The Descent (2005) ***1/2

 

The thing about setting a horror movie in a cave is that the very setting does most of the work for you. The claustrophobia of squeezing through tight spaces, the terror of getting stuck, the threat of cave-ins, and the absolute darkness if your light sources fail, these are all as scary as any monster. Even if there is nothing evil in the cave (spoiler alert: there is!), you've got plenty of scary material to work with. “The Descent” makes effective use of all of it.

The story involves some adventure-seeking female friends who enter a remote cave in North Carolina and run into more trouble than they bargained for. I'll leave it at that, not to avoid spoilers, but because there really isn't much more to the plot. This movie isn't about narrative arc. It's about atmosphere, dread, panic, and sheer terror.

British director Neil Marshall wrote and directed the film, which is only his second feature. He gets excellent performances from his cast of mostly-unknown actresses, and he takes his time building up the tension and horror. This is not a movie that makes any profound, philosophical statements about life. It's just a terrifically-wrought scary movie. If I have any criticism, it is that once we find out why the women are in this particular cave, it seems rather improbable. Also, the story perpetuates the stereotype of female friendships being fraught with competition, jealousy, and infidelity.

Be aware, too, that there are two endings: Marshall's original, bleaker ending, and the version edited for American audiences, which is what I saw. The film loses points for that, in my book. Ever since I read Great Expectations, I've had a grudge against stories with alternate endings. If I'm going to invest my energy and attention in a story, I want it to commit to an ending, happy or sad, comedic or tragic.

“The Descent” scores a perfect 10 when it comes to being scary. I'll take points off for the weak story and for the alternative ending thing, giving it

3.5 stars out of 5

The Deer Hunter (1978) **

 

Writing about “The Deer Hunter” is an intimidating prospect. The movie is, by consensus, a Work of Art, and criticizing it is like criticizing the Mona Lisa. Anything you write about this film says as much about you as it does about the film (but isn't that always the case?). With that preface, here goes:

Michael Cimino wrote and directed this three hour epic about a group of Pennsylvania steelworkers. These guys work hard, drink hard, and go on hunting trips together. Michael (Robert De Niro), the quiet, serious one, is the best hunter of the group. He ranges far into the hills with his rifle, and his ethos is to kill a deer with “1 shot.” Back in town, Michael is socially a bit awkward when it comes to dancing at weddings and such, and he is secretly in love with his best friend Nick's (Christopher Walken) girlfriend, Linda (Meryl Streep).

Three of the group, Mike, Nick, and Steven have volunteered to fight in Vietnam. There they find the hell-on-earth that we are all familiar with from Vietnam War movies. They are taken prisoner, and their Vietcong captors force them to play Russian Roulette. Without giving away more than I already have, suffice it to say that the men come away from their service with serious scars, physical and mental.

“The Deer Hunter” is, in many ways, an amazing film. The cinematography is beautiful. The scenes in the steel mill and in the mountains are just stunning. The scene at Steven's wedding is like its own little short film. In the un-rushed way the scenes are allowed to develop, the movie feels very much like a novel, which is ironic because it was written as a screenplay from the beginning.

The film is also REALLY long, at just over 3 hours. In my opinion, it is longer than it needs to be. Many scenes are longer than necessary, and some of them, the bowling alley scene, for example, could have been cut entirely.

Cimino has been criticized for failing to do any actual research on POWs or to interview any Vietnam vets when writing the film. This is reflected in the Russian Roulette motif. While Vietnam was likely a miserable experience for most veterans, especially POWs, there is no evidence that Russian Roulette was part of the torture. I'm inclined to give Cimino a pass on this point, however, as the game is such an apt metaphor for the experience of the war itself. The randomness of death, the dread with each risky pull of the trigger, and the sheer pointlessness of the game would probably feel familiar to many Vets.

What I'm not prepared to give the director a pass on is the ridiculousness of the deer hunting scenes. You might say “The Deer Hunter” is NEITHER. The “deer” in the footage is not a North American deer at all. It's a European red stagg, a very different-looking animal. The “hunting” is also ridiculous, with Michael chasing on foot after his deer, running up and down ridges after a stagg that keeps stopping and offering him broadside shots. Anyone who has hunted knows that it is a much slower, methodical process. Once a real deer sees you, it will head straight for the next county. For anyone who thinks I am being nitpicky, I will point out that the movie is named “The Deer Hunter.”

The film is not only made by and for people who know nothing about deer or hunting, but people who know nothing about American geography. Watching the movie, I was distracted by how rugged and high the mountains looked for a story that was set in Pennsylvania. Sure enough, the hunting scenes were filmed in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state. It's just another example of how Cimino's lack of verisimilitude really reflects a lack of respect for his audience.

That lack of respect culminates in the nihilistic ending of the film. Despite its flaws, I actually enjoyed the greater part of the movie, impressed by the novelistic character development and storytelling. By hour 3, however, I was expecting some kind of payoff. The ending here just makes a person ask, “What's the point?” - of life in general, and specifically of this film.

2 stars out of 5

Barbie (2023) ****

 

On on hand, it's surprising it took so long for someone to make a live-action Barbie movie. After all, every other intellectual property has had its big-screen moment, in a Hollywood that seems willing to do anything to avoid coming up with an original idea. On the other hand, it's amazing that “Barbie” got made, given how fraught the road to production was. Here you have a brand with world-wide recognition, loved by many, but also hated by many. The modern-day Barbie collection includes dolls with different skin colors and different body types, but the original Barbie design, still the biggest seller, is the epitome of western beauty standards: tall, thin, blonde, busty, and white. This drives some people absolutely crazy. The modern collection includes Barbies who are doctors, scientists, and even President, but the brand has a history that includes a sugar-daddy Ken and a teenage Skipper doll whose boobs grew when you raised her arm. Any post-”Me, Too” story about Barbie would have to address the controversies and criticisms of the dolls, and it's hard to imagine the toy company Mattel would be excited to see their brand criticized. There have been a number of failed attempts over the years to get a Barbie movie off the ground, but writer-director Greta Gerwig and her husband and co-writer Noah Baumbach managed to make theirs fly.

Margot Robbie plays “stereotypical Barbie,” the white, busty one. She lives with all the other Barbies (Black, Asian, President Barbie, etc.) in the imaginary world of Barbie-land, where every day is perfect. When the Barbies aren't running the Supreme Court or doing brain surgery, they are having fabulous dance parties followed by girls-night sleepovers. Barbie-land isn't only populated by Barbies. There's also Ken (tall, blond, played by Ryan Reynolds). Along with all the other versions of Ken, stereotypical Ken spends his days trying to get Barbie's attention. In Barbie-land, where Barbie has all the power, Ken is really just an extension of Barbie.

Everything is going swimmingly until Barbie starts to have an existential crisis. She sets out on a journey to the real world to find the troubled girl who is playing with her and creating all the confusion. Ken hitches a ride to reality, where his mind is blown by a world in which men don't always have to play second fiddle.

