Category Archives: Film Review

“What would I do with mutant dinosaurs from an accounting perspective? Is that REALLY what we are asking?” Jurassic World Rebirth

12 July 2025

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My God, Jurassic World Rebirth is an astonishingly stupid movie. The kind of movie that makes me angry I saw it. I don’t want to devote any more time to the damn thing by writing about it, to be honest, but I have … thoughts.

Here’s the thing. The overarching conceit – 32 years in – just doesn’t work anymore if it ever actually did past the first installment. As an audience, can we in good faith care about, worry over, or invest in the humans in peril if they are such nitwits that they willingly return to the former park setting, research lab, holding island, WHATEVER where chaos has already ensued countless times? Shouldn’t we in fact feel utter sorrow for the dinosaurs at this point? They asked for NONE of this, happily extinct until “life found a way” with greedy entrepreneurs who only worried about whether they “could not if they should” (and all the other pseudo-philosophical bromides that have peppered this film franchise).

Have these films become my generation’s version of those Irwin Allen disaster pics of yore where random celebs at various points of their careers survive an airport on fire in the middle of a hurricane which is also on fire? Paging Shelley Winters.

Rebirth director Gareth Edwards is one of our more interesting filmmakers, particularly with this kind of capitalistic science run amuck enterprise. Why didn’t he finally flip the script on its head and give us a film where without equivocation humans were the real enemies?! That would have been interesting. No one would have bought a ticket, but at least there would have been a raison d’etre.

What do we get? An L.L. Bean catalog costumed romp through Spielberg’s greatest hits:

  • Beautiful cinematography of sweeping jungle vistas
  • The epic swell of John Williams’ iconic theme (a LOT)
  • Random yuppie family members inexplicably in peril – people who should be nowhere near ANY of this but by dumb luck and poor life choices are
  • Chic product-placed SUVs
  • One whimsically likable and infinitely merchandisable pocket dino to contrast with those mean big ol’ SCARY ones just looking for a meal
  • Thumbnail tragic back stories ONLY for the characters who will clearly survive so we are manipulated into fretting over them
  • A handful of other people, each of whom will clearly get offed every seventeen and a half minutes because they’re painted as marginally unlikable
  • Absolutely zero grief from the survivors (UNLESS it’s a red herring death of a cast member who will reappear from the jungle ten minutes later)
  • Internal logic that is all over the map – e.g. don’t make a sound to inadvertently attract the dinos UNLESS we need you to scream and wail in the next scene with little existential consequence
  • Flippant jokes made amidst the carnage to show how chill the characters really are
  • Characters who periodically whoop and holler with glee at unearned “victory” or “in awe” moments – like they are attending a college football game
  • AND a terrifically talented and terrifically wasted cast who would have been better served playing Pickleball than showing up for this drivel

Scarlett Johansson plays a kind of remixed Lara Croft mercenary version of Chris Pratt’s and Laura Dern’s characters from earlier films. Mahershala Ali is the wise and world-weary boat captain with a secret heart of gold. Jonathan Bailey fares the best of the three as the Sam Neill/Jeff Goldblum arch-but-sexy-nerd “voice of reason” paleontologist. Bailey manages to wring some gold from the lines he’s given, landing a few zingers along the way – my favorite: “What would I do with mutant dinosaurs from an accounting perspective? Is that REALLY what we are asking?” Or maybe I just found that funny because it felt like an indictment of Universal Pictures still pumping these movies out.

Seriously, the film is sharp enough to cast three smart, winning, box office draws who can act but then has them wander around cavalierly for two and a half hours like they are at a blood-splattered country club. It felt like this was the direction they were given: “Yes, we know being surrounded by frantically carnivorous dinos should elicit some authentic reactions of abject fear, but we think it would be better if you portrayed your characters like they were in a Hallmark movie on their way to a county fair after grabbing a low-fat soy macchiato at Starbucks and some workout gear at lululemon. Can you make that work?”

There are simply no stakes in this film. I suppose I should tell you the hook for all the mayhem THIS time. In short, people in this Jurassic universe just don’t care about dinos anymore – they’ve moved on. Ho hum. And the remaining dinos can’t survive anywhere but a few equatorial islands. THAT could have been an interesting concept to explore in detail – how jaded and indifferent we have become as a society through the lens of dinosaurs becoming extinct, not literally but in popularity. We cavalierly cast aside such a miracle of science because it ceases to entertain; not to mention the planet’s atmosphere is so effed up these amazing creatures can’t survive here anyway. But, no, that’s just a passing thought in the first 10 minutes to set up an excursion to the equator to draw DNA from THREE – count ‘em THREE – very specific dinos (one by sea, one by land, one by air … naturally) in order for big pharma to develop a cure for heart disease. Yup, that’s why these nincompoops travel to hell on earth and get themselves killed (or mostly killed). For MacGuffins. Bailey’s character is stuck being the Jiminy Cricket conscience, periodically chastising with comments like “Science is for ALL of us, not SOME of us” and “WE don’t rule the earth … we just THINK we do.” Sigh.

Hey, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures, the next time – and that is a fiscal inevitability – you start cranking up your marketing machinery to gestate another one of these Jurassic babies, just take a moment and remember what Jeff Goldblum cautioned alllllll the way back in 1993 (and I repeat for those in the back): “You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn’t stop to think if you should.”

“You have a flying saucer, but you couldn’t get a faster garage door?” Superman (2025)

12 July 2025

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Writer/director/mega geek James Gunn’s new cinematic take on DC Comics’ mainstay Superman is indeed, well, SUPER. Sorry, not sorry for the corny lead in. In fact, Gunn’s film (and one could argue his entire oeuvre) pops corn into anarchic, infectious punk rock. For some reason, “being punk” is a running theme in the caped blockbuster – in this case, grace and decency being a new form of rebellion. Even more inexplicably it works. I suppose many of us are just hungry for nice, a concept so out of vogue that it seems revolutionary now.

Gunn runs headlong into every goofy trope that makes Superman interesting. He owes a good bit to Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s miraculous run on the All-Star Superman comic book, written twenty years ago, remixing half-baked silver age futurism, radioactive monsters, pocket universes, and merchandisable sidekicks into an infectious summertime confection that packs a poignant punch just when it seems ready to spin into fizzy incoherence. Gunn is that kid who takes every toy from the box, piles them in the middle of the room, and curiously spins a compelling yarn from absurdity.

