Mommie Dearest (1981) * *

Directed by:  Frank Perry

Starring:  Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid, Steve Forrest, Mara Hobel

Watching Feud, the FX series documenting the famous feud between Jessica Lange and Bette Davis, we get more of a sense of the real Joan Crawford.    What drove her?    What did she fear the most?   The series provided us insight, even as we felt bashed over the head with it after Episode 3.     Mommie Dearest concentrates on the strained, abusive relationship between Joan Crawford and her oldest adopted daughter Christina.     Christina, miffed that her mother did not leave her anything in her will following her death in 1977, exacted revenge by writing a scathing tell-all which painted her mother as a verbally and physically abusive monster.     The movie takes this same approach, but what we are watching is mainly a documentation of years-long abuse.    The film looks great and its performances are spot-on, but the production values are wasted on this subject.    

Crawford (Dunaway) is a movie star whose career was starting to fall on hard times when she decides to adopt Christina (Hobel).    The adoption was part publicity stunt and part desire to be a mother.   She would adopt three more, although the movie barely mentions the second child Christopher and doesn't acknowledge the other two at all.     I read the two younger children refute the accounts professed by Christina and Christopher.    It might have been interesting to see things from their point of view, but Mommie Dearest isn't interested in being balanced.   

From the looks of this movie, Crawford was a manic depressive alcoholic who could flip the switch from kindly mother to mother from hell in an instant.     It takes very little to set her off, including using the infamous wire hangers in her closet which she beats Christina with.   ("NO WIRE HANGERS!!")    This is very sad and uncomfortable to watch.     Some may find it entertaining in a sensational way.    Mommie Dearest isn't boring, but it is one-dimensional.

The movie only shows the events from Christina's point of view.    As a child and as an adult, played by Diana Scarwid, Christina is mostly a victim who occasionally provokes her mother into rage by misbehavior and defiance.     Christina has to hit back somehow and this is her way to do it.    There are moments of truce between the two, but then things flare up again at the slightest argument or misunderstanding.   

Feud mostly avoided Joan's relationship with her children.    In fact, they are rarely seen at all in the eight-part series.     The series and the movie, however, reach the same conclusion, which is Joan Crawford wasn't a lot of fun to be around. 

Ed Wood (1994) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Tim Burton

Starring:   Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jeffrey Jones, Lisa Marie, George "The Animal" Steele, Bill Murray, Patricia Arquette

Edward Wood, Jr.  (1924-1978) is famous, or infamous, for writing and directing some of the worst films ever made.     His most famous example of such filmmaking was Plan 9 from Outer Space (1956), which I first saw in the early 1980's along with my dad and uncle, who cracked up at nearly every scene's ineptitude, lack of cohesive narrative, and laughable dialogue.    I joined them in their laughter.   Yes, the movie was awful, but at least I could have some fun watching how awful it was.    Then, you have a movie like Caligula (1980), released two years after Wood's death (and not made by Wood), which was awful, but also vile and creepy.   It was no fun to watch.   I watched the film in appalled silence until I finally couldn't stomach anymore and shut it off.   There are Ed Wood's bad movies and then there is Caligula bad.   I would take Wood's any day of the week.

Ed Wood, directed by Tim Burton, clearly loves its subject and loves the art of moviemaking, no matter how terrible the finished products may be.    Burton admires Wood's never-say-die spirit in making and promoting films he believed were masterpieces just waiting to be discovered.     The studios watch a movie like Glen or Glenda (in which Wood starred as a transvestite) and think someone is playing a prank on them.    Wood, insistent on the film's greatness, manages to somehow secure distribution for the stinker and much to the chagrin of the distributor, who specialized in films that aspire to be B-movies someday.   

No matter.   Wood's next project is one that he believes will transcend the science fiction genre and make him immortal.     That project was Plan 9 and it surely did make him immortal.    To Wood, any immortality was good, because he wasn't in on the joke everyone else seemed to laugh at when it came to his films.      Wood (Depp) soon encounters his idol Bela Lugosi (Landau), whose best days in Hollywood are clearly behind him and spends his days in his bungalow addicted to morphine.     He and Wood strike up a friendship and Wood is able to coax him out of retirement for another film.     Lugosi seemed infected with Wood's enthusiasm and even enters a rehab to clean up.   

