Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022) * *

Directed by:  Kasi Lemmons

Starring:  Naomi Ackie, Stanley Tucci, Tamara Tunie, Nafessa Williams, Clarke Peters, Ashton Sanders

This is not a documentary about the legendary, tragic singer Whitney Houston, but a superficial biopic which features a game Naomi Ackie as Houston and an always engaging Stanley Tucci as Clive Davis, who serves as not just the owner of Whitney's record label, but as a mentor and collaborator.   The movie manages to touch on the highlights and lowlights of Houston's career and life with style but not a lot of insight.   There is plenty to process, including the singer's little-known lesbian relationship with Robyn Crawford (Williams) which was forced to end by Houston's father John (Peters), who runs her business affairs like his own personal cash register.   John believes Whitney should maintain a wholesome image and be interested in men.   How exactly did this all turn out?  The movie sidesteps it and never truly explains Whitney's relationship with Robyn going forward.

I Wanna Dance with Somebody begins in 1983 Newark with Whitney as a backup singer to her famed mother Cissy's (Tunie) band.   Her voice soared above the others in the church choir and soon Whitney is performing with Clive Davis in the audience (after Cissy faked a sore throat).   Faster than you can say "Whitney Houston", Whitney is signed to a contract and her career was born.   The best scenes in the movie involve the quiet discussions between Clive and Whitney.   Whitney wasn't just a commodity, but someone Clive cared about.   When Whitney descended into drugs, Clive pulls her aside in an attempt to help her kick the habit.   The movie touches on, but doesn't dive deep into Whitney's rise to her record-breaking run on the charts, The Bodyguard, her relationship and subsequent destructive marriage to Bobby Brown, and the live performance on the 1994 American Music Awards (which opens and closes the film) which would be the zenith of her career.

Ackie sings the songs and has a wonderful voice.   The performances work, but the movie itself doesn't fully delve into Whitney's story with any depth.   A lot happened to Whitney in her 48 years before her sad end in a bathtub in Los Angeles.   A deep, engrossing biopic can be made about the legendary singer, but I Wanna Dance with Somebody isn't it. 

Made (2001) * * *

 

Directed by:  Jon Favreau   

Starring:  Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Sean Combs, Peter Falk, Famke Janssen, Mackenzie Vega, Vincent Pastore, Paddy Considine

The poster says it all.  Made is a study of opposites who are longtime friends and sent on what sounds like a simple mission to New York which goes kablooey on them.   Things actually went kablooey in Los Angeles first, and crime boss Max (Falk) sends the buddies to New York to redeem themselves after Bobby (Favreau), acting as "manager" for his stripper girlfriend Jess (Janssen), beats up on clients at a party who get too friendly with her.   Bobby hits a guy he shouldn't be hitting, forcing Max to pay $8,000 in damages, and sending Bobby and his best friend Ricky (Vaughn) to New York to perform a cash transaction with an associate named Ruiz (Combs), which isn't nearly as simple as it sounds.

Bobby is quiet, thoughtful, and wants only to do his job and go home.   Motormouth Ricky sees the opportunity to fly first class and enjoy the New York nightlife.   Ricky acts like a man who learned all of these cool catchphrases watching television and is ecstatic that he gets to use them in front of Ruiz, who at times looks at these two as aliens.   Bobby and Ricky spend a lot of time bickering because of their differing approaches to the task at hand.   Bobby plays it cool, Ricky can't read a room and learn when to shut up.  One senses this the most fun Ricky has had in years.  

Both Bobby and Ricky are likable as the differing friends who we know will be there for each other when the chips are down.   They can't trust anyone else, and Bobby especially can't trust Jess, who is falling dangerously into her cocaine habit again while neglecting her daughter Chloe (Vega), who Bobby adores and feels deserves a better fate than to have Jess as her mother.  How that situation resolves itself is among the treasures of Made, which is quiet study of a mismatched pair looking for a way out of the life they've put themselves in.   Favreau, who also wrote and directed Made, would go on to direct Iron Man and Iron Man 2 and launch the Marvel Universe, but movies like Made and Chef showcase his ability to write and direct with a gentle, mannered hand.   Other directors and writers may go over the top with the crime elements of Made, but Favreau plays it steady and smart.  Like Bobby himself.  