Before I go further, there is nothing “political” about this film (not sure when that word became anathema but here we are anyway). This is ironic since one of the many, many narrative conceits is that the big blue boy scout has gotten himself into a social media quagmire after intervening in geopolitics, preventing two warring nations from blowing each other up. This is a film about kindness and compassion, delivered with such bonkers glee that I’m hard pressed to identify how anyone could be offended by it. Although many will try, glomming onto the media hype to eke out a moment of attention (or ratings). Gunn is savvy enough to lay a meta trap for these types by depicting in movie universe how supervillains big and small vilify the good-hearted and the downtrodden to score their own points. If hyperventilating real-world pundits WANT to be aligned with bald baddie Lex Luthor then more power to them, I suppose.

This is about as comic book-y a movie as I’ve ever seen, and on the balance that is a breath of fresh air. The film is unashamed to be bright and cluttered, buoyant and episodic, with not one whiff of “grounded and gritty.” That said, Gunn also finds ways to embrace every type of Superman that has come before, with Easter Eggs and callbacks to every movie era, unafraid to acknowledge, nay embrace, that we in the audience have long term memories. The smartest move the film makes is working in John Williams’ iconic 1970s/80s theme to the score as a periodic emotional exclamation mark. Oh, and we even get some of the swooping neon font used previously in the Christopher Reeve films for this take’s opening and closing credits. Those touches never seem pandering – homage maybe but utterly welcome. They cue us that we are back on familiar ground where Superman can be fun.

I’ll admit there were times where Gunn’s script and the day-glo CGI lost me. I still have no clue what was happening interminably with some interdimensional rift threatening all of humanity, and I guess I don’t care. Gunn’s strength is always in the off-kilter character dynamics and the softer moments of human connection, arguably illuminated in how they stand out from the video game antics.

And the man knows how to CAST a film. David Corenswet is a rangy, floppy golden retriever to former Superman Henry Cavill’s sleek, GQ Dobermann, but the shift is needed here. (Cavill got saddled with one rotten screenplay after another so he’s not really to blame.) Corenswet’s Superman – and especially his Clark Kent – is kind of an adorable mess, which makes the character’s boundless co-dependent compassion that much more compelling. This Superman is every bit the sweet orphan who hopes to change the world by encouraging us all to find our better angels. When grilled by Lois Lane regarding his controversial intervention in that global firefight, he responds in pained befuddlement, “I wasn’t representing anyone but me. And doing good.” Oh, if we could only have more of that today.

Speaking of dogs, for the first time in film history, we also get the treat of seeing Superman’s canine companion Krypto on the big screen – he’s an even bigger mess than Supes: disobedient, reckless, and utterly perfect. One day, we’ll look back on all of Gunn’s films and realize the actual key to them is how much he understands and respects animals (I’m still a mess from that last Guardians of the Galaxy installment).

Rachel Brosnahan gives us a Lois Lane for the ages – yes, in love with Superman/Clark – but more in love with the truth, complete in her agency as a character. No damsel in distress, Lois is in fact key to helping rescue humanity from the precipice, with some smart reporting … while piloting a flying saucer.  Yes, you read that correctly.

Speaking of the spaceship, it’s owned by another superhero Mr. Terrific, a beautifully deadpan Edi Gathegi, whose smarts and tech prowess and cynicism are a nice palate cleanser from Superman’s “gee whiz” winsomeness. When Terrific and Lois team up in the film’s final act to rescue Superman from the clutches of Lex Luthor, the film crackles with comic energy. I can’t do this moment justice (and don’t want to spoil it), but just know that Brosnahan’s delivery of this line to Gathegi will bring down the house (as it did in my showing): “You have a flying saucer, but you couldn’t get a faster garage door?”

(I flash back to Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia breaking through all the self-seriousness in the first Star Wars with her acerbic delivery of “Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?” Summer movies need those “get over yourself” bits.)

Nicholas Hoult, who would be remarkable just reading the phone book, nails Lex Luthor’s egomania, entitlement, and xenophobia without devolving into cartoon histrionics. For all of the cotton candy whimsy in this film, Hoult’s Luthor is genuinely terrifying, NOT because he’s chewing the scenery, but because he ISN’T. Hoult nails an inherent truth in the character. Yes, he’s monstrously envious of the adoration Superman receives and wants it for himself, but Luthor, like all great villains, thinks he himself is the hero, trying to save us from ourselves by redirecting our idol worship onto a more worthy subject … Lex Luthor. The subtle tears he sheds when his scheming inevitably falls short are a surprising but brilliant choice, Hoult’s haunted, beatific, yet spoiled brat face, a contortion of frustration, isolation, and grief.

Nathan Fillion is clearly having a ball as the petulant Green Lantern Guy Gardner, nailing the unearned swagger of a failed football hero, and Anthony Carrigan brings a nice touch of circus freak sadness to the shape-shifting Metamorpho. Skyler Gisondo is low-key hysterical as Jimmy Olsen, jettisoning the overeager insecurity we’ve seen in the character previously for a wily wit and opportunism that works nicely. 

But the pure heart of the film is provided by Ma and Pa Kent – Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince. Their scenes are brief but utterly charming, capturing deftly the folksy, insular world of farmers blessed with an adopted son who fell from the stars. Vince is one of those remarkable actors who just doesn’t get enough mainstream attention or praise – it’s criminal really. If you aren’t a puddle when he tells Clark/Superman how proud he is to be his father, well, YOU’re the monster!

The film isn’t perfect – it doesn’t need to be. The sheer exuberance offsets the flaws. At times I wondered if it wouldn’t have worked a bit better as a series, so the viewer could digest/compartmentalize the many subplots that are likely unnecessary but add to the entire enterprise’s escapist delight. The film bursts at the seams with too many ideas, too many characters, and yet miraculously still hangs together as a breezy, yet powerful reminder that kindness matters. When the theatre lights go up and you’ve happily sat through all the credits, not caring if there are any bonus scenes (there are two – and they’re just cute little touches – not attempts at sequel-driven world building), you’ll exit with a big, dumb silly grin on your face. That’s summer movie magic, right there.

