Farewell, My Lovely (1975) ****

In the world of hard-boiled, detective fiction, there's Philip Marlowe, and then there's everybody else. Oh sure, some will point to Sam Spade or that Spenser, For Hire guy, but for me, Marlowe is the apotheosis of the hard-drinking, laconic, battered, white-knight detective. He's a tough guy, but not supernaturally tough. He receives more ass-whippings than he deals out, but he always gets back up and gets back on the case.

Most will point to Humphrey Bogart's depiction of Marlowe in “The Big Sleep,” but re-watching that film, I found that it wasn't quite as good as I had remembered it. It's a little too cute, and the chemistry between Bogart and Lauren Bacall is actually distracting. Bogart always seems to be looking for a chance to get in another clever one-liner, while making sure the camera catches his good side. “Farewell, My Lovely” isn't burdened with any of that. Robert Mitchum's Marlowe is just a tough-guy who likes his whiskey and likes to make an honest buck.

We find Marlowe feeling, for the first time, “tired, and realizing I was growing old. Maybe it was the rotten weather we'd had in L.A. Maybe the rotten cases I'd had. Mostly chasing a few missing husbands and then chasing their wives once I found them, in order to get paid. Or maybe it was just the plain fact that I am tired and growing old.” We follow Marlowe on one of those rotten cases, returning a runaway teen to her rich, arrogant parents. On that case, Marlowe meets his next client, a giant of a man, named Moose Malloy (Jack O'Halloran). Fresh out of prison for bank robbery, Moose wants Marlowe to find his old girlfriend, Velma, with nothing more to go on than her name and the club where she used to dance. The club is now a black club, where no one knows anything about a white girl from seven years ago, but don't think that will stop Marlowe. He follows the cold trail through the seedy underbelly of L.A., meeting washed-up showgirls, madames, gangsters, and a rich judge's young wife (Charlotte Rampling), suffering more concussions along the way than an NFL linebacker.

It has to be said that Robert Mitchum was a bit on the old side for the role. It's especially off-putting to see him at an old-looking 58 flirting with the 29-year-old Charlotte Rampling. Fortunately, Mitchum is so good that he makes up for the age issue. He nails the two essential Marlowe characteristics. First, Marlowe is as world-weary as they come. From his time as a cop to his years as a private eye, he's seen more corruption than anyone should. Marlowe has no illusions about humanity. Despite all that, the second Marlowe trait is his old-fashioned sense of decency. Marlowe lives hand to mouth because he won't cheat a client, he won't take a bribe, and he won't do something that he knows is inherently wrong. He lives in a dirty world, but he refuses to let it make him filthy.

Bogart's “The Big Sleep” Marlowe is clearly the most famous, but for my money, the best Phillip Marlowe is a tie between Robert Mitchum in this film and Elliot Gould's Marlowe from "The Long Goodbye." It's an apples to oranges comparison, because, while the films were only released a couple of years apart, “Farewell, My Lovely” is a classic noir set in the 1940s, while “The Long Goodbye” drags the old-fashioned detective into the swinging 1970s. How to decide between the two? Just watch them both!

4 stars out of 5

Fast Five (2011) **

I have written before that the original "The Fast and the Furious" movie is not completely without charm. Still, I had no interest in seeking out any of the many sequels in this franchise. I read, however, that “Fast Five” is considered the best of the bunch, so I decided to give it a try.

The good thing about action movies with such meaningless plots is that it's easy to jump into the middle of a franchise. In this case, if you have seen the first movie, you can easily skip ahead to this, the fifth without missing a nuance, because, of all the things this franchise has – guns, fights, explosions, cars jumping over things – nuance is one thing it doesn't have. In “Fast Five,” you quickly figure out that Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) has left the FBI and become a criminal fugitive to be with Mia (Jordana Brewster) and her hulking brother, Dom (Vin Diesel). It's also apparent that, at some point, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Dom's girlfriend from the first movie, has died.