Oh, and did I mention Wood himself was a real-life transvestite, which caused plenty of tension between he and his leading lady/girlfriend Delores Fuller (Parker)?   Delores longs to be taken seriously as an actress but is stuck doing Wood's films.    And here she thought he was just trying on her angora sweaters for research.     Delores knows the films are really, really bad, but she is trying to be supportive.    Soon, the whole life of being Ed Wood's gal is too much for her, and she splits the scene. 

In scrounging up financing for Plan 9, Wood makes deals with local Christian groups who have no clue Plan 9 is a film about dead people being resurrected as zombies by aliens who wish to take over the world.    They hear resurrection and think of Jesus.    Wood casts the most bizarre, eclectic group of "actors" you would ever see.   These include wrestler Tor Johnson (Steele), an uncoordinated oaf who lumbers through his scenes and bumps into walls; Bunny Breckinridge (Murray), a gay man who laughingly plays the villain; Vampira (Lisa Marie) a late-night TV horror film host, and of course Lugosi himself, whose scenes are inexplicable.     In real life, Lugosi died shortly after filming began and Wood replaced him with his chiropractor, who was significantly taller than Lugosi and younger.    No matter.    Wood asked the guy to hold his cape over his face during all of his scenes.  

Johnny Depp is the perfect choice for Burton's vision of Wood:  forever optimistic, rarely demoralized, and a repository of self-confidence and belief in his own genius.   Wood didn't need rose-colored glasses because for him the world itself was already rose-colored.   The movie wouldn't work if Burton and Depp somehow mocked Wood.  No, they clearly love him and all of his delusions.  Maybe that is the only way Wood didn't crawl up into a ball and cry his day away.    Hollywood has done that to people with far, far more talent than Wood.

Martin Landau won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.     He, like Wood, is a true believer in his own acting genius.   ("Boris Karloff couldn't smell my shit.")    Maybe that is how he and Wood got along so well, long after the rest of Hollywood wrote Lugosi off as an old, broken-down junkie.   The movie is a loving tribute not just to Wood, but a Hollywood gone by in which such B-movies could be made, distributed, and even turned into minor hits.   In 1980, the book The Golden Turkey Awards named Plan 9 from Outer Space as the worst film ever made.   Yes, the movie is incompetent and poorly made. Yes, it has laughably bad production values, including slipshod editing and scenes in which Wood seemingly only shot one take.  But to me, really bad films are absolutely, unendurably painful to watch.  I'd be lying if I said Plan 9 was such a movie.  In fact, I think I'd like to see it again.

Wonder Woman (2017) * * *

Directed by:  Patty Jenkins

Starring:  Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, David Thewlis, Danny Huston, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, Elena Anaya

The first 20 minutes or so of Wonder Woman did not bode well for my hopes for the movie.    They were slow and all of the women inexplicably spoke in Eastern European accents.     There is lots of talk of gods, superpowers, and training for a potential war with Ares, the Greek God of war who has gone missing after a mano y mano battle with Zeus back in the day.    We see how Diana (Gadot), daughter of the queen of a utopian paradise island populated only by women, becomes a fierce warrior under the tutelage of her aunt (Wright).    The aunt is billed as a brilliant general, but it seems the island is populated by about fifty women, so who exactly would she be leading into battle?    The Spartans in 300 would feel sorry for their odds.

But then reality intervenes in the form of shot down American pilot Steve Trevor (Pine), a spy battling the Germans in World War I, and the island is no longer a place where time nor the outside world doesn't matter anymore.     The movie perks up and Diana, believing World War I to be the work of Ares, accompanies Steve on his journey back to England and then the Western front to thwart the manufacturing of a deadly gas which would kill millions and result in a German victory on the eve of a potential armistice. 

