'Widows,' yes! 'Shoplifters,' no

Credit: AOI Promotion Fuji Television Network  GAGA

Shoplifters is one repetitive scene after another.  They eat, a woman cooks, they eat some more, somebody cooks.  Repeat.  Repeat again. Family members teach the children how to shoplift for food. The adults work at part-time jobs, get laid off.  Finally, close to the end, the script and scenes change in quick metamorphosis, but shoplifting continues with the revelation that stealing includes all kinds of nourishment.


This is another of those films the critics love (and give it a 99% score at Rotten Tomatoes: audience rating:  90%). It is about the underclass in Japan which may explain the high rating. Save your money and your time.  It lacks depth, versatility, and plot. Not much here.  It's no wonder the birth rate in Japan is low.

Viola Davis, left, and Cynthia Erivo take'em on in Widows, a Steve McQueen film


Widows on the other hand is zowee action from the get-go!  (Attention: Tina and Matt:  You will definitely not like Shoplifters, but I'll wager that Widows will keep your attention.) It's a great story with terrific acting, including the knockout (!) performance by Cynthia Erivo.  (Viola Davis and Liam Neeson ain't too bad either, and could Elizabeth Debicki really be that tall?  I kept thinking that, maybe, she was standing on stilts or something, but I checked the Internet, which is always right, and she is 6' 2" or 6'3"! [Two answers.]  Yowsers! Did she play basketball in Australia?  I have derailed.) 
  
I don't have to describe the plot, right?  Four women who are widowed take it upon themselves to learn the craft and practice what their husbands practiced.  

It's not a "chick flick," as might be expected, but men will like it, too, with the blood, gore, sex (natch), obligatory breasts, bad words, and a hot spot plot. 

Dear Mr. McQueen (the director and co-writer with Gillian Flynn):  You've got a winner. Congrats!  (Critics:  90%; audience, 63%.  The audience doesn't always get it right.)

That's entertainment!

 
patricialesli@gmail.com

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Double fault movie: 'John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection'

 
From John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection/Oscilloscope Laboratories

Dear Tennis Fans,

That this movie earned a 100% audience rating and 88%  critics rating at Rotten Tomatoes is shocking, but given the now-that-I-think-of-it expected audience, maybe not so surprising.

But, hey!  I was a member of the so-called expected audience and for me, John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection is an error, a dud.  It is awful.

Half of the film is devoted to McEnroe's temper tantrums, although none of his in this film, quite matches that of Serena Williams last weekend at the U.S. Open.


The French documentary is not about his life, his upbringing, training, or great matches.  It's not about his motivators or methodology which we, the underperforming (or non-performing) can hope to adapt in some manner or another.  

It's not an update on what he's doing in life now besides working as a sports commentator.  What's it all about, Johnny?

It's a single year of his tennis life, 1984, when he played and lost (to Ivan Lendl) at Roland Garros Stadium at the French Open. (McEnroe still gets ill when he has to go to France.)

Despite the loss, this movie star still holds the single year season record, a 96.5% win rate.

The movie has clips from a few great matches with...whom?  Save for the last match, competitors are hidden from view.

I was yearning to see Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, some of the greats McEnroe battled. Instead, I saw lots of McEnroe's shoes, his grimaces, his frowns, his unhappiness, and his towels.  

Oh, and there's the red clay.  (All, about the same shade.) Lots of it to be seen when he points to the lines and argues with officials, never successfully, about what he thinks are errant calls.

Also, there is a surfeit of narration and computer drawings about his serve, his arm positions, his style, his bent knees, in slow motion. A  technical film, for tennis coaches and their students, and that's about all.

In the words of every sub-teen:  b - o - r - i - n - g.

I think I was hoping to see the film, Borg v. McEnroe I've heard about.  Perfection? This ain't it!

I saw it so you don't have to.

