Right from the opening minutes of Afire, we know that Leon (Thomas Schubert) isn’t very perceptive. But if you know anything about writer/director Christian Petzold, then you know Leon’s plight is only a means to a deeply resonate end.
Leon and his friend Felix (Langston UIbel) have come to a vacation home by the Baltic Sea for a working holiday. Leon must put the final touches on his latest book before a meeting with his publisher, while Felix needs to ready his photo portfolio for art school.
But the boys find they are not alone on the spacious property. Nadja (Petzold favorite Paula Beer) is staying there as well, and keeping Leon awake via vocal late night trysts with Devid (Enno Tebbs), a lifeguard at the nearby beach.
So the three become friends, while Leon keeps to spying from a distance and declining all offers of fun or relaxation because “work won’t allow it.”
Except, Leon’s never really working. He spends the days as the pooper of this party, too self-absorbed to notice anything outside of his own sad sack, not even the increasing threat of nearby wildfires.
For a time, Petzold (Transit, Undine, Phoenix) crafts an amusing dramedy of awkwardness, one that’s noticeably lighter than his usual fare. But as Leon’s publisher (Matthias Brandt) arrives, more personal details are revealed and the fires grow closer, the film’s third act becomes heavy with timely resonance.
A creative life – a fulfilling life – requires participation. Fear of failing is fear of living, and even the deepest heartaches can come to serve a greater purpose. Indeed, the film itself may be Petzold’s answer to unprecedented recent history.
The small ensemble (stellar) and remote location are common traits of a pandemic production. Are the fires here a winking nod to Leon’s blindness to every forest around him, or a more direct metaphor to the worldwide plague?
The film works either way. Petzold excels with characters like these, yearning to break from whatever may be holding them back. Afire finds him working on a smaller, more comedic scale, but never lacking the keen insight we’ve come to expect.
And from Megs to ‘Nados to super sharks eating Samuel L. Jackson in the middle of a Samuel L. Jackson speech, we clearly cannot get enough shark movies.
Shudder’s Sharksploitation takes a…wait for it…deep dive into the titular subgenre, building a scattershot timeline for how sharks have been depicted in cinema, both BJ (before Jaws) and AJ (after Jaws.)
First-time director Stephen Scarlata rolls out a respectable array of film historians and pop culture commentators, interspersing the requisite film clips, and sometimes bunching several together via split screens.
Scarlata doesn’t always follow a strict chronology, which can be a bit distracting as the approach sometimes groups the shark films by era, and other times by a similar theme.
Still, there is some solid info here, such as the progression of sharks being held as Gods in the 1931 Murnau film Tabu, to being held by evil geniuses in Bond films, to being hunted for harassing a small New England town over 4th of July weekend.
And, of course, once Jaws practically invented the “blockbuster” as we know it, shark mania was cranked up to eleven while stoking a fear that wasn’t exactly based on fact. Jaws author Peter Benchley came to regret this, and the film is careful to show how he later would devote his time and energy to ocean conservation.
But in the decades since, the laws of shark physics (“shar-sics”!) have been willingly ignored by shark films, and Scarlata achieves a fun sense of mischief by often following a film synopsis with a quick cut to an increasingly exasperated marine biologist.
There’s also an enlightening and funny look behind that infamous line from Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, a revisit to the influx of sharks on 70s TV (lookin’ at you, Fonzie), and a nod to the relative “cooling off” period before an eventual rebirth via 1999’s Deep Blue Sea and the emergence of SyFy channel originals
But along with the low-budget “mockbusters” of The Asylum and the intentional ridiculousness of the Sharknado franchise, Scarlata reminds us that there are more recent entries (Open Water, TheShallows) that found ways to thrill with new rules for an old game.
The film’s a little rough around the edges, and it suffers from a wandering nature that can seem like treading water, but Sharksploitation is an entertaining trip through the history of a beloved subgenre. And ultimately, it feels both welcome and overdue.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to shop for Mom’s Shark Week gift.
I love that “Barbenheimer” has become a thing. Why are people so excited that two films open in theaters on the same weekend? The polar contrast of tones is certainly a fun mashup, but it’s also the confidence we have in two uniquely visionary filmmakers.