Missing (2022) * * *

 

Directed by:  Will Merrick and Nicholas D. Johnson

Starring:  Storm Reid, Nia Long, Ken Leung, Daniel Henney, Joaquim de Almeida, Tim Griffin, Megan Suri, Amy Landecker

Missing is told in the same narrative style as Searching (2018), in which the action is seen solely through computer screens, FaceTime, cameras, and other sometimes contrived methods which still manage to flow smoothly enough for us to be caught up in the suspense of a missing woman named Grace (Long).   In Searching, a father was frantically searching for his missing daughter.   In Missing, the roles are reversed, and the daughter is trying desperately to find her mother who was expected to return home from Colombia with her new boyfriend Kevin (Leung) and neither showed up when the plane landed in Los Angeles.

Like Searching, one of June's parents is met in the beginning of the film and then we learn has died.  Missing picks up years later with Grace and June now relocated to Los Angeles.  Grace puts herself out there on a dating site and meets Kevin, who seems like Mr. Right but June nurtures suspicions about him.  Slowly, June discovers why she had trepidations about him.   The way June maneuvers her way through and around websites, passwords, firewalls, cameras, and the latest technology with expert ease, we sense this eighteen year-old has a job as a CIA hacker in her future.   She could teach the NSA a thing or two. We grant this so the story can unfold.

I wouldn't dream of giving away any myriad plot twists which may or may stand up to scrutiny, but as they're happening we go with it because Missing is suspenseful and energetically told, with a sometimes satirical look at media blitz coverage of the missing couple and conspiracy theorists who are no longer on the fringes, but whose views are spouted on numerous upstart podcasts and are sometimes taken as gospel by the public.  If you don't believe me, you would be surprised to learn how many people take Alex Jones' side when it comes to the horror of the Sandy Hook shootings. 

Reservoir Dogs (1992) * * *

 

Directed by:  Quentin Tarantino

Starring:  Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Chris Penn, Michael Madsen, Steven Wright (voice), Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino's first feature film has achieved near-iconic status in the film world.  It is not a perfect film, but it is made with nerve, confidence, and with sharp dialogue spoken by actors who inhabit this gritty world as if they were born into it.  Reservoir Dogs is about a jewel heist gone wrong, but that's only describing the plot.  The movie lives and breathes with its characters, who desperately try to survive without being nabbed by the police.

The one who makes out the worst is Mr. Orange (Roth), who was shot while trying to steal a getaway car by the vehicle owner.   He bleeds profusely and lies in a puddle of his own blood at the gang's hideout.  When I first saw Reservoir Dogs, I wondered how the poor guy didn't go into shock or die from blood loss, but I learned Tarantino employed a medic on set whose job was to watch how much blood was lost and make it realistic.   With that being said, I was able to remove this obstacle from my mind and enjoy the Roth performance...when he's awake anyway.  

Why the names Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink (Buscemi), Mr. White (Keitel), etc.?  This is the idea of mob boss Joe Cabot (Tierney-always fearsome), who figures if the gang members don't know each other's real names that they can't rat on them if they're caught.   Besides Joe, the most lethal of the gang is Mr. Blonde (Madsen), who rejoins Joe's gang after a prison stretch.  He is bone-chillingly psychopathic; the kind of man who rips off people's ears and lights them on fire for the fun of it.   

