Review: "Phantom Thread"

January 15, 2018 by Andrew Carden in Reviews

Oh, how I hope the Academy at last has the good sense to make Lesley Manville an Oscar nominee!

Manville, whose brilliant turn in Mike Leigh's Another Year was worthy of not a mere Oscar nomination but the outright win, is once again kicking ass and taking names, this time with a key supporting role in Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread. With a mere glance, Manville is able to seamlessly steal a scene, even against that three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis. When Manville doesn't grace the screen, which is far too often, she is sorely missed.

Manville's performance is, I'm afraid, one of a mere few reasons to check out Anderson's latest picture, a sumptuously designed but otherwise unpleasant and uninvolving vehicle for Day-Lewis, who is surprisingly in rather stiff form.

Day-Lewis portrays a real son of a bitch, superstar dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock who, in the 1950s, is the hottest name in London fashion. Bored with his latest female companion and frustrated with work, Reynolds takes a few days to escape to the countryside. There, he becomes enchanted with Alma (Vicky Krieps), a mild-mannered, beautiful waitress who is just as enamored with him.

Alma returns to London with him, where there's no shortage of friction between she and Reynolds' sister Cyril (Manville) and, eventually, Reynolds himself. Alma soon finds herself facing the same predicament as past women in Reynolds' life - how can one make him fall in love, not merely for a fleeting moment, but for a lifetime, in a long-term relationship? Well, Alma might just have a few more tricks up her sleeve than Reynolds' earlier companions.

Phantom Thread is, on an all-too-rare occasion, a glorious sight. The picture looks gorgeous, stunningly photographed by Anderson, with striking costumes by Mark Bridges (this should be a shoo-in for that Oscar). The Jonny Greenwood score is also exquisite. And, as already mentioned, Manville is simply divine as Reynolds' loyal, truth-telling sister. Every scene with her is riveting, as is a brief sequence toward the film's center with the always-great Harriet Harris as a wealthy but profoundly unhappy client of Reynolds'.

The downfall of Phantom Thread is in the Reynolds-Alma pairing itself, a stilted, soulless relationship that just isn't the least bit compelling - I'm still trying to figure out what Anderson sees in this duo! The film's final act, which closes in on the pair and sends Cyril to the sidelines, is a combination of tedious and absurd.

Phantom Thread sports marvelous stories that could be told, whether focused on the spellbinding Cyril, the fascinating Barbara Rose (the Harris character) or even those wise old seamstresses - imagine a picture told from their points of view! Instead, we're stuck front and center with Reynolds and Alma, two insufferable, chemistry-free people who suck the life out of a film that isn't without its precious pleasures.

B-

2017 Movie Report Card

January 14, 2018 by Andrew Carden in Reviews

Review: "The Post"

January 07, 2018 by Andrew Carden in Reviews

In 1971, U.S. military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, then employed by the global policy think tank the RAND Corporation, emerged one of the world's most famous whistleblowers with his leaking of the Pentagon Papers to the American press. The Papers marked an unfiltered Pentagon study, spanning three decades and four U.S. presidents, of government decision-making, warts and all, pertaining to the Vietnam War.

Steven Spielberg's The Post observes how Kay Graham (Meryl Streep), the first female publisher of a major American newspaper (The Washington Post), and Post editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) vied to catch up with The New York Times, the first publication to report on excepts from the more than 7,000 pages of the Pentagon study.

The Nixon administration files a court order against the Times, temporarily barring them from further coverage on the Papers. This inspires Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), hopeful another publication can continue this reporting, to leak the documents to Post reporter Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk). Further coverage is easier said than done, however, as Graham and Bradlee face pressure from the Post's financial stakeholders to refrain from stories on the Papers, plus the prospect of potentially being thrown in jail for publication of these top secret documents.

Like recent Spielberg dramas Lincoln and Bridge of Spies, The Post is a sufficiently engaging and entertaining endeavor, hardly on the same level of his best work (or 2015's newsroom drama Spotlight) but just satisfying enough. After a meandering start, the proceedings catch fire as Graham, Bradlee and the Post staff agonize over whether to go to print. All is well until the picture's final few minutes, a heavy-handed ending that brings out the saccharin worst in the director.

Streep and Hanks, even if they never really disappear into these roles (unlike Jason Robards as Bradlee in All the President's Men), are in sturdy form. More interesting are the scene-stealing Odenkirk and Bruce Greenwood, who portrays former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, a friend of Graham's who hardly comes across well in the Papers. A scene in which McNamara warns Graham about the Nixon administration's hellbent desire to shut the Post's efforts down is among the film's best.