Things pick up in Brazil, where the crew is hiding out. Their friend Vince (Matt Schulze) has put together a heist so they can score enough cash to get new identities and disappear. The heist goes wrong, of course, leaving our anti-heroes on the run from both the law and a powerful cartel boss. A couple of American DEA agents are killed in the heist, so the U.S. responds by sending over a crack team of FBI agents led by agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson). Brian and Dom, meanwhile, assemble a cast of hard-driving crooks from the previous movies to help them rip off the cartel guy.

That's way more than you need to know. Plot is of such little importance to these movies as to make it ridiculous to try to summarize the story. These movies are about buff guys flexing their arms, hot babes leaning over, and fast cars drifting around corners. “Fast Five” has all of these in spades. As for what makes this one better than any of the other sequels, I'm at a loss. Maybe the arms are bigger (see Dwayne Johnson) or the babes are hotter (see Gal Godot). The cars couldn't really get any faster.

2 stars out of 5

Yesterday (2019) ***

Struggling musician Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) wakes up from a bike accident to find himself the only person in the world who remembers The Beatles. The next move is obvious: Jack starts performing all the Beatles songs he knows, pretending they are his own. It's slow going at first. People aren't really primed to receive these songs from an unknown, British-Indian guy, but the genius of the music eventually leads Jack to a superstardom that he isn't sure he wants.

It's a brilliant premise, and all director Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire” “Trainspotting”) and his cast have to do is let the story tell itself. They do it quite well. Himesh Patel, a newcomer to film, is excellent. Lily James, as Jack's manager and love interest, is charming as can be. Ed Sheeran capably plays a version of himself, providing some great comedy when he suggests Jack change the name of one song to “Hey, Dude.”

I enjoyed “Yesterday” immensely while watching it. Reflecting on it a few days later, I would have to say that the story is fairly thin. Nothing wrong with it, but once you accept the underlying premise, it's just a typical, sweet, romantic comedy. What really stands out about the film is, unsurprisingly, the music. (It should. They paid $10 million, almost half the film's budget, for the rights to these Beatles songs.) Hearing the songs presented in this new context, as if they were just written, really highlights how amazing they are. Seeing characters' faces as they hear, for the first time, “Yesterday” or “The Long and Winding Road” takes me back to when I first heard them.

Otherwise, the best thing about “Yesterday” is the clever premise, that Jack suddenly finds himself in a world where the Beatles never existed. It turns out, though, there's some controversy about how original the idea is. It's based on an original screenplay by Jack Barth, written in 2012 and originally titled “Cover Version.” However, a guy named David Blott released a graphic novel in 2011, also titled “Yesterday,” about a guy who gets sent back in time to the pre-Beatles 1960's and becomes a pop star by recording Beatles songs. The internet also points out other projects with similar themes, including the 2013 novel Enormity, a science fiction series called “Otherworld,” and the BBC series “Goodnight Sweetheart.”

Does any of that make a difference? A little bit, for me. I was giving the filmmakers a lot of credit for the idea, and beyond that, what we have here is a pretty straightforward rom-com, a bit on the sentimental side. “Yesterday” is still a fun time, and a nice love-letter to some great music.

3 stars out of 5

Sleepaway Camp (1983) ** or ****

I've watched some really excellent horror movies the last few years. “Sleepaway Camp” is not one of those. The movie is weird, cheesy, low-budget, nonsensical, and did I mention weird? Perfect material for a cult classic.

The story starts on a lake in upstate New York. A dad and his 2 kids flip their sailboat, and as they bob in the water, a distracted counselor from the camp across the lake runs them over, killing the dad and one of the kids.

Skip ahead a few years, and the surviving kid, Angela (Felissa Rose), is now living with her weirdo aunt. Angela and her cousin, Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten), are heading off to spend the summer at that same camp across the lake. Ricky is an athletic, well-liked kid, and he tries to watch out for his quiet, withdrawn cousin. Angela still gets bullied by other campers, including the camp vixen, Judy (Karen Fields), as well as one of her counselors, Meg (Katherine Kamhi). There's also a creepy camp chef who tries to molest Angela.