Wonder Woman gathers steam and its soul as Steve and Diana lead a ragtag group of snipers on an unofficial mission to stop the evil German General Ludendorff (Huston) and Dr. Maru (Anaya), also known as Doctor Poison.    They are on the verge of creating a gas which gas masks will be useless against.    Diana believes Ludendorff to be the reincarnation of Ares in human form and thus killing him would end all wars.     Gadot, besides being a stunning figure, adeptly transitions Diana from naïve idealist to world-weary cynic who realizes people are not under the influence of a god, but act against their own best interests due to their primal nature.     We see the origins of a character we've seen previously in Batman v. Superman (2016), which is 100 years removed from the events of Wonder Woman, but she is seen as colder and edgier.    Wonder Woman shows us how she got to be that way.

Chris Pine is a more than capable foil for Gadot.    He has no idealistic notions about the innate goodness of people.    He has seen too many horrors, but yet he still does the best he can through dogged determination and eventual sacrifice.     Steve and Diana don't fall easily into love, although I'm sure I am not spoiling the movie by revealing that they eventually do.     They approach their mutual goal of stopping the war before any more blood is shed via different means and ideologies.

Diana comes equipped with a "god killer" sword and a shield which rivals Captain America's in its ability to fend up hundreds of rounds of enemy gunfire.    Steve is equipped with his intelligence and pluck.    It is soon apparent that Diana won't need saving, but he sure as heck might.

The visuals and CGI are more or less on par with other superhero films.    Wonder Woman is a bit darker than others and is immersed in real world events, giving it some weight.    The final battle is stuff being blown up and bodies flying around while the villain keeps trying in vain to persuade the hero to join his cause.    Nothing special there.    The strength of Wonder Woman lies in its heart and the chemistry between Pine and Gadot.    I don't know if that can be duplicated in any inevitable Wonder Woman sequels or with the upcoming Justice League movies.    Probably not. 

Rough Night (2017) * *

Directed by:  Lucia Aniello

Starring:  Scarlett Johansson, Jillian Bell, Kate McKinnon, Zoe Kravitz, Ilana Glazer, Paul W. Downs, Ryan Cooper, Ty Burrell, Demi Moore

Rough Night's early scenes made me at least curious as to how the movie will handle the plot which was given away in the trailers.    There are some talented actors here, but soon they all have to dumb themselves down as the plot takes hold and creaks to its conclusion.    The movie contains few surprises and you can see the developments coming from a mile away.    That isn't necessarily bad, but in Rough Night it is.

We meet four college friends circa 2006 who bond and promise to remain best friends for life.    They are Jess (Johansson), Alice (Bell), Blair (Kravitz), and Frankie (Glazer).    They more or less keep their promise, and although their lives veer off into different directions, they agree to go to Miami to throw Jess a wild bachelorette party.    Jess is in the midst of an election campaign as she runs for public office while engaged to Peter (Downs-who also co-wrote the screenplay with Aniello).    Alice is a schoolteacher.   Blair is a well-off wife in the midst of a divorce.    Frankie is a professional activist, if there is such a thing.

The weekend starts off with dinner and the quartet is joined by Pippa (McKinnon), an Australian woman whom Jess befriended during a trip there and causes jealousy in Alice.    I think the screenwriters only made the character Australian just to see McKinnon use the accent, which she does to occasionally funny effect.    The girls snort coke, dance and party it up in slow-mo camera shots, and then retreat to a rented house owned by a swinging couple (Burrell and Moore) who proposition everyone they meet for a threesome.    Alice calls for a stripper on the fly and one shows up at the door, only to be accidentally killed moments latter by an overexcited Alice who jumps on him and gashes his head open.    It isn't pretty to see and it isn't funny.    The movie then takes on a creepy tone as the girls try and figure out how to cover up the stripper's death.  

The women are too scared to call the cops, mostly because Jess fears it would damage her campaign (she apparently never watched Donald Trump's 2016 campaign), and then the movie handles the developments in dumbed-down sitcom fashion.    It doesn't really even try, even though the actors do the best they can to energize things.    There is also the subplot involving Peter in which he drives down to Miami because he senses something is wrong after a panicky phone call from Jess.    He wears diapers so he doesn't have to stop for gas, but then is forced to pull into a gas station and scrounge up money from other customers.    The payoffs here are non-existent.  