Sadly, other talented actors, like Sarah Paulson as Bradlee's wife, Alison Brie as Graham's daughter and Carrie Coon as another Post reporter, serve as mere window dressing.

In the end, The Post is a fine, if workmanlike piece of Oscar bait, lacking the imagination and vitality of Spielberg's best work but, given the compelling subject matter and talent involved, still plenty watchable.

B+

Review: "Call Me by Your Name"

January 06, 2018 by Andrew Carden in Reviews

Remember that glorious, gut-wrenching scene in James Ivory's The Remains of the Day in which the lonely butler Mr. Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) is caught by housekeeper Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson), the woman he secretly adores, reading a book of sweet love stories?

I will never forget it and it's that sense of overwhelming longing and desire that I figured would play so prominently in Call Me by Your Name, a picture not directed by Ivory but written by the filmmaker - a rare screenwriting credit. Yet the film, pretty as it may be, ultimately left me more restless than anything, one of the great disappointments of the 2017 film season.

The picture opens on young Elio (Timothee Chalamet) who, over the summer of 1983, spends his days relaxing in the Italian countryside with his family. His father (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor of archaeology, invites Oliver (Armie Hammer), a twentysomething doctoral student, to spend much of the season with them. Initially, the introverted Elio and high-spirited Oliver seem to have little in common but, over time, they do grow close and, despite Elio's courting of Marzia (Esther Garrel), a sexual relationship soon blossoms.

Call Me by Your Name is sumptuously photographed by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom - it's a picture that looks just as splendid as Ivory's best. Alas, director Luca Guadagnino, who has impressed me in the past (I love I Am Love), shows far more sensual feeling for the countryside scenery than his characters. Elio and Oliver are just not as captivating or absorbing a pair as say, Mr. Stevens and Miss Kenton or Maurice and Clive of Ivory's Maurice.

Chalamet is dead-on convincing as Elio. Too bad he's stuck playing against Hammer who, his matinee idols looks aside, continues to exude the acting prowess of a block of wood. At the film's 11-'o-clock hour, Stuhlbarg has a monologue on young love that, while exquisitely delivered by the actor, rings of something manufactured that you'd only hear in the movies.

Call Me by Your Name dazzled my eyes but, to my surprise, barely tugged at the heartstrings.

Review: "I, Tonya"

December 31, 2017 by Andrew Carden in Reviews

At last, a film worthy of the talents of Margot Robbie and Sebastian Stan!

Robbie and Stan, two marvelous stars with rather patchy filmographies to date, are at their career-best in I, Tonya, a picture that serves up heaps of meat for both actors to chew on. Robbie, in particular, is truly stunning, in one of the year's best and most affecting performances.

The film, directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Steven Rogers, who too have only had intermittent success on the big screen, opens on young Tonya Harding (portrayed as a child by Mckenna Grace) being thrust into the world of figuring skating by LaVona (Allison Janney), her chain-smoking monster of a mother. By her teens (at this point played by Robbie), Tonya is one of the great up-and-coming American figure skaters, helped along the way by coach Diane Rawlinson (Julianne Nicholson), who shows Tonya infinitely more warmth and concern than her own mother ever provided.

Tonya eventually falls for Jeff Gillooly (Stan), a man equal parts doting and vicious, and is able to finally move out of LaVona's house by marrying him - alas, this is an act of moving from one abusive relationship to another. There are ups and downs for Tonya, both personally and professionally, culminating in a comeback attempt that inspires Jeff and his buffoonish friend Shawn (Paul Walter Hauser) to bring down Tonya's rival Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver). The rest, of course, is history.

I, Tonya is at its most absorbing early on, as Tonya catapults her way toward the top of the figure skating world, despite the barbaric pain (and negligible support) inflicted upon her by LaVona and Jeff. Robbie is downright exhilarating from start to finish, painting Tonya as a gifted, sad and wholly sympathetic figure. She's matched by Stan, often explosive as the volatile husband, and Nicholson, warm and wonderful, per usual, as the altruistic coach.

Janney, no surprise, is memorable too, but I don't think LaVona is quite as fleshed out on the page as Tonya and Jeff. It's a vivid portrayal of loathsome, garish woman, but Janney never quite gets that 'Oscar scene' you'd hope for and LaVona all but disappears from the picture in the second half.

