Good Fortune

Cute, sweet, charming. Words to describe Good Fortune, the new film from Aziz Ansari. He wrote it, directed it and co-stars. Funny? Yes, occasionally.

Good Fortune is a fantasy. A light trifle, but amusing. 

Arj (Ansari) is a gig worker in L.A. He works at a Home Depot type store but also does food delivery and other tasks. He sleeps in his car.

Jeff (Seth Rogen) is a wealthy tech bro who lives in a cool house on a hill. After hiring Arj to clean his garage, he makes Arj his assistant. When Arj uses Jeff’s credit card for an expensive restaurant meal, Jeff fires him.

Gabriel (Keanu Reeves) is an angel. His area of concern is driving and texting and he saves many distracted drivers from danger. But he’s ambitious and oversteps his authorized duty. He arranges for Arj and Jeff to trade places and their respective lifestyles.

Gabriel’s goal is to show Arj that wealth is not that important to one’s happiness but, of course, that backfires and Arj does not want to swap back. After his misstep, Gabriel’s angel boss Martha (Sandra Oh) demotes him to human status, leading to the movie’s funniest scenes.

Keke Palmer is appealing as Arj’s co-worker and romantic interest Elena. 

Reeves and Rogen are talented comic actors whose performances here are spot on. Ansari, whose talents are immense, is not quite the experienced actor as those two guys. But he gives it his best effort and is a likable fellow and in a film like this one, likability goes a long way.

As a director and writer, Ansari could’ve used a real angel on his shoulder to coax him into tightening up the movie a bit and offering a few more funny lines here and there. 

Does Good Fortune offer a real message about economic inequities? Mainly it just reiterates what most of us already know. But if, after seeing this film, you might be likely to tip your DoorDash delivery person or Uber driver more generously, then Ansari will have made his point.

Good Fortune is rated R, mainly for language. Runs just over 90 minutes.

Leave a comment

After The Hunt

After The Hunt is worthy of your attention because it stars Julia Roberts. She is, to use a Ron Burgundy term, kind of a big deal. And her performance in this new film is worthy of your attention because it’s pretty darn good!

Alma (Roberts) is a philosophy professor at Yale. There’s tension in her life as she waits to find out if she will get tenure. Her husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is supportive even though he’s aware of her catting around with fellow instructor Hank (Andrew Garfield). 

After a party at her home, grad student Maggie (Ayo Edibri from The Bear) walks home with Hank and later accuses him of sexual assault. Which puts in motion all the film’s drama. At the party, there had been a discovery that sets up a question that needs answering, lending suspense to the story. Hmmm. A mystery!

Alma’s relationships with Frederik, Hank, and friend and associate Kim (Chloe Sevigny) are examined but After The Hunt’s most interesting personal relationship is between Alma and Maggie. Their dynamic changes throughout the film… sometimes warm, sometimes not. The film touches on racial and gender issues. And on the way victims of sexual predators are treated. And, briefly, the topic of plagiarism in higher education. 

After The Hunt is more talk than action. Such movies are sometimes tedious but director Luca Guadagnino and writer Nora Garrett keep the pace moving. Audio from a metronome kicks off the movie and is used a few more times along with an often quirky music soundtrack from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. 

After The Hunt is not a “crowd pleaser” type of movie and not even a “must see.” UNLESS you are a fan of Julia Roberts and her wide-ranging body of work. She’s strong in this meaty role and, along with a good supporting cast, her work here is  among her best efforts.

After The Hunt is rated R. It clocks in at 2:19.

Leave a comment

The Smashing Machine

I’m not a fan of boxing but I have enjoyed a few great boxing MOVIES. I have a strong dislike for MMA fighting and wondered if I might be able to enjoy the new movie The Smashing Machine. I was NOT able to enjoy it.

It’s not that The Smashing Machine is necessarily a bad movie. It’s just that the depiction of the the “sport” of Mixed Marshall Arts is gruesome and, for me, off-putting. Seeing a man on top of another man, repeatedly punching the guy in his already bloody face is disgusting and cringey.