I judge comedies based on how much I laughed and whether I felt the movie had energy and inspiration behind it.    I know a movie like Rough Night is not made to win awards.    I know it may even be analysis-proof for those who find it hilarious.     You either find it funny or you don't.    I  didn't laugh much and saw Rough Night as a movie which will quickly be forgotten.

Beyond the Sea (2004) * * *

Directed by:  Kevin Spacey

Starring:  Kevin Spacey, John Goodman, Kate Bosworth, Bob Hoskins, Caroline Aaron, Brenda Blethyn

Is Bobby Darin as significant a musical figure as Elvis Presley or Frank Sinatra, the latter whom Darin idolized and whose star he wished to eclipse?    No.    He had some big hits, fell off the map, and then attempted a comeback which was ended by a heart ailment which ultimately took his life.    Darin's early childhood bouts with rheumatic fever caused doctors to warn he would not live past 15.    Darin not only lived past 15, he flourished into a star in music and movies, even earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for Captain Newman, MD (1963).    He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the strength of enduring hits like Dream Lover, Beyond the Sea, Splish Splash, and Mack the Knife.   

Kevin Spacey made as good a biopic as one could make about Darin, whom Spacey obviously idolized himself.     Spacey sings Darin's songs himself and is quite good.     Spacey plays Darin from his teenage years until his death at age 37.     He is a good enough actor to play a teen, or at least allow us to suspend our disbelief that the then-45 year old Spacey could play one.     Spacey felt Darin's life was one worth telling and for many stretches of Beyond the Sea, it is.   The movie is told by having Darin narrate his life from beyond the grave...perhaps.    It is sometimes a distracting storytelling device and an excuse to throw in some unnecessary musical numbers which break the spell Spacey cast, but it isn't fatal to the story.   

Spacey plays Darin as a repository of self-confidence, ego, and ambition.   He tells the parents of his future wife Sandra Dee (Bosworth), whom he meets while the two are filming a movie in Italy, that he goes after what he wants and usually gets it.     Yet, underneath the bravado is a sweetness which Darin displays when tactfully dealing with Sandra's jitters on their wedding night due to her virginity.     The ego comes later, which rears its ugly head after he loses the Oscar to Melvyn Douglas and scolds Dee for being "Gidget".    As the music landscape changes, Darin finds his demand drying up, which causes strains on his marriage and a brief flirtation with politics and folk music that ended mostly upon Robert Kennedy's assassination in 1968.  

Darin attempts an ill-advised comeback as a folk singer crooning protest songs, which is met by apathy and derision by audience members who want him to sing Dream Lover.     His next Vegas comeback is more successful, in which he exudes more showmanship and follows the advice, "People hear what they see,".    This sounds deep and meaningful, but I will be damned if I know what it means.     Anyone who can explain would be doing myself and my readers a huge public service.   

Among the more powerful scenes involve Darin's sister Nina (Aaron), who has a secret she kept hidden from him for years which forces him to reexamine his relationship with her and his late mother Polly (Blethyn).   This revlation sends him further into a personal and career tailspin during the late 60s.    Darin also has a touching relationship with Charlie (Hoskins), Nina's husband who helped him launch his career and proves to be a selfless, loving supporter.   

Beyond the Sea is told with energy and passion during its best passages.    It isn't a perfect biopic, mostly because it goes over the top while being a little too self-aware that it is a biopic.    And a musical, but did we really need the dance numbers when we have enough of Darin's music to enjoy?   I suppose Spacey's enthusiasm got the better of him at times. 

Dreamscape (1984) * * *

Directed by:  Joseph Ruben

Starring:  Dennis Quaid, Kate Capshaw, Eddie Albert, Christopher Plummer, Max von Sydow, David Patrick Kelly, George Wendt

Of course Dreamscape isn't remotely plausible, but that is part of its charm.    Imagine if the only movies made were based on realism or mere plausibility, then we wouldn't have a lot of imagination or fun, would we?     Dreamscape isn't meant to be scrutinized.     It is a venture into the world of dreams and the subconscious, never mind the fact that most dreams aren't remembered at all, let alone this vividly.    That isn't the point.    The theme is the possibility that someone can enter our dreams, change them, and cure us of our ills in one fell swoop.    In many instances in Dreamscape, the cure comes after one intervention from a psychic.