The famed opening sequence involves an amusing conversation about Madonna and then tipping which exhibits Tarantino's natural flair for dialogue (even if it's sometimes extraneous) and serves us the undercard to the main event.   Perhaps talking about Like A Virgin is their way of hammering out the pre-heist jitters.  Reservoir Dogs moves at a briskly paced 99 minutes with comedian Steven Wright's droll monotone narrating a radio countdown of 70's hits which mark the soundtrack.  This is by far Tarantino's shortest film, but it's assured writing and filmmaking which only increased with future films.  Two years later, Pulp Fiction was made, and a legend was born.  

The Whale (2022) * * *

 

Directed by:  Darren Aronofsky

Starring:  Brendan Fraser, Hong Chau, Ty Simpkins, Sadie Sink, Samantha Morton

The Whale is based on a play and the movie moves with the machinations of one.  Most of the film takes place within the apartment of Charlie (Fraser), a morbidly obese college professor who conducts his classes online and helpfully keeps his camera off so his students wouldn't see what he looks like.  His best friend and nurse, Liz (Chau) drops in on him daily, checks his blood pressure and discovers it is so high it may kill him at any moment.  Liz pleads for him to go to the hospital, but Charlie prefers to live out his last days in the comfort of his home.  

Make no mistake, Charlie and everyone associated with him know the end is near.   He is well past the point of no return to save himself, so he makes it a point to achieve redemption with those he has wronged.   Charlie is a sad figure, but he has hurt people in the past; specifically his ex-wife Mary (Morton) and daughter Ellie (Sink), whom he left years ago when he fell in love with a male student.  Ellie despises him, but figures she can prey on Charlie's guilt and gentle good nature to coerce him into helping her with her homework and graduate with her class.   Charlie all but ignores Ellie's obvious disdain for him and agrees to help, seeing this as a way to mend fences.

We also meet Thomas (Simpkins), a missionary from a faraway church who knocks on Charlie's door one afternoon and assists in saving his life.   Thomas is a mostly unnecessary character who acts mostly as a male companion to Ellie, who sees through him and senses a troubled past.   Simpkins plays Thomas well as a confused young man with secrets, but in the grand scheme of things he doesn't figure into the equation much.   Charlie would be someone featured in My 600-Lb. Life, but the Fraser performance transcends the convincing makeup and prosthetics into a sympathetic human being.   We soon find ourselves caring about him and not marveling at the work which went into transforming Fraser into the obese Charlie.

The Whale is not a crack at Charlie's weight, but an allusion to Charlie's love of Moby Dick and a book report written by someone long ago which he reads aloud whenever he suffers a health crisis.   We learn who wrote the report and why it resonates with Charlie so much, and acts as a catalyst for a reconciliation between Charlie and his family and Charlie and his past.   The Whale is sad, but not depressing.  The ending is inevitable, but we are hopeful can at last find peace, and those he wronged can find a way to forgive him.   The Whale also represents a return to form for Aronofsky, who even with his failures has never been afraid to take chances on material which may not play well to all audiences.   

Plane (2022) * * *

 

Directed by:  Jean-Francois Richet

Starring:  Gerard Bulter, Mike Colter, Yoson An, Tony Goldwyn, Paul Ben-Victor, Daniella Pineda, Evan Dane Taylor

Plane involves us in the moment and contains spectacular airplane crash sequences followed by tense action and a dogged, determined performance by Gerard Butler, whose captain Brodie Torrance goes above and beyond to ensure the safety of his passengers.   Writing this review roughly ten days after I saw the movie, I'm foggy on the details, but this is that type of movie.   To paraphrase Roger Ebert in his famed review of The Longest Yard (2005), one might view Plane the same as one might think about when drinking a cup of coffee.  It's absorbing now, but little discussed three weeks later.

Plane opens in Singapore, where Captain Torrance greets his crew and small group of passengers on a New Year's flight to Japan.  He is a hands-on pilot, the kind of guy who personally subdues unruly passengers with sleeper holds.   More on that later.   Despite storm warnings, Brodie is ordered to take off by his penny-pinching boss and soon after the plane is struck by lightning and forced to crash land on a remote Pacific Island.   This sequence is frightening enough to swear some off of air travel or give pause somewhat when booking reservations.

