Saltburn-Prime Video

 

Saltburn-Prime Video

Saltburn is a psychological drama with so many twists and turns you need Dramamine. It has a wonderful cast but the story is strange and some parts disquieting. Saltburn is a country estate the hereditary house of a snobbish English family. Oliver Quick, played by Barry Keoghan, is invited for the summer by his Oxford classmate Felix Catton. Oliver comes from a working class family which is the basis of growing friction. Oliver is the artful dodger on steroids.

Barry Keogan delivers an outstanding performance. He is a chameleon who deceptively ingratiates himself with the family. He gives a low key performance which transforms during the movie. Some of his scenes are unsettling.

Jacob Elordri is Felix Catton, Oliver’s classmate at Oxford who invites him to Saltburn. He plays the stereotypical English upper class gentry. His performance is laid back and sexy. Cary Mulligan is wasted in this film. She is on screen for about two minutes and wears an awful red wig and is nearly unrecognizable. She mumbles a few lines and is gone. Archi Madekwe plays Fairleigh, Oliver’s nemesis. They play well off each other, with overt and subverted jabs.

Rosmond Pike is Lady Elspeth, Felix’s mother. I think she was delighted in her role. She is over the top as an upper class lady. For all her sophistication she is clueless about her son and Oliver. Richard E. Grant is Sir James, lord of the manor. His performance is wonderful nailing all the snobbery, a mainstay of British films.

This film is interesting, but not for everyone. Not to be prudish, there is Full Monty nudity, which seems to be the de reguer of recent films. The performances are well done, but the story is a bit whacky.  A weakness of the film, the skullduggery is summarized at the end of the movie to explain the plot. A better written script would make that unnecessary.

 

Maestro

 

Maestro- Netflix

Leonard Bernstein was gay, a husband for twenty-seven years, he had three children, and was a world-renowned conductor; Leonard Bernstein was complex. He was also selfish. In the 1950’s some gay men married to hide their alternate lifestyle, not Bernstein. His wife knew of his attraction to men and he knew she knew. It hurt her greatly. Yet they truly loved each other. She also loved his music and genius as a conductor. This may have contributed to her tolerance.

Bradley Cooper plays Bernstein and is the director. His performance is powerful. He displays Bernstein’s passion for conducting and music. With a prosthetic nose and affecting a cultivated accent, he channels Bernstein. The resemblance is uncanny. Cooper shows how Bernstein coexisted in the gay world and as a husband and father with minimal conflict for himself.

Carey Mulligan plays  Felicia Montealegre, Bernstein’s wife. Her performance is outstanding. She displays love for her husband but at the same time is tormented by his homosexual liaisons. She appears placid and supportive but she has an inner rage. She is brilliant in portraying this duality.

The tension of the movie is how they remained married.  This is a new twist for better or worse. Bernstein has his liaisons and is absorbed by his music but he is devoted to his wife. When tragedy befalls his wife he tenderly cares for her.

The movie is free on Netflix and absolutely worth seeing. I think there will be a few Academy nominations.

Poor Things

 

Poor Things

Strange, weird, fanciful, and engrossing. The Frankenstein angle is a minor part of the story. The heart of the story is Bella’s journey. Bella is a reanimated woman who just committed suicide. Her new life starts in infancy. She spits out distasteful food and is petulant, smashing dishes at will. The story is about her discovery of her new life which is unencumbered by society's mores.  She is the one who defines herself as a woman.

The film has a fantastic quality. It reminds me of the movie “Brazil” with its unnatural setting and strange characters. With a few exceptions, the actors are boxed into their characters. Mark Ruffolo is a comical cad. He gives a wonderful performance and his acting is over the top but appropriate for the role.  William Defoe is the archetypical mad scientist. He is Bella’s surrogate father. He is part unethical surgeon, slicing and dicing cadavers but tender with Bella.

Bella is a challenging role for Emma Stone. In the beginning, she is childlike. In the course of the film Bella evolves. Bad romances shape her. For her prostitution is a means to buy chocolate eclairs. A word of caution, there are many sex scenes, more comical than arousal. There is lots of nudity, some nice others not. The sex scenes are energetic and more suggestive than graphic.

The movie is funny; the audience laughed more than I did. The costumes are extravagant and an important part of this eclectic film. In some scenes, the director Yorgos Lanthimos, uses extreme wide-angle shots distorting the frame adding to the surreal nature of the film.

The film won several accolades, including the Venice Golden Lion and a 92% rating from Rotten Tomatoes. It is a curious entertaining film.

Napoleon

 

Napoleon

If you are into history and especially military history this is your film. In full disclosure, real historians have criticized the film’s accuracy. For the rest of us, this two-and-a-half-hour movie may be a challenge. Given its epic proportions, this is basically a two-actor movie with a large supporting cast: Joaquin Phoenix is Napoleon and Vanessa Kirby is Josephine.

Phoenix’s emotional range is flat. He portrays Napoleon as stoic and dower. In other films, Phoenix demonstrated his great range of talent which was denied in this film. Phoenix displays Napoleon’s brutishness and as a great general Napoleon used his troops like cannon fodder sustaining sizable casualties. Phoenix displays Napoleon’s indifference to these massive fatalities. As a general Napoleon leads from the front and Pheonix demonstrates this steeliness. Phoenix executes Napoleon’s generalship with detachment and purpose. The film is humorless except when he copulates with Josephine; he breaks the land speed record.

