PRESIDENT (B) - This is a solid tick-tock of the 2018 presidential election in Zimbabwe, in which a young opposition candidate takes on the establishment in the first election without Robert Mugabe around in four decades. The main problem is that, despite being compelling at times, it doesn't quite warrant a full two hours.
Despite overstaying its "Frontline"-style welcome, the film gets a jolt every time the upstart politician Nelson Chamisa reappears, exuding Obama energy and connecting with crowds of people yearning to break free from the oppression of the previous generations. Camilla Nielsson, who last studied Zimbabwe in the transition from Mugabe in 2014's "Democrats," obtains incredible access into Chamisa's campaign.
Hope builds, but doom hangs in the air, especially once the electoral commission starts counting the votes but refuses to declare a winner as hours drag into days. Is the fix in? If you don't know, let this documentary play out like more of a thriller. Patience will pay off.
LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF (2003/2014) (B) - With a flair as moody and smoldering as any film noir, Thom Anderson uses vintage movie clips of Los Angeles to explore grander themes -- or perhaps to just air a series of grievances. Here is a succinct recap from IMDb:
Of the cities in the world, few are depicted in and mythologized more in film and television than the city of Los Angeles. In this documentary, Thom Andersen examines in detail the ways the city has been depicted, both when it is meant to be anonymous and when itself is the focus. Along the way, he illustrates his concerns of how the real city and its people are misrepresented and distorted through the prism of popular film culture. Furthermore, he also chronicles the real stories of the city's modern history behind the notorious accounts of the great conspiracies that ravaged his city that reveal a more open and yet darker past than the casual viewer would suspect.
Anderson scripted the thoughtful, meandering essay that accompanies the barrage of clips from movies spanning from the silent era to the turn of the millennium. And he hired the obscure Encke King to narrate in a flat monotone (though not as robotic as Joe Friday in "Dragnet," which is featured extensively here).
Be warned that this is nearly three hours long. You might consume it in two or three sittings, like a miniseries. (It naturally splits in two parts halfway through.) In addition to just having fun showing us famous locations and buildings (most notably the cavernous Bradbury Building (below), which starred in "D.O.A." and "Blade Runner," among many others), Anderson delves deeply into the history of the city in order to highlight the mercantilism and politics that favored the rich and held down the poor. (He returns several times to 1961's "The Exiles," as the epitome of a cinema verite that chronicles underclass immigrants.) There is a vague thematic connection to the reveries of "Dawson City: Frozen in Time."
Anderson's knowledge of Los Angeles is encyclopedic. He digs up newspaper clips of key inflection points in the city's history, including a deep dive into a failed attempt decades ago to bring public transportation to the city core. A main point is that Hollywood distorts our perception of Los Angeles, and the two should not be confused. Anderson is hyper-sensitive to references to the real Los Angeles -- or at least his perceived version of it -- to the point of railing at those who commi the sacrilege of abbreviating it as L.A.
There are enough radiant shots of obscure movies -- I never knew James Garner played Phillip Marlowe in 1969 -- to maintain the interest of those who just want to pass the time viewing cool clips of L.A. from back in the day.
MARRY ME (C) - This is everything you could hope and fear it would be -- a stale romantic comedy, remarkably predictable almost from shot to shot. It is salvaged by the commitment of its four leading actors.
Jennifer Lopez plays a superstar who is supposed to marry another superstar live in concert but finds out at the last second he's been cheating, so she picks a random fan out of the audience -- a shlumpy math teacher played by Owen Wilson, who was dragged to the concert by his sassy best friend (Sarah Silverman) and daughter (Chloe Coleman). They wed on the spot and then have to reconcile the ramifications. What a wacky predicament!
Lopez is as appealing as ever -- taking in stride her character Kat's 24/7 public existence on social media -- and Wilson digs deep to find some humanity in his nerdy everyman. Silverman provides the most oomph with her sharp comedic line readings. And Coleman gives it the ol' middle-school try as the cheerleader for her single dad. Will the dork eventually win over the eye-popping mega-star and elbow out her hunky former beau? Guess.
