I didn’t know I was a Sally Field fan until this movie. I knew who she was, of course, watched her in movies and tv shows, but didn’t really care one way or another. But in this random indie she positively shines. It seems like the character was tailor made for her (or maybe that’s a telltale sign of a good actor), just a happy meeting of a perfect role and a perfect talent.
So…meet Doris. A shy, quirky lady of a certain great many years, most of which were spent working a mindless data entry job and taking care of her mother. Now her mother is dead and Doris’ newfound freedom and a fortuitously timed life improvement seminar inspires her to live out loud some, go for what she wants. And what she wants is John, a new coworker, a much, much younger coworker, played by an indeed very lovable Max Greenfield of The New Girl fame. Doris and John do actually strike a connection through shared love of electronic music (watch Sally Field dance, it’s awesome). But of course it’s fraught with misunderstandings, most interactions are, even the ones where people aren’t as different as these two. The clever thing about this production is that it’s ever so nicely spoofs the millennials and its obsession with quirk, which is in their cases mostly contrived and in Doris’ case absolutely genuine, and so in a strange way she fits right in. Whether she belongs there or not is, of course, another story. But what a charming story it is. It’s difficult to strike that right balance in a what is essentially a romcom but this one worked really well, it was lovely and genuinely funny. Realistic but not depressingly so, hyperbolic but not ridiculously so. Just right. And sure, it helps to have a well written script to go off and a really excellent cast of supporting actors who all seem to be having a blast, but the main attraction here is Doris, realized to perfection by Sally Field. And did you know how old Sally Field is? She’s 74 now and must have been 69 or so at the time and she looks freaking great. And natural. Sure, the hair has got to be dyed, but otherwise what an impressively good job she’s done aging, all grace, no plastic. There’s a surprisingly young energy to her that plays really well here. Doris has missed out on so much of her life, so she didn’t get a chance to properly mature and now she’s a sort of grown kid or a not entirely mature adult. This is, in a way, her coming of age story, however belated. So yeah, Doris, a lady well worth meeting in this absolute charmer of a movie.
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Woohoo. I did it. All 242 minutes of it. For no apparent reason outside of being a completist by nature, it seems, but it’s done, I’ve sat through the entire director’s edition of Justice League. It only took two evenings. I was ready for three. Mind you, I actually went into it originally expecting a new movie and then almost immediately realizing the mistake, settled in for it anyway. The entire enterprise of these DC movies has been a mess for me, owning in no small way to these director’s cuts. So I’ve watched them out of order at first reluctantly, but in the end they did win me over.
Mind you, I’m not a traditional superhero movie person, not really, I like them darker and twistier, more like The Boys. And I do believe this reiteration to be really miscast and yes I am talking about the distractingly hirsute Superman and the sheer Affleckness of the Batman. Wonder Woman, you are perfect. Perfect. And Aquaman you are unconventionally perfect. Never change. And the rest doesn’t seem very significant. But altogether these movies are fun, just fun, so much pure unadulterated fun. And I did find myself enjoying them more and more, especially the WW ones. And I always thought there were plenty long enough, but apparently Zach Snyder didn’t share that opinion and since in the end it is his opinion that matters, behold…this behemoth. Is it indulgent? Yes, of course, any production this long would be. But it’s surprisingly compelling and does in fact add new dimensions and layers to the original and so as such it is by definition a success. Despite a horrendous soundtrack. Seriously, wtf was that? Normally I don’t even really pay much attention to that sort of thing, but this was almost distractingly offputting (like Superman’s sweaty hairy manboobs) with some really crappy songs, a bizarre wordless wail every single time (Every. Single. Time.) Wonder Woman appears on screen, often in slow motion and a technically impressive but otherwise soullessly lamentable (and inexplicably contraction free…seriously, why) classic lament that Cohen has created and Buckley has perfected to such a degree that makes lesser attempts just…unnecessary. I’m not the one for watching movies over again and the original was still fresh in my memory and despite all that throughout this entire production I was very entertained. I like backstories, dimensions and layers, this worked for me, almost completely. The cheese was cheesier, the action more boombastic and the plot more elaborate and logistically complex. All good things. And just when you thought it was over…Snyder adds an elaborate dream sequence teaser at the end. Because, of course, there’s always a new adventure in the future and one must have something to look forward to. And I, for one, am excited. So yeah, this was an experiment in patience that paid off. Traditionally I don’t even watch deleted scenes and technically this movie is a version with all deleted scenes in, but it worked. Guess sometimes going on and on and on pays off…or at least that’s what oftentimes I tell myself when it comes to my reviews. Cinema fans looking for a more immersive adventure should enjoy this one. I’m on a quest to watch as many award nominees and winner right now as possible and, of course, Mank was at the top of that list, much as it was at the top of the Academy Award lists. Mind you, it got plenty of Golden Globe nods too, but the more I read about GG the less stock I put in those, so…