Christopher Nolan reportedly became invested in making a film about “the father of the atomic bomb” when Robert Pattinson gave Nolan a collection of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s speeches. In adapting two source books, writer/director Nolan gives Oppenheimer an engrossing IMAX treatment that serves up history lesson, character study and mystery thriller during three unforgettable hours.
Cillian Murphy is simply mesmerizing and absolutely award-worthy as Oppenheimer, who – years after his Manhattan Project delivered the bomb that ended WWII – is facing the possible loss of his security clearance and thus, career. With his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) seated nearby, Oppenheimer endures grueling interrogation on his past associates and activities from an Atomic Energy Commission security board led by Roger Robb (Jason Clarke) and Gordon Gray (Tony Goldwyn).
In the film’s first two acts, Nolan uses this questioning as the anchor to chart Oppenheimer’s rise through academia to become not “just self important, but actually important.” On the campus of Berkeley, he embraces revolution in both physics and the world, enthralling his students, supporting “left wing causes” and carrying on an intense affair with avowed communist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) before being hand-picked by no-nonsense General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) to lead the team tasked with inventing a nuclear weapon before the Nazis do.
From the outset, Nolan and Murphy craft Oppenheimer as an endlessly fascinating creature, a man unable to turn off his mind from constantly questioning beyond this world. Murphy never shrinks from the close-ups that pierce Oppenheimer’s soul, and his body language and manner are often awkward and brusk, revealing an intellectually tireless man with little regard for alienating those not on his level, including AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr., never better).
But Oppenheimer’s commitment is total, as is Nolan’s. With strategic use of black and white (an IMAX film stock developed exclusively for the film) to contrast cinematographer Hoyt Van Hoytema’s eye-popping detail, Nolan utilizes impeccable visual storytelling that enhances his script’s ambition without overshadowing it. Ludwig Göransson’s score dances beautifully with production design from Ruth De Jong, totally immersing us in the manufactured town of Los Alamos, where three years of development finally led to a successful bomb test (a breathless sequence that alone should land sound designer Randy Torres an Oscar nod).
For two hours, the historical tale is assembled through precision and care by a master craftsman with the finest tools at his disposal (including a spotless ensemble that also includes Kenneth Branagh, Rami Malek, Casey Affleck, Tom Conti, Matthew Modine, Olivia Thirlby, David Dastmalchian, James Remar and Benny Safdie), and then Nolan digs into the human failings, moral ambiguities and philosophical grappling that surround a man and his mission.
As Oppenheimer realizes that “genius is no guarantee of wisdom,” and his superiors only want to expand America’s nuclear arsenal, the film’s final act becomes a dizzying mix of JFK, Amadeus and The Tell Tale Heart.
Haunted by the devastation the bomb brought to both the “just and unjust,” Oppenheimer ignores his wife’s pleas to fight back as his character is assassinated, and a naive senate aide (Alden Ehrenreich) starts to piece together the puzzle about who is pulling the strings.
As the film races toward a tense and satisfying reveal, some of the dialogue does flirt with needless explanation, but these sensational actors never let a word of it land as completely false.
Much like any film of this nature, Oppenheimer takes its liberties and leaves room for further study. But Nolan takes you inside the personal journey of one of the most important men in history, with resonant and challenging lessons on hubris, envy, blind faith and the search for redemption. And by the end of hour three, he leaves you drained but thankful for the experience
There’s no Barbie here, but you will find a cinematic dream world with so very much to offer.
The world today is split. On the one hand there is a rabid sect donning their finest sparkles in anticipation of Margot Robbie’s Barbie. On the other hand, there are those who cannot believe people are this unreasonably geeked over a movie about Barbie.
And then there are the Greta Gerwig fans, who perhaps have a complicated but mostly contemptuous relationship with the doll but will nonetheless stride through the pink boas and tiara glare to soak up whatever glorious wonder the filmmaker has to give us.
That was me, that last one. I’ve come to witness Gerwig’s hat trick.
Barbie, which director Gerwig co-wrote with Noah Baumbach (that slouch), delivers smart, biting, riotous comedy with more whimsy than anything this politically savvy has any right to wield.