While there is so much to love about I, Tonya, the proceedings are a tad less compelling once "the incident" comes to fruition. At this point, with the rock soundtrack blasting and film editing growing more snazzy with each frame, Gillespie and Rogers seem hellbent on kicking the film into Scorsese mode, and I think this only detracts from the brilliant central performances. Also, there's a little too much of the grotesque Shawn to stomach

My few quibbles aside, I, Tonya remains an absolute must-see for Robbie's stirring performance alone, a turn that, no doubt, is en route to an Oscar nomination. If only Stan could make the cut too!

B+

Review: "All the Money in the World"

December 26, 2017 by Andrew Carden in Reviews

In 1987, during post-production on his drama September, Woody Allen made the unprecedented decision to all but start from scratch on the picture, replacing stars Sam Shepard, Maureen O'Sullivan and Charles Durning with Sam Waterston, Elaine Stritch and Jack Warden, respectively. The result, while not a commercial success, marked one of Allen's most absorbing and richly performed dramas, with Stritch especially riveting in the role of family matriarch.

Fast-forward three decades and, amid sexual assault allegations toward All the Money in the World star Kevin Spacey, it was Ridley Scott in this precarious position of going back to do extensive reshoots, albeit not quite to the extent Allen did in '87. Spacey's scenes as oil tycoon J. Paul Getty were booted from the film as that old pro Christopher Plummer waltzed in to save the day and shoot the role over a mere nine days.

Plummer, I'm pleased to report, is in marvelous form as Getty, a feat made all the more remarkable by the time crunch to have this thing ready for a Christmas theatrical release. To boot, this role is no cameo - he graces the screen for well more than half an hour, instilling much-needed vitality into the proceedings, and clearly had a blast with the role.

Alas, when Plummer isn't front and center, All the Money in the World is an overwhelmingly ho-hum endeavor and certainly no September.

The picture opens on young John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer) being kidnapped by an organized crime regime in Rome. His mother Gail (Michelle Williams) reaches out to Getty Sr. to pay the ransom, which he promptly refuses to do, claiming it would only encourage his other grandchildren to be captured in exchange for Getty money. With her son's captors growing more savage over time, Gail works alongside Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg), a former CIA operative and Getty Sr.'s business manager, to devise a way of saving the young man without the assistance of his crusty grandfather.

A key and nearly fatal flaw of All the Money in the World is the young Getty is so thinly drawn by Scott, (Charlie) Plummer and screenwriter David Scarpa that it's tough to get all that emotionally invested in the proceedings. Williams is able to breathe a bit more life into her role, even with Scarpa's script doing her few favors. Wahlberg, on the other hand, is supreme dead weight, evidently having graduated from the Bruce Willis in The Bonfire of the Vanities School of Acting - "maybe I'll win an Oscar if I do nothing but simply throw on a pair of glasses!"

Ultimately, the sole reason to sit through this lengthy and often middling exercise is Plummer, who at least has some blood flowing through his veins and is able to wholly transcend Scott's unfocused direction and Scarpa's lame script. Spacey, I suspect, may have played Getty as camp, rendering the proceedings all but unwatchable. Plummer, on the other hand, is stunningly convincing. It's a tour de force turn that provides a hefty lift to this troubled production.

If only Scott had pulled an Allen, scrapped the entire picture and started over with a Getty biopic!

B-

Review: "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"

December 23, 2017 by Andrew Carden in Reviews

More porgs, please!

Those adorable porgs - the pint-sized sea birds who inhabit the planet on which an exiled Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) resides in Star Wars: The Last Jedi - sure are irresistible and there's a lot to like in filmmaker Rian Johnson's contribution to the franchise, even if it rarely reaches the heights of the legendary first three films.

While, in many respects, this is a bolder, more ambitious effort than the series' last entry, J.J. Abrams' fine but workmanlike The Force Awakens, it is also structurally haphazard, often bouncing among its subplots in frantic manner that renders the proceedings somewhat uninvolving.

The Last Jedi opens on the Resistance, led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher, in her final film appearance), evacuating their base upon the arrival of a First Order fleet. Leia's son, the painfully conflicted Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), has the opportunity to blow the Resistance ship to bits but hesitates, deep down harboring feelings for his mother. Nonetheless, the First Order pursues them via a tracking device, which Resistance fighters Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) are determined to disable.