As if crashing on an island without cell phone or radio service with no food or water in sight isn't bad enough, the island is inhabited by a Filipino militia leader (Taylor) who is not above killing or kidnapping the hostages for ransom.  To make matters worse, or possibly better depending on how you look at it, one of the passengers is a captured fugitive named Gaspare (Colter) who was being transported by an FBI escort on murder charges.   Will Brodie team up with Gaspare, who insists he is innocent, and take on the gun-toting villains?   The trailers gave it away that they did, but you wouldn't need a trailer to see that development coming.  

Movies like Plane can only be judged on whether they deliver on the goods.  It keeps us engaged in the outcome and maintains a crisp energy.   I'm sure if the plot was given the slightest thought, there would be holes to poke in it.  Plane keeps us caring enough to not have to take that step. 

M3GAN (2022) * * *

Directed by:  Gerard Johnstone

Starring:  Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Jenna Davis (Voice of M3GAN), Amie Donald, Ronny Chieng, Jen Van Epps

Those afraid of the possibility of Siri or Alexa growing too smart and powerful will be terrified of M3GAN, a new thriller which works on its intended level.   M3GAN's cultivates a creepy atmosphere with its titular doll (voiced by Jenna Davis and performed by Amie Donald) sitting in rooms listening in on private conversations and observing human behavior.   M3GAN is a prototype AI doll invented by the brilliant Gemma (Williams), whose niece Cady (McGraw) now lives with her following the death of her parents in a car accident.   

M3GAN is introduced simultaneously to Cady as a friend to aid her in her grief and also as the newest invention which will save the toy company Gemma works for.   The glitches are minor at first, but soon grow wilder and out of control.   M3GAN begins as a friend to Cady and soon exhibits homicidal behavior to any of Cady's (and its own) perceived enemies. 

M3GAN, as a doll and movie, surprises us with its intelligence and preys upon paranoid fear of a society growing far too dependent on computers and AI to almost live our lives for us.   The idea of a doll wreaking havoc and killing people dredges up memories and comparisons to Chucky.   M3GAN does provide some of the campy humor and scares like the iconic Chucky, but while Chucky is practically the devil incarnate, M3GAN is a doll which grows sentient as it is exposed to humans more and more.    I believe the Terminator in Terminator 2: Judgment Day warned that such a thing could happen to him.   

What can I say about M3GAN beyond the fact that it is silly by nature.   The sight of seeing our heroes creeping around a dark house trying to avoid the now serial-killerish M3GAN evokes memories of our favorite horror films, and the introduction of another earlier robot which Gemma abandoned work on years earlier is not merely foreshadowing but a showdown which had to happen.   If it didn't, I would've been sorely disappointed. 

A Man Called Otto (2022) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Marc Forster

Starring:  Tom Hanks, Mariana Trevino, Cameron Britton, Peter Lawson Jones, Juanita Jennings, Rachel Keller, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Truman Hanks

Otto Anderson (Hanks) is a suicidal curmudgeon upset over the loss of his beloved wife six months earlier.  He has joys in life, mostly involving performing his daily "rounds" as the appointed caretaker of his residential community.   He's that guy who ensures recyclables are placed in the recycling bin and yells at UPS trucks for clogging up the small streets in front of homes.   The little things annoy him, but if he didn't have these, then he'd have no reason to live at all.   

As is custom in movies with a grumpy old man as its protagonist, Otto will soon have forces thrust upon him which will reveal his kinder side.   They come in the form of his new neighbors Marisol (Trevino) and Tommy (Garcia-Rulfo from The Lincoln Lawyer Netflix series) who are sweet and only want to befriend Otto.   We witness flashbacks to Otto's courtship of Sonya, who is a catalyst in bringing Otto out of his shell and supporting him in his dreams.   We understand why this loss is a huge one for Otto and why it devastated him.    It makes sense that Otto's suicide attempts fail, because then who would be around to grouse about trash being thrown in with the recyclables?

