Amsterdam

Posted on October 6, 2022 at 5:20 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for brief violence and bloody images
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol and drug use
Violence/ Scariness:	Very graphic bloody images, wartime violence
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	October 7, 2022
Date Released to DVD:	December 5, 2022

David O. Russell’s film, “Amsterdam” has a powerhouse cast, a wisp of a true story and a wildly uneven and overly complicated script. The results are, therefore, messy and mixed. As a fellow movie-goer told me, watching the movie was like bobbing for apples. Much of the time we felt like we were under water and then all of a sudden something good would pop up.

Amsterdam (the city) appears in the film only in a brief happy moment in the lives of the three main characters, who have sworn to be best friends and protect each other. They are two WWI veterans, Harold Woodman (John David Washington), who would become a lawyer, Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale), already a doctor, and Valerie (Margot Robbie), a nurse who cared for them in a French hospital for wounded soldiers. Harold is Black and Burt is half Jewish and lower class than his high society wife, and bigotry is evident throughout the story. Indeed, as we see in a flashback, they met when Black US soldiers in France objected to their racist white officers — they were not even allowed to wear the uniform of their country — and Burt was assigned by the kind, honorable General Meekins (Ed Begley Jr.) to treat the Black soldiers with honor and dignity.

In the movie’s present setting of 1933 New York, both Burt and Harold are devoting their lives to helping other wounded veterans. They themselves bear the scars of combat and Burt has a glass eye due to his injuries (second movie with Bale losing a glass eye after “The Big Short”). He is also experimenting with pain medication for his patients and taking a lot of it himself. The men are working on a gala dinner honoring their fellow veterans that will become of increasing importance.

Every role, even the smallest, is superbly cast, with Robbie as the high-spirited, dada-esque artist, Zoe Saldana as a sympathetic nurse passing for “Portuguese,” Beth Grant as a bouillabaisse-making devoted wife, Matthias Schoenaerts and Alessandro Nivola as police detectives, significantly one also a wounded vet and one who did not serve, Timothy Olyphant, almost unrecognizable in a role I won’t spoil, and Michael Shannon and Mike Myers — yes, that Mike Myers) as bird-loving “benefactors” who may not be completely forthcoming about their real interests. Every performance is outstanding, but so much so that they begin to throw the storyline out of whack. In films like “Silver Linings Playbook,” “American Hustle,” and “Flirting with Disaster,” Russell made the mixture of bittersweet situations and some leavening humor work to reveal the characters and move the story. Here it just gets distracting.

The daughter of General Meekins (Taylor Swift, yes, that Taylor Swift), asks Harold and Burt for help. Her father died on a ship returning from Europe, and she suspects that he may have been murdered. The efforts to investigate result in another murder, with Burt and Harold as the prime suspects. This leads to a series of encounters, revelations, and twists that I will not spoil. Also, I’m not sure I understood all of them.

I did understand the last 20 minutes. Everyone understood the last 20 minutes, thoug. I’m pretty sure you didn’t even have to watch the movie to understand the point. Russell bangs on his message with a sledgehammer, and then, just in case he wasn’t banging hard enough, he shows us archival footage of the person who inspired the character played by Robert De Niro. Even those sympathetic to the points he is trying to make about the parallels between the political conflicts of the pre-WWII era and today will find it overly didactic. Too much water, not enough apples.

Parents should know that this film includes bloody, graphic images of an autopsy and wartime violence, bigotry, alcohol and drug use (portrayed as comic in some instances), and brief strong language.

Family discussion: What parallels is Russell drawing to the politics of 2022? Why is the movie called “Amsterdam?” Read up on General Smedley Butler and the “Business Plot.”

If you like this, try: “Keeper of the Flame” and “State of the Union,” both starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy

Bros

Posted on September 29, 2022 at 5:53 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Adult
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol, drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	September 30, 2022
Date Released to DVD:	November 21, 2022

Two very different people claim that they have no interest in love and relationships but love will outsmart you and — at least in movies — love loves a challenge. “Bros” is the first Hollywood studio romantic comedy about a gay couple, and it arrives with solid credentials: produced by Judd Apatow (“The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up”) and co-written and directed by Nicholas Stoller (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Get Him to the Greek”).

