On the Rocks (2020) ***

 

If Sofia Coppola never does anything else in her career, she will always have directed “Lost in Translation.” The problem, for her, is that everything else she does do is destined to be compared to that film. “On the Rocks” is a decent, little movie, but it is no “Lost in Translation.” (To be fair, Coppola also directed the TV special “A Very Murray Christmas,” which is in its own, bizarre category, and as good in its way as “Lost in Translation.”)

Rashida Jones plays Laura, a writer whose creativity is being smothered by what most would consider a rewarding, comfortable life. She has a handsome, successful husband, lives in a beautiful, New York apartment, and her lovely children attend a good school, giving her several hours of peace and quiet each day to work on her novel. The problem, as Charles Bukowski put it in the movie “Barfly,” is that “nobody who could write worth a damn could ever write in peace.” Bored with herself and her writer's block, Laura starts to wonder if her husband, Dean (Marlon Wayans), is fooling around with his gorgeous assistant. Egged on by her womanizing father (Bill Murray), Laura starts spying on Dean, behavior which is obviously corrosive to her marriage even as it lets her spend quality time with her dad.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this film; it's just kind of forgettable. If you enjoy a talky dramedy, check it out. If it passes you by, you aren't going to be missing out on a critical part of the cultural conversation. Now, if you haven't seen "Lost in Translation" or “A Very Murray Christmas,” that's a situation that needs to be remedied!

3 stars out of 5

Playing on AppleTV

Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine (2020) ***

 

Sarah Cooper is a standup comic and comedy writer who made her breakthrough this year with a series of internet videos that feature her lip-syncing comments made by Donald Trump. She isn't the first person to notice that simply quoting verbatim the ridiculous words that come out of our president's mouth is a form of comedy and political criticism, but Cooper has great cheekbones, and her videos caught on. She became an instant sensation, and landed herself this Netflix comedy special.

Instead of a traditional standup special, “Everything's Fine” is more like a sketch show. Cooper plays a fictional morning-TV-show host, also named Sarah Cooper, who struggles to maintain her sunny smile while reporting on current events. Meanwhile, her producer (Fred Armisen) tries out different masks and social-distancing strategies, while the weather girl (Maya Rudolph) melts down. The show is interspersed with fake commercials and cameos from a variety of stars like Jon Hamm and Helen Mirren.

The comedy is a bit hit-and-miss, things sometimes drag, and it's just a very weird show. In its better moments, it reminds me of “Portlandia” or the 2019 found-footage piece “VHYes.” The best bit is a segment recreating the Access Hollywood bus debacle where Trump bragged about grabbing women by the pussy. Cooper does Trump's lines, of course, and Helen Mirren lip-syncs Billy Bush's lines, and the results are funny and disturbing.

“Everything's Fine” is definitely not for everyone, but if you like your comedy weird, and you don't mind a little chaff with your wheat, you should check it out.

3 stars out of 5

En Tu Piel (7:20 Once a Week, spanish-language, 2018) ****

 

After a hot, one-night stand, Julia and Manuel can't resist meeting up again, week after week for an extramarital tryst. Gradually, the connection becomes more than skin deep. That's it! No explosions, no gunfights, not even a quirky, supporting cast. Dominican actors Josue Geurrero and Eva Arias (former Miss Dominican Republic) carry the entire film on their toned shoulders, and they do a fine job.

This is, to be honest, a soft-porn, but it's not one of the ones where the muscular plumber is working on a sink when in walks the bored housewife in lingerie to offer him a glass of water. This is a real story about real people. Chilean director Matias Bize mixes some fairly graphic sex scenes with honest conversations and genuine emotion, as Julia and Manuel come to realize that their feelings for each other represent a bigger infidelity than their sexual couplings.

“En Tu Piel” is like an Off-Broadway play, with just the two actors and the one room. If it sounds very similar to the 2005 film “En la Cama,” it's because both films come from the directing/writing team of Matias Bize and Julio Rojas. “En Tu Piel” may be a little TOO similar to that earlier film, but I'll give it a pass. The acting and directing are so good that the concept is worth revisiting. Both of the actors deserve to get a lot more work, and Eva Arias especially impresses in a couple of scenes where she simply smokes and thinks about her situation, communicating volumes with subtle facial expressions. This is an erotic movie with a huge heart.

4 stars out of 5

Time Trap (2017, Streaming on Netflix) ***

 

A college professor goes on a quest to find out what happened to some missing hippie explorers back in the 70's. He discovers the location of their abandoned van, then he discovers the cave they went to explore. The cave, it turns out, is a trap where time passes extremely slowly. Spending just a few seconds in the cave means a couple of weeks have passed outside. This gets some of his students worried, and they set out to find their missing mentor, ultimately getting stuck in the time trap with him.

“Time Trap” doesn't have the best story or the most talented cast, but it does science fiction right. They take a fairly simple idea and really explore it faithfully. Once in the cave, for example, the characters look out the opening to see rapidly flashing lights, which they eventually realize are days and nights flashing by. The cave, we soon learn, is full of visitors from many eras, separated by hundreds or thousands of years. Once in the cave, it all gets compressed, bringing all these explorers from different eras together, sometimes violently.

I wouldn't have minded seeing this concept explored by a better director with a bigger budget and a better cast, but I would have to say that “Time Trap” is good enough, given its limitations. None of the weaknesses were bad enough to distract from the intriguing time-warp story-line, and I found the film really entertaining. One other strength is that the movie is only 95 minutes long. This is a movie that knows its limitations and doesn't want to become a time trap of its own.

3 stars out of 5

Bonnie & Clyde (1967) ****

 

Something was in the air in 1967; it was an absolutely great year for movies! Classics released that year include “The Dirty Dozen,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “The Graduate,” “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,” the noir, art-film “Point Blank,” “Hombre,” and one of my personal favorites, “Cool Hand Luke.” The arrival of so much great cinematic art in one year is probably explained by the societal upheavals of the 60's. Amid the movements for civil rights and women's rights as well as protests against the Vietnam War, people were ready for a newer, more modern style of storytelling.

For most of the 60's, Hollywood was still mostly cranking out typical, studio fare, stories where good guys wore white, and bad guys wore back, literally or figuratively. In France, however, New Wave directors like Godard and Truffaut were creating amoral, warts-and-all tales of outlaws and deviants. These were not morality tales. They were simply human stories, told without judgment. America's answer to the New Wave films was Arthur Penn's “Bonnie & Clyde,” one of the best movies in a year of great films.

Inspired by America's most famous outlaw couple, the movie is a tale of love on the lamb. Stars Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are brilliant, with great chemistry, even when they are discussing Clyde's inability to have sex with Bonnie. The film follows them as they meet, commit their first robbery, and eventually become famous as Depression-Era folk heroes, theoretically stealing from the banks who ruined the economy. (In real life, their favorite targets were small stores and gas stations.) They are eventually joined by Clyde's brother, Buck (Gene Hackman) and Buck's wife, Blanche, as well as a fictional addition to the gang named C.W. Moss (who serves as an amalgam of the many gang members who came and went in real life). The pressure inexorably builds as the five are always only one step ahead of lawmen who shoot first and ask questions later.

Beatty and Dunaway bring enough swagger and humanity to carry the movie, even if they didn't have an excellent supporting cast. Michael J. Pollard and Dub Taylor bring comic relief as C.W. and his dad, and Gene Hackman is as good as you would expect. I especially liked Denver Pyle as lawman Frank Hamer. The only off-note in the film is its depiction of Blanche, who comes across as a shrill, ridiculous harpy. (The real-life Blanche was said to have been disappointed with how the film painted her.)

Like Blanche Barrow, you just have to put aside any concerns about historical accuracy. There isn't any. The film version of the story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker takes so many liberties that it should probably be viewed as a strictly fictional work. Any similarity to real persons is entirely coincidental. The problem is, its hard to do that, to keep fact and fiction separate in your mind. That's always been my complaint about movies based on real life. The filmmakers generously grant themselves poetic license, telling themselves that audiences understand the difference between fact and fiction. In reality, it's very hard to keep those things separate, especially when the movie version is as compelling as “Bonnie & Clyde.”

4 stars out of 5

VHYes (2019) ***

 

This is an interesting, little oddity of a film. It uses the found-footage conceit. The story seems to be that this kid, Ralph, gets a VHS camera. Lacking a blank tape, he records over his parents' wedding video. Over several days, he makes short recordings of himself with his best friend, blowing up fireworks and such. They also discover that they can connect the camera to a TV and use it as a VCR, recording late-night soft-core flicks to watch later. New to the camera, Ralph ends up making a tape interspersed with youthful hijinks, late-night TV, and a few remaining clips of his parents' wedding.

“VHYes” is a comedy, with actors from “The State” and “Reno 911”, but it has a subtle undertone of sorrow. The beating heart of the movie is Ralph's mom, whose marriage is in trouble. In just a few, short clips, we get glimpses of this vibrant, happy girl at her wedding, still young inside years later, but having regrets. Ralph, as a prepubescent boy, is completely oblivious to all this, at least on the surface. As he tapes over his parents' wedding video, in a way, he is erasing the happy, girl-in-love that his mom once was, although glimpses remain.

This movie isn't for the faint of heart. The quick cuts on the “tape” are jarring, and some of the segments run a bit longer than they should. (A Bob Ross parody starring Kerri Kenney is creepy-funny and then just sort of becomes creepy-boring.) For those who have the patience for this kind of thing, though, it's funny and weird and kind of awesome.

3 stars out of 5

Ocean's Eleven (2001) **1/2

 

If you've ever wondered if it's possible in Hollywood to throw around enough money to guarantee a movie will be a hit, then “Ocean's Eleven” is your answer. This is a soulless remake of an equally-soulless, 1960 Rat-Pack heist film of the same name. 1960's “Ocean's Eleven” starred Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr, and other Rat Packers, a group of actors more famous than talented. The remake features a genuinely talented cast, making it inexplicable how the film ends up being such a nothing-burger.

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) gets out of prison and immediately contacts his old partner, Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) with a bold idea for a heist. Bold is an understatement; Danny wants to rob a casino vault that holds the cash for the three biggest casinos in Las Vegas. The three casinos, we learn, are owned by Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), who happens to be dating Danny's ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts), so it becomes obvious that Danny has more than financial incentives for the robbery. As high-risk as the heist is, it's also high-reward, and Danny is able to put together a crack team of thieves.

Besides Clooney, Pitt, and Roberts, the ensemble cast includes names like Elliott Gould, Matt Damon, Bernie Mac, and Don Cheadle. So, what does Steven Soderbergh do with all that star power? Not a whole lot, really. For a 2 hour movie, there isn't a lot there. Part of the problem is that putting together eleven guys for a heist means that we have to see Danny and Rusty recruit all those guys, which sucks up a big chunk of the movie. Nothing wrong with that, but with so many team members, we aren't able to get invested in any of them. Tess is a complete cipher as well. No time is spent developing her character so that we understand why she was ever attracted to Danny (other than that he looks like George Clooney), let alone why she is now with a greasy casino owner like Terry.

I blame the writers. The cast do a fine job with what they are given, there just isn't much of a story, even much of a heist. Danny touts the idea that they are ripping off the three biggest casinos in Vegas, but the cash is all in one vault, so it's really just one robbery. Honestly, I felt entertained while watching the movie, and it wasn't until afterwards that I started thinking about the problems with the movie, and started feeling like it wasn't just a casino that got ripped off by “Ocean's Eleven.”

2.5 stars out of 5

Te Quiero, Imbecil (I Love You, Stupid) (2020, Spanish, Streaming on Netflix) ***

 

Most of the time, when a guy proposes to a girl, he has a pretty good idea that she's going to say yes. So when Marcos (Quim Gutierrez) pops the question to Ana, his girlfriend of 8 years, he isn't prepared for her to break up with him instead. Life gets even worse when he gets laid off from his job. Cut loose from his moorings, Marcos turns to internet dating apps and an internet self-help guru to turn his luck around. Meanwhile, he runs into Raquel, (Natalia Tena) a high school acquaintance who once had the hots for him. While Marcos's career is taking off, his dating life remains a shambles. He hooks up with his ex repeatedly, while denying the obvious attraction between himself and Raquel.

I was due to watch something in Spanish, and this fluffy, little rom-com was just the ticket. In most respects, the movie is indistinguishable from pretty much every other spanish-language comedy, including the obligatory gay panic jokes and the well-worn scene where a trans woman outs herself by peeing standing up. What elevates the movie is Natalia Tena, whom you may recognize from “About a Boy” and “Game of Thrones.” She lights up the screen every time she appears, and she drags the other actors up with her. The easy chemistry between Raquel and Marcos makes the movie a delight, as does Raquel's natural laugh. This definitely won't make any movie-of-the-year lists, but it's lots of fun. Me encanta!

3 stars out of 5

Game Night (2018) ***

 

When the subject turns to favorite, fictional monsters, you'll hear a lot about Jason, from “Friday the 13th” or Freddie, from “Nightmare on Elm Street,” but for my money, the most terrifying monster on screen may be Todd, from “Breaking Bad.” Jesse Plemons played the dead-eyed, blonde-eyebrowed meth dealer with a flair for the banality of evil. Todd did the most horrible things without malice or glee. He didn't seem to take pleasure in killing or torturing people, he just seemed to be missing the part of the brain that makes most people feel bad about doing bad things.

For his supporting role in “Game Night,” Plemons doesn't quite play a sociopath, but he brings that quality of being slightly off, like he might be mildly autistic. He plays the cooky neighbor, the one who isn't invited to game night.

But I should back up. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams play Max and Annie, a couple who absolutely love playing games. Game night with friends is a weekly tradition, one at which their weirdo neighbor, Gary (Plemons), is no longer wanted since he split up with his wife.

Max's rich brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler), is invited reluctantly, as he and Max have an unhealthily competitive relationship. Sure enough, Brooks hijacks game night, inviting everyone to his new, fancier house for a fancier game night. When Brooks ends up getting kidnapped before the hors d'oeuvres are even served, the game is on for real!

In the middle of this pandemic, it's almost hard to fathom that Hollywood could once do something as simple as put together a terrific cast and make a fun, silly comedy, but here's proof. The entire cast bring their A-game, and Rachel McAdams is especially endearing. It might be fair to say that Jason Bateman doesn't have a lot of acting range. He plays the same, likeable, somewhat hapless straight man here that he always plays, but he does it so well that I'm not complaining. The actual story and dialogue aren't exactly winning any awards, but they never get in the way of a good time, either. “Game Night” never had me rolling on the floor, but I was chuckling throughout.

3 stars out of 5

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) ****

 

Despite knowing that this is a Coen brothers film, I was hesitant to watch it, and it's hard to exactly explain why. The title is a bit off-putting, as is the goofy-looking, cowboy-in-white on the Netflix thumbnail. Also, I was vaguely aware that it was an anthology, which somehow didn't sound appealing. Spoiler alert: I'm an idiot! This is a highly entertaining collection of short stories, with the wit and heart you would expect from a Coen brothers film, and I should have watched it 2 years ago.

The film consists of 6 unconnected short stories about life and, especially, death, in the Old West. “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” is really just the title of the first story, in which Tim Blake Nelson (who was so charming in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”) plays Buster Scruggs, the singing gunslinger in white from the poster. It may not be the best story of the bunch, but it's easily the most entertaining, as it's a little mini-musical. One of the songs even scored an Oscar nomination. Then there's “Near Algodones,” where James Franco plays a bank robber who learns to accept the bad luck with the good, and Stephen Root demonstrates unexpected uses for cookware. In “Meal Ticket,” the darkest tale of the bunch, Liam Neeson travels around with a limbless actor who ekes out a frontier living giving dramatic recitations.

Most of the stories were written by the Coens, but two are based on other works. “All Gold Canyon,” in which Tom Waits plays a prospector in a pristine, wild canyon, is based on a Jack London story. “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” easily the most beautiful and heartbreaking story of the bunch, is an adaptation of a 1901 short story by Stewart Edward White.

The film wraps up with “The Mortal Remains,” in which a group of travelers packed into a stagecoach share their thoughts on life, love, and death. This segment feels very allegorical, and it's a good way to wrap up the collection.

In literature, a collection of short stories never feels as powerful or epic as your favorite novel, and no one is going to call this the Coen brothers' best film. Nothing here is on the level of “Fargo,” "Raising Arizona," or “Miller's Crossing.” These are great, little vignettes, however, and, since they are unconnected, well-suited to watching a couple of stories at a time, when you don't have time for a full movie. I say ignore the silly movie poster and give it a chance!

4 stars out of 5