Review: "A Star Is Born"

Alright, let’s get this out of the way. Ranking all things A Star Is Born…

The films: 1954 > 2018 > 1937 > 1976

The leading men: James Mason > Fredric March > Bradley Cooper > Kris Kristofferson

And, of course, the leading ladies: Judy Garland > Lady Gaga > Janet Gaynor > Barbra Streisand

Indeed, Cooper’s A Star Is Born does not reach the sky-high heights of George Cukor’s dazzling 1954 production - then again, what does? It is still a damn fine picture, especially remarkable a feat, given it marks both Cooper’s directorial debut and Gaga’s first stab at headlining a film as an actress. If the picture is ultimately an imperfect one, the richness of their efforts cannot be denied.

The film opens on Cooper’s Jackson Maine, a hard-drinking country star whose love for the bottle draws him one evening into a drag bar. There, he becomes enraptured by Gaga’s Ally, an aspiring singer who, despite her killer voice, is on the verge of giving up on her dreams. Initially resistant to his advances, Ally eventually tags along and, at one of Jackson’s concerts, has the chance to belt out a tune she’s recently composed.

Ally emerges something of an oversight sensation, the clip of her performance going viral. She becomes Jackson’s partner on the road but it is inevitable the prospect of a solo career will rear its head. Such comes to fruition through music producer Rez (Rafi Gavron) who, to some chagrin from both Ally and Jackson, is determined to reinvent Ally as an extravagant (and frankly, far less appealing) pop superstar. As her fame rises, as is the case in all A Star Is Born pictures, his addictions worsen, testing the relationship of these two soulmates.

A Star Is Born is at its most absorbing in the early-going, with Gaga something of a legit revelation. Film buffs will inevitably compare her turn to the likes of Garland and Gaynor, as I admittedly already have, but the performance it actually most reminds me of is Courtney Love’s in The People vs. Larry Flynt - an unaffected, lived-in, completely compelling effort from a musician mostly untested as an actress. Gaga’s rapport with Cooper is stirring and heartfelt, their chemistry as potent on stage as it is in the film’s quieter moments.

If Gaga soars and shimmers early on, the rest of the proceedings, while entertaining enough, don’t quite live up to the stunning promise of the opening hour. As Ally transforms into a pop A-lister, guesting on Saturday Night Live and bringing aboard a pack of back-up dancers, and Jackson further succumbs to his demons, the intimacy of their dynamic, so essential to the film’s success, somewhat fades. On reflection, nearly all of the film’s best and most affecting scenes arrive in the first half. That isn’t to say the latter half is bad - it’s just decidedly inferior.

Beyond Cooper and Gaga, both Sam Elliott (as Jackson’s exasperated brother and manager) and Andrew Dice Clay (as Ally’s father) leave lasting impressions. The original songs, in several cases written and/or produced by its stars, are splendid and the picture also happens to be gorgeously shot, with photography by the great Matthew Libatique.

Garland’s remains the ultimate A Star Is Born but I have to admit, Gaga’s isn’t terribly far behind.

A-

Review: "The Wife"

Thank heavens for Glenn Close.

Among the finest actress of the stage and screen over the past half-century, she is a cinematic goddess who can make even the most insipid of projects (like, for instance, Albert Nobbs) sparkle. When, however, she's graced with a gangbusters screenplay, legit fireworks are bound to happen.

Such is precisely the case in The Wife, a picture that finds Close in her most compelling form since the likes of Dangerous Liaisons and Reversal of Fortune. As was the case in those two films (with John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons), The Wife provides Close a comparably gifted leading man (Jonathan Pryce) who too devours the material and makes his leading lady all the more dazzling. 

The film opens on Joan and Joe Castleman, a duo married for nearly 40 years who reside quite comfortably in their lavish Connecticut home. One morning, they are awoken by the most welcome of phone calls - Joe has just been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his renowned body of work. Alongside son David (Max Irons, who manages his hold his own against these two powerhouses), off they go to Stockholm, where Joe shall pick up his prize.

As the trip progresses, however, family tensions gradually boil to the surface. For one, David deeply resents his father for neglecting to recognize his own writing contributions. The real strain, however, is between husband and wife, with such anxiety only acerbated by the presence of Nathaniel Bone (Christian Slater), a writer who desperately wishes to pen a biography of Joe. The more Nathaniel meddles in their trip, the more exasperation Joan and David feel toward the man of the hour. It isn't long before repressed feelings, not to mention unsettling revelations, send the Castlemans spiraling out of control. 

Over its opening hour or so, The Wife is the most leisurely of slow burns, a fine showcase for its stars, sharply written by the great Jane Anderson, but admittedly lacking much in the way of exhilaration - I have to wonder, frankly, if many viewers, including those key members of the Academy, will have patience for this picture. 

