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