However, nothing here is original or clever. It drags on for nearly two hours, coasting on the charisma of the cast while going in a few circles and insulting our intelligence every step of the way. (It also tries way too hard to create a couple of hit songs for J-Lo.) As noted, this does the job it set out to do, which is to help you pass time while imagining a candy-colored world where mathletes are as revered as gorgeous pop singers. No harm, no foul.
EAT WHEATIES! (C+) - This is a sketch or a short film paddedout to feature length, and the result is the epitome of hit-and-miss. Tony Hale, bless him, dons a droopy mustache and goes full sad-sack as bedraggled Sid Straw, an office dweeb who helps organize a reunion of his Penn class that included actress Elizabeth Banks.
He is mocked for his insistence that he knew Banks way back when. And, in one of several classic idiot-plot twists, his sappy, overly personal Facebook messages to Banks turn out to have been public posts. Straw's life begins to unravel as his embarrassment mounts. Not only does this movie resort to ridiculous plot conveniences, but, like "Marry Me," you can spot the ending from the opening credits.
What barely saves this is the low-key humor -- with a decent percentage of wry gags that land soundly -- and a strong cast of mostly under-the-radar comic actors. That includes Alan Tudyk as a douchie former classmate; Paul Walter Hauser, especially strong as an impossibly inept (and cheap) new lawyer; Sarah Burns (HBO's "Enlightenment") as a love interest; Rizwan Manji as his boss; "New Girl" alums David Walton and Lamorne Morris; Sarah Goldberg (HBO's "Barry") as an unhelpful co-worker; and Mimi Kennedy and Phil Reeves (Hale's "Veep" co-star) as Sid's parents.
Writer-director Scott Abramovich knows how to underplay a good joke or tuck away a gag for a bigger payoff later, but his narrative grip is weak. He rides Hale to the finish line, and if you are partial to Hale's mopey but lovable characterization, he and the rest of the cast could barely make this worth 90 minutes of your time.
BONUS TRACK
Here is Syd Straw (no relation), a great singer, from the late '80s, with the rollicking "Think Too Hard":
And Straw with Dave Alvin (playing guitar above) with the playful "What Am I Worth?":
Character Ray Liotta died this week at age 67. Of course, he made his bones in mob movies, most notably the glorious lead role in "Goodfellas." More recently he got stuck in a dual role in the disappointing Sopranos movie "The Many Saints of Newark." Here's an obit. (Or, as Soap Opera Digest put it: "'Another World' Alum Dies at 67."
We enjoyed him a while back as a sleazy detective in "The Place Beyond the Pines." And he almost stole the show from Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in "Marriage Story."
But our favorite scene of his was in Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild," Liotta's breakout role in 1986. He plays the ex-con Ray, who also happens to be the estranged spouse of Melanie Griffith's wild girl who has settled down with Jeff Daniels' normie Charlie. The interaction in the car between Liotta and Daniels -- both fresh-faced and brimming with energy -- provides a good example of granite-faced Liotta's ability to mingle humor with menace.
Expect a lot of "Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa" references in memoriam.
MASS (A) - Rarely has a stage play built tension on the screen as effectively as this cathartic drama about two sets of parents -- one set whose son was the victim of a school shooting, and the other pair whose son was the shooter. This isn't so much grim as intense and challenging. It is erected and powered by four fine actors, none quite as effective as Martha Plimpton as the grieving mother of the victim.
This is the writing-directing debut from journeyman actor Fran Kranz, and while the film is visually ordinary -- it takes place almost entirely in a room in the back of a church -- the dialogue is pitch-perfect and the actors manage to wring out a range of emotions without once hamming it up.
Plimpton, a veteran of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater, is Gail, an everywoman who is the moral and procedural center of the arranged summit. Her husband, Jay (an intense Jason Isaacs, who looks like Alec Baldwin stripped of vanity), takes his cues from Gail, while he reminds her of their mantra, which is to avoid interrogation.
Reed Birney, another utility player on screen, plays the uptight and reserved father of the shooter, perpetually defensive and struggling to refrain from lashing out at the umpteenth accusation that he should have flagged his son's behavior and prevented the tragedy. Ann Dowd is his wife, Linda, an overly empathetic and weepy mother who aches to connect with the victim's parents.