The other screenwriter and star is Billy Eichner, playing a heightened version of his real-life persona: cynical and often abrasive. He has said in interviews that he was determined not to make this story comfortable for “normies” by simply replicating cis-het rom-com tropes. This is not a script that could be easily retrofitted for some pretty Jennifer or Jessica to sparkle through some misunderstandings and end with an apology and a proposal. “Love is not love!” he says, explaining that expecting gay couples to replicate the dynamics of straight couples just to make them more acceptable is refusing to recognize that their differences are who they are. This is more of a “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it” attitude. Everyone in the film, including the actors playing straight characters, is gay, except for a few celebrity cameos.

Eichner plays Bobby Leiber, a popular podcaster who has just accepted a new job as the head of the country’s first museum of LGBTQIA history. Some of the movie’s best scenes are in the museum’s conference room, as Bobby and the staff argue about the best way to represent their community. They want to be honest but they also want to get the funding they need to open the museum. So, does that mean an exhibit about Abraham Lincoln, because some people think he was gay? Or does it mean an exhibit with a car that travels through a hall of gay trauma proposed by a wealthy donor? That potential donor, by the way, is played by “SNL’s” Bowen Yang, and he is hilarious.

Bobby insists that he likes being alone and independent. When two friends excitedly announced that they have invited a third man into their relationship to become a thruple, he says he does not even want to be part of a couple. He insists that he is doing fine with brief encounters with strangers found via apps, and tells us that walking home afterwards he feels warm and connected. And then he sees Aaron (Luke Macfarlane). While he won’t admit it to himself, he likes Aaron and he like likes Aaron. And that means he has to think about something he has spent his whole life not thinking about: whether anyone will like like him.

There’s a bushel basket of witticisms and pop culture references. The film also captures the way “S’up?” both stands for and impedes communication. Without getting too heteronormative, there is also a lot of heart. Everyone in the film is clearly very happy to be there and to tell this story, and I was happy to be able to watch it.

Parents should know that this movie includes sexual references and very explicit sexual situations and nudity, strong language, alcohol and drug use.

Family discussion: What was Bobby wrong about? Would you like to visit that museum? What should be in it?

If you like this, try: “Fire Island,” also featuring Bowen Yang.

The Good House

Posted on September 29, 2022 at 5:40 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	NA
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and alcoholism, marijuana
Violence/ Scariness:	Reference to two suicides (off-screen), some scuffles, lost child
Diversity Issues:	Neurodivergent child
Date Released to Theaters:	September 30, 2022
Date Released to DVD:	November 21, 2022

Hildy Good (Sigourney Weaver) tells us she was “born three drinks short of comfortable.” She tells us a lot in “The Good House,” based on the 2013 novel by Ann Leary. Hildy and her ancestors going back to one Sarah Good, hung for being a witch back in the late 1600s, have always lived in a Massachusetts town on the shore of the Atlantic ocean. By nature, culture, and profession she is utterly attuned to the emotions and the stories around her. As a realtor, she has to be able to assess immediately the needs and dynamics of the prospective buyers and sellers. Divorce may be a personal catastrophe for the people splitting up, but for her it is a business opportunity. Hildy has to balance the necessity of being pleasant and supportive to everyone with the necessity of boundaries that keep her from getting too emotionally involved. But they also keep her from being as perceptive about herself as she is about others. Hildy narrates a lot and she is always charming, often a little wry, but as we go on we see what she is leaving out of the story.

The good news about a small town is that everyone knows everything about everyone. That can be a source of comfort and help people feel grounded. The bad thing about a small town is that everyone knows everything about everyone. That can be a source of claustrophobia and make people feel trapped. The local psychiatrist, for example, is Peter (Rob Delaney). Hildy will always see him in part as the little boy she used to babysit for. Even if she does not, he will always think she does.

There is an increasing gulf between the way Hildy wants to be seen in the community, the way she is seen, and the way she is. We learn that her daughters and ex-husband organized an intervention because of her drinking, and she has been to rehab. And she is still drinking. A lot. She believes it is important for her to appear successful, so she drives a car she cannot afford. She is struggling and feeling the pressure from a former assistant who has become a competitor.