If you like that kind of thing, well, then, director/writer Benny Safdie has constructed a stylish film with several shots from a handheld camera and with an ethereal instrumental jazz audio track. And he and his crew deserve credit for making the fights seem realistic.

Dwayne Johnson (nee The Rock) has bravely stepped into a more serious role as Mark Kerr, a real-life MMA fighter who becomes addicted to pain meds, goes through rehab and tries to make a comeback. Yep, that old sports movie redemption cliché. Johnson’s look is different too. His hair makes him look a bit like André the Giant.

Kerr’s girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt) has issues, too. Her support for Kerr is inconsistent. She wants to occasionally be a party girl while he tries to stay clean. Trouble ensues.

Fellow MMA fighter Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader) is effective as Kerr’s buddy and friendly competitor. 

The Smashing Machine received a 15-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival a few weeks back. And the superlative accolades for the film and especially Johnson’s performance from early reviewers have been splashed all over the TV and print advertisements for the movie. Is he award-worthy? To be determined.

The box office appeal of Dwayne “Don’t Call Me ‘The Rock’” Johnson will sell a bunch of tickets during TSM’s opening weekend. But will it have “legs?” That, too, is to be determined.

The Smashing Machine is rated R. There’s some language and, did I mention, the fighting is rather violent.

Leave a comment

Eleanor The Great

Can a lie ever be… the truth? Or maybe a version of the truth?

Like TV’s Dr. House says, “everybody lies.” You do. I do. Little lies. Big lies. In the new movie Eleanor The Great, Eleanor (June Squibb) unleashes a whopper that just keeps growing and growing. 

Eleanor had shared an apartment in Florida for several years with a lifelong friend (Rita Zohar), a fellow widow. When the friend dies, Eleanor, a spry 90-something, moves back to New York to live with her daughter (Jessica Hecht) and grandson (Will Price). When daughter sends mom to the neighborhood Jewish Community Center to make new friends, Eleanor stumbles into a Holocaust Survivors support group. 

The story she tells gets a strong response from the group AND from an NYU student, Nina (Erin Kellyman) who is observing. Nina interviews Eleanor, brings her into her classroom and soon becomes a chum. When Nina’s dad, a TV newsman (Chiwetel Ejiofor) begins to record a video with Eleanor, the truth comes out. But there’s more to be told beyond Eleanor’s simply being caught sharing a lie.

Eleanor The Great is not, in fact, great but it is good. It’s the directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson. It has the feel of many indie films with shots of subjects having pensive moments while quiet piano music plays. ScarJo, whose Jewish heritage was explored recently on PBS’s Finding Your Roots, and screenwriter Tory Kamen lean into Eleanor’s Jewishness to a degree one doesn’t often see in popular films. But you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy this film.

The real charm here is June Squibb who turns 96 is just a few weeks. Her energy and good nature are irresistible. She was a true delight in last year’s movie Thelma and while this new film doesn’t require as much physical effort as that one did, she’s just a pleasure to watch. Speaking as a mid-century boomer, I hope I’m as eager to embrace an active life when I’m her age as she appears to be.

Eleanor The Great is rated PG-13.

Leave a comment

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

It’s a shame, really. To have two attractive, talented actors like Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell and deliver this mess of a movie.

I like fantasy and I appreciate quirky elements in films, but A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is a boring, tedious effort. It is glacially slow and features dialogue that might make you want to change the channel. Which is hard to do in a movie theater.

David (Farrell) and Sarah (Robbie) meet at a wedding, chat a bit, run into each other at Burger King and then begin their journey. They ride in a rented 1994 Saturn, equipped with a sentient GPS that guides them to various stops. (Phoebe Waller-Bridge is the woman at the bizarre car rental agency who insists he take the GPS.)

Most of the stops are connected to David and Sarah’s past lives. At his high school, David butts in on the production of a stage musical. The two travelers visit with their former lovers at a restaurant and, before they move on, all four are chatting at the same table. 

