Magnolia (1999) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring:  Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, Melora Walters, Julianne Moore, Jason Robards, Philip Baker Hall, Melinda Dillon, William H. Macy, Jeremy Blackman, Michael Bowen

Magnolia is Paul Thomas Anderson's follow-up to the masterful Boogie Nights (1997).  The structure of Magnolia is similar in how it juggles a menagerie of characters, but while Boogie Nights focused on the 1970's porn industry, Magnolia tells interlocking stories of wounded people who come across each other by fate, chance, and a deus ex machina which will likely never be employed in a movie again.  When I first viewed Magnolia, I was puzzled by frogs falling from the sky like rain.   Upon second viewing, I realized this event was a necessity from the heavens to provide clarity, understanding, and healing.  Something had to give and it couldn't have occurred at a more proper time.

The people involved in the crossing stories are:  Jim (Reilly), a lonely cop who wants to do some good on every shift, Jimmy Gator (Hall), a dying game-show host whose producer Earl Partridge (Robards) is on his deathbed from cancer, Earl's estranged son Jack (Cruise), who goes by the name Frank T.J. Mackey and is a self-help guru whose program "Seduce and Destroy" aids men in their quest to dominate women, Linda (Moore), Earl's second wife who feels guilty about the way she has treated him now that he is near death, and Claudia (Walters), daughter of Jimmy Gator who despises him for reasons made clear later.  There is also Donnie (Macy), a contestant who many years ago won a boatload of money on Gator's show, only to have it stolen from him by his parents.  He has fallen on hard times and wants to rob his former boss' safe to pay for braces which he hopes will make him more attractive to the man he is in love with. 

With the exception of Jim and Phil Parma (Hoffman), Earl's nurse who carries out his deathbed request to see his son one last time, most of the characters in Magnolia are troubled and wounded, while Jim and Phil try to right wrongs and perhaps bring healing to those wounds.  They need help doing so, and they receive it in the most extraordinary and insane way possible.  

Magnolia is difficult to define except as an anthology of interlocking stories and characters in which these people are fated to be a part of each other's lives, whether they want to or not.  But there is a driving dramatic force which propels Magnolia into something unique and special.  This is among the best performances of Tom Cruise's career, playing someone so angry he invents a persona to mask his hurt.  His father left when his mother was dying from cancer, causing him to endure the pain and burden of watching her die by himself.   His final contact with Earl is equal parts resentment, pure hatred, anger, followed by regret and then love and acceptance.  It's quite a scene.   The rest of his scenes show him giving a lecture to equally hurt men who are trying to one-up women in the battle of the sexes.  Cruise was nominated for Best Supporting Oscar, which I believe he should have won, and it shows how multi-faceted he is as an actor.  This is something that could be said for the movie itself, and that gives us an emotional, riveting experience.  

Monkey Man (2024) * *

 

Directed by:  Dev Patel

Starring:  Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Sikander Kher, Sobhita Dulipala, Ashwini Kalsekar, Pitobsh Tripathi

Monkey Man, the directorial debut of acclaimed actor Dev Patel, is John Wick using fists of fury instead of guns.   It's a revenge picture in which a poor man named Kid (Patel) infiltrates the upper echelon of the New Delhi underworld to avenge his mother's death at the hands of corrupt police and politicians.  At the end of all of the fisticuffs, you wonder how Kid's hands aren't swollen or broken along with other body parts.  

I also wonder why movies are filming so many scenes in poorly lit areas or in the dark.  Trying to follow the fight sequences are a fool's errand as daylight emerges as a welcome relief.   The fights are no less action-packed than any other movie's, but eventually they come off as overchoreographed and simply absurd.  Patel, a superior actor who also wrote the movie, alludes to Bruce Lee and other action heroes of his childhood when staging the action.  However, these allusions aren't as fun as the real thing.

The movie follows a familiar superhero pattern of the hero getting thrashed, retreating to a remote place to heal and reload, a training montage, and then he returns to finish the job.  The villains aren't given much depth for us to want to see their destruction.   Kid himself is more of a symbol than a hero.  We are expected to care through osmosis, but that doesn't happen either.   Monkey Man is a passion project of Patel's which took years to finally come to the big screen.   For that, we applaud him, but the finished product is hardly distinguishable from countless other revenge movies. 