As Josephine Kirby does the emotional heavy lifting. Her relationship with Napoleon is complicated. They love each other but the relationship is transactional. Kirby dramatizes the emotional burdens of loving a powerful man. Her feelings and persona are suppressed for the good of the nation. She is used for the greater good. She projects her hurt.

The battle scenes are spectacular and frankly too many. They take up a large portion of the film. The costuming is impressive and rich. The period pieces are museum quality. In the end, this is like a PBS production with a bloated budget.

Apple Studios is earmarking $1b a year on movies. So far with Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon they are rolling snake eyes.

Killers of the Flower Moon

 Killers of the Flower Moon

This is a true story and I recommend searching Wikipedia as background. This is a harsh and brutal story. The Osage Indians are  murdered and victimized by white residents jealous of their wealth  from oil revenue. This story does not have the full weight oi history it deserves. It took place in Fairfax Oklahoma a few years before the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1923. Both incidents involved white animus against minorities of wealth.

The first half of the movie is slow. Character relationships are established and a number of murders are committed without being investigated. Some scenes are graphic and gruesome. In the latter half of the film, after about an hour and a half, it becomes more interesting when the Bureau of Investigation (forerunners of the FBI) come to investigate the murders. Jesse Plemons is the lead investigator. He is  laconic and unflappable.

Leo Di Caprio plays against type. His character Ernest Burkhart is a spineless weasel manipulated by his uncle William King Hale played by Robert Di Nero. Di Caparo’s character is complex. He freely commits crimes against the Osage  but he has genuine affection for his wife and children. He says more than once in the film, he loves money. Whatever soul he had; he sacrifices it for greed.

For most of the movie Di Nero looked like he is sucking on a lemon. He has a sour puss looking down from rounded rimmed glasses. Di Nero has played tough guy roles so playing King Hale was not a stretch. He was duplicitous  pretending to be a benefactor while masterminding murders to attain wealth.

Lily Gladstone is Mollie Burkhart, Ernest’s wife. Her facial expression for most of the film was consistent. Her emotional highs and lows were narrow. She shows more range when she gets sick. The film features native Indians as actors.

Rotten Tomatoes gave the film 92%, so please do not be dissuaded by this review. This film is a bladder buster at more than three and half hours so sit next to the aisle.

The film cost about $250m with advertising. It has to clear $500m to break even. In the first weekend it made $30m. Apple produced the film so it should be streaming on Apple + at some point. 

 

The Creator

 

The Creator

This film is a combination of Blade Runner, Star Wars, and The Golden Child. It is visually impressive with special effects being its most appealing quality. The plot is about Artificial Intelligence posing an existential threat to humanity. This is a real theory in AI. It is called Artificial General Intelligence and in theory, can achieve cognitive computing. The big problem with the film is the script is muddled. I had a hard time following the movie, perhaps you will not. The film is in three parts which makes the flow of the film bumpy. Also, when simulants are killed an identical replica is made which adds to the confusion.

The main actors of note are John David Washington, Allison Janney and Ken Watanabe. The protagonist is a six-year-old named Madeline Yuna Voyles, called Alphie . She is nearly a dead ringer for the child monk in The Golden Child, and she too has abilities.

The acting was almost perfunctory. Washington plays a soldier battling humans and robots. He is also the protector of Alphie. Allison Janney is a tough mean Colonel who leads assault missions against the simulants. Ken Watanabe is a simulant soldier who gets killed twice. Alphie does a great job of being cute. Her English must be limited since she did not have much dialogue.

I was expecting more. As a Sci-Fi fan, I was intrigued by the coming attractions. The special effects are so good they may be nominated for an Academy Award.

Barbie

 

Barbie

There are many words to describe this movie, witty, clever, funny but most importantly smart. The film has societal messaging and comedy helps make the delivery acceptable. Not to be accused of spoilers there were scenes where the audience laughed out loud. The script is a balance between absurdity and seriousness. The word patriarchal defines the status quo and is a target of the Barbies.

The cast is full of talent. Margot Robbie is the perfect Barbie (what else) her comic timing is great. Just from the expressions in her eyes, you can see when doubt of her existence emerges. It is not all silliness, there are warm and tender scenes in the film and Robbie delivers. Her awkwardness and cluelessness in the real world are clever.

Then there are the Ken’s. The main Ken is Ryan Gosling. He is a buffed boy toy who is sexually naive. He does a lot of posing and his overacting works well. There are many Kens in the movie and Ken’s main rival is Simu Liu. They are rivals for Barbie. There is a great dance-off with all the Kens which is more entertaining than combative.

The one non-Ken in Barbie land is Allan played by Michael Cera. His low-keyed acting style plays perfectly for an outcaste in the perfect Ken world. He does break type in one scene to his surprise and ours. Kate McKinnon perfectly plays Weird Barbie. She is un-Barbie in looks and brains. Mattel actually made a limited edition of Weird Barbie (for $50).

Will Farrell is the real world president of Mattel. His trademark wackiness is on display. He provided some of the better laughs. Rhea Perlman (Danny DeVito’s wife) is the spirit of Ruth Handler the creator of Barbie (Barbie was named after her daughter, Barbara). Ruth gives Barbie sage advice.

Make sure to watch the opening scenes of the movie it is a witty parody of a classic sci-fi movie.

Barbie outgrossed Warner Brother’s The Dark Knight with $1.2b worldwide. Not bad for a doll.