David later visits with his father as he awaits news of the birth of his son (David). He spends a moment with his younger self in his old bedroom. And Sarah travels back in time to visit with her deceased mother, supposedly to make amends for not having been present when mom died. She relives the memory of watching Big with her mother.

Throughout the movie, each flashback episode begins with the opening of a door. And then at the end of the movie, a cover version of the Who’s song Let My Love Open The Door is played. That’s cute.

Should the director Kogonada and scriptwriter Seth Reiss be given credit for attempting to persuade moviegoers to buy into their fantasy? Well, maybe. The film does have a few nice visuals. And the two lead characters are likable despite their often clunky dialogue.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey lays a big egg, in my opinion. Would I have liked this movie if I were younger? Maybe. But not necessarily. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is rated R for language. No sex, no nudity.

Leave a comment

Jurassic World Rebirth

We have a new dinosaur movie Jurassic World Rebirth with Scarlett Johansson. Which begs the question: how good do the dinos look? Also, how good does ScarJo look?

Overall, the dinosaurs look pretty, pretty good! Some better than others. The key dinosaurs in the film are hybrids. Cross bred to create some new looks for dino fans. 

Zora Bennett (Johansson) is a mercenary who is recruited by drug company rep Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) to lead an expedition to an off-limits island in the North Atlantic. An incident caused human researchers to leave the island in the recent past. They also recruit a paleontologist, Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathon Bailey). Zora/Scarlett wears a few tight-fitting sleeveless tops that show off her figure. And she’s a pretty woman with a bright smile that turns up a time or two before the real action starts.

The mission’s goal is to extract blood from three different creatures: one from the sea, one from land and one from air (a bird or birdlike creature) on or around this island. Supposedly these bloods may be able to mitigate heart disease in humans.

Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) is the boat owner who is hired to pilot the expedition. He soon gets the team up close to a sea creature. In a harrowing sequence, Zora manages to procure a blood sample. Meanwhile, a family—dad, his two daughters and the older daughter’s stoner boyfriend—are sailing across the ocean. Suddenly their boat is capsized by the sea creature and they are rescued by our gang of adventurers and their crew.

As they approach the island, the family goes into the drink and is separated from the expedition crew. Both parties encounter perilous situations in the jungle. On the island, blood is taken from a land creature and from an air creature, the latter via a needle inserted into a dino egg. Mission accomplished? Gosh, no!

How will they all get off the island? And how will they escape the Distortus Rex, a huge and ugly dinosaur with a healthy appetite? This monstrous dino lopes like Godzilla but his (or her, maybe—how can you tell?) presence onscreen is one of the film’s money shots.

Jurassic World Rebirth was written by David Koepp who scripted the first two Jurassic movies back in the 90s. Gareth Edwards is the film’s director. His resumé includes Godzilla and Rogue One.

Why do another Jurassic movie? Hasn’t that intellectual property run its course? Two reasons: moviegoers—ticket buyers, that is—have in recent years been kind to films from franchises they’re familiar with. And today’s young movie fans want new dinosaur movies to give them a few jump scares and a few “ooh-aah” moments of their own (enjoyed with a tub of popcorn on their laps.) That first Jurassic Park movie came out 32 years ago!

Yes, we’ve seen movie dinosaurs before. And humans in danger in less than welcoming surroundings. Jurassic World Rebirth follows a familiar template. But it is fun and seems just right for some needed summer escapism.

Soundtrack is by Alexandre Desplat. And how about a hand for the sound design crew who make the speakers rattle? 

Jurassic World Rebirth runs two hours and fourteen minutes. It is rated PG-13. 

Leave a comment

F1: The Movie

Pure entertainment!

Brad Pitt’s new film F1: The Movie is a thrill ride filled with drivers-view shots from inside the cabs of these sleek race cars. Which are moving fast. The practice runs and the races look great in F1: The Movie. But is there a story here along with the adrenaline-triggering visuals?

Oh, yes!  A redemption story. A narrative with lots of sports movie clichés but a tale that’s enjoyable and fun nonetheless. 

