Modern Problems (1981) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Ken Shapiro

Starring:  Chevy Chase, Patti D'Arbanville, Brian Doyle-Murray, Mary Kay Place, Nell Carter, Dabney Coleman

Modern Problems would have played better if it had been about the supporting characters and not Chevy Chase's mopey, unlikable Max, an air traffic controller going through a breakup who encounters toxic waste which gives him telekinetic powers.   Chase sleepwalks through Modern Problems as if he were forced to appear to repay a court fine.   The other comedically skilled actors bring so much more energy compared to Chase that it seems he dropped in from filming a nearby drama about depression.

As Modern Problems opens, Max arrives home to find his long-suffering girlfriend Darcy (D'Arbanville) has broken up with him via the answering machine.   It seems from her explanation that Max is a possessive, jealous creep who spies on her.   He sounds like someone Darcy would be much better off without, but she still has feelings for him even though she's seeing someone else.   Then comes the toxic waste leaking all over Max's car while driving behind a truck and a glowing Max discovers he can move objects with his thoughts.   Max uses the powers to settle scores, including causing Darcy's new friend to endure a gushing nosebleed while at dinner.  

Max's use of telekinesis provides zero laughs.   The only funny moments in Modern Problems, while few and far between, are provided by characters like Max's wheelchair-bound friend Brian (Doyle-Murray) and Brian's arrogant self-help author friend Mark (Coleman), who wears his inappropriateness as a badge of honor.   In the middle, however, is Chevy Chase sucking the fun from Modern Problems like a vampire.  Chase is at his best when he joyously uses his wit.   In Modern Problems, he barely exhibits enough enthusiasm to put two sentences together.   The movie was made at a point in Chase's career when filmmakers figured his mere appearance would be enough to make it successful.   Director Shapiro should have asked Chase for more than just showing up.    

Bowling for Columbine (2002) * * * 1/2

Update:  I first published this review in the early days of the Bohica blog in 2010.   In light of the massacre at Uvalde, Texas, I searched to see if I indeed reviewed it previously.  I did and after re-reading the review, I stand by it.  Mass shootings in the United States have become so commonplace that we can predict the playbook when, not if, it happens again.  There will be pleas for thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families, followed by pleas for gun control reform, then life returns to normal with no meaningful action taken and we bide our time until the next shooting.   I hate to sound so cynical, but history hasn't proven me wrong yet.   The question is, do the rights of gun owners outweigh the right not to be shot?  The answer is an apparent "yes".  It is telling how Bowling for Columbine could've been made today and the same questions will still apply.  

Directed by: Michael Moore

(Original review re-posted) 

Over 11,000 gun-related deaths occur in the United States each year, as per the statistics shown in Michael Moore's 2002 Oscar-winning documentary, Bowling For Columbine. The film focuses on a few of those murders, including twelve students and a one faculty member of Columbine High School on April 20, 1999.   Some of the stark and eerie footage provided in this film includes security camera shots of the shooters as they stalk the library and cafeteria in search of their targets, which pretty much included anyone on that day.

What perplexes Moore is that other nations have the same economic issues and accessibility to handguns but yet have only a fraction of the gun-related deaths as the U.S.  It's amusing to see how myths about Canada and why they have so few gun murders are debunked one by one.   Apparently, Americans think Canadians don't have any poverty or even access to guns, but do they think Canadians don't hunt?

Michael Moore grew up in Michigan and is a lifelong NRA member, so he has no real axe to grind in making this film, except that America is seemingly gun crazy.  Oddly, I was watching Capitalism: A Love Story the other day and one depiction is a family being evicted from its home.  What were some of the items they took with them? About half a dozen handguns and rifles.  Why so many guns? Wouldn't one do the trick if you were serious about using it?   The shooters at Columbine had access to an arsenal of weapons, including ammunition sold at a Kmart down the street from the high school. The father of one of the victims holds up the type of gun used to kill his son at school that day and says,  "This weapon is certainly not used to shoot deer."