It’s a role Robbie was clearly born to play. Barbie’s endless run of perfect days actually ends, and she has to seek the advice of Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon, perfection). You’ve seen the ads – she has to go to the real world to solve her problem. But there’s one hiccup. (That’s not true, there are plenty of them, but it all starts with this first one.) Ken stows away in the back of the Barbie Dream Car.
Ryan Gosling, the man behind the tan, plays Existential Crisis Ken and it’s possible he’s never been better. That’s a big statement because he was nearly perfect in Drive. Also, The Nice Guys. Also, Half Nelson. Plus, BlueValentine.
He’s good. This is my point. But his Ken delivers all the self-effacing humor of The Nice Guys with sincere pathos and a vacuous tenderness it’s hard to describe.
And my god, that dance number!
Simu Liu, Michael Cera, Issa Rae and Alexandra Shipp also get to carve out some funny screentime, but the whole cast shines. Barbie does not work without a tightrope of a tone, and everyone walks it with their heels off the ground.
Gerwig’s lack of cynicism may be the thing that shines brightest in all three of her films. Lady Bird was the most open and forgiving coming of age film I’ve ever seen, and also probably the best. Who on earth thought we needed another Little Womenuntil Gerwig mined it for the gorgeous feminism that always drove it?
Barbie is a brilliantly executed, incredibly fun, brightly colored, completely logical feminist statement that should be remembered come awards season.
As James Earl Jones so eloquently told us in Field of Dreams., you can’t tell the story of America without baseball. And in The League, acclaimed documentarian Sam Pollard builds a gracefully powerful reminder about how important the Negro Leagues were to both game and country.
Pollard (Mr. Soul!, MLK/FBI, Oscar nominee for 4 Little Girls) weaves together the interviews, archival footage and re-enactments with the care of a master craftsman. He builds a timeline that informs and inspires, introducing us to professional players – such as Moses Fleetwood Walker – who came before Jackie Robinson but were left behind once the Supreme Court endorsed “separate but equal” in 1896.
And when the Black community “only had themselves to rely on,” we see how a new path to success was forged, thanks to the visionaries such as Rube Foster and a litany of players who got the attention of white sports writers with their athletic, fast-paced style of play.
Of course, all of this is a baseball fan’s dream, but Pollard (with Executive Producer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson) also achieves compelling resonance through socioeconomic lessons. The film illustrates how symbiotic relationships developed between the Negro Leagues and the social, political and geographical movements of the day, creating a fascinating push and pull that continued through the integration of Major League Baseball.
And speaking of integration, the story doesn’t end once Robinson and Larry Doby debuted in the National and American Leagues, respectively. In fact, the film is ready with some lesser known receipts from a less-than-admirable side of Branch Rickey’s decision to add Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Certainly, the story of the Negro Leagues is worthy of a multi-part mini series, but The League lands as both a satisfying overview and an enticing invitation to dig deeper. There is a wonderful sense of joy here. It’s a feeling born from a community that loved the game, players that lived to make it their own, and a movement that never backed down from the challenge of “finding other ways to succeed.”
As the pandemic raged a few years back, all of us had to adapt. For filmmakers, that meant getting creative to remain creative: small casts, limited settings and remote locations.
One of the better films to meet these challenges was Language Lessons, a two-hander co-written by Mark Duplass and Natalie Morales that also served as one of Morales’s first projects as a feature director.
Biosphere follows a similar blueprint, but with a much higher concept that ultimately hampers its chance at real poignancy.
This time out, Duplass co-writes with first-time feature director Mel Eslyn, and also co-stars as Billy, one of the two men left on Earth. The other survivor is Billy’s old friend Ray (Sterling K. Brown), and the pair spends the days inside a self-sustaining biosphere of Ray’s design.
The two actors share a wonderful and warm rapport, and through their conversations we learn that Billy was President and Ray his lead advisor when the unthinkable went down.
Was Billy to blame? Well, Ray has superior intellect and Billy’s middle initial might as well be “dubya,” so maybe. But that was then and this is now, and now “Diane,” the last female fish in their pond is dead, leaving “Sam” and “Woody” behind.
Ray knows that could mean the end of the “self-sustaining” part of their setup, so the conversations start to get a lot heavier.
To say any more would be saying too much, but the “once upon a time…” message that opens the film readies us for the attempted parable on hope and human evolution.