Dowd, surprisingly is the only one who can't quite find the right pitch throughout. But she acquits herself at the end with a final monologue that can rip your heart out. Linda's speech echoes one earlier from Gail, as both mothers try to put in words the pain of the lost tactile connection to their teenage boys. It's hard to imagine anyone not being moved by those two speeches.
Kranz cleverly bookends the gathering with light-hearted banter guided by church worker Judy (Breeda Wool), who awkwardly over-prepares the room and fumbles her way through introductions. The humor puts the gloom in perspective and lets the viewer tag out of the tension. It also grounds the story in realism; not everything is life and death. The nuances of small-time church operations are charming.
And while Kranz's hands are tied in this small room, what he loses in cinematography he makes up for with precise framing and editing. His script, too, is precise, with overlapping dialogue that creates a natural conversation that starts out icy but slowly evolves into a delicate detente between four damaged people. The simplified approach to a charged subject is audacious.
OK. 1990's "Godfather: Part III" left such a bad taste in our mouth, that we had to have a reset. The original played on the big screen in March for its 50th anniversary, and it's been more than 20 years since we saw the 1974 sequel. As we noted before, plenty has been said about the films, so we'll be brief and just jot down a few notes about two of the greatest films of all time.
THE GODFATHER (1972) (A) - Fifty years later, and I wouldn't change a scene. Gosh, what a glorious, sprawling story of a postwar family, based on Mario Puzo's guidebook for all mob tales that would follow.
Tying in with the anniversary, we gulped down Mark Seal's recent book about the making of the movie, Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli. Seal's tick-tock has a juicy, sweeping swagger not unlike Puzo's novel. It gives you an appreciation for Puzo, who was grinding out pulp fiction before he finished the novel that was based on years of research into mob life that involved poring over transcripts of congressional hearings with pivotal mafia figures. The book then unravels the production of the film at Paramount, from costumes to casting. It's a delightful read.
It took a lot of hard work and good luck for it to all come together. Francis Ford Coppola sweated over the script with Puzo (see the two below) and constantly pushed for top-shelf production values, assisted by producer Al Ruddy. It's easy to take for granted the cinematography by Gordon Willis (criticized at the time for his dark palette) or the music of Nino Rota, but these are legendary contributions.
One of the biggest disappointments of the belated third installment in 1990 was the weak cast. The original, by contrast, has a lineup that won't quit. Marlon Brando was in a career funk before he committed to the lead role (taking more money up front instead of a piece of the immense profits, according to Seal). Young hungry actors like James Caan, Robert Duvall and Al Pacino carved their names into history with their turns here. John Cazale and Diane Keaton would play critical supporting roles, both here and in Part II. Character actors Alex Rocco ("I'm Moe Greene! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!"), Richard Castellano ("Mikey, why don't you tell that nice girl you love her?"), Abe Vigoda ("Can you get me off the hook, Tom? For old times' sake?"), Richard Conte ("After all, we are not communists") and John Marley ("And if that goombah tries any rough stuff, you tell him I ain't no bandleader") made hay with little screen time. Real-life mob-affiliated guys like Lenny Montana (as the indelible Luca Brasi) and Gianni Russo (as philandering brother-in-law Carlo) lent gravitas. Sterling Hayden reprised his noir career with the critical portrayal of the crooked cop who dared to slug a Corleone.
Coppola infused every corner of the movie with authenticity of Italian culture, especially the food spreads. It is trite to criticize the film as an affront to Italian-Americans; this is a family saga that happens to involve criminal behavior. Sure, the violence has been glorified (and imitated, ad nauseam) over the years, but there is no denying the power and the depth of the storytelling, steeped in cultural touchstones. You can't help but wince at the pain experienced by Vito Corleone when he loses a son, from the moment Tom Hagen breaks the news to him to his reaction at seeing the corpse: "Look how they massacred my boy." Others: The indebted funeral director Bonasera at the service of the don to make sure Sonny's body is presentable, carrying out the favor that had been banked in the opening scene. The doddering don succumbing to a heart attack amid his tomato plants. The twin-tower bookends of a sprawling outdoor wedding to begin the movie and a christening -- intercut with scenes of assassinations -- for the climax.