“This is where I’m from, but you’re where I belong.” Paddington in Peru and Captain America: Brave New World

27 February 2025

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Advanced warning, this will be a short one. I admit, I escaped to the movie theater today, my place of comfort and retreat, while mover men clambered all around our house packing up all of our worldly possessions. (Side note: today and tomorrow are vacation days for me, although given all that activity it’s hardly what I would call a rejuvenating 48 hours.)

Yesterday, I stayed in the house on conference calls, while the movers were doing their work, and I just couldn’t take it again today. I’m so excited about the future, but it feels like the end of an era to be honest, watching as 20+ years of beloved possessions are packed away by very nice, but complete strangers, seeing a house we have loved so much look increasingly like a war zone. Plus, if one more worker came around the corner and said to me, “Gosh, there sure is a lot more stuff than was in the estimate,” I was likely to scream bloody murder.

So how did I pass the time? By catching up with a double feature of sequel entries in beloved franchises, two films that are perfectly serviceable, completely entertaining, but don’t hold the luster of their predecessors: Paddington in Peru and Captain America: Brave New World.

Surprising no one who has seen the previous two Paddington films, that one was the stronger entry here. It doesn’t quite have the arch, scruffy wit of its forebears, but it still retains all of the warmth and sweetness. I may have cried some ugly tears at the end. It could simply be from exhaustion with this move, but I was deeply affected as Paddington rediscovered his roots in deepest, darkest Peru. The little CGI bear is ably supported by a wonderful cast, including new additions, Olivia Colman, as a literal singing, slightly devious nun and Antonio Banderas, as a non-singing, slightly devious boat captain. Both have a hell of a time, chewing every bit of scenery in their wake, and it works very well.

But the secret weapon of these films remains Paddington, so winsomely voiced by Ben Whishaw. All it takes is one melty glance from the little bear and the film has you in the palm of its hand. When Paddington explains to his adopted human family – The Browns – “This is where I’m from [Peru], but you’re where I belong,” I dare your heart not to pang. It’s worth your time if looking for a late February escape.

Captain America: Brave New World is fine, but seems like a shadow of the superhero spy, clockwork genius of Captain America: Winter Soldier or even Captain America: Civil War. Brave New World fills in all the expected story beats smoothly, but still feels like a diet soda, full of fizz and empty calories. The cast is uniformly excellent and deserves a better script, notably, a gruff and flinty Harrison Ford – is there any other kind of Harrison Ford at this point? Anthony Mackie is terrific as the new Captain America, full of steely swagger and enough side-eyed bewilderment to keep his character interesting. I hope the Marvel machine makes better use of him in the future.

I should also admit that I had to field about four work calls and two calls from the movers during Brave New World so it’s quite possible I missed something integral to the plot, but it says something about the film that every time I returned it didn’t feel like I’d actually missed much at all.

“Who cares if YOU love it? What matters is if OTHER people love you doing it.” Better Man

14 January 2025

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“I came out of the womb with jazz hands.” – Robbie Williams

It’s a surreal feeling to have a movie theater all to oneself. And yet strangely befitting a beautiful fever dream of a celebrity biopic like Better Man. Of course, it probably doesn’t help that I saw this at lunchtime on a bitterly cold Tuesday in January. Nonetheless, I feel like I’m the only person in America who is a super fan of the film’s subject, British pop singer Robbie Williams. He emerged from the ether in the summer of 1999 when Ricky Martin was conquering the charts. I liked them both, but preferred Robbie’s acerbic, sassy take on pop music with his first single, the James Bond theme homage “Millennium.” And I have followed him with great interest ever since.

Akin to Australian singer songwriter Peter Allen, Robbie seems to have had more fame everywhere else in the world but America, which seems consistent with his life’s calling to keep banging his head until bloodied against the brutal wall of superstardom. Like Allen, both artists marry soul-searching, left-of-center, searing lyrics with intoxicating melodies, all apparently lost on American radio listeners, and that’s a shame.

This film, covering Williams’ ascent to solo stardom seems to be following a similar path at the box office, with nary an American moviegoer giving it a chance. I’m quite surprised it even was released over here, though grateful that I had a chance to see it on the big screen.

Director Michael Gracey, who also helmed The Greatest Showman, taking the life of another problematic figure in P.T. Barnum and crafting an exhilarating fairy tale, works similar magic on Williams’ life. Perhaps our American politicians should hire him for their next campaign videos. He seems to do well with personalities with checkered pasts.

Gracey makes the odd but inspired choice of replacing Williams with a CGI-rendered chimpanzee, deftly portrayed in motion capture by Jonno Davies. This narrative concept achieves two pragmatic aims: one, we don’t have the inevitable distraction of watching someone who almost looks like the real life person they are portraying, and, two, it allows us as an audience to imprint more fully on the central character and their tragicomic journey. No explanation is offered in the context of the film, other than Robbie Williams, who himself narrates, explaining that he sees himself as a cheeky monkey in life, genus distinctions notwithstanding. As a storytelling gimmick, this swap works shockingly well.

The supporting cast, chiefly Williams’ family (Kate Mulvany, Steve Pemberton, Alison Steadman), achieve miracles selling the conceit, offering us a warm and often bruising depiction of the hardscrabble life Williams navigated on his way up the pop charts.

Pemberton, as Williams’ adulation-seeking father, deserves extra credit for not devolving into out-of-touch absent father villain shtick. He haunts the film as Williams’ source of misplaced motivation, suggesting that the only love that matters comes from faceless fandom and the worst tragedy to befall anyone is to be a “nobody.” The seeds are thereby planted for Williams to achieve everything he ever wanted and should have never received, self-immolating in the process. Williams explains to the one childhood friend who sticks with him: “Who cares if YOU love it? What matters is if OTHER people love you doing it.” Heartbreaking.

