Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward made several films together, including “The Long, Hot Summer” and “Rachel Rachel” (he directed, she starred).
Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn met on “Woman of the Year” and you can see them fall in love on screen.
Their last movie together was “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” This speech, filmed just before Tracy’s death, feels as though Tracy is speaking about his love for his co-star.
Carole Lombard and Clark Gable were not yet a couple when they made “No Man of Her Own,” but it is fun to see them together.
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall famously fell in love making “To Have and Have Not.” I think the rest of us fall for her every time we see it.
Director Taylor Hackford met his wife, Helen Mirren, when they made “White Nights” together.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had a passionate, tempestuous relationship, including two marriages and divorces, that was reflected in their films together.
Copyright 2021 AmazonAfter “Palm Springs,” one of 2020’s best films, you may think that yet another bittersweet romantic comedy set in a temporal anomaly/time loop (think “Groundhog Day”) makes you feel like you’re in an infinitely repeating time loop yourself. But it won’t take long at all for you to realize that on the contrary you are watching an utterly charming, engaging, and yes, original film. It is a delight.
“The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” is about Mark (Kyle Allen) and Margaret (Kathryn Newton of “Freaky”). The similarity of their names is not coincidental. Other than being the only two people stuck repeating the same day over and over, they seem to have little in common. He is aimless and artistic. She is focused and loves math and science.
At first, Mark is caught up in his own concerns, using what he has learned by re-living the same day to amuse himself by making the day as seamless as possible. He knows exactly where he has to be to catch the toast popping out of the toaster or grab the mug knocked off the table before it hits the floor.
And then, one day, or, rather, the millionth repeat of the same day, he sees Margaret. She is not eager to become friends and tells him very little about herself or why she has to leave at the same time every day (the same day, you know what I mean).
They are not sure whether they want to break out of the time loop. They see the advantages of a consequence-less life. A mohawk haircut. A tattoo. A car crash, Breaking a lot of stuff. They see the advantages of a closely observed world, the possibilities. They see the disadvantages of a consequence-less life. They see that even actions that will be erased hours later still make a difference.
I liked the way the movie subtly let us and the characters gradually discover that there are other ways to be stuck, even for characters who are not caught in the time loop. Mark’s best friend Henry (Jermaine Harris) sits on the sofa playing the same video game. Mark’s parents are stuck in their own way. And Margaret, despite her plans for the future is stuck in more than a time loop.
The dialogue is sharp and witty enough you want to lean forward to make sure you don’t miss any of it. Briskly directed and beautifully performed, this is a movie you will want to watch more than once and will never feel like you’re repeating the same experience.
Parents should know that this film has some strong language, the sad death of a parent, family stress, and teen drinking.
Family discussion: Why did Mark and Margaret go into a time loop? If you could pick one day to live over and over, would you? Which day? What would you do first?
If you like this, try: “Time Bandits” (it is as great as Mark says it is), and other time-loop classics like “Groundhog Day,” “The Edge of Tomorrow,” and “Palm Springs.” You will also enjoy some other fantasy romances like “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Stranger than Fiction”
Reference to tragic death of a child, child abuse, mental illness
Diversity Issues:
None
Date Released to Theaters:
February 5, 2021
Copyright 2021 Lionsgate
A short story by Kurt Vonnegut was turned into a television film for PBS starring Christopher Walken as a shy man who only came alive when he was assigned a part in a play. Susan Sarandon played a woman who fell in love with him and they ended up happily inhabiting roles that kept their relationship exciting. I thought of that when I watched “The Right One,” about a young writer who is drawn to a man who seems to have a dozen different personalities.
Godfrey (Nick Thune) does not conform to the expectations of Bob (David Koechner), an executive sent to improve productivity at his office. But before Bob can begin to express any concerns, Godfrey completely wins him over through a shared dedication to the 90s garage band Blues Traveler. Bob is utterly disarmed. And we soon see why Godfrey is far and away the most successful salesman in his office by far, so successful that everyone overlooks his strange looks and behavior. Just as he did with Bob, he is able to connect to people, even over the phone, finding some link to make them feel comfortable, understood, and open to buying something. We might think of it as code-switching, shifting frames of reference and modes of speech to fit the audience. But this is an extreme version, so extreme that the “real” Godfrey, if there is one, is invisible.