Bowling For Columbine is a film of moving, stark, and enraging images.  The NRA held a rally in the Littleton, Colorado area not even two weeks after the shootings at Columbine, with its leader Charlton Heston holding up a rifle and proclaiming, "From my cold, dead hands."  The members on hand certainly got a thrill from that, but the town in mourning certainly wasn't amused.  It's certainly true that the NRA had a right to hold its rally at that time and in that place, but does that mean they should?   Moore has a tense on-camera discussion with Heston later which poses that same question. Seeing Heston fumble along attempting to justify his and the NRA's position made me cringe, but that was Moore's intention.   If Heston couldn't come off well, then imagine how the rest of the NRA must look.

The NRA/Columbine incidents are at the heart of Bowling For Columbine.  Americans have the right to bear arms according to the 2nd Amendment. But does that mean they should?  If those who do can't keep them safely, like the parents of the Columbine shooters Harris and Kliebold, then should they own them?   At what point does gun stockpiling become self-defeating and more dangerous to yourself than any outsider?

There are other intriguing aspects of Bowling For Columbine, including a bank that gives away a free gun with every new account opened, and an interview with the brother of Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols.  It is quite obvious that James Nichols, the brother, is not in any frame of mind to be owning a gun.  Also interviewed is Marilyn Manson, whose music some believed was the reason why Harris and Kliebold shot up Columbine High School.    Manson comes across as intelligent and thoughtful on the subject in an interview by Moore and is correct to believe that other factors played more of a role in the killers' mindsets.

Bowling For Columbine poses many reasons for gun craziness in this country. Media prodding, fear, and easy access are three legitimate reasons indeed.   It is a thoughtful, somber documentary about a subject that most people dismiss as a God-given right.  Again, it may be a right, but is it right to do it?

The Duke (2022) * * *

 

Directed by:  Roger Michell

Starring:  Jim Broadbent, Helen Mirren, Matthew Goode, Fionn Whitehead, Aimee Kelly

Kempton Bunton (Broadbent) is a sixtyish working class man forever standing up for his neighbors in middle class Newcastle circa 1961.   He is fired from his job as a taxi driver because he decides unilaterally that certain fares don't have to pay and talks the ears off the rest.   He and his sometimes exasperated wife Dorothy (Mirren) are still grieving the loss of their teenage daughter from years earlier.  She doesn't want to ever talk about the loss.  Kempton, an amateur playwright, wants to publish a play about it.  Dorothy prefers to keep her head down, do her job as a maid to a local wealthy family, and keep out of trouble.   

Kempton invites trouble in the form of BBC tax agents who come to collect the BBC tax which is due from anyone whose television receives BBC programming.   Kempton disagrees with the tax, especially since his television doesn't get the BBC (thanks to some shrewd jerry-rigging of the wires), and feels others of his age and limited means shouldn't have to pay extra every month for a television set.

The Duke of the title is a painting of the Duke of Wellington which disappears from The National Gallery.  It is stolen with relative ease despite being heavily publicized.   It winds up in Kenton's son's bedroom where he and Jackie (Whitehead) hide it behind a dresser.   How the painting is discovered behind the piece of bulky furniture is a funny sequence.   Kempton and his family are not adept at the criminal life, but we like them for being decent people.   The Duke is directed by Roger Michell (his final film before his death) with energy and warmth.   At a little over ninety minutes, The Duke moves briskly and is, believe it or not, based on a true story.  

In the grand scheme of things, The Duke is not a story of great consequence or depth.  There is a plot twist you don't expect which may or may not have happened, but it's fun anyway.  It is a strange little story with mostly lovable characters in which the truth is ultimately stranger than fiction.   

George Carlin's American Dream (2022) * * * 1/2 (showing on HBO and HBO Max)

 

Directed by:  Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio

George Carlin's voice is still relevant fourteen years after his death.  Republicans and Democrats both claim him as their patron saint.   Republicans see him as a beacon of freedom of expression, while Democrats point out his distaste for the pro-life movement and organized religion.   What's telling in the waning minutes of the two-part documentary George Carlin's American Dream is how Carlin's words somehow foreshadowed the tumultuous political landscape we occupy today.   We hear audio of his famous bits playing over footage of various events which have occurred since his death.   How I would love to hear what he has to say about today's political climate.   Carlin's passing in 2008 at age 71 has left a void the world of comedy is still trying to fill.   Good luck with that. 