It's a pretty damned clever movie! Barbie's journey is an existential odyssey, which goes down easy on account of all the humor. Meanwhile, Ken's story flips the script on The Patriarchy, providing a warning on the risks of oppressing part of your population, as well as commentary on the wrong ways to achieve equality. The tightly-woven story is helped by an excellent cast, including Kate Mckinnon, Issa Rae, and, of course, Robbie and Reynolds. Did I mention it has a great soundtrack, including the Indigo Girls' “Closer to Fine”? Whether you love or hate Barbie dolls, you'll find something to love in the “Barbie” movie.

4 stars out of 5

Hustle & Flow (2005) ***

 

Going to a few film festivals over the years, I have noticed that movies seem a lot better when you see them in that environment. I saw “Hustle & Flow” when it premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and it seemed like the best movie ever. Watching it again all these years later, in the comfort of my own home, it's a pretty good movie, but not nearly as epic as I thought it was at Sundance.

Terrence Howard plays Djay, the least glamorous pimp in the history of pimps. Working the sweltering Memphis streets with a stable of 3 women, one of whom is pregnant, he struggles to pay the rent on a crappy house and keep gas in a beat-up car without air conditioning. Experiencing a mid-life crisis in his 30's, Djay rediscovers his talent for rapping. With the help of his women and a couple of friends (Anthony Anderson, DJ Qualls), he sets out to make a demo tape that will hopefully change his life.

Sounds a lot like 2002's “8 Mile,” doesn't it? “Hustle & Flow” is just too derivative to be considered a great movie. It also is just very typical of the kind of stories Hollywood loves to tell. Hollywood artists have a tendency to tell stories about their fellow artists, and this film continues a tradition that suggests that the only way out of poverty is to succeed as a musician, an actor, or maybe an athlete. Would “Hustle & Flow” have been as engaging if Djay had gone to night school to study dentistry? Probably not, but his poor, Memphis neighborhood could probably use a dentist a lot more than another rapper.

The redeeming factor here is the music. The songs Djay and his friends produce are pretty catchy, and one of them, “It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” (by Three6 Mafia) won an Oscar. Also, Terrence Howard has enough charisma to smooth over a lot of cinematic flaws in a film, and Taraji P. Henderson and Taryn Manning also give memorable performances. “Hustle & Flow” isn't the greatest, but at the end of the day, its strengths outweigh its weaknesses to make for a reasonably-entertaining film.

3 stars out of 5

3rd Annual Fort Smith Film Fest

 

Being the consummate patrons of the arts that we are, we couldn't pass up a film festival in a city that is synonymous with great cinema, Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Of Fort Smith, itself, what can I say except that people here are trying. Many of them are trying to sleep in the park. Most of them seem to be trying to ignore the fact that this city even has a downtown. A small handful are trying to make good things happen here, like film festivals, and God bless 'em.

Due to the lack of much real information on the festival website, we arrived Friday afternoon with very little idea what to expect. The website just said the festival started at 5:00. Our experience with other film festivals has been long lines and full theaters, so we showed up around 4:30 to make sure we could get seats to the movies we wanted to see. With no films list on the internet, we didn't know what those films would be, but we wanted to be sure we could see them once we found them. What we found was a bunch of smiling volunteers, some filmmakers (for some reason, all wearing hats), and a mostly-empty auditorium. The only food available was chips and popcorn, so we grabbed one of each, figuring we were up for a full evening of movies.

Turns out, the first movie wasn't playing until 6:40. For our punctuality, we got to hear the opening address and a presentation by the film distributors who have agreed to purchase at least 5 films from this year's fest. It honestly wasn't all that bad! The opening address centered around Fort Smith's relationship with a couple of Italian sister cities that were liberated from the Nazis by U.S. troops led by Fort Smith native General William Darby. I usually scoff at the whole “sister city” concept, but it turns out Fort Smith does have a shared history with these towns. So, that was charming. The distribution guys actually had some interesting things to say, too.

Still, we could have skipped some of this stuff along with the popcorn and chips in favor of a good dinner. Once we realized it was going to be a while before any movies played, we slipped out for dinner at AJ's Oyster House. In Fort Smith, AR, 8 hours from the ocean, and in 100 degree heat, we skipped the oysters and dined on shrimp.

Back at the ode to Egypt that is Temple Live (Sphinxes, statues of Anubis, you get the idea), we watched 4 short films from Arkansas and Oklahoma filmmakers.

I'm reminded of something a friend used to say all the time, “You've got to sift a lot of sand to find the cat turds.” It's a good thing to keep in mind if you are going to attend a film festival of any kind, especially a small one. You have to judge everything on a different scale. Even the best films at a festival may still be diamonds in the rough, with some bad sound and lighting. Many of them are absolutely horrible. The wonder of it is that sometimes you see something truly brilliant, something that would never make it past the studio heads and ratings boards, something that makes it all worth it.

In light of that, I am going to rate the films I saw according to the following system, separate from my usual system:

1 star out of 5 – so bad, you really can't believe Siri didn't auto-delete it (it was obviously filmed on an Iphone)

2 stars – really bad. Bad acting, bad writing, bad filming. A triple threat.

3 stars – reasonably decent, for a film festival movie. I didn't want to walk of out it.

4 stars – good stuff. I might not watch it in a theater, but one of the better things I saw at the festival.

5 stars – This is why you attend a film festival! Maybe a little rough around the edges, but shows flashes of genius.

I'm reminded of another saying, from my grandmother, “Don't be ugly.” With that in mind, I'm not going to bother talking about the bad stuff we saw. Many of these filmmakers are beginners or amateurs, and made their films on a budget of $1000-$3000. I'm proud of them for trying. Anyway, there's no chance I or anyone else is going to be exposed to most of their stuff, so there's no need to be ugly.

So, back to night 1:

“Banana Triangle Six”, by Fayetteville, Arkansas resident Marc Crandall, is about a grumpy retirement home resident who is showing signs of dementia. Sounds hilarious, right?! Actually, the filmmaker managed to inject some humor into the story, although it still has its share of pathos. On the film festival scale, I'd give it 3 stars out of 5.

“Lowlifes” is a story of gang culture in Little Rock back when it was the murder capital of the U.S. A pair of brothers get drawn into the orbit of a charming local gangster and drug dealer, and then, to quote Monty Python, “we see the violence inherent in the system.” This was one of those short films that I wished were longer. It's a tight, little narrative that could easily be expanded into a feature film or a show. Several of the actors are outstanding. 4 stars out of 5

Things got better Saturday morning. We showed up halfway through the animated shorts, some of which were really cool!

“Nightlife” was one of my favorite pieces from the fest. It's about a wolf cub exploring the night, experiencing a variety of animals and sights. The animation is really striking, and it's just a brilliant little piece from an indigenous artist.

5 stars!

“Prey of the Wendigo” is about a winter hiker who has an encounter with the Wendigo. It suffers a bit from uncanny valley, but it was pretty cool.

