Night Swim (2024) * *

 

Directed by:  Bryce McGuire

Starring:  Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Gavin Warren, Jodi Long, Ellie Araiza, Eddie Martinez

If you ever wondered why there was never a movie about a swimming pool which devours people, then worry no more.   Night Swim is here.  It heavily relies on jump scares and things going bump in the night.  I'm reminded of Eddie Murphy's classic stand-up segment about why people don't just leave the house when there is a ghost running around.  In Night Swim, it's a killer pool, but all the same.  

Night Swim begins with a young girl drowning in a swimming pool circa 1992.  She didn't drown, but was rather engulfed by a spirit in the pool.  Fast forward to thirty years later, a nice suburban family buys the house because it has a pool.  The father is former baseball player Ray Waller (Russell), who was forced to retire due to MS.   His wife Eve (Condon) takes a job as an administrative assistant at the local school.  They have two children, both naturally excited to finally have a pool in the backyard, but that enthusiasm quickly wanes when the pool attempts to suck them into the drain.  

The pool isn't all bad, per se, since Ray finds his condition improving after swimming, but of course there is a catch.  There always is.   The pool is built above a mythical spring which is said to have healing powers.   However, for each person it heals, it must accept another as a sacrifice.  Apparently from the same family.  Don't you just love when strings are attached?   Ray finds this is a compromise he can live with.   His wife Eve notices the difference in Ray, and finds the mother of the girl who died thirty years ago and finds that the mom is willing to accept trading a healthy child for the sickly one.  Sophie's Choice wouldn't be nearly as heartbreaking if these parents had to make the choice of which child should live or die.

There are solid actors giving the best performances possible given the material.  Kerry Condon was a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee just last year.  Wyatt Russell, son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, is a steady, somewhat conflicted hero.   Or is he a villain?   Or is he under the spell of this evil in-ground pool?  Night Swim knows it is silly at its core, and tries hard to be scary and amusing.  It isn't much of either, which makes it a mostly forgettable exercise in B-movie horror. 

Liar Liar (1997) * *

Directed by:  Tom Shadyac

Starring:  Jim Carrey, Maura Tierney, Cary Elwes, Amanda Donohoe, Rebecca Schull, Jennifer Tilly, Justin Cooper, Krista Allen

Fletcher Reede (Carrey) is a career-minded lawyer who continually breaks promises to his son Max (Cooper) to spend time with him.  It was Fletcher's career which drove a wedge between he and his ex-wife Audrey (Tierney), and she now dates Jerry (Elwes), a kind doctor who wants to marry her.   But she holds out hope that one day Fletcher will become a good father again.   One night, when Fletcher is unable to attend Max's birthday party like he promised because he is having sex with his boss Miranda (Donohoe), Max makes a wish that his father cannot lie for 24 hours.   For a lawyer like Fletcher, telling the truth could be detrimental to his client, a gold digger (Tilly) trying to win a lot of money in a divorce settlement despite an iron-clad prenup.

Fletcher finds he is unable to tell a lie or even write one down.  He knows his client's case is baloney, but saying so out loud would be catastrophic.  He tries to physically restrain himself from lying by holding his hands over his mouth or throwing himself into things, but he can't stop telling the truth.   This is a role Carrey was born to play with its reliance on physical and sight gags, but the slapstick doesn't generate laughs.   I can marvel at Carrey's energy and efforts and still understand they are in vain.  The scenes which work better are the sentimental ones where Fletcher learns how much he loves Max.  

Liar Liar is one of Carrey's biggest hits and it is a light comedy designed to showcase Carrey's gifts.   It does that, but to what end?   

The Crow (1994) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Alex Proyas

Starring:  Brandon Lee, Michael Wincott, Ernie Hudson, Sofia Shinas, Bai Ling, Rochelle Davis, Jon Polito

Brandon Lee's death during the filming of The Crow adds to its poignancy and depth.  It's about a man who is killed along with his fiancee and is resurrected one year later to avenge the murders.   The Crow, in essence, resurrects Brandon Lee for us and leaves us wondering what might have been.   Lee, the son of Bruce Lee who also died young, is a naturally capable action actor who is able to summon the emotional capacity needed for the role of Eric Draven, who turns himself into The Crow and knocks off his killers one by one in chilling fashion.   A crow, by the way, is the instrument of his rebirth and his conduit to the beyond.