For my money, Carlin is the greatest standup comedian of all time.   It wasn't just that he was funny, but he dared the audience to think.   He never condescended, nor never treated his audience as dumb, and presented issues long before they were introduced in the mainstream.   His stance on pro-lifers from over thirty years ago rings eerily true today.   His takes on religion and the pro-life movement are both irreverent and apply logic where it wasn't necessarily applied before.   Carlin was one to ask questions and find amusing truths among the answers.   He challenged his audience to do the same and not simply to accept what the media or anyone else is presenting as fact.   

American Dream provides us a chronology of Carlin's life from a childhood with an abusive father and an alcoholic mother to his first days testing the waters as a standup.  His was clean-shaven, wore a suit and tie, and looked like just about every other comedian you would see on television back then.   He teamed with another comic, Jack Burns, and they had success for a while.   Soon, he and Burns split and Carlin experienced modest success while the Vietnam War raged on.   Carlin's personal beliefs about the war soon came into conflict with his appearance as a straight-arrow comic.  In the late 1960's, Carlin eschewed the suit and tie, grew a beard, let his hair grow longer, and began challenging the status quo.   This would be the first of several transformations Carlin would undergo in his life.  

Drugs soon entered the picture for he and his wife Brenda, while their daughter Kelly (featured prominently here) had to witness and at times play referee to a coke-addicted father and an alcoholic mother who nearly died.   Kelly at one point during a Hawaii vacation had to force his parents to sign a contract not to imbibe or take drugs so they could have a happy time during the few days they spent in Hawaii.   Like Kelly, American Dream articulately shows us the flawed, sometimes troubled, always brilliant George Carlin.   Peers such as Jerry Seinfeld, Stephen Colbert, Chris Rock, Kevin Smith, Alex Winter, and Patton Oswalt present in-depth observations about what made Carlin stand out without turning the doc into hagiography.   Carlin himself is able to express his frustrating inability to show his feelings until he would either explode or quell them further with drugs.   The darker material which encompassed the last few years of his life is also touched on.   With audio clips and snippets of past television interviews plus extended minutes devoted to his greatest standup work, George Carlin's American Dream gives us a rare look at a comic genius who continues to give to us.   

The Lincoln Lawyer (2022) * * * (streaming on Netflix)

 

Starring: Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Neve Campbell, Becki Newton, Angus Sampson, Christopher Gorham, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Jazz Raycole

One key to enjoying the new Netflix series The Lincoln Lawyer is to understand that Matthew McConaughey is not starring in it.   The Mick Haller of the series is played by Mexican actor Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, who inhabits the world of Haller's expensive suits and adept legal maneuvering with authority and intelligence, if not with McConaughey's innate ability to tackle the role with more playfulness and cynicism.   This is a different Haller, one reentering the legal world after eighteen months on the sidelines following a surfing accident and subsequent addiction to painkillers.   He has no clients, but soon inherits a boatload of them when a colleague is murdered and Haller learns the colleague has bequeathed his practice to him.   This Mick Haller isn't having as much fun as the other incarnation.  

The inheritance is both a blessing and a curse since Haller is taking on cases for which he has never even seen a file and clients he has never met.   His highest-profile client is tech billionaire Trevor Elliott (Gorham-looking a lot like Joe Buck), who is charged with murdering his wife and her lover and insists that Mick does not motion for a continuance.  He wants to clear his name as soon as possible, but we learn there is more to the equation because of course there is.   Besides a daunting caseload, Mick deals with being a doting father and two ex-wives, Maggie (Campbell) who works for the district attorney's office, and Lorna (Newton) who runs Mick's office and whose fiance Cisco (Sampson) is Mick's chief investigator.  He is on amicable terms with both ex-wives, but would prefer to be on romantic terms with Maggie again.   Driving Mick around in his flashy Lincoln SUV is Izzy, a recovering heroin addict whom Mick represents in a grand theft case and is able to get her case dismissed.   Izzy goes to work as Mick's driver and confidante, with their mutual battles with drugs and alcohol uniting them.   Mick is also haunted by a client he plea-bargained into a prison sentence who it turns out may be innocent.  