Sara (Cleopatra Coleman) is struggling with writer’s block. Her brash and outspoken agent, Kelly (Iliza Shlesinger) is pushing her to finish a book she has not even started. At an art gallery opening, Sara sees Godfrey in two different personas, and she is intrigued enough to start writing about a character based on him.
And so, she begins to hang out with him, seeing him as an EDM DJ and dancing the tango him. He avoids her at first, but begins to invite her to join him. He thinks they are starting a friendship. She thinks he is material for her book.
Godfrey’s brother Shad (standout M.J. Kokolis) warns Sara to stay away from him, but she ignores him. Finally, Shad tells her something of Godfrey’s background. And Godfrey finds out what Sara is doing.
The script is cluttered and inconsistent in tone and in the quality of the performances. Thune and Coleman do not have a lot of chemistry. It does not have the heft to support its more emotional beats. But like its main character, it has a rakish, if amateurish charm.
Parents should know that this film has very strong language, crude sexual humor, and references to child abuse and neglect, mental illness, and a tragic death.
Family discussion: Which personality is the “real” Godfrey? If you were going to create different personas, what would they be? Should Sara have told Godfrey what she was doing?
If you like this, try: “Benny and Joon” and Thune’s “Dave Made a Maze”
Copyright Netflix 2021When I interviewed John David Washington about “BlackKklansman,” he told me his dream was a film of “The Taming of the Shrew.” His new film, “Malcolm and Marie” could be an audition for that project and based on the results, someone should cast him and his co-star Zendaya right this minute and start filming it tomorrow.
There’s a lot wrong or maybe it is more accurate to say missing in “Malcolm and Marie,” but given the way it was made, it is remarkable how much is right and it is never less than watchable thanks to the palpable magnetism and chemistry of its two stars, who make up the entire cast. This was a pandemic project, made by writer/director Sam Levinson, as he and Zendaya were on hiatus from their “Euphoria” series due to COVID-19 restrictions. So, this film preserves the classical unities of time and space and action, not as a tribute to Aristotle’s Poetics but as a way to keep everyone safe. The cast and crew quarantined together and the entire film takes place in real time during one late evening in one beautiful beach house. It is filmed in gorgeous black and white by Marcell Rév. And it has a script that could have used a couple more drafts.
Malcolm (Washington) and Marie (Zendaya) come home from a big, glittery event in very different moods, so different that they do not at first notice what is happening with each other. Malcolm is proud, happy, relieved, and excited. He pours himself a drink, cranks up the music, starts to dance, and asks Marie to make some mac and cheese.
Marie boils the water and cuts the butter, but she is quiet, reflective, possibly seething underneath.
Malcolm is an up-and-coming film director and they have just come from the premiere of his latest, the story of a young woman struggling with drug addiction. The premiere was a triumph, the kind that may have moved him from up-and-coming to arrived. Following the screening, he was complimented by everyone, even “the white lady critic from the LA Times.” He is delighted with the reaction, but it stings that her compliment compared him to directors like Spike Lee and Barry Jenkins, all Black filmmakers, and not to, say, William Wyler, a white director from the 1940s and 50s. Marie is feeling left out, partly for reasons we will discover, but initially because in his speech at the reception, he thanked a lot of people, including the star of the film, but did not thank her. He apologized in the car on the way home, but it still bothers her.
The rest of the film is up and down and back and forth as they argue, make up, argue, make up, argue, and possibly make up again. There are elements of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” as their arguments strip away the boundaries enduring couples are careful to protect, but in this case there is no bewildered, meek, and tipsy other couple to perform for; there is just us. Washington and Zendaya are never less than utterly present, utterly vulnerable, and utterly in control of the constantly shifting moods, challenging and matching each other in every beat as characters and as performers. It is a wonder to watch.