There is a sadness to Eric's quest for vengeance.  It will not bring back his fiancee nor will it ease his pain.  It will simply close an open chapter and allow him to rest in peace.  But The Crow, which takes place in a rainy, cold urban environment on Halloween night, has its moments of humor and levity.  There is also a sympathetic police detective (Hudson), who witnessed Eric's fiancee Shelley (Shinas) die on the operating table and regrets not being able to solve the crimes.  Eric's fight leads him to the menacing Top Dollar (Wincott), the crime boss who ordered the robbery which led to Eric's and Shelly's death.  

Eric's powers come from the fact that he's already dead and the black crow which is always nearby.   Top Dollar is a superb villain, which at that point in his career was his forte, in a movie that is shadows and darkness, but still a satisfying action thriller.   The actual scene in which Lee was accidentally killed by a projectile from a supposedly blank gun is not in the film, but we know what happened and like Eric is a ghost, so is Brandon Lee.  Thank goodness The Crow wasn't shelved since it was mostly completed at the time of Lee's death.  What's left is an action movie with more power than expected.  

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) * * *

 

Directed by:  Mike Newell

Starring:  Hugh Grant, Andie McDowell, John Hannah, Simon Callow, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Charlotte Coleman, Rowan Atkinson, Anna Chancellor, James Fleet, David Haig

Four Weddings and a Funeral doesn't disappoint.  It crams four weddings and a funeral into its two-hour running time, giving each its own space to breathe and allow its characters to find love and happiness, both of which can sometimes be in short supply.   Does it drag occasionally?  Yes.  Truth be told, Hugh Grant and Andie McDowell make an attractive couple, but I wouldn't place them in the pantheon of great movie romantic partners.   But the movie introduced America to the sly comic brilliance of Hugh Grant, playing our reticent hero Charlie who loves Carrie (McDowell), whom he meets when he is the best man at the first wedding (and forgets the rings).  He is thunderstruck with love, but he is awkward in expressing his feelings.  Words don't flow from his mouth, but sort of tumble out.  Carrie finds him adorable anyway, but remains emotionally unavailable because she lives in America and by the second wedding, she is engaged to a rich man who "owns half of Scotland".  How could Charlie compete?

Charlie finds himself in one awkward situation after another.  While pining for Carrie at each event, at one he is seated at a table with former girlfriends who decry his inability to commit, at another he accidentally locks himself in a room where the groom and bride are having sex.   Maybe that's even the same wedding.  At another, Charles' gay friend Gareth (Callow), who lives at up at every event, passes away from a heart attack, leading to the touching funeral where his lover Matthew (Hannah), sums up his feelings in a poem.  Charles is accompanied by his gaggle of friends at each event.  The movie wisely chooses to develop the characters through the eyes of the events.  We don't see their personal lives unfold in any other way, so as not to complicate the plot or the movie.

Four Weddings and a Funeral is at its heart a light romantic comedy with obstacles thrown in front of Charles' and Carrie's happiness.  That's par for the course.   It contains laughs mostly because Charles is charming despite his verbal miscues and we like these people.  That's enough sometimes. 

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Nicholas Meyer

Starring:  William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Christopher Plummer, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Mark Lenard, Christian Slater, Michael Dorn, Kim Cattrall, David Warner

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the last Star Trek film featuring the original cast, which is having a ball on their final voyage of the starship Enterprise.  William Shatner would appear in Star Trek: Generations (1994), and maybe the rest of the cast made appearances in future Star Trek shows and movies, but Star Trek VI is the last hurrah of the famed original cast.  It is the proper sendoff.  