The psychic is Alex Gardner (Quaid), who wastes his vast abilities on picking horse races and eluding gamblers to whom he owes money.    If he were as good at picking the ponies as the movie suggests, then he shouldn't owe money to anyone.     No matter.    That subplot exists so Alex can be compelled to reunite with a former mentor (von Sydow) who runs a government-funded project researching "dream linking".   Dream linking involves Alex and a select few others with his gifts to subjects suffering from horrific recurring nightmares.    A young boy is terrorized by a giant cobra.    One man has paranoid dreams about his wife's infidelity, which is played as comic relief.   And then there is the President of the United States (Albert), who dreams of causing a nuclear holocaust and thus plans to enter into a nuclear disarmament deal with the Soviets based on his fears.    (The film was made in 1984, during the Cold War in which such fears of nuclear holocausts were more prevalent than today).  

The President's announcement to his close confidant Bob Blair (Plummer) doesn't sit well with Blair, who, under the guise of concern, suggests the President take part in the research and assigns a psychotic psychic (Kelly) to assassinate him in his dream.     Alex, along with program doctor Jane Devries (Capshaw), learn of the plot and attempt to stop it, but not before Alex enters Jane's dreams in which she is seduced by Alex on a train.     You can't blame the guy for using his gift to further his relationship with the sexy Capshaw. 

Dennis Quaid spends three-quarters of his movie with a Jack Nicholson-like sly, devious grin on his face, suggesting fun mixed with the thrill of getting away with something.     He knows Dreamscape is silly, but he has a ball.    There is the undercurrent of seriousness involving the President's nightmares, which resemble horror stories in which nuclear fallout poisoned zombies chase him down blaming him for their troubles.    There are also rabid dogs with red, glowing eyes as well that are none too friendly. 

Quaid's antithesis is Plummer, who plays Bob Blair as an icy political powerbroker whose is "untouchable", which makes him somewhat more powerful than the CIA, but only slightly less powerful than God.     I wouldn't recommend turning him into an enemy, although his friendship isn't much more comforting.     I'm writing this review with the same type of grin Quaid possesses.    The film is silly.   Reviewing it even more so, but I can't say I'm not enjoying either. 

Gifted (2017) * *

Directed by:  Marc Webb

Starring:  Chris Evans, McKenna Grace, Lindsay Duncan, Jenny Slate, Octavia Spencer, Glenn Plummer

There isn't anything bad about Gifted, but there isn't anything particularly outstanding about it either.    The story moves along without ever really engaging me.   The people are super nice, the performances are fine, and the movie goes where it does without any surprises, but it is all meh.    I'm not really able to work up much enthusiasm for Gifted because there isn't much to be worked up about.   

The gifted in Gifted is 7-year-old Mary Adler (Grace), who could give Will Hunting a run for his money in the math genius department.     As Gifted opens, she is going to school for the first time under the guardianship of her uncle Frank (Evans), who wants her to lead as normal a life as possible.    Mary doesn't fit in well.    She is too intellectually advanced for first grade math, she causes trouble with her teachers, and beats up a bully on the bus.    Her teacher Bonnie (the perky Slate), suggests a school for more advanced students not far away from home.    Frank refuses, mostly because he fears the idea that Mary will be considered "different".     Memo to Frank:  She is.  

Because Mary, the daughter of Frank's genius sister who committed suicide years ago, is advanced intellectually, but not socially, she comes off as arrogant and a bit petulant, but she learns to get along with others while Frank navigates his own conflicted emotions.      Enter Frank's estranged mother Evelyn, who, not unreasonably, wants Mary to make the most of her gifts and become the accomplished genius her daughter was before her suicide.     Frank disagrees and Evelyn fights Frank for custody of Mary in court.     It is obvious, at least to me, that Mary is better off using her talents as fully as possible instead of wasting them.    It becomes difficult to argue against Evelyn, who is painted as a haughty villain, when she is correct.  