There’s the grizzled old-timer Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt). Or should I say “chiseled” old-timer? A few shots of Brad with his shirt off. Rather fit for a 61-year-old. Sonny was a promising driver on the F1 circuit decades ago until a crash took him out of the driver’s seat. He has aches and pains and scars but he’s been working out lately and racing whenever he gets a shot.

Old friend Reuben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), now managing a slumping F1 team, recruits Sonny to come back to Formula One racing, halfway through the current season. Reuben’s team has a talented but raw rookie driver, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). There’s instant friction between the two drivers and their conflict is a key element of the movie.

Joshua’s mom Bernadette (Sarah Niles) counsels her son about his career and at a key moment steps into the rivalry between the two teammate drivers.

In F1: The Movie, the racing action moves from the UK to Hungary to Italy to Japan to Vegas to Dubai. Director Joseph Kosinski and crew have done a nice job of integrating Sonny and Joshua and their cars into actual race footage. For blood-thirsty race fans who love crashes, F1: The Movie has plenty.

The film is loud with revving engines, excited crowds, media and track announcers and a killer soundtrack from Hans Zimmer.

F1: The Movie is, like most of auto racing, heavy on testosterone. Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) is the attractive but seriously savvy technical director for the team. And although she tells Sonny there’ll be no hooking up, well… 

F1: The Movie feels big. Like many such action films, it will be better appreciated on a big screen in a movie house with good sound. At this point it shouldn’t be necessary to say that but consider this a gentle nudge. Sure it’ll be streaming on Apple TV in a few weeks but it’s good to get out of the house when you can.

Worth a mention here also is this: you don’t have to be an Formula One racing fan, nor a fan of any form of auto racing, to enjoy this movie. Also worth mentioning is the full title of the film is F1: The Movie so as not to be confused with F1 racing in general. Another movie that might’ve befitted from a better title for marketing and online search purposes.

F1: The Movie is rated PG-13. It runs 2:35.

Leave a comment

Materialists

Tell me what you’re looking for in a ROM-COM. Let’s see if we can find a match! Romance? Comedy? Yes, of course. Those are non-negotiables!

Attractive stars playing cool characters? How about Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pescal and Chris Evans? (As Lucy, a professional matchmaker;  Harry, a financier; and John, a struggling actor, respectively.)

A “meet cute”? For sure. At a wedding reception, no less!

A reunion with a lost love? Yep! At that same wedding reception.

A damsel in distress? Well, one of Lucy’s clients, Sophie (Zoe Winters.)

A clever script with memorable declarations and observations about love and dating and marriage and money? We may have a match here!

Are you willing to overlook a horrible title and occasionally slow pacing? Materialists? Really? Couldn’t writer/director Celine Song have come up with a catchier title for her movie than that? Hey, you can’t have everything!

Surprises? Shhhhh! No spoilers!

Sexual content? A smidge. No nudity. Mostly post-coital chat and some F-bombs. Ergo, an R rating.

Seriously, Materialists is several notches above the average ROM-COM. 

The film has fun presenting a few of the candidates for matchmaking and their very specific qualifications about whom they’d consider for dating. 

Dakota Johnson is excellent as a 30-something woman who is smart and successful in her work matching up couples but has low self esteem regarding her own value as a mate.

The characters that Pascal and Evans portray are both honorable, likable men. Neither is the “bad guy” or the less-than-adequate guy who often appears in ROM-COMs to add to the tension.

Would Materialists be a good date film? I say yes. It would likely generate conversation for couples who are either casually dating or getting serious. 

The final shot of Materialists is pure genius. It comes as the end credits roll and the new Japanese Breakfast theme song My Baby (Got Nothing At All) plays. Followed by the hilarious John Prine and Iris DeMent duet In Spite of Ourselves.

Materialists runs just under two hours.

Leave a comment

From the World of John Wick: Ballerina

From the World of John Wick: Ballerina is NOT a John Wick movie. Although John Wick (Keanu Reeves) makes his presence known at a key moment of the movie. And while there’s a bit of ballet dancing, there’s not much.

FTWOJW:B is the story of Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas) who, as a young girl, sees her father killed by an assassin. She vows revenge. Under the tutelage of The Director (Angelica Houston), Eve learns to dance and to battle.