The trailer may suggest that the focus of the movie is the romance as Hildy connects with Frankie (Kevin Kline), a contractor she loved when they were teenagers. But it is really the story of Hildy coming to terms with the loss and fear she has pushed away and refused to acknowledge since she was a child. Often it was alcohol that she used to make reality less painful. This is a gorgeous role for the endlessly talented Weaver, who gives a layered, deeply lived-in performance, one of the best of the year. She shows us Hildy’s cool, pulled together, ABC (Always Be Closing), performative self, the one she shows to clients, potential clients (that means everyone), even her two daughters. Her wry humor at first looks like some self-awareness, but as it goes on, we see it is just another way to avoid seeing the truth. The same with the details she confides in us. At first they seem disarming and candid. But we learn more about what she is leaving out. And her chemistry with her “Dave” and “The Ice Storm” co-star Kline is genuine and touching.

There’s an engaging shagginess to the story that reveals its origins as a novel. Directors and co-screenwriters (with Thomas Bezucha) Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky leave in some of the messy details of the novel that most writers would smooth over in a movie adaptation, where there is a limited time so that every aspect has to push the story forward. This gives the film a sense of atmosphere and community that we can believe goes beyond the edges of the frame.

Parents should know that this film deals with alcoholism, depression, and suicide. A child is in peril. Characters use some strong language.

Family discussion: Why did Hildy tell Rebecca she could not get involved? Do you believe Hildy had special powers of perception?

If you like this, try: “Dave” and “Our Souls at Night” and, by these same screenwriters, the excellent autobiographical “Infinitely Polar Bear”

Three Thousand Years of Longing

Posted on August 25, 2022 at 5:44 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for some sexual content, graphic nudity, and brief violence
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and drunkenness
Date Released to Theaters:	August 26, 2022
Date Released to DVD:	November 14, 2022

Like most children, I was fascinated by the power of wishes, and by the fairy tales where wishes never seemed to end with happily ever after. I was fond of a poem by Annette Wynne called “I Keep Three Wishes Ready,” which sensibly advised the readers to think ahead of time of what wishes we would want so we would be prepared and careful to avoid impulses and loopholes.

But, as Alithea (Tilda Swinton), a distinguished professor of stories (narrative) who specializes in fantasy, explains, there is no story about wishes that is not a cautionary tale. And thus, when she has the opportunity to use three wishes to fulfill her heart’s desire, she instead sits down with the djinn (genie) who has come out of her bottle, to hear his stories. As they sit, improbably, in white terrycloth robes in a luxurious Istanbul hotel room, he tells her of the wishes he has granted and the people who made them. And yes, they are all cautionary tales. Is wishing itself, the idea that we can escape the reality of time and the laws of physics and the limits of human power, so inevitably doomed by hubris?

Alithea tells us that the story we will hear is true, but that we will better receive it as fantasy. She also tells us that she is a solitary person, and happy to be so. That, in itself may be a fantasy, though she may not be willing to acknowledge it. I note here that the name Alithea is from the Greek word for fact or truth. And that this story is based on The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, the title story in a book of fairy tales for adults by A.S. Byatt. Alithea begins by telling us of magical-sounding wonders, humans hurtling through the air on metal wings or walking under water with webbed feet, with images reminding us of Arthur C. Clarke’s observation that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

On her way to the conference, Alithea sees, or thinks she sees, a small, possibly magical person. And then, when she is on stage, she sees another mythical being. Is she jet-lagged? Is she losing her mind? Or is she opening herself to what the rest of us refuse to see?

She buys an antique glass bottle, telling the seller that it looks like it has a story. Back in her hotel room, she begins to clean it with her electric toothbrush. The stopper falls out, smoke appears, and a giant hand reaches into the bathroom. It is a djinn (Idris Elba), and he has been inside the bottle for a very long time. Alithea would rather hear his stories than make a wish.

George Miller, the visionary writer/director behind the Mad Max and Babe movies, has a gift for wonder. Somewhere between the dystopian world of Fury Road and the endearing charm of “That’ll do, pig,” is this film, with striking, gorgeous images and swoon-worthy stories of passion — romantic, ambitious, angry, jealous, lustful passions.