Dr. Dolittle (1998) * * *

 

Directed by:  Betty Thomas

Starring:  Eddie Murphy, Oliver Platt, Richard Portnow, Peter Boyle, Kristen Wilson, Kyla Pratt, Raven Symone, Paul Giamatti, Ossie Davis, voices of Chris Rock, Norm Macdonald, Jenna Elfman, Gilbert Gottfried, Albert Brooks

Dr. John Dolittle (Murphy) is a well-off San Francisco doctor with a thriving practice about to be sold for millions, a loving family, and a gift (which he thinks is a curse) of being able to hear and talk to animals.  He was able to do so as a child, but found a way to repress this until one day, he hears a dog named Lucky (Macdonald) give him hell for nearly running him over.  

Dolittle adopts Lucky, but soon after, all different types of wildlife descend on his home looking for treatment for various maladies.   Dolittle reluctantly and covertly aids the animals, but finds it to be very rewarding.  This doesn't prevent him from being briefly institutionalized under the "care" of Dr. Blaine (Giamatti), an envious medical school rival who makes it his mission to keep Dolittle at the institution.  The animals themselves are voiced by familiar actors who are mostly delivering amusing wisecracks and insults.  

Murphy himself used this role as a springboard to varying success as a family-film leading man.  In Dr. Dolittle, he finds the right mix of sympathy and humor in his predicament.   It takes him time to process the idea that he can communicate with animals.   Yes, they conveniently all speak English, except for one who speaks Spanish.   But Dr. Dolittle exhibits a sweetness with its protagonist and its cute animals who all only want a little help from someone who understands them.   

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Adam Wingard

Starring:  Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Kaylee Hottle

I couldn't pass a test on what happens in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.  There is a plot, one which numerous cast members helpfully took time out to explain, but my memory remains foggy.  I know Godzilla rules the surface, while Kong finds his dominance in the lower world (someplace between the surface and the Earth's core) under siege by another race of massive, giant Kongs.  There is a little gorilla, who I will call Donkey Kong Junior, who turns on his own tribe and aids Kong in his quest to defend the worlds against these other giant gorillas. 

Godzilla is brought in not as an enemy, although he and Kong fight once, but as an ally.  I can't recall with any certainty why this is, but it's all simply a backdrop for CGI run amok and battle scenes as incomprehensible as the plot.  There isn't much to root for or against.  The actors are here primarily to witness or explicate the happenings as they unfold, but are mostly pushed to the sidelines.  The visuals are the stars, and those are a mess.  We have difficulty following the action and we find we don't much care anyway. 

I watched some of Kong: Skull Island again recently, which is the best of the recent Godzilla and Kong movies.  Yes, it had lots of CGI and action, but there was a central human tug to the story and Kong himself was fleshed out.  In this latest film, both Godzilla and Kong are there to fight and destroy whole cities and worlds with not much else going on to compel the viewer to keep watching.  It's a free-for-all.  The more the plot is explained, the more confused we become. 

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) * *

 

Directed by:  Gil Kenan

Starring:  Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, McKenna Grace, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, William Atherton, Emily Ann Lind, Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, Annie Potts

Ghostbusters is out of gas.  No amount of cameos or callbacks to the initial films will revive it.  Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire strains mightily, but even with the remaining original Ghostbusters (Aykroyd, Murray, and Hudson) lending a hand, it dies on the vine.  This version of the Ghostbusters aren't as funny or interesting as the previous incarnations while the plots are recycling the latest evil spirit that wants to destroy the world. 

I've often contended that villains who want to conquer or destroy the planet will find themselves very bored once they achieve their goal.  They should thank the Ghostbusters for thwarting them, so they will always have a dream to chase.   The malevolent force in this movie is contained in a metal sphere and when unleashed it will freeze everyone in New York.  Will it be today, New York? Tomorrow, the world?  We don't know, nor do we much care.   

Rudd, Coon, Grace, and Wolfhard are appealing actors not given much to do.   Phoebe, the youngest child and the closest to her grandfather Egon Spengler in terms of intelligence, develops a friendship with a ghost (Lind) which crosses over into attraction.   While it is a momentary thrill to see Aykroyd, Hudson, Murray, and Potts return to their original roles, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire feels overcrowded, especially squeezing in the Ghostbusters' enemy from the first film turned mayor Walter Peck (Atherton), who 40 years later is still a douchebag.  Tack on new characters in the form of a conduit (Nanjiani) and a parapsychology professor who understands the history of the sphere (Oswalt) and we're looking for a traffic cop to keep everything straight. 