Is the murder of his legal colleague Jerry Vincent related to Trevor's case?   Trevor insists he is innocent (doesn't every murder suspect?), but something about the case gnaws at him.   Why does Trevor want to testify even though the case is clearly going his way?   Why did he lie to police about not knowing about his wife's affair?   The best aspects of The Lincoln Lawyer, adapted by David E. Kelley (most recently of Goliath), are the courtroom scenes.   They play as smoothly and compellingly as Goliath's with Garcia-Rulfo as their charismatic center.   I can't say I'm 100 percent sure how the Big Reveal which ties the Vincent murder and Trevor's case adds up, but it sure follows the tradition of courtroom whodunits like this one.

Even though The Lincoln Lawyer does not possess the joyful charm of the movie and while Garcia-Rulfo has his strengths in the Mick Haller role, it is a different take on the character and The Lincoln Lawyer, while juggling plenty of balls in the air, works on its own merits. 

 

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) *

 

Directed by:  Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Starring:  Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Curtis, James Hong, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan

Okay, the truth:  I lost such patience with Everything Everywhere All at Once that I walked out of the theater about seventy minutes in.   I've only walked out on two other movies in my life: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) and The Other Guys (2009).   I revisited The Other Guys in the last few years and found it to be an unfunny movie, but I guess my tolerance for such a movie was low that day.   Maybe that was the case with this one as well.   The movie, written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (known collectively as Daniels), is so all over the map and deliberately confusing that I bailed on it.   I just wasn't in the mood to process the mind-numbing silliness that was going on.  

The opening scenes are promising and made me wish the movie moved forward in that direction.   A harried laundromat operator named Evelyn (Yeoh) is under intense pressure.   Besides running the laundromat, her milquetoast husband Waymond (Quan) is trying to serve her with divorce papers, her ornery father (Hong) is forever complaining about something, and the IRS is auditing her business.  Evelyn is doing her best to organize her piles of receipts, but the agent handling her case (Curtis) isn't sympathetic.   She is looking to charge Evelyn with tax fraud when another version of Waymond appears to her.   This one is dynamic, proactive, and able to whoop people's asses with his fanny pack.  He tells Evelyn he is a different version of himself who comes from another universe.   There are numerous universes, each containing an alternate version of each person.   All of the decisions you make in life opens up different opportunities in different universes.   

Then, the movie flies off the rails quickly.   It all becomes so impossible to keep track of that Waymond has to stop every few minutes to explain what's going to Evelyn (and us).   Evelyn and Waymond's daughter Joy (Hsu) is the linchpin which holds the universes together.   She is seemingly the villain who is drying to destroy the whole multiverse, but by this point I had long stopped caring.   Joy explains how the multiverses throw everything together like an everything bagel.   I have a feeling if I stuck around longer, I would've endured about twenty or thirty more such explanations which do little to enlighten or entertain us.

The idea of a multiverse is becoming tiresome.   It was fun to an extent in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: No Way Home, mostly because the writers were telling a story about a mere two or three universes.   Everything Everywhere... jumps around at a bewildering pace between the various universes and the Alphaverse, which controls all of the other universes.   The frantic, breakneck pace leaps between nothing special and nothing at all.   I've rarely seen such energy expended for such a confusing premise, although to be fair I didn't stick around for the payoff.   Whatever the payoff is, I'm sure it wasn't worth sitting through the buildup.   

UPDATE:  I eventually watched the rest of the film at a later date.  In a calmer and open state of mind, I found I would not change a word of my original review.  The payoff was not anything spectacular.  My thought was:  "All that for that."

Firestarter (2022) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Keith Thomas

Starring:  Zac Efron, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Sydney Lemmon, Gloria Reuben, Michael Greyeyes, Kurtwood Smith

Having never seen the 1984 Firestarter starring Drew Barrymore as a young girl who can start fires with her mind, I entered the 2022 version with a fresh set of eyes.   The credit titles remind us of a 1984 movie with a score co-written by John Carpenter playing over them.   This could be retro fun.  Alas, there isn't much fun to be had with Firestarter.   The young girl named Charlie (Armstrong) has parents named Andrew (Efron) and Vicky (Lemmon) who are both psychic and were apparently experimented on by a sinister corporation.   Is Charlie the byproduct of the experiments or is she the byproduct of having two psychic parents?   Andrew is able to use his mind to change other people's minds, but it causes his eyes to hemorrhage and drains him of his energy.   The more he does this, the worse the side effects become.  Vicky is afraid of her daughter's rage and her inability to control the fires she starts.   Her fears become realized when Charlie sets Vicky on fire and causes severe burns on her arms.