Nothing in Gifted story-wise is necessarily original.    You have one part Good Will Hunting and one part courtroom drama, with some I Am Sam and plot twists thrown in out of left field which shoehorn in a happy ending of sorts.     And there is also the business of Mary's foster family, which are introduced late in the film as part of a courtroom and plot compromise which doesn't make a lot of sense considering how much time, effort, and money Frank must have already sunk into the case.

Evans, most famous for playing Captain America, relies on his ability to stay cool even in the most trying circumstances.     Not much rattles this guy's cage, which allows us to side with him to a point.   He is a genuine nice guy and cares for Mary.     Also around is Octavia Spencer, who plays Frank's neighbor in a mostly unnecessary role, but she does what she can with it.   

I give Gifted two stars not because it is poorly constructed or poorly acted.    On the contrary, it is acted pretty well.     It just didn't compel me to care enough about it or tug at the heartstrings, which would be perfectly acceptable in a movie like this.  

Running Scared (1986) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Peter Hyams

Starring:  Billy Crystal, Gregory Hines, Jimmy Smits, Steven Bauer, Dan Hedaya, Jon Gries, Joe Pantoliano, Darlanne Fluegel

Running Scared isn't the first or last cop buddy movie ever made.   What distinguishes it from lesser films of the genre is its energy and smooth chemistry between Crystal and Hines, who play Chicago detectives longing for retirement mostly to avoid being killed on the job.    After a bust of dangerous drug dealer Julio Gonzales (Smits) goes awry, the detectives vacation in Key West and put a down payment on a bar.   The sun, women, and the daily possibility of not being shot fuels their desire to relocate, but not before they finish with Gonzales.

The subplots, which include Crystal's unresolved feelings for his ex-wife Anna (Fluegel) and the two detectives training two hotshot rookies (Gries and Bauer), are introduced and resolved more or less as expected.   The story will not win any prizes for originality, but the tangible rapport between Crystal and Hines is reliably fun.   They aren't just longtime partners, they are best friends and they truly like each other, which makes us like them.   Sure they bicker over how good a shot each is, ("I hit the windshield six times in a row, I don't even know where you were,") and the humiliation of having to surrender their pants in order to save a hostage (you will have to see it to believe it), but that is part of their bromance.   They seem to let off steam by producing glib one-liners at will during shootouts and car chases, one which takes place on the tracks of the Chicago L.  We get a sense that we are dropped into the middle of their familiar partnership, which started before we came in and will continue on long after we're gone.

Smits is a particularly slimy villain, while the inimitable Joe Pantoliano provides some early laughs as a Gonzales flunky who carelessly carries around $50,000 of Gonzales' drug money and sports a spray-painted punk haircut.   And I would be remiss not to mention the work of the stellar character actor Dan Hedaya as the guys' no-nonsense captain, who trusts their competency while distrusting their methods.    He delivers the best line in the movie, "You are the detectives, go and detect," with exquisite timing.   

What we have is an above-average cop buddy comedy with the wattage amped up and two funny guys we can easily root for.    Crystal is a gifted comic actor, of course, while Hines smoothly transitions from previous work as a dancer and dramatic actor to the role of sidekick with ease.  Or is Crystal the sidekick?    We don't know, nor do we particularly care.    We just like to see them in action.  

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) * * *

Directed by:  David Yates

Starring:  Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Jon Voight, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo, Alison Sudol, Samantha Morton, Ezra Miller

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them promises fantastic beasts and delivers.     The visuals and production values, not to mention the mostly likable beasts and characters, are enough to cover up a weak story.     Based on the series of novels by J.K. Rowling, Fantastic Beasts is a prequel of sorts to the Harry Potter series and takes place roughly 75 years before Harry Potter ever set foot in Hogwarts.

I confess I stopped watching Harry Potter after the third film.     I grew weary of the whole thing and I have no regrets about missing the final four or five films.    Harry Potter just wasn't for me.    Fantastic Beasts may not be for me in the long run either, since more films are promised, but I can say I was intrigued enough after all was said and done to be curious about the sequel.     Fantastic Beasts follows the adventures of recent Hogwarts grad Newt Scamander (Redmayne), who travels to New York circa 1926 to capture some beasts who fled his supernatural zoo.    Newt is better at dealing with beasts than other wizards and non-wizards.    He is rather shy, but befriends an investigator named Tina (Waterston) at Magical Congress of the United States of America (or MACUSA for short) and an ordinary schlubby guy named Jacob (Fogler), who has more contact with this world of beasts, magic, and wizardry than he would like.     Newt wants to track down his lost beasts before they are killed by frightened wizards and the public at large, whom Newt feels misunderstands his beasts.    However, there is also a force which is destroying cities and wreaking havoc, and Newt and his friends are drawn into this intrigue also.   

