Review: "Florence Foster Jenkins"

Get ready for Oscar nomination #20, everybody.

The indomitable Meryl Streep, who two years back garnered her 19th nod for Into the Woods, is an all-around delight in the title role of Stephen Frears' Florence Foster Jenkins.

The picture treats us to a look at how Jenkins, an ambitious socialite who frequented and invested in the New York arts scene into the 1940s, managed to buy her way into an opera concert for herself at Carnegie Hall...the one problem being Jenkins, lovable and charismatic as she was, couldn't hold a note for her dear life.

Reluctantly along for the ride are Jenkins' Shakespearean actor husband St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) and pianist Cosme McMoon (Simon Helberg, nearly stealing scenes from Streep in a comically nervous turn that recalls Gene Wilder), both supportive of the leading lady, yet very much wary of the likely not-so-glowing reaction from the public.

Streep, no surprise, is a tour-de-force here, particularly when she graces the stage - the audience before Jenkins may be aghast at her vocal ability but we Streep fanatics could not be more ecstatic. For her performance alone, the picture should be seen.

That said, the film is a tad claustrophobic, never really exploring the exciting hustle and bustle of '40s New York. Supporting players are thinly drawn, particularly Rebecca Ferguson as Bayfield's mistress. The material seems best-suited for a stage production and indeed, a terrific play on Jenkins, Stephen Temperley's Souvenir, graced the Great White Way about a decade back. The Frears picture, while entertaining, does not break a whole lot of new ground on Jenkins' life.

Florence Foster Jenkins can be catalogued right alongside Mrs. Henderson Presents... as one of Frears' stagier efforts which, despite its flaws, is well worth a look for the turn of its leading lady.

B

Review: "Suicide Squad"

I ventured into David Ayer's Suicide Squad with, given the cringe-worthy reviews, rock-bottom expectations. Part of me, however, held out real hope that the picture could surprise. I had, after all, been mildly fond of Ayer's critically panned Sabotage from 2014, and I thought the Jai Courtney-starring Terminator: Genisys worked on the level of fun, tongue-in-cheek camp.

Alas, about half an hour into Suicide Squad, it dawned on me that I really just enjoyed those pictures on account of my love for anything Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Suicide Squad, the worst comic book film adaptation since 2005's Elektra, and likely among the five worst comic flicks of all-time, is a truly cringe-inducing experience, sans any redeeming value. That the film features (and squanders) a handful of fine actors and was helmed by a usually terrific filmmaker makes the picture all the more aggravating an endeavor.

Previews and marketing have hyped Jared Leto's turn as Joker as a must-see, one that presumably dominates the picture. In reality, Joker is little more than an after-thought here, as the film focuses on an intelligence operative (Viola Davis, who's terrific even when completely phoning it in) who, in the wake of Superman's death, puts together a motley team of one-liner-spewing supervillains to be utilized for high-risk missions. With Midway City on the brink of apocalypse, under siege by the grating witch-goddess Enchantress (the always-blank Cara Delevingne), it's up to the squad to save the day.

Given the picture's spastic editing and total lack of character development, it's all but impossible to give a damn about anything on the screen here. The performances range from watchable (Davis, Courtney, Joel Kinnaman) to Razzie-calibur (Will Smith and Margot Robbie, recalling a blend of Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted and Cristin Milioti on 30 Rock), with the script doing nobody any favors at any moment.

As for Leto, whose presence is essentially unnecessary to the picture, I dig the appearance of Joker in a tux, but his turn more recalls some sort of '80s vampire pimp than anything out of the DC Comics. I'm pretty sure this guy was somewhere in the background of the "Relax" sequence from Body Double.

Suicide Squad is enjoyable to poke fun at but comparably depressing, given how great it coulda/shoulda been.

F

Review: "The Secret Life of Pets"

Expectations began to dwindle for me in the five minutes just prior to the start of Illumination Entertainment's latest animated feature The Secret Life of Pets. Preceding the picture is a short film, Mower Minions, headlined by those headache-inducing little rascals from the Despicable Me series and, more recently, their own feature film. Even at just a few minutes in length, it's an overbearing experience, hyperactive animated cinema in dire need of Ritalin.

What I find so disconnecting about the Minions franchise is it's essentially a soulless endeavor, devoid of characters to care about or remotely engaging plot. It's merely an experience of watching stuff bounce around the big screen.

So, I was worried The Secret Life of Pets would too leave me underwhelmed, even though I'd been quite charmed by the picture's marketing. And while Pets does at times have the same hyperbolic energy as the Minions, it is also thankfully a feature with a ton of heart, with lovable, memorable characters and plenty of enjoyable dialogue.