Much like the Elton John film biography Rocketman, which shares a kind of heightened and surreal DNA with Better Man, the latter film is most effective in remixing its subject matter’s hit ditties as unabashed song and dance commentary on expected (clichéd) story beats: the vicious cycle of rampant substance abuse and alienation, the deflection of inner turmoil through ass-shaking antics and ill-timed irreverence, the crushing burdens of fame, THAT scene where the rock star trashes his own home at the height of his acclaim, and so on. Standout numbers include “Rock DJ” – the jubilantly manic London street scene depicting Williams’ initial “Take That” boy band ascent – and “Angels” – the passing of his beloved “Nan” when Williams begins to realize he’s been spending his life’s energies in all the wrong places.

As with Williams’ music, Better Man is candy-coated on the outside but carries a corrosive, sticky nougat center, a cautionary tale for all who think the next brass ring will deliver the healing they desperately crave. It’s an excellent film that will no doubt become a cult favorite just when Williams no longer desires the validation. The story of his life.

And early morning when I wake up

I look like Kiss but without the make-up
And that’s a good line to take it to the bridge

And you know, and you know
‘Cause my life’s a mess
And I’m trying to grow
So before I’m old I’ll confess

You think that I’m strong
You’re wrong
You’re wrong
I sing my song
My song
My song …

If I did it all again I’d be a nun
The rain was never cold when I was young
I’m still young, we’re still young
Life’s too short to be afraid
Step inside the sun

– “Strong” (Robbie Williams & Guy Chambers)

“Violence is the universal language.” Gladiator II

27 November 2024

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Are you not entertained? No, I wasn’t.

File under sequels no one asked for. Cross file under no CGI baboons were injured in the writing of this review.

Admittedly, it’s been 25 years since I saw Gladiator. So it might not be as good or impactful a movie as I remember it to be. And right now, having suffered through its utterly unnecessary sequel – oh so cleverly titled with the Roman numeral “II” – I don’t know that I ever have any desire to watch the original again.

What’s next? Titanic 2, Under the Sea?

I found this movie interminably boring – as if Director Ridley Scott had consulted with the George Lucas who thought the prequels to Star Wars should focus on a galactic civics lesson. I think there was a clever idea here, yearning to breathe free, in a script that was somehow simultaneously underbaked and overwritten, but all of the soap opera palace intrigue, coupled with relentlessly grim, poorly staged fight scenes, made it nearly impossible to find any nuggets of gold.

The one actor who didn’t make me want to gouge my own eyes out was Pedro Pascal, primarily because he had a look on his face the entire time like he was searching for the emergency exit.

Our eponymous protagonist Paul Mescal has a fabulous presence – and he has a profile that most assuredly belongs on a Roman coin – but that’s about the sum of it. I don’t blame him entirely. The script doesn’t give him much to work with, but he also seemed entirely too bored to bring any kind of emotional resonance to the series of unfortunate events befalling him throughout the film. Loss of a spouse? Shrug. Revelation that his lineage isn’t what he thought it was? Shrug. Rammed by a poorly digitally rendered attack rhino? Shrug.

And Denzel Washington? A performance that gobsmackingly is generating Oscar talk? Imagine Iago played by one of the lesser-known contestants from RuPaul‘s Drag Race. The one good line he has – “Violence is the universal language” – pretty much sums up the movie’s raison d’être. Like 2.5 hours of WWE Smackdown with more blood and less joy.

I honestly don’t have the energy or heart to write anything sensibly about this film. It is a turgid mess, akin to just about any poorly conceived 1950s sword and sandal epic you might’ve watched on a random weekday afternoon when you had the stomach flu as a kid. I kept waiting for Charlton Heston and Jean Simmons to make a surprise return-from-the-dead appearance, riding on the back of a cartoonish sea monster.

I do believe there was an intention here to use the fall of the Roman empire as some kind of on-the-nose analogy for present day American political turmoil. But for my money, and I can’t believe I’m typing this sentence, that allegory is far more effectively achieved in Wicked. So go see that instead.

At least that flick has the presence of mind to bring you a snappy show tune every 18 minutes. Even if you lose out on the sight of seeing an army of CrossFit gym bros in leather tunics.

Postscript text from my dad: “And my title ‘When will this be over?’”

“Why can’t you teach us history instead of harping on the past?” Wicked … the movie (part one)

21 November 2024

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Wicked. An adjective. A thirty year old book by Gregory Maguire. A twenty year old musical by Stephen Schwartz. A present day marketing/merchandising juggernaut by Universal Pictures. And, oddly enough, the post-2024 presidential election escapist allegorical cautionary tale none of us quite realized we would need.

(And here my money would have been on Joker: Folie à Deux to fill that niche.)

As an inversion of L. Frank Baum’s classic The Wizard of Oz (itself a sly critique of populist politics and presidential scandal of its time), Maguire’s source text has always served as a post-feminist, pro-queer indictment of classism, patriarchy, misogyny, and speciesism. A good bit of that got lost in Broadway’s necessary streamlining for a 2.5 hour tune-filled run time. But the DNA of questioning “the man behind the curtain” has always been a constant in every version of this oft told tale. As Jeff Goldblum’s Wizard intones, “Nothing brings people together like a common enemy.” And in this instance, it’s the hat trick of turning an entire population against one woman whose primary “crimes” are difference, compassion, ferocity, and intelligence. Sound familiar?

(I still hope one day the BBC turns the original novel and its subsequent literary sequels into a mini series.)

Director Jon M. Chu made the controversial (to some minds) choice of splitting his film adaptation of the stage musical into two parts. I’m sure doubling the potential box office returns helped sweeten the idea. But it also turns out to be an inspired artistic choice. It feels like the story can breathe a bit more now. The Broadway show is a spectacular spectacle but it’s also a bit of a bombastic freight train with nary a pause from one BIG! number to the next.

Yes, as a Thanksgiving family film offering, there is still plenty of “bigness” – set design that looks like M.C. Escher on an acid trip, costumes that could be an Edith Head x Dr. Seuss collab, CGI that resembles a Chat GPT “Mad Libs.” All to be expected. But the best “special effect” of all? How Chu turns his cinematic gaze to the politics of the personal, giving his A-list cast clear moments of haunting, poignant, or humorous introspection and connection. Expanding her book from the stage show deftly, Winnie Holzman pulls from Maguire’s source text to build out back story, deepen relationships, and bring increased credibility to character developments that the compressed theatrical stagetime glossed over.

Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Ariana Grande-Butera as Galinda, and Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero – the show’s/film’s three principal characters – make effective use of the additional airtime. Yes, they all are gifted singers/dancers who sell all the big iconic moments – “The Wizard and I,” “Popular,” and “Dancing Through Life” are respective highlights for this talented trio, honoring their theatrical forebears while adding mucho cinematic surprises and emotional delights.

Yet where the film establishes its heart, gravitas, and, quite frankly, staying power is in the expanded scene work among the trio. They all effectively leverage the relative intimacy of film versus stage to bring grace notes of heartache, insecurity, loneliness, and fear that counterbalance the more day glo elements of the enterprise. I don’t know that audiences will realize the excellent technique and timing these three actors have brought to this production. It will all seem effortless (as it should) but hopefully not taken for granted.

Also, unlike the stage show, the film effectively explores the anti-animal propaganda that propels the Wizard’s rise to power in Oz. (Shades of James Gunn’s last Guardians of the Galaxy.) This is the element from Maguire’s novel that gripped my heart thirty years ago, so I was glad to see it restake bigger, clearer narrative claim. In my opinion, it’s crucial to framing Elphaba’s character arc re: how easy it can be for others to vilify strident empathy. As Galinda flippantly questions her goat history teacher Dr. Dillamond (warmly voiced by Peter Dinklage) before tragedy dramatically opens her heart (and mind): “Why can’t you teach us history instead of harping on the past?”

But just as the expanded run time brings many welcome enhancements, challenges are introduced as well. Notably, signature anthem “Defying Gravity” loses a good bit of its emotional build and thereby payoff, interspersed as it is with a typical Hollywood climax clock tower chase. It still works, in great part due to Erivo’s and Grande’s nuanced delivery, but CGI aerial maneuvers can’t quite compete with the old school theatrical magic of a fab diva belting from a hydraulic lift masked by a football field’s worth of black crepe.

Nonetheless, Wicked, the film … part one, is a marvel, and arguably a movie musical masterpiece, every bit deserving of the success inevitably coming its way. Erivo’s Elphaba wryly observes, “I don’t cause commotions. I am one.” Here’s to that!

“A word of caution. This is not a comedy club. You are not onstage.” Joker: Folie à Deux

22 October 2024

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For many, these years of the pandemic era stripped away things that offered balance and refilled wells – movies, theater, travel. Consequently, people lost themselves in work – aiming to ride the highs of Zoom-fueled interviews, podcasts, and meet ups – perhaps at times being advised by friends and colleagues that they were “too much” for this world, and at other times being told they were “not enough.” The psychological whiplash could be soul-crushing.

It is with this mindset I took in a sparsely attended Tuesday night showing of Joker: Folie à Deux. Forgive me father, I may have sinned: I loved it. Unequivocally. 

It’s interesting how deeply misunderstood both Joker films are: the first one, in great part, because of its critical and financial success and its sequel … for the lack thereof. (Side note: these two films are like parentheses on the pandemic era – Joker in 2019 and Joker: Folie à Deux in 2024.)  Much like the films’ anti-hero Arthur Fleck, neither film is quite resilient enough to endure the white-hot glare of scrutiny they’ve received. That doesn’t mean they aren’t both excellent movies. I think they are. But they are a bit too delicate to bear the weight of superhero blockbuster box office – and the judgment of sniffy pundits.

The first film curdled under its acclaim to be misperceived as a tribute to incel culture. And now the second has been abandoned for being some kind of reversal or apology for the first. I don’t find either assessment fair, accurate, or true. Taken together, the films are poetic bookends, indicting a society where institutions and pop culture dreams regularly fail the downtrodden. (See: Chappell Roan’s conflicted ascendancy in 2024 for instance.)

At least that’s my view.

“You’re riding high in April, shot down in May … Some people get their kicks stepping on dreams.” So go the lyrics to the pop standard “That’s Life,” one of many tunes that cleverly pepper the sequel which, yes, is a musical. Sort of. Less Singin’ in the Rain and more Dancer in the Dark, a haunting slice of life from 25 years ago, featuring Bjork, whose piteous character found solace in surreal musical interludes to both express and escape the pain of living.

Whereas Arthur’s inner fantasy life in the first film is expressed through day-glo, arch comedy routines, the sequel turns that conceit on its head, employing song and (occasional) dance numbers as punctuation marks around Arthur’s incarceration at Arkham Asylum and eventual trial.

Oh, and we get a wickedly spot on Looney Tunes cartoon homage at the beginning of the film where Arthur wrestles with his demons, er, literal shadow, all set to “Slap That Bass.” That sets a certain tone right out of the gate, with many Easter egg references to classic film musicals.

And any flick that incorporates deep cuts from Burt Bacharach, Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley, Cy Coleman, and Harold Arlen, deftly contrasting pop music optimism with hardscrabble reality is AOK in my book.

Listen, I am not going to mount a defense of this film. That is wholly unnecessary. I believe with the passage of time and the absence of toxic groupthink, Joker: Folie à Deux will be a rediscovered gem. I didn’t find it ponderous or poorly conceived, illogical or problematic. And I’m not just being contrary. I was transfixed for its nearly two-and-a-half hour runtime. And I kept thinking: am I seeing the same film all the hyperventilating critics saw?

Joaquin Phoenix gives a haunting tour-de-force performance, seamlessly continuing the tragicomic arc established in the first film. Arthur’s tale ends on a suitably mournful note completely consistent with his atrophied evolution. Lady Gaga meets Phoenix handily and turns in one of her best performances to date – a wounded Lady Macbeth for the ages. The supporting cast, led by Catherine Keener and Brendan Gleeson, doesn’t miss a beat, adding layers to this devastating corner of the comic book film universe.  And director Todd Phillips maintains an exquisitely, relentlessly melancholy atmosphere throughout, aided and abetted again by Hildur Guðnadóttir’s gorgeously bleak score.

As the judge presiding over Arthur’s trial observes toward the end of the film, “A word of caution. This is not a comedy club. You are not onstage.” But, oh, so many wish they were onstage … so many think they are onstage … and when the harsh reality sets in, breaking bad becomes fait accompli.