It is the opinion of MACUSA security chief Graves (Farrell) that a beast is causing all of the destruction, but this belief is met with skepticism by Newt and others.    There is also the mention of an evil wizard named Grindelwald, who has gone into hiding after causing worldwide chaos.    These are just the basics of the plot.    Describing any more will spoil some surprises and is a fool's errand anyway.    I can't say that I'm even sure exactly how everything tied together.     Fantastic Beasts seems more for those who read the book and is intimately familiar with Rowling's worlds.     I admit I am not among the enlightened.     I understand the basics, but that's about it, but I'm really sure I could pass a test on those basics either.

The beasts are truly a marvel to behold.    Star Wars isn't the only movie franchise that can show us inventive creatures.    The ones in Fantastic Beasts have personalities all their own, including one that looks like a platypus and has an insatiable love for coins and jewelry.    The themes of fear and unfair persecution of present, which I couldn't help but feel allude to present day political events and act as a call for tolerance during troubled times even though it would be easy to abandon it.     Redmayne has the shy guy act down pat, yet we see other dimensions through his interactions with his beasts.    I especially enjoyed Fogler as the guy who just wanted to get a loan to open his own bakery and escape the soul-crushing employment of a canning factory.    But, he is pulled into this world he doesn't fully understand (how many of us would?) and acts as a surrogate for the audience.    He also falls for the fetching mind-reader Queenie (Sudol), who is Tina's sister and takes a genuine liking to the lug.  

There are lot of loose ends in the story which maybe later films will tie up.    Fantastic Beasts is an introduction to this story and we know there will be more to follow.     It is perhaps the movie's strength that, despite my own misgivings, I found myself caring enough to want to see more.    


 

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) * 1/2

Directed by:  Guy Ritchie

Starring:  Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Aiden Gillen, Eric Bana

Guy Ritchie's King Arthur adaptation is so concerned with style it forgets to tell a story we can care about.    King Arthur is not exactly a story crying out to be retold, but if you're going to do it, why all of the frenetic camera work and Sherlock Holmes-style flashbacks which reveal unnecessary plot twists and flashbacks?     Why so many queasy-cam shots which make much of the action indecipherable?   Why were there no nails around to fasten Ritchie's camera to the ground?  

1. King Arthur begins amidst a coup within Camelot.    Noble King Uther (Bana), Arthur's father, fights off an invasion by the evil Mordred which we later learn was arranged by Uther's envious brother Vortigern (Law) as a coup attempt.    Uther defeats Mordred, but Vortigern kills Uther and his wife, but not before young Arthur is sent off alone in a boat to safety by his father.    Vortigern usurps the throne, while young Arthur drifts to the town of Londinium, where he is discovered by prostitutes and raised in a brothel.     Arthur's boyhood is fast forwarded past hastily, in another odd stylistic choice by Ritchie, so we see him grown into a strong young man who runs the brothel, protects his women, and can handle himself in a swordfight.     Despite being a de facto godfather of Londinium's streets, we see he lives by some semblance of principles.    Grown Arthur is played by Charlie Hunnam, last seen in The Lost City of Z. 

Meanwhile, the crown rests uneasily on Vortigern's head, as he learns of the existence of a "born king" through a serpentine soothsayer who lives in a pool in the bowels of his castle.    This born king will be the only one able to pull the fabled sword Excalibur from the stone and challenge Vortigern's throne.    After Arthur wards off Vikings who attempted to take over Londinium's streets, he gains Vortigern's attention, since the Vikings were under his protection.    The king's flunkies arrest Arthur and bring him to Camelot, where we see Arthur can indeed pull the sword from the stone.