Star Trek VI is lighthearted adventure despite its contemporary subject matter for the time (i.e. the end of the Cold War).   A Klingon moon explodes which will cause the Klingon race to die out within fifty years.  Star Fleet assigns Captain Kirk the task of accompanying the Klingon chancellor (Warner) and his staff to a summit meeting where the Klingons and their former enemies can forge a path to peace.  Kirk still blames Klingons for his son's death and doesn't trust them.  When he asks Spock why he is the one chosen to help the Klingons, Spock replies with an old Vulcan proverb: "Only Nixon can go to China," 

Chancellor Gorkon is sincere about his desire for peace, but his Chief of Staff General Chang (Plummer), donning a leather eyepatch, is itching for war and extolls Shakespearean lines to Kirk.  "You should hear Shakespeare in the original Klingon," says Chang.  After a tense dinner with the Klingons, the chancellor is assassinated after their starship is attacked.  The weapons database of the Enterprise says they fired the torpedoes, but that is not the case.  Kirk and Bones McCoy are arrested for the crime and sentenced to life imprisonment on a freezing mining moon, while Spock attempts to deduce what happened and why before Kirk and McCoy are killed in prison.   It's a mystery Agatha Christie could have written herself.

Star Trek VI relies more heavily on pop culture references than any of its predecessors.  It is fun and the cast brings energy which radiates throughout the entire movie.  Plus, you have built-in suspense as the Enterprise tries to prevent an assassination to the Klingon chancellor's daughter, who has taken the reins from her father and going ahead with a universal summit meeting.  Plummer is a terrific villain and Shatner ever the resourceful captain, setting up a last battle of Enterprise vs. Klingons.  Star Trek VI doesn't quite match the creativity and sheer joy of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the one where they travel back in time to capture two humpback whales), but it's pretty close. 

The Woman in Red (1984) * *

 

Directed by:  Gene Wilder

Starring:  Gene Wilder, Judith Ivey, Kelly LeBrock, Charles Grodin, Joseph Bologna, Michael Huddleston, Gilda Radner

Teddy Pierce (Wilder) is a San Francisco advertising executive who finds himself standing in his robe on a ledge of a tall building .  He laments that just six weeks earlier, he didn't have much adventure in his life.  He had a stable home and family, a good job, and he "never looked twice when a pretty girl walked by".  One morning in his company's parking lot, he sees Charlotte (LeBrock), a model dressed in a red skirt who walks over a grate which blows her skirt up a la Marilyn Monroe in The Seven-Year Itch.   It made Monroe immortal, but no so much for LeBrock.  But Teddy is riveted and soon makes it his business to get to know Charlotte, which leads to complications, misunderstandings, and eventually a lame payoff.  What is remarkable about The Woman in Red is how it is able to squeeze in not just Teddy's quest for Charlotte, but its other subplots into a movie that is barely ninety minutes.   Today, ninety minutes is only the setup. 

A lot of time is spent on Teddy hanging with his buddies Joey (Bologna), a womanizing married man, Buddy (Grodin), who is secretly gay, and Mikey (Huddleston), who is having an affair with a married doctor's wife.  The movie works hard to touch all of these characters and give them adequate screen time.  Oh and let's not forget Teddy's unsuspecting wife Didi (Ivey), who is oblivious to her husband's suddenly odd behavior.   The pursuit of Charlotte soon feels like an afterthought, and we never grasp what about Charlotte would make Teddy want to throw his life away.   Sure, she's alluring, but she remains mostly a cipher and no one we care much about.  We also don't understand why she would want to hook up with a schlub like Teddy either, since he's obviously a lightweight goof.

Wilder was not as adept at directing as he was at writing and as a brilliant comic actor, at least based on this movie.  Wilder normally plays likable, if not a bit off-center, characters.  Teddy only builds goodwill because Wilder is playing him, but we aren't much moved by his plight.   If his worst dilemma in life is that he has a loving family, a good job, a nice home, great friends, and he's going through hell to obtain a side piece, then we should all have his problems.  