What happens to all these malefactors who transgress against Angela? It's no spoiler to tell you that, one-by-one, they die in various, horrendous ways. The scenes are so foreshadowed, and the acting so bad, that none of it is really scary, but I will say that there are some good, low-budget, makeup effects in this movie. Somebody in that department really gave it their all. Otherwise, the movie is a hot mess, but just weird enough to be watchable. Plenty of things in this movie make no sense at all, like why Meg, who looks about 18, would be romantically interested in the 70-something camp owner, or why the camp chef would be able to openly leer at the young campers in front of his co-workers. The movie also spends about 10 minutes on a campers-counselors baseball game that winds up having nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the story. Fortunately, Jonathan Tiersten is actually a halfway decent actor. Karen Fields and Katherine Kamhi aren't winning any Oscars, but they chew up the scenery and clearly enjoy their villain roles. Felissa Rose doesn't really do any acting as Angela, she just gives this blank, wide-eyed stare to everyone. That stare is actually the third scariest thing in the whole movie.

In any slasher movie, there are two big questions: “Who will die next?” and “When are we gonna see some more titties?” “Sleepaway Camp” differs from the rest, in that the answer to the 2^nd question is, never. In this movie, the girls keep their 1-piece bathing suits on, while the guys strip down. When they aren't showing off their bare asses, the dudes wear little short shorts and cropped, mesh shirts that would be at home in an '80s Pride parade. Oh, did I mention there's a scene with two men in bed together? As queer cinema goes, “Sleepaway Camp” is even gayer than “Top Gun”.

Oh, what are the scariest and second scariest things in the movie, you ask? The second scariest is Angela's bizarrely-perky aunt. I don't have words to describe how strange she is, but she made my skin crawl. As for the scariest thing, I'm not gonna tell you. “Sleepaway Camp” has one big twist, and I won't ruin it for you. As schlocky as it is, if you're into this sort of cult classic, this is one you should probably see.

2 stars out of 5, but on a cult classic scale, 4 out of 5

Blow-Up (1966), The Conversation (1974), Blow Out (1981) ***

1966's “Blow-Up” is not named after an inflatable lover, although if you search for this movie on the internet, you may come up with some material on that subject. It's the first english-language film by Italian director Michaelangelo Antonioni, known for films like "La Notte." His signature is having his characters roam a city, going from one mad party or bizarre nightclub to another. “Blow-Up” is about a fashion photographer who discovers a possible murder in one of his pictures. There's an amazing sequence in which he uses his home photo lab to make progressively larger prints of the pictures. The images get really grainy, and while we can finally see what he is seeing, the image is too spotty for him to feel he can simply call the police. He heads out to wander the city, Antonioni-style, in an attempt to solve the alleged crime.

Besides probably being Antonioni's best film, “Blow-Up” is known for its dynamic, jazz soundtrack, its scantily-clad models, and its racy sexual content, including a brief full-frontal shot of Jane Birkin's bush. The image is incredibly fleeting, but it was an affront to the Hollywood Production Code, and may have helped lead to the end of the Code in favor of our current MPAA ratings system.

Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 picture “The Conversation,” is not a direct copy of “Blow-Up,” but the similarities are striking. Gene Hackman plays a socially-isolated security expert who specializes in recording sound. He is able to bug conversations under the most challenging circumstances. While cutting together the sound from a recent job, he becomes convinced that his targets are going to be killed.

I just recently saw these two films, but I immediately recognized the theme of a perfectionist, isolated, technical artist who is so absorbed in his work that he discovers the clues to a murder. Years ago, I saw a Brian De Palma movie that clearly was inspired by these films. 1981's “Blow Out” stars John Travolta as a sound professional who is out collecting samples for movies when he captures the sound of a fatal car accident. As he analyzes the recording, he begins to suspect that it wasn't an accident, after all. Little did I know that the film was just the latest remake of a story from the 60's. 

Naturally, I had to re-watch “Blow Out,” and I found that it is the most conventional film of the three. “Blow-Up” and “The Conversation” are both rather artsy and ambiguous. “Blow-Out” is more of a traditional whodunit, and not a particularly well-written one. The movie's charm largely depends on its lead, John Travolta, who fortunately has charm to spare. Despite some pretty ridiculous plot points, the movie is fun, and it manages a pretty edgy ending.