Andrew and family are forever on the run from the corporation's handler (Reuben) who dispatches a retired tracker (Greyeyes), himself a psychic with great powers, to find Andrew, Vicky, and Charlie.  Vicky is soon out of the picture, and Andrew and Charlie are on the lam from the corporation and trying to harness Charlie's power.   Andrew and Charlie are eventually captured and taken to headquarters, while Charlie soon is able to set anyone on fire she pleases after screaming first.   This isn't thrilling cinema.   Once you see one person explode into flames, you've seen them all.   It's a case of anger-fire-repeat.  

I can't fault the performances from actors trying their best to work with substandard horror material.  Based on Stephen King's 1980 novel, Firestarter is lifeless and dreary.   There isn't much to it and the fact that we don't care much about the plight of the heroes doesn't help.   If you're a fan of intense shrieking and watching people engulfed in flames, this is your movie.  

The Adam Project (2022) * * *

 

Directed by:  Shawn Levy

Starring:  Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Catherine Keener, Walker Scobell, Zoe Saldana

Time travel movies hold a universal allure because we would all like to find a way to defeat time or at least keep it at bay.   In Shawn Levy's The Adam Project, a fighter pilot named Adam (Reynolds) in 2050 steals a plane, is shot and hit, and uses a wormhole to travel back to 2018 to somehow prevent the death of his wife Laura (Saldana) in the future. Time travel must not be an exact science, because Adam winds up in 2022 and finds himself face-to-face with his twelve-year-old self.   In 2022, Adam's father Louis (Ruffalo) has been dead a little over a year from a car accident and he and his mother Ellie (Garner) are still trying to process the loss.  The Adam of 2050, we learn, still hasn't processed his grief fully from losing his father nearly thirty years before.

Without giving away too much of the plot, Older Adam recruits Younger Adam (Scobell) to assist him in his mission.   That means traveling back to 2018, when Louis was still alive and working on the realization of time travel with his partner Sorien (Keener), who we learn steals the idea after Louis' death and transforms into a ruthless corporation owner that "owns" time travel.   Sorien dispatches nameless henchmen to kill off Adam and Laura in 2018 and again in 2022.   These are the parts of The Adam Project which work the least.   We find ourselves patiently waiting for the action sequences to be over so we can return to the poignancy of the Adams dealing with themselves and confronting their father knowing what will one day happen to him.   No matter how they try to warn Louis of his fate, Louis doesn't wish to hear it.   He wants his fate to play out as expected, so any ripples caused by the changing of events is minimal.

Ryan Reynolds reverts to the snarkiness which some of his characters are known for.   But here, his insults and snark mask deep wounds caused by the death of his father and wife which haven't healed.  The scenes involving Adam dealing with his past jerk some tears in the best possible way, much like the brilliant, but underrated Frequency (2000), in which a son is somehow able to communicate with his long-dead father via a ham radio.   Ruffalo adds dimensions by not just portraying Louis as a cold science geek, but somehow who understands the negative effects his work and long hours are having on his family.  He gathers that the pain inside both 12-year-old Adam and 40-year-old Adam are caused by the effects of his absence, even while he was alive.

The Adam Project in its best scenes is thoughtful and emotional, which makes you wish almost all of the movie were like that.   I suppose the action was thrown in as a crowd-pleasing move, but I'll bet most of the audience likes the sentimentality a whole lot more.  

Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (2022) * * * (showing on HBO and HBOMax)

 

 

Starring:  John C. Reilly, Quincy Isaiah, Solomon Hughes, Jason Clarke, Jason Segel, Adrien Brody, 
Gaby Hoffmann, Hadley Robinson, Sally Field, Tamera Tomakili, DeVaughn Nixon, Tracy Letts, Michael O'Keefe, Michael Chikilis

The disclaimer at the end of each episode of Winning Time which insists scenes have been dramatized hasn't stopped Hall of Famer Jerry West from demanding a retraction and apology for how he's portrayed as a hard-drinking, obsessed, irascible SOB of a Lakers' head coach.   West probably only viewed the first couple of episodes.   After he resigns as head coach shortly after Dr. Jerry Buss (Reilly) purchased the Lakers from Jack Kent Cooke (O'Keefe), Jerry West stays on as scout and front-office employee advising Buss and the coaching staff on how to keep the Lakers winning.   Following the initial episodes, West is kept mostly on the sidelines.   Will that mollify the real-life West?  We will find out, but I doubt it.