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

  • “Once in a Lifetime” from The Talking Heads (*not in the film … but thematically consonant!)

“The safe joy of dancing with theatre boys.” Mean Girls the Musical (2024 film)

20 January 2024

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You know you’re a certain age when films you saw in the theatre in your adult life are being remade with some regularity. I think I first felt this pang when they remade Footloose and “reimagined” The Karate Kid, but actually I had seen neither of those films in the theatre during their original runs (and even now I don’t think I’ve watched either all the way through). Carrie and Robocop appear to get remade every ten minutes, but for some reason this déjà vu feeling doesn’t quite apply to horror movies nor thrillers. Nor to cash grab live action re-dos of Disney animated films. And Endless Love I’d never seen the first time (nor wanted to), and I can barely remember seeing the remake (but apparently I did … thank heavens for this blog’s archive).

However, seeing The Color Purple last month (which I loved) hit a little too close to home. Admittedly, the original came out nearly 40 years ago, but I have clear memories of seeing it on the big screen in 1985 as well as studying it in college.

Annnnd then … Mean Girls hit cineplexes just a few weeks later, another film that became a Broadway hit musical that re-became a film. This one is messing with my temporal triangulation! The first flick, starring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Lizzy Caplan, and Tim Meadows still feels like a “new” movie to me. I know it’s 20 years old … hush. So, I approached this latest iteration with some trepidation. I don’t mind remakes. In fact, I enjoy seeing what people do with a time-tested tale, contemporizing and offering new contextual commentary. I just couldn’t envision how Mean Girls could be revisited without becoming cliché.

Color me wrong. And let’s all wear pink on Wednesdays. The new film musical of Mean Girls is so fetch. Yes, they finally made fetch happen.

In great part because Tina Fey has remained the chief architect of this franchise (does it qualify as a “multiverse” now?), the 2023 Mean Girls keeps its true north around tolerance, acceptance, authenticity, and, yes, feminism. The central thesis of the original film is a) teenagers can be truly awful to each other, b) said behavior is a reflection of endemic misogyny and classism in our society, and c) human beings can be gobsmackingly shallow regardless their age. 

Mean Girls has always offered a wink and a sneer at Hollywood’s arrested development regarding high school-set coming of age stories. On its surface, Mean Girls is just as self-reverentially, um, plastic as, say, Grease or Breakfast Club or anything on The CW. But under the marabou feathers and platform sneakers, Mean Girls is a witty and dark-hearted satire on the state of our have/have-not instant gratification culture. For someone to rise, someone else must fall – why live in abundance when you can elevate yourself by ruining someone else? In this way, Mean Girls has as much Arthur Miller and Nathaniel Hawthorne in its DNA as it does Clueless or Fast Times at Ridgemont High or even Heathers (three other teen-centered flicks that get it right … Easy A and Edge of Seventeen which arrived after the first Mean Girls do so as well).

So what does the addition of wry, at times nightmarishly day-glo and surreal musical numbers add to this mélange? Quite a bit, in fact. My only quibble with the original film was what felt like tonal whiplash between Mel Brooks-level absurdity and Afterschool Special angst and back again. Perhaps unsurprisingly, wedging one teen pastiche pop ditty after another into the mix brings it all into perfect relief. 

Admittedly, the songs by Jeff Richmond (Fey’s husband) and lyricist Nell Benjamin (who also worked on the musically superior Legally Blonde the Musical … I’m sensing a pattern here) are a smidge forgettable. Less than 24 hours later, I couldn’t hum a bar of any number to save my soul. Sorry … “Revenge Party” … THAT one sticks in your head – catchy AND grating at the same time. But no one goes to Mean Girls expecting Sondheim or Rodgers & Hammerstein.

That said, the staging of each number is clever and frisky and fun. The hum drum environs of high school hallways unfold into African pride lands; science labs explode in confetti and parade floats; teen ragers freeze into chiaroscuro tableaus … all while the respective musical confessionals proceed. First time directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. and cinematographer Bill Kirstein run headlong into the delightful kitsch of musical theatre while breaking it wide open cinematically. That ain’t easy. The Hollywood box office is strewn with the corpses of other movie musicals that have tried and really, really, really failed (see: Cats … no don’t).

The cast is damn dynamite, achieving the near impossible – honoring what came before (which lives on digitally for instant streaming comparison) while enhancing and expanding. The original film was an artifact of its day – social media wasn’t the monster it is now, cell phones were still a luxury for some, and fat-shaming and light homophobia were easy punch lines. Thankfully, Fey is a sensitive progressive who knows just what to walk back and what to bring forward. There is also more nuance in what a “mean girl” even is, highlighting that we are taught by a patriarchal society to turn on each other in a mistaken bid for relevance and that true relevance comes from embracing (and loving) the awkward in us all. 

To that end, one of the best additions to the script is a final act chat between protagonist Cady Harron (a relatable and temperate Angourie Rice, channeling a teen version of Amy Adams with less vocal prowess) and queen bee Regina George (an ass-kicking star turn by Renee Rapp who could be the love child of Madonna, Adele, and Will & Grace’s Karen Walker). The two run into each other in the restroom during their high school’s “Spring Fling.” If you know the original film, basically all the bad stuff has happened at this point, Regina is in a neck brace, and Cady has won the math competition. So this scene is just, well, a conversation – a long overdue one, between two human beings who have spent the past two hours misunderstanding each other, trying to outdo each other, and scoring points against each other. For the first time, we see them communing as beautifully vulnerable humans and as the kids they are. Don’t fret. The scene isn’t maudlin, and Rapp is far too gifted to not wring a laugh out of every moment; yet, this quiet scene is an important addition to the Mean Girls canon as it demonstrates the power of true connection.