First off, this movie is a long, sedately paced, black and white talkie about old timey Tinseltown and its power players. Which is to say it isn’t for everyone. It doesn’t have the universal easy appeal. But then again, it doesn’t need to. Not with the Fincher pedigree. It is in fact a double Fincher pedigree, the script was written by Jack Fincher, David’s late father, who passed away years ago, so it must have taken a minute to make this one. And it’s paid off, the production is absolutely lavish. I’m all for color in movies, but this is gorgeous enough that after a while you forget you ever needed it. The pacing was tougher to get used to, but the script itself is quite excellent, actually, with some terrific lines and several strikingly good monologues, especially…especially the Mank’s court jester one. For those unfamiliar with the plot, the movie chronicles the writing of Citizen Kane as contracted by the wunderkind of the time Orson Welles and done by the booze soaked Mankiewicz (or familiarly the eponymous Mank). Mank exuberantly brought to life by the ever talented Gary Oldman is a portly alcoholic whose internal moral compass is too finely tuned for the business he’s in. Or so it seems. It isn’t that he’s the most moral man in Tinseltown, but he lets his conscience in the driving seat more often than most. It doesn’t play well for him. But then he gets this one chance to prove himself and he writes the best thing he’s ever written…but it’s also a thinly veiled criticism of the powers that be and that’s where the controversy comes in. It’s a compelling drama both in present and flashback times, representing not only the movie industry but its involvement with politics, there’s one great scene in there where they all discuss the current affairs (socialism, rise of the Nazis and more) and it’s such a telling look at the zeitgeist of the time and place. The casting is…well, it’s interesting. Gary Oldman has done so much, from numerous biopics to imaginary characters to legendary vampires, because he can do it all. Frankly, I’ve not yet seen his Winston, but from the screen images it’s easy to get the resemblance owning to some good make up. For some reason here this was deemed unnecessary. Outside of a certain portly build, Oldman looks absolutely nothing like Mank and it seems that no effort has been made in that direction at all. It’s almost as if they just decided to rely on star power and talent alone. Which would have been fine, or at least less noticeable, if not for the rest of the cast…mostly a bunch of talented nobodies and near nobodies who bear striking resemblance to their real life characters. It also stands to mention that during the bulk of the movie Mank is 43 with some flashbacks to his 30s and he is played by the unaltered 63 year old and kinda looking it Oldman. And yes, I know people aged earlier back in the day, especially heavy alcoholics, but still… This is a personal thing, mind you. I believe that biopics should do their best to represent the real life people as accurately as possible. Some do it, some like this movie or First Man, don’t and go with…but look at our star. And Oldman certainly deserves looking at, he’s excellent in it, might even snag another Oscar for it. But still…it distracts. Especially with how young of a wife they cast for him. Anyway, Amanda Seyfried does very well as a Betty Boopesque ingenue who isn’t quite as ditzy as she plays and certainly knows which side her bread’s buttered on. Charles Dance mostly towers and glares, good thing Papa Lannister can glare so expertly, menacingly, patiently, enigmatically…he doesn’t even need many lines. Mank’s gal friday is too insubstantial of an actress still and not just for her gossamer like physical appearance. The rest of the cast is all excellent, no small roles here. And that Orson Welles booming baritone is a perfection. BUt what the mentality behind that casting must have been like…you look right, you look right, you need some make up and you’ll look right and you…well, you’re Gary Oldman. So if you’re in a mood for a good slow drama about a good and drunk man who hoisted himself with his own highly moral/vengeance tinged petard all for one striking win and a slow fade into nothing, look no further. Definitely an Oscar material, at least as much as movies about old (and younger) white men can be in an all white cast in this day and age. Oldman must just collect those, like wives. Anyway, this wraps up the review of a good movie about the making of a great movie. So here’s a movie perfectly tailored to its time. Set and shot during a London lock down, it represents both the claustrophobia and the frustration of the general population through one specific couple. It’s almost right, but zeitgeist seems incomplete…there’s no fear. No one seems to be actually concerned about, you know, all the death. They are mainly just inconvenienced.