American Fiction (2023) * * 1/2

  

Directed by:  Cord Jefferson

Starring:  Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown, Leslie Uggams, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Erika Alexander, Myra Lucretia Taylor, John Ortiz

Thelonious "Monk" Ellison (Wright) is a professor and author who hasn't written anything of note or financial success in years.   He writes about African-American studies, but no one seems interested in that.  He is gobsmacked to find the biggest-selling sensation is a novel by author Sinatra Golden (Rae), based on inner-city blacks who speak more "black".  Monk is infuriated that his latest works can't find publishers while authors who write books with stereotypical characters are the latest best-sellers.  

Following his sister Lisa's untimely death, Monk writes a similar novel titled "My Pafology", (later renamed Fuck) which chronicles street crime in what appears to be one night.  He is doing this as a joke, as therapy, as catharsis for his pent-up anger against a publishing world which doesn't care about him.   He uses pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh (stating he is a wanted fugitive who must keep his identity secret to avoid arrest) and, astoundingly, Monk's book not only sells to a publisher, but he makes more money than he ever has in his life. 

Monk is disgusted by this, but hey it pays for the nursing home in which he places his mother (Uggams) who is battling dementia, and he finds he can live an inauthentic life while trying to keep the fact that he wrote the book a secret.   Writer-director Jefferson creates a basis for wicked satire with American Fiction that never quite escalates into anything special.   Wright, who is great in just about anything he appears in, hits the right notes as the exasperated Monk, while Sterling K. Brown (as Monk's gay brother Clifford), is Wright's equal in a smaller, but no less powerful role.   

But then Jefferson saddles the movie with a romance between Monk and his neighbor Coraline (Alexander) which feels tacked on and incomplete.  The movie itself paints the broad strokes, but doesn't seem to have the teeth to really dig in.   American Fiction works in some areas, but as a whole, it falls shy of truly terrific satire.  It's a shame, because the parts are there.  

The Beekeeper (2024) * *

 

Directed by: David Ayer

Starring:  Jason Statham. Jeremy Irons, Josh Hutcherson, Taylor James, Minnie Driver, Phylicia Rashad, David Witts, Bobby Naderi

Jason Statham, like Sean Connery or Liam Neeson before him, plays every part with a brusque British accent whether he's playing an Englishman or an American.  His accent is part of him to the point movies don't even try to explain it anymore.   Statham usually plays curt, macho action heroes, but I don't recall any movie he's starred in previously in which he uttered fewer words.  He is a man of action anyway, and in The Beekeeper, he is a cross between Superman, James Bond, and John Wick.  

The movie itself starts out as stylish fun before it starts to feel like a John Wick retread, with John, er, Adam Clay (Statham), taking out half-a-dozen heavies at a time through heavily choreographed thrashings.  He shoots people multiple times when really one shot would be sufficient, but then pounds others with Ivan Drago-like power.  Don't his hands hurt after punching guys over and over?  And don't get me started on the backpack he carries around, which seems to be able to hold whatever uniform or clothing he needs, as well as seemingly unlimited rounds of ammo.  

Who is Adam Clay?  He's a beekeeper, tending to his bee farm quietly and without fuss.  He rents space in a barn from his neighbor (Rashad), who according to Adam, "is the only person to ever take care of me,"  Soon, Adam's friend is a victim of a computer phishing scam which depletes all of her financial assets, leaving her broke.  She commits suicide, and soon Adam is on the hunt for who is responsible.  The FBI says they are unable to locate the offices of the scam artists, but Adam finds it in roughly 24 hours and burns it to the ground.   Turns out, Adam was once a member of The Beekeepers, an organization called upon to protect America when I assume the FBI, military, or CIA can't.  When Adam speaks, he does so in terms of bees, a la Chauncy Gardiner from Being There.  So he is now a cross between Superman, Bond, Wick, and Chauncy.  