I take what's depicted in Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty with a grain of salt.   When new coach Jack McKinney (Letts) is hospitalized following a near-fatal bicycle accident nine games into the 1979-80 Lakers season, Jack's longtime friend and assistant coach Paul Westhead (Segel) takes over and further infuriates Jack when he refuses to relinquish the role when Jack is ready to return.  The Lakers' other assistant coach Pat Riley (Brody) manipulates Westhead into keeping the job even though Westhead feels as if he's in way over his head.   Riley does this not for Westhead but to ensure his own future employment. 

As Winning Time opens, Dr. Buss purchases the Lakers despite having most of his fortune tied up in real estate.   He is about as liquid as a desert, but through slick maneuvering and balls, Buss is able to buy the Lakers and set up shop.   He installs his daughter Jeanie (Robinson) as an intern to L.A. Forum operations director Claire Rothman (Hoffmann) and keeps up the facade that his money stream is endless when in reality he is causing his business partner apoplexy with his outrageous expenditures.

Buss' vision is to make the Forum the place to be and for the Lakers to have an extended playoff run in order to break even.   He envisions celebrities in the front row and a Playboy club inside the arena.   He is forever the life of the party, until a dinner meeting with the arrogant Boston Celtics' owner Red Auerbach (Chiklis) lights a competitive fire under Buss which results in the Lakers' first championship in eight years.   

Aiding in Buss' and the Lakers' quest is the drafting of the always-smiling Earvin "Magic" Johnson (Isaiah) as the team's top draft pick, a move of which West disapproves.   Johnson, who had recently won the NCAA championship with Michigan State, was seduced by the flash and glitz of Los Angeles' nightlife.   As Winning Time opens in 1991, Johnson had just tested positive for HIV and the series reverts back to 1979.   The opening scenes are not referenced again...maybe in another season this will be dovetailed.    Johnson quickly learns being the nice, smiling guy isn't going to get it done.   He has at first a cold relationship with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Hughes), who never smiles and appears to not even enjoy basketball at all.   Kareem and Magic later develop a friendship, or at least tolerate each other.

Also touched on in the series is Dr. Buss' mother's (Field) fading health, the head-coaching controversy, Pat Riley and Jerry West trying to reclaim glory now that their playing days are long behind them, Johnson's on-again, off-again relationship with girlfriend Cookie (Tomakili), Westhead's strained friendship with his mentor Jack McKinney, and I'm sure I'm missing a few subplots which will come to me later.   The series is produced by Adam McKay, who also directs the pilot episode.   The fourth wall is broken often with other distracting storytelling devices thrown in for good measure.   Once we are able to acclimate ourselves to these McKayisms, then we can enjoy the soap opera that follows.  

John C. Reilly shows his versatility as Dr. Buss, whose lively, partying exterior belies the pressures and conflicts inside, especially when coming to terms with his mother's deteriorating health.   Reilly is a joy to watch and is clearly having a good time.   The Magic Johnson storyline is not as compelling.   Isaiah has a winning personality, but the story surrounding him doesn't have the juice Buss' does.   Segel and Brody inhabit the Westhead and Riley roles well, even though it takes time for us to move past our familiarity with them as actors.   Tracy Letts is developing quite a niche as an actor who can play abrasive characters like Jack McKinney or Henry Ford II in Ford v. Ferrari (2019).  Under normal circumstances, we would feel sorry for someone like McKinney losing his job in such a manner, but his coldness does not allow us to do so.   His threatening presence looms large even in scenes in which he doesn't appear.