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire even features the green slimer ghost from the first film, who is now a fan favorite, but the movie itself is a series of allusions and references to the first two films with a threadbare plot to hang them on.  The all-female Ghostbusters (2016) is left out.  I recall enjoying that one when it was released (I was definitely in the minority), although I haven't seen it since.   I figure you may as well invite Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and company to the next Ghostbusters sequel.  Why not?  

Goldfinger (1964) * * *

 

Directed by:  Guy Hamilton

Starring:  Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Frobe, Harold Sakata

Sean Connery brought the perfect mix of humanity and playfulness to the role of James Bond.   The actors who succeeded him in the role brought their own strengths, but Connery will always be remembered as the quintessential Bond.  Goldfinger gives us the Aston Martin, the gadgets, the exotic locations, the fights, Bond escapes, and a villain who wants to rob Fort Knox and tilt the world economy on its ear.  What good would that do Auric Goldfinger (Frobe)?  He'll have a ton of gold bars in his home, if nothing else. 

The villain's scheme is helpfully explained to his associates with help of models of Fort Knox and the surrounding area.   I'm reminded of Dr. Brown in Back to the Future who apologizes that his models aren't up to scale.  As is customary in Bond films, there is one who doesn't agree with or go along with the scheme and soon meets an untimely death.  Word to the wise:  Know who you're dealing with before you say no.  Goldfinger is ruthless and hates to lose even the most common of games, but for reasons only he would know, he brings Bond along first as a guest then as a prisoner to watch him carry out his plans.  This gives Bond time to plot an escape, of course, when Goldfinger could have been rid of his nemesis days ago.  

Goldfinger brings us perhaps the most famous henchman in Oddjob, a tuxedo-wearing Asian man with ridiculous strength and a hat which could slice through a statue.  He's a tough nut to crack, and remains the most memorable baddie this side of Jaws and a formidable foe for Bond.  Goldfinger is the third Bond film with many more to come.  Goldfinger harkens back to the era when Bond was new and fresh.  In the ensuing years, the series grew stale, with occasional lapses of its former glory peaking through.   After years of reboots and recasting, Bond is now at rest and should stay that way.  

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977) * *

 

Directed by:  Michael Pressman

Starring:  William Devane, Jackie Earle Haley, Jimmy Baio, Clifton James, Chris Barnes, Brett Marx, Alfred Lutter, Erin Blunt, Lane Smith

The Bad News Bears was an examination of the birth of the Little League Parent with a big game at the end.  The group of misfit little leaguers were constructed as a social experiment where players of different races were thrown together thanks to a liberal town councilman.  They all had one thing in common:  They were terrible baseball players who got better thanks to their drunken coach.  One year after the success of the Bad News Bears comes The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, which is the same players minus the cynical undercurrent.  No parents even chaperone the team to the game being held at the Houston Astrodome, which gives the Bears an excuse to steal a van and have team captain Kelly Leak (Haley) drive them from California to Houston.

Kelly is 13 going on 26, although with his continual cigarette smoking and driving a motorcycle, I thought he was closer to an adult.   They're a rowdy bunch of course, and although they are the supposed California state little league champions, they play with the incompetence of the Bears of the previous year.  Walter Matthau is nowhere to be found, but since the team requires an adult coach, Kelly looks up his estranged father Michael (Devane), who doesn't even recognize him when Kelly meets him after Michael's shift at the local plant. 

Michael agrees to be the team's coach, and he's a pretty good one.   He returns them to their former glory as the play the local Houston champs in a four-inning exhibition before an Astros game.  It doesn't make much sense to turn them back into bumbling players from the first film, except to recycle that comic formula.   Devane's Mike is a genial guy with a resentful son and naturally they have argument before reconciling.   All of this is the undercard to the main event, the game where the Bears (who inexplicably are batting at the bottom of the inning because they seem like logical visitors) are being pounded early and then coming back after the game is halted due to time overruns.  

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training has no Walter Matthau, Tatum O'Neal, or Vic Morrow.  The kids are the focus, including a new pitcher (Baio) who throws wild every pitch, and then we have Tanner Boyle (Barnes), the blonde-haired hothead with the Dutch Boy haircut who is the smallest player on the team, but has the biggest mouth.  The movie is mostly a retelling of the story which made the first film a success, and they win the big game this time.