The narrative is sophisticated (even a challenge to follow at times). The transformation of Pacino's Michael, from bright-eyed college-boy war hero to somber godfather, his cheekbones sharpening, is operatic: "Today I settled all family business." His time exiled in Sicily is bright and lung-filling yet heartbreaking. James Caan, matching Pacino blow for blow, is said to have ad-libbed some of his memorable maneuvers -- tossing bills at a photographer whose camera he smashed; tossing "badda-bing" and "badda-beep badda-boop" into his banter -- and his performance still elicits a chef's kiss in response.
And Brando did much more than wear a dental device to give him an old man's jowls. (Note the 48-year-old's transformation above.) He set the tone from the start, stroking the fur of a cat (that he had found on the set and incorporated into the scene) as he conducted the family business on the wedding day of the don's daughter. He knows how to slather on sarcasm, telling Sollozzo, after Sonny talks out of line during a meeting, "I have a sentimental weakness for my children and I spoil them, as you can see. They talk when they should listen." He tells Michael that he wanted him to go legit, to have the real power: "I refused to be a fool dancing on the strings held by all of those big
shots. That's my life; I don't apologize for that. But I always thought
that when it was your time, that you would be the one to hold the
strings. Senator Corleone, Governor Corleone, something."
There just wasn't enough time for Vito Corleone and his sons. Michael consoles him: "We'll get there, Pop. We'll get there." Cue Part II.
THE GODFATHER: PART II (1974) - I've always given the sight edge to the sequel, a rare (unmatched?) instance in which the sophomore effort improbably outshines the original. While the original is a grand sweeping saga without a misstep, the second film is more ambitious cinematically. And whereas the first movie, even with Brando at the helm, was an ensemble piece, this time Al Pacino, emerging as a star, steps forward in the sequel to carry it all on his shoulders. (Pacino was in the middle of a run bookended by "Serpico" and "Dog Day Afternoon.")
Michael, having firmly established the family in Las Vegas (with a U.S. senator in his pocket), is now merciless, fearless and peerless. He dabbles with legitimacy. He continues an uneasy alliance with Hyman Roth as a gaggle of mafiosi and businessmen finalize plans to go big into Havana (90 miles from the U.S. coast, with a government that will look the other way) -- foolishly on the eve of the Cuban revolution. Michael sees trouble coming and makes the wise business maneuver.
It is almost hard to believe that Pacino shares half the story with Robert De Niro, who does a deep dive into the origin story of Vito Corleone, an orphan dumped at Ellis Island, who eventually makes his bones by knocking off the monolithic don over an employment slight. Coppola intercuts the scenes of the present day with the sepia-toned backstory, never fumbling an edit, dabbling in dissolves. He transforms Puzo's novel into an epic legend, extending the sprawl of the generations, deepening the motivations of Vito and Michael Corleone.
The main story takes place a mere 16 years in the past (1958 vis-a-vis 1974), and the storyline of the Senate committee's hearings was much more relatable to viewers than was the nostalgic World War II era. Michael figures out a way to elude a half dozen perjury charges by pulling a last-minute trick and convincing turncoat Frank Pentangeli to take a proverbial bullet for the team.
We get an echo of the christening scene, as this all builds toward Michael exacting revenge on his new set of enemies. His dance with Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), his father's old acquaintance, is beautifully nuanced. Strasberg gives a performance for the ages as the death-defying mobster ("He's been dying of the same heart attack for 20 years"), whether it's lecturing Michael on the Havana deal, relating the story of how he looked the other way when Moe Green was knocked off, or abasing himself before the press, literally hat in hand, when he realizes he has been check-mated at the end ("I'm a retired investor living on a pension"). At least Miami brightens the movie.
Diane Keaton as Kay Corleone and John Cazale as Fredo both up their game for the sequel. Kay will seal her fate by defying Michael in the most devastating way she can think of, and Fredo will finally try to stand up for himself. When told that their father wanted Michael to take over, Fredo -- knowing that his days are numbered -- finally erupts: "It ain't the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like
everybody says ... like dumb ... I'm smart and I want respect!" Sure thing, Fredo.
