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A slow week at the movies is not the same as a weak week
Aquarius and The Free World among new theater releases
Aquarius: The dawning of an age of great movies starring women?
This week is a strong one for women here at The Big Screen. The big news is Sonia Braga, who not only plays a strong, intelligent woman in Aquarius, but also plays a strong, intelligent woman who is over 60 years old. And she's not even English, or Meryl Streep! Crazy times. And what do you know, Scott Marks also found it to be a really excellent film, despite his distaste for disease in drama.
Movie
Handmaiden <em>(Agassi)</em> *
Korea in the 1930s: a young woman (Tae Ri Kim) is hired to care for a mad (or is she?) Japanese heiress (Kim Min-hee), who lives a life of seclusion on a sprawling countryside estate. “What does a crook know about love?” inquires a character in the latest from Chan-wook Park (<em>Oldboy, Thirst</em>). The question would be better posed to the director who effectively robs movie lovers of half-a-feature. Park bumps the twist ending to the middle, a move from which the narrative never recovers. That leaves an hour’s worth of repetition — part two echoes the action from the mistress’ POV — and gratuitous softcore lesbian porn. This time Park’s approach to eroticism borders on arrogance, not assuredness. Exquisite imagery abounds, as one might expect to find in any film from the visually exacting director. Alas, a giggle-inducing vagina-cam shot aimed at the most prurient-minded is not one of them.
He was less taken with the "softcore lesbian porn" in Chan-Wook Park's The Handmaiden, but say this for softcore lesbian porn: the participants are both women, and odds are, they aren't talking about a man. It ain't quite on par with Guardians of the Galaxy 2's promise to "not only pass the Bechdel test, but run over it and back up over it again and again in an eighteen-wheeler truck," but it's something, I guess.
And he was even less taken with Girl Asleep, but look: "Girl" is right there in the title! And it was directed by a woman!
Movie
Free World ***
Writer-director Jason Lew’s debut feature is very much a religious picture, dealing as it does with a wrongfully imprisoned man’s conversion to Islam and the subsequent test of that conversion. But while the religious stuff is clearly set forth and left in plain sight, it’s easy to overlook, given the abundant humanity radiated by leads Boyd Holbrook and Elisabeth Moss, the hothouse atmosphere of the murder investigation that threatens them both, and the explosion of violence that forces the issue. Lew is blunt with symbols (dogs in cages standing in for people trapped in prisons both literal and figurative, the literal crossing of a river when our heroes cross their own personal Rubicon) and with images (lots of shots feature one strong light source, one well-lit object or person, and an abundance of shadows all around), and he’s sometimes clumsy with pacing. But he knows the story he’s telling, and so does his highly engaging cast. When Holbrook smiles — which is, understandably, not often, given his past, his present, and his likely future — he looks like a scruffy young Brad Pitt. But Elisabeth Moss is always initimably herself, her eyes wide enough and visage clear enough to let through anger, fear, hurt, and aggression all at the same time. Or, if the moment requires it, plain old happiness.
As for me, I was fortunate enough to take in another fine performance from Elisabeth Moss in The Free World. Looking back at my review for her previous feature, Queen of Earth, I find I was impressed by the same thing both times: the utter transparency of expression. Plus, you know, plenty of interior stuff for that transparency to reveal.
Movie
Inferno
A thoroughly pedestrian adventure that might have been better titled <em>Hell is Lots and Lots of Other People.</em>. At least, that's the belief of the billionaire bad guy in Ron Howard's latest adaptation of Dan Brown's series featuring symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks). What to do about overbreeding humanity? Well, the Black Plague helped out way back when; maybe we could use another one of those. "Maybe," as our baddie intones, "pain can save us." What does the Dante poem about hell referenced in the <em>actual</em> title have to do with any of this? Very little. But it does afford the viewer a moment of hope that Howard has decided to make a psycho-horror movie instead of a scenic walk-and-talk about olde-timey stuff between Hanks and whomever (usually Felicity Jones). The first 20 minutes or so are dotted with visions straight out of the book's pages: damned souls with their heads turned backwards, or their hands lopped off, or their heads buried in lava. Whispers about sinners paying for their sins. A spectral figure in a birdlike Plague Mask. Creepy stuff! Alas, it doesn't last, and soon we're back among the usual assortment of government agencies, secret organizations, and double agents. Even Langdon's supposed erudition is dull here: he doesn't sort out symbols so much as he conducts history lessons. And then the world's lamest ethics lecture.
Stepping aside from this fusillade of film femininity is America's Dad Tom Hanks, walk, walk, walking his way through some very pretty locales in Inferno. There's so little to say about this film that I'm almost tempted to give you my pitch for Nine Rings, a story about a big-city lawyer named Dante who finds himself out in the sticks and off the beaten path at Virgil's Bar & Grill... Almost tempted. Almost.
Finally, in the realm of the restored and returned to the big screen: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
Here's something you might be interested in.