There comes a point, at last, when Band-Aids are ripped off the skin and Close and Pryce have the license to ferociously go at it on the screen in a fashion they really haven't been able to in years. The Wife ultimately emerges a master class in acting for these two juggernauts, who have boundless chemistry and ring completely convincing as a couple in crisis. The brilliance of Anderson's screenplay makes Close and Pryce all the more shimmer.

With that said, is The Wife a perfect film? Not really. Some of the Castlemans' story is conveyed through flashbacks, which aren't as compelling or expertly acted, though they do at least provide the exquisite Elizabeth McGovern the opportunity to swoop in for a memorable, if all too fleeting cameo as an author who tries to dissuade young Joan (Annie Starke) from diving into professional writing. 

While not without its faults, The Wife is an absolute must-see for Close's riveting turn, which is nicely supported by Pryce and Irons, not to mention Anderson's dynamite script. Fingers crossed this early release doesn't fall through the cracks of a chaotic Oscar season...

A-

Review: "Crazy Rich Asians"

This past weekend marked the passing of Neil Simon, among the 20th century's most prolific writers of the stage and screen. A master of the romantic comedy, among Simon's best works were the legendary likes of Barefoot in the Park, The Goodbye Girl and Seems Like Old Times. 

Simon's mastery of dialogue and expert feeling for what makes a romcom prosper would have worked wonders for Crazy Rich Asians, a picture which sports an enchanting cast and couldn't be much more visually splendid, yet offers very few surprises along the way. 

The film, based on Kevin Kwan's 2013 novel, opens on Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), an economics professor at NYU who accepts boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding)'s invitation to join him in Singapore for his best friend's wedding. Little does Rachel realize Nick's family is, well, crazy rich, and that he is considered one of Singapore's most eligible bachelors. Awaiting Rachel on this journey will be a sea of oddball relatives, self-absorbed socialites and, most daunting of all, Nick's mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), a towering figure who is skeptical of Rachel even prior to her arrival. 

The Rachel-Eleanor dynamic, if familiar, is handily the most compelling part of Crazy Rich Asians, if exclusively on account of Yeoh's commanding performance. Any time she graces the screen, even if she's devoid of dialogue, the proceedings are lifted to something truly riveting. Take, for instance, the scene on the family's grand staircase, in which Eleanor tells Rachel she'll never amount to enough for her son. It's a breathtaking moment in a film with all too few of them. 

When Eleanor isn't in the picture, Crazy Rich Asians is a more scattershot affair, sometimes flourishing (like anytime the marvelous Awkwafina shows up as Rachel's college bestie Peik Lin) and other times flatlining (during a dreary subplot involving Nick's cousin and her cheating husband). Perhaps most frustrating is how little some of the supporting players are showcased. As Peik Lin's mother Neena, for instance, Koh Chieng Mun makes a fabulous, splashy first impression and then all but disappears. There is also Tan Kheng Hua, devastatingly great as Rachel's mom but again, it's practically a cameo. 

Wu and Golding exude no shortage of charisma as Rachel and Nick, though the writing often proves too mawkish for them to completely prevail. Director Jon M. Chu and photographer Vanja Cernjul have as much passion for the Singapore scenery as Woody Allen does New York in his pictures - the setting is especially rich early on, as the couple takes in dinner at a street vendor marketplace. Of course, for the most part, this is no Woody Allen-level comedy.

Crazy Rich Asians is worthwhile for Yeoh's crazy amazing performance alone but hardly ranks among the finest contemporary romcoms. 

B

Review: "BlacKkKlansman"

As we approach the 30th anniversary of Spike Lee's masterpiece, Do the Right Thing, it seems a fitting time as ever to reflect on the maddening lack of recognition the filmmaker's pictures have earned at the Oscars over his more than three decades in the industry.

Do the Right Thing should have been a Best Picture contender, not the recipient of a mere pair of nominations in Best Supporting Actor (Danny Aiello) and Best Original Screenplay. Likewise, Lee's extraordinary Malcolm X was a far greater achievement than the tedious likes of A Few Good Men and Scent of a Woman, both Best Picture nominees in 1992. Alas, it too scored just two nominations, for Best Actor (Denzel Washington) and Best Costume Design (Ruth E. Carter, only of only two African Americans to ever grace the category).

His 1997 documentary 4 Little Girls aside, no other Lee pictures have earned recognition on Oscar nominations morning.

Three years since his scoring of an Honorary Oscar, Lee's middling fortunes with members of the Academy seem destined to take another positive turn with this year's release of BlacKkKlansman, a picture that was warmly received at the Cannes Film Festival and stateside has earned Lee some of his best reviews in years.