Anne’s character has been relegated to working from home and making tough calls, quite literally, from firing a bunch of seemingly ice coworkers to dealing with her Stillerized to perfection boss. Chewitel’s been furloughed from his driving job. They are both stuck inside, albeit in a very nice spacious house with every possible convenience. It might have been cozy, but alas…they are separating as a couple after ten years. Anne’s decision. It seems that her motorcycle riding wild phase is over and as a CEO of an international company she’s no longer all that interested in slumming it with a van driver, albeit a poetry reciting one. So decidedly not cozy in that house, although being stuck while separating creates for some excellent dramatic and comedy and both stars really get to show off their chops, especially Anne, who’s got the best wackiest monologues. She’s actually great here, shifting gears all over the place to create a complicated and not necessarily likeable but fun to watch character and not once does she jump into a song. The always excellent Chewitel never quite sells it all the way for me as a motorcycle rebel with an arrest record, he’s much more of a street poet, there’s just something inherently mild and soft about him, despite the fact that he cuts a very nice (live wild or die motorbike riding desperado) figure in his boxer briefs. Together they make a great team and are an absolute pleasure to watch, their best scenes when it’s just the two of them. Because, frankly, the movie needs nothing more. It’s great at first, in a way a really good play with A list talent can be. But alas, this is a movie, a movie from a major action director (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Bourne, Jumper) so action it gets. A minimal locked down action, but still. It must have been very restricting for Doug Liman, but he managed. After all, he’s had a script written by someone who’s no stranger to action/suspense. Enter the heist. Because what relationship drama can’t be improved by a heist. This is where movie evolves or devolves, depending on your perspective and preferences. I found it to be thoroughly unnecessary and tonally inconsistent, almost like the movie tried to both appease the intellectual audience in it for a relatable quiet(ish) drama and the hoi polloi jonesing for action. Their rationalization behind the theft of a three million dollar diamond is basically…it’s a form of justice. Justice for Anne, who’ll no longer have to pander to the sort of people who buy or sell 3M worth of jewels, justice for Chewitel who has been railroaded by an arrest record and now can’t get a proper job and justice for the system which’ll get a third of a share. Why, it’s practically noble. It just isn’t all that interesting, somehow. And nowhere near as much fun as watching Chewitel stroll their empty street reciting poetry or Anne go on a crazy rant about a life changing experience. It’s still fun, mind you, heists are inherently fun, even the ones where it’s mostly just walking into a locked down store and taking things. The main joke here is that Chewitel has to do it using an ID under the name of Edgar Allan Poe, apparently a wildly recognizable name never more. So is it worth a watch? Yeah, yes, I’d say so. My fiancé proclaimed it…too soon. But who’s to say people are going to want to watch movies about lock down later on when it (one can hope) becomes but a distant nightmare. For now it was entertaining and done cleverly, albeit seemingly recklessly at times. So if you’re willing to roll with all its tonal inconsistencies, this is a movie that does drama, comedy, heist and turns itself around into a romcom all to please and delight its audience. It tries like an ingenue at an audition. When really just the star talent and their chemistry here might have been enough. Something of an overkill, but then again it comes from action. Livelier than you might expect. Also smarter than you might expect. There’s some excellent writing here, that alone is worth the time. Check it out for yourself, this one is for the positive side of the mixed reviews for the movie. The Sinner might very well be one of the best detective shows on a nonprime network. If you watched it on Netflix, it’s easy enough to forget, but this is originally a USA network show, somewhere you normally might find something blandly inane like Suits. The Sinner stands out, there and in general.