And this is an extremely talky parable. That might be hard to avoid in a two-character, one-room setting, but the hour and forty-five minute run time becomes excessive despite the mixing of wry humor with Duplass and Brown’s commitment to the exercise.
The bigger problem is that once the film goes where it goes, it feels like the end of a great short film that never was. The main point then becomes the pitch, and not so much about where it ends up. Give Duplass and Eslyn credit for the ambition, and Eslyn some props for making the treatment more cinema than sit-com, but the end is satisfying only if the mean was to be a conversation-starter.
And Biosphere should indeed start some, just not about the big issues it has in mind. Those end up getting caught in a narrative corner that’s covered in too much paint.
Chile ’76 is a stellar feature debut for director and co-writer Manuela Martelli. It’s assembled with the measured pace of a storyteller committed to her vision and confident in her approach.
And, as a native of Santiago who was a teenager in the mid-seventies, Martelli is clearly passionate about this very tumultuous slice of her homeland’s history.
The film is set less than three years into the dictatorship of Pinochet, when a constant layer of fear hung heavy in the air. Carmen (Aline Küppenheim) is buying a can of paint for some home redecorating when she overhears a woman crying for help as local authorities take her away.
We don’t see the abduction, either, and Martelli’s focus on Carmen’s silent reaction is the first of many instances where the film gains heft from Martelli’s elegant restraint.
As the wife of a respected doctor (Alejandro Goic), Carmen enjoys a life of means and free time. She volunteers reading to the blind, and it is precisely Carmen’s standing, schedule and conscience that spur Father Sanchez (Hugo Medina) to entrust her with a sensitive task.
The twenty-something Elias (Nicolás Sepúlveda) was badly wounded by Pinochet’s forces, but escaped. Could Carmen nurse him back to health, in secret, at her family’s beach house?
Martelli builds a solid foundation to support this intimate political thriller, leaning on meaningful visuals and Küppenheim’s terrific performance to consistently elevate the stakes. While Carmen’s rich friends cling to familiar accusations of “lazy traitors” who only “want to get things for free,” Carmen’s life becomes a series of hushed meetings, secret passwords, and aroused suspicions.
It may only run 95 minutes, but Chile ’76 fills all of them with an impressive ability to change colors. Hints of a standard melodrama fall away to reveal tense political intrigue, becoming the centerpiece of a talented filmmaker’s somber salute to the spirt of revolution.
Should they have stopped after Last Crusade? Probably.
But is Dial of Destiny a more worthy sendoff for the iconic Indiana Jones than 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Most definitely.
Director James Mangold takes the whip from Spielberg and wastes no time reminding us why we have loved this character for decades. Impressively staged action and that familiar theme song combine for a thrilling 20-minute opening sequence set back amid Indy’s heyday, with the unusual combo of Harrison Ford’s de-aged face (pretty nifty) and 80 year-old voice (craggy) fighting to recover the blade that drew Christ’s blood.
Fast forward to the late 1960s, and Dr. Jones is ready for retirement when his past comes calling with a tempting opportunity. Indy’s goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge, bringing some welcome zest), whose father was Indy’s old partner Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), shows up with a tale about finally recovering the artifact that neither Basil nor Indy could ever pin down.
It is the Antikythera, a hand-powered orrery designed by Greek astronomer Archimedes that was said to produce “fissures in time.” Archimedes hid the two halves of the dial from the Ancient Romans, and now Indy can help Helena find the dial before it falls into the menacing hands of the mysterious Dr. Schmidt (Mads Mikkelsen).
The script, co-written by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, David Koepp and Mangold, allows our character to feel his age – the wisdom of his accumulated experiences and the losses, the absences, they’ve brought him. It also allows a bit of silliness to creep in before we’re done, which becomes the one last hurdle that Indy must overcome.
As a director, Mangold comes to the franchise with a terrific resume that includes Logan, Ford v Ferarri, Walk the Line and 3:10 to Yuma. But while he’s able to fill many action-packed set pieces with craftmanship and flair, Spielberg’s unmistakable layer of childlike wonder is noticeably missing.
But so is Spielberg, so that’s gonna happen.
