The Hours (2002) * * *

Directed by:  Stephen Daldry

Starring:  Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Ed Harris, John C. Reilly, Claire Danes, Stephen Dillane, Allison Janney, Jeff Daniels

The main characters in The Hours are connected by the Virginia Woolf novel, Mrs. Dalloway.   One is Woolf (Kidman) herself, another is 1950's discontented housewife Laura Brown (Moore) who reads the novel while contemplating suicide, and a third is Clarissa (Streep), a modern-day woman who shares the same first name as the heroine of the Woolf novel and like Mrs. Dalloway is attempting to cater a party.   Virginia and Laura are closeted lesbians, while Clarissa lives with her partner (Janney) and raising a daughter (Danes) while checking in on close friend; Clarrisa's ex-husband Richard (Harris), who is dying from AIDS. 

There is a lot to digest in The Hours and occasionally this moves slowly, but the impact of several story arcs packs an emotional wallop.   All three characters are tended to by loving spouses to whom they can't or won't always allow themselves to connect.   Virginia's husband Leonard (Dillane) moved themselves to the London suburbs in hopes of quieting the angst within Virginia, but it only made Virginia more dispirited and depressed.   Laura has a husband and son who both love her, but she finds she cannot respond in kind, which makes her want to rent a hotel room, take pills, and never wake up again.   Clarissa is not suicidal, just torn between her duty to her family and her love for Richard, who is supposed to be the guest of honor at Clarissa's party, but we find he may not be in the partying mood.

Kidman is nearly unrecognizable thanks to makeup and a prosthetic nose, but she is brilliant here as the intelligent, haunted, and troubled writer who can't shake free of her demons.   Moore gives us a dichotomy of someone we should despise, but we end up understanding her motives.   Our version of what should make us happy doesn't always coincide with others' ideas.   Streep is harried and confused, trying to hold it together for everyone while she suffers.   Harris' Richard, we learn, is someone trapped in a world he no longer wishes to stay in, much like another person close to him a long time ago.   The Hours is a unique perspective on love, loss, and those who find they can't love no matter how hard they try.   This could be the most profound definition of tragedy I think of, one which The Hours explores in depth.  

The Score (2001) * * *

Directed by:  Frank Oz

Starring:  Robert DeNiro, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando, Angela Bassett

The Score is a heist movie which heeds to traditions of the genre skillfully and with suspense.   The participants are Nick Wells (DeNiro), a Montreal jazz club owner who moonlights as a master thief.  He has never been caught, mostly because he doesn't believe in stealing in the area where he lives, and he is a criminal with uncommonly good instincts who is ready to retire.   He is soon asked by mob boss Max (Brando) to work one more score with newcomer Jack (Norton), who has been working undercover as a janitor scouting the Montreal Customs House where a priceless scepter is being stored.   Jack poses as Brian, who walks and speaks like someone with special needs.   

Nick doesn't trust Jack at first, but slowly learns to work with the cocky upstart.   Nick examines the blueprints, gathers his equipment, and hatches the plan to break into the safe while disabling cameras and keeping the security guards from being too suspicious.   Nick is breaking his own rule by committing a theft in his backyard, but the score will allow him to quit for good and spend more time with his fiancee Diana (Bassett), who has the obligatory role of the romantic partner/spouse who urges the hero to spend more time at home. 

DeNiro is an intriguing protagonist; slow to trust and even slower to assume nothing can go wrong.  He knows the angles and while Jack thinks he has all the answers, that's when Nick changes the questions.  Observing all is the slovenly Max who needs the score himself in order to get out of a potentially deadly debt.   The uneasiness between Nick and Jack provide ample fireworks and the theft itself is one of ingenuity mixed with some twists you may not see coming.   The closing scene in which one character asks another, "What have you got?" makes the entire movie worth it.  

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) * * *

Directed by:  Edward Berger

Starring:  Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch, Aaron Hilmer, Daniel Bruhl, Sebastian Hulk

Erich Maria Remarque's 1928 novel which was made into the 1929 Oscar winner for Best Picture has now been made by a German director and cast for the first time.   The Lewis Milestone-directed original focused more on the bill of goods the young men were sold when asked to fight a war to save the Fatherland.   The boys, led by naive Paul Baumer, bought the rhetoric hook, line, and sinker.  Some lived to regret it while others died wondering what they got themselves into.

The 2022 version of the story is fixated more on the violence, blood, and warfare; a mixture of 1917 and Saving Private Ryan realism which is done well and I suppose is action the original film couldn't depict so thoroughly and accurately.   What the original film couldn't foresee, which this version can understand, is that not even a quarter of a century after the end of World War I, German men were asked to save the Fatherland again, only by an evil monster named Adolf Hitler and not Kaiser Wilhelm II.  Maybe the Nazi war machine lifted passages from the book to recite to their eager recruits.   Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it, but it is telling how quickly the Germans forgot what just happened two decades earlier.   War is like that.

Aside from the older illiterate soldier Kat (Schuch), who mentors and befriends Paul as his school friends are ground up and spit out by the war, the characters are hardly memorable (even Paul, who is more acted upon than anything else).   What makes All Quiet on the Western Front effective is the universal fear experienced by the soldiers who had no idea what awaited on the battlefields and in the trenches.   Soon enough, fighting wasn't about Kaiser Wilhelm or for God or country, it was about saving your neck.   A parallel story (not written in Remarque's book but added specifically for this movie) is the German high command working out the terms of capitulation when they realize 40,000 Germans are dying daily for a lost cause.   The terms of surrender are hardly beneficial to the Germans, but what else is left to do?   As it turns out, fight another war.  History is repeated, with many innocent bystanders as part of the carnage.   

All Quiet on the Western Front's earlier power is diminished somewhat by the brutality of the battle scenes, which take on the formula of attack, bludgeon, repeat.   After a while, they all blend into each other, but it must be said the scenes are produced skillfully.  We just need so many of them to get the point, but perhaps it's being faithful to the novel in a more precise way. 

The Fabelmans (2022) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Steven Spielberg

Starring:  Gabriel Labelle, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Mateo Francis Deford, Judd Hirsch, David Lynch

Steven Spielberg's autobiographical The Fabelmans, like its hero Sammy Fabelman (played as an eight-year-old by Mateo Deford and as teenager by Gabriel Labelle), straddles the line between art and family in a funny, heartbreaking, and human way.   The Fabelmans are a family we grow to care about.  Spielberg continues his mastery of the craft of filmmaking by telling a story of sometimes brutal honesty which must hurt him to his core.  With that being said, it does drag in spots, taking on a "you had to be there" quality which removes a half-star from the rating, but The Fabelmans is still very good.  

The Fabelmans begins in Ohio, where patriarch Burt (Dano) is a scientist and engineer with big ideas that could change the world.   He shows love to his family tentatively and awkwardly, while matriarch Mitzi (Williams) gives her affection expansively and passionately, but we sense she may be battling her own demons.   Also part of the family is Benny (Rogen), Burt's best friend and co-worker who plays the part of the fun uncle who is always ready with a joke.   As time progresses, Benny's role in the family becomes clearer and hastens its demise.  In the middle of it all is Sammy, who watches The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and becomes hooked on movies.   He receives a camera and learns how to not only shoot footage, but edit and craft a narrative.   

As a teenager, Sammy and his family move to Arizona and then California as Burt's career escalates.  Sammy shoots classroom project films with this friends, showcasing a filmmaking knowledge far beyond his years and experience.   It is here Sammy's love of filmmaking grows from a hobby to a passion he will never relinquish.   His passion is furthered along by a visit from Uncle Boris (Hirsch), who stays at the house and one night and tells Sammy a story detailing a choice he once had between his art (he was once a circus performer) and his family.   Hirsch handles the scene masterfully, providing Sammy with a scenario he will one day (and many more times) have to face himself.   A later meeting chance meeting with his curmudgeonly idol John Ford (Lynch) solidifies his aim to become a movie director.   The rest belongs to cinema history.

The Fabelmans is naturally about Spielberg's own family, but it could stand on its own as an absorbing family drama even if it had nothing to do with him.   The characters are lovingly and clearly drawn and acted, occupying most scenes with quiet power.   Working with his usual crew of superior artists like cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and a powerful score by the now ninety-year-old master John Williams, The Fabelmans shows us conflicts which hurt and feel so real, because in many cases, they were.   

A Christmas Story Christmas (2022) * * *

Directed by:  Clay Kaytis

Starring:  Peter Billingsley, Ian Petrella, Julie Hagerty, Erinn Hayes, Scott Schwartz, R.D. Robb, Zack Ward

A Christmas Story Christmas is the direct sequel to the 1983 classic A Christmas Story and it aims its sights on nostalgia and sentimentality.   It succeeds at delivering both, albeit nearly forty years after the original's release.    A Christmas Story Christmas naturally can't match the original in terms of charm and legacy, but it's still fun to see Ralphie Parker (Billingsley) visit his childhood home on Cleveland Street around Christmas time 1973 in order to mourn the loss of his father and console his mother (Hagerty-replacing Melinda Dillon from the original film).   There is no funeral for the father for the week or so in which the movie takes place, but that's because mother only wants the focus to be on Christmas and not the funeral. Fair enough, if not wholly realistic.  Where's the father's body being stored while the Parkers are celebrating Christmas?

As A Christmas Story Christmas opens, Ralphie is struggling to sell the science fiction novel he wrote.  He took a year off from work to write the novel and if he doesn't sell it by his self-imposed December 31 deadline, he promises his patient, loving wife Sandy (Hayes) he will find a job.   Then, the phone rings and his mother breaks the news of The Old Man's passing (Darren McGavin actually died in 2006, but the film strings together clips of him in the original film to produce a sweet tribute).  Ralphie meets up with old pals Flick (Schwartz) and Schwartz (Robb), now a bar owner and his most prolific customer respectively.   If you think they've abandoned their childhood antics of upmanship, then you would be wrong.   Other issues ensue, including buying a skimpy Christmas tree and other hijinks which further tests Sandy's everlasting patience.  

These are hijinks of the innocent kind and in the spirit of the original film.  Most of A Christmas Story Christmas is pleasant and innocuous, and we mostly care about the people in it because of the expansive goodwill set forth in A Christmas Story, plus plenty of nostalgia thrown in for good measure.  We also anticipate the appearance of Ralphie's former bully (who he beat the crap out of) Scut Farkus, and the payoff is surprisingly sweet.   Even with A Christmas Story director Bob Clark, McGavin, and Jean Shepherd no longer with us, A Christmas Story Christmas still delivers with a charm of its own.

Violent Night (2022) * * *

 

Directed by:  Tommy Wirkola

Starring:  David Harbour, Beverly D'Angelo, Alex Hassell, Alexis Lauder, John Leguizamo, Leah Brady

Violent Night treads early with Bad Santa vibes, only the Santa (Harbour) in question is the real thing.  On Christmas Eve, Santa is weary of traveling the globe delivering presents and drinks away his sorrows in a London bar.   After proclaiming this may be his last year as Kris Kringle, Santa summons his reindeer and flies away while vomiting on the hapless bartender who follows him up to the roof. 

This Santa is profane, unkempt, and sick of being Santa, but once he receives communication from a young girl (Brady) who still believes in him that her family is being held hostage by a man known as Scrooge (Leguizamo), then it's Santa to the rescue.  Not only can St. Nick deliver packages to the world's children in one night, but he can kick some butt.   It turns out Santa is a Norse god or something close to it, although when he wields a hammer it doesn't cause the damage Thor's does, but he throws a mean haymaker. 

When Santa tells Scrooge, "Santa Claus is coming to town", you either go with Violent Night or you don't.  What happens with the dysfuctional family Santa is trying to save or anything from that point on is surely predictable, but the story isn't exactly meant to be anything but a clothesline to which to hang sufficiently enjoyable (albeit bloody) action scenes.   Harbour is a burly Santa with a heart of gold buried under the cynicism.   His performance carries the movie, plus the unusual idea of the real Santa playing action movie star.   You have to wonder, however, if Santa's shenanigans with these terrorists throw off his schedule at all.   

Death Wish (1974) * * *

 

Directed by:  Michael Winner

Starring:  Charles Bronson, Stuart Margolin, Vincent Gardenia, William Redfield

Paul Kersey (Bronson) leads an ordinary life as a New York architect with a loving family.  He served as a medic in the Korean War and classified himself as a "conscientious objector."   He doesn't own a gun.  All of that changes when his wife is murdered and his daughter made comatose by home invaders posing as supermarket delivery persons.   Paul grieves (as much as Charles Bronson would allow us to see anyway) and soon accepts an assignment in Tucson hoping to get away from New York for a while.   In Tucson, Paul is given a gun by the property owner overseeing Paul's housing development design and is taken to a gun range, where he shows an aptitude for accuracy.  

Paul decides to use his newfound gun skills on would-be muggers and assailants.   He walks alone at night in the park or subway, luring attackers, and then killing them.   At first, this causes Paul to vomit, but then he gains a rhythm for it.   The police are ambivalent towards the vigilante whose killings are causing a steep drop in crime.   On one hand, they don't mind someone doing their dirty work, but on the other they wonder if vigilantism won't lead to a whole city of one-man judge, jury, and executioners.   A haggard detective (Gardenia-who is seemingly battling a constant cold throughout the film) suspects Paul, follows him, but not to arrest him, but to make him a deal to get out of town and stay there.