Granted it had a good start. In fact, subsequent seasons have not lived up to the excellency of the first one, since the first one drew directly upon a source material of a novel, a foreign novel, no less, meaning a certain thematical darkness and a proper dimensionality to the characters. An award nominated first season featured an award nominated star turn from Jessica Biel, who has subsequently served as an executive producer. But the show cleverly enough didn’t drag out the same story, it was made as an anthology instead. Each season featuring a new story, united in mood, tone and the lead detective Ambrose, played to perfection with the sly squinty reticent charms of the one and only POTUS Whitmore, who has aged very well and now seems primed for a role like this. Season two to be fair was something of a wash. Great cast, great performances, but storyline has proved to be so unmemorable that having watched it and even having attempted to jog memory with an online summary, I can’t possibly tell you what it was about. At the same time I can absolutely and in some detail recollect season one. So there’s that. Season three is a different beast altogether. One that has potential to stick to memory if for no other reason than its assured boldness of doing a show about while male privilege in this fraught day and age. In a positively brazen turn, the season concentrates on Jamie, a man who (seemingly) has it all, a perfect job, family, abode, looks, charm. And yet, apparently, as some sort of midlife crisis, finds his life lacking excitement and meaning and goes to some terrifying lengths to find it. This includes rekindling an old connection with a college buddy, played to a creepy perfection by the always great Chris Messina. In college the two went too far in their adolescent admiration of Nietzsche, something most adults grow out of. But since midlife crises are, by nature, a form of regression, Jamie craves that specific brand of madness. And so like a top he starts spinning out of control and it’s up to the weary and limping but still at it Ambrose to arrest that motion and/or that man. Jamie is played by an actor I normally wouldn’t buy in a role like this for the sheer reason of being too freaking pretty, but here somehow he made it work, utilizing his ridiculously good looks as just one more aspect of a charmed life that no longer seems to hold any charm. I am not familiar with whoever played the wife and didn’t especially care for her, she didn’t have much to do besides doing a form of increased incredulity. But Ambrose (you go, you sexy GILF, you) does get a very compelling love interest in a local artist who seems as drawn to abyss gazing as he is. The interesting thing here is that it isn’t really a mystery show, it’s more of a dark psychological crime drama, it’s about pinning the characters against them and playing it up for all it’s worth. And on that note, the ending is an absolute doozy, who knew Ambrose would go there. Whew. Abyss gazes back indeed. So is it relevant in the hyperwoke era of MeToo, radical feminism and general demonization of conventional/toxic masculinity to watch a show about two middle class white men battling their demons and each other? Yes, very much so, not to mention it’s positively refreshing. Plus the story goes outside of gender confines to encompass that certain something that’s almost but not quite a nostalgia for youth, the time of heightened emotions and emotional extremes. It deals with the inability to accept the life going on after the Melencampian thrill of living might be gone. The craving of excitement that gets so thoroughly washed out by maturity. It’s about testing boundaries, self and societally imposed, about looking for morality and higher power and meaning and hitting the walls of one’s existence in the most tragic, hubristic, desperate ways. It’s a test for both Jamie and Ambrose. Or what they’ll do, how far they’ll go. Granted most would just get a young mistress or a sports car, but what sort of a show would that make. So yeah, The Sinner is good, well done, well acted, aptly named and well worth a watch. It’s the closest US tv will probably ever come to Scandinavian Noir. And it has been renewed for season four. Something to look forward to. What if you took a bunch of morally questionable psychologically traumatized individuals, threw them into a Louisiana swamp and set the entire mess to boil? Well, you might get Tell Me Your Secrets out of it. A TV show that is as good as the best of the mystery thrillers out there. Albeit not perfect and more on this later.
But first, let's give some credit where credit's due. It takes a lot of ingredients to cook up a good mystery, many people get some or most of it right and that's why there are so many mediocre ones out there. But TMYS gets almost every single thing right. The mystery here is very mysterious indeed, aided by an unreliable narrator, a woman who literally can't remember some of her life and people desperately hungry for that very same biographical information. The suspense is expertly maintained throughout, stretched over time and space and place and different, separate, but increasingly interconnected, characters. The mystery actually builds upon itself as it unravels. It's so good, it draws you in and refuses to let go, like a proper Louisiana swamp, and though there might be crocs or other killers around, you're in it to stay. But those are all the things you might say about a book version of TMYS and this is a different medium altogether. And the visual aspect of it is just as good as the plot. All three leads shine. And I mean, shine. The always talented and frequently sidelined (The Undoing, anyone, what a thankless role) Broccoli/Lily Rabe finally gets to be a leading lady and what a formidable one she turns out to be. And not just because she gets strikingly ripped for this role and when I say strikingly, the opening shot of her has her sporting 300 style