Three Thousand Years of Longing goes back and forth between the hotel room conversation and the stories of the wishes the djinn has granted, his repeated returns to confinement and how his adventures have forms his view of humanity, The djinn needs Alithea to make three heartfelt, personal wishes to gain his freedom. She insists that she has no wishes and certainly no wish to become ensnared as those who have tried to gain without effort.

The stories are dark at times, but always gorgeously filmed and resonant. And the end is surprisingly tender, perhaps reflecting the one wish all people share if we are brave enough to admit it.

Parents should know that this film has nudity and sexual references and situations, drinking and drunkenness, and violence, some grisly.

Family discussion: What would you wish? What is your favorite fairy tale and why?

If you like this, try: the book by A.S. Byatt, “The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm”

Where the Crawdads Sing

Posted on July 14, 2022 at 5:25 pm

C-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for substance abuse, strong language, suggestive material, and smoking.
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol and drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness:	Domestic violence, attempted rape, murder
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	July 15, 2022
Date Released to DVD:	September 12, 2022

I have to begin by apologizing to the vast group of readers who adore the book, Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens, a record-breaking publishing phenomenon that remains on the best-seller list four years after it was released. Those fans are hoping the film will deliver the essential elements of the book, the lyrical narration, supplemented with exquisitely filmed images of the natural world so beloved by the main character, and a diligent presentation of the storyline as it appears in the book, and it is fair to say that it does. The cinematography by Polly Morgan is exquisite and the song by Taylor Swift is evocative and haunting. But viewed entirely as a film, the translation to the screen does not work, and those who do not already have a strong emotional commitment to the story are likely to come away finding the film superficial at best and morally bankrupt at worst. While some of the book’s more troubling portrayals of race and class have been softened for the film, the characters and storyline are thinly conceived and it relies much too heavily on Owens’ poetic descriptions of the science she knows well. This is her first novel but she has had decades of experience as a zoologist and conservationist. The works better on paper, when the reader can fill in the blanks, than in a film, which cannot help but be more literal. The actors, production and costume designers, composer, and cinematographer can only try their best to create the same magic.

The book is a fantasy along the lines of Green Mansions or Tarzan, or Blue Lagoon or The Jungle Book, where beautiful children and young people live in nature, free from the corruption of the so-called civilized world.

Kya lives in a remote cabin in the marshes of North Carolina. Her father was drunk and abusive, and so her mother left, and then her older sisters, then her brother. Her father briefly cared for her, giving her his old army pouch to collect the shells and plants she was observing so closely, but then he left, too, and she was alone.

She supports herself by collecting mussels and selling them to the local store, run by a kindly couple. She leaves school after one day because the other children make fun of her and call her “marsh girl.” And she grows up to be movie-star gorgeous (Daisy Edgar-Jones of “Under the Banner of Heaven”) with shiny hair, robust health, and perfect teeth. She is befriended by a gentle boy named Tate (Taylor John Smith), who also lives on the marsh and loves the natural world. He teaches her to read and promises he will not desert her when he goes to college. But he does.

And then a young man from the town, romances her. His name is Chase (Harris Dickinson), and he, too makes promises. She is not sure how she feels about him but she is tired of being alone. HINT (this movie is not subtle): one of these young men supports her passion for drawing and writing about the nature around her and the other, when she sends her work to the publishers, the first one suggested and one accepts with enthusiasm, tells her not to get a big head about it. One is scrupulous about consent, one is not. Hmmm.

Kya’s knowledge of the world is very limited except when it is not. Never having seen a painting or illustration, she somehow creates exquisite drawings of plants and insects with an apparently endless supply of watercolor paints left behind by her mother. She is shy except when she isn’t.

As the movie begins, in 1969, Chase is dead. Kya is arrested for murder, based on circumstantial evidence and the town’s contempt for “marsh girl.” Her backstory is interlaced with the trial. I will not spoil the outcome, which is revealed earlier in the book than in the movie, except to say the coda at the end is both preposterous and, in my view, undermines everything that has gone before.

Parents should know that this has strong material for a PG-13 including explicit sexual situations, attempted rape, domestic abuse, alcoholism, abandonment, and murder. Characters use strong language and drink alcohol and get drunk.

Family discussion: What can you observe in the nature around you? Why did Tom Milton defend Kya? How did Tate feel about his discovery?

If you like this, try: “Green Mansions” and “The Jungle Book” and the book by Owens