I would be remiss – asleep at the switch in fact – if I didn’t give a huge shout out to Moana’s Auli’i Cravalho as tragicomic narrator/instigator Janis ‘Imi’ike and her partner in well-intentioned crime Jaquel Spivey playing Damian Hubbard. Whereas Cady was the heart and soul of the original film, the remake takes its cue from some of Shakespeare’s best comedies and shifts that spotlight onto the more interesting second bananas. Spivey is genius with the kind of zingers only the long-bullied can muster (“the safe joy of dancing with theatre boys”), but Cravalho nearly runs away with the picture: think Vanessa Hudgens meets Janeane Garafalo, yet still entirely her own creation. Lizzy Caplan was arch perfection as Janis Ian in the original Mean Girls, and Cravalho takes it all next level. The screen lights up every time she enters the frame. She channels brilliantly how so many of us felt in high school, still discovering our sarcastic abilities to critique the artifice of it all while hurting that we weren’t simply accepted for the differences that made us freakishly perfect.

I can’t wait to see what Cravalho – and Rapp – do next. The future is queer. And beautiful.

“No natural predators … well, almost none.” Saltburn

12 January 2024

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Saltburn. I’m usually quite certain how I feel about a film immediately after viewing, if not during. This one? Not so much.

I adored director Emerald Fennell’s prior flick Promising Young Woman, which had a similar candy-coated corrosiveness about it but also a supremely clear POV on the ills of toxic masculinity. Promising Young Woman was like the cinematic progeny of Legally Blonde, Dirty Harry, Heathers, Clueless, and Death Wish. And I was there for all of it. (Star Carey Mulligan can do no wrong in my book.)

Saltburn (on Amazon Prime) takes a comparable scorched earth satirical approach – so pitch black it barely ekes out as satire and leans more low-key horror/thriller. Its eat-the-rich (sometimes quite literally) raison d’etre is appealing in these inflationary days. And I suppose every generation needs its own version of Single White Female, and it was only a matter of time before someone mashed that time-worn concept up with Brideshead Revisited by way of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Where the Wild Things Are. The neo-Shakespearean sexual fluidity of louche landed gentry lounging about their summer country estate is ever a vibe.

Into this world wanders squinchy-faced Oliver, played by a transfixing Barry Keoghan, a compelling mix of wayward son and Machiavellian schemer. You see, he seems to have a puppyish crush on his golden god of a college classmate Felix Catton (a lovingly languid Jacob Elordi). Felix takes pity on Oliver who by all appearances has very little in the way of resources (financial, emotional), and Felix invites “Ollie” home for the summer to stay at the palatial family estate “Saltburn.”

Once there, we are introduced to the rest of the Catton clan, like a syphillitic fever dream if Agatha Christie had penned a truly grotesque episode of AbFab. And then it all gets rather Ten Little Indians meets Flowers in the Attic.

Rosamund Pike as matriarch Elspeth nearly runs away with the movie at this point, and honestly is the only actor (save Richard E. Grant as her feckless hubby) who really seems to *get* the assignment here. This is Noel Coward/Oscar Wilde/Anton Chekhov for the TikTok generation. Every caustic aside must drip with honey, and every action must come from a place of such spoiled boredom that one wonders if the character even has a pulse. Pike nails it and gives the film an arch momentum.

I won’t spoil any twists or surprises, but, unlike Promising Young Woman, Saltburn rather telegraphs its punches. And the gross-out moments all seem contrived to create more internet buzz than propel the sordid tale. That said, I can’t imagine that anyone who has ever seen any of the previously aforementioned movies or, hell, read a Sherlock Holmes … or Hardy Boys story would be shocked by the film’s “big reveal.” As Oliver tells Elspeth, “And you have no natural predators … [dramatic winking pause] well, almost none.”

But if you want to see Keoghan dance about in his altogether ad nauseum to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s early oughts disco classic “Murder on the Dance Floor,” then this is the movie for you. Goodnight and good luck!

A Tale of Two Closets: Maestro and Fellow Travelers

4 January 2024

2 Comments

Gay film and television dramas always include suffering. A lot of suffering. We in the LGBTQIA+ community don’t get a lot of Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant frothy rom coms. Hell, we don’t get any Marvel epics, Disney fables, sci-fi adventures, or even glitzy musicals of our own. C’est la vie.

But sometimes in the suffering, Hollywood gets it right. That is indubitably the case with Showtime’s/Hulu’s/Paramount+’s literary adaptation Fellow Travelers, starring Matt Bomer, Jonathan Bailey, Allison Williams, Jelani Alladin, and Noah Ricketts. It is almost the case with actor/star/auteur Bradley Cooper’s latest opus, the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro on Netflix, co-starring Carey Mulligan, Sarah Silverman, Maya Hawke, annnnnnnd … Matt Bomer!

It may be an unfair comparison, as Fellow Travelers benefits a) from being a work of historical fiction and b) from being told over eight episodes. The adaptation of Thomas Mallon’s novel has a lot more latitude and space to explore the nuances and travails of gay men living, loving, and, quite frankly, simply surviving – from the McCarthy communist witch hunts and Lavender Scare until the AIDS crisis in the mid-80s. I might also suggest, however, that Fellow Travelers benefits from its showrunners being openly gay themselves – among them writer/executive producer Ron Nyswaner and director/executive producer Daniel Minahan.

Now, I’m not one who subscribes to the notion that only people in one particular group can tell the stories of said group. Art is about exploring and learning and growing – and you can only do that by molding clay that may be a bit foreign to your own lived experience. However, the viewer can feel the qualitative difference when said stories are told by those who have experienced them firsthand versus those who haven’t. What is that old saw? “Write what you know.” It’s a conundrum to be sure – some of the best art is crafted by those who have survived a fiery furnace, but others gain knowledge and empathy by exploring its simulacrum.

Fellow Travelers covers (in essence) a waterfront remarkably akin to that of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning two-part play Angels in America, itself a groundbreaking moment for gay literature and art. Closeted McCarthy bulldog Roy Cohn (later a mentor to Donald Trump) is a haunted gargoyle of an antagonist in each. As Cohn in Fellow Travelers, Will Brill is exceptional – infuriating AND heartbreaking – a scheming ball of self-loathing barbed wire. Matt Bomer’s Fellow Travelers character Hawkins Fuller, a state department bureaucrat and war hero, could be a corollary to Angels’ similarly “straight-presenting,” dual-life-leading Mormon anti-hero Joe Pitt. Jonathan Bailey’s tortured idealist Tim Laughlin who ricochets from cause to cause (McCarthyism, seminary, San Fran-community organizer) in Fellow Travelers evokes faith-conflicted, virtue-signaling Louis Ironson in Angels. And both characters are a bit … exhausting TBH. Hawk’s long-suffering wife Lucy Smith, as portrayed by Allison Williams in Fellow Travelers, follows a similar arc to Joe Pitt’s equally long-suffering wife Harper in Angels (minus the polar bear excursions). And we even have an answer for Angels’ Belize, the play’s over-it-all Jiminy Cricket-conscience, in Fellow Travelers’ will-they-won’t-they couple Marcus Gaines, a closeted journalist, and Frankie Hines, a very un-closeted drag performer and activist, portrayed respectively (and luminously) by Jelani Alladin and Noah Ricketts.