abs. And the rest of her body is built, muscled and sculpted in a way you normally find in professional female athletes. It's almost an overkill for the role, but then again understandable for a woman who no longer wishes to be a victim. Because victim is how Rabe's character starts out, her life thrown off track by the love for the wrong man. Just how wrong? Well, serial killer wrong, brutal slayer of nine women. She gets convicted alongside for...something, but not much of something apparently due to her memory thing and next thing you know it's four years later and somehow she is out on parole and in witness protection, in a new place, under a new name, Emma, and under a claustrophobic care of a mysteriously motivated psychologist. Emma's got strict rules to follow and a narrow road to walk to freedom, but life just gets in a way. All the sh*tty aspects of it. And there's plenty of those to be found in the creepy backwoods, no, strike that, backwaters of a small Louisiana town. Meanwhile, there's Mary. A wealthy Texan who believes her daughter, Theresa, was one of Emma's former bf's victims. Mary operates an organization for crime victims and helps others, but is helpless when it comes to her own life. Theresa disappeared seven years ago and Mary's been slowly unraveling since, just awaiting a catalyst. Which arrives in a tall lanky form of John Tyler, a convicted rapist, who has since reformed himself through mantras and affirmations and now wishes to contribute to society by helping women avoid men like him. Mary ropes him into helping her track down Emma, convinced Emma knows her daughter's fate and that lights a fuse under the entire situation. There's a very good chance all the actors here just waited for TMYS to come along to unleash their talents. Amy Brenneman's Mary is positively magnetic in her grief and desperation as a woman who finds herself steadily and dramatically tipping over to the dark side. And Linklater's Tyler is a creep for the ages. You can practically observe his surface charisma slide in and out of place as his circumstances continue to defeat the precarious equilibrium he has so laboriously created for himself. John Tyler fights his darkest urges on daily basis and emerges on the winning side less and less as the show progresses, until he gives up altogether and just unleashes himself. Linklater is positively magnetic in the role. And it's crazy to think that Lnklater and Rabe are actually a real life longtime couple, it kind of creates a different perspective to some of the crazy scenes they have together. Anyway, that's the basic plot outline. There's much more to it, but it'd take ages to go into it all. Suffice it to say, there are many fascinating side characters with many fascinating (and often evil) motivations of their own. Suffice it to say, it all works and oh so well. For nine episodes, Out of ten. So please quit reading this review if you've not yet watched the show. Go watch the show. Then, maybe come back. Still here? Ok, let's talk about the final episode. First off, I was really hoping this was a miniseries, it would work so well as a miniseries, one mystery told in ten episodes and done. But no, that just isn't where the money's at, so the show got dragged out. But the thing is, until the final episode and even midway through it, it was so easily wrappedupable as a self contained unit. You can always tell the exact moment the decision was made to stretch it out and to do so some critical decisions were made. First and foremost, a lot of perfectly excellent internal logic got abandoned (why are they people watching the toddler never watch the news? why not report a deadly assault by a convicted rapist? ). Secondly, it was established that none of the characters apparently can die, not a one, no matter how grievously injured they might be. They just get up like Terminators and continue on. Thirdly, where'd Emma get an RV and why an RV? Not exactly a stealthy killerhunting vehicle. And Mary? Mary? What are you doing? This is all the more striking, because the show was otherwise so freaking good. And then it was like this very calculated...let's unravel as much as we can and leave as many things uncertain as possible and they'll have to renew for season two. And they probably will renew. And most likely I'll watch, because the acting alone is just so very good. Plus you gotta love a show that so comfortably rests its weary bones upon such spectacularly messed up individuals. I'll say one more thing, the only thing that threw me about casting and didn't ring quite right...and this is in no way should negate how much I enjoyed Rabe's performance and how good of a job she did. But...her character should have been younger. Rabe's 38 and looks more or less like a well maintained and awesomely fit woman in mid 30s. She doesn't have that celebrity thing where she permanently looks ten years younger or, like her Undoing costar Kidman, doesn't age at all. Which would make her character something like 30 when she meets and loves her serial killer and that seems off somehow for both him and her. For him, because he has obviously shown predilection for younger women. For her, because this sort of mad romance usually works for young people, maybe early 20s or so. (You know, like Theresa. Theresa and Kit, that's reasonable). Before the world weariness and reason, before life beats that out, etc. So maybe Rabe's playing someone much younger or maybe she's just written that way, but it does seem somewhat logically inconsistent and it stood out for me. Then again, maybe I just don't know enough about amour fou for serial killers. At any rate, this was 9.5 out of 10 episodes of mystery excellence. And 10 out of 10 on a dramatic scale for this terrific meditation on how much we don't know about people we love. With star making career high level performances by a very talented cast. No go...learn their secrets. |
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