A Man Called Otto involves us so thoroughly because of its tone.  Every day in the gray, wintry Pittsburgh where Otto resides is the Land the Sun Forgot.  It's perpetually cloudy, while Otto's kindly neighbors are always sunny, even when things are rough.   Otto used to be close to other neighbors as well, but circumstances change mostly due to Otto holding on to principles which needed to be abandoned.   Trevino is a revelation.   Her sweetness and kindness slice through Otto's misery like a hot knife through butter and awakens his own sense of responsibility to his friends.  

Hanks resists the urge to overplay Otto as so irredeemable and incorrigible that any inevitable change of heart rings false.   He's not a happy guy, but we see a nudge in the right direction will make him less miserable.   When the change occurs, Otto isn't overly Scrooge on Christmas morning either.   Hanks maintains a modulated performance which nonetheless invites our sympathy, even if it's the last thing a man called Otto would ask for.    Without Hanks and a Trevino to push back at him, A Man Called Otto would likely not be nearly as successful.   Instead, we find ourselves caring so much more than we had ever anticipated.  

Babylon (2022) * * *

 

Directed by:  Damien Chazelle

Starring:  Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Tobey Maguire, Lukas Haas, Samara Weaving, Li Jun Li

Babylon, like the Hollywood party which opens the film, burgeons at the seems with characters, action, and plotlines and ready to burst.   The first thirty to forty minutes of Babylon takes place at a remote castle in the Hollywood Hills jam packed with wall-to-wall people, noise, drugs, alcohol, wretched sex, and excess 1920's style.   Excess as in the presence of an elephant which defecates on our poor hero Manny Torres (Calva), a gofer for a major Hollywood producer who is willing to be crapped on literally and figuratively to gain a place among the elite.   Manny is assigned as the party is ending around 5am to drive movie star Jack Conrad (Pitt) home so he can rest and show up to the set at a reasonable time.  Pitt is smashed, but something tells us this is old hat to him by now.

Also present is party crasher Nellie LaRoy (Robbie), who with her squeaky voice and gorgeous looks is trying to find her way into films.   She gets her chance when a movie's star is found dead in the company of a large actor who is likely modeled after Fatty Arbuckle.  Nellie doesn't disappoint.  It is still the silent-movie era and the frantic pace of the movie set where a half-dozen movies are being shot under the California sun reflects the stress and joy of moviemaking.  Jack thinks his fame will last forever and Nellie's star is soon on the rise.  In a few months, The Jazz Singer will premiere and movies (and many of its stars) are changed forever.  

Nellie's voice and Joisey accent do not translate well to talkies.  She first tries elocution lessons and rubbing elbows in high society, but neither works, and she finds herself delving further into drugs.  Jack's star also fades.   He speaks well enough, but his line recital sparks unintentional laughter from audiences.  Jack retreats further into despondency.  He takes small parts in crappy movies in hopes it will earn him a rub from producers, but no luck.  His demise pays off in a sad, but not unexpected action.  Meanwhile, Manny is promoted to studio executive, where his job description seems to be that of a glorified gofer.   He loves Nellie, who may love him back but ultimately loves cocaine and heroin more.  Manny attempts to pay off her drug debt to a vile dealer (Maguire), who takes Manny for a trip into another party from hell.

Once Babylon establishes its rhythm, it is involving and features an emotional payoff in which Manny is watching Singin' in the Rain many years after the movie's events and tearfully understanding who and what it is based on.  Writer/director Chazelle establishes Babylon with an eye for detail and time and place.   Pitt and Robbie rely on their star power to give us stars who not only fall, but crash, and there is a sad poignancy to the tail end of their careers.   Jean Smart, as a famed gossip columnist, tells Jack in a sympathetic, passionate speech that long after he's gone, his work will remain and he will live forever in a sense.   This doesn't make him feel any better about his current situation which involves no work and a string of failed marriages.   Diego Calva's Manny is a good-natured soul with a heart and thus might not have a place in this era of Hollywood.   He loves Jack and Nellie, albeit in different ways, and when he's watching Singin' in the Rain, we understand just how much.  