It turns out there are other offices running these cons, run by a Boston-area office with spoiled rich brat Derek Danforth (Hutcherson), who spends his days getting massages and barking orders at his subordinates.   He is the son of the President, not of Danforth Industries, but of the United States.  Derek is watched over by Wallace Westwyld (Irons), the former head of the CIA who is doing a favor for Derek's mother and understands exactly how deadly Clay is.  His healthy respect for Clay doesn't make him a standard villain, but someone whom Clay may respect also.  Their only scene together reveals more layers than expected.

The Beekeeper has various scenes in which characters stop and explain what the Beekeepers are and what they are capable of doing.  Then, we see it, and we've seen it before.  How exactly does Adam or John Wick for that matter train themselves to fight off all of these people attacking them?  Adam (or Wick) are not real people.  They are video game characters which kill off the nameless bodies coming at them, and like a game, these baddies then disappear from the screen only for more to come at them.   The hero is as tireless as the drones who engage him.  The issue is:  This is all tiresome now.  Just shoot up people and places and then escape to fight another day.  Yawn.  

Anyone but You (2023) * *

 

Directed by:  Will Gluck

Starring:  Glen Powell, Sydney Sweeney, Dermot Mulroney, Rachel Griffiths, Darren Barnet, Alexandra Shipp, Charlee Fraser, Hadley Robinson, Bryan Brown, Joe Davidson

Anyone but You is a romantic comedy by the numbers.  Sometimes, the predictability of romantic comedies can be a positive.  Yes, Anyone but You hits all of the marks one would expect from such a movie.  It isn't terrible, but doesn't transcend into anything great either.  Its leads are appealing, and the rest of the cast puts forth the required energy, but the tension between them is contrived at best and silly at worst.  Like Much Ado about Nothing, from which Anyone but You was inspired, the two spend a bulk of the movie in cutesy-bickering mode before falling in love.   

We meet Ben (Powell) and Bea (Sweeney) as Bea arrives at a crowded coffee shop asking to use the bathroom.  The cashier says she has to be a customer to use the restroom.   Ben orders something for Bea pretending that Bea is his wife and a grateful Bea, after using the restroom of course and soaking herself accidentally with water, accompanies Ben on a walk which turns into a date.   Ben takes her back to his place where Bea spends the night in Ben's arms sleeping on the couch.  Bea awakens, gets scared, and flees the apartment.  She then decides to turn around, but by then, Ben's buddy has dropped by and Ben tells him how Bea flew the coop.  Bea overhears this, is hurt, and then flees again.  

Some time later, Ben is invited to Bea's sister's destination wedding in Australia.  Bea's parents (Mulroney and Griffiths) live there and spend a fortune on family gatherings and yacht trips to the Sydney Harbor.   Ben's ex-girlfriend is there, as is Bea's ex, so they agree to pretend to be lovers so Ben will appear desirable to his ex and Bea's ex will take a hint that she's moved on.  I don't even need to recap what happens next.

Anyone but You gives it the college try.   It's not anything memorable, but if you want to kill ninety minutes or so it isn't the worst time.  This is the type of movie where Bea and Ben fall from the yacht into the Sydney Harbor, spend time clinging to a buoy and conversing awaiting rescue, and no one from the family seems to have noticed.  

... And Justice for All (1979) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by: Norman Jewison

Starring:  Al Pacino, Jack Warden, John Forsythe, Jeffrey Tambor, Larry Bryggman, Lee Strasberg, Christine Lahti, Craig T. Nelson, Robert Christian, Thomas G. Waites, Dominic Chianese

The opening scenes of ...  And Justice for All show us empty courtroom hallways with students reciting The Pledge of Allegiance and of course the "and justice for all" phrase emphasized.  Kids may believe such a concept exists.  In the world of this movie, this idea is merely a theory and hardly practiced.  For veteran attorney Arthur Kirkland (Pacino), "and justice for all" is something for which we should strive but thanks to politics, stupid legal technicalities, deal making, and human nature, such a belief is unattainable.  By the end of the movie, two of his clients meet violent endings and a third is betrayed by Arthur in the famed, "You're out of order" courtroom speech in which he reaches his breaking point with the legal system and says his own version of, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore,"