Julien Faraut wrote and directed; Mathieu Amalric, narrated.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Movie 'Eighth Grade' is way uncool

 Eighth Grade by Bo Burnham

It's as boring as the first video which is ultra long and is a forerunner of the languor which blankets the film.

I thought this was supposed to be a comedy.  Filmgoers, it ain't.  It's a too realistic picture of what 's happening in eighth grade now, and who needs that?  I went for "fun 'n' games." Not here.

Yawn...

A triple shot of expresso with some androstenedione thrown in would help, and about those long pauses....please.  Can we get some cutting room scissors in here?

Eighth Grade's best (its only?) redeeming quality is the music (by Anna Meredith.  Applause...a woman!). 


Acting by father (Josh Hamilton), daughter (Elsie Fisher) and "Gabe" (Jake Ryan) is commendable, but the script needs work.  No wonder there weren't any preteens or teens or even millennial in the movie house when I went.  Just a bunch of old folks hoping for some laughs.

A few laughs.

Any laughs.

Not...

patricialesli@gmail.com

'Most Boring' Oscar goes to 'Let the Sunshine In'

"Sunshine"? What "sunshine"? The "sunshine" done got let out of this movie, as in, it's always cloudy in these parts.  Or nighttime and dark, dark, dark.

Where did they come up with this misnomer?  I've got a better title: Purposeless Woman Rolls In and Out.  

This is a slow-go, pitiful excuse for a movie with just one single piece of redeeming social value, namely the recording of Etta James' "At Last" sung while the "heroine" (Juliette Binoche) dances solo, soon joined on the dance floor by a nameless buck who looks a lot like Mick Jagger (okay, two pieces of "redeeming social value").


Other than that two-minute splice, this ain't got nuthin' goin' for it. (A double negative which means a positive, but in this case, it's a double negative.)

"Isabelle" rolls in and out of bed with:

1. A married sleezebag who bears a resemblance to Harvey Weinstein. (Come on!)
2. An actor who "has regrets" (sure, bro') since he's breaking up with his wife
3.  I lost count.  I think Mick Jagger was about #7.
4.  Her ex 
5.
6.
7. (Maybe Mick?)
8.
9.
10. zzzzzzzz .....zzzzzzzzzz
ad infinitum

At the end, my pal, Terry, woke up from a two-hour nap just in time to ask: "Where'd the black dude come from?"  Who knows?  I didn't think I fell asleep, too, but maybe I got in some shuteye, because suddenly, on her elbow Isabelle had grown a new beau who wanted to take it "slow."  


Yeah, right. "Slow" like in this excuse for a movie!  This was actually worse than that dreadful cat movie of several years ago, and it has got to be really bad to exceed that one in boringness.

Save your money and your time. This got an 85% critics' rating at Rotten Tomatoes (natch; their rating is why I went!) and the audience gave it a 22%!  The audience always wins which just goes to show you that Rotten Tomatoes has gone rancid on us.

patricialesli@gmail.com

For film archives: 'After Auschwitz'

In a new chapter of the wrenching Holocaust story comes a sad and remarkable documentary, After Auschwitz, by Jon Kean about six women who survived Nazi death camps to cross the Atlantic, marry, and become successful American citizens.

After release by American and Russian soldiers into the woods and on the streets of Germany at the close of World War II, these women struggled at times with new found freedoms, but eventually, in gradual transformations, could claim victory over fear, brutality, and starvation.

Testaments to their miracles of human perseverance, persistence, and sheer drive are understated descriptions of these pioneers.

Without giving the contents much thought in advance, I anticipated a quarter of the film to be scenes before and after the concentration camps, but I was wrong.  Gruesome visuals filled far more than 25 percent, no pictures or videos which I recognized.  This is not for the weak.

That the movie was a long time in production is not surprising given the years the directors/producers/researchers must have spent  searching for film to match the ladies' stories, and they found them!

After you get out of prison and are set free, where do you go to look for your parents? Or your brother? Or cousins or old friends?