Of the three films, I would say “Blow Out” is the weakest, but also the most fun. Nancy Allen plays a dumb blonde really well (maybe too well), and Travolta is in his prime. “The Conversation” is a bit slow, but Gene Hackman plays it well, and it's a decent noir. “Blow-Up” is New Wave artsy, a bit confounding, and the closest to a classic of the bunch. Watching all three films is a fun, little film festival you can do at home. It's like a jazz record, with each movie a different instrument coming in to do its own variation on the theme.

3 stars out of 5 for each film

The Cabin in the Woods (2012) *****

What happens when you bring Joss Whedon (“Firefly”) and Drew Goddard ("Cloverfield") together? Same thing that happens when you play a tape recording of an old, Sumerian incantation (see “The Evil Dead”). You get something scary, funny, and absolutely amazing. Goddard is mainly known as a writer, with credits including the excellent monster flick “Cloverfield” and the outstanding "Bad Times at the El Royale." He knew Joss Whedon from writing episodes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Whedon, of course, needs no introduction. The two joined up to write what they hoped would be both a celebration and a critique of the horror genre.

I've been debating how much to say about the plot, without ruining the zany surprises. Basically, five friends head out to, you guessed it, a cabin in the woods, for a fun weekend. It doesn't turn out to be much fun. Let's just say they unleash horrible forces that will be familiar to horror fans. Meanwhile, one of the friends, despite constantly smoking weed, starts to realize that outside forces are influencing events.

And that's all I'll say. The surprises in this film are too delicious to ruin with anything as quotidian as a plot summary. From the very first scene, this movie will have you scratching your head, and it's best to go in knowing as little as possible. Even as confused as I was in the early scenes, it quickly became apparent that Cabin is way more intelligent than the standard horror film.

For horror fans, half the fun will be picking up on all the classic horror films referenced in the movie. The story most closely resembles Sam Raimi's 1981 classic “The Evil Dead,” but Cabin is littered with Easter Eggs from other films.

For non-horror fans who can deal with the gore in this movie, the payoff is a wickedly-funny critique of the horror genre and the audiences who lap it up. Cabin owes a debt in that regard to "Scream," another horror-comedy that deconstructs horror tropes. The background story of Cabin, however, is quite original. It invites us to examine ourselves to understand why horror films always seem to feature certain themes. Sex and nudity, of course, never go out of style. As one character laments, “Your basic, human needs disgust me!” A bigger question, though, is why we get so much satisfaction from watching young people suffer and die. As Drew Goddard opined in an interview, "Why do we feel this need to marginalize youth on screen? Why do we feel this need to idealize youth, and then slaughter them?" Another question is, why do so many horror films make a point of featuring a “Whore” and a “Virgin?” The Whore is a sexually-active, young woman, who usually is the first to die. The Virgin has to suffer tremendous horrors, but because she doesn't have sex, she may survive them. What's the lesson there? What underlying cultural values does that speak to?

Our art teaches us, and it also reflects us. Art can open our eyes, make us think, and teach us empathy. When it gets lazy, however, art may simply allow us to wallow in age-old prejudices and screwed-up double standards that we don't even realize we have. This is why art criticism is as important as art itself. “The Cabin in the Woods” works as both art and criticism, which is why it's a modern classic.

5 stars out of 5

Booksmart (2019) ***

In Olivia Wilde's directing debut, Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein play high-achieving BFFs on the last day of school. Having spent their school years buckled down, working hard, and notching academic achievements, they are smug in the knowledge that their hard work will put them miles ahead of their jock/stoner classmates in the game of life. They are stunned to discover that many of those slackers are also getting into Ivy League schools. Feeling like they may have done high school all wrong, the friends have a wild night trying to get to a graduation party that they view as their last chance to party. The adventure opens them up to new experiences, while testing their friendship.