Like in the original, minor supporting players make invaluable contributions. Scratchy-voiced Michael Gazzo provides the glue as Pentangeli, an old-school captain caught between Corleone and Roth. His scene with Robert Duvall's Tom Hagen toward the end is richly bittersweet. Dominic Chianese, as Roth's bagman Johnny Ola, has that same sly look he would bring to "The Sopranos" as Uncle Junior. (I think he's the only common connection between the two productions.)
Of course, in the end, this is Pacino's masterpiece; his Shakespearean summit. He commands every inch of the modern era's scenes. No one could command a chair, as if he were king of the world, like Michael Corleone. And few actors could rivet you for 200 minutes like Al Pacino in his prime.
Celine Sciamma ("Girlhood," "Portrait of a Lady on Fire") tells the story of a girl who meets up with a familiar figure in a forest by her grandmother's house, "Petite Maman."
The son of noted Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi ("This Is Not a Film," "Jafar Panahi's Taxi") makes his own road movie about a family, "Hit the Road."
A cult and a criminal enterprise seem to merge in an artful drama, "Los Conductos."
A dark comedy directed by the talented Jerrod Carmichael, "On the Count of Three."
A look at the songwriting partnership between the Bad Seeds' Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, "This Much I Know to Be True."
KIMI (B-minus) - This is an incredibly stupid movie -- credit goes to mainstream veteran David Koeep ("Jurassic Park," "Panic Room") -- but it is fortunate to have Steven Soderbergh wielding the camera and Zoe Kravitz giving it her all as a Seattle hermit who may have inadvertently run across audio evidence of a violent crime. They make the film entertaining enough and bearable
Kravitz turns up the quirk as Angela, a loft-dweller who works for a Siri-type company (this one is Kimi) in quality assurance -- correcting and tweaking Kimi's responses to humans in order to improve the bot's performance. In one random audio, she hears a woman scream, and she reports it to superiors. One problem: It is the owner of the company, on the brink of an IPO, who is behind the poor woman's demise.
Angela, working with a vulgar Romanian tech guy, walks her concern up the chain of command, hitting a wall with a higher-up (Rita Wilson) who is much more creepy than helpful. This triggers a big chase in the final third, with Angela trying to keep a step ahead of the bad guys and to outfox them. It all descends into ridiculous action tropes in the final 20 minutes, but it's mostly diverting fun to see how it all turns out. Surprisingly, the Kimi device is mostly a fake-out; in this case, the bad actors and the heroes still come in human form.
Kravitz is incredibly engaging in the role of a medicated millennial battling social anxiety and OCD (she has a charming habit of applying sanitizer and then airing out her hands by faux clapping, keeping the palms apart). She has a robotic gait and a perpetual skeptic's glare. Soderbergh's camera swoops and careens, and it's his sharp storytelling skills that carry this along. It all feels like an homage to '70s cop shows, where you know that the protagonist, improbably, will somehow figure out how to survive.
BIG BUG (C+) - This flippant futuristic film -- in which, by the late 2040s, humans have grown subservient to computerized beings -- is fun for about fifteen minutes but then goes nowhere interesting. Rarely has whimsy seemed so tedious.
This comes from the mind and pen of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who brought us such delightful films as "Delicatessen," "Amelie" and "Micmacs" -- a fussy Wes Anderson type who comes up with a good idea every 10 years or so. Here, any point he is trying to make takes a backseat to the bells and whistles that whiz across the screen nonstop in a cartoonish flury. He takes a serviceable cast of French actors and batters them with relentless CGI effects. At 111 minutes, it's exhausting; an hour might have worked.
The premise involves an extended family (exes, neighbors) trapped in a house because the HAL-like computer won't open the door to let them out. This cooped-up bunch conspires with the sympathetic robot servants to try to overcome the fascist overlords. Or something like that. Jeunet pulls his punches too much to keep things coherent. He has an attractive cast -- who proclaim to be full of emotion and sensuality -- but then offers up PG-rated "Love, American Style" sexy hijinks rather than genuine spice. He would have been better off going all-in on some sexual raunch, but he sticks instead with stale special-effects in this candy-colored but bland confection.