4 stars

Next up was the Romance & Drama segment. Standouts here included:

“Friday Night Fish” - In this Canadian short, a philosophy student suffers through a series of blind dates at the same sushi restaurant, finding that his real connection is with the waitress. This is the kind of diamond-in-the-rough that you go to a film festival to see. The main actor is pretty good, and the chemistry between him and the actress who plays the waitress is incendiary. This one really deserves to be expanded into a feature-length Rom-com.

5 stars!

“The God of Cats is Immortal” - In this Italian short, a teenager named Aco wants to impress a girl, so he sets out to find her lost cat. Goaded and teased by his thuggish skateboarding bros, Aco searches for the cat and for himself.

The lead actor in this one is outstanding, and his goofball friends are hilarious. I found the teen-boy interactions very realistic, and the cinematography was good.

4 stars

In the afternoon, we sat down for a documentary about black craft brewers. “One Pint at a Time” featured some interesting stories and made me want to sip some brews, but it leaned too heavily on a sense of aggrieved victimhood. I expected a certain amount of talk about how hard it was for a black (or black female) brewer to get into the industry, but the film kept circling back to the subject without saying anything new.

Meanwhile, all of their subjects made reference at some point to beer brewing having started in Africa, or at least having been done there for thousands of years. That would have been an interesting subject to pursue. How did they brew beer thousands of years ago? Did they even have hops back then? How do traditional people brew beer there today, and how does that differ from the way beer is brewed in the U.S.? Have any of these black brewers considered making a traditional, African beer? Documentarian Aaron Hose does not explore any of these questions. It's really just lazy filmmaking, with 45 minutes worth of interesting material packed into 1 ½ hours.

5. stars out of 5

We left “One Pint at a Time” early to see what was playing over in the main theatre in the Experimental/Comedy section.

“Polterguest” was a fun, silly story about a Halloween-loving couple who buy a haunted house. 3.5 stars

“How to Hide a Body” is a goofy short from the UK. A couple accidentally kill a plumber, and try to figure out how to hide the body before company arrives. Things escalate. Nothing about it was remarkable, but there were a few laughs.

3 stars

In the American short “Come On,” a lonely guy is jealous of his roommate's ability to engage in one-night stands, and vows to have one himself. When a drunken night out actually leads to a casual hookup, he feels bad afterwards. He and the girl keep running into each other afterwards, and eventually make a connection. It's a silly story, and the director does not try very hard to sell it, but the 2 leads are charming enough to make it reasonably entertaining.

3 stars

-

For my money, the best thing we saw at the fest was the dark comedy feature “Unfriending,” by Canadian brothers Brett and Jason Butler. These guys have been making independent films since the early 2000s, but are relatively unknown in the U.S. With “Unfriending,” they have created a wickedly-funny and wholly-inappropriate black comedy.

Blake and his group of yuppie friends have decided that Blake's childhood friend, Isaac, no longer fits in the group. With a dead-end job, no girlfriend, and terrible taste in beer, Isaac has to go. The friends have invited him over for one last dinner party. They plan not just to unfriend him, but to convince him to kill himself. Convinced that this is really in the best interests of Isaac, their friend group, and the world, they plan to present him with the evidence of his unfitness for life. When the shy, awkward Isaac shows up with a beautiful date, the plan is thrown into chaos.

In the real world, in 2014, a 17-year-old named Michelle Carter bullied her depressed boyfriend into suicide. Over a couple of weeks, through texts and phone calls, she repeatedly urged him to kill himself. When he had second thoughts and got out of his carbon monoxide filled car, she told him to get back in and die, which he did.

In light of this real-world “unfriending,” I found the theme of this film unsettling, to say the least. A few people walker out. Maybe they just had another movie to go see, or maybe they felt deeply uncomfortable with the theme.

Despite the creepy theme, “Unfriending” is actually hilarious, a testament to the quality of the writing and the cast. These are relatively unknown actors, but they are impressive, especially Alex Stone, who plays Isaac. Sean Meldrum is delightfully hate-able as Blake, and Honor Spencer carries more than her weight as Darby, the friend who is least comfortable with the Plan. Golden Madison, who plays Isaac's date, Lexxi, is extremely easy on the eyes. The whole cast comes together to make “Unfriending” a wicked delight. If the film transgresses on standards of good taste, well, that's what you go to a film festival for, to see cutting-edge art that isn't afraid to take chances.

5 stars

-

“Unfriending” is a hard act to follow, but we did see a few memorable shorts in the Action/Sci Fi segment.

“Parking Spot” stars a couple of stunt-people: Alfred Hsing (“Everything, Everywhere, All At Once”) and Thekla Hutyrova (“Logan” “Pacific Rim: Uprising”) as a couple of angry drivers who square off in a magnificently-gonzo kung-fu battle over a parking spot. The short is silly and fun, and it showcases the talents of director Robert Stronger and its stars.

4 stars

“What Is Mine” (Quello Che E Mio, Italian) is a story of 4 Italian soldiers, suffering health problems from their military service, who set out on a crime spree. It is dark and action packed and features some compelling performances.

4 stars

Fort Smith is not the obvious place for a cultural experience. There is not much to the downtown, and it is hot as balls in the summer. I thought they put on a pretty decent film festival despite all of that. The Temple Live venue worked pretty well for the smallish crowd that was there, and the volunteers were super-friendly. They managed to attract some really interesting films, and it made for a worthwhile weekend.

65 (2023) **

 

After watching this movie, I figured it was a straight-to-streaming movie, and it seemed about right for that genre. Mildly entertaining, but not really that great, “65” has the level of quality you used to find in a lot of TV movies. Turns out, though, that this film had a regular theatrical release, meaning it deserves to be judged by a higher standard. It was also written by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who wrote the outstanding “A Quiet Place,” making it that much more surprising that “65” is so mediocre.

Adam Driver plays Mills, an interstellar pilot from the planet Somaris, on a 2-year exploratory mission. His ship is damaged by asteroids, and he has to crash land on a nearby planet. Everyone on the ship is killed except for Mills and a young girl, and Mills sets out to get the pair of them to the ship's escape pod, which has landed 15 km away. Did I mention that Mills took this 2-year job to pay for medical treatment for his teenage daughter back on Somaris, or that these aliens look exactly like humans?

I should also mention that the planet Mills and his young charge find themselves on is Earth, and this is all taking place 65 million years ago. Fans of pre-history will recognize that that date means Mills must contend not only with dinosaurs, but with a certain fateful asteroid that caused those dinosaurs' extinction.

“65” is watchable for only 2 reasons. 1: Dinosaurs. That speaks for itself. 2: Adam Driver. He is such a compelling actor that he can elevate even the lamest of films. Still, in this case he only partly carries it off. For some reason, Beck and Woods, who not only wrote, but directed, this mess, spend much of the film having Driver hyperventilate as he deals with various crises. I guess it's meant to be realism, but a blind person could be forgiven for mistaking this movie for an obscene phone call. The film is also full of contradictions, including why a child would be on what is described as a mission of exploration. That title, by the way, references the 65 million years ago timeframe, but it is also how sappy this movie is on a scale of 1 to 10.