If you feel like this sounds a lot like the 2007 movie "Superbad," you aren't alone. In interviews, Olivia Wilde has made known her displeasure at the frequent comparisons, blaming them on gender bias. The problem is, “Booksmart” pretty much IS a female version of “Superbad.” You would have to be blind to miss the similarities, and to top it off, Beanie Feldstein is actually the sister of “Superbad” star Jonah Hill. After watching “Booksmart,” I actually assumed that Wilde had intentionally done an adaptation of “Superbad,” so I was nonplussed to find her bitching and moaning about critics making the comparison.

The biggest difference between the two movies is that “Superbad” has an infinitely better supporting cast. Jonah Hill and Michael Cera get huge assists from Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Fogell), Seth Rogen, Bill Hader, Emma Stone, and Joe Lo Truglio, and even the actors with small parts knock it out of the park. (Remember the liquor store clerk, or the crazy fight guys at that one party?) “Booksmart” has an undistinguished supporting cast, and has to rely entirely on the charms of Dever and Feldstein.

So, “Booksmart” is pretty much a low-rent, female version of “Superbad.” I feel that justice demands making this completely clear, what with Olivia Wilde out there whining about gender bias. Is it any good? Fortunately, yes! Dever and Feldstein are hilarious together, and the movie is a fun, raunchy comedy. It's not a classic like “Superbad,” but you could do a lot worse. I suggest you take a break from studying, and check it out!

3 stars out of 5

Judy (2019) ***

If you're a heterosexual male like myself, you probably haven't spent much time thinking about Judy Garland. I knew that she starred in “The Wizard of Oz” and later gave birth to Liza Minnelli, and that she had problems with drugs. She was a big deal, once upon a time, though. She was also a Hollywood cautionary tale. As a child actress, she was started on drugs to sleep and drugs to stay thin, and the chemical habit stuck with her, ultimately leading to an early death at age 47.

The film “Judy” focuses on the last few years of Garland's life, with a few flashbacks to lend context. The film picks up with Garland struggling to revive her waning career and make enough money to live. She winds up taking an offer to do a prolonged singing engagement in London, where she is still loved, especially by the gay community. She also meets and marries her fifth and final husband, Mickey Deans, who tries to save her from herself. Unfortunately, Garland's self-destructive tendencies win out in the end.

Renee Zellweger plays Garland beautifully. If you pull up youtube videos of Garland's performances and interviews, even the drunk interviews, when her health was failing, her spirit really shines through. Even when she was a complete mess, she was classy, funny, and charming, and “Judy” captures that. Renee Zellweger has always looked a little like she is smiling through pain, so she was perfect casting for this role, even though she doesn't strictly look a lot like Judy Garland.

Rather than taking on Garlands's entire life and career, “Judy” focuses in on her final year. This focus lends it a much greater intimacy than a big biopic could have, and the film is poignant and absorbing. The film's strength, however, is also its weakness. Representing such a small piece of the life of an entertainer from before my time, “Judy” ends up being, for me, rather forgettable. Zellweger is rightfully nominated for an Oscar for the role, but by the time the Oscars roll around, I wonder how many people will be wondering why she is there.

3 stars out of 5

Midsommar (2019) ****

It would once have been odd that one of the best films of the year is a horror film, but we are living in a new Golden Age of horror, with movies like "Get Out," "Green Room," and "It Follows" exploring our darkest fears with great stories and great acting. I wasn't so sure about watching the latest from "Hereditary" writer/director Ari Aster. “Hereditary” was ably-directed, and plenty scary, but in the end I found the story didn't justify the gross-out scenes. Fortunately, for “Midsommar,” Aster has learned to scare the audience with what is implied, with just the occasional gore sprinkled in to remind us how fragile we are.

Florence Pugh plays Dani, whose emotionally-distant boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor), is considering breaking up with her. That gets put on hold when Dani is struck by a family tragedy, and Christian winds up begrudgingly inviting her to come along with him and his grad-school buds on a summer trip to Sweden. The trip is ostensibly to witness a mid-summer ritual at an obscure commune, and another classmate, Josh, is planning to write about the event for his anthropology thesis. Really, though, the plan was to do drugs and hook up with Swedish girls, and Dani is clearly the 5^th wheel on this trip.