THE HAND OF GOD (B+) - This is a gorgeous and heartwarming remembrance of an '80s childhood in Naples from Paolo Sorrentino, the aestheticist behind "The Great Beauty" and "Il Divo." In his latest big-screen extravaganza, you can detect the good, the bad and the ugly from both of those previous efforts.
Here, Sorrentino's avatar is teenager Fabietto (Filippo Scott), the youngest son of loving parents, Saverio and Maria (Sorrentino regular Toni Servillo and Teresa Saponangelo), with quirky siblings and even quirkier extended family members, whose group scene in the first part of the movie is worth the price of admission. Fabietto is a classic awkward teen -- not fitting in at school, pining for a girlfriend, and secretly harboring a pipe dream of making movies someday.
His adventures have a shaggy-dog appeal to them, and the connective tissue here is a soccer hook -- the strong rumors that the legendary Diego Maradona (he of the "hand of God" goal in the World Cup) might come to lowly Naples to play, abandoning Barcelona. Maradona is a symbol of hope and excellence, and Fabietto draws inspiration from that sports hero, even when he learns to tamp down such boyhood hero worship after a tragedy strikes the family. Scott is a strong young actor, good enough to carry the movie and play off the goofiness of the broad-stroke characters that surround him.
While Sorrentino's film, which also includes scenes of Federico Fellini filming a movie in the city, is flush with memorable visual flourishes (like a shot of a flare being shot from a boat toward a camera in the sky), it does get bogged down by the pitfalls that often trip up these misty-eyed trips down memory lane. Here is a list of tropes and cliches that get trafficked in, many with broad Borscht Belt tendencies:
The crazy, hyper-sexual aunt who is just too beautiful for sane society.
An uncle who insists that a sports figure or sporting event is a metaphor for life itself.
The extremely foul-mouthed family matriarch.
The unseen sister who lives 24/7 in the bathroom and communicates only through the closed door.
A teenage boy tenderly losing his virginity to a much older woman favoring him with this crucial rite of passage.
The grieving person who somehow can't cry, even at the funeral -- until days or weeks later at some random, inexplicable moment completely devoid of context.
The good outweighs the hackneyed, though, and the genuine outweighs the myth, such that we root for Fabietto and will retain hope for him down to the final, contemplative shot of him.
BELFAST (C) - Frankly, I'm surprised they still make movie like this -- trite childhood remembrances in gauzy black-and-white, the wide-eyed boy, the attractive working-class parents (bickering over money, naturally), the wise grandparents, and the era-defining political strife that colors all their actions. God bless Kenneth Branagh for romanticizing his school-boy education in life and love, but lord this is sappy.
It's not so much the rote storytelling -- that's to be expected -- but rather Branagh's decision to present the scenes as if meant to admit that they were shot on a scrubbed movie set. Everything visual here is mannered and fussed over to a fault. It's as if Frank Capra wrote and directed an episode of the Boomer TV nostalgiafest "The Wonder Years." Nothing feels remotely authentic.
Branagh's avatar, blond little Buddy (an engaging Jude Hill), bounces about amid the Protestant-Catholic wars in Belfast in 1969. He crushes on a little blond schoolmate (his Winnie Cooper), scampers around the streets, falls in love with movies, and gleans wisdom from this wise old grandpa (Ciaran Hinds), who might as well be wearing a sign around his neck saying "I'm going to die by the end of the movie." His parents are played by Caitriona Balfe (TV's "Outlander") and Jamie Dornan ("Fifty Shades of Grey"), their marital relationship merely skimmed over -- this bland valentine makes you yearn for an NC-17 spinoff where these passionate parents could let loose like on the randier projects the two actors are known for.
I'm happy for Branagh, but I feel bad that he thinks this tame and ultra-conventional brand of cinema would be taken by the masses as insightful in any way. This sap is made uniquely insufferable by the presence of no fewer than 10 hoary Van Morrison songs -- which about sums up Branagh's level of creativity. Why do they still make movies like this?
BONUS TRACK
One highlight of the "Belfast" soundtrack is "Everlasting Love" -- apparently lip-synced by Jamie Dornan over an early version by London band Love Affair. It is a truly joyous scene between him and Balfe. Here is the perfect '70s R&B version by Carl Carlton:
