The Last Vermeer (2020) * * *

 

Directed by:  Dan Friedkin

Starring:  Claes Bang, Guy Pearce, Vicky Krieps, Roland Moller, August Diehl

Based on a true story, and sometimes with unnecessary dramatic license taken, The Last Vermeer is a post-World War II story about failed artist and soon wealthy art dealer Han van Meegeren (Pearce) accused of collaborating with the Nazis by selling them rare Vermeer paintings at record prices.   Hermann Goring paid the most anyone ever has for a painting, which financed van Meegeren's lavish lifestyle of excess and parties.   Lt. Joseph Piller (Bang), a former Dutch resistance fighter working for the postwar Allied government, is in charge of investigating how famous Vermeer paintings wound up in a Nazi-owned Austrian salt mine where thousands of other works were stored.   Piller traces one Vermeer painting in particular to van Meegeren, who Piller suspects was running an espionage ring out of his art gallery.  

van Meegeren, for head-scratching reasons later explained, doesn't express his innocence, but doesn't admit to guilt either.   After haggling with sinister-looking Dutch government agents who want jurisdiction over van Meegeren, Piller finds himself hiding van Meegeren in an attic.   van Meegeren asks to paint, an odd request for a man on the run, but Piller abides and this allows for the truth to unfold.   There are two moments in The Last Vermeer in which van Meegeren could've saved himself a whole lot of trouble with simple explanations, but they do allow for entertaining discoveries.   

The Last Vermeer is part mystery and inevitably part courtroom drama, and both aspects work well.  Yes, van Meegeren is a con man hiding behind a facade of opulence and sophistication, but does that mean he profited off of others' suffering by selling national treasures to the Nazis?   van Meegeren no doubt sold a painting to Goring, but is all what it seems?   I won't give away what became apparent early on, but the truth has a way of casting a new light on the events.

The war forced many to operate in the gray areas of life, where van Meegeren is right at home, while Piller not so much.   Piller's estranged wife worked for the Resistance also, but had to ingratiate herself and perhaps sleep with Nazi hierarchy in order to access needed information.   This doesn't sit well with Piller, but will his alliance with van Meegeren allow him to see things differently?   Piller is a tall, sturdy lead, who thankfully isn't tasked with being a walking, breathing moral compass.   He wants to get to the truth, and finds a way to live with its consequences.   Pearce has become an expert in roles requiring situational ethics and shadowy existences.   Was his work with the Nazis patriotic or did he swindle some powerful men who were begging to be parted from their money?   A little of both, and van Meegeren found he could live with that.  

The Social Dilemma (2020) * *

 

Directed by:  Jeff Orlowski

So how am I supposed to feel while watching The Social Dilemma?  Outraged?  Angered?  Foolish?   I strangely didn't feel any of these things.   My overriding question was:  And?  There is very little information expressed here we didn't already know or at least suspect, and yet we don't care either.  The cat is long out of the bag and the horse is long out of the barn by now to do anything meaningful to curb people's obsessions with looking at their phones or computers.   The best one can hope to do is moderate it somehow, and it then becomes a matter of personal choice.  Let's face it:  Some of these things are pretty cool and technology isn't always a negative.   The folks at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, etc. won't make it easy.   Their livelihoods depend on users continually checking in, and they won't allow you to put the phones down without a fight. 

The interview subjects of The Social Dilemma are those in the know.   They are former executives and programmers at the various social media giants who tell us how and why social media companies do what they do.   Some are still CEO's of tech companies today, which depend on mass advertising and perhaps social media influence to stay profitable.   I'm reminded of Facebook posts where one laments the passing of the "good old days" when kids didn't play a lot of video games and drank from garden hoses.  For the record, I don't recall ever drinking from a hose.   But where are they ironically lamenting their yearning for the past?  On Facebook.   

The Social Dilemma then dramatizes what the interviewees are saying in ill-fitting scripted sequences in which a high school student is seduced by right-wing misinformation and Vincent Kartheiser (from Mad Men) works a control panel directly controlling what information should be sent to whom in order to either increase usage or keep it at its current level.   Kartheiser actually plays three different versions of the mad genius pulling the strings from an anonymous lab, but no matter.   It is all unnecessary.

The interview subjects are indeed experts in their field, and what they have to say is credible and occasionally eye-opening.   They do their best to discuss the social media company strategies in layman's terms, and while I admire their candor and their individual meas culpa, their information, like The Social Dilemma itself, feels too little and too late.   Here is a documentary we wish were made five years ago, and perhaps that would've increased the impact, or at least given us a chance to mitigate the downside.  

Hillbilly Elegy (2020) * *

 

Directed by:  Ron Howard

Starring:  Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Gabriel Basso, Owen Aszstalos, Freida Pinto, Bo Hopkins, Haley Bennett 

Hillbilly Elegy, based on a memoir by J.D. Vance, never takes off.   We have elements in place, including two showcase performances by Amy Adams and Glenn Close in Oscar-bait roles, but all of the flashbacks and flash forwards between 1997 and 2011 don't generate any cohesive drama.   As played by Gabriel Basso, J.D. Vance is a likable, but dull Yale law student forced to return home to Middletown, Ohio and confront the Demons of His Past after his mother Bev (Adams) overdoses on heroin yet again.   He lands an interview with a prestigious firm as he deals with his mother's condition, so J.D. must figure all of this out and make it back to Washington, DC in time for the interview.   J.D. is saddled with an equally dull, but supportive girlfriend Usha (Pinto), whose job is to call in and remind J.D. he must get on the road NOW if he is to make the interview.

Beginning in 1997, the Vance family move from Kentucky to Ohio in hopes of escaping their Past.  Mamaw (Close) is the chain-smoking matriarch whose own past is marred by abuse, but hopes to steer J.D. in the right direction.   When I say chain smoking, I mean it.   Other than when she is in the hospital hooked up to oxygen, I can't recall a single scene in which Mamaw doesn't have a cigarette in her hand.   The role is limited to Mamaw bellowing out threats to straighten out anyone who messes up, but Close is clearly enjoying herself.   Come Oscar time, will Close win the elusive statue at long last?  She's had many better roles than this one, but this could be the one which finally nabs Close a trophy.  

Adams' role also checks the Oscar-contending role boxes.   A normally attractive woman who uglies herself up to play a down-and-out addict who was once a nurse.   Adams gets to scream at people and emote, which she does very well, and I'd be surprised if her name wasn't mentioned on the morning of the Oscar nominations.   Will Adams win on what would be her seventh nomination?   We shall see.  

As J.D.'s past gradually reveals itself, including dealing with his mother's mess of a life and his own flirtation with heading down his mother's path, I can't say I was much moved.   Even though this is Vance's story, it is indistinguishable from other stories of this vein.   When J.D. learns to let go to allow his mother to work out her own issues, J.D. hits the road and stays on the phone with Usha for the entire drive.   Why?   Probably to give Pinto something to do.   Hillbilly Elegy, even after the inexorable epilogue and photos of the real-life Vances pop up on the screen, never feels like a story that had to be told.   We are left with good performances in a movie which can't figure out what to do with them.  

The Climb (2020) * *

 

Directed by:  Michael Angelo Covino

Starring:  Michael Angelo Covino, Kyle Marvin, Gayle Rankin, George Wendt, Talia Balsam, Judith Godreche

The Climb begins promisingly.   Longtime best friends Mike (Covino) and Kyle (Marvin) are bicycling up a long, winding mountain road in France.   Kyle is about to get married, but Mike has news for him:   He slept with Kyle's fiancee, both long ago and recently.   Kyle rightfully wants to kick Mike's ass, if he could catch up to him, but a driver of a car soon gets into an altercation with Mike and does the honors instead. Kyle and Ava don't marry, and we fast forward to Ava's funeral, where we learn Mike and Ava married and Kyle's friendship with Mike naturally ended.   But Kyle attends the funeral, and comforts Mike in his grief, although they don't reconcile.   That comes later.   The two fall into a familiar pattern, in which Kyle and Mike reconcile and Mike does something to screw it up.   Kyle soon is engaged to the dominating Marissa (Rankin), who I suppose loves Kyle, or just sees him as someone whose balls she can break for years to come.  You can guess what happens next.

The Climb starts off with a certain charm, but then makes some ill-advised style choices which distract from a fragile story of two friends who are better off finding other friends.   Like 1917, Covino's camera shoots on long tracking shots which take center stage over the characters.   It didn't work in 1917, and it doesn't work here.   We also have inexplicable musical interludes which serve as transitions between story arcs.  This is not a story or characters which deserve such stylistic overkill or can stand up under the weight of it.   

Covino and Marvin co-wrote the screenplay, with Covino directing in his feature debut.   The Climb takes chances, and its independent spirit is very much alive, but after a while we tire of these two characters and all of the hoopla surrounding them.  They are only marginally likable at best, but Covino and Kyle play off each other with easy familiarity which no doubt is a byproduct of a long friendship.  I can only hope that Covino wasn't such a dick to Kyle in real life.   Maybe we'll find out one day if this is so. 

Freaky (2020) * *

 

Directed by:  Christopher Landon

Starring:  Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Celeste O' Connor, Misha Osherovich, Uriah Shelton, Katie Finneran, Alan Ruck 

Freaky is a horror update of the 1977 body-swapping comedy Freaky Friday which explores the same tired ground, only this time we add a body count.    In this instance, the Blissfield Butcher (Vaughn), once dismissed as mere urban legend, is on the hunt for teenage victims.   After slaughtering a few, he sets his sights on Millie Kessler (Newton), a pretty, but awkward teen bullied by the popular kids and a overly demanding shop teacher.   Millie is what passes for unattractive in this high school.  One night following a football game, Millie is left alone on school grounds awaiting a ride from her passed out, recovering alcoholic mother (Finneran).   The Butcher stalks her and after stabbing Millie with an ancient, glowing dagger, the two switch bodies.   The Butcher wakes up with Millie inside him, and Millie wakes up with The Butcher inside her.  

The obligatory scenes of the body-switching genre are fully intact.   Millie looks in the mirror to see she is not herself these days, and then feels her chest to discover her breasts are gone.   Millie heads to her high school, as the wanted Butcher mind you, to convince her best friends (O'Connor and Osherovich) that she is indeed inside the Butcher's body.   Why the high school remains open mere hours after a student was attacked there is anyone's guess.    The Butcher, meanwhile, goes to the same school to find new victims, including the popular girl who bullies Millie and winds up frozen to death in a cryogenic freezer.   Why this school would have a cryogenic freezer is anyone's guess.

It turns out the dagger has a special set of rules governing its use, and Millie will have to stab the Butcher again before the stroke of midnight.   If not, they will remain in each other's bodies permanently.   Isn't it always amusing how supernatural artifacts come with their own arbitrary user instructions?   There is one twist which is at least different from other movies of the genre:  Even though Millie is The Butcher, she is at least equipped with the hulking Butcher's strength, and The Butcher as Millie is limited to whatever strength her petite body could muster.   Millie also secures the assistance of her crush Booker (Shelton), to whom she confesses her love while inside The Butcher's body.   This of course leads to a kiss.  

Freaky checks off the horror cliches while attempting to kid them.   But the slayings in Freaky are as gruesome as the real thing, and it dampers any comedic effects.   One killing has a man cut in half by a table saw, which you figure would come into play when the shop class was introduced.   Another gets a hook to the eye.   At least there is very little blood, if that is of comfort to anyone.    Vaughn and Newton pull off the body switching nicely, and Vaughn provides whatever humanity he can muster as a young woman trapped inside a hulk.   Millie's mother's struggles with recovery and her cop sister also provide a potentially absorbing dynamic, if allowed to be fleshed out more.  

As someone who has seen slasher movies, their sequels, retreads, and even parodies, I think I've tapped out on the genre, but Freaky will surely be well received by the teenage crowd which hasn't been around long enough to know any better. 

 

The Last Dance (2020) * * *

 

The Last Dance gets its title from Phil Jackson's declaration at the beginning of the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls season.   After winning back-to-back titles and aiming for a second three-peat of the decade, Bulls' general manager Jerry Krause tells Jackson he will be rebuilding after the season regardless of whether the Bulls win another NBA title.   Why would Krause and owner Jerry Reinsdorf not allow the Bulls to stay intact until the wheels fell off?   For Reinsdorf, it's economics: Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman alone would be too costly even on one-year contracts.  For Krause, it tilts towards ego.   Despite building a championship roster around Jordan, he believes he never received enough credit for the Bulls dynasty.   By tearing down, starting over, and hopefully regaining the franchise's former glory, Krause can then claim to be the reason for the Bulls' success.   After the 1998-99 championship season, Krause dismantled the Bulls and the team has yet to even approach the success of the Jordan Bulls.   The 1997-98 season was indeed a last dance for this squad.

It isn't a spoiler to say the Bulls prevailed in their quest for a second three-peat with a Finals win against the Utah Jazz.   The Last Dance documents the final year of the Bulls dynasty while flashing back to Michael Jordan's childhood, high school play, college dominance at North Carolina, and entering the NBA as the future best who ever played.   You, of course, may dispute that Jordan was the greatest basketball player ever, but what can't be denied is his work ethic and ability to take any slight (real or perceived) and weave it into personal motivation to win.    Jordan finds new ways to push himself, even when a former teammate scores 37 points against him one night in a playoff game, which the Bulls won by the way.

The Last Dance is ten episodes.   Did it need to be so many?  Perhaps not, but you can't say it isn't thorough.   The spotlight is on Jordan, but his teammates Pippen, Rodman, Steve Kerr, and coach Phil Jackson are also highlighted with their own stories.    Even former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are interviewed.   Jordan's contemporaries Larry Bird, Isaiah Thomas, Reggie Miller, and Magic Johnson are also included, and to this day Michael Jordan simply dislikes Isaiah Thomas, even though the feeling isn't mutual.   This dates back to the Detroit Pistons' snubbing of the Bulls after the latter finally got over the hump and ousted their longtime playoff nemesis in 1991.    The Pistons collectively walked off the court without shaking hands.   Thomas spins this as a passing of the torch.  Jordan feels it was poor sportsmanship.   When the 1992 Olympic Dream Team was assembled, Thomas was left off the team.   Did Jordan have something to do with that?   

In the time before social media, Jordan became the biggest star on the planet through a combination of marketing and his unparalleled ability.   During the 1992-93 season, rumors circulated of Jordan's alleged gambling miscues.   When Jordan abruptly retired after defeating the Phoenix Suns in the Finals, rumors turned to speculation.   Was Jordan secretly suspended by NBA Commissioner David Stern due to gambling?   Jordan and Stern scoff at the idea, but when Jordan joined the Chicago White Sox minor league Birmingham Barons in 1994, this only fueled the conspiracy theory.

The Last Dance encompasses so much material that it's a fool's errand to encapsulate it all.   Michael Jordan remains an imposing figure.   He still is slow to forgive past trespasses, and his father's 1993 murder still weighs heavily on him.   Former teammates state the only emotions Michael would usually show were anger and frustration.   His will to win compelled him to become the de facto head coach in practice, and occasional bully.   His sense of humor seemed only to extend to ribbing, but even that had a competitive edge to it.    When asked if his will to win forced him to abandon being perceived as a nice guy, Michael's answer is simple, but his facial expressions reveal this is something he has still not come to grips with.   It's as if his competitive drive overtakes him and he is powerless to switch it off.

Michael's children are briefly shown in interview clips and in footage, but there is little mention of them or his wives otherwise.   How did his family react to their husband and father suddenly being adored by millions?   How was it living in a pressure cooker world of fame and celebrity?   The Last Dance skims past that, which is surprising considering its otherwise near total examination of its subject.   Watching the playoff footage from years ago is still suspenseful even though we know the outcome.   The Last Dance presents us with a complete story of sport, fame, and internal pressures which could turn both into a negative experience.    The Last Dance presents the Bulls breakup as something akin to tragedy.  Yes, it would have been fun to see if the Bulls could go for four in a row, but the team had other plans and there are far worse things to spend time contemplating.  

Let Him Go (2020) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Thomas Bezucha

Starring:  Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Lesley Manville, Jeffrey Donovan, Kayli Carter, Ryan Bruce, Will Brittain, Booboo Stewart

The serenity of the Blackledge's life on their Montana farm circa 1961 is soon to be shattered by the death of their son James in a horse riding accident.   Their daughter-in-law Lorna (Carter), mother of Martha's (Lane) and George's (Costner) grandson Jimmy, soon marries the mysterious Donnie Weboy (Brittain).   The newlyweds move into an apartment in town and Martha and George's days are spent either doting on their grandson, or biding their time until the next time they can dote on their beloved Jimmy.   

One day, by happenstance, Martha witnesses Donnie smacking the three-year-old Jimmy for dropping some ice cream on the sidewalk and then doing the same to Lorna.   Martha is horrified and soon after goes to Lorna's apartment only to find they've all moved to lord knows where.   Martha, knowing the danger her grandson may be in, packs up to find him.   George, a retired sheriff, goes along because he knows Martha so well, and also knows she may find herself in more trouble than she expects.

The plot is the odyssey of Let Him Go, but the subtext is the horrors to which abuse can subject someone.   Jimmy has already tasted some from his stepfather, and when the Blackledges' journey leads them to the Weboy family in North Dakota, and a tense and soon terrifying meeting with the Weboy clan led by the ruthless matriarch Blanche (Manville).  The Blackledges witness the future awaiting Jimmy and also what systemic abuse has done to Blanche's own sons.    The Blackledges are in for an uphill battle.   George, in one line delivered while listening to a preacher on the car radio, suggests his own horrid, abused past.  

The aura of danger and tragedy permeates Let Him Go.  It is not a thriller, but depicts a journey which may not have a happy ending for all.   Martha and George are loyal to each other, and their steadiness may be the only weapon they have against the wildcard Weboys, who treat Jimmy not as a beloved family member, but as another soldier to mold into their small army of terror.    Lane and Costner are sympathetic, compassionate, and we care deeply for them.   They meet a wayward, frightened young Native American man (Stewart) who lives alone on the prairie and whose back story further illustrates the ill effects of abuse. 

Manville has the showiest role, a departure from her Oscar-nominated turn in Phantom Thread, where she quietly and coldly manipulated her brother's romantic and professional life.   She creates a more open ruthlessness here, and we see how she shaped her family into becoming scared, loyal servants.  Terrible events befall George and Martha, but I'll be damned if it isn't stirring to see George spring into action for one last run at rescuing Jimmy from an unacceptable fate.  It reminds you of a classic Western.  Let Him Go is ominous, eerie, punctuated by moments of nasty violence, beautifully photographed, and above all compelling.   The title suggests what a defeatist would say.   For Martha and George, such words are not possible, especially considering the future Jimmy faces. 

 

2 Hearts (2020) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Lance Hool

Starring:  Jacob Elordi, Radha Mitchell, Adan Canto, Tiera Skovbye, Kari Matchett, Steve Bacic

I feel churlish writing negative reviews about a movie that means well.   2 Hearts wants to be loved, like a lost puppy or kitten.   I take no delight in reporting my experience.  This is a movie which may be too saccharine even for Lifetime or Hallmark.   2 Hearts has the depth of an infomerical, and the movie ultimately plays like one.   We watch two stories of blissful love interrupted by a crisis we knew was coming, and it had to, because otherwise 2 Hearts would've just been the tale of these boring, inert romances.   

The actors play people who are nice enough, and are forced to recite stilted dialogue to each other while we tap our foot impatiently waiting for something to happen.   Something happens indeed, and instead of being emotionally involved, we are grateful the movie finally went somewhere.   Anywhere.   The opening scene shows Chris (Elordi) being rushed on a gurney to an operating room with his girlfriend Sam (Skovbye) right alongside him.   Chris, in voice-over narration, blathers on about "life happening for you" instead of "to you", and then he begins the story of Jorge (Canto).   Jorge as a teenager is stricken with a degenerative lung disease and doctors say he won't live past twenty.   His father (Bacic) adds: "They said he wouldn't live past twelve,"  

Jorge indeed lives to adulthood working for his family's lucrative rum business, and falls in love at first sight with Leslie (Mitchell), an attractive Pan Am flight attendant working a flight Jorge is on.   When Leslie asks if there is anything she can do for Jorge, he says "hold my hand until we take off,"  She obliges and the two fall in love, meeting up in different cities and eventually marrying despite his father's obligatory objections to marrying someone while knowing he will die sooner than later.   After this scene, the family objections are never raised again, mostly because they are so ludicrous on the surface.   Don't they want their son, who has managed to outlive doctor's expectations while dealing with a potentially fatal condition, to be happy?  

Chris' own love life shapes up in his freshman year at Loyola where he meets the comely Sam and wins her heart despite having an annoyingly hyper personality.   His family seems to like her, (there is no mention or any scenes of her family), but then one day Chris falls into a coma with bleeding on the brain.   In retrospect, it seems both Sam and Leslie have no families of their own.   Their onscreen interactions are with their mates' families, and briefly at that.   A calamity befalls Chris and we take up the story from his admission to the hospital.   

2 Hearts toys with us with a Big Reveal that plays fair before moving on to what the movie is Really About.   By the time Chris is languishing in a coma in the hospital, Jorge doesn't have long to live unless he can receive a lung transplant.   The connection between Jorge and Chris, two men who never met, is revealed as promised in the trailers.   Jorge ages in the thirty years since marrying Leslie, while Leslie doesn't appear to have aged a day.   

We have two banal romances followed by a downer plot development and a futile attempt to put a happy face on everything in the end with more Chris narration seemingly from the heavens.   I'm trying my best not to give away spoilers, but it is fairly obvious what must inexorably happen.   2 Hearts is innocuous and empty, without any meanness in its being, with a drawn-out setup which doesn't justify any emotional involvement later on.