And it is impossible not to be sympathetic to the movie’s failures because they are the faults of daring too much, when too many movies fail for the opposite reason. “Malcolm and Marie” tries to bring a lot into the world of these two people in two hours, with issues of race and culture and the relationship of the critic to the artist and who gets credit for what and when and probably also what art is for in the first place. A lot a lot a lot, all from two people talking. It is unlikely that it would have been made this way without the restrictions of a pandemic, including the claustrophobia of the entire crew quarantining together. What other conditions could create this work? How else could we explore these issues in this way? Think of other movies about two people talking. “My Dinner with Andre” was constructed, with everyone going home after a day of shooting, and “Before Sunrise” and “Columbus” had whole cities to explore.
“Malcolm and Marie” may end up as a footnote in what are sure to be long and rich careers for the filmmakers. But it is well worth seeing as an example of what can be done when it seems like nothing is possible, indeed what can be inspired by a moment that seems stuck. I came away hoping the characters go on together and looking forward to whatever Washington and Zendaya do next.
Parents should know that this movie includes very strong language, explicit sexual references and situations, tense confrontations, and discussions of drug addiction.
Family questions: Do your sympathies shift back and forth over the course of the movie? When? Why?
If you like this, try: “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and “My Dinner with Andre” as well as other films from Washington and Zendaya and the works of William Wyler
Copyright 2020 Vertical EntertainmentMeagan Good and Tamara Bass co-produced, co-directed, and star in “If Not Now, When?” with a screenplay by Bass. It is the story of four friends who come together as one of them is facing a crisis, and then support each other as each of them faces difficult decisions about life, work, parenting, and romance. Sound soapy? It is, but not because those issues should be dismissed as, in the words of Stephen H. Scheuer’s 1958-1993 guide to movies, “for the ladies.” Plenty of films make clear that those are foundational life questions that everyone struggles with. But the script is the weak point in this film, with exposition-heavy dialogue that too often tells instead of shows.
As we might expect, the strong point of the movie is the performances. Bass and Good understand actors, starting with the casting, and they give them the space to bring more life and emotion to the script than it merits.
In a brief prologue, we see the four friends in high school, working up an elaborate dance routine for a promposal — which is quickly declined. But they’re not bothered. It is clear that they are just as happy going with each other. Tyra (played as a teenager by Li Eubanks), asks them to wait while she goes to the bathroom. It turns out she is in labor. She has not told anyone she is pregnant, not even her friends. They stay with her and promise their support.
Fifteen years later, Tyra (Good) is being discharged from a hospital following an accidental drug overdose. Her friends and her husband, Max (Kyle Schmid) stage an intervention, telling her she needs to go to rehab because she is dependent on opioids. She refuses until she sees her 14-year-old daughter Jillian (Lexi Underwood), who found her unconscious and had to call 911. She reluctantly agrees to go, though at first insists that she does not have a problem.
While she is in rehab, we spend time with the three friends. Suzanne (Mekia Cox) is married to a bitter, unfaithful, alcoholic former football player. She loves another man but won’t leave her husband because she is pregnant, and, more important, because she wants everyone to think her life is perfect. Patrice (Bass), a nurse, is drawn to a doctor at her hospital, but is afraid he will reject her when he learns more about her. Jillian thinks of Patrice as a second mother, and is living with her while Tyra is away.
And Diedre (Meagan Holder), a gifted dancer, is weighing two offers, a dream job choreographing a pop star’s tour and a chance to reconcile with her ex (McKinley Freeman as Jackson), the father of her son. Other than the football player, the men are all gorgeous and pretty much fully devoted to supporting the ladies they adore. With over four different stories and ten characters, including children, there is not enough time to give enough depth to most of them to make us invest in their stories. Much of the film has no score other than some on-the-nose needle drops. Oddly, the lyrics of one say “you are what you choose to be” but another says, “I’ll be different for you, baby.”
Trya’s story gets the most attention, and the most interesting relationship in the film is between Tyra and her counselor at rehab, an exquisite performance by Valarie Pettiford. But the movie really comes to life only when the women are talking to each other, renewing their connections and providing the support that only those ride-or-die friends for decades can give. Good and Bass clearly share that connection, but it is only intermittently that it comes across in the film.
Parents should know that this film includes drug addiction and alcoholism, infidelity, some violence, sexual references and situations, and some strong language.
Family discussion: Why was it so difficult for these women to admit their problems? What made Tyra change her mind about cooperating with treatment?
If you like this, try: “Waiting to Exhale” and “Now and Then”