The Lakers were indeed the Showtime Lakers in the early 80's.  They were a hell of a basketball team with Hollywood glamour mixed right in on the surface.   I assume the title Winning Time takes the place of Showtime because Showtime is a rival network.   But underneath it all is a current of pressure and desperation.   When Buss and the Lakers win it all, there is a muted pleasure behind it.   The expectations of future success are weighing on everyone's shoulders, even though Dr. Buss does his best to hide that. 

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Sam Raimi

Starring:  Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Xochitl Gomez, Benedict Wong

Doctor Strange is more compelling as a supporting character in the Marvel Universe.  He has been the star of two movies which are by far the weakest of the Marvel films.   It isn't Benedict Cumberbatch's fault.  He is doing his best with what he's given, but the Doctor Strange character is meh.   The entire multiverse idea is wearing thin too.   It seems to exist just so characters from Marvel's past can make cameos and elicit applause from a grateful audience.   I won't spoil which ones show up, not that they add much to the mix anyway. 

Wanda's (Olsen) story arc picks up from the conclusion of the show's inaugural season.   Her children died and she is under the black spell which causes her to wreak havoc trying to locate a universe in which she can be reunited with her children.   After Doctor Strange attends the wedding of his unrequited love Christine (McAdams), a large octopus is chasing teenage girl America Chavez (Gomez), who is also a girl showing up in Strange's dreams at night.   America informs Strange that this wasn't a dream, but another universe.   America is able to hop from universe to universe, but isn't sure how to control it.   Wanda, aka her evil incarnation Scarlet Witch, is looking to capture America and harness her power.   Strange and Wong (Wong) are here to stop Scarlet from succeeding.

What follows is CGI madness within the multiverse of madness, which is to be expected in a Marvel film.   However, the plot can't keep up and the characters are threatened to be engulfed by the sheer mass of action.   Director Raimi is of course no stranger to the Marvel world.   He directed Spider-Man as well as parts two and three before there was even such a thing as Marvel Studios.   Those films found a way to establish their people without having them overrun by the visual effects.   

Doctor Strange will undoubtedly return, but I'd prefer to see him in a supporting role.   He filled that slot nicely in Spider Man: No Way Home, but as the lead, he just can't carry the day.   

 

Ozark: Season Four, Part Two (2022) * * 1/2

 

Starring:  Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Julia Garner, Skylar Gaertner, Sofia Hublitz, Felix Solis, Adam Rothenberg, Alfonso Herrera, Katrina Lenk, Veronica Falcon

The first half of Ozark's season four maintained suspense, but the cracks in the storytelling were beginning to show.   The final seven episodes which conclude the series wilt under the weight of double crosses, schemes, and plans gone awry.   Then, we have the final scene in which the action cuts to black before we can determine what actually happened.   The cynical side of me assumes this is so we can  discover what happened when the movie is made a few years from now.   If you're going to end a series, end it.  In these days of reboots and continuations of long-ended series galore, the idea of concluding a series for good is going the way of the dodo.

Martin and Wendy Byrde (Bateman & Linney) are close to escaping the clutches of the Navarro cartel which has undergone a leadership change since the last episode.   Omar (Solis) is now serving time in federal prison while his nephew Javi (Herrera) takes over.  After cutting a lucrative deal with a pharmaceutical company, Javi is soon shot and killed in a revenge killing by Ruth (Garner), who sought revenge for Javi killing her cousin Wyatt and his wife (the ruthless Darlene Snell) at the end of the last episode.  

For reasons difficult to explain, Marty steps in as the temporary head of the cartel in the wake of Javi's death and Omar's imprisonment.  During Marty's stay in Mexico, an attempt is made on Omar's life in prison.  Marty suspects one of Omar's lieutenants of giving the order and proceeds to have him tortured then killed.   This doesn't sit well with Marty, but by now he's in way too deep to have moral compunctions about anything.

How the Byrdes have any cache to make deals with the FBI or have the cartel trust them with anything is beyond comprehension at this point.   The cartel should have gone looking for a money launderer who gives them fewer headaches a long time ago.   The Byrdes have been able to wiggle out of one predicament after another over four seasons, but now this is treading into ludicrous territory.    The performances remain the best part of Ozark.   Bateman is still cool under the intense pressures on he and Wendy, while Linney has compellingly morphed from bystander to Lady Macbeth who will do anything to survive, even things which give Marty pause.   But, then the writing delves into a horrific auto accident involving the Byrdes' van which is only presented to drive a point which by now is perfectly clear:  The Byrdes are indestructible and can withstand just about anything, even a random car crash.  