Should BlacKkKlansman indeed prove the toast of this year's awards season, I will be delighted to see Lee bask in his return to critical and commercial favor...even if I happen to think the film isn't quite among his best work. 

In fact, for my money at least, BlacKkKlansman opens on a stunningly dismal and unfunny note with an introduction from Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard (Alec Baldwin, mercilessly hamming it up), who delivers a rambling presentation on the supposed science behind white superiority. Though this intro is thankfully brief, it hints at the picture's central problem to come - the comedy of BlacKkKlansman is generally broad and distracting. 

Its true story, however, is a fabulous one - of how in the early 1970s, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) is hired as the first black detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Miserable in his first assignment, working in the records room, Stallworth successfully requests a transfer to go undercover and is assigned to infiltrate a local civil rights rally. 

Ultimately, Stallworth is reassigned to the department's intelligence division and it is there that he concocts a wild mission to bring down the Klu Klux Klan. He calls the local chapter, pretending to be a white supremacist keen on joining the ranks, and manages to win them over. Of course, Stallworth cannot attend their shindigs in-person, so he recruits his white, Jewish co-worker Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) to join in the cause.

Stallworth makes so much progress, he ends up having regular phone conversations with none other than David Duke (Topher Grace), the infamous Grand Wizard of the KKK. Members of the local chapter, however, become gradually suspicious of Zimmerman, whose stories don't always match up with Stallworth's from over the phone. Such doubts come amidst the chapter's plans for a violent attack on a civil rights rally, which coincides with a visit by Duke to Colorado Springs.

BlacKkKlansman sports no shortage of profoundly powerful moments, including masterful monologues delivered by Corey Hawkins (as the towering civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael) and the incomparable Harry Belafonte. And if the picture itself is uneven, it at least beautifully serves as a star-making vehicle for Washington, who is flat-out fantastic as Stallworth and nicely matched with Driver, who has never been better. Laura Harrier leaves a nice impression too as Patrice Dumas, the president of the black student union who becomes romantically involved with Stallworth, even if her character feels insufficiently fleshed out.

Yet, all too much of BlacKkKlansman also left me sighing.

The Klansmen, as portrayed by Ryan Eggold, Paul Walter Hauser and Jasper Paakkonen, among others, are less terrifying or menacing (or interesting) than they are Saturday Night Live caricatures of white supremacists, a batch of dopey buffoons who seem liable at any moment to shout, "dey terk er jerbs!" The picture is ultimately a tonally haphazard blend of labored comedy and compelling drama from a filmmaker who's delivered sparkling comedies and sublime dramas but doesn't quite nail a fitting blend here.

Warts and all, BlacKkKlansman is ultimately worthwhile for Washington and Driver and, on occasion, Lee, who isn't at his sharpest here but still packs a punch here and there.

B

Review: "Eighth Grade"

Please, oh please let this extraordinary film emerge an awards season contender.

Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade, the year's best picture thus far, is a remarkable coming-of-age tale, just as sharp and insightful as last year's Lady Bird. It also happens to boast two performances richly deserving of Oscar conversation - leading lady Elsie Fisher and the superb Josh Hamilton, whose turn marks one of the great big screen dads of recent years.

Eighth Grade centers on Kayla Day (Fisher), a 13-year-old navigating her way through the final week of the hellish nightmare that has been eighth grade. Kayla, like the vast majority of her peers, is infatuated with social media and she goes one step further, constantly posting motivational videos on YouTube, aimed at providing fellow eighth graders with the tools necessary for school survival.

Alas, these videos attract close to zero views and Kayla herself is having the most aggravating time getting through middle school. Her dad Mark (Hamilton) adores Kayla but struggles to connect with her as she spends nearly every minute at home with her eyes glued to either her smartphone or laptop.

The final week proves a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. There are suffocating events, like Kayla's invitation to a pool party hosted by icy classmate Kennedy (Catherine Oliviere), and more positive encounters, like when she meets Kennedy's lovably odd cousin Gabe (Jake Ryan) and gets to shadow a cool high school senior (Emily Robinson). For better or worse, Kayla's world is turned upside down over these final days and through it all, keeping a careful eye on her, is Mark, with all of his unconditional love.

Eighth Grade is often spine-tingling in the way it so vividly and perceptively captures this harrowing time in life and, for every moment that'll leave you erupting in laughter (like nearly every moment featuring Aiden, the apple of Kayla's eye), there's another guaranteed to make you cry. Fisher and Hamilton share a devastating scene toward the end of the picture that recalls Timothee Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg in last year's Call Me By Your Name - and frankly, might be even better.

Fingers crossed A24, which has been gangbusters in recent years in generating recognition for its pictures, goes all-in on this masterful film.

A