2 stars out of 5

(For a somewhat similar story in a much better movie, check out 2018's "Prospect".)

Rollerball (1975) **

 

In the distant future of 2018, giant corporations have taken over and divvied up the world, bringing an end to governments, war, poverty, disease, and all the other social ills. The only negative remaining in such a life is boredom, and the corporations have solved this problem by giving the masses a violent sport to watch. Rollerball involves skaters and motorcyclists racing around a circular track while trying to get a metal ball into a goal. Amplifying the most violent elements of sports like football, hockey, and roller derby, Rollerball routinely results in massive injuries and death for the players. The ones who prevail, however, live lives of luxury similar to those of the corporate executives.

No rollerball player is more successful than Jonathan E. (James Caan). His ability to score goals and lay bloody waste to his opponents makes him a legend in his own time, so he is surprised when his team owner tells him that the Corporation wants him to retire at the height of his game. Unable to simply take orders, Jonathan sets out to learn why he is being removed from the rink, and learns some dark truths about the society in which he lives.

I'm going to reveal some spoilers here, so if you are dedicated to watching this overlong, outdated piece of sci-fi weirdness, you should stop reading here.

Jonathan is much like most of the denizons of his world, happy to enjoy the creature comforts provided by the corporations, dulling any pangs of unease or boredom with the drugs that are widely available and with the game of rollerball. Jonathan is a bit more ill-at-ease than most people, because his wife was taken from him by a corporate executive. People aren't really supposed to fall in love in this future world. Pointedly, all the women in the film look more or less alike. A girl is assigned to you, and a man isn't supposed to prefer one over another. Jonathan's wife wasn't taken from him despite his love for her but because of it. Any individual desire threatens the delicate balance of corporate power.

It's the same with rollerball. The sport is intended to be a bloody spectacle in which the players are interchangeable and expendable. Jonathan's dominance threatens to add an element of individual achievement that runs counter to the program. This, he learns, is why the corporation wants him out of the game.

There's nothing wrong with this story setup, just with the execution. Director Norman Jewison is responsible for classics like “In the Heat of the Night,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” and “Moonstruck,” but he fell short with “Rollerball.” The film features some decent acting by James Caan and by John Houseman as an executive, and there is some impressively-framed cinematography. Otherwise, the film is self-indulgent, boring, and overly long at 2h 5 min. A better-written film with a tighter narrative arc and a shorter run-time could have served as a sharp commentary on violent sports and all-powerful corporations, but that film is not “Rollerball.” Sadly, the most memorable scenes in the film are the rollerball sequences. We are supposed to be critical of the violent game, but, like those “future” 2018 sports fans, I couldn't help but be drawn to the spectacle.

2 stars out of 5

Dry Martina (2018) ***

 

Martina (Antonella Costa) is a faded, Argentinean pop star, frustrated by the decline of both her career and her love life, when she meets a couple. Francisca (Geraldine Neary) is a fan/stalker, who claims to be Martina's half-sister. Martina is not interested in any of this long-lost-family nonsense, but she is very interested in Fran's Chilean boyfriend, Cesar (Pedro Campos), the first man she has been really attracted to in years. Her newly-revived libido leads her to Santiago, Chile, where she becomes enmeshed in these people's lives and has a little adventure.

I don't know if it is just something about spanish-speaking audiences, but Spanish and South American directors just know how to make sexy movies. “Dry Martina” borders on soft-porn at times, but like so many other erotic, spanish-language films (think “Y Tu Mama, Tambien”, “En La Cama”), there is also an intriguing story and good acting to go along with the sex. This isn't a particularly profound story, but it's very watchable, and Antonella Costa, in particular, is compelling, with her crooked smile and tussled hair. I'll have to watch out for more of her films.

3 stars out of 5

All Quiet On the Western Front (2022) **1/2

 

Comedian Marc Maron has a new comedy special called “From Bleak to Dark.” In it, he talks honestly about some heavy stuff, including the death of his girlfriend and his deep pessimism about the state of the world. You might not believe it, but Maron manages to make this stuff funny. One thing he does not talk about is the 2022, German-language adaptation of “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Maron didn't want to go THAT bleak and THAT dark.

Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 novel was a chilling commentary on the inhumanity and futility of WWI. The book was banned and burned under the Nazis, who wanted to re-glorify war and sacrifice-for-country. Nowadays, it is required reading in German schools. The story has already been adapted to screen a couple of times. The 1930 version won 2 Academy Awards, and there was a television version in 1979. This latest adaptation, from writer/director Edward Berger, is in German, and it has garnered its share of awards and nominations.

The story follows German youth Paul Baumer. With his friends from high school, Paul volunteers for the army during WWI. The boys are eager to prove their mettle, but the ugliness of the war quickly dispels their youthful illusions, as they are exposed to artillery, poison gas, and machine gun fire. They quickly learn that war is simply a very efficient machine for turning young men into corpses. As the meat grinder carries on its grim business, Paul struggles, not to cover himself in glory, but simply to survive. Meanwhile, in a story line not included in the novel, German officials meet with the French to negotiate an armistice, while an obsessed German general tries to pack in as much extra bloodshed as possible before peace is declared.

On its technical merits, “All Quiet On the Western Front” is outstanding. The German cast do a great job, and the cinematographer expertly blends shots of the French countryside with grim, gray battlefield imagery. The battle scenes are as gut-wrenching as those in “Saving Private Ryan.” As epic as those scenes are, it is the personal moments that really stick with you, like the scene where Paul reads a letter from home for his illiterate friend, or one where Paul apologizes to an Allied soldier he has just killed.

As well-made as the movie is, it is no fun to watch, and one has to ask if anyone today really needs to suffer through this 2 ½ hour treatise on the horrors of war. In its time, the story was a classic, and if more people had read it and taken it to heart, maybe we wouldn't have had WWII. Today, the need for an anti-war viewpoint is no less pressing, but we have moved on to different types of warfare and different types of horrors. Our age has its own cautionary tales about war, from “Apocalypse Now” to "Black Hawk Down." It is possible that “All Quiet on the Western Front” still has something to teach us, but the 2022 version, at least, takes 2 ½ long, dark, bleak hours to do it.

2 ½ stars out of 5

Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017) ***1/2

 

If you have any doubts about Annette Bening's acting prowess, this movie should put them to rest. The prolific actress has sometimes felt a bit sharp-edged to me. I think it's a combination of her trademark short hair and the deeply unsympathetic character she played in the film “American Beauty.” All of that is forgotten, now. In “Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool” she gives a nuanced, heartbreaking performance that has completely won me over.

The film is based on the memoir of the same name, written by Peter Turner about his relationship with a much-older woman, the Oscar-winning actress Gloria Grahame, in her last years. Grahame was a talented actress, but, like many movie stars, a bit of a hot mess. She had 4 husbands, and her fourth, Tony Ray, happened to be the son of her second husband, film director Nicholas Ray. Nicholas alleged that Grahame's relationship with Tony started when Tony was just 13, back when she was married to Nicholas. That salacious accusation was never proven, but the scandal overshadowed her career. Between that and having been typecast as a film-noir vixen, Grahame eventually found the movie roles hard to come by. She never stopped working, however. She returned to the stage, doing small film and TV roles at times, and she worked up until she died at the age of 57.

“Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool” only hints at all that backstory. The film focuses on the last 2 years of Grahame's life, the period of her relationship with Turner, who was almost 30 years her junior. This doesn't come off nearly as creepy in the movie as you might think. Bening plays Grahame as a woman who was still very vibrant and sexy in her mid-50s. Bening's performance, in fact, is the entire reason to watch what is really a quiet, little film. Jamie Bell does a fine job as Peter Turner, and Julie Walters is charming as his mother Bella, but this is very much Annette Bening's movie. She commits fully to a portrayal of Gloria Grahame that will win your heart and then break it.

3.5 stars out of 5

Cyrano (2021) ****

 

I almost gave up on this film in the first few minutes. The acting was not great, the first song wasn't that good, and I figured I should cut my losses. But then Peter Dinklage showed up, and everything was all right. From that point on, he was in every scene, and the movie just got better and better. Even the other actors were better playing off of Dinklage. The film rests on his shoulders, and he is strong enough to carry it.

Most people are at least vaguely familiar with the source material, Edmond Rostand's 1897 play “Cyrano de Bergerac.” Cyrano (Dinklage) is a soldier and poet, renowned for his skill with blades and with words. As talented as he is, he is physically unattractive. In the play, he has a gigantic nose. In this film, he is a dwarf. Either way, his self-consciousness prevents him from revealing his love for a girl named Roxanne (Haley Bennett), preferring to stay safely in the friend-zone. Then Roxanne catches sight of Christian ( Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), a handsome, new soldier in Cyrano's army brigade, and the two immediately fall into mutual infatuation. Roxanne asks her friend Cyrano to arrange an introduction, but Christian is too shy and tongue-tied to talk to her. He winds up having Cyrano write beautiful love letters on his behalf, and the two woo Roxanne, Cyrano with his words and Christian with his looks.

Any way you cut it, “Cyrano de Bergerac” is one of the great stories. Even people who haven't seen the original play are likely familiar with the story. The play has many adaptations, including the outstanding 1987 film “Roxanne.” You could argue that there is not a lot to add to this story, and that making a musical version was a high-risk, low-reward proposition. Fortunately, director Joe Wright managed to put together something wonderful here. (Wright has experience adapting classical literature into film, including 2005's “Pride & Prejudice” and 2012's “Anna Karenina.”) The screenplay is by Erica Schmidt, who is married to Peter Dinklage, and it is based on her own 2018 stage musical, in which Dinklage starred. The score and songs are written by members of the band The National. Many of the songs are forgettable, but a couple stand out, including the villain-anthem “What I Deserve” (sung by Ben Mendelsohn) and the beautiful dirge “Wherever I Fall” (with an appearance by Glen Hansard, from “Once”). I was underwhelmed by Haley Bennett at first, but her performance grows as the movie progresses, and her voice really soars on the song “I Need More.”

Sadly, “Cyrano” was not a commercial success. On a $30 million budget, the film only grossed $6.4 million. I guess it's hard to sell anything these days that doesn't involve superheroes. Then, too, maybe people are getting a bit weary of period dramas. This is one you don't want to miss, however. It is currently streaming on HBOMax, and I highly recommend checking it out. It's a beautiful telling of a classic tale.

4 stars out of 5

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) ****

 

It's appropriate that this film has such an all-encompassing name. “Everything Everywhere All At Once” is many genres of film rolled into one. It's a fast-paced, Wong Kar-wai-style kung-fu movie. It's a head-trippy sci-fi story about the multi-verse. It's an immigrant story and family drama. Finally, and most importantly, it's a philosophical smack-down between nihilism and existentialism.

Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn Wang, a stressed-out mother, daughter, and wife. The laundromat she owns with her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) is being audited by the IRS. Her father (James Hong) is visiting from China, and Evelyn doesn't want him to learn that his granddaughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), is a lesbian. Meanwhile, Waymond is trying to work up the nerve to serve Evelyn with divorce papers. Into this scene of domestic bliss comes an alpha-male, kung-fu-fighting version of Waymond, who explains to Evelyn that he needs her help to stop her world and all the alternate universes from being destroyed. To do that, Evelyn must learn to verse-jump, accessing the abilities of alternate Evelyns to hold her family together, defeat a monstrous IRS agent (Jamie Lee Curtis), and save the multi-verse from a nihilistic baked good.

“Everything Everywhere All At Once” is a lot to take in, and it takes some time to develop this story, leading to a run time of 2h 19m. The movie does feel long at times, which is my sole criticism. Even the action sequences can go on a bit long. Fortunately, the film only drags in a few spots. For the most part, the outrageous action, absurdist humor, and amazing acting are enough to keep a person engaged, and there's enough food for thought here to keep you mentally chewing for days.

I think that what really sets this film apart is that it is a story about a middle-aged woman's problems, hopes, and dreams. Hell, at the beginning of the film, Evelyn doesn't even really have conscious hopes and dreams; she just has problems. Part of her journey here is to get back in touch with the version of herself that could hope and dream, when she is trying to deal with everything, everywhere, all at once.

4 stars out of 5

Four Rooms (1995) **

 

I was really excited to re-watch this movie. I saw it when it came out, and I remembered the basic premise: 4 mini-movies based in four different rooms of a hotel, each with a different writer/director. These directors were all hot in the mid-90's: Allison Anders (“Gas Food Lodging”), Alexandre Rockwell (“In the Soup”), Robert Rodriguez (“El Mariachi”), and last but not least, Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”). What I forgot about this movie is that while everyone was excited to see it in 1995, we were all disappointed by it.

The stories are set in the Mon Signor Hotel. On his first night on the job, bellhop Ted (Tim Roth) has bizarre encounters in four different rooms of the hotel. In the Honeymoon Suite (“The Missing Ingredient” by Allison Anders), he is seduced by a beautiful witch. In room 404 (“The Wrong Man” by Alexandre Rockwell), he is drawn into a bizarre, violent love triangle. In yet another, he gets roped into a babysitting gig (“The Misbehavers” by Robert Rodriguez), and in the penthouse he is recruited to help act out an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents story-line (“The Man From Hollywood” by Quentin Tarantino).

This is a great setup for a cinephile's wet dream. You've got four great indy directors at the top of their game, teamed with a ridiculously talented cast, including Tim Roth, Ione Skye, Antonio Banderas, Lili Taylor, Bruce Willis, and Jennifer Beals. Problem is, everyone here is so excited to be in what was obviously going to be the coolest movie of the year that they just chew scenery like a T. Rex in a Kansas feedlot. Roth plays Ted with twitchy affectations that look like a cross between a swishy, gay man and a patient in the middle stages of Huntington's Disease. Tarantino was known for scenes that feel like real conversations, but the dialogue in his segment feels manic, strained, and not real at all. Anders had the good grace and good sense to have a couple of her actresses be topless for most of her vignette, but that is its only saving grace. Rodriguez's “The Misbehavers” is probably the best story here, but that isn't saying much. “Four Rooms” should be a wonderful, little time capsule of mid-90's art cinema. Instead, it's a weird mishmash, less than the sum of its parts, and not representative of any of the 4 directors' work.