There is more to the plot, which I will encapsulate as much as possible, in which Arthur learns to accept his destiny as the one who will battle Vortigern for the throne.    He also learns to control Excalibur, which is like a wild horse of swords.    Arthur does this by traveling to a land populated by terrifying animals and monsters.     Arthur then gathers up an army of supporters, many of whom will become part of his round table, and challenge Vortigern.    

The story of King Arthur is by its nature silly, but that doesn't mean it can't be fun.    The trouble is, not matter how much Ritchie tries to lend funky camera angles and flashbacks in which we learn how we got here from there, the movie isn't a lot of fun.     It is dark and depressing, which plenty of dark magic thrown in for good measure.     Vortigern's kingdom is such a creepy place that we wonder why he is so hell bent on keeping it.     Hunnam is more than a suitable hero and perhaps more of one than the movie deserves, while Law is a suitable villain who doesn't mind offing his own offspring in order to maintain power.    

Ritchie's production choices are distracting.     We begin to notice them, which isn't a good thing, but it all just feels like a desperate attempt to spruce up a lifeless story.    In the end, we shouldn't feel bad for the victor, who now has the unenviable task of ruling this God-forsaken land. 

The Rock (1996) * * *

Directed by:  Michael Bay

Starring:  Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris, David Morse, John Spencer, William Forsythe, Bokeem Woodbine

Before digging into the Transformers series, Michael Bay made smaller scale thrillers (ha! groan) such as The Rock, which at least stays within reasonable reach of the laws of physics in its action scenes.     It naturally doesn't hold up under much scrutiny, but it cheerfully and energetically moves ahead and gets the job done.   

The Rock is not Dwayne Johnson's biopic, but instead stars Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery as a prisoner and FBI agent trying to thwart a mad general's plans to launch chemical weapons on San Francisco.    The general, Francis Hummel (Harris) is not alone.   He has an army of military men at his disposal to help him take over Alcatraz, hold a tour group hostage, and demand hundreds of millions from the U.S. Government.   Why?   Because Hummel is outraged at the government's refusal to pay survivor's benefits to the families of soldiers killed in action under his command.    Oh, and I'm sure a few sheckles for his own troubles too.

Hummel, well-played (as usual) by Harris. is not a cackling, one-liner spewing villain, but a man of complexity and maybe a little heart.     This adds a decisive twist to the proceedings and, as it turns out, some of his underlings are much more heartless than he is.     Cage is FBI agent Stanley Goodspeed, who has never seen much real field action, but instead spends his time as a lab rat studying the very chemical Hummel plans to use on San Francisco.     He is thrust into the inferno alongside Patrick Mason (Connery), a lifelong prisoner/former spy who knows all of the U.S. government's dirty little secrets.    He is not unreasonably upset at being secretly imprisoned for 30 years, but he is recruited because he is the lone known person to successfully escape from Alcatraz and knows the ins and outs of the former prison.    It seems the guys in Clint Eastwood's 1979 film Escape from Alcatraz probably didn't make it.  

Mason and Goodspeed find themselves battling Hummel's army alone after their Navy SEALs team is wiped out.    There is plenty of tension between the two men who don't trust each other.    Goodspeed feels Mason will bolt at the first opportunity, while Mason doesn't trust anyone, much less an FBI agent who seemingly can barely fire a gun.     The feds on land and back in Washington are faced with the decision to pay Hummel or call his bluff and risk the deaths of millions, which would surely have a big impact on any President's potential re-election.    And you thought Trump had a big dilemma on his hands whether to pull out of the Paris climate accord.  

The Rock is, by its very nature, silly fun.    But it is well-crafted silly fun.    The actors plunge headlong into it and are clearly enjoying themselves, which is all you can ask.    Harris adds extra dimensions to Hummel which prove interesting later on and Cage and Connery soon form a working truce as expected.     Later Michael Bay films such as Armageddon were edited so frenetically that you couldn't gain a true sense of the action.     The viewer is assaulted by sound and fury to the point of numbness.     But Bay also made films like The Island and Pain and Gain, in which he slows down and tells stories.     The Rock belongs in the latter category, while full disclosure compels me to confess that I have not seen a single Transformers movie.      I doubt I'm going to start now.