One woman made it back to her home town on foot to find her family's house occupied by a new family who wore her family's clothing.
 
About 75 percent of Holocaust victims who lived were the only members of their families to survive.

One of the women cautions at the end: It can happen again, and it is happening, in Sudan and other places. Large numbers of skeptics deny the existence of the Holocaust. Violence, intolerance, and discrimination against those who may differ from you and from me are found every day in the news.
At Rotten Tomatoes the film's score is 100%.

Photographs and brief biographical sketches of the film's six women, some of whom are deceased, may be found at the movie's website here.

They are:
 
Eva (Schick) Beckmann, born in Prague, Czechoslovakia

Rena (Honigman) Drexler, born in Sosnowiec, Poland

Renee (Weinfeld) Firestone, born in Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia

Erika (Engel) Jacoby, born in Miscolc, Hungary

Lili (Nutkowicz) Majzner, born in Lodz, Poland

Linda (Scheffer) Sherman, born in Amsterdam, Holland

patricialesli@gmail.com

Best Comedy, Best Satire! 'The Death of Stalin'

Maybe Oscar will add "comedic satire" as a category since, for fans of Russian history, The Death of Stalin is a scream. I choked on my popcorn more than once. I loved it all.

How is it possible to laugh about a murderer who killed between three million and 60 million of his own people? (The most quoted figure is 20 million.) The movie is about his death. The Russian people sobbed when they learned he was dead! Stalin!  
Well, is he or isn't he? Only a "good" doctor knows for sure, but since Stalin had them all snuffed out (to combat a conspiracy) none were left to treat the dictator save the "bad" ones. From The Death of Stalin/Photo by Madman
Recognizing Steve Buscemi (who plays a slim then Khrushchev in Death) from Fargo 22 years ago made my heart leap, anticipating I would laugh even more. I did.

Soviet leaders follow Stalin's coffin. Photo by Baltermants and Gostev - Published Ogoniok issue 11 (1344) dated Mar 13 1953., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org. On the far right is Nikita Khrushchev and third from right is (I think) Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's top secret police chief and a major role in the film, acted by Simon Russell Beale.

Just a wee bit of knowledge about the assassin's life and rule in Russia is enough to set you on track to enjoy a good time with Russian leaders while they scramble to beat up their comrades and stab each other in the backs on their marches to replace Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) after he died. (Russia's official "rules" of succession and directions for a state funeral are often screened in the film to keep viewers abreast about the order of things.)

Writer/director Armando Iannucci (the Scottish creator of the HBO series, Veep) promises half the film is true, which includes but is not limited to, the opening concert scene, the deaths of hundreds of Russians (the film says 1,500) crushed by the mobs coming to pay last respects, the tomato in the pocket, Stalin's irrational son, Vasily, the suicide of Stalin's wife, his death (after his stroke, he lay for hours in a pool of his own urine because no one had the courage to approach him), and his affinity for late night movies.

Whatever truth there is, it's a hoot and a riot with terrific music by Chris Willis to match the mood (compositions by Mozart, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky). All throughout I kept wondering where the movie was filmed (does Russia allow movie locations?) which, based on the credits, I presume was shot in London and Belgium. This story confirms London and some "secret screens" in Moscow. (как интересно.)

That the writers have brilliantly utilized facts and exaggerated them with slap stick, happening "behind the scenes" (tragic, in many cases) is testament to their originality, creativeness, and insight into what makes a great laugh out loud movie.

The Russian have banned the film, but with the election over and the victor declared (!), perhaps the government will relent and permit this one to screen so the people can scream (but would they consider it sacrilege?).

I liked Death of Stalin before I bought the popcorn. Before I ever entered the movie house, I liked it and knew I was in for a good laugh, something we don't get enough of these days. Said Director Iannucci in an interview in The Atlantic after some suggested a similarity between Trump and Stalin:
 

"Stalin called anyone who disagreed with him an enemy of the people. Trump calls them unpatriotic and false. With people like Berlusconi and indeed Putin, and Erdoğan in Turkey—these “strongmen,” as it were—it feels a little bit like the 1930s again.