2 stars out of 5

CODA (2021) **1/2

A coda is a musical term, referring to a section at the end of a piece that brings the song to a close. A literary piece can also have a coda, which performs the same function. In the deaf community, CODA is an acronym, meaning Child Of Deaf Adults. CODAs occupy a unique space, bridging the worlds of the hearing and the deaf.

The movie “CODA” is the story of Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), a high-schooler whose parents and brother are deaf. Fluent in American Sign Language, Ruby helps her family communicate with the hearing world, and she also helps out on the family's fishing boat. Her real passion, though, is singing. Her family obviously cannot appreciate what a talent she has, but her school choir teacher (Eugenio Derbez) does, and he helps her get an audition for the Berklee College of Music. With her family's business growing, Ruby's dreams butt up against her family obligations.

“CODA” is a re-make of a French-Belgian film, “La Famille Belier.” It is notable for using deaf actors to play the deaf characters, including Marlee Matlin (“Children of a Lesser God”). Star Emilia Jones not only had to take voice lessons for her role, she had to take a crash course in American Sign Language, as 40% of the film's dialogue is signed.

With such excellent acting talent to work with, and such an interesting setup, I wish writer/director Sian Heder had delivered a more interesting story. The film has deaf characters, but everyone in the movie can see, and everyone in the audience will be able to see “CODA”'s plot points coming from a mile away. It's a sweet, little movie, but too predictable and treacly.

2.5 stars out of 5

How It Ends (2021) ***

In this charming little movie, Zoe Lister-Jones plays Liza, who, accompanied by her younger self (Cailee Spaeny), wanders L.A. tying up loose ends on the day earth is set to be destroyed by an asteroid. Visiting her parents, old friends, and ex-lovers, the Lizas try to work through her final regrets before the end.

Written by Lister-Jones and her then-husband Daryl Wein, “How It Ends” was filmed in 2020, which was not exactly an easy time for film-making. The Pandemic was in full swing, with no vaccine yet, and so the movie is filmed in vignettes, with just 1 or 2 actors at a time playing against the Lizas. In many scenes, the Lizas are standing on a lawn or sidewalk, talking to someone on their porch, so there is plenty of physical separation between the actors, and I wonder in some scenes if they didn't film their lines separately. The movie is really a perfect, little time capsule of pandemic days, capturing in its apocalyptic theme and its film-making style so much of what that time felt like.

So, does the restrained filming make for a bad movie? Absolutely not! Resting on the charms of its costars (Lister-Jones and Spaeny), with some fun guest-star moments (Fred Armisen, Olivia Wilde, Paul W. Downs, Charlie Day, and many more), the movie is funny and heartfelt, even if Liza's regrets are all fairly garden-variety. There is not a lot of drama, and no action or plot twists. This isn't about trying to stop the asteroid or escape Earth or anything. The asteroid is just a device that prompts Liza and the people she meets to live more honestly for just one day.

3 stars out of 5

Hold the Dark (2018) **

 

Director Jeremy Saulnier is no stranger to dark material, having directed "Green Room" and "Blue Ruin." With “Hold the Dark,” however, he reaches even farther into the abyss, maybe too far.

The story starts with naturalist Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright) traveling to Alaska at the request of a young mother. Medora (Riley Keough) wants him to hunt down the wolves who she says killed her son and 2 other children in her remote, Alaskan village. She wants this done, if possible, before her husband Vern (Alexander Skarsgard) returns from the Iraq War. Russell discovers that there is a lot more to fear in Keelut, AK than wolves.

Should you decide to watch the film, you won't want any more plot spoilers. The film is full of surprises. Unfortunately, these surprises are not so much plot twists as bizarre, inscrutable actions on the parts of Medora, Vern, and Vern's friend, Cheeon (Julian Black Antelope). The choices these characters make are inexplicable using any moral code that I have seen or heard of. We are supposed to understand that these choices are the result of a wildness and darkness in these characters that results from living in the frigid remote wilds of Alaska. Saulnier and author William Giraldi, who wrote the book, appear to be making a profound commentary on the darkness that resides within all of us, but the message is too obscure for me.

2 stars out of 5

Ava (2020) **

 

If you've already watched “Atomic Blonde” and “The Old Guard” a couple of times, and you are jones-ing for another action movie about an ass-kicking, female agent, this might be the movie for you. If, that is, you keep your expectations low.

Jessica Chastain flexes her muscles as the titular assassin, who gets betrayed by her employers and has to go on a rampage. We've seen this story before, and it has been done much, much better. The only thing remarkable about “Ava” is how much star power goes to waste here. Besides Chastain, we have John Malkovich, Geena Davis, and Colin Farrell, all doing the best they can with a cliched script and a weak supporting cast, including Common, showing why he is a musician, not an actor.

The one thing “Ava” gets right is the action. The movie sucks when the characters are talking, but when they shut up and start kicking each other's asses, it's actually "John Wick"-level entertaining. Unfortunately, unlike “John Wick,” which is full of such non-stop action that you can (and should!) watch it with the sound off, “Ava” is full of long, boring scenes of family drama and laborious, unnecessary character development. Watching with the sound off isn't going to help with this one.

2 stars out of 5

Kick-Ass 2 (2013) **

 

You can argue the relative merits of various movie sequels, but I think one thing most of us can agree on is that most sequels are unnecessary. If the original film was done right, the story is narratively complete, and it does not demand a second installment. 2010's "Kick-Ass" is one of the exceptions: a riotously fun movie that came together well, but that really did demand a sequel. Is “Kick-Ass 2” the sequel it deserves? Not really.

In “Kick-Ass,” we met Dave, high-school student by day, masked vigilante by night. Calling himself Kick-Ass, Dave would walk the streets with a couple of batons, looking for opportunities to fight crime. It didn't much matter that he wasn't very good at it. His only superpowers were a big heart and an injury that made him mostly impervious to pain, but his willingness to make a stand inspired others to don the mask. In “Kick-Ass 2” we meet some of those vigilantes. Meanwhile, Dave gets Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) to train him , but she winds up retiring from the vigilante business and trying to make a go of being a normal, teenage girl. While the heroes go through their identity crises, Chris D'Amico, whose crime-boss dad fought the heroes in the first movie, embraces his super-villain destiny.

It should all be a lot more fun than it is. The setup is fine, but poor writing drags it down, and the Hit Girl storyline, in particular, is a cringey mess. I think the explanation is a change in management. The first film was written (adapted from a comic) and directed by Matthew Vaughn, who also directed "Stardust" and a couple of X-men movies. He also wrote and directed “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” which was surprisingly good, featuring the same mix of violence and off-kilter humor that made the original “Kick-Ass” so good. For some reason, Vaughn declined to write or direct the “Kick-Ass” sequel. He is listed as a producer, which basically means they used his name to get financing, but writing and directing fell to a guy named Jeff Wadlow, who has done nothing before or since to distinguish himself. Instead of a clever, funny, action movie with heart, what we wind up with is a fairly lame sequel, coasting on the greatness of the original.