The picture focuses on Max (the delightful Louis C.K.), a terrier living a perfectly comfortable life with his owner in Manhattan. When his mommy brings home a new pet, a shaggy Newfoundland named Duke (Eric Stonestreet) at least twice his size, Max of course becomes jealous and makes a mess of home, in the hopes it'll result in Duke's removal. While out for a walk in the park with some fellow canines later that day, however, Max and Duke go astray, are picked up by animal control and then "rescued" by a sassy bunny named Snowball (a nicely cast Kevin Hart) and his crew of abandoned pets who are out for revenge on the owners who wronged them. Snowball and his gang wind up quite the motley bunch, leaving Max and Duke on the run from them, while some pals of Max's try their best to navigate the Big Apple and find their friend.

As you can tell, there's plenty of running around and action in The Secret Life of Pets, and while the picture does often feel like a theme park ride, it also sports a terrific script and one hell of a cast, also including the likes of Dana Carvey, Jenny Slate, Ellie Kemper, Bobby Moynihan and Albert Brooks. The animation is exquisite - I haven't seen a Manhattan so breathtaking since Woody Allen's - and Alexandre Desplat's jazzy score would be worthy of an Oscar nomination.

I could not be happier that The Secret Life of Pets is a big, fat hit.

A-

Review: "The Purge: Election Year"

For those who have yet to experience the (non-existent) delights and pleasures of The Purge horror franchise, here is the concept - in an America apparently suffocating from crime and overpopulation, the U.S. government implements a new policy wherein citizens have a 12-hour period annually in which all criminal activity, murder included, is legal. This will give the populace the opportunity to both "purge" themselves of their anger, hatred and hunger for violence and cleanse the citizenry of unwanted presences, namely political enemies and low-income folks.

The first Purge flick was a rather generic and boring home invasion yarn, in the mold of Panic Room and Funny Games. It was also headlined by a sleepwalking Ethan Hawke, seemingly only on-set to pick up a paycheck. The second, The Purge: Anarchy, wasn't exactly great cinema, even by modern day horror standards, but at least sported an intriguing, gritty Escape from New York-like atmosphere, and had a strong leading man in Frank Grillo.

Grillo, who very much brings to mind a late-'80s-era Stallone, is back for the series' third entry, The Purge: Election Year, and while there is some guilty pleasure entertainment to be found here, the film by and large feels like a carbon copy of the first sequel. There's nothing new or exciting to be seen here.

Grillo is head of security to a U.S. Senator (Elizabeth Mitchell), who is the presidential nominee of the anti-Purge party. On the evening of the Purge, several members of the Senator's staff and security turn out to be pro-Purge traitors, sending Grillo and Mitchell on the run from her home, eventually joining forces with a local deli owner (a badass Mykelti Williamson) and some of his fellow anti-Purge colleagues.

All of the action and choreography here feels like microwaved leftovers from Anarchy. Much like Saw around the time of its third entry, this series seems to be woefully out of steam and ideas. If not for Grillo and Williamson, this picture could serve as the sort of torture pro-Purge citizens like to inflict on their prey.

C

Review: "The BFG"

Somehow, growing up, I never got around to reading Roald Dahl's 1982 children's book The BFG. I'd tackled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, heck I even managed to make it through the patience-testing Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, but The BFG never ventured into my grasp.

I will no doubt have to change that in the near future, as Steven Spielberg's take on the Dahl tale is, perhaps just second to The Jungle Book, the most enchanting picture of the year, thus far.

The BFG opens on Sophie (the delightful newcomer Ruby Barnhill), a bright but terribly lonely orphan who one evening, after having spotted the mysterious Big Friendly Giant (Mark Rylance, in a turn 10 times more moving and engaging than his overrated Bridge of Spies performance) outside, is plucked out of her orphanage by the "BFG" and transported to his home in Giant Country.

Initially scared, Sophie soon comes to find the BFG is really just a 24-foot-tall mountain of warmth and love and the two embark on a marvelous dream-catching adventure in the sky.

Alas, there are of course villains here who want to rain on Sophie and the BFG's parade, a group of ugly, man-eating giants who love pushing the BFG around and want to chow down on the leading lady. Sophie and the BFG decide to appeal to Queen Elizabeth (a very funny and game Penelope Wilton) to crack down on these mean monsters, leading to a showdown between these gruesome giants and the Queen's soldiers.

The BFG, which marks the second (and sadly final, given Mathison's passing) collaboration between Spielberg and screenwriter Melissa Mathison, is awfully reminiscent of their comparably heart-tugging work on E.T: The Extra Terrestrial. This is, after all, another picture focused on the friendship between two lost, sensitive outcasts, with John Williams' soaring music swelling in the background as tears inevitably start to fill the eyes. It also has a number of true laugh-out-loud moments, particularly in the picture's second and superior half, involving the Queen (and her precious corgis).

Having checked this out in its second weekend, I can say I think it's an absolute shame The BFG has thus far struggled at the box office. I would hope today's youngsters have the patience for a picture of this length and nuance. I surely hope its reception does not deter Spielberg, who is such a master at this sort of thing, from making more similar films in the future.

A-