Bronson made a career after Death Wish playing a vigilante in one form or another.   He was quite good at it.   Director Winner once said of Bronson that although he never saw Bronson explode at a co-star or crew member, it wouldn't surprise him if he did.   He just seemed capable of violence and that makes it all the more realistic when he snaps.   In Death Wish, the morphing is slower and more deliberate, showing us that Paul is indeed an ordinary man driven to extreme lengths in his quest for vengeance.  The movie spawned four inferior sequels in which Bronson became a one-dimensional killing machine. Not to spoil the ending of Death Wish, but it's a shame he never catches up to the guys who attacked his family.  

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) * *

Directed by: Ryan Coogler

Starring:  Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Winston Duke, Lupita Nyong'o, Tenoch Huerta, Martin Freeman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Danai Gurira

The opening of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever pays a stirring tribute to the late T'Challa (and by extension the late Chadwick Boseman, who passed away from colorectal cancer two years ago) who has passed on and is being mourned by the people and royal family of Wakanda.   T'Challa's mother Queen Ramonda (Bassett) has now assumed the role reluctantly as Wakanda's leader and meets with the United Nations (I think), which is harassing Wakanda to share its exclusive rights to vibranium to the rest of the world.   Funny, I assumed that Stark Industries was already using it, as well as Captain America, but no matter.  

Following the funeral of T'Challa, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever mires in another two-and-a-half hours with a plot which is way too thin to spread over the bloated running time.   It appears deep in the ocean is another source of vibranium, protected by the underwater kingdom of Talokan, led by its amphibious king Namor (Huerta), who wants to destroy the surface world and wants to ally himself with Wakanda for reasons mentioned and maybe even fully explained, but I missed it.   Namor is a Conflicted Villain, who is never vicious enough for us to root for his demise, so we wind up ambivalent towards him.   Ramonda's daughter Shuri (Wright) is angry enough at the death of her brother to want the world to burn, but soon she dons the vacant Black Panther costume to lead Wakanda against Talokan. 

I praised the original Black Panther's technical qualities (for which it won three Oscars in 2018) while giving less than stellar grades to its story, which seemed typical of many movies made before it.   Black Panther: Wakanda Forever looks good to be sure, but its plot is far less riveting than its predecessor and moves without much forward momentum or direction.   Other than the tributes to Boseman which are peppered in throughout the film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever doesn't carry much emotional heft.   Shuri dons the Black Panther suit, but not T'Challa's mystique, and we are left with a movie which at its heart didn't need to be made.  

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) * * *

Directed by:  Rian Johnson

Starring:  Daniel Craig, Janelle Monae, Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom, Jr., Madelyn Cline

Glass Onion contains the same qualities which made its predecessor Knives Out (2019) successful.  It follows the rules of whodunits with the super-intelligent, offbeat detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) at its center unraveling not one, but possibly two murders on a remote Greek island owned by zillionaire Miles Bron (Norton).   

During the height of the 2020 COVID pandemic, Miles invites several of his closest friends (or are they frenemies?) to a weekend at his mansion on the island where he will host a murder mystery party in which he will be the victim.   Somehow, Blanc is invited even though he has never met Miles, and this amps up the intrigue in Miles' eyes.   The party guests are:  Controversial fashion model Birdie Jay (Hudson) who can't stop posting racist tweets, Connecticut governor Claire Debella (Hahn) who is in the middle of a Senate race, muscled influencer Duke Cody (Bautista) who boasts about male superiority, his girlfriend Whiskey (Cline) who may have eyes for Miles, scientist Lionel Touissant (Odom, Jr.) who receives round-the-clock faxes from his employer, who happens to be Miles, and Cassandra Brand (Monae), who was once Miles' business partner but was pushed out after a series of legal wranglings by Miles and left nearly broke.

Each of these people (with the exception of Blanc) has a reason to want Miles dead and also a reason to ensure he stays alive.   The mansion itself is a triumph of wretched excess with Miles presenting it to his guests with part braggadocio and part "look how much better I am than you are" snobbery.   Blanc's arrival on the island is met with as much welcomeness as when Hercule Poirot boarded the Orient Express.   What I enjoy about writing reviews like this one is that I don't have to expound on the plot too much because of potential spoilers.   Everything could be construed as one, but I will say Glass Onion, like the title reveals (and inspired heavily by the Beatles song), has more than one layer to peel back to reveal the truth.   The ending and resolution is not quite as successful as the buildup, but like Knives Out, Glass Onion is a lot of fun.