The difference between Arthur Kirkland and Howard Beale is that Kirkland can find himself either in jail for contempt of court or disbarred, while Beale can only get himself fired or promoted.   When ... And Justice for All opens, Kirkland is indeed sitting in jail when a transvestite is booked for robbing a taxi.  This person will soon be a Kirkland client.   Why was Kirkland in jail on a contempt charge?  Because he pissed off Judge Henry Fleming (Forsythe), who refused to release Kirkland's innocent client on a broken tail light ticket which inexplicably turned into a six-month prison sentence.  Something to do with papers not being filed on time, but Fleming takes sadistic pleasure in sticking to the letter of the law.  Later, he tells Arthur that incarceration doesn't work and that it would make more sense for someone to be hanged for armed robbery to really deter crime.  

Arthur hates Fleming, but soon Fleming is charged with raping and beating up a young girl and asks Arthur to represent him.   Why?  Fleming, ever the politically-savvy judge, figures if someone who hates him would defend him then the public will see he's truly innocent.   When Arthur refuses, Fleming brings up a professional indiscretion from years ago which blackmails Arthur into defending him.  So now Arthur is defending a client he despises and trying to free his two innocent clients from unnecessary detainment, which results in Arthur making promises he can't keep despite his efforts.

... And Justice for All was written by future Oscar winner Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin and is thankfully not an overwrought melodrama about a crusading attorney fighting for justice.   Instead, it is actually a dark comedy mixed with deeper satire with dramatic elements.  How else do you explain a suicidal judge (Warden) who fires a gun in his courtroom to maintain order or eats lunch on a fifth floor outdoor ledge?  Or the view of the legal system which contains laughs because you can't believe how close to the truth it is?  Pacino throughout it all maintains his angry, defiant, but ultimately caring tone.  It's quite a performance and worthy of the Oscar nomination he received that year (he lost out to Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer).  Arthur is smart and determined, but soon he finds he is in over his head trying to keep his sanity amidst this insane world of criminal justice.  

Pacino's final courtroom speech which gained its own fame represents an explosion from Arthur who decides he is fed up with the bullshit.   After failing to free two innocent clients, and trying to keep a potentially guilty one out of prison, Arthur finds he is at his limit.   The price he prays will be likely disbarment, but as he sits on the courtroom steps contemplating his future, he finds he may be able to live with that. 

The Karate Kid Part II (1986) * * *

 

Directed by:  John G. Avildsen

Starring:  Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Martin Kove, Yuji Okumoto, Tamlyn Tomita, Danny Kamekona, Nobu McCarthy

The Karate Kid Part II takes Daniel (Macchio) and Mr. Miyagi (Morita) to Miyagi's native Japan.  We learn more about Miyagi's past and why he left Japan as a teenager and never returned.  News of his father's imminent death dredges up past conflicts which now must be resolved.   Many years ago in Okinawa, Miyagi fell in love with Yukie (McCarthy), who was arranged to marry Miyagi's best friend Sato (Kamekona).  Sato challenged Miyagi to a fight to the death, but Miyagi, unwilling to fight his friend, instead flees the country.  He returns to find Sato is still angry and itching for their postponed battle.  "In Okinawa, honor has no time limit," Miyagi tells Daniel.  

While Miyagi feuds with Sato, Daniel faces his own trouble in the form of Chozen (Okumoto), Sato's sadistic nephew who terrorizes Daniel at every turn.   Meanwhile, Sato consistently challenges the still-reluctant Miyagi to fisticuffs, but mindful that Miyagi's dying father was once his karate teacher as well, which comes with a certain respect.   When Miyagi's father passes, Sato gives Miyagi three days to mourn and then the fight's on again.   What I liked about Kamekona's performance is the internal conflict present in him which is all over his face.   He is hurt and still bitter over Miyagi's supposed betrayal years before, but while his honor tells him he must fight Miyagi, his heart may feel otherwise.  