2 stars out of 5

Emily the Criminal (2022) ***1/2

 

Aubrey Plaza has been circling around my consciousness for years, appearing in stuff I liked, but never fully breaking into my awareness until, suddenly, I'm an Aubrey Plaza fan. The “Parks and Rec” alum was in 2012's underrated gem "Safety Not Guaranteed." She also appeared in the weird, charming TV special "Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine."  I really became a fan after watching Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” where her deadpan humor and unique beauty really shine. Now there's “Emily the Criminal,” an excellent, little movie about crime and economic desperation.

Plaza plays Emily, a gig worker with student-loan debt, living on the ragged edge of the modern, American economy. Delivering lunches for a catering company, she wears a uniform and has a boss to push her around, but as an “independent contractor,” she has no employment rights and no union representation. Better jobs are elusive because of a felony conviction on her record. Emily gets the opportunity to do a different kind of gig job, one that is illegal. She needs the money, and she turns out not to mind the risk or the transgression, and soon she is a full-blown criminal.

This is writer/director John Patton Ford's first feature film, and it's an excellent first outing. The are a couple of weak plot elements, but the film succeeds on the charm of its stars, Plaza and Theo Rossi, both of whom are magnetic. Thematically, the film struggles a little. Ford seems to be wanting to make a social commentary about student loan debt, service work, economic justice, and the self-fulfilling prophesy of a criminal record, but he repeatedly undermines those commentaries via the foibles of his flawed protagonist, who is not exactly an everywoman. Emily is frustrating, because she repeatedly breaks the rules, ignores advice, and sabotages herself. Then again, that's the character. If she were the kind of person who could color within the lines, she wouldn't be Emily, the criminal.

3.5 stars out of 5

The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020) **

 

Writer/director Jim Cummings made a splash in 2016 with the short film, “Thunder Road,” which, with some help from Kickstarter, he expanded into a feature film 2 years later. The feature cost about $200,000 to make and earned about $400,000. In the Indy Film world, that's enough of a success to get you another chance at making a project, usually with a bigger budget. Bigger, however, does not always mean better.

In “The Wolf of Snow Hollow,” Cummings (who also wrote and directed) plays John, a Utah Sheriff's deputy. When his small, mountain town is rocked by a series of grisly murders, John must deal with a panicked populace, an ex-wife, the health problems of his dad, who is the Sheriff (Robert Forster), his own alcoholism, and a killer who might just be a werewolf.

Cummings wrote, directed, and starred in this film, and I would say that he does a poor job with all 3 roles. The script is a hot mess, bouncing around in tone from serious family drama to various attempts at horror-comedy and back again. If anything, I usually complain about movies being too long. I would normally be praising this film's 85 minute run-time, but this is one where taking a little more time to build the horror and develop the characters might have helped things. As it is, the movie lurches from scenes that are unnecessarily long to plot developments that come out of nowhere.

As an actor, Cummings attempts to deal with these tone problems by just yelling and acting really angry a lot. The rest of the cast actually try to make a go of it. Riki Lindhome is pretty good as one of the other cops, and I would say that the movie owes what success it has to her, as well as to Robert Forster, who classes up anything he appears in. The cinematography also deserves mention, with some beautiful shots of snow-covered mountains. There could have been a decent movie here, with a better filmmaker at the helm. As it is, “The Wolf of Snow Hollow” doesn't make any sense, and it isn't funny enough to work as an Evil-Dead-style horror comedy.

2 stars out of 5

Screamers (1995) ***

Remember that Peter Weller movie where weaponized robots run amock? Nope, I'm not talking about the 1987 classic “Robocop.” I'm referring to 1995's “Screamers,” which is not exactly a classic, but might be a cult classic.

Weller plays Joe Hendricksson, commander of a military outpost on the mining planet Sirius 6B, where two rival, human organizations have been at war for years. Joe's side, which represents the mining company, has achieved success with a new type of weapon, an automated buzz saw that will hunt and kill anything alive that isn't wearing a special immunity bracelet. To make sure there are plenty of these killer robots to go around, they have built an automated factory that cranks them out without any human input. Brilliant idea, right? Sounds like nothing could go wrong. As if that original plan weren't flawed enough, things really take a left turn when the robots start evolving.

“Screamers” is adapted from a story by Philip K. Dick, who has had his share of adaptations (“Bladerunner” “Total Recall” “Minority Report”), and it explores a recurrent theme of his: What happens when man's creations escape his control? I wouldn't call the movie great, or even good, but I enjoyed it, and it does have the ingredients of a cult classic: a bold premise, full commitment, and, of course, Peter Weller. When Buckaroo Banzai is in a movie, you definitely have to give it a chance!

3 stars out of 5

Paranormal Activity (2007) ***1/2

 

There's a reason most found-footage films are horror films. Done right, the format pulls you into the action and helps foster that suspension of disbelief that makes a movie scary. Also, the limited field of view of the cameras used allows things to happen just off-screen, and there's nothing scarier than what you can't see. It's also an interesting genre in that it is necessarily modern. The central conceit of a found-footage film is that everything you see was filmed by the protagonists, so these films can only be set during times when people would conceivably have had access to video cameras.

The first found-footage horror was apparently an Italian film from 1980 called “Cannibal Holocaust,” but it was 1999's "The Blair Witch Project" that really put the genre on the map. On a budget of around $200,000, the film made $250 million, and a generation of filmmakers fired up their handheld cameras to make low-fi horror. None of these made much of an impression until a guy named Oren Peli used a handheld camera and $15,000 to make a movie based on his own experience of unexplained noises in the night.

“Paranormal Activity” is the story of Katie and Micah, a young couple troubled by noises and misplaced objects in their home. Micah buys a video camera and a tripod and starts filming their bedroom at night. What he captures is mundane at first, but becomes increasingly horrifying.

“Paranormal Activity” is considered the most profitable movie of all time, based on return on investment, and it spawned a franchise. I haven't seen any of the many sequels, but I will say that the original film is very effective horror. The acting is nothing to write home about, and the dialogue can be annoying, but it's all good enough for a horror movie. The movie works, largely, because of how well it hews to the found-footage concept. Found-footage films usually reach a point where it just becomes unbelievable that the character would still be operating their video camera, and there are usually some scenes where one character is screaming at another to “turn off that f-ing camera!” “Paranormal Activity” checks all those boxes, but for the most part, Peli keeps it believable. The best, and scariest parts are where the camera is on the tripod at night, and we can only see what is visible in that fixed frame. Rather than relying on blood and guts, Peli terrifies us by letting us see only part of what is going on.

I waited 15 years to watch this film, because people told me it would scare the bejesus out of me, and they were right! More an experience than a story, “Paranormal Activity” has its limitations, but it is truly one of the must-see, modern horror flicks.