Meanwhile, Rey (Daisy Ridley), alongside Chewbecca and R2-D2, has interrupted Luke's isolated existence, determined to recruit him back to the Resistance. Luke initially resists, viewing the Jedi as plagued with failure, but eventually relents, willing to educate Rey in the ways of the force. Matters get messy, however, when Rey and Kylo begin telepathically communicating and Kylo, who had been trained by Luke, paints his former master in a not-so-flattering light.

With Hamill in career-best form and Ridley a sterling screen presence, their scenes are among The Last Jedi's best and most absorbing - and just wait 'til a franchise favorite shows up for marvelous surprise cameo alongside Luke. It's the rest of the picture that's rather erratic.

The cast isn't to blame. Fisher (who has more to do here than in The Force Awakens), Driver, Boyega and Isaac are all terrific, as is Kelly Marie Tran as Rose, a mechanic along for the fight. (Laura Dern, sadly, doesn't have much meat to chew on.) The thing is, for every sequence that crackles, like Finn and Rose's journey to an elaborate casino city, there are one or two that either don't quite pay off or just fall completely flat. Also, at more than two and a half hours, the proceedings left me awfully restless...with about half an hour still go.

As admittedly not the most ardent of Star Wars fans - oddly enough, my favorite in the series is Return of the Jedi...and that's mostly because I'm that one person who loves Ewoks - I'm hardly dumbfounded that The Last Jedi didn't leave me head over heels. Still, I can recognize that vitality and movie magic in the original trilogy of Star Wars pictures and it's pleasure that's only intermittently present in this film and The Force Awakens.

That said...I'm totally down for some more porgs.

Review: "Darkest Hour"

December 17, 2017 by Andrew Carden in Reviews

It was hardly hyperbole when, in the late 1980s, film critic Roger Ebert labeled Gary Oldman "the best young British actor around." Oldman may not have graced the Hollywood A-list at this time but he was nonetheless killing it with dazzling turns in the likes of Sid and Nancy, Prick Up Your Ears and Rosencranz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Oldman would, over the years to come, instill vitality in safer fare like Air Force One, The Contender and Hannibal, plus Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, which perhaps introduced a whole new generation of film buffs to the veteran actor.

Rarely, however, has Oldman been handed a role with this much meat to chew on. His turn as newly appointed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, a performance talked up for months as a shoo-in for the Best Actor Oscar, is a legit tour de force, a master class in acting that is equal parts convincing and entertaining. It's just too bad the picture around him isn't operating at that same sky-high level.

Directed by Joe Wright, a master of the workmanlike British drama, Darkest Hour follows Churchill during the early days of World War II. Nazi forces are steamrolling across Western Europe and the threat of invasion to Great Britain is imminent. Where his predecessor Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup) was known for his appeasement foreign policy, Churchill fiercely opposes Hitler and loathes the idea, still advocated by the Chamberlain wing, of negotiating with him. Ultimately, despite his political opponents' best efforts to influence him, Churchill rallies the nation behind the war effort and the rest is history.

Darkest Hour often has the feel of a one-man show. This is in part due to the riveting, larger-than-life nature of Oldman's performance, a turn that graces the screen in nearly every frame. It is also, however, the result of screenwriter Anthony McCarten's decision not to much flesh out a single other figure in the picture. We learn virtually nothing about wife Clementine (Kristin Scott Thomas) or King George VI (Ben Mendelsohn) and while Pickup is quite terrific as Chamberlain, he too is mostly treated like a mannequin.

This isn't to put the film down too much. Beyond Oldman, there's a lot to like on the technical end, with a marvelous Dario Marianelli score and lush cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel. A handful of scenes, perhaps most notably Churchill's bolting from his car to join his fellow citizens for a trip on the subway, are also very nicely staged by Wright.

Ultimately, though, Oldman upstages everything and everyone around him in Darkest Hour. He chews scenery, sure, but also instills in Churchill a palpable sense of vulnerability. Oldman also disappears into the role in a way I don't think past actors like John Lithgow (The Crown) and Richard Burton (The Gathering Storm) quite pulled off.

Darkest Hour may be a stuffy endeavor in many regards but Oldman more than delivers the goods.

B+

Review: "The Shape of Water"

December 11, 2017 by Andrew Carden in Reviews

At last, a film that simultaneously satisfies my appetites for both 1940s movie musicals and 1950s creature features!

Guillermo del Toro's genre-bending The Shape of Water is both one of the year's finest films and the best and most accessible picture in his filmography - more satisfying, I would argue, that his much-celebrated Pan's Labyrinth. It's a poignant, exciting and fanciful picture that sports one hell of an ensemble cast and, no surprise, also happens to look absolutely gorgeous.