As observed with John Wick films, the face-to-face, often hand-to-hand, combat is staged at times much like a ballet. The film’s pace is relentless and so is the cracking of skulls and other body parts. Eve’s battles involve strong physical skills and a variety of weapons including firearms and knives. Even a flamethrower! 

Eve’s goal of avenging her father’s death runs counter to the sort of detente between the Roma Ruska sect and the group led by the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne). The Director (that is, Houston’s character, not Len Wiseman, the film’s director) tells her to cool it but she does not relent. She takes her revenge mission to a lovely European village where she encounters a knife wielding barista. And has a tense confrontation with The Chancellor.

Armas may be the most beautiful woman to be involved in the nasty business of violence and killing. She employs her skills well and appears to take as much, maybe even more, physical abuse than does Wick himself in his four films. And she knows how to handle a flame thrower!

Also appearing in FTWOJW:B are Wick regulars Ian McShane as Winston and, in his final film appearance, Lance Riddick as Charon. Norman Reedus of Walking Dead fame is introduced as Daniel Pine, a man who, like Eve’s father, hopes to keep his young daughter away from all the nastiness. Could he appear in any future Ballerina films? 

From The World of John Wick: Ballerina is rated R and runs just over two hours but it seems shorter because it moves so quickly. If you could use a good action movie, don’t miss it!

Leave a comment

The Phoenician Scheme

Director Wes Anderson dazzles with his zany new movie The Phoenician Scheme. A gaggle of wacky characters zigzag through episodes that are not always laugh-out-loud funny but are consistently bizarre, surprising, compelling and reassuring.

Reassuring, that is, that Anderson can still make a fun film. After his recent lackluster efforts, concern that he may have lost his touch can be put aside for at least one hour and forty-five minutes as Anderson pulls out some of his trademark tricks—overhead shots, tracking shots, maps, oddly titled books etc.—and introduces a few new ones. 

As is his habit, the director employs a large cast of his favorites including Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Willem Dafoe and, in a brief appearance in a dream sequence as God, Bill Murray.

This time Anderson puts most of his eggs into one cinematic basket by making Benicio Del Toro the main star who does much of the film’s heavy lifting. He plays Zsa-Zsa Korda, a businessman who has many enemies, some of whom, he claims, are trying to assassinate him. Del Toro’s voice sounds, to my ear, almost exactly like Clark Gable’s.

Korda keeps his business matters in shoeboxes. (Hey, the film is set in the middle of the last century when people DID keep important papers and stuff in shoeboxes. And cigar boxes. Etc.) 

Also receiving an abundance of screen time is Mia Threapleton. Who? She’s the daughter of Kate Winslet and filmmaker Jim Threapleton. She plays Korda’s daughter, Liesl, who is a nun but who also wears red lipstick and heavy eye shadow.  

Korda also has nine sons who mostly stay out of sight and occasionally launch arrows down at Korda from the balcony above his table. What? Silly stuff, that’s what.

Bjorn (Michael Cera) is Korda’s assistant, who is charged with keeping control of a red satchel containing all of Korda’s liquid funds, but who frequently misplaces it.

The plot involves Korda’s lining up an assortment of individuals to get them to buy into his scheme, um, plan to fund a large infrastructure project in Phoenicia. The script is by Anderson from a story he concocted with frequent collaborator Roman Coppola.

Any recommendation of The Phoenician Scheme must be prefaced with the words “if you like Wes Anderson movies.” He has made some good and clever ones such as The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel. If you have enjoyed either or both of those, you may find The Phoenician Scheme to your liking. 

This is a film I would’ve enthusiastically embraced when I was in high school and college. Because I still maintain a certain level of immaturity, The Phoenician Scheme is goofy enough and silly enough to tap into that part of me that goes for the nonsensical. 

I also appreciate the fact that the film’s credits include the names of the housekeeping staff at the hotel where the cast and crew stayed during its production last year in Germany.

The Phoenician Scheme runs an hour and forty-five minutes. Rated PG-13.

Leave a comment