3.5 stars out of 5

John Wick (2014) ***

 

I have talked before about the Keanu Reeves Test, a simple test I use to decide whether or not to watch a movie. I just ask, “Is Keanu Reeves in this?,” and if the answer is “Yes,” then I don't watch. The test is not perfect. Re-watching "Bram Stoker's Dracula," for example, I discovered that Reeves's wooden acting did not actually manage to destroy that film. For years, I have been hearing about this “John Wick” movie, which, according to Wikipedia, has “come to be regarded as one of the best action films of all time.” I figured this film would probably retire the Keanu Reeves Test for good.

The plot is extremely simple. Gangsters kill John Wick's dog. Wick happens to be a retired assassin, and he unleashes his special skills on the gangsters. Sorry for the spoiler, but after 8 years of sequels and parodies, you would have to have been living under a rock not to know the basic premise of this film. In any event, the plot is so basic that it does not really matter. The point of “John Wick” is the old ultra-violence, which the movie does get right. It is directed by Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, who first met Keanu Reeves as stuntmen on “The Matrix,” and they bring that pedigree of fast-paced, hand-to-gun, ju-jitsu and gun-fu. The action is non-stop, and much of it is non-sensical, but Stahelski and Leitch mix things up enough that it does not become completely numbing. Not completely.

So, does “John Wick” retire the Keanu Reeves test? Not completely. “John Wick” is an engaging revenge movie despite Reeves's wooden acting, not because of it. The action is impressive, as is the supporting cast, including Michael Nyqvist, Willem Dafoe, Alfie Allen (Theon, from “Game of Thrones”), John Leguizamo, and Ian Mcshane. The plot is ridiculous, but honestly, this is an action movie, and the plot is really just a framework for all the gun-fu.

My biggest complaint here is the dialogue. “John Wick” is best when Keanu Reeves is not talking, but the script often gives him ten words where two would have sufficed. Stahelski and Leitch should have taken a page from the book of Sergio Leone. As Clint Eastwood said of his spaghetti western characters, directed by Leone, “I felt the less he said, the stronger he became and the more he grew in the imagination of the audience.”

I first saw part of “John Wick” in a sushi restaurant, with the sound turned off, and the movie seemed a lot better that way. So maybe that's the key. “John Wick” may be “one of the best action films of all time” to watch with the volume turned to zero. With the sound on, I'll just give it - 3 stars out of 5

The Menu (2022) ****1/2

 

They say that if you could see what goes on in the kitchen, you would never eat out at a restaurant again. The same might be said of “The Menu.” This dark comedy may make you resolve to cook at home more, or at least consider takeout.

Anya Taylor-Joy plays Margot, who finds herself on a very fancy date to a legendary restaurant on a private island. Charging $1200 a plate, Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) is known as an eccentric genius, but as the night wears on, and Chef introduces each course in an increasingly bizarre fashion, the guests have reason to question their dining choice.

I have been complaining that 2022 was not a great movie year, but I had not yet seen “The Menu.” This absurdist satire is, in turns, funny, shocking, scary, and ultimately, satisfying. The ensemble cast, including Fiennes, Hong Chau (From HBO's “Watchmen” series), Nicholas Hoult, John Leguizamo, Janet McTeer, and the rest of the supporting crew, is perfect. Taylor-Joy is transcendent. I don't know if she is getting any Best Actress buzz, but she should be.

If you read some synopses of the film, you may be tempted to dismiss it as another eat-the-rich screed, but it is much more than that. Wealthy, entitled people do take a few barbs here, but this is really more an exploration of the relationship between artists and their patrons. Chef is an artist who has risen to the top of his field and then finds himself tired of serving the kind of people who will pay $1200 for a meal: name-dropping celebrities, finance-bros, smug food critics, and foodies who obsess over cooking shows, techniques, and molecular gastronomy. “The Menu” delightfully satirizes a food culture that is so obsessive and precious that it is already self-parody.

Much like the meals Chef serves up, “The Menu” belongs in that pantheon of films that are a true experience. It should appeal to viewers who liked "Parasite," "Ready or Not," or "American Psycho." I was also reminded of “The Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and Her Lover,” although I think “The Menu” goes down more easily.

Just as “Parasite” was the must-see film of 2019, “The Menu” is one of the few, absolute must-watch films of 2022, especially if you like your steaks rare and your dark comedy well-done.

4.5 stars out of 5

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) *****

 

Let's face it; 2022 was not the best year for movies. There were a few standouts: "Top Gun: Maverick" was solid, popcorn entertainment. B.J. Novak's clever mystery "Vengeance" did not get a lot of traction, but it was excellent, as was another sleeper, the thriller "Kimi." There were a few other 2022 films that I found at least decently entertaining, if forgettable, including “Bullet Train,” “Confess, Fletch,” and "Death on the Nile," but otherwise, 2022 was a year where we saw the results of all the Covid-related film production shutdowns.

That last movie I mentioned is Kenneth Branagh's take on the novel by Agatha Christie, and, like his 2017 version of “Murder on the Orient Express,” it's good entertainment, but rather forgettable. There is another director, however, also inspired by Agatha Christie, who is making much more inspired, more modern whodunit-style mysteries. Rian Johnson's breakout hit "Knives Out" was a smart, funny whirlwind of a mystery, with an all-star cast. The film not only rewarded multiple viewings, it demanded them. Now Johnson has done it again with “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” streaming on Netflix.

Daniel Craig reprises his role as detective Benoit Blanc, with his ridiculous southern drawl and his ridiculously-sharp deductive mind. Blanc once again finds himself invited to solve a murder, but this one is supposed to be fictional. Tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) has invited a few friends to his island for a game where they will try to solve his “murder.” Among Bron's high-flying associates are a couple of internet influencers (Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista), the governor of Connecticut (Kathryn Hahn), and Bron's head scientist (Leslie Odom, Jr.). For some reason, he has also invited his former business partner, Andi (Janelle Monae), who helped him build his empire, and from whom he took everything. Besides Andi, these are Miles's closest friends, but we learn that each of them has a possible motive to want him dead.

With his first film, 2005's “Brick,” Rian Johnson demonstrated a talent for updating a classic movie genre - hard-boiled noir in that instance. With the “Knives Out” franchise, he is updating the whodunit genre with a modern sensibility and humor. I don't know how many of these he, or the audience, will be good for. It's possible that the exploits of Benoit Blanc, or at least his accent, will get tiresome eventually. I suspect it will depend a lot of whether Johnson can come up with truly fresh stories and characters and populate his films with compelling actors. In “Glass Onion” he does both, with a stellar cast and a story that is completely different from “Knives Out.”

So settle in with a snack and a drink (the movie is 2 hours, 19 minutes) and get ready to pay attention. The plot here is even more convoluted than that of “Knives Out,” and just as much fun. The clues are all there, but if you blink, you'll miss them, which is why I know I will be re-watching “Glass Onion” very soon.

5 stars out of 5