The film opens on Elisa (Sally Hawkins, spellbinding as ever), a mute, timorous woman who in Cold War-era Baltimore works as a cleaning lady in a hidden, high-security government research center. Her life isn't much to write home about, that is until an encounter with a mysterious amphibious creature (Doug Jones) who has been brought to the laboratory for a classified experiment by the barbarous, abusive Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon).

Elisa spends time with the creature, bringing him food and playing records from home, and slowly but surely, a bond blossoms between these two lonely souls. As Strickland becomes more unhinged in the senseless pain he inflicts upon the creature, Elisa mulls a plan to get her new companion out of the lab (and boy does del Toro do a rousing job orchestrating that sequence). Elisa has support from friend and neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins); scientist Dr. Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg); and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) but it won't be easy protecting the creature from the exceedingly deranged Strickland.

The Shape of Water offers a little something for everyone.

Like all del Toro pictures, this is a visually remarkable production, with sublime cinematography by Dan Laustsen and production design by Paul D. Austerberry. Vintage horror fans will no doubt devour the film's affection for Universal's 1950s Creature trilogy and movie musical fans - you'll be in heaven during del Toro's tribute to those pictures, set (in gorgeous black and white) to the Oscar-winning Alice Faye tune "You'll Never Know." The action is exhilarating, the romance is sweet and heart-rending and the film isn't without a sense of humor.

Hawkins, in perhaps her most affecting performance to date, never strikes a false note as Elisa and she's matched by Jenkins, Spencer and Stuhlbarg, stellar as always in their respective supporting turns - it's especially welcome to see Jenkins with such a rich role on the big screen, and I sure hope he earns an Oscar nomination. Shannon perhaps offers the fewest surprises among the cast but still instills plenty of vigor into his role, which rings more like a mad scientist than any of the actual scientists in the picture.

The Shape of Water is a phenomenal effort, sure to resonate on at least some level with even moviegoers not terribly fond of del Toro's past productions.

A+

Review: "The Disaster Artist"

December 03, 2017 by Andrew Carden in Reviews

James Franco, you have come so very far since the 2010 Oscars.

Franco is a legit tour de force, both in front of and behind the camera, as leading man and director of The Disaster Artist. He has exquisitely approached a role that, in the hands of another, less committed actor, could have easily played as caricature, adding layer upon layer to the irresistibly oddball filmmaker Tommy Wiseau.

Based on the eponymous 2013 book by actor Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell, The Disaster Artist opens on Sestero (Dave Franco) who, toward the end of the 1990s, is an aspiring young actor living in San Francisco with his mom (Megan Mullally). Sestero encounters the peculiar Wiseau at an acting class and is awestruck by the audacious scenery-chewing in his rendition of a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire. Over the months to come, the two form an unusual but solicitous bond and, yearning to make it in Hollywood, eventually make the move to L.A.

On the steep climb to making their dreams come true, Sestero secures an agent (and a girlfriend) but nonetheless finds negligible success, while the industry all-around shuns Wiseau. One day, Sestero casually floats the idea of making his own picture to provide himself with a film role. Wiseau takes this suggestion literally and, over the next three years, pens the screenplay for what will become The Room, now considered one of the worst films ever made and, because of that distinction, an unimpeachable cult classic.

The making of The Room, which fills out most of the back half of The Disaster Artist, is often devastatingly funny and sure to even resonate with viewers not familiar with Wiseau's 2003 film. What I especially adore about this picture, however, is the relationship between Wiseau and Sestero and how their chance meeting saved them from the doldrums of ordinary life and inspired them to pursue seemingly impossible dreams.

Both Francos are in prime form, with James in particular deserving kudos for not approaching Wiseau as some sort of SNL creation. When, toward the beginning of the picture, Wiseau tells Sestero he wishes he could have his own world, a planet where nothing but love exists, he sounds entirely sincere and it's a stunningly moving moment. The supporting cast is, for the most part, comprised of an endless series of celebrity cameos, some inspired (Josh Hutcherson and Jacki Weaver are a hoot as actors in the film) and others perplexing (please stop giving Zac Efron work).

Comparisons have, no surprise, been made between The Disaster Artist and Ed Wood, Tim Burton's picture about another lovably dreadful filmmaker. While this film does not operate on the same sky-high level as Ed Wood, it's still one heck of a great time and a strong contender for the year's funniest film.

A-