In Her Shoes (2005) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Curtis Hanson

Starring:  Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz, Shirley MacLaine, Ken Howard, Candice Azzara, Francine Beers, Mark Feuerstein

In Her Shoes is about two sisters who desperately seek and find change which puts smiles on their faces for the first time perhaps ever.   Maggie (Diaz) is a party girl who drinks too much, parties too much, and makes terrible choices in men and friends.   She dreams of being an MTV VJ, but her poor reading skills prevent that.   Her sister Rose (Collette) is a stressed-out, overworked lawyer having an affair with her boss, who soon becomes one of Maggie's terrible choices in men.   Their father Michael (Howard) is a loving man married to a woman (Azzara) neither sister likes.   If they have one thing in common, it's their dislike for their stepmother.  

What makes In Her Shoes different is that the rift between the sisters turns out to be the catalyst for each's meaningful lifestyle alterations.   Maggie soon discovers she has a grandmother named Ella (MacLaine) living in Florida whom she has never met, due to issues stemming from her mother's suicide.   At first, Maggie simply wants to fleece Ella for whatever she can grab.   Ella discovers this, and then makes a surprising offer:  Get a job and I'll match what you make dollar for dollar.   Maggie finds a job working at an assisted living facility and reads to a kindly blind ex-professor (Norman Lloyd), who coaches her through reading poetry and using her brains for something other than conning people.

Rose finds by accident that she loves dog walking and decides to start a dog-walking business.  Attorney Simon Stein (Feuerstein), who used to work with Rose and adored her from afar, becomes her unexpected fiance as she tries to find Maggie and allow her back in her life.   The actors fit their roles perfectly and are able to handle the upheaval in their lives touchingly.   We think we know who these people are and how they'll end up, but we are pleased to be wrong.   Even Ken Howard provides us with a sympathetic man trying to please everyone and forced to make a painful choice long ago which would excise his daughters' grandmother from their lives, a choice he regrets with every fiber of his being.   What makes In Her Shoes work so well is how it allows its characters the freedom to make poor decisions, learn from them, and come out better on the other side.   

Idiocracy (2006) * 1/2

Directed by:  Mike Judge

Starring:  Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Terry Crews, Dax Shepard

Mike Judge provides us with a satire in which a future society is so dimwitted that our heroes, average army soldier Joe Bauers (Wilson) and prostitute Rita (Rudolph), are the smartest people on Earth.  They came from the past, when they were placed in hyperbolic chambers as part of an army experiment which was forgotten about over time.   A Fuddruckers is built over the demolished army base which soon devolves in to "Buttfuckers" when Joe and Rita awake to their new world.

Judge has already tackled societal stupidity with Beavis and Butthead and corporate stupidity with the superior Office Space (1999).   Idiocracy is an ungainly combination of the two which fails on many levels.  One, it's not funny and two, the stupidity of the future citizens is variable.   They can't spell and react to Joe's questions with little more than blank stares and drool, but yet can create a scanning system where they brand each person with a UPC code which can track the whereabouts of its citizens.   Joe, as the smartest man on Earth, is soon made Secretary of the Interior by the president (Crews) and is tasked with figuring out why crops don't grow anymore.   The future society uses a Gatorade-type drink on the crops instead of water, but let's give them kudos for at least being intelligent enough to use complex irrigation systems.

Idiocracy is a one-joke movie and the joke grows stale quickly.   Wilson and Rudolph do their best with underwritten, bland characters.  The movie itself runs only 84 minutes (including closing credits) and it still feels entirely too long.