This gives Okumoto the duty of being the movie's main villain, and he is sufficiently hateful enough for us to root for Daniel to pound the snot out of him.  He calls Miyagi a coward throughout the film, even when Miyagi kicks his butt, and Daniel is guilty by association.   Daniel, having explained he and Allie from the first Karate Kid had broken up in the beginning of the film, finds a new love interest in the sweet Kumiko (Tomita), who aspires to be a ballet dancer.   Their romance is the weakest part of The Karate Kid, Part II, with not a lot of chemistry between Macchio and Tomita.  Their scenes seem obligatory and we want them to end so we can get to the main event.  

It's difficult to watch Karate Kid Part II without thinking of how these plots were resolved in Cobra Kai, with Chozen becoming Daniel's loyal ally vs. John Kreese's Cobra Kai dojo.  But the Chozen here is a cocky movie villain with his years of reflection and redemption still ahead of him.  So Daniel satisfactorily thrashes him in the film's climactic scene with Peter Cetera's Oscar-nominated Glory of Love playing over the credits.  It's a good song for a good movie which gets the job done.  And it's refreshing to see Daniel's relationship with Miyagi build instead of simply being recycled from the first movie.  

The Apartment (1960) * * * *

 

Directed by: Billy Wilder

Starring:  Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Jack Kruschen, Edie Adams, Ray Walston, Hope Holiday, David Lewis, Naomi Stevens

C.C. Baxter (Lemmon) can't even enjoy his leisure time in his own apartment.  Nearly every night, his bosses at work ask (more like demand) he leave his place so they could carry own their extramarital affairs without having to splurge for a hotel room (which I'm sure they could afford).  They dangle carrots in front of him in the form of raises and promotions which will grant him use of the executive washroom.  Baxter, who is itching to move up from his anonymous desk situated amidst hundreds of other drones, agrees, mostly because he is afraid to say no.   In 2024, this would be harassment writ large.  In 1960, this is business as usual.   

Baxter's love life is uncomplicated.  He has no wife, children, or girlfriend.  He sits outside in the park while his bosses make whoopee.  Since it's fall turning into winter, it doesn't surprise anyone that he catches a cold.  His superiors say they will borrow the apartment for an hour, which predictably turns into two or three.   Soon, Baxter has to carry a separate calendar to keep the dates straight.   He finds he likes Fran Kubelik (MacLaine), a pretty elevator operator who, unbeknownst to Baxter or anyone, is having an affair with Baxter's direct boss Jeff Sheldrake (MacMurray).  MacMurray dangles his own promises to Fran to leave his wife, but as days turn into months and years, this is still yet to happen.  She like Baxter well enough to agree to a date with him, but when Jeff comes calling, she stands him up at the theater.

Fran and Baxter are two peas in a pod in more ways than one.  They both yearn for more and the person who holds the key to their futures is Jeff.   This changes when Jeff borrows the apartment to break things off with Fran and she attempts suicide with sleeping pills.  Baxter enlists his neighbor Dr. Dreyfuss (Kruschen) to pump her stomach and keep things quiet.  Dr. Dreyfuss, who wrongfully assumes it is Baxter who is bedding all of those women at all hours of the night, tells Baxter to be a "mensch" and settle down with one woman.  Baxter nurses Fran back to health, which is something he loves doing because the woman he loves is in his presence.  

Billy Wilder's The Apartment is a dark, satirical comedy with a cynical undertone.  Both Baxter and Fran desire love, but understand the hurdles they need to jump through to achieve it, and both wonder if it's even worth it.  Lemmon is among the most likable and dependable of actors.  We feel for Baxter and understand his motives to a degree, especially in a time when the word harassment was likely never uttered or even thought about.  MacLaine is a fetching woman who thinks Jeff is her future husband, but she may even believe that one day, she'll be the unfortunate, unsuspecting Mrs. Sheldrake and some other woman will be another Fran.  MacMurray, like in Wilder's Double Indemnity strays from typecasting as the all-around good chap, doesn't seem to mind stringing people along as it suits his needs.  MacMurray is good at appearing to be sympathetic to Fran's feelings, while failing to see he is the cause of them.  