"Trump’s instinct is to call for jailing of opponents. If Saturday Night Live does an impression of him, he starts calling for NBC’s license to be looked into. For someone who is head of a party that’s all about government backing off, he’s very much for telling people what to think, what to watch, who shouldn’t be speaking out—he’s very authoritarian. The rule of law is his law."

P.S. The F bomb drops about every 30 seconds.

Дорогие читатели в России, если вы нажмете  

здесь, вы можете посмотреть видео из 

«Смерти Сталина».

patricialesli@gmail.com

Great (not Best) Picture, 'The Post'

Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep in The Post/20th Century Fox


A better title would have been:  I, Katharine , since it's all about her.

The Post is a lesson in history for all, one that every journalist will want to see.

The timing of its release to coincide with the pub date of Michael Wolff 's Fire and Fury is prescient or just lucky (likely, the latter), to say the least. That we are dealing with the same issues today, almost 50 years after the publication of the Pentagon Papers and the effort by the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, to silence publication of critical documents important for the livelihood of the union, is alarming.
  
The actual Nixon tapes are used effectively in shadowy scenes at the "White House" while Curzon Dobell, who portrays the president, stands with his back to the camera and speaks into a telephone.

The movie becomes a bit soppy when "Ms. Graham" sits on a twin bed and talks with her daughter while her granddaughters sleep together in the adjacent bed (?). The inclusion of this scene and too many references to "Oh dear, I am a woman and no one takes me seriously" was annoying.  Please.

The screen writers seem to try to bring some modernity to the piece and we can thank them for omitting the suggested, what-would-have-been-a gratuitous sex scene with Benjamin Bradlee (Tom Hanks) and his wife at the time, Tony (Sarah Paulson.  Was she really the fluff bunny the writers made her here?)

One can't help but compare the 1971 U.S. Supreme Court membership (which voted 6-3 to release the papers)  to today's group and predict a vote now on the public's right to know:  With Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and probably Roberts voting to suppress, and Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor voting to release, the outcome might depend upon Justices Breyer and Kennedy, ending in 5-4 affirmation, one can hope.

Congratulations to the screen writer, Liz Hannah, age 32, whose original idea was immediately snatched up by Amy Pascal and Steven Spielberg who happened to find the leading stars, Ms. Streep and Mr. Hanks, available on short notice to film. (Funny how things work.)

I doubt that many millennials have any familiarity with the Pentagon Papers since it preceded their births, and with the increasing demise of history taught in school, this ignorance may reduce the film's attendance.  But, there are still many old journalists around who will rush to see it

I am happy Daniel Ellsberg, 86, is still alive to see himself again preserving the union.

Tom Hanks is outstanding, natch, and there is no one who can top Meryl Streep's acting ability. Never mind that the screens are saturated with her and that, egads! Another rendition of Mamma Mia! (groan) is due out this summer.  (The first one cured me of any affinity for Streep in a musical.)

At Rotten Tomatoes 88% of the critics liked The Post (no surprise) but what is surprising is the far lower "liked it" score (70%) by audience members. 

The 4:40 p.m. screening at Tysons Corner on opening day was almost sold out with audience applause and gasps (the opening of a door) at the end, but that's the last time I feel compelled to see a movie on its opening, given the outrageous prices for entrance and treats. Cinema Arts is well worth the wait.

Oscar nominations:

Best Actor:  Tom Hanks

Best Actress:  Meryl Streep (should win but I don't want her to win since she's been nominated 20 (!) times and won three!  Please, can the judges bestow Oscar on someone else?)