 

Memory (2022) * * *

 

Directed by:  Martin Campbell

Starring:  Liam Neeson, Guy Pearce, Monica Bellucci, Mia Sanchez, Harold Torres, Ray Stevenson, Stella Stocker

Memory may appear on its surface as the latest of Liam Neeson's string of the "hero with the particular set of skills" films.   However, Memory is better than that because it doesn't strictly focus on Neeson and his kicking everyone's ass he encounters.   Neeson's better movies of late such as Cold Pursuit and Run All Night had involving plots with multiple characters getting the chance to take center stage and solid supporting performances.   Memory is such a movie and it's directed with slick skill by action film veteran Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, Goldeneye)  

Neeson is Alex Lewis, a Texas born and bred (with the Irish brogue of course) assassin-for-hire with early-onset dementia called upon to do one last job before he calls it quits.   His bosses aren't aware that he sometimes forgets why he went into a room or that he may have left something incriminating at the scene of his latest killing.   His targets this time are a lawyer involved in a child prostitution ring and a twelve-year-old girl (Sanchez) who was taken into custody after a FBI agents kill her pimp father during a raid.  Alex has no qualms about killing the lawyer, but the girl is off-limits.   Someone else kills the girl, and an enraged Alex seeks vengeance by knocking off one member of the ring at a time, while keeping FBI agent Vincent Serra (Pearce) in the loop.

Neeson looks a bit less robust than usual in Memory which fits the character just fine.   He's a man whose dementia is siphoning the life from him.   He visits his older brother (also suffering from dementia and can no longer speak) in a nursing home and it's here where Memory movingly examines the hidden dimensions of its characters.   Memory loss isn't just a plot gimmick, but a real condition to be dealt with.   Even the villain, a multi-millionaire real estate developer (Bellucci) isn't necessarily seen in cut-and-dry terms.   Pearce's FBI agent Serra is weary and jaded, but still has enough caring left in him to want to avenge the death of the girl he saved from a lifetime of prostitution.

This is a movie in which law enforcement isn't viewed as corrupt or uncaring, but sometimes overwhelmed and frustrated by bureaucratic red tape and sudden shifts in departmental focus.   Alex makes it clear he's a bad guy, but not even he is immune from taking one last shot at redemption.   If you're apt to simply write off Memory as another "Liam Neeson" movie, you may want to give it a look.  The results are surprising. 

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) * *

 

Directed by: Tom Gormican

Starring:  Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Neil Patrick Harris, Tiffany Haddish, Ike Barinholtz, Sharon Horgan, Lily Mo Sheen

Nicolas Cage plays "Nick Cage", a version of himself in the ultra-meta The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.   Cage relies on his innate ability to put his all into less-than-desirable material, of which he's had a lot of practice lately.   Massive Talent has Cage, whose film roles have all but dried up, taking a million-dollar payday from alleged cartel leader Javi Guttierrez (Pascal) to attend his birthday party in Spain.   Javi is a superfan who owns numerous Cage collectibles and all but genuflects in front of his hero.   How can Cage resist such flattery and such money, even when the CIA intervenes and asks Cage to spy on Javi?  

Massive Talent concentrates on Nick's and Javi's mundane bromance while sending up or referencing Cage's more successful movies.   Once the Cage hero worship ends, then the movie transforms into what feels like just another Nicolas Cage action picture.  The movie never propels itself into anything memorable.   The scenes which parody Cage's dual role in Adaptation fall flat, with Cage's imaginary twin screaming, "I'm Nick, freakiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing Cage".   That's annoying, not funny.  And it happens twice.

Cage's career is among the most peculiar in movie history.   He's an Oscar winner with numerous hits to his credit who in the last fifteen years hasn't been as selective with his role choices as he should've been.  Massive Talent pokes fun a little at that, but is mostly concerned with idolizing the Nicolas Cage from twenty to thirty years ago.   Since we're making references to great Cage movies, it's a shame no one brought up Moonstruck or Peggy Sue Got Married.   He had a career before Guarding Tess, you know.