A slow week at the movies is not the same as a weak week
Aquarius and The Free World among new theater releases
A slow week at the movies is not the same as a weak week
Aquarius and The Free World among new theater releases
Aquarius: The dawning of an age of great movies starring women?
This week is a strong one for women here at The Big Screen. The big news is Sonia Braga, who not only plays a strong, intelligent woman in Aquarius, but also plays a strong, intelligent woman who is over 60 years old. And she's not even English, or Meryl Streep! Crazy times. And what do you know, Scott Marks also found it to be a really excellent film, despite his distaste for disease in drama.
Movie
Handmaiden <em>(Agassi)</em> *
Korea in the 1930s: a young woman (Tae Ri Kim) is hired to care for a mad (or is she?) Japanese heiress (Kim Min-hee), who lives a life of seclusion on a sprawling countryside estate. “What does a crook know about love?” inquires a character in the latest from Chan-wook Park (<em>Oldboy, Thirst</em>). The question would be better posed to the director who effectively robs movie lovers of half-a-feature. Park bumps the twist ending to the middle, a move from which the narrative never recovers. That leaves an hour’s worth of repetition — part two echoes the action from the mistress’ POV — and gratuitous softcore lesbian porn. This time Park’s approach to eroticism borders on arrogance, not assuredness. Exquisite imagery abounds, as one might expect to find in any film from the visually exacting director. Alas, a giggle-inducing vagina-cam shot aimed at the most prurient-minded is not one of them.
He was less taken with the "softcore lesbian porn" in Chan-Wook Park's The Handmaiden, but say this for softcore lesbian porn: the participants are both women, and odds are, they aren't talking about a man. It ain't quite on par with Guardians of the Galaxy 2's promise to "not only pass the Bechdel test, but run over it and back up over it again and again in an eighteen-wheeler truck," but it's something, I guess.
And he was even less taken with Girl Asleep, but look: "Girl" is right there in the title! And it was directed by a woman!
Movie
Free World ***
Writer-director Jason Lew’s debut feature is very much a religious picture, dealing as it does with a wrongfully imprisoned man’s conversion to Islam and the subsequent test of that conversion. But while the religious stuff is clearly set forth and left in plain sight, it’s easy to overlook, given the abundant humanity radiated by leads Boyd Holbrook and Elisabeth Moss, the hothouse atmosphere of the murder investigation that threatens them both, and the explosion of violence that forces the issue. Lew is blunt with symbols (dogs in cages standing in for people trapped in prisons both literal and figurative, the literal crossing of a river when our heroes cross their own personal Rubicon) and with images (lots of shots feature one strong light source, one well-lit object or person, and an abundance of shadows all around), and he’s sometimes clumsy with pacing. But he knows the story he’s telling, and so does his highly engaging cast. When Holbrook smiles — which is, understandably, not often, given his past, his present, and his likely future — he looks like a scruffy young Brad Pitt. But Elisabeth Moss is always initimably herself, her eyes wide enough and visage clear enough to let through anger, fear, hurt, and aggression all at the same time. Or, if the moment requires it, plain old happiness.
As for me, I was fortunate enough to take in another fine performance from Elisabeth Moss in The Free World. Looking back at my review for her previous feature, Queen of Earth, I find I was impressed by the same thing both times: the utter transparency of expression. Plus, you know, plenty of interior stuff for that transparency to reveal.
Movie
Inferno
A thoroughly pedestrian adventure that might have been better titled <em>Hell is Lots and Lots of Other People.</em>. At least, that's the belief of the billionaire bad guy in Ron Howard's latest adaptation of Dan Brown's series featuring symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks). What to do about overbreeding humanity? Well, the Black Plague helped out way back when; maybe we could use another one of those. "Maybe," as our baddie intones, "pain can save us." What does the Dante poem about hell referenced in the <em>actual</em> title have to do with any of this? Very little. But it does afford the viewer a moment of hope that Howard has decided to make a psycho-horror movie instead of a scenic walk-and-talk about olde-timey stuff between Hanks and whomever (usually Felicity Jones). The first 20 minutes or so are dotted with visions straight out of the book's pages: damned souls with their heads turned backwards, or their hands lopped off, or their heads buried in lava. Whispers about sinners paying for their sins. A spectral figure in a birdlike Plague Mask. Creepy stuff! Alas, it doesn't last, and soon we're back among the usual assortment of government agencies, secret organizations, and double agents. Even Langdon's supposed erudition is dull here: he doesn't sort out symbols so much as he conducts history lessons. And then the world's lamest ethics lecture.
Stepping aside from this fusillade of film femininity is America's Dad Tom Hanks, walk, walk, walking his way through some very pretty locales in Inferno. There's so little to say about this film that I'm almost tempted to give you my pitch for Nine Rings, a story about a big-city lawyer named Dante who finds himself out in the sticks and off the beaten path at Virgil's Bar & Grill... Almost tempted. Almost.
Finally, in the realm of the restored and returned to the big screen: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
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