn’t let age slow him down is Roger Corman. Since he turned 90 in 2016, he’s produced five films, and has another planned. Since 1954, Corman has had producing credit on over 500 films, according to IMDb (and that’s just the ones he was willing to put him name on.)

      He claims to have never lost money on a film and stories of his economical shooting schedules are legendary (“The Little Shop of Horrors,” which spawned a popular Broadway musical years later, was shot in three days.)

    At the start of his career, Corman was also a director, highlighted by his series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations along with “The Wild Angels,” “The Trip’ and “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.”

    I recently revisited two 1961 pictures Corman directed: one a first-rate horror flick and the other a schlocky, tongue-in-check monster movie. 

    The script for “The Pit and the Pendulum” by Richard Matheson, one of the finest science fiction novelists and a prolific writer of television scripts, bears little resemblance to the Poe story.  Other than the title torture chamber and the connection to the Spanish inquisition, the Baltimore bard wouldn’t recognize his work. But the spirit of Poe is in every frame of Corman’s film.

     John Kerr (“Tea and Sympathy,” “South Pacific”) plays Francis Barnard, an English nobleman who has travelled to Spain to discover why his young sister (Barbara Steele)

recently died. After he arrives at the castle of her widower Nicholas (an especially lugubrious Vincent Price), Barnard struggles to get a straight story from either Nicholas, his sister Catherine (Luana Anders) or the attending physician (Antony Carbone).

     Eventually, spurred by bizarre occurrences in the clearly haunted castle, Barnard and the audience learn that Nicholas’ father was a torturer during the inquisition (the film is set in the 1500s) and murdered his wife by entombing her alive. You might say this left young Nicholas a psychological mess.

    Corman makes great use of the castle’s labyrinth of stairs, hallways and passages, which all seems to lead the characters toward their darkest fears. His flashback scenes are particularly effective, shot in a hazy blue tint that looks like lost footage from a German silent.

     Price mugs his way through the role—he’s always on the verge of throwing himself on the floor in a fit---but Kerr’s and Carbone’s straightforward readings make for a nice contrast to the macabre setting.

      Anders, who plays Price’s sister, was a longtime friend of Jack Nicholson and Robert Towne (both Corman protégés), later showing up in small roles in “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo,” “The Missouri Breaks,” “Personal Best” and “The Two Jakes,” among many others.

    Then there’s “Creature from the Haunted Sea,” which looks like it was made on a shoestring budget and clearly for a laugh. Charles B. Griffith, who also wrote “Little Shop of Horrors,” fills the script with oddball lines and sarcasm in a haphazard story about a mobster who plans to steal a cache of gold from Cuban exiles. Carbone is the star this time, playing a Bogart-like tough guy who assembles a motley crew (including a young man who only speaks by imitating animal sounds) to divert the gold to a small island near Puerto Rico.

    Getting most of the comic lines is Edward Wain as Sparks Moran, an American spy amongst the crew who foolishly falls for the femme fatale (Betsy Jones-Moreland). Turns out Wain is actually Robert Towne, future acclaimed writer-director, who, I suspect, had a hand in the script.

    Best of all is the sea monster of the title, which looks like the neglected cousin of one of the Banana Splits; its bulging rubber eyeballs are the highlight of the film.

    Once those who haven’t been eaten by the monster make it to the island, the film gets nuttier, as two of the crew and Moran fall for native women. It makes an episode of “Gilligan’s Island” play like Chekhov. 

    Thankfully, “Creature from the Haunted Sea” is just an hour, the perfect opening bill for a night at the drive-in, Corman style.

  

THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK (2021)

     I’m not sure how to categorize this “origin” story of Tony Soprano, which presents a glimpse of the world he grew up in and, apparently, made him the man he was in the celebrated HBO series “The Sopranos.”

    I’ll admit that I’ve only seen a half dozen episodes of the series, so I really only know what I’ve read about it (which was a bunch considering that during the 2000s it seemed to be the only cable show anyone wrote about). Yet, I am not the target audience for this film, but as a fan of mob films I expected to find something worth my time. I didn’t.

    This prequel, which probably should have been a directed-to-DVD extra on an anniversary package of the series, moves at a snail’s pace as it jumps between one character and another with little exposition to guide unschooled viewers.

    At the center of the film isn’t young Anthony (it mostly covers his teen years when he’s played by Michael Gandolfini, son of James), but his favorite uncle, Dickie (Alessandro Nivola). The exposition is so lacking that it was 20 minutes into the film before I realized he wasn’t Anthony’s father.

     Dickie comes off as a reluctant mobster who seems more likely to manage a shoe store or work as the unwitting mob accountant. Nivola has been a serviceable supporting player for years, but proves to be a poor choice to carry this film.

    Along with all the Italian family squabbles, the film tries to show the connection between the mob and African American drug dealers. But the storyline feels tacked on; creator David Chase’s attempt to be inclusive. For a much better look at the Mafia’s rife relationship with Blacks, see EPIX TV’s excellent “Godfather of Harlem,” with Forest Whitaker as notorious 1960s crime lord Bumpy Johnson.

    In “The Many Saints,” the most compelling moments are provided by a snarling Ray Liotta playing Dickie’s father, and then later, as the man’s brother who is serving a life sentence in the pen. While it was a bit heavy-handed to have Liotta play both parts, his performances were all that offered a flicker of energy.

     For “Soprano” fans, it will probably be cool to see younger versions of Junior Soprano (Corey Stoll), Silvio Dante (John Magaro) and Tony’s mother Livia (Vera Famiga), but they left little impression on this unschooled viewer.

  

THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE (2021)

    Anyone who lived through the 1980s and 90s could not avoid hearing about Tammy Faye Bakker, the flamboyant wife of televangelist Jim Bakker.  You didn’t need to be a disciple of the Bakkers (of which, sadly, there were many) to see the needy desperation that radiated from Tammy Faye in every public appearance.

    These sentiments, along with her child-like enthusiasm, dominate Jessica Chastain’s none-to-subtle portrayal in this overly straightforward bio-pic. Andrew Garfield plays Bakker as a weaselly conman just waiting to be uncovered.

     Directed by Michael Showalter based on the 2000 documentary of the same name, “Eyes” chronicles their rise from newlyweds tossed out of seminary school to ambitious members of an evangelist troupe led by Jerry Falwell (a surly Vincent D’Onofrio), the godfather of television preaching/moneymaking.

   Tammy’s main contribution at the start of their career was as a puppeteer and neglected wife, but her personality clearly helps the pair rise in the world of Christian TV. Soon they are living the high-life in an extravagant mansion.

    I was expecting (always a bad idea) the film to approach this story with comic sarcasm, baring the irony of these amoral criminals making millions by selling the teachings of Jesus. But Showalter, who previously directed the very funny “The Big Sick,” apparently believed that the details of the Bakkers’ rise and fall was interesting enough to carry the film. It isn’t. Without an exceptional actress like Chastain at the center this film would be a bad made-for-TV docudrama.

 

 

Photos:

Bill Murray and Jeffrey Wright in “The French Dispatch” (Searchlight Pictures)

Daniel Craig and Ana de Armas in “No Time to Die” (MGM)

Vincent Price in “The Pit and the Pendulum” (American International)