What makes The Apartment such a classic romantic comedy (if you want to call it that) is that it isn't playing musical beds or even necessarily cheerful.  Its characters operate in a world of realism, where their jobs are more important than their emotions or even decency.  Yet, things turn out okay in the end, but even then Fran tempers Baxter's declarations of love with "shut up and deal".  

Ferrari (2023) * *

 

Directed by:  Michael Mann

Starring:  Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Patrick Dempsey, Gabriel Leone, Jack O' Connell, Sarah Gadon

Ferrari isn't a traditional biopic of the legendary Enzo Ferrari, who along with his wife founded the famed sports car company in post-World War II Italy.  Instead, the movie takes a snapshot of a small period in which Enzo's personal and professional lives were at a crossroads with potential disaster lurking around each corner.  

Yet, Ferrari never generates enough power or speed to hum on all cylinders like one of Enzo's racing machines.  Despite the unnecessary Italian accent Driver employs (more on that later), he provides Ferrari with a powerful presence of a beloved Italian icon facing mounting pressures on all fronts.  The movie picks up in 1957 following a brief newsreel prologue showing Ferrari in his racing days.   He is followed by media and paparazzi like a famed singer or actor would.   He is estranged from his wife Laura (Cruz), who is aware of his extramarital affairs, but begs him to at least be home for breakfast.  Laura is unaware of the extent of Enzo's love for Lina (Woodley), with whom he shares a child Laura does not know about and whom Lina wants him to declare publicly.   Enzo and Laura's five-year-old son died within the past year from muscular dystrophy, with both visiting his grave separately.  

Professionally, Ferrari's company is losing money to the point he may have seek financing from competitors, which his accountant advises but Enzo will not do.  He is urged to produce more cars, but Enzo balks at this.  The accountant also asks Enzo to convince Laura to give up her shares in order to strengthen the company's negotiating position, which she does with conditions.  In trying to reclaim the world's land speed record recently usurped by Maserati, the Ferrari driver dies in a horrible track accident.   Enzo's reaction to this is cold and business-driven.   He simply hires another driver for his team.  Business as usual.  Ferrari hopes his team can win the Millie Miglia, a 1,000 mile race across Italy, which will boost his standing and retake past glory.   While the race is being run, one of his cars crashes and kills eleven spectators plus his driver.   Ferrari may be charged with manslaughter if the vehicle is found to be defective.  (This subplot payoff is handled in the epilogue in which he was found not guilty).  

Throughout it all, Ferrari maintains calm unlike anyone I've ever seen.  Because Sandler plays the role with such iciness, which may have been how the real Enzo handled his business, we never feel the mounting tension like we should.   I think of Uncut Gems (2019), which was wrought with pressure you could feel in the main character's bones.  Ferrari never reaches that point, and it all lacks urgency.  Director Michael Mann stages the race scenes well and the movie maintains a sense of its period.  The performances work, especially Cruz's as the wife who is heartbroken and angry due to her husband's affairs and the recent passing of their son.  You can sense she still loves her husband in the scenes where she negotiates with him over her shares.  

However, the movie itself doesn't lift off.  It seems like it wants to, but never finds a way to do it.  And now let's get to the accents.  Aside from Cruz, who speaks with an accent anyway and can be forgiven, the actors speak in distracting Italian accents a la House of Gucci, which also starred Driver.  We know the people are Italian, and there is no need to saddle them with accents.  Milos Forman made Amadeus with most of the characters, many of whom were played by American actors, without accents.  He felt they would detract from the material and he was right.  F. Murray Abraham played an Italian, while Mozart was Austrian, yet neither was forced to regale us with an Italian and German accent.  And many of the important scenes in Ferrari were shot in mostly darkness, making it difficult to see the action.  I assume this is supposed to be artsy, but it mostly makes us strain our eyes.