What Mangold and his writing team can do is find a comfortable groove that, like our hero, leans more toward respecting the past than plundering its remnants.
Ford is a big reason for that. He steps back into that fedora not like he’s never left it, which is the point. He meets his character where he actually is – old, alone, grieving. Mangold’s Logan also grappled with the melancholy of our waning years (and beautifully). Ford makes the most of this opportunity to see the character’s arc through, right into a warm and satisfying sunset.
The fence is meant to separate the proud and the privileged from the lawless and desperate. So the opening in it serves as a warning about who might try to come in, and a reminder about how important it is to protect your place on the “good” side.
The Hole in the Fence (El hoyo en la cerca) isn’t exactly subtle, or especially profound, but it does serve up a well constructed lesson in the roots of toxic masculinity, the twisted tenets of religious hypocrisy, and the casual cruelty that often accompanies both.
A group of rich Catholic kids is bused into Mexico’s Los Pinos integration camp for boys. The lessons they receive will continue their grooming as the next wave of the Mexican “elite,” and lesson one is a speech that reinforces how unworthy the “outside” people are.
And right on cue, ringleader Jordi (Valeria Lamm) and the rest of the boys begin singling out any sign of weakness in the ranks. Diego (Eric David Walker) is hampered by casts and a neck brace, Eduardo (Yubah Ortega) is a scholarship kid, and Joaquincito (Lucciano Kurti) might be gay.
This will not do.
We’ve seen these themes and metaphors before, but director and co-writer Joaquin del Paso does score some compelling moments by narrowing the focus to the teachers and students interacting in one confined space. And the pupils learn quickly about how well cruelty can work for them, especially as a means to decrease your own suffering at the expense of someone else’s.
Slowly, the priests and instructors begin moving from the periphery to the center of the narrative. One camper goes missing, hints are dropped about the history of the camp, and del Paso engineers a truly unsettling extended take sequence set by the side of a highway.
Who is more dangerous here, those outside the fence, or those inside? The Hole in the Fence has answers that are not soft-pedalled, but still too hard to be ignored.
Maggie Moore(s) is nestled in a quiet little neighborhood between the Coen Brothers, Taylor Sheridan, and any mid-lfe rom-com. Expect engaging characters getting caught in dangerous games and possible romances, and reacting with clever witticisms, charming flirtatiousness and occasional bursts of violence.
And though the film doesn’t rise to the best of any genre, it patches together enough winning moments for a worthwhile caper-com.
With an opening declaration that “some” of the events actually happened, Paul Bernbaum’s first script since 2007’s Next takes us to a small desert town in Arizona that’s suddenly rocked by two murders in one week.
And both victims are named Maggie Moore. WTF?
Is there a connection between Maggie 1 (Louisa Krause) and Maggie 2 (Mary Holland)?
That’s what Police Chief Sanders (Jon Hamm) and deputy Reddy (Nick Mohammed) aim to find out. And pretty soon they’re finding out that Maggie 2’s husband (Christopher Denham) has a girlfriend (Bobbi Kitten) and a life insurance payout coming, while Maggie 1’s man (Micah Stock) has been passing photos for a pedophile food supplier (Derek Basco) in exchange for cheap and moldy cold cuts for his sub shop.
Oh, and Maggie 1’s neighbor Rita (Tina Fey) says the couple’s fights had recently been escalating.
Director John Slattery (God’s Pocket) exhibits fine juggling skills, giving his Mad Men pal Hamm plenty of room to craft Chief Sanders as the easy-to-root-for heart of the film. He’s a widower who takes a creative writing class at night, and his rebuff of a classmate’s overtures only makes us more hopeful when he and the divorced Rita find reasons to meet.
Of course, it helps that Hamm and Fey are real life buddies, with enough natural chemistry and snappy barbs (Him: “Wash your car.” Her: “Wash your ass!”) to make their time together a treat to watch.
Yes, putting a wannabe romance in the middle of Hell or High Fargo can bring a disjointed feel, but the orbit of distinct characters and cutting dialogue around it never lets the crime-solving grow tiresome.
Don’t look to Maggie Moore(s) for trail blazing or ground breaking, it will come up short. But for an hour-and-a-half of breezy, sometimes messy entertainment, it’s plenty capable.