The commune is an interesting place, to say the least. The people, dressed all in white in honor of midsummer, call themselves the Harga, and they greet the visitors with hallucinogenic mushrooms. They are clearly an insular group, but they generously welcome Dani, Christian, and friends to share in their celebration. Dani, however, becomes increasingly unsettled by the Harga, and sleeps poorly in the almost constant daylight of Sweden's summer. It's not much of a spoiler to reveal that the Harga are a pagan cult, and they have ulterior motives in welcoming outsiders to their isolated community. Even if you didn't see the trailer, you get quite a bit of foreshadowing from the various artworks that appear throughout the film. The foreshadowing starts on the walls of Dani's apartment back home, and continues in the painting and needlepoint art at the Harga commune.

“Midsommar” is, at heart, a story about a relationship, and Aster actually wrote it in the wake of a painful break-up. I initially had some sympathy for Christian. At the beginning, I got the impression that he and Dani had only been dating a short time, and she WAS carrying a lot of emotional baggage. Then we learn that they have actually been together four years, at which point it is pretty messed up that Christian would forget Dani's birthday, let alone that she would hesitate to ask him to share her grief. Christian is the worst kind of lover, unwilling to invest emotionally, but too chicken to break up and move on. “Midsommar” is about Dani's alone-ness as she works through her grief and tries to rebuild her life and her self. Ultimately, Christian is another piece of baggage that Dani has to shed in order to heal and be free.

Florence Pugh is outstanding here. Dani is a character who has given up on herself, wearing baggy clothes and clearly not caring much how she looks. When she isn't wracked by grief, however, her natural beauty shines through. The actress is having quite a year. In addition to “Midsommar,” she is in “Little Women” and the upcoming “Black Widow.” In one year, she has done a culty, horror film; artsy, award-bait; and a big-paycheck, superhero movie. This girl's talent agent is psyched!

The big innovation in “Midsommar” is the trick of creating horror in broad daylight. The majority of horror films make use of darkness, as we fear what we cannot see. In the Harga commune, everything is brightly-lit, and if we and the characters don't see something, it's because we are looking away. The Harga make no attempt to hide the horrors there, and don't even view them as horrors. In the Swedish summer, the daylight never fully recedes, but there is still plenty to fear in “Midsommar.”

4 stars out of 5

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) **1/2

In my mind, there's no worse review you can give a movie than to say it's “alright.” Damning with faint praise is no fun; I'd much rather pan a movie or celebrate it. Sometimes, though, a movie is adequate to its task, and no more, and that's how I felt about “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.”

James Franco plays scientist Will Rodman. Will has developed a gene therapy for Alzheimer's. Introduced into a chimpanzee's brain using a virus, the gene makes them smarter. Unfortunately, one of the female chimps becomes inexplicably aggressive, and the project is scrapped. After all the chimps have been put down, the reason for the female's aggression become clear – she was hiding a baby in her cage. Will takes the baby home, names him Caesar, and raises him into a remarkably smart ape, one who we know is destined to lead a planet of apes.

It's a good-enough origin story, dragged down by lazy writing. James Franco does the best he can with the material, and Freida Pinto, as a veterinarian and love-interest, at least looks really good. John Lithgow chews some scenery as Will's father, who has Alzheimer's. (You didn't think they would have Will study Alzheimer's without having a completely obvious, personal motivation, did you?) The mustache-twirling villains are paper thin, doing whatever ridiculous action is required to advance the plot.

The brightest spot in the film is actor Andy Serkis, who did the physical acting and facial expressions on which the CGI character of Caesar was built. Serkis, who played Gollum in “Lord of the Rings,” owns this niche, and he's in top form here. With body language and facial expressions, he gives Caesar more subtlety and depth than all the human characters in this film, combined. If you have nothing better to do, it's worth watching the film just for him. Still, I can't help thinking that an infinite number of apes, typing on an infinite number of keyboards, could, given some time, write a better movie than this.

2.5 stars out of 5