Best Picture (which is Shape of Water, but since this is the "Year of the Woman," Lady Bird probably will win)

Best Director:  Steven Spielberg

Best costuming:  (Oh, those dresses looked really, really bad but nicely done by Ann Roth.  I never thought of Katharine Graham as being overweight like portrayed by Streep.)

Best Set and Production Design: Rena DeAngelo and Rick Carter (The recreation of the printing press process from 50 years ago is staggering.)

patricialesli@gmail.com

Best Picture! 'The Shape of Water'

Sally Hawkins, left, and Octavia Spencer in The Shape of Water/ Photo by Kerry Hayes, 20th Century Fox

Dear Movie Fans,

I'm not a sci-fi lover but this movie wowed me! And those  at E Street, too, where most audience members clapped at the end. 

What does that tell you about its entertainment value?

 

Richard Jenkins in The Shape of Water/ Photo by Kerry Hayes, 20th Century Fox

 It is super fab!  I loved!  Loved!  Loved it, and it's been eons since I've seen a movie this good, one that belongs in the genre of Fargo and Pulp Fiction.

As my friend, Claire, said, "It's magical realism" (?) and, "brilliant."

A woman who is mute (played by Sally Hawkins) uncovers a deep, dark mystery in the research lab where she works as a cleaning lady in Baltimore in the early 1960s.  Her best friend and helpmate is played by Octavia Spencer who showers us once again with immense talents she brings to the screen.

Elisa's nearby neighbor in her apartment building (Richard Jenkins as Giles) has been mentioned as a Best Supporting Actor nominee but I've got another idea.  Please read below.

 Michael Shannon, Sally Hawkins, and Octavia Spencer in The Shape of Water/Photo by Kerry Hayes, 20th Century Fox

 Michael Shannon has a filmography almost 25 years old, with titles like Man of Steel, The Iceman, and Wolves. His presence in Shape scenes almost steels (sic; sorry, couldn't resist) the show with his clenched jaw lines, the ability to speak through locked teeth, frozen expressions while he grips arms and transfers pain, all the while threatening lives and draining the audience of any semblance of rationality. 

He's going to explode at any moment!  Hold on. He's a monster in human skin who can breathe out of water, and he's rather convincing.

Yes, there's water involved!  But what does the title mean?  There is no "shape" of water; everything is fluid (ahem), changing, and it's time to go with the flow?  Down, down, down we go?  
 
In an interview with Rachel Martin of NPR, Guillermo del Toro, the masterful author of the tail tale, says the film is about communication, how two mute beings connect "beautifully...I think that this is a movie that is incredibly pertinent and almost like an antidote to a lot of the cynicism and disconnect that we experience day to day."  

Del Toro's story was shaped by fairy tales (but don't let that deter you) and his latent Catholicism.


Shape is a thriller, a romance, a comedy, a crime story, a keep-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat mix to flood your senses.


Yes, there are real sex scenes, masturbation, female frontal nudity (natch: Has there been male frontal nudity?  Show me), and the Parents Guide says the F bomb is used 12 times, but honestly, since we have become immune to these words, why use them at all?  To show we can flow with the rest?   

Throw in blood, gore, a "R" rating, and this is not a movie for children.

It's one of those rare creations which I wish I had not seen so I could see it again for the first time.
   
Here's a link to the trailer for Shape of Water and a few Oscar nominations:

Best Actress:  Sally Hawkins as Elisa

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer as Zelda

Best Supporting Actor:  Michael Shannon as Strickland (with  nods to Michael Stuhlbarg as Robert Hoffstetler and Richard Jenkins as Giles)

Best Original Screenplay:  Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor

Best Original Score:  Alexandre Desplat

Best Cinematography:  Dan Laustsen 

Best Costume Design:   Luis Sequeira

Best Film Editing:  Sidney Wolinsky  

Best Production Design:  Paul D. Austerberry, Jeffrey A. Melvin, Shane Vieau

Best Sound Design:  Nathan Robitaille

Best Sound Mixing:  Glen Gauthier, Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern

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