While the cast structure and timeline bear striking similarity to Angels, the tone is very different. No flights of fantasia nor whipsaw quippery here, and, in some respects, the story is more impactful for playing it, excuse me, straight. Particularly, Bomer and Williams turn in career-best performances. Neither fall prey to convention here. Bomer is, yes, a bit Mad Men-Don Draper-esque here (to the good). He plays the Machiavellian Hawkins as a fully formed human, broken as can be, but functioning – and functioning highly. A director I once had – Rex McGraw at Ohio State – told me, “Remember, the villain in a play doesn’t think they are the villain.” They are either trying to do the right thing or simply getting by. Hawkins is not a victim nor a victimizer, but a creature of circumstance and access. He’s paved a career through military and state service, lives a personal life of countervailing performative balance, and dreams of it all leading one day to unlimited freedom (a day that never comes). In contrast, Williams could play simply the tragic collateral damage to all this – the naive spouse who trades away full-fledged love for security. Her character and her portrayal are too smart for that. She knows what she’s gotten into, sees the promise in Hawkins, but also shields her own heart as best she can.

What people outside the LGBTQIA+ community – particularly of a certain era – may fail to understand is that for many (myself included) we play a game with ourselves (much like Hawkins) that with the passage of time (and the passing of some family members) one day we can be our true selves. Some of us realize that is folly, and some don’t. And that is a central tension of Fellow Travelers, Angels in America, and, yes, Maestro.

Bradley Cooper has gotten some flak for using prosthetics to resemble (uncannily I might add) composer/conductor/wunderkind Leonard Bernstein in Maestro. Regarding my point that not everyone has to be it to play it? This applies here IMHO. The film is a remarkable feat – Cooper writes, directs, produces, stars – and I mean he STARS, baby. Remember that clip of Cooper as an overeager grad student asking Robert DeNiro a question from the audience of Inside the Actors’ Studio with James Lipton? That same overeager Cooper brings his golden retriever-like energy to Leonard Bernstein’s own golden retriever-like energy and at times it’s just so much muchness.

It’s all beautifully framed, reverent even. And that’s a bit of the problem. Again, Fellow Travelers has a lot more time in which to tell its tale, but Maestro almost comes off like a series of frustratingly fragmented sketches, a tone poem if you will, that can’t decide if it wants to lionize Bernstein or crush him under the weight of his own vanity. A good biographical film doesn’t have to do either – in fact it shouldn’t – but the fact that Maestro feels as synaptically syncopated as Bernstein’s score to West Side Story makes for a slightly maddening viewing experience. And please note, I generally liked the film, but I wish it had slowed down every once in a while, cut down on the Altman-esque overlapping clichéd dialogue, and let us really delve into this brilliant soul’s mind and heart. It feels like Cooper took literally Bernstein’s closeted bisexuality and the conflict it presented Bernstein – existing in the same era as Fellow Travelers with life and career at comparable risk. Consequently, Cooper is playing the same game of “keep-away” with the narrative that Bernstein played with his sexual identity.

Thank heavens for Carey Mulligan. I think I write that sentence yearly now. As Felicia Montealegre Bernstein, Mulligan keeps the film from spinning off its well-intentioned axis. The script doesn’t give her as much as it could – again, a LOT of naturalistic “dialogue” which weirdly on film comes off pretentious and unnatural, but it is what it is. Nonetheless, Mulligan gets more across with the arch of an eyebrow, the pursing of her lips, a clenched jaw, a smile that fades slowly into a grimace and then a frown, the flicking of a cigarette. (Speaking of which it becomes almost comical that every single moment of every single scene Lenny and Felicia have cigarettes in their hands – like everywhere. I know smoking was a different vice back then, but come on!) With her precisely-expressioned face alone, Mulligan gives the audience long, deep looks into the pain (and joy) of sharing her life – professional and personal – with the boundlessly creative and self-indulgent Lenny. And this is where having some LGBTQIA+ creatives involved in the production might have helped Cooper strike the right balance depicting the high wire act Leonard Bernstein was navigating. Mulligan has the sensitivity and insight and empathy to show us the impact, but Cooper – wearing ALL those hats and with a healthy dollop of hero worship – doesn’t quite stick the landing, the way Bomer does in Fellow Travelers.

And, yes, both Maestro and Fellow Travelers include fourth act scenes in discotheques. It seems to be de rigeur for queer-themed productions. Whereas Fellow Travelers uses the setting as a place to explore the impact of emotional (and physical) self-medication, Maestro uses it to cringe effect (as the kids say). Seeing a sweaty Leonard Bernstein swaying his arms to Tears for Fears’ “Shout” (seriously, was that song ever played in a gay dance bar) as some final, triumphant act of liberation? Yeah, not so much.

(By the way, Cooper also has Bernstein listening to R.E.M.’s “End of the World as We Know It,” exiting his cute red convertible just as Michael Stipe shouts the lyric “LEEEEOONNN-ARRRRD BERN-STEEEEEIN!” I really had no idea what to make of that. Seemed a bit Mel Brooks-y to me.)

Both productions are well worth your time. I feel like I’ve been a bit uncharitable toward Mr. Cooper and Maestro. He should be proud of his achievement, and if I were his eighth grade English teacher I would give him a gold star and an A+ on his thesis project. But, for my money, the better bet is with Fellow Travelers. It says much about the human condition – queer or otherwise – and is beyond revelatory regarding our present socio-politically fragmented days. It’s the end of the world as we know it … and I feel fine.