Tag: review

Movie review: Oppenheimer

Barbenheimer

The movie Oppenheimer is worth seeing, preferably at a movie theater. Though not at the showing I attended.

J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy, who was tremendous) was a brilliant scientist who helped develop nuclear science.  He also had complicated relationships with women (Emily Blunt as wife Kitty, Florence Pugh as Kitty). And what are his ties to communism?

Very little in this story, except parts of the filming, is black and white. Was the development of the bombs that would be dropped on Japan a good military strategy or an immoral unleashing of power?

Director/co-writer Christopher Nolan has painted a non-linear painting, not just of the main character, but of important partners in the process. Major General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) has conversations with Oppenheimer, which allow the viewer to better understand the work without slowing down the narrative.

Robert Downey Jr was stellar as the Machiavellian bureaucrat Lewis Strauss. Strauss exposed Oppenheimer’s ties to communism, not for the good of the country but for the good of himself.

It is terrific storytelling. Still, the scene of the first test of the device – using real explosives rather than CGI – is practically worth the price of admission. The only flaw I saw was that there were occasionally some 50-star flags when there were only 48 states.

Read the New York Times’ very positive assessment. The negative reviews suggest that the film, at three hours was too long – surprisingly, I beg to differ. It was also painted as too talky, sluggish, and remote, which I didn’t experience. Or the whataboutism that it didn’t show X or Y (the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima or its aftermath, e.g.), which would be a different movie.

The future of cinema

My disappointment was not with the film but the Madison Theatre in Albany the Thursday after it opened. During a scene between Oppy and President Truman, the screen went dark. The sound continued, but it took about seven minutes after two patrons went out to complain. Then it happened AGAIN about 15 minutes later for another three minutes.

That said, I worry about the future of cinema. Sure, Oppenheimer’s opening weekend gleaned $80.5 million, an excellent total for an R-rated, 180-minute film. It came in second to that OTHER Barbenheimer flick.

But several films in 2023 have been described as having box office that was “below expectations, notably the new Indiana Jones and Elemental. During COVID, even I watched movies via streaming. But I need to see the film in person, partly hoping there will be cinemas to support. The number of theaters has dropped since 2019.

Movie review: The Miracle Club

Lourdes

One Saturday afternoon in late July, when my wife was working, I saw The Miracle Club at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. Frankly, I went because of the star power.

The IMDb description: “There’s just one dream for the women of Ballygar to taste freedom: to win a pilgrimage to the sacred French town of Lourdes” in 1967.

Eileen (Kathy Bates), Lily (Maggie Smith),  and Dolly (Agnes O’Casey) are participating together in a competition to vie for the vaunted trip. Chrissie (Laura Linney) arrives in town, missing her mother’s funeral.

Eileen and Lily’s animus towards Chrissie goes WAY back, though the much younger Dolly gets along fine with her. Ultimately, with some manipulation of the local priest Dermot Byrne (Mark O’Halloran), all four end up on the sojourn.

Will a miracle happen?  Well, maybe. It depends on how one defines that.

I liked how the writers and director allowed the onion to be peeled away, revealing the troubles that propagated the four-decades-long anger and pain.

Worthwhile

It seemed to work at being heartwarming, and much of the time, it succeeded.  Yet, even some positive reviewers rightly suggested it was slight and/or saccharine. I wanted more of the backstory of these women. I felt the movie told rather than showed.

Also, here’s a bit that worked less well for me. Most of the fellows left behind by their wives were hapless and helpless, which may have been true of men left to do domestic chores in the period. It was played for laughs. Meh.

Still, The Miracle Club I found was comfort food. It was worth my while for the actors and also for the resolution. It does fall in that rare film category for me that, despite the lovely scenery, it’d probably be fine to see on the small screen.

So it is ironic that the movie will be re-released in theaters on Friday, August 18. It’s because of the writers’ and actors’ strikes slowing down the film pipeline, plus Barbenheimer sucking a lot of oxygen from other releases.

Movie review: Asteroid City

Wes Anderson

I liked the premise of the movie Asteroid City. The narrator (Bryan Cranston) tells the story, in black-and-white, of the world-famous fictional play. It’s partly about a grieving father (Jason Schwartzman as Augie Steenbeck) taking his tech-obsessed teenage son (Jake Ryan as Woodrow) to a science competition in the middle of nowhere. Woodrow’s three curious (in every sense of the word) younger sisters are also there.

Then Something Happens to upend everyone’s worldview.

The look of Asteroid City’s bland pastel color desert setting was very effective. But the film left me confounded. I understand that it evokes Area 51 paranoia, Sputnik fear, and the meta-stress of actors forgetting their lines.

Yet I didn’t care enough. Rex Reed wrote: “Like all Wes Anderson movies, it is enigmatic, artificial, infuriatingly self-indulgent, and irrevocably pointless.” Rex Reed is wrong.

