Tag: movies

Movie review: Carol

The movie Carol is adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel “The Price of Salt”,

carol-rooney-mara-cate-blanchettI hated reading the audience reviews of the movie Carol before seeing it. My wife went to see it one day before I did at The Spectrum Theatre in Albany, and she told me how this older couple at the cinema complained how s-l-o-w the film was.

Interesting that the audience reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, which often find the film too understated, are quite a bit less favorable than the critics. But we agree with the bulk of the critics, who thought this was a fine, subtle, sensitive film by director Todd Haynes.

When the situation is boy-meets-girl, there’s a broad tableau of reactions that are possible. But when it’s girl-meets-girl, in the 1950s, even in New York City, there’s a lot more at stake, with more nuanced responses required. The alluring Carol Auld (Cate Blanchett) wants to buy a present for her little girl when she meets the young sales clerk, and aspiring photographer, Therese, “not Theresa?” (Rooney Mara) at a department store.

The relationship between Carol and Therese is all quite chaste, though Carol’s friend Abby (Sarah Paulson, who I didn’t recognize right away) sees the potential for more. The relationship between the two woman is confounding to Therese’s boyfriend. Meanwhile, Carol and her estranged husband Harge (Kyle Chandler) have their own tussles, trapped in a loveless, convenient marriage.

Some have predicted an Oscar for Mara. I wonder, though, because it’s not a flashy role, but rather quite controlled, like much of the film, which is the antithesis of an action flick.

The movie is adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel “The Price of Salt,” and I know not how close the film is aligned with the book. I do know that the film look of elegance has garnered it several Oscar nominations in the technical categories.

Movie Review: Room

I heard people sobbing for joy halfway through the movie Room.

room_movieThe Wife and I saw the movie Room more than a week ago at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. Yet I have had a difficult time writing about it.

One reason is that the less one knows, going in, the better the story. What I will say is that the film is based on the 2010 novel by Irish-Canadian author Emma Donoghue, though it does not adhere entirely to the source material.

I had thought, incorrectly, the story was derived from the Cleveland captivity story that came to light in 2013. I believed that in particular because Room, the movie, takes place in Akron, and I recognized those Ohio license plates.

While I’ve seen only three of the five nominees for Best Actress, I’m willing to cede the Oscar to Brie Larson, who was excellent as Joy, kidnapped for seven years. Just as good, though, is young Jacob Tremblay as Jack. The movie falls apart if one doesn’t believe that the boy was born in captivity, living in Room that his mother tries to make as “normal” as possible.

Room has been nominated as Best Picture, and rightly so. It has understandably reviewed extremely well.

I’m glad I saw the movie in the theater. While the subject matter was tough, it never felt exploitative. I thought the way the film compared the impact of the captivity on the captives, versus how it affected Joy’s parents (Joan Allen, William H. Macy). The black woman cop, played by Amanda Brugel, was great.

I came out of the film feeling exhilarated that someone could put together two disparate sides of a coin and make it work so well. I heard people sobbing for joy halfway through the movie. The Wife, conversely, thought it was too intense for her taste, though she thought it was very well made.

My feeling is to see Room, preferably in one sitting, optimally on the big screen, for I believe watching it in pieces will alter its impact negatively.

Charlotte Rampling is 70

One of those Oscar nominees this year was Charlotte Rampling, as Best Actress in the movie 45 Years

charlotte ramplingI’ve been watching Charlotte Rampling in films for years but learned more about her this past month than ever before.

She was featured in an interview on CBS Sunday Morning in January 2016. I had always assumed she was French, because she has lived for most of her adult life, and she’s known as “La Legende.”But she, in fact, an English actress.

Charlotte Rampling had a sister who had committed suicide, someone she was very close to; they even were in a singing group together. She and her father conspired to keep the method of her sister’s death from her mother, which led to Rampling’s nervous breakdown, a depressed state for nearly a decade. But now she’s back, and better.

When asked about the controversy about the fact that, for the second year in a row, there were NO performers of color in the four acting categories in the Academy Awards, Rampling called that criticism “racist to whites” in comments on France’s Radio 1. She later clarified, “I regret that my comments could have been misinterpreted. I simply meant to say that in an ideal world every performance will be given equal opportunities for consideration.” That is something that, in a perfect world, one would not argue.

One of those Oscar nominees this year was Rampling, as Best Actress in the movie 45 Years, which is about a “marriage suddenly destabilized as the couple approach a landmark anniversary.” It is on the list I’d like to see, as it’s scheduled to play at The Spectrum Theatre in Albany.

What HAVE I seen of her films?
Swimming Pool (2003)
The Verdict (1982)
Stardust Memories (1980)

Seriously? That’s it? I would have guessed that there would have been more.

Movie review: The Danish Girl

Eddie Redmayne got his second Academy Awards nomination in a row,

danishgirlThe Danish Girl has nothing to do with a young woman selling pastry. It’s about a “fictitious love story loosely inspired by the lives of Danish artists.” Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) is a successful painter, but his wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander) less so. Still, they seem a happy couple, though trying unsuccessfully to have a baby.

Then they are required to go to a potential party. In order to make it more interesting, Einar dressed as a woman, with the aid and encouragement of Gerda. The woman, dubbed Lili Elbe, Einar’s “cousin”, was having a great deal of fun.

Moreover, Gerda’s pictures of Lili start selling like none of her previous paintings did. So the couple’s relationship gets tested and transformed.
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Do you know how it takes a while for you to get into the storyline of the movie? This was certainly true of me watching The Danish Girl. The acting is quite fine, especially the leads. Vikander, in some ways, had the more difficult role, reacting to the changing relationship, and deserves her Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. (She was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Ex Machina this season.)

Redmayne, getting his second Academy Awards nomination in a row, was perhaps not as compelling as he was in last year’s The Theory of Everything, for which he won playing Stephen Hawking. Partly, I didn’t quite buy that he convinced other people into thinking he was a woman.

Also very good were art-dealer Hans Axgil (Matthias Schoenaerts), and friend Ulna (Amber Heard).

The Danish Girl deals with a real, important issue. It’s Lili, trapped in the wrong body, in a period, the 1920s, when gender misassignment was even less understood than it is now. The Wife and I saw this at the Spectrum on the Martin Luther King holiday, and somehow, thinking back, that was appropriate.

I did enjoy the film and was glad that I saw it. Yet there was a certain arms-length quality to it. Perhaps the story was a tad overlong and unfocused and stagy, and the music was overmuch. But it felt just a little as though I were watching something that is supposed to be something Oscar-worthy.

Still, I got a little weepy in the last scene, so there’s that. And I wasn’t really all that aware of most of the film’s flaws while I was watching it, only in retrospect.

Movie review: Creed

I had not seen Michael B. Jordan in the well-regarded Fruitvale Station, or the Fantastic Four flick.

Creed_Movie_PosterI had been initially disinclined to see the movie Creed. I’d seen the first four Rocky movies, and while the earlier ones were good, the fourth one I thought was awful. Never bothered with the apparently terrible fifth, or Rocky Balboa, the 2006 film I missed, despite a respectable critical response, because we had a two-year-old.

Now, I should emphasize how much I especially like the original 1975 movie. In part, it was because I saw it with my mother, just the two of us, which we did periodically when I visited Charlotte, NC, where my parents moved in 1974.

But Creed was playing at the nearby Madison Theater. PLUS Sylvester Stallone won a Golden Globe AND was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for playing Rocky.

Maybe it was low expectations, despite quite decent reviews, but I really liked this film. One could appreciate the storyline, even if you had never seen a single reel featuring the Italian Stallion, as Balboa had been dubbed. But it surely enhanced my enjoyment, the dialogue that evoked the late boxer Apollo Creed.

The plot is that a young boxer is driven to follow in his late father’s footsteps, without using the champion’s name; beyond that, see it for yourself. The film is directed by Ryan Coogler, based on a screenplay by Coogler and Aaron Covington.

I enjoyed Phylicia Rashad as the mother figure, especially in the pivotal scene near the end, which is, in the context, LOL funny. Also good is Tessa Thompson as Bianca, the irritating neighbor/singer. And, yes, Stallone is worthy of the awards buzz.

It is Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Johnson who is the real revelation. I had not seen him in the well-regarded Fruitvale Station, or the Fantastic Four flick. But I did see him on the TV show Parenthood a few seasons ago as the boyfriend of one of the Braverman girls, and he was quite fine then. This performance by Jordan is Oscar-worthy.

Despite the boxing violence that was more graphic than it was 40 years ago, I left the cinema feeling exhilarated by a feel-good movie. It ended with a variation on a familiar Rocky trope, which The Wife particularly loved.

Ramblin' with Roger
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