I’ve been a big fan of the works of the writer/director.  The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), and Isle of Dogs (2018), even 2/3s of The French Dispatch (2021) I enjoyed.

Adam Graham of the Detroit News suggested: “It’s all very cute but not much else, as the story remains locked inside Anderson’s dollhouse and is inaccessible to all but his most ardent fans.” That’s possibly true.

Too much

The review that nailed it for me was by Prabhjot Bains of the Hollywood Handle. He wrote: “It feels like two different movies forcefully amalgamated into one incongruous whole, rendering its existential meditation on grief emotionally inert and hollow… It’s very much Anderson’s weakest entry to date.” That’s probably it.

There are a lot of concepts stuffed into the film, with scads of performers, many of whom have been in previous Anderson films, plus Tom Hanks, as the cranky grandfather, who I’d not seen in an Anderson film before.

Even the positive review by Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle notes: “Anderson’s lone indulgence is to cast famous faces in extremely minor roles… Jeff Goldblum has one line… Matt Dillon has a single small scene and spends the rest of the movie standing around. This is distracting, and Anderson certainly does it as another distancing device, reminding audiences that this is all artifice, that it’s only a movie. But…  it’s hard not to see their casting as the director’s ego trip, his showing off how many big-name actors are willing to take any role in one of his movies.”

I so wanted to like this film, but alas, alas, it was more effort than enlightenment.

Movie review: The Dial of Destiny

Indiana Jones 5

My wife and I caught a midweek matinee of the movie Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the Madison Theatre in Albany in mid-July. It was…only OK.

I saw the Raiders of the Lost Ark back in 1981, which I liked quite a bit. Then I saw the third film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), which I loved, not only for the comedic riffs between Indy and his dad (Sean Connery) but also taking a leap of faith. But I’ve never seen film two (Temple of Doom) or four (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).

The new movie starts back in World War II, as Indy and his colleague Basil Shaw are trying to keep a device that can change the course of history out of Nazi hands. But Harrison Ford looks oddly young, or young oddly. It’s the use of AI, which broadly worked, but I found it a tad creepy.

Fast forward to 1969, with Indy as a majorly ineffective professor. But he’s retiring. A young woman joins him afterward, who turns out to be his goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), with a hidden agenda.

Exhausting

Lots of breathless chases on three continents ensue. The good part is that these were generally technically fine. The not-so-good part was that, in toto, they went on too long without enough of a point. As one reviewer noted, director James “Mangold can’t find the visual gags in the setups. There’s no joy in the chase.”  

One of the villains was a black woman named Mason (Shaunette Renée Wilson) with a classic ‘fro who was presumably in charge of the thugs.  The point of this character was lost on me. 

Conversely, I liked Teddy (Ethann Isidore), Helena’s very young associate. The hubris of time travel and the pseudoscience involved worked for me.  Indy complaining about Father Time was believable. I And the ending, I loved.  

Still, it felt as though the movie was coasting on nostalgia. A positive review notes that the film “lacks the effervescent spark that made the series so special.”

I’m not sorry I went, but I certainly wouldn’t want to see it again.

Movie review: Past Lives

Written and directed by Celine Song

The movie Past Lives is about Nora and Hae Sung, two close childhood friends in South Korea. When Nora’s family emigrates to North America, Nora (Greta Lee) pursues her dreams of being a writer. She eventually marries Arthur Zaturansky (John Magaro), an American.

Hae Sung  (Teo Yoo) comes to New York City, where Nora and Arthur live. Nora and Hae Sung see each other in person for the first time in two decades. Conversation ensues, as the IMDb description puts it, “They confront notions of love and destiny.”

My wife and I liked this movie we saw at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany a LOT.

Before we saw it, James Preller, an author of my acquaintance, wrote: “A beautiful, slow-moving, subtle film that has lingered with me. About life, and loss, and choices, and ambition — and, at its heart, an immigration story. A love story. Three main characters and they are all treated with compassion and respect. This will easily be one of my best films of the year. Saw it in a near-empty theater. Written and directed by a Canadian woman, Celine Song.”

A thumbs-down?

As is often the case when I like a movie, I look at the negative reviews. There were four among the 175 critics listed on Rotten Tomatoes. The one that stood out for me was by Alison Willmore from New York magazine in an article entitled Past Lives Is Tasteful, Understated, and Unconvincing.

” There’s a disconcerting shrewdness underneath its patina of tastefulness — it’s too calculating to achieve the transcendent almost-romance it strives for but never inhabits.”

It is tasteful (whatever that means.) It’s understated, maybe a little slow, which was fine by me. Someone else suggested cutting 15 minutes from its 1:43 running time, but I’m not feeling it.

As for “unconvincing,” I’m in the opposite camp. It rang true for my wife and me. And we never moved over 11,000 km (over 